Social Psychology helps us to understand how society functions. In this section, you’ll find out about theories and approaches to go deeper in your interactions and find out more about those aspects of people’s personalities which help and hinder living alongside each other.
For many years, social psychology has been studying persuasion techniques that can be used to change people’s attitudes and encourage people to behave in a certain way. This research not only aims to help create attractive advertising campaigns but also…
Can we really disconnect from technology while being near our phones or computers? Are we able to put our devices on airplane mode and have a break from new technologies? Is it healthy to show ourselves available 24/7 to anyone…
Many social psychology theories have attempted to define the self. From William James at the end of the 19th century who differentiated between “me” as the object of experience and “I” as the observer, to the most orthodox psychoanalysis. The…
Immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Professor Jane Elliott used the minimal group paradigm to perform an experiment that would teach her students about race discrimination. The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social…
Napoleon complex is a term used to describe an inferiority complex that ails some people of shorter-than-average stature. People afflicted with this complex are often forced to deal with feelings of personal inadequacy due to their limited height. Thus, people…
The term ostracism comes from the Greek ostrakismos, which means to banish by voting with potsherds. Ostracism and social exclusion are both forms of social punishment. They stem from all sorts of prejudice, racial or sexual discrimination, and a diversity of…
Genovese syndrome is a term we use to describe the psychological phenomenon where, instead of helping, people are paralyzed in urgent situations when people need their help in the face of some kind of danger. That sounds really strange, doesn’t it?…
Modesty helps you connect with others in society. It doesn’t allow your achievements to overshadow those of other people. That being said, excessive modesty can do just the opposite. It can make relationships with the people around you more difficult.…
A rumor is a social phenomenon that needs at least one person to create and spread it as well as many others to modify and transmit it. Therefore, understanding how a rumor spreads is critical to avoid them. Many of the…
Gustave Le Bon was born in Nogent-le Rotrou, France, on May 7th, 1841. Although he trained to become a doctor, he devoted much of his life to studying sociology, psychology, physics, and anthropology. He was a military doctor during the…
Your facial structure has a huge effect on the development of your identity as a whole, especially your social identity. You recognize other people by their face, not by their hands, legs, or body. In some European societies, people see…
Is it possible to be rational after a conflict? After a conflict, thinking rationally and cooperating with the other person seems difficult, even if it’s for your own good. It’s even less common in a group setting. If your group has…
Identity fusion is a type of identity that connects other types of identities. In order to understand this better, consider that we all have, at the very least, two identities. One is the personal identity or the personal self and the…
Dehumanizing consists of negating that other people have human traits. In other words, to dehumanize is to consider someone “less of a person”. In general, people dehumanize members of certain groups. This means that they consider some people “less human”…
As social psychology tells us, people create categories and divide other people according to these categories. In other words, we create groups according to nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, and preference, among others. This implies that some people will be in our…
It’s possible to analyze our interactions with others as if we were in a play. Namely, as if our social life consisted of a series of masquerades. Social dramaturgy is a micro-sociological approach that focuses on the study of human behavior…
How do we learn about people? Understanding what mechanisms, gears and complex subtleties that set a behavior or skill in motion has always been one of the goals of psychology. Albert Bandura introduced the theory of social learning, a theory on…
There are many different ways to make someone do what you want. In other words, manipulate them. Influencing people may be simpler than it seems. A look, gesture, or a few words may be enough to put another person at our…
What does it mean to be a leader? One of the questions social psychology wants an answer to is why people follow them. In the classic study of leadership, people look for characteristics that leaders have in common. But there’s too…
Idleness is one of the evils of our time. Laziness, a lack of desire to work, too much available time… Something strange often happens when we work in a group – the whole is less than the sum of the parts. What…
