What is social psychology?
Social psychology is the study of how other people, real or imagined, affect what we think, feel and do. It sits between psychology (the single person) and sociology (society as a whole).
A key idea: behaviour comes from the person (personality, beliefs) and the situation (who is present, rules, pressure). We often blame a person's character and forget the situation. This error is called the fundamental attribution error.
Topics include social influence, attitudes, prejudice, helping, groups, conflict and cooperation.
Social influence: conformity, compliance, obedience
Conformity
Changing what you say or do to match a group. In a well-known line-judging study by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, people answered alone almost without mistakes. When a group of actors gave the same wrong answer first, about one answer in three followed the group.
Why? We want to be liked (normative reason) and we think the group may know better (informational reason). Having even one other person disagree with the group cuts conformity a lot.
Compliance and obedience
Compliance is doing what someone asks. Obedience is following an order from an authority, like a teacher, officer or boss. Studies show many people obey even when the order feels wrong, so learning to question unfair orders matters.
Attitudes, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination
An attitude is a lasting like or dislike of something, made of feeling, thought and action.
- Stereotype (thought): a fixed, over-simple idea about a group, e.g. "girls are bad at maths".
- Prejudice (feeling): disliking people for belonging to a group, before knowing them.
- Discrimination (action): treating people unfairly because of their group.
Many social problems, like bullying or exclusion, grow from these. Ways to reduce them: equal-status contact, working on common tasks, learning facts, and laws against discrimination.
Helping and the bystander effect
Studies after a crime in New York in 1964 found that when more people are present, each is less likely to help. Reasons:
- Diffusion of responsibility: "Someone else will do it."
- Pluralistic ignorance: everyone looks calm, so each thinks it is not serious.
- Fear of looking foolish.
Tip: if you need help in a crowd, point to one person and give a clear task.
Conflict and cooperation
Conflict starts when people or groups want things that clash, or compete for limited prizes. "Us vs them" thinking (in-group and out-group) grows quickly.
In a famous summer-camp study, psychologist Muzafer Sherif split boys into two camps. Competitions made them hostile. Just meeting did not help. What worked was superordinate goals: tasks, like fixing the water supply, that neither camp could do alone.
In relationships, conflict can be handled by listening, using "I feel" sentences, looking for a win-win solution, and asking a neutral person to help. Cooperation means working together for a shared goal.
Try it
In free play, move the slider from 1 to 8 watchers and note each person's share of responsibility. At home, try a small conformity test: ask friends one by one which of two lines is longer, then ask again after two friends give the wrong answer out loud first (tell everyone the truth afterwards). Did anyone change?
Key formulas and definitions
- Behaviour = person + situation
- Social influence: conformity (group) · compliance (request) · obedience (authority)
- Stereotype = thought · prejudice = feeling · discrimination = action
- Bystander effect: more watchers → less help each (diffusion of responsibility)
- Competition → conflict; superordinate goal → cooperation
Worked examples
1. Riya wears a style she dislikes because all her friends wear it. Name the process and one reason.
Conformity, for a normative reason: she wants to fit in and be liked.
2. A man says "old people cannot use phones" and refuses to hire an older worker. Separate the stereotype, prejudice and discrimination.
Stereotype: the belief that old people cannot use phones. Prejudice: his negative feeling toward older people. Discrimination: refusing to hire.
3. Two class sections fight over the sports ground. Suggest a way to reduce conflict using Sherif's idea.
Give them a superordinate goal: for example, both sections must together organise the school's sports day. Neither can do it alone, so they must cooperate.
Common mistakes
- Thinking only 'weak' people conform. In studies, most people conformed at least once; the situation is strong.
- Mixing up conformity and obedience. Conformity follows equals; obedience follows an authority's order.
- Using prejudice and discrimination as the same word. One is a feeling, the other is an action.
- Believing more people means more help. Often each person helps less.