Social psychology - what it is, what it studies, history, categories, structure, principles and objectives

Social psychology of personality is a separate area of ​​psychology in which a person’s personality is considered as an active subject of activity, consciousness and self-awareness, and communication. The formation of personality occurs under the influence of hereditary properties and the influence of society - society as a whole and a separate group of which a person is a representative.

What is social psychology?

This is a field that combines psychology and sociology. It is based on the knowledge accumulated by humanity about society and the peculiarities of interaction of individuals with each other. The development of social psychology began in the mid-19th century, although its features were found in the works of Aristotle and Plato. The subject of social psychology is especially important for the correct education of the individual and the correct organization of his communication with the team.

What does social psychology study?

The peculiarity of this science is its borderline nature, therefore now ideas about this subject are very differentiated, that is, noticeably different from each other. Social psychology studies many phenomena:

1. Psychological processes and states caused by interactions with other people of a particular individual
   . Researchers are interested in such personality manifestations as aggressiveness, sociability, conflict potential, and so on.
2. The phenomenon of human communication
   . For example, the peculiarities of interaction between parents and children, teachers and students, husband and wife.
3. Psychological processes in various social groups
   . Researchers are of increased interest in the psychological climate in the team, the phenomenon of leadership, cohesion, and competition.
4. Mass psychological phenomena
   , which include the behavior of a crowd when it is overwhelmed by jubilation, fear, enthusiasm, and so on.

Modern social psychology studies not only socio-psychological processes. She explores the side of any life phenomena, be it religion, politics, education, family, interethnic relations. At the same time, it is in close contact with other sciences. For example, you can take a regular exam. From the point of view of social psychology, this is the interaction of two groups of people - students and teachers, and from the point of view of pedagogy, the exam is a form of monitoring the acquisition of knowledge.

Society as a system of social groups

Many perceive society (not the state, but society) abstractly, as something outside of their reality. For people, their immediate environment is important: relatives, friends, colleagues with whom they are connected through many relationships. Such interconnected individuals form small or contact groups. But these groups are not isolated, they intersect and intertwine. One and the same person can be a member of a work collective, a family (and even more than one), a group of friends, an online community, etc. Small groups are part of larger entities, and this whole complex, rather confusing system is society . Despite the complexity and complex relationships, building the structure of society is not difficult:

• Micro groups of 2-3 people: small families, close friends.
• Small contact groups that include relatives, a wider circle of friends, communities of interest, classmates, colleagues, sports teams, etc. Small groups can be both formal and informal.
• Large groups: cultural and religious communities, teams of large enterprises, universities, schools, political parties and ethnic groups.

Well, the largest social entity is society, which consists of groups. In sociology and political science, society is further divided into classes and layers, or strata. Class composition depends on the nature of society. Thus, for a long time, three classes were distinguished in society:

• workers;
• peasants;
• bourgeoisie (entrepreneurs).

The intelligentsia has traditionally been considered a stratum. However, society, like any dynamic system, changes, so now such a scheme seems outdated.

History of social psychology

This is a relatively young science, although socio-psychological thinking began to form in people many hundreds of years ago. Today it is difficult to determine when its foundations appeared, but social psychology was officially “born” in 1908. Then Ross’s book “Social Psychology” was published in America, and McDougall’s work “Introduction to Social Psychology” was published in Europe. Although still in the middle of the 19th century. this branch could be considered an independent science. The following stages of development of social psychology are distinguished:

1. From the 6th century BC and the middle of the 19th century - a period of accumulation of knowledge about man and society.
2. Since the 60s of the 19th century. to the 20s of the 20th century. there was a separation of social psychology from philosophy.
3. In the 20s of the 20th century, social psychology began to transform into an experimental science.

