Question

Discuss the various nature and scope of social
psychology

Answer 1

Answer:

Social psychology encompasses social situational influence on psychological phenomena, personal construction of those situations, and the mutual influence of the person/situation interaction. Therefore, the scope is largely defined by the limits of what is a “(social) situation”. This situation could be considered the relative influence of real or imagined others. It could also be ecological influences which include cultural products, community layout, institutional climate, built spaces, discourses, etc. Suffice it to say the scope can be expansive.

A couple limiting factors should be noted. The first is that social psychology is first and foremost interested in measurement at the individual level. This is primarily what differentiates it from Sociology, even though both are interested in many of the same social influences and sometimes group level data can be of interest to social psych studies. It’s tough to draw psychological conclusions without measuring individual responses. Second, social psych has been historically defined by the methodology it uses as much as the phenomena it considers. Experimental studies are typically the gold standard for social psychologists, so to the degree the phenomena can be subject to experimental design, that is a good indicator of social psychology. Third, social and personality psychology are mentioned in the same breath much of the time. What differentiates the two is personality psych’s emphasis on stable traits that make people individually different or distinct from one another. Social psych emphasizes the dynamism of human experience, and how situations/subjective construals of the situations tend to shape outcomes far more than stable personality traits.