Introduction to social psychology

Social psychology is a phenomenon that studies how people think, feel, behave and relate with

each other. All these aspects are greatly influenced by people due to variations brought by

different perceptions in real life. The study of social psychology enhances one to use the

fundamental psychological guidelines to gain better understanding of social relationships.

Various researchers and scientists done extensive research in basis of measuring individual

thoughts, feelings and actual behaviors of beings (Kruglanski & Stroebe, 2011). This has

attributed the better understanding of social psychologically in all dimensions.

Persons interactions results to social influences; this is because different perception on how we

people partake things. Some people influence and change other people thoughts, behaviors as

well norms. Self-concern in every living organism is common feature whereby their main desire

is just to safeguard their lives.

Researchers have conducted correctional research to find out how one or more variable are

correlated and how they affect individual psychology. Human experiences are commonly

derived from culture. This is because different ethnic groups have different cultures, that is their

way of life varies. This has facilitated the sharing of norms bringing up variations on people’s

life styles.

There has been an immense growth in the field of social psychology since its positive impact

greatly influences how people thinks and makes decisions. Public media has attributed the

success of creating awareness of social media all over the world through the use of magazines,

newspapers and websites.

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There was greater emphasis on cognitive processes in the late 20th century, whereby it focuses on

relating various social activities that helps us get a better understanding as well predicting the

nature and behavior of other people. It opens our minds to get to know some of things that are

actually affecting us but realistically we don’t know their impact on us. It analyses our lives and

how we relate with each other thus providing a defined way of fulfilling our goal and aspirations.

This aspect plays a very key role in everyone’s life, it helps in making critical and sound

decisions. Individual judgement on the other people maybe wrong thus understanding this aspect

helps one change the way of judging others. Effective learning aids social knowledge, this

brings about the permanent change in our thinking, feeling and generally our behavior.

Experiences with good rewards usually are repeated. A negative emotion experiences will

thereby not to be repeated.

This is the time when psychologist formed the first formal model. Its goal and objective was to

understand how advertisers could effectively present their message (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;

Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1963). The dynamic relationship between individuals and the people

around them is generally the best definition of social psychology. People are usually different

this because of variations in their characteristics which may include, the personality traits, their

desires, motivations and their emotions. Human behavior is generally determined by the

individual characteristic and partially social institution. Psychologists usually believe that social

institutions have a greater influence on individual personal characteristics. This is because in this

institution we interact with different people who usually do have different norms. This leads to

borrowing of some cultures resulting to change of their characteristics

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Important skills for survival are also defined by the genetic code. Human evolution has as well

shaped individual characteristics through human evolution. Genetic code characteristics can be

attributed through; eyesight, physical strength, and resistance to diseases. Some times our genetic

makeup usually prepares to be human beings, it essential to understand that our genes don’t

define who we are. They just provide us with our distinguishable characteristics which gives us

the tendency to behave in a human way. These genetic code varies from one person to another

thus making human beings not to be some (Leary & Cox, 2008).

Fundamental motivations provided by the evolutionary adaption includes; the motivation to

protect and enhance the self and the people who are psychologically close to us; the other relates

to the social situation—the motivation to affiliate with, accept, and be accepted by others.

People usually do make errors in judgements or in making decisions but thus having a

counterfactual thinking helps one to overcome this issue. Is advisable for people to use the

understanding of social cognition to help them think accurately and defining means on how to

interact with others.