Categories of social psychology

Depending on the activities of an individual or a group of subjects, social phenomena with specificity expressed to varying degrees are determined. Because of this, the main categories of social psychology are numerous and very diverse:

• personality
  – an individual as an object of social relations and conscious activity;
• communication
  is the process of establishing and forming interaction, based on the need for joint activities;
• social community
  - an association of people created on the basis of a stable relationship and acting as a collective object;
• group
  – a small community united by certain characteristics (nature of activity, degree of development);
• interpersonal relationships
  - connections between people based on influencing each other in the process of installations. A system of expectations and stereotypes through which people perceive each other;
• public opinion
  is a phenomenon of manifestation of collective consciousness, which is expressed in oral and written assessments in relation to a particular problem of reality;
• socialization of the individual
  is the process of active adaptation of the individual to the conditions of the social environment;
• mass phenomena
  - a phenomenon that exists in large social groups.

Structure of social psychology

The composition of this scientific field is the result of the interaction of two opposing processes that are closely related to each other. To date, several main directions have been formed, which are sections of social psychology and together represent the structure of this science:

1. Methods for analyzing socio-psychological phenomena have given rise to several branches: theoretical, practical and empirical social psychology.
2. The psychology of communication, work and creativity has developed as a result of human life. In social labor psychology, such sections as management, entrepreneurship, and so on have been formed.
3. In the sphere of public life, science is divided into industrial, commercial, agricultural, and so on.

Types of society

Society has come a long way in development. Formations (economic stages), cultures, religions, political systems, forms of state have changed, and it seems that the variety of types of society is enormous. This is true, but they are usually combined into only three types.

Traditional society

The main unifying factors are traditions and customs. Subsistence farming and weak contacts with other societies make this society closed and very slowly developing. It is characterized by the following features:

• patriarchy;
• the predominance of a primitive agricultural economy;
• class system, in which the individual could not change his social status;
• strong influence of religious ideas and cults.

All these features define a society with a pronounced collective psychology, when the “I” is lost in the mass of “We”, and individualism is considered a dangerous vice.

Industrial society

The leading integrating factor is industry, developing on a scientific basis. The development of new types of production, new materials and new space is the basis for pride and a sense of satisfaction for citizens of the industrial world. And other communities that achieve great success in science and technology are perceived as competitors and even enemies.

An industrial society is characterized by the following features:

• the predominance of technological production;
• the great role of science, which becomes a social institution;
• the emergence and development of mass culture;
• class system;
• creation of a clear legal basis for civil society.

At the stage of industrial society, not only exact and technical sciences develop, but also humanities, including psychology. And it was during this period that a serious study of mass consciousness and the development of scientific methods for manipulating it began.

Post-industrial (information) society

This type of society is currently being formed. Information becomes not only the main value, but also the main integrating factor. The spread of computer technology and the development of the global information space (Internet) erases the boundaries between individual societies. Despite the fact that post-industrial society is still in its infancy, its features can already be identified:

• high value of information, knowledge becomes a commodity;
• globalization processes in various spheres of society;
• the scientific and technological revolution, which was much discussed in the 20th century, made science one of the main productive forces;
• a single information space led to the development of cross-cultural connections, to the unification of values, ideals and other manifestations of public consciousness.

The post-industrial, information society radically changes not only life, but also the psychology of people. This happens both at the level of intelligence and at the deep level of perception of reality. The psychology of communication is changing, family relationships are becoming partnerships, and the latest technologies in the field of education are taking education to a completely different level. These global changes are already noticeable, but they have only just begun to be studied by psychologists, sociologists, cultural scientists and other specialists in the field of social consciousness.

Principles of Social Psychology

The industry consists of six principles:

1. The principle of complexity
   is to study psychological problems caused by social life.
2. The principle of causality
   in social psychology is the belief that socio-psychological phenomena are based on an ideal image of the surrounding world, created in the heads of individuals. This principle also includes the influence of people on each other.
3. The principle of unity
   is characterized by the influence that the social environment of a group has on people.
4. The principle of systematicity is based on the opinion
   that socio-psychological reality has a more complex structure and multi-stage system in comparison with individual psychological reality.
5. The principle of development
   – ​​the subject develops personally in a continuously changing social environment.
6. The principle of objectivity
   lies in the reliability of the results obtained during research.

Social psychology of personality: specifics of the approach

According to some concepts of general psychology, you can find out:

• in which groups the individual assimilates social influences and aspects through the development of his system of activity;
• in which communities and through what joint activities the social component is implemented.

