HISTORY OF
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
·
ANTECEDENT
INFLUENCES/EARLY INFLUENCES:-
The ancient Greeks saw society
as an organic whole with Devine overtones. In some respects society was an
organism, an animal in which all men had their respective parts. Greek society
and the social thought it inspired were quite fatalistic and one’s destiny was
a matter of chance and divine whim.
PLATO:-
Plato taught that life is a
struggle between our lower and higher natures, and the stress of life is a
reflection of our striving to become god like while subduing our animal
appetites. All humanity Plato asserted may be viewed in these terms.
With the coming of
Enlightenment in 18th century social thinkers were free from the
necessity to couch their explanation in religious guise and were free to
speculate on the social causes of social behavior. 18th and 19th
centuries were time of great upheaval in which social orders were fell and
replaced with newer ideas and most of them were political.
DARWINISM:-
Darwinism belief that
evolutionary forces shape social differences particularly those of class or
race. Now religious accounts of human existence were gone and new society was
evolutionary in aspect. Society and social life reflected our utmost antiquity.
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RISE
OF MODERN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY:-
AUGSTE COMTE
(1798-1857)
He was the
founder of sociology who also foreshadowed modern social psychology. Comte was
a positivist a person who rejected religious and other metaphysical accounts of
the world and argued against accepting theories based on tradition. Comte
argued the social science should only use positive data, obvious to our senses
and useful in enhancing mankind’s a lot. He held a three stage view of the
development of knowledge. Comte was more a philosopher of science then a
scientist himself and he was concerned to chart the rise of scientific fields
with a view to “Reducing confusion to its necessary bounds” , logic and
mathematics . 1st emerged as they reflected the nature of our mind
the “physical science” or lastly “physical study of body”. He felt last area
would arise from a study of biology the study of society “Sociology”.
WILHELM WUNDT:-
He is the “Father of modern psychology”. He noted the importance of “Folk” psychology and virtually devoted the last 20 years of his life to its study. Wundt was important because he separated psychology from philosophy by analyzing the workings of the mind in a more structured way, with the emphasis being on objective measurement and control.
He is best known for
- Introspection (observation or examination of one’s own mental and emotional state, mental processes)
- Establishment of the first psychology laboratory. He opened a lab in Leipzig, Germany. The opening of this lab was known as the official beginning of psychology as a field of science separates that philosophy and physiology.
Wundt perceived psychology as part of an elaborate
philosophy where mind is seen as an activity, not a substance. In Wundt’s 1893
edition of Physiological Psychology, he published the ‘tridimensional theory of
feeling’: feelings were classified as pleasant or unpleasant, tense or relaxed,
excited or depressed. A feeling could be more than one and/or a combination of
many at a particular time. He showed
that psychology is a valid experimental science. Wundt was associated with the theoretical
perspective known as structuralism, which involves describing the structures
that compose the mind. He believed that
psychology was the science of conscious experience and that trained observers
could accurately describe thoughts, feelings, and emotions through a process
known as introspection.
NORMAN TRIPLETT:-
An American psychologist at Indian university Norman
Triplett is generally credited with having conducting the 1st
empirical social psychological study that was his article in the “American
Journal of psychology” in 1989. Triplett
was interested in why we now call “Social Facilitation”. He asked some
questions” How does a person’s performance of a task change when other peoples
are present”?
How an actor or athlete’s performance is enhanced by the
presence of others. He wondered that cyclists speed was faster when he was
paced by others cyclists then when he raced alone. He applies scientific method
and statistical analysis to social research.
Two social psychology texts were published separate in 1908
were William
McDougall a British psychologist published “An introduction to social
psychology” it relied heavily in biological instincts and emotions to explain
behavior and foreshadowed drive theory.
Edward Ross was a sociology professor at university of
Wisconsin and his social psychology reflected his sociological perspectives.
Concentrating on interpersonal processes and group behavior.
EARLY INFLUENCE OF FRUED:-
Psychology's
most famous figure is also one of the most influential and controversial
thinkers of the twentieth century. Sigmund Freud's work and theories helped
shape our views of childhood, personality, memory, sexuality and therapy. Other
major thinkers have contributed work that grew out of Freud's legacy, while
others developed new theories out of opposition to his ideas. Freud's
theories were enormously influential, but subject to considerable criticism
both now and during his own life. However, his ideas have become interwoven
into the fabric of our culture, with terms such as "Freudian slip,"
"repression" and "denial" appearing regularly in everyday
language.
