What is Social Psychology?

In our Psychology Overview 101 blog, we explored the broad subject of psychology. In this article, we explore one of the major branches of psychology - Social Psychology. 

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Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. It examines how individuals are affected by group pressures and processes from conformity, persuasion, and social perception to leadership and social influence. Key topics include social cognition, attitudes, social influence, group processes, prejudice, aggression, prosocial behaviour, and the formation of beliefs and attitudes about the self and social groups.

Social Identity theory was developed in the 1970s by Henri Tajfel and John Turner. It attempts to explain group membership and behaviour on the basis of perceived belonging to, and association with, specific groups. 

According to this theory, individuals tend to classify themselves and others into various social categories, such as organisational membership, religious affiliation, gender, or age. By defining themselves, individuals form a shared social identity with other group members, serving two key functions; it generates pride and self-esteem from group association, and it systematically defines outsiders based on perceived differences. 

Tajfel and Turner identified three mental processes relevant to a shared social identity: categorisation, identification, and comparison. Categorisation assigns people to distinct groups based on characteristics like ethnicity or occupation. Identification happens when an individual internalises that group membership as part of their identity, developing emotional significance tied to that group. Comparison is when one compares their own group to another group, but judges their own more favourably. This theory helps explain group favouritism, prejudice, and stereotyping. 

Psychologist Albert Bandura developed the Social Cognitive theory in the 1960s. It emphasises the cognitive processes and social factors that influence human learning and behaviour. One of the main components is observational learning, which happens by observing and then imitating others’ behaviours, attitudes, and emotional reactions. 

Within this theory, various thinking processes happen when we learn behaviours by watching others. First, attention processes control what a person notices and pays attention to when they are watching others. Retention means taking what was observed and storing it in memory by creating mental pictures or describing it with words and language. Then, motor reproduction uses the stored information to physically guide the person’s actions when copying the learned behaviour. Finally, motivation processes encourage or discourage different actions and behaviours after they are learned. Things like rewards, praise, and criticism from others either provide incentives or deterrents when activating the learned behaviours in the future. Another important part of social cognitive theory is the concept of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a person's belief that they have the ability to carry out an action that will lead to a desired result in a particular situation. For example, someone would develop a strong sense of self-efficacy from getting verbal encouragement from others and from seeing people similar to themselves competently model the behaviour. 

Social exchange theory tries to explain relationships by looking at the costs and benefits people get from them and is based on the idea of reciprocity. It says that social interactions happen because people think they will get rewarded in some way if they participate, and the more rewards or benefits they expect to get compared to the costs, the more likely they are to want to be in that relationship. These costs could include things like time, effort, and money while rewards might include affection, money, and approval. 

People unconsciously calculate whether relationships are worth it by weighing the costs against the benefits. They also consider alternatives, including being alone or finding other potential relationships and they tend to pick the options that maximise their rewards and happiness at the lowest costs to them. The framework also examines group and organisational behaviour; leaders in organisations can get members to behave in certain ways by implementing rules that reward the behaviours they want and limit costs for complying. 

Social psychologists have developed several theories within the social influence theory:

Conformity

Conformity theory explores what drives individuals to match their behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs to group norms, perceptions, or expectations. One popular study is Asch’s line experiment, which demonstrates that people will defy perceptions of objective reality in order to fit in with the consensus of a group. In this experiment, participants viewed lines of noticeably different lengths and were asked to publicly announce which two lines matched; control groups showed near-perfect accuracy, yet groups containing confederates giving the obviously wrong answer caused participants to conform with the incorrect group consensus over a third of the time! This showed the level of impact a majority opinion can have on individual judgement. 

Compliance

Compliance research focuses directly on what leads people to comply with requests and demands from others. Benton et al.’s door-in-the-face technique illustrates tools of persuasion and compliance-gaining. In this strategy, the persuader begins with a large request that is likely to be rejected, then follows up with a smaller ask of the target. Though the initial request will probably be denied, the smaller subsequent appeal appears more reasonable in comparison, making the target more likely to comply with it. 

Obedience

One of the most famous studies on obedience was conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. In this experiment, participants were instructed by an authority figure to administer increasingly intense electric shocks to an actor who posed as another participant. Despite protests from the actor, nearly two-thirds of participants fully complied with directives from the researcher authority figure to continue intensifying the "shocks". This demonstrated that people would abandon their morals in deference to commands from a perceived authority figure and highlighted an alarming human tendency for obedience to authority even when orders directly contradict a person's own conscience and empathy.

