Understanding Social Psychology and Sociology
Social Psychology and Sociology
Social psychology is a branch of psychology that studies how society influences the behavior, feelings, and emotions of individuals. Sociology, on the other hand, studies how society is formed, as well as organizations, institutions, and social networks. They do this through empirical means, and usually has the purpose of understanding how groups of individuals behave.
The Basis of Sociology: the Group
Groups influence our personal and social identity. Any social interaction implies our belonging to a given group: family, friends, classroom, cultural societies, sports… all of them with their own characteristics.
Characteristics
Common Objectives: a group is formed by individuals that have a specific need that they can’t achieve alone. Examples: company, love, or economic success.
Group Structure: is the organization that the group acquires to develop its activities. Its members are interdependent, and one’s actions affect others’. This structure reflects the distribution of roles (rights and obligations) and the position of its members.
Norms: A set of rules that regulate the members’ behavior. These rules can be established by a leader or they can develop through the influence between members. They can be explicit, as with traffic norms, or implicit, as “don’t steal another’s boyfriend”.
Beliefs and values: Usually members of the same group share beliefs, values, ideas, and attitudes. These ideologies help maintain group cohesion.
Group “atmosphere”: The state of being and feelings of a group, that can vary according to their interactions. If the atmosphere is positive, there is more satisfaction and better performance.
Group Communication: The social representation of the group is formed by its forms of communication and understanding of the social environment.
Kinds of group: they can be classified according to their size, their temporality, the origin of belonging, or the level of formality.
Groupthink
Illusion of invulnerability, Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, Common stereotypes, Collective stereotypes, Collective rationalization, Pressure to conformity, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Guardians of the mind
Leadership
Group manaced = “fight or flight” mode. Group weak = dependent on the leader. This role is the one with the most responsibility, and the life of the group is conditioned by 3 kinds of leadership:
Authoritarian leadership: the group organization is rigid and hierarchical, and the leader orders what must be done. Usually this leads to faster results. The social and affective climate is negative and the group cohesion is weak, but disbands completely when the leadership disappears.
Democratic leadership: this leader is chosen, and listens to others’ opinions. In this group the climate is positive, and their cohesion is strong, resisting better the outside attacks. The debate between members slows down the decision making.
Laissez-faire: the leader gives total freedom but is passive and doesn’t give safety to the members. The climate is negative and the satisfaction of the members is at minimum.
WHY DO PEOPLE FOLLOW THE LEADERS?
Proximity between the victim and the executioner.
Diffusion of responsibility
the existence of a disobedient model.
Stereotypes, Prejudices, and Discrimination
A stereotype is a group of established beliefs around the personality and behavior of members of a given group. Stereotypes steal the individuality of people.
Functions of stereotypes: They have a functional and adaptive value because they simplify our perception of reality through categorization. Example: “all Andalusians are funny”. They facilitate group integration through the acceptance of the groups’ stereotypes. They imply their own execution. People expect people to behave according to their stereotypes.
Racism and Xenophobia: Racism is based on superior and inferior races to enlarge the difference between them. It defends a social system where some have more advantages than others, for the race. Example: north=hardworking but more job interviews. Racists isolate people or groups because of their race, not their behavior. Xenophobia is the fear or hate of foreigners.
Fanaticism and Violence: Thinks it’s in possession of truth and wants to impose it on others by any means, including violence. The psychological attributes of a fanatic are: immaturity and emotional dependency, search for strong emotions, rigidity of thought and unjustified belief, and paranoid personality characterized by lack of trust, pride, and aggressiveness.
Fanatics have the next characteristics: They believe to be in possession of the absolute truth. Their fanaticism forces them to renounce to their own personality. Impose their beliefs and norms by force, without respecting freedom. Is guided by feelings and irrational beliefs, and disdains reason and thought. Has a simplistic vision of reality. They look down on other people. Is a sexist. If it’s a religious fanatic, doesn’t admit the separation between religion and law.
Methodology
Quantitative designs: approach social phenomena through quantifiable evidence, and often rely on statistical analysis of many cases to establish reliable general claims. Qualitative designs: emphasize understanding of social phenomena through direct observation, communication with participants, or analysis of texts, and may stress contextual and subjective accuracy over generality. Sampling: Quantitative methods are often used to ask questions about a population that is very large, making a census or a complete enumeration of all the members in that population infeasible. A ‘sample’ then forms a manageable subset of a population. In quantitative research, statistics are used to draw inferences from this sample regarding the population as a whole. The process of selecting a sample is referred to as ‘sampling’. While it is usually best to sample randomly, concern with differences between specific subpopulations sometimes calls for stratified sampling.
Methods
Archival research: Based on the secondary data located in historical archives and records. Content analysis: The content of interviews and other texts is systematically analyzed. Experimental research: The researcher isolates a single social process and reproduces it in a laboratory (for example, a situation where unconscious sexist judgments are possible), seeking to determine whether or not certain social variables can cause, or depend upon, other variables (for instance, seeing if people’s feelings about traditional gender roles can be manipulated by the activation of contrasting gender stereotypes). Participants are randomly assigned to different groups that either serve as controls—acting as reference points because they are tested with regard to the dependent variable, albeit without having been exposed to any independent variables of interest—or receive one or more treatments. Randomization allows the researcher to be sure that any resulting differences between groups are the result of the treatment. Longitudinal study: An extensive examination of a specific person or group over a long period of time. Observation: Using data from the senses, the researcher records information about social phenomenon or behavior. Observation techniques may or may not feature participation. In participant observation, the researcher goes into the field and participates in the activities of the field for a prolonged period of time in order to acquire a deep understanding of it. Data acquired through these techniques may be analyzed either quantitatively or qualitatively. In the observation research. Survey research: The researcher gathers data using interviews, questionnaires, or similar feedback from a set of people sampled from a particular population of interest. Survey items from an interview or questionnaire may be open-ended or closed-ended. Data from surveys is usually analyzed statistically on a computer.