0:02 social psychology is simply fascinating
0:04 with a lot of questions to answer comes
0:07 a lot of theories behind human behavior
0:08 and why we make certain decisions
0:10 judgments or comparisons
0:12 this video is going to give you an
0:14 overview of social psychology and the
0:16 impact that it has had on the world i'll
0:18 be going over a brief history of social
0:20 psychology top theories and the
0:22 experiments that shaped it into what it
0:23 is today
0:26 so first off what is social psychology
0:27 let's start with a brief definition of
0:30 social psychology it is the study of how
0:32 humans behave and interact with each
0:35 other mainly in specific situations so
0:37 psychologists in this field believe that
0:39 all behavior takes place in a social
0:41 context by looking at society's
0:43 influence on the individual we can then
0:45 begin to understand the inner workings
0:47 of the mind and why certain decisions
0:48 are made
0:50 the recent pandemic like many historical
0:52 events tends to bring out the good and
0:55 bad in people you may see stories online
0:57 of people selfishly giving up their time
0:59 money or lives to help other people but
1:01 you may also see stories that show
1:03 blatant disregard for the truth or even
1:05 the lives of others
1:06 the decisions that we have had to make
1:08 during this pandemic are largely
1:10 influenced by the people around us a
1:12 young healthy person may decide to
1:14 self-isolate for example not for
1:17 themselves but to protect the herd and
1:19 as you were cooped up in quarantine you
1:20 probably asked yourself a lot of
1:22 questions about human behavior because i
1:25 know i did these extreme circumstances
1:26 can often bring out questions about
1:28 human nature and how we work together in
1:31 a society and these big questions are
1:33 not new social psychologists have been
1:35 attempting to answer these questions for
1:37 decades so let's go over some of the
1:40 history of social psychology the impact
1:42 of society on the individual has been in
1:43 the minds of psychologists and
1:46 philosophers since the ancient greeks
1:48 aristotle for example emphasized the
1:50 importance of a state or political
1:52 community has on an individual's
1:53 survival he also believed that our
1:56 language and laws separated us from
1:57 other animals and that some of these
2:00 laws included everyone's different roles
2:02 to create a thriving economy
2:05 but aristotle didn't conduct experiments
2:07 the way that psychologists do now this
2:09 way of validating theories was not
2:11 popular in social psychology until the
2:14 late 1800s and at this point a few
2:15 psychologists had written about the
2:17 influence of society on our behavior but
2:20 they didn't have the data to back it up
2:22 so one of the earliest experiments in
2:23 social psychology as we know it today
2:27 occurred in 1895. norman triplett was an
2:29 american psychologist at indiana
2:31 university he conducted an experiment in
2:34 which children wound up a fishing rod
2:36 some children completed the task alone
2:38 while others were in the presence of
2:40 other children and what he found was
2:41 that the children who were among their
2:43 peers were motivated to complete the
2:46 task faster and this is how the idea of
2:48 social facilitation theory was born
2:50 which i actually have a video which i'll
2:51 release later so make sure to hit that
2:54 subscribe button social psychology
2:56 gained popularity in the early 1900s but
2:58 it really took off in the later part of
3:00 the century world wars and the great
3:02 depression in america raised a lot of
3:03 questions about society and its
3:06 influence on specific individuals racial
3:08 prejudice also influenced the work of
3:10 many social psychologists and during the
3:13 60s and 70s darker and more shocking
3:14 experiments on human behavior for
3:16 psychologists to look at the process in
3:19 which experiments are conducted and how
3:21 to ethically approach social psychology
3:23 and the study has expanded well beyond
3:26 america's borders today research and
3:28 influence from all over the world has
3:30 continued to shape social psychology and
3:32 how it's approached there's still a ton
3:34 of stuff to learn next let's move into
3:37 the basic beliefs of social psychology
3:39 so the basic tenets of social psychology
3:41 do more than just address how humans
3:43 interact with each other they also lay
3:45 out how to collect data and observe
3:46 people to build theories within social
3:48 psychology so here are some of the main
3:50 ideas that have shaped social psychology
3:52 and remain at the core of this field
3:55 number one behavior and decision making
3:58 are largely influenced by society even
3:59 if a decision is made privately an
4:02 individual is influenced by society a
4:04 person may not choose to steal even if
4:06 no one is looking and they know they
4:07 won't get caught they're simply
4:09 influenced by the laws laid out by
4:12 society number two experiments may be
4:15 conducted to back up theories so social
4:17 psychology is viewed as predictable and
4:19 able to be tested and psychologists are
4:21 encouraged to test their theories