The features of the socio-psychological approach are to study the process of formation of certain personality traits and study their manifestation in different conditions.

Objects of study are also considered:

• life position and personal attitudes;
• the presence of internal contradictions and the possibility of overcoming them;
• a person's ability to self-educate.

Social psychological phenomena are determined by the interaction of the individual, the group of which the person is a member and the social environment that surrounds him in life.

The environment that gives rise to a certain way of life, behavioral characteristics and direction of mental activity is formed by a set of socio-historical formations - historical, national, geographical, demographic.

Tasks of social psychology

The main goal of social psychology is to study the phenomena that make up the consciousness of groups of people. At first glance, this science does not have many tasks, but they are all divided into subgroups. The concept of social psychology is associated with the following tasks:

• studying the stages of formation, development and functioning of social phenomena;
• identifying patterns of people's behavior in different conditions;
• analysis of interaction between individuals;
• study of personality and the specifics of its socialization in different conditions;
• determining the impact on individuals of phenomena occurring in small groups.

Features of personality study

The need to obey the current laws of society is one of the ways to regulate interactions and relationships between people. It is also of great importance to create conditions for the full development of the abilities of each individual. A person’s psychological attitude to the world, his subjective assessment of various situations is expressed in awareness of himself as an individual.

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Sociology considers the individual as a participant in a social group, determines the role and status of the subject. But in psychology it is believed that personality is not only an object of relationships in society, which allows one to reveal deeper individual characteristics, features and properties.

The study of personality in social psychology is associated with a number of psychological methods and techniques. They clearly demonstrate its phenomena and characteristics, such as :

• value systems and orientations;
• communication capabilities;
• degree of social activity;
• class and national characteristics;
• personal orientation;
• organizational skills.

The results obtained are quite reliable, in contrast to data from other disciplines, the tasks and specifics of which do not allow this to be done fully.

In social psychology of personality, each individual is presented as a multi-level structure. There are attempts to create a socio-psychological typology. In addition to sociology, personality problems are studied by such sciences as philosophy and pedagogy, genetics, ethics and many others.

Thanks to an integrated approach involving all disciplines, a comprehensive study takes place:

• personality structures;
• characteristics of social type;
• a set of roles in personal and public life.

The study by social psychologists of the mass of people as a whole gives them the opportunity to find out by what criteria they evaluate others. How can they influence each other? And also what forces them to show humanism or cruelty. Depend on loved ones, employers, circumstances or not.

Functions of social psychology

Modern social psychology sets itself the task of understanding the causes of crime, antisocial behavior and mass protests. Problems are dictated to this science by society, and it must identify their causes and methods of solution. Functions of social psychology in society:

1. Understanding the essence by identifying the mechanisms of social processes (theoretical and methodological).
2. Synthesizing a modern idea of ​​human nature and forming an understanding of the psychological components of the “man and society” system (worldview).
3. Studying the influence of socio-psychological phenomena on social relations and methods of managing them (regulatory).
4. Identification of the dynamics and prospects for the development of society in the spiritual field (prognostic).
5. Determination of real and imaginary values ​​of the individual and society (axiological).

Development of a psychological society

Applied psychology in the 1950s. American psychologists met the 1950s. with a confidence shared by most Americans. The war was over, the Great Depression was a distant memory, and the economy was booming. From the point of view of Fillmore Sanford, secretary of the APA,

the future belonged to applied psychology, and this future was truly brilliant, since a new era was dawning - the “era of psychological man”:

Our society tends to adopt a psychological way of thinking. The American people seem to have a strong and conscious need for the various kinds of services that professional psychologists can provide... We have already entered the era of the psychological man, and psychologists must take upon themselves the responsibility not only for helping to bring about this era, but also for leading it further development. Whether we like it or not, our society has increasingly tended to think in terms of the concepts and methods discovered and developed by psychologists, and the work of psychologists remains a major factor in the structuring of our culture (Sanford, 1951, p. 74).

