JoHo

In this chapter, the definition of social psychology is outlined. The power of the social context on human behavior is also discussed. Then, the important and central themes within social psychology throughout the history of it are outlined. Lastly, the influence of the emergence of the online world, as well as new standards and practices on the field of social psychology is discussed.

What is the definition of social psychology?

Humans are social animals that create social networks. The remarkable success of our species can be traced to human's ability to work together in groups, to infer other's intentions, to coordinate with extended networks of other people. This is exactly why social psychology is so relevant. Social psychology is the scientific study of how individuals think, feel and behave in a social context. Social psychology typically focuses on the psychology of the individual. Even when social psychologists study groups of people, they usually emphasise the behavior of the individual in the group context. Rather than only focusing on social factors, social psychologists sometimes examine nonsocial factors that affect people's thoughts, emotions, motives and actions. The value of social psychology's perspective on human behavior is widely recognised. 

How powerful is the social context?

The social nature of people runs so deep that even very subtle clues about our social connection with others can have a profound effect on our lives. Social psychological research has found that certain factors can interfere with academic performance. Women in one study achieved greater academic success at an engineering school if they received information early in their first year designed to reduce their concerns about fitting in and belonging in their male-dominated majors. African Americans boys in another study became less likely to receive disciplinary action in middle and high school if they received information to increase their feeling of social belonging in sixth grade. Early research by Triplett and Ringelmann established an enduring topic in social psychology: how the presence of others affects individual's performance.

What does the "knew-it-all-along" phenomenon entail?

Often, people think about social psychology in terms of "Of course, I knew that all along". The knew-it-all-allong phenomenon often causes people to question how social psychology is different from common sense, or traditional folk wisdom. Common sense may seem to explain many social psychological findings after the fact. The problem is distinguishing common sense facts from common sense myths. Social psychology, unlike common sense, uses the scientific method to put its theories to the test. 

What does the history of social psychology look like?

The field of social psychology is a relatively young one. Recent years have marked a tremendous interest in social psychology and an injection of many new scholars into the field. As social psychology is now in a new phase, it is instructive to look back to see how the field today has been shaped by the people and events of its past. 

• Social psychology began to flourish as the world needed explanations for the tragic questions and challenges that World War II raised.
• Stanley Milgram's experiments in the 1960s demonstrated individuals' vulnerability to the destructive commands of authority.
• The interactionist perspective puts an emphasis on how both an individual's personality and environmental characteristics influence behavior. 
• Social cognition is the study of how people perceive, remember and interpret information about themselves and others. 

What topics are trending within the field of social psychology now?

Individuals sometimes are faced with a conflict between two motivations that can affect cognitive processes: wanting to be right and wanting to feel good about oneself. A great deal of recent social psychological research has explored the automatic versus controllable nature of a number of processes, such as stereotyping. Subfields that have been growing rapidly in recent years include behavioural genetics, evolutionary psychology, social neuroscience and behavioral economic.

• Behavioural genetics examines the effects of genes on behavior. The role of genes in an ever-growing array of social behaviours is better understood as breakthroughs continue to drive interdisciplinary research involving genetics. 
• Another field that has been growing rapidly is the field of evolutionary psychology, which applies the principles of evolution to understand contemporary human behavior. According to this perspective, to understand a social psychological issue such as jealousy, we should ask how tendencies and reactions underlying jealousy today may have evolved from the natural selection pressures our ancestors faced. Evolutionary psychological theories can then be used to explain and predict ender differences in attraction, the situational factors most likely to trigger jealousy, and so on. 
• Social psychology is currently also experiencing tremendous growth in research designed to give us a better understanding and appreciation of the role of culture in all aspects of social psychology. Broadly speaking, culture consists of a system of enduring meanings, beliefs, values, assumptions, institutions, and practices shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. Increasing numbers of social psychologists are evaluating the universal generality or cultural specificity of their theories and findings by conducting cross-cultural research, in which they examine similarities and differences across a variety of cultures. More and more social psychologists are also conducting multicultural research, in which they examine racial and ethnic groups within cultures.  
• Behavioral economics studies how psychology relates to economic decision making. Behavioral economics research has revealed that the traditional economic models were inadequate because they failed to account for the powerful role that psychological factors have on people's economic behavior. Social psychologists are collaborating in greater numbers with researchers in environmental studies, public health, and related areas to address issues as varied as how to get people to conserve energy, adopt healthier habits, and avoid skin cancer or to study how even simple alterations to the physical surroundings around primary schools can improve students' education. 
• Lastly, social neuroscience involves the study of the relationship between neural and social processes. Our brains and bodies influence and are influenced by our social experiences. 

How does the emergence of new technologies and the online world influence social psychology?

Online communication has fostered collaboration among researchers around the world, enabled researchers to study participants from diverse populations, and inspired researchers to investigate whether various social psychological phenomena are similar or different online versus off-line. Online communication not only facilitates research but is also itself becoming a provocative topic of study. As people interact with each other through social networking sites, online dating services, and endless apps, there is growing interest in studying how attraction, prejudice, group dynamics, and a host of other social psychological phenomena unfold online versus offline. 

Aside of the emerging online world, social psychologists are nowadays also using techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET), event-related potential (ERP), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the interplay of the brain and discrete thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Social psychology research today benefits from other technological advances as well, such as new and better techniques to measure hormone levels and to code people's everyday speech quickly into quantifiable units. 

What new standards and practices for research are emerging?

New developments are emerging in what are considered best practices in conducting and reporting research, making social psychological research more methodologically sound and creating greater accessibility of materials, methods and data. New standards are evolving that require much greater sample sizes and different approaches to statistical analysis. An open science movement calls for greater accessibility of researchers' data and materials. This is not unique to social psychology, as a similar set of issues has been the focus across many fields, such as medicine, physics and biology.