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