Social Psychology: Study with Video Lessons, Practice Problems & Examples

Social Psychology

This video, we're going to be talking about social psychology, which rose to prominence as a field in the 1940s. Social psych is a field of psychology that focuses on how individual and group behaviors are influenced by social factors. To give you some historical context, at this time in history, behaviorism was still extremely popular, particularly in the US, but people were noticing that it was failing to account for how things like the social environment could impact thoughts and behaviors. And so some psychologists began to consider that. They began to study how the social environment was impacting things like identity, beliefs, attitudes, as well as stereotypes.

Basically, the focus began to turn back toward the mind. People were realizing that this model of, like, stimulus and response was just not capturing the full extent of the human experience. So the main research question in social psychology is how does the social environment influence these thoughts and behaviors of individuals? And social psychology as a field absolutely boomed around this time and it is still to this day one of the biggest, if not the biggest, subfield of psychology. It is extremely popular.

So we're going to go over some important founders and, again, because social psych is so large there are definitely more founders than just these two guys, but these are two names that you'll probably need to know. Solomon, over here in particular, we're going to learn more about his research in our social psych section. But do keep in mind that there are a lot of founders of this field, it's very large. We're going to begin with Kurt Lewin. Kurt Lewin started off his career in Europe.

He got his PhD in Germany, trained under some Gestalt psychologists while he was there, but he was always very interested in social behaviors and he immigrated to the United States in the 1930s where he really kind of kick-started his career. He ended up founding the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT in 1945. This is still a hub of social psych research to this day. It's been very successful. Kurt Lewin studied topics like leadership.

He also studied attitudes. He studied how different leadership styles can change individual attitudes. He studied communication. He was particularly interested in how different types of communication can make group dynamics more successful. And he also studied racial prejudice.

He was very interested in what causes prejudice and stereotyping as well as the effects of it. And Kurt Lewin was a huge advocate for research that led to social change. He believed that research should really be aimed and oriented toward, you know, solving or at least helping with real-world problems, which is such a great attitude for any scientist to have. If you're interested in social psych I highly recommend learning more about Kurt Lewin. He had a very interesting life.

So we're going to switch gears and talk about Solomon Asch now. Solomon Asch was also born in Europe but he came to the United States when he was a teenager. He got his degree in New York. He actually was mentored by Max Wertheimer, arch gestalt psychology guys. Small world.

And so Solomon Asch did some really famous research studying how social influences can impact conformity. And that research was at least partially inspired by the events that happened in World War 2. Asch became very interested in how social influences could cause humans to behave toward each other in such atrocious ways, and so he wanted to understand what social influences could make a person conform like that. Asch also studied impression formation.

He was the person who at least on a scientific level, discovered the importance of a first impression. So pretty cool research there. Like I said, we'll be hearing a lot more about Asch's research in our social psychology section, and that is our little introduction to social psych. So, I'll see you guys in our next one. Bye-bye.

Social Psychology Example 1

This one asks, which of the following topics is not commonly studied in social psychology? So just looking through these really quickly, I can tell that things like attitudes, identity, and stereotypes and prejudice are all really common themes that get studied in social psychology. Whereas sensation and perception in psychology is really like its own thing. It's like its own sub-area in psychology. Now social psychologists can study perception, but they're going to be studying the perception of things like attitudes, identities, stereotypes, etc.

They're not going to be studying literal sensations and perception, such as in taste or smell or audition or things like that. Alright, so our answer here is A, sensation and perception.

Humanism

This video we're going to be talking about humanism which really began to rise as a field in the 1950s. And I love talking about humanism, you'll see in a second but it's just really nice to think about. So, humanism is a perspective of psychology that emphasizes the inherent goodness of people as well as free will and the potential for personal growth. Historically during this time, behaviorism was kind of dying out, social psych was kind of rising up, but a lot of psychological research tended to be very focused on the more negative aspects of the human experience which is completely understandable. Those are really important things for us to learn about.

However, some psychologists wanted to focus on the more positive concepts. You know, things like personal growth, human potential, as well as the ability to strive for self-improvement. And when you think about it a lot of these skills are very unique to humans. You don't really find other animals in the animal kingdom who are capable of these. And so these are also really important topics to be researching.

The ability to visualize the best version of yourself and then take steps to actually become that person. It's a very uniquely human skill. So the main research question in humanism is how do individuals achieve personal growth and realize their fullest potential? We have 2 important founders of the field. First up is Abraham Maslow.

And you may have heard of Maslow before, his research kind of entered pop culture and has kind of stayed there, but he created his very famous hierarchy of needs. So this hierarchy kind of looks like a pyramid. We're going to learn about it a bit later in the course. But the idea behind it is that you have physical needs and safety needs at the bottom, and then once those are met, people will begin to strive for social needs and psychological needs. And then the final tier of the hierarchy, the very tip of the pyramid, is self-actualization which is the realization of one's fullest potential.

Now, Maslow did make other contributions to the field but this is the one he tends to be the most well-known for. Next up we have Carl Rogers. And Carl Rogers was a clinical psychologist and he developed a technique called client-centered therapy. And he pioneered therapeutic techniques including active listening, which is basically just showing your client that you really are listening to them and hearing them. You know, your posture might be forward.

You look interested. You might be parroting what they're saying back to you. So, you know, I'm hearing that that event made you feel really upset. You know, just things like that to really affirm that you are hearing what they're saying. He also pioneered the technique of unconditional positive regard, and this is now a very well-researched concept not only for therapy but just in general.

This is basically accepting and valuing a person without any condition or judgment attached to that. And he also pioneered the use of empathy in therapy. Now, he did not invent empathy by any means, but he was one of the first people who really intentionally used it in therapeutic settings. Keep in mind therapy looked very different back then than it does today, of course.

So I know I have a lot of, like, bolded and keywords here. Don't worry about those quite yet. All I want you to know at this level is that humanism is a field focused on things like personal growth and, you know, achieving our fullest potential, and that Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are kind of the guys associated with humanism. Alright. So that is our little intro to humanism, and I'll see you guys in our next video.

Bye bye.

Humanism Example 1

So this one asks us, which of the following statements best describes humanism? Let's just run through them. So "a" is a field that focuses on humanity, which is accurate but a little bit broad, so we'll kind of put that one aside. "b" is a field that focuses on how the social environment impacts behavior and mental processes. That sounds a little too specific.

That sounds more like social psychology. "c" reads a field that focuses on concepts like personal growth, potential, and striving for self-improvement. That sounds exactly like humanism, so we'll circle that. And then "d" is a field that focuses on how stimuli evoke behavioral responses. That is behaviorism.

Right? So "d" is out, and it looks like our answer here is going to be "c".

Which pair of psychologists are considered the founders of humanism?

• A. Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener.
• B. Abraham Maslow and Jean Piaget.
• C. Carl Rogers and George Miller.
• D. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.