Themes in Social Psychology

Themes in Social Psychology

Introduction

Social psychology is that branch of psychology in which individuals are studied in the social context. It talks about why people think, feel and do what they do according to the situation they are in. social psychology focuses on individuals rather than whole groups. It also uses scientific research to come up with the theories of social behaviour. Studying social psychology is important because it helps us understanding how stereotypes are formed, or how people act in specific situations, or the existence of racism and sexism etc.

Discussion

Self Esteem

In psychology, self esteem can be defined as the person's sense of personal value and self worth. Self esteem is about a number of beliefs about the self that includes behaviours, appraisal of one's appearance, emotions and beliefs. People with a high self esteem, are sure about their personal qualities and they always use self enhancing strategies. They feel good about themselves and set appropriate goals for their future. They are always confident about how they will deal with every situation that they come across. People with low self esteem are not confident about them and are very pessimistic about the future. They even try to avoid potential opportunities because of their low belief in themselves. They are very sensitive to criticism or any negative feed back and they are always concerned about the impact that they would make and have on others.

Perceiving Group, Perceiving Dynamics and Conformity

A stereotype can be described as a set of beliefs that links a group of people with some specific traits. These stereotypes are created by two processes that include categoration which sorts individual people or objects in groups, and the out group homogeneity effect which means how people tend to over estimate the similarities of the people in the out groups ...