Importance of Social Psychology

What is relevant in social psychology? What is useful in social psychology? What is informative in social psychology? In social psychology, there are several informative themes and lessons that I have learned from the course and text. These include how social psychologists do their research, the ways in which we come to understand other people, and conformity with influencing behavior. These are lessons that I would pass on. These lessons teach valuable lessons concerning social psychology, its relevance to other sciences, and its application in terms of studying society and its behavior.

The first theme that I find relevant is the lesson of how social psychologists do research. They do their research by formulating hypotheses and theories, as well as utilizing the observational and correlational methods of describing and predicting social behavior. The observational method is helpful in describing what a particular group of people or type of behavior is like and even extends to the archival analysis of the accumulated documents, or archives, of a culture. The correlational method measures two variables systematically, as well as the relationship between the two variables. The correlational method seems effective in cases where ethics play an important role. The correlational research method is also common in studies of development.

Many hypotheses and theories in research have been studied since the 1950s. With Leon Festinger's dissatisfaction of behaviorism as an explanation of why people change their attitudes, he formulated what is known as dissonance theory, which other researchers were dissatisfied with and, in turn, conducted further research to test other possible explanations. Social psychologists also utilize the experimental method, answering causal questions. Although random with different conditions and an independent variable, this method allows causal inferences. Throughout their research, social psychologists explore basic and applied research, as well as follow guidelines for ethical issues in research for social psychology.

This is important in light of the extension of hypotheses and theory, as utilizing observational and correlational methods of describing and predicting social behavior is relevant in that social behavior is an ongoing process. With a proper description of this ongoing process, complex interactions that take time and energy to proceed are usefully categorized and the ideas that are assimilated can be passed on to others. For instance, instead of having to go through the basic hypotheses and theory of predicting social behavior, a social psychologist could utilize archival analysis and also study past findings of cases that match the specifications of the ongoing study. This is interesting to me because although it allows a greater breadth of research in a more timely and efficient fashion, many of the controls and variables have been preset by other researchers and allows a more ethical study to be conducted.

The second theme that I find relevant is the lesson of the ways in which we come to understand other people. With the study of social perception, we can begin to learn about nonverbal behavior and nonverbal communication. Included are items like facial expressions of emotion, channels of nonverbal communication within culture, and multichannel nonverbal communication. The study of facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, as well as the use of touch and gaze, all fall within the boundary of understanding human behavior. The odd thing is that dogs are touted as adept readers of human nonverbal cues, but further study may be necessary to ascertain the correct way to read human nonverbal cues. Obviously, only humans probably read human nonverbal cues, while dogs perhaps interpret human nonverbal cues in terms of dog nonverbal cues. Mirror neurons also seem quite interesting, as the basis of the ability to feel empathy.

Does empathy, which forms impressions, or attributions, formed from predictions, serve as a better predictor in other people's behavior? Impressions are sometimes wrong, but is the empathy underlying these impressions also fall into that inaccurate category? Counteracting biases with the knowledge of the correspondence bias, the actor/observer difference, and defensive attributions is vital. With the counteraction of bias, impressions and attributions will increase in accuracy. With more accurate impressions and attributions, both methods of prediction in other people's behavior will work alongside one another and serve to further explain the study and research that has been conducted within experiments.

Biases removed, situational causes of behavior are more easily identified and studied. With members of collectivist cultures that are more sensitive to situational causes of behavior, as long as the situational variables are important, the members of collectivist cultures will rely on situational explanations. This is interesting, because most people have been found in studies to rely on the situation, rather than their disposition. Sometimes a person's behavior has greater perceptual salience than the surrounding situation, but the second step of attribution may be altered by situational information.

The third theme I find relevant is the lesson of conformity with influencing behavior. This includes informational social influence, normative social influence, using social influence to promote beneficial behavior, and obedience to authority. Informational social influence is the influence of other people that leads us to conform and the assumption that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours, helping us to choose an appropriate course of action. Normative social influence is the influence of other people that leads us to conform, in order to be liked and accepted by them. This type of conformity results in public compliance with the group's beliefs and behaviors, which is similar to peer pressure. This, also, does not include private acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors. Using social influence to promote beneficial behavior is the development of a way to affect people's behavior for the common good. This utilizes social influence to decrease, increase, or encourage certain types of behavior. Obedience to authority is discussed as a social norm valued in every culture, with orderly behavior held up as a value, and tragic consequences held up as a sign of wrongful obedience. With the support of informational influence as well as normative influence, shooting civilians without questioning or taking personal responsibility for this act was enacted because of the power of these conformity pressures that led to tragedy of shooting civilians. Obedience to authority is a social norm, and has progressed to the point where the authority figure does not continually need to be present for these fixtures in society, such as traffic lights, to continually be obeyed.

Obedience and conformity rely on two different counterparts. Obedience relies on authority, while conformity relies on influencing behavior. With a range that starts from objective informational social influence, and continues towards subjective obedience to authority, the lesson of different types of influence are explained, with positive influence examples of authority figures, and negatives influences decried as poor soldiers' behavior. From an obedient standpoint, the authority figure has always been cited as an example, and few studies exist that involve separate multiple authority figures.

Stanley Milgram's studies, which involved a majority of participants who administered what they thought were near-lethal shocks to a fellow human being, demonstrate theoretically high levels of obedience. Within society, obedience has been touted as a good quality, as there is no bias of reward for act, instead relying on the subjects' ability to comprehend the task assigned. In each case of obedience to authority cited within the textbook, Social Psychology, the perturbing item of contention was the ability to have civilians and test subjects injured. Some might say the case relied upon a poor authority figure, and has yet to run experiments with different variables of leadership. Also, both My Lai soldiers and Milgram's men were paid and transported to conduct these activities. Those that paid for this work, as well as conducted the transportation and actual operations, are, in fact, variables for the behavior of those charged with the most duty.

What is relevant in social psychology? The lesson of how social psychologists do research. The social psychologist has both basic and applied research. Basic research finds the best answer as to why people behave as they do. Applied research solves a particular social problem. With Milgram's studies, in terms of basic research this experiment found the best answer as to why test subjects were obedient. The research participants were all conforming to the wishes of inflicting great pain on another human being. Also, the college students, middle-class adults, and psychiatrists were all so wrong in their predictions about what people would do.

Perhaps, in the future, applied research will take Milgram's studies, and solve the social problem of changing human behavior. Perhaps, with applied research, the research participants will conform more benignly, inflicting great healing power on another human being. Also, the college students, middle-class adults, and psychiatrists would make more accurate predictions, thereby advancing applied research and also shortening the inefficiency of basic research.

What is useful in social psychology? The lesson of the ways in which we come to understand other people. With nonverbal behavior and nonverbal communication, impressions and attributions serve as indicators of human behavior, with effort to remove hidden bias. Although mental shortcuts can sometimes lead us to the wrong conclusions, learning ways in which to understand other people is quite useful. With so many different channels of nonverbal communication, and so many different personality theories, oftentimes it is difficult to measure the internal and external attributions against each other.

With focus on observations of behavior across time and place, as seen in the covariation model, actors and targets of the behavior are observed. The perceiver is examined as they choose either an internal or external attribution. Such choices are made by using consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information.

What is informative in social psychology? The lesson of conformity with influencing behavior. With so many different influences, and experiments on conformity with influencing behavior, many different variables and people are called upon to allow the most information to be deduced from these research opportunities. In society, people do not always automatically know what is the correct, or best, thing to do or say. They look to the behaviors of others, around them, as important and needed sources of information. Once people understand this information, they can then choose appropriate courses of action for themselves, and receive private acceptance.

With the knowledge of social influence techniques, socially beneficial behavior can be promoted in others. This touches upon the ideas of injunctive norms and descriptive norms. Injunctive norms motivate behavior, by promising rewards or punishments, for normative or nonnormative behavior. For example, an injunctive norm in our culture is that losing blood is wrong. Descriptive norms motive behavior, by informing people about what is effective or adaptive behavior. Losing blood, within the context of a descriptive norm, is like a traffic accident involving cars in traffic. The actual role of injunctive and descriptive norms is made apparent when injunctive and descriptive norms are made salient. When injunctive and descriptive norms are made salient, blood loss decreases significantly. This may be because of a decrease in traffic accidents, as well as an increase in traffic safety and blood donors.

These are all lessons that I would pass on to those wishing to learn about society, research, and behavior. These lessons teach valuable themes concerning social psychology, its relevance to other sciences such as sociology and psychology, and its application, in terms of studying society and society's behavior through basic and applied research methods.