Social Comparison theory was developed by psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s. It proposes that individuals evaluate their own abilities, attitudes, and personal attributes by comparing themselves to others. This process of self-evaluation through social comparisons with peers shapes people's self-concepts and either enhances or damages self-esteem. 

According to the original theory, people have an innate drive to accurately assess their own opinions and abilities. In the absence of objective non-social means for precise self-evaluation, people compare themselves to others who are similar to derive more accurate self-appraisals. The theory was later expanded on, adding that people also engage in comparisons relatively, seeking to compare well, not just accurately. 

The Social Identity approach stems from the social identity theory and is a broad framework that helps explain why individuals categorise themselves and others into groups and how people form their identity and self-image by the groups they belong to. For example, when people categorise themselves into different social groups like religions, sports fans, nationalities, etc, they go through the following mental processes: Categorisation, where they assign people, including themselves, to certain groups based on characteristics. Identification, where they incorporate belonging to those groups into their own identity—"I am a member of Group X". And finally, Comparison, in which they compare their own groups favourably to other groups. 

The key premise of the approach is that people naturally partition the world into social categories according to salient attributes like gender, age, and ethnicity and by attaching themselves to distinct groups that hold a shared identity, individuals develop emotional attachments, statuses, and norms linked to that group. 

Attribution theory was originally developed by Fritz Heider and then later expanded on by other psychologists. The theory deals with the cognitive processes by which people explain the underlying causes of human behaviour and events. Initial research identified that individuals attribute either internal/dispositional causes or external/situational causes to explain outcomes and the behaviours of self and others. Internal attributions assign causality to factors within personal control and intrinsic to the individual, like personality traits, character, intentions, or abilities. Meanwhile, external attributions assign causality to situational factors outside a person’s control, things such as weather, luck, task difficulty, or the actions of others. 

Heider’s analysis looked at how people perceived and judged motivations and intentions when observing and forming impressions about an individual - he focused on the attribution process in person perception. Psychologists Jones and Davis then created the “correspondent inference theory." This theory explains how people make inferences about another person's underlying dispositions and personalities based on watching their deliberate, intentional behaviours. So, observing actions and choices reveals clues to character, according to this model. Psychologist Harold Kelley then formulated a model focusing on three factors - consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness—and how people weigh these factors to determine the cause of why people act the way they do. Consensus means “do others behave this way in this situation?” Consistency means “does this person behave this way across similar situations over time?” Distinctiveness evaluates whether “this individual behaves differently in this situation compared to other situations.” Kelley said people naturally assess these three things about behaviours to attribute why the behaviours happen. 

Together, these major theories created rules and models for the thinking processes individuals rely on automatically (often unconsciously) to understand the reasons behind behaviours and outcomes demonstrated by themselves and others in the social world. 

Social psychologists have developed several theoretical frameworks to explain what draws people to initiate and maintain personal relationships with certain others. Two examples are the Social Exchange Theory of Relationships and the Filter Theory. 

Social Exchange Theory of Relationships

Expanding social exchange theory principles to an interpersonal context, this theory analyses relationships through a cost-benefit lens. It holds that people pursue and commit to relationships that maximise rewards like companionship, affection, happiness, validation, etc. and minimise costs like time, effort, stress, rejection, etc. Successful reciprocal exchange strengthens bonds, while inequity leads to issues or dissolution. Factors like dependence regulation, comparison levels, and availability of alternatives help determine relationship initiation, satisfaction, and commitment.

Filter Theory

Filter theory focuses specifically on romantic attraction, proposing that people subconsciously filter potential partners against gradually more demanding criteria like social demographics, physical attractiveness, and personality dispositions. These criteria differ across people but can include age, race, status, appearance, humour, etc. Potential partners that fail to pass any filter stage are excluded from romantic consideration. 

If you have an interest in the subject of Psychology, consider enrolling in our Social Psychology Diploma Course for just £29. This comprehensive course offers an in-depth exploration of key theories and practical applications, and you’ll learn how people think in different scenarios and explore the reasons behind our thoughts and actions.