•The
Conscious and Unconscious Mind
•The
Id, Ego, and Superego
•Life
and Death Instincts
•Psychosexual
Development
·
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S INFANCY 1908-30
Social psychology
defined its self over these years and like any new area fought for academic
recognition
WORLD WAR
1:-
World war 1 and the harnessing of psychology to war effort lifted social
psychology public profile and age the engage the interest of social
researchers. By 1924 there was sufficient published research to warrant
ALLPORT’S SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY which was quite modern in character and contain
many of the distinctive areas that typify social psychology today. This
evolution was further acknowledged in 1921 when the “JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL
PSYCHOLOGY” changed its title to the “JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL AND SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY, becoming in effect the 1st social journal.
LOUIS
THURSTONE:-
Louis Leon
Thurstone (29 May 1887–29 September 1955) was a pioneer in the fields of
psychometrics and psychophysics. He conceived the approach to measurement known
as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his contributions to
factor analysis. Thurstone's work in
factor analysis led him to formulate a model of intelligence center around
"Primary Mental Abilities" (PMAs), which were independent group
factors of intelligence that different individuals possessed in varying
degrees. He opposed the notion of a singular general intelligence that factored
into the scores of all psychometric tests. This idea was unpopular at the time
due to its obvious conflicts with Spearman's "mental energy" model,
and is today still largely discredited. Nonetheless, Thurstone's contributions
to methods of factor analysis have proved invaluable in establishing and
verifying later psychometric factor structures.
·
EARLY
ADULTHOOD:-
The 1930s were a time of vigorous growth and differentiation
within social psychology.
KURT LEWIN
(1890-1947)
Kurt Lewin is universally recognized as the founder of
modern social psychology. He pioneered the use of theory, using experimentation
to test hypothesis. He placed an everlasting significance on an entire
discipline group dynamics and action research.
Kurt Lewin contributed to Gestalt psychology by expanding on
gestalt theories and applying them to human behavior. He was also one of the
first psychologists to systematically test human behavior, influencing
experimental psychology, social psychology and personality psychology. He was a
prolific writer, publishing more than 80 articles and eight books on various psychology
topics. Many of his unfinished papers were published by his colleagues after
his sudden death at age 56. Lewin developed a topological methodology or a
system of map like representation of all the psychological factors underlying a
person’s social behavior.
During WORLD WAR II,
Lewin worked for the US Office of strategic services, a forerunner of the CIA,
developing persuasion techniques to modify public behavior in ways that
promoter the war effort. His work in persuading US housewives to modify family
diets to save high protein foodstuffs for the troops was an important precursor
of social influence and compliance research with boomed after the world war.
MUZAFER SHERIFS:-
Sherif was a founder
of modern social psychology, who developed several unique and powerful
techniques for understanding social processes, particularly social norms and
social conflict. His main contribution is known as Realistic Conflict
Theory, and accounts for group conflict, negative prejudices, and
stereotypes as being the result of competition between groups for desired
resources. Sherif validated his theory in one his most famous
experiments, "The Robber's Cave".
·
MATURE YEARS:-
As with any struggle time brings its own resolution of
conflict and social psychology has now entered a period of steady growth and
consolidation. Social psychology is also
more interdisciplinary and applied than it once again. Steady growth of
“cross-over” journals like the “Journal of social and Clinical Psychology.
ALL MAJOR THEORIES:-
Rather than seeking global theories of human behavior, as
are frequently found in personality theory, social psychology utilizes a wide
range of specific theories for various kinds of social and cognitive phenomena.
List of some major theories are
v
Attribution theory
v
Cognitive dissonance
v
Drive theory
v
Evolutionary psychology
v
Behavioral Theories
v
Cognitive Theories
v
Developmental Theories
v
Humanist Theories
v
Personality Theories
v
Social Psychology Theories
v
Learning Theories
v
Behavioral Theories
·
CRISIS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY:-
When social psychology first emerged from World War II and
embarked on its rapid expansion, one of the pioneers in the field, Theodore
Newcomb (1951), expressed concern that expectations were greater than anything
that could be delivered in the near future. By the 1970s, when solutions to
societal problems were no closer to being solved, and as the usefulness and
ethics of experimental research came under increased scrutiny, a “crisis of
confidence” emerged (Elms, 1975). When this disappointment and criticism was
followed by accusations from women and minorities that past research and theory
reflected the biases of a white, male-dominated view of reality, many began to
reassess the field’s basic premises.
Fortunately,
out of this crisis emerged a more vital and inclusive field of social
psychology. More rigorous ethical standards were established, and although
experiments remained the method of choice, researchers began conducting more
correlational studies, as well as employing other methods. Regarding
accusations of racial and gender bias, social psychology began moving toward
more responsible positions, but such biases have yet to be eliminated from the
discipline .
The so called “Crisis of social psychology” statrted slowely
with isolated expressions of concern(e.g. Cambell,1957) but really took off
when an article by orne(1962) appeared in American Psychologist.
·
ETHICAL CRISIS:-
Milgram
experiment:-
The notorious Milgrim Study is one of the most well known of psychology experiments. Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale University, wanted to test obedience to authority. He set up an experiment with “teachers” who were the actual participants, and a “learner,” who was an actor. Both the teacher and the learner were told that the study was about memory and learning. But to some extent this experiment was unethical because there were frightening feeling in their implications about the danger lurking in human nature’s dark side.
ZIMBZRDO EXPERIMENT:-
It’s arguably one of the most controversial
experiments. It all started in the basement of the psychology building at
Stanford University on August 17, 1971 after psychologist Phil Zimbardo and
colleagues took an ad out in the paper stating: “Male college students needed
for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks.” Over 70
people volunteered for the Stanford Prison Experiment. Twenty-four healthy,
smart college-aged men were picked and randomly assigned either to be a guard
or a prisoner. The aim of the study was to explore the psychology of prison
life and how specific situations affect people’s behavior. But the experiment
didn’t last very long six days to be
exact. Zimbardo was forced to pull the plug because of the disturbing behavior
of the guards and the downright despair and other negative reactions of the
prisoners. This experiment was unethical too.ASCH EXPERIMENT:-
Experiments led by
Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College asked groups of students to participate in a
"vision test." In reality, all but one of the participants were
confederates of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the
remaining student would react to the confederates behavior. Each participant was put into a
group with 5 to 7 "confederates" . The participants were shown a card
with a line on it, followed by another card with 3 lines on it labeled A, B,
and C. The participants were then asked to say which line matched the line on
the first card in length. Each line question was called a "trial".
The "real" participant answered last or next to last. For the first
two trials, the participant would feel at ease in the experiment, as he and the
confederates gave the obvious, correct answer. On the third trial, the
confederates would all give the same wrong answer. There were 18 trials in
total and the confederates answered incorrectly for 12 of them. These 12 were
known as the "critical trials". The aim was to see whether the real
participant would change his answer and respond in the same way as the
confederates, despite it being the wrong answer.
·
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TODAY:-
Today social psychology is very important field. Social psychology has close ties with the other social sciences, especially sociology and psychology. On the one hand, Social psychology can be said to try to bridge the gap between disciplines. It can be said to be co-disciplinary with sociology and psychology, providing overlapping theories and research methods in order to form a clearer and more robust picture of social life. Social psychology thus explores behavior in a social setting, the interaction between the self and the group. It uses experiment and observation to explain how social and cognitive processes affect individual perception and relate people to each other. The discipline covers diverse topics including interpersonal relationships, group behavior, social cognition and social influence.
·
SOCIAL COGNITION APPROACH:-
Social cognitive
theory, used in psychology, education, and communication, posits that portions
of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing
others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside
media influences. In other words, people do not learn new behaviors solely by
trying them and either succeeding or failing, but rather, the survival of
humanity is dependent upon the replication of the actions of others. Depending
on whether people are rewarded or punished for their behavior and the outcome
of the behavior, that behavior may be modeled. Further, media provide models
for a vast array of people in many different environmental settings.
·
CURRENT CHALLENGES TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY:-
CULTURAL CHALLENGE:-
We expect that the current trend of funding research that
focuses on the pressing issues of the day will continue. For example, as long
as a medical cure for AIDS is far off, the importance of assessing and
encouraging behavioral solutions to such health problems is likely to remain a
research priority . That threats
to health invite social psychological intervention is equally evident in other
areas, such as smoking, drug abuse, and poor dietary habits, cases in which
behavioral prevention is better than a medical cure of the ensuing problems.
Therefore, social psychology has an important role to play.
Cultural or cross-cultural
psychology has until now only made a relatively brief appearance as a
methodological and theoretical system within the field of psychology, albeit
many of the early writings from other disciplines (e.g. history, art,
philosophy) display an interest in cross-cultural issues.
CONCLUSION:-
From the history of social of
social psychology and from the presence contribution of psychology we can say
that social psychology is very important for our life. It has a great influence
n role in our life.
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