Sanford argued that psychologists have an unprecedented opportunity to “create a profession like no other in form or content, nor has there ever been one... the first systematically designed

profession in history."

By any measure, Sanford's optimism was justified. APA members

increased from 7,250 in 1950 to 16,644 in 1959, with the fastest growth in the applied divisions;
psychologists, having established various commissions and committees within the APA,
truly systematically created their profession.
Despite skirmishes with another APA,
the American Psychiatric Association (which was reluctant to give up its monopoly on mental health care and opposed legislative recognition of clinical psychology), states began to pass certification and licensing laws that covered applied (mostly clinical and counseling psychologists, which gave them legal definition and, of course, recognition as eligible professionals
(J.
M. Reisman, 1966). Industrial psychology flourished amid the economic boom; business leaders recognized that “what we need is not to change human nature, but to learn to control and use it” (L. J. Baritz, 1960). Psychology articles began appearing regularly in popular magazines, often telling people how to spot true clinical psychopaths.

Chapter 13. Psychological Society: 1950-2000 413

logs from psychological scammers. The souls of psychologists were warmed by a series of articles on psychology that appeared in 1957 in Life

and written by Ernest Haveman, which brought the latter an award.

Humanistic psychology. The broadest and most coherent theoretical movement in psychology in the 1950s. there was humanistic psychology, or the psychology of the “third force”. She fought behaviorism, the psychology of the first force, but had little influence on experimental psychology, where behaviorism was most effectively challenged by new cognitive trends. Humanistic psychology had an incomparably greater impact on applied, especially clinical psychology, where it fought against psychoanalysis, the “second force.”

Humanistic psychology took shape as an independent direction by the end of the 1950s, but its historical roots go back to the period after the Second World War. Its founders were Carl Rogers (1902-1987) and Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Both were initially attracted to behaviorism, but then became disillusioned with it and turned to alternative areas of psychology. Rogers in the 1940s developed client-centered psychotherapy and used it in working with soldiers returning from war. Client-centered psychotherapy is a phenomenologically oriented technique in which the therapist attempts to understand and accept the client's worldview and help him or her to work through problems, that is, to live the life that the client most wants to live. Such therapy has become a serious alternative to the psychoanalytic methods used by psychiatrists, and thus played an important role in the division of clinical and counseling psychology into independent disciplines. Because of his emphasis on empathic understanding, Rogers came into conflict with behaviorists, who, in his view, viewed humans as machines whose behavior could be predicted and controlled without making any reference to consciousness.

Phenomenological psychology has been particularly attractive to clinicians because empathy is at the core of the clinical profession, and phenomenology is the study of subjective experience (see Chapter 3). Rogers distinguished three types of knowledge. The first is objective cognition, in which we try to understand the world as an object. The second and third types of knowledge are subjective. The first is personal subjective knowledge of each person's conscious experience, including feelings of intentionality and freedom; the second is empathy, an attempt to understand the subjective inner world of another. The clinician, of course, must master this latter way of knowing, since, from Rogers's point of view, the clinician can only help the patient by understanding the client's personal world and his subjective personality. Rogers believed that personal beliefs, values, and intentions control behavior. He hoped that psychology would find a reliable way to learn about other people's personal experiences, since in this case the effect of therapy would increase many times over.

Rogers argued that behaviorism is characterized by a one-sided view of human nature because it views people as objects of manipulation and control rather than as experiencing subjects. According to Rogers, behaviorists are

414 Part V. Applied psychology in the 20th century

dealt with people as things without will, and not as bearers of morality. In his polemic with B.F. Skinner, Rogers emphasized the freedom experienced by each individual and rejected the physical concept of causality. As a scientist he accepted determinism, but as a therapist he accepted freedom: the two exist in different dimensions.

