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Analyzing Human Behavior from a Social Psychological Perspective

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Analyzing Human Behavior from a Social Psychological Perspective

Social psychology is the study of human behavior in the social situations. There are many different topics that are studied by social psychologists. They can include different behaviors such as attitudes, aggression, prejudice, pro-social behavior and self-identity. The goal of social psychology is to study the behavior of individuals to learn more about how people form impressions of others, interpret the behavior of others and behave in social situations.
Social psychology also looks at a range of social topics. Leadership, group behavior, social perception, nonverbal behavior, aggression and prejudice are to name a few. Social psychology is not just about looking at social influences. Social perception and social interaction are vital to understanding social behavior.
Social Psychology began to become more to the forefront after World War II. Other events just after like the Holocaust for example, caused Psychologists to start to ask themselves the effects of society on human behavior, according to an article by, Kendra Cherry titled, “What is Psychology?” (Cherