Social Psychology

[Name of the institute]Social Psychology

“Man is a social animal”

We all have heard this above adage but, the reality is that there are a number of facets behind this philosophy. In our daily lives, we meet a lot of people, do different things and from different opinion about variegated issues. All these things involve certain factors such as personal judgment, self belief and other values that an individual holds about himself, about others and about general things. All these factors are the part of the social psychology. The aim and objective of this paper is to discuss all these factors of social psychology in a way that can be understood by common and lay man.



Discovering the Self

Our own self is one of the most important factors when it comes to the social psychology. For many people, understanding the concept of their own self seems to be very easy. However, this factor to involve a lot of complexities and a number of other factors. The following part discusses scores of facets of self in accordance with the social psychology.

Self-Concept, Awareness, and Self-Schemas

The term self concept can be described as the personal perception of our own self and the way in which we evaluate ourselves. In order to understand your own self it is essential to have an idea about oneself. This term of self concept is a generic term. The term is used to refer how one thinks or perceives his or her own self. This concept is significant for both the fields of social psychology and humanism. Self concept is important for the social psychology because it is in conversation with others where we develop our conceptions of our own self (Argyle, 2008).

Similar to the self concept there is the concept of self awareness. Self awareness is more in detail as compared to the self concept. It is about possessing clear perception about the personality. It also involves being aware of the strengths, weaknesses, emotions, thoughts, motivations and beliefs. It also helps individuals to understand others and the way in which others perceive them, their responses and their attitude (Argyle, 2008).

A mammoth amount of information is received by an individual about his or her personality in a day. As a result of this amount of received information people formulate knowledge structures about their own self which is known as self schemas. Just like other schemas, self schemas are the stable and systematic organization of the knowledge that encompasses a large number of information and experience. The thing that makes the self schemas unique is that they encompass the experiences, thoughts and feelings of a person about the self in a particular behavioral domain (Argyle, 2008).

The Acting Self

The acting self is a concept that is familiar to all of us. We all indulge in acting self when we want to win and get the approvals of others. Acting self is the concept that means that we pose certain attributes and quality within us and in our ...