4:23 multiple times and objectively measure
4:25 the results to support or deny their
4:27 argument this process is evolving as
4:29 psychologists discover what it truly
4:31 means to be objective
4:33 in fact some famous experiments have
4:34 even been discredited due to bias from
4:37 the researchers it's an ever-evolving
4:40 process number three behavior is used to
4:41 assess someone's personality and
4:43 character so you've probably heard the
4:45 phrase before actions speak louder than
4:47 words and in social psychology actions
4:49 speak very loud a handful of theories in
4:51 social psychology look at the way in
4:53 which we assess other person's behaviors
4:55 and how that shapes our perception of
4:57 that person we also use these types of
4:59 assessments to make judgments on our
5:00 personality and character and the
5:02 interesting thing is since we really
5:04 can't know what exactly someone is
5:06 thinking we can only look at their
5:08 actions and sometimes we can ask them
5:11 but it's not completely accurate lastly
5:13 we have behavior helps to reach certain
5:15 goals yes our society influences our
5:17 behavior and decisions but all of these
5:20 decisions are made to complete a goal
5:21 this could be a fulfillment of a
5:23 physical need or to obtain a certain
5:25 status within society and these four
5:27 basic ideas will show up again and again
5:29 the more you read about social
5:31 psychology and specifically their most
5:33 famous theories and experiments
5:35 speaking of theories let's get on to
5:37 some of the most notable theories and
5:39 names in social psychology so the first
5:40 one i'm going to bring up is something
5:43 called attribution theory so why did
5:44 your best friend lie to you or why did
5:47 you cut that guy off in traffic and why
5:49 does a billionaire abandon their riches
5:52 for a more spartan lifestyle every day
5:54 you are faced with hundreds of decisions
5:56 you make some of these decisions alone
5:57 some of them you make in front of other
5:59 people and sometimes you observe the
6:01 behaviors of others and make judgments
6:03 as to why they made their decisions
6:05 attribution theory looks at the way that
6:07 we observe other people and explain how
6:10 someone else made their decisions see as
6:13 humans we are meaning making creatures
6:14 we want to understand why someone made
6:17 specific decisions or what factors they
6:19 took in to contribute to their behavior
6:20 so the two main categories with an
6:22 attribution theory include external
6:24 factors things like money the weather
6:27 what they're wearing or internal factors
6:28 things like their personal beliefs or
6:31 insecurities so in short attribution
6:34 theory looks to explain how we perceive
6:35 other people whenever they make
6:37 decisions next up we have something
6:39 called self-perception theory so
6:40 attribution looks to the way that we
6:42 observe and make judgments about the
6:44 behavior of others but self-perception
6:45 theory looks at the way that we observe
6:47 and make judgments about our own
6:48 behavior and the way that we perceive
6:51 ourselves is very crucial to the goals
6:53 that we think we can achieve our mental
6:55 health and actually how our life plays
6:57 out next up we have something called
6:59 social identity theory so you may look
7:01 at yourself and see someone who's funny
7:03 accomplished and courageous but you may
7:06 also see a student or an actor someone
7:07 who lives in new york and because of
7:09 this you might identify as a new yorker
7:12 a student or an actor and your identity
7:14 as that may influence the way that you
7:16 make your decisions or how you present
7:18 yourself to others this is what social
7:20 identity theory is all about this theory
7:22 looks at the process in which people
7:25 categorize themselves and other people
7:27 we often see people in in-groups or
7:28 out-groups and depending on your own
7:30 position you may see people who are
7:32 similar to you in one light and people
7:33 that are different than you in another
7:35 light next up we have something called
7:38 cognitive dissonance theory so when
7:40 groups of people interact there are
7:42 bound to be differing opinions but what
7:44 happens when we learn new information
7:46 that contradicts information we already
7:48 know the cognitive dissonance theory
7:50 says that this conflict can be very hard
7:52 for people to bear in fact some
7:55 psychologist thinks it causes anxiety
7:56 our minds have trouble accepting and
7:59 processing this conflicting information
8:01 often if we're not aware of this
8:03 discomfort we just throw away the new
8:05 information and stick to our gut and
8:06 trust me we see this play out while
8:08 talking politics at the dinner table or
8:11 sharing articles on social media all the
8:12 time people just want to continue
8:14 believing what they believe one last
8:16 topic and theory i want to explain is
8:19 evolutionary psychology so why do we
8:21 perceive people in a certain way is it
8:23 due to the culture that we grew up in or
8:25 could our perceptions our language and
8:28 our social interactions be just a result
8:30 of evolution and that's the question
8:32 that evolutionary psychology attempts to
8:34 answer this approach to psychology has
8:36 been around since the late 1800s charles
8:38 darwin's idea of something called
8:40 natural selection largely influenced
8:42 evolutionary psychology and while it's
8:44 mainly sat on the fringes of psychology
8:46 world since evolutionary psychology is
8:48 becoming more mainstream
8:50 this goes to show that while some ideas
8:52 within social psychology seem timeless
8:54 others will gain and lose popularity so
8:56 the five theories i've mentioned are
8:58 just a small piece of social psychology
8:59 there's a few other theories and ideas
9:01 which include social learning theory
9:03 cognitive biases schemas social
9:05 comparison and social exchange theory
9:07 something called the triangular theory
9:09 of love and you can't forget about
9:11 something called the bystander effect so
9:12 social psychology doesn't just look at
9:14 why humans make good decisions and
9:15 follow the rules because many of these
9:17 theories and experiments in this field
9:19 attempt to answer the questions about
9:21 why humans do bad things many of social
9:24 psychology's most notable or notorious
9:26 experiments happened in the years after
9:28 world war ii how could humans commit
9:30 such atrocities how can we prevent the
9:32 attitudes and behaviors that led to the
9:34 rise of nazism well some of these famous
9:36 experiments i'm going to go over really
9:38 quick if you've seen some of my other
9:39 videos you may actually be familiar with
9:41 these experiments and the impact that
9:43 they've had on the world of psychology
9:44 so first up is something called the bobo
9:47 doll experiment and this is actually one
9:49 of the most famous experiments in all of
9:50 psychology that helped to form something
9:52 called the social learning theory so the
9:54 bobo doll experiment placed children in
9:56 a room with an adult an inflatable bobo
9:58 doll and other toys and other things
9:59 that they could play with some of these
10:01 adults acted aggressively towards this
10:04 doll while others left it alone or maybe
10:06 were gentle with it psychologists found
10:07 that the children who observed the
10:09 adults being aggressive were also more
10:11 likely to be aggressive themselves and
10:13 what this did is it showed that children
10:16 can learn by modeling or observing other
10:17 people's behaviors
10:20 next we have the famous stanford prison
10:22 experiment the stanford prison
10:24 experiment may be the most notorious of
10:25 all in fact you can actually watch a
10:27 movie about it on netflix the experiment
10:30 placed college-aged boys in a simulation
10:32 prison while half of the group role
10:34 playing as guards and the other half
10:36 role-playing as inmates very quickly the
10:38 guards and inmates took to their roles
10:41 and both of these roles became violent
10:42 and the experiment was actually put to a
10:45 halt only after six days this experiment
10:47 attempted to show how quickly labels and
10:50 roles can affect a person even if just
10:52 in a simulation another very famous
10:54 experiment is the milgram experiment so
10:57 why do we make questionable decisions
10:58 sometimes it's just because we're
11:00 following orders we're doing what we're
11:03 told and in the 1960s stanley milgram
11:05 conducted an experiment in which people
11:07 were instructed to deliver electric
11:09 shocks to participants which they didn't
11:11 know but they were actually actors and
11:14 these shocks were as high as 450 volts
11:16 but the researchers instructed the
11:18 participants to give the shocks
11:20 surprisingly a lot of participants
11:22 actually delivered the shocks even if
11:24 they felt uncomfortable about it they
11:26 still followed orders milgram's
11:27 experiment like the stanford prison
11:29 experiment goes down as another
11:31 notorious and potentially damaging
11:33 experiment to the participants issuing
11:35 the shocks but it does offer an
11:37 explanation for why people may commit
11:40 crimes or make other unethical decisions
11:42 and as i near the end of this video you
11:43 should know this is just the tip of the
11:45 iceberg there's a lot more to the
11:47 scientific field that we call social
11:50 psychology after all it's been discussed
11:52 since the days of aristotle this field
11:54 will continue to evolve especially as
11:55 the world faces new challenges and
11:58 creates new technology social media for
12:00 example is at the core of many social
12:02 psychology studies 30 years ago though
12:05 social media wasn't even a term so take
12:06 the time to learn the basics of social
12:08 psychology and build yourself a library
12:11 of knowledge on how society impacts
12:13 individuals you may learn something
12:14 about yourself your culture or how the
12:16 people around you view the world i
12:18 really hope you guys like this
12:19 introductory video on the social
12:22 psychology and i plan on producing a
12:24 bunch more videos on specific social
12:26 psychology topics so hit the subscribe
12:28 button if you're not already subscribed
12:30 and leave any questions or maybe video
12:32 ideas down below in the comments thank
12:34 you so much for watching this and i hope
