Social Psychology

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. Social psychology should not be confused with sociology, the study of groups and societies and the people consisting of them. Social psychology is an experimental science focusing on the individual. When making the comparison between personality psychology and social psychology within personality psychology is more emphasis on individual differences and less on how individuals affect one another. The earliest experiments regarding social psychology first surface during the end of the 19th century as well as the first social psychology text books. In the 1930s social psychology takes its present form and after WW II emerges as a dominant field (Smith, 2005). Social psychology is scientific in how it views social thinking, social influence, and social relations. Social thinking involves self-perception as well as the perception of others. Social thinking also entails beliefs, judgments, and attitudes. Social influences arrive from culture and within culture sources such as within group peer pressures and persuasion in its different forms. Social relations reference the existence of prejudice and aggression. Social relations also entail attraction and comradery. The common thread within social psychology is it deals with how people view and affect one another. This article is a discussion of different aspects of social psychology including the Stanley Milgram experiments, the halo effect, parents and peers, stereotypes and perceptions, ethics, and the creation of a personal theory of social psychology.