Do you know what the work and functions of social psychologists are? Today I talk about social psychology, what its function is, how it works and why its work is so important.
Have you stopped to think why you don’t behave the same way when you are with your family as when you are with a group of strangers? Or why do you behave differently when you are with your partner than when you are with friends? Or when you are with your coworkers or when you are with your bosses? During our lives we learn behavioral tendencies, “action protocols” based on the context in which we find ourselves. And that’s what the society, which dictates to us through teachers and family, how we should behave in certain circumstances. For example, if you are at a wake you will not behave in the same way as if you are at a neighborhood meeting. Well, social psychology is responsible for studying those emotional and behavioral changes that occur in all of us and that share characteristics that make us think that we group together socially.
The Social psychology It is a quite important area of psychology, since it focuses on working on how different social aspects affect individuals. That is, look for scientific explanations as to why we behave in a certain way when we are in different environments, since although each person is different, there are common behavioral tendencies that these psychologists analyze. For example, they study the behavior of human beings in the face of war conflicts, work situations with equals and bosses, etc.
This type of psychology is based on the basis that individual behavior is influenced by the environment, since being social beings, we are constantly connected with others and these trigger changes in our mood and behavior. For example, if you have been angry with a friend, your mood will change and your behavior will be different than if you had not been angry. Therefore, the argument with your friend has affected you (the environment has affected how you feel and what you do afterwards).
How do social psychologists work?
Social psychologists do not work at a clinical or healthcare level, but rather at the group research level. Thus, it can be said that they are based on three basic principles:
The thought of the human being: We know perfectly well that people think continuously and that this thought is conscious. Now, there is a more primitive, more animal part, which is unconscious thinking, that which is done automatically and that helps us leave space in our thoughts for conscious ideas. Social psychology focuses on searching for those unconscious thoughts that are common in humans and that cause similar behaviors.
Individual traits: The life we live and the environment we are in affect our way of being and behaving both alone and with others. And at the same time, our way of being influences social behaviors.
The influence on others: Social psychology also studies how each individual can influence and affect others, generating group consciousness and feeling, that is, a feeling of belonging.
It can be summarized that social psychology is based on the study of the way in whichSociety affects and interferes with the feelings, thoughts and behaviors of individuals Therefore, they propose a hypothesis or theoretical basis of human behavior and put it into practice through real experiments applied to society.
Thanks to social psychologists, we can realize the influence that society has on ourselves. They study group dynamics and thanks to that study we can prevent future conflicts or problems
I would like to end this article by explaining a social experiment that was carried out in 1970 at Stanford University and that was recreated in a film in 2001 (which I highly recommend to see the importance of social psychologists).
The objective of the study was to assess how human behavior changes when they enter a prison environment and how power influences the behavior of human beings.
Well, they set up the university as an empty prison where they introduced several randomly selected students. These people were classified as prisoners and as jailers also randomly. The study was intended to last almost a month but had to be suspended in less than a week. Because? Well, because what began as a role-playing game after a few hours ended up becoming a sadistic game where the abuse of power prevailed and the prisoners were mistreated in such a way that their physical and emotional integrity was endangered. That experiment changed psychology forever and the great importance that roles and society have in the behavior of any human being was valued.
