Social Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Social Psychology - Essay Example There are also distortions in the type of research that is conducted by students in psychology because they only cover one age group and occupation. There are four interrogative themes in the social psychological world which include: power relations; situated knowledges; individual-society dualism; and agency-structure dualism. There are also four very critical social psychological perspectives which are cognitive social, discursive psychological, phenomenological and psychoanalytic perspectives. I will analyze how two of these perspectives work with and against a social psychological system and also provide a bit of a background on some psychological terms to ensure a clear understanding of the topic. Background and Body To keep a good head on our shoulders and stand strong, it is important to use the identity development technique of Erik Erikson which is to symbolize items we have left behind, symbolize items that we look forward to, have symbols of what we look above or up to, an d have items below us; what we have to the left and right is also important. In social psychology, there tends to be a dualistic viewpoint of either seeing the individual's perspective or that of society. These items are referred to as dichotomies. Individual society dualism and agency structure dualism are very important dichotomies in social psychology. Dichotomous thinking is deemed unhelpful according to social psychologists. Emotion is looked at in social psychology and refinements to the epistemology and ontology aspects in this subject are constantly being reviewed and developed. Dualisms lead to distortions when handled improperly by individual or groups. Dualisms must be minimized as much as possible in order to create a free individual and society. Verbal and non-verbal emotion are constantly being analyzed in order to best meet the needs of the individuals or society in an environment. Embodiment is another social psychological topic that is important. There are critiques on mind-body, individual-society, and agency structure dualisms in order to capture this term's requirements. In order to be strong we must strive to balance all of the above dualisms. Social psychology has only existed for about 100 years. Social psychology had been defined and it was founded in North America. Social psychology is defined as the study of an individual, either male or female, and how they are involved in their surroundings and environments. The social scientists did not want to reduce psychology to an individual or social basis which is what the individual-social dualism is all about. There are two kinds of social psychologies in the field. They are named psychological social psychology and sociological social psychology. Psychological social psychology is about the individual while sociological social psychology is macro. Both of these types of psychology were developed in North America like most concepts and definitions of social psychology. Many forms of social psychology exist to be critiqued in order to analyze and develop new theories to its already extensive structural base. The first world war created a lack luster attitude toward social psychology and by the time the second world war came about, it was in demand to find new ways to treat people and remove the racism for lesser thans in society. The second world wa