The leading theorist of humanistic psychology was Abraham Maslow. He drew attention to the problem of creativity in art and science. Maslow began to study creative people and came to the conclusion that they were “set in motion” by special needs that remain dormant and unfulfilled among the majority of people. He called these people self-actualized because they actualized their creative power, unlike the vast majority of people who work only to satisfy animal needs for food, shelter and security. But Maslow argued that geniuses are not special people, that everyone has latent creative talents that can be realized in the absence of social restrictions. The views of Maslow and Rogers were closely aligned as they both sought ways to break people out of what they believed to be comfortable but stultifying psychological routines. The main goal of humanistic psychology was to help people realize their full human potential. Although humanistic psychologists sometimes criticized modernity, in fact they shared the current tendency to regard the individual as the only one who can determine values, and thus devalued tradition and religion.

In 1961, Maslow and his followers founded the Journal of Humanistic Psychology,

and in 1963 - the Association for Humanistic Psychology.

Humanistic psychologists agreed with the ancient Greek humanists that “the values ​​that should guide human action are to be found in human nature and the reality of nature itself” (A. Maslow, 1973, p. 4). But humanistic psychologists could not share the naturalistic values ​​of the behaviorists. Behaviorists treated people as objects and could not recognize their subjectivity, consciousness and free will. From the point of view of humanistic psychologists, the behaviorists were not so much wrong as they were misled. Behaviorists applied an absolutely valid type of cognition to people (in Rogers’ terminology, an objective type), but this method of cognition could only partially cover a person. The biggest disagreement among humanistic psychologists was that behaviorists rejected free will. If C. L. Hull, the undisputed authority of behaviorism, viewed people as robots, then humanistic psychologists argued that “man is aware... Man has a choice... Man is intentional” (JF T. Bugental, 1964, p. 26).

Thus, representatives of humanistic psychology did not seek to refute the behaviorists, but, taking into account their mistakes, to go further. “I mean that this third, humanistic psychology includes the first and second psychology... I am a Freudian, I am a behaviorist, and I am a humanistic psychologist” (A. Maslow, 1973, p. 4). Thus, humanistic psychology, although it criticized behaviorism and offered an alternative to it, still tried to live according to

Chapter 13. Psychological Society: 1950-2000 415

in keeping with the eclectic spirit of the 1950s. She considered behaviorism to be limited, but nevertheless believed that it was valid in its field; and humanistic psychologists tried to make additions to behaviorism by recognizing the existence of human consciousness, which harmonized the scientific picture of human psychology.

Methods of social psychology

The collection and analysis of information is carried out using a number of methods that are classified as general psychology, but they are also effective for social psychology. They are divided into several groups. The methods of social psychology are:

• empirical research
  (this can include experiments, observations without intervention, and so on);
• modeling method
  (imitation of psychological processes or artificial recreation of some activity);
• managerial-educational method
  (it is based on beliefs that form opinions, exercises that stimulate positive motives, and assessments that help control behavior);
• socio-psychological method
  (changing the opinions and attitudes of individuals using certain techniques).

Experiment in social psychology

At the beginning of the 20th century, social psychology began to actively develop in the USA, where the first laboratories were organized in which experiments were carried out. With their help, it is possible to analyze the features of social life much better and better understand the phenomenon of “social psychology and society.” For example, based on the experiment “How to teach helplessness,” it was found that after many unsuccessful attempts, powerlessness and apathy follow, even if the conditions have changed and what is happening can be influenced.

Branches of social psychology

The complexity of this science became the reason for its division into branches. Among them:

• ethnic (features of behavior of representatives of ethnic societies);
• political;
• religious;
• conflictology;
• psychology of communication;
• management psychology (the psychology of social influence helps to manage and manipulate more effectively).

Problems of social psychology

They can be divided into 2 types - problems of the individual and society. Their solution also has several directions. Personality problems are solved by studying personality traits that manifest themselves in different social groups. Group problems require research into the emergence and formation of collective characteristics and the influence of each individual on them. In the modern world, the crisis of social psychology is expressed in an increase in critical tendencies.

Psychologists

According to psychologists, society is a type of society that directly affects the individual. He is seen as a faceless mass as opposed to the individual. Without society there is no personality; it is the basis necessary for the development of a person, the growth of his mental abilities, cultural level, and educational level. It always has its own laws, which may not respect the interests of each member of the group or society. Therefore, issues of conflict between the individual and the group occupy a special place in psychology.

It's time to figure out how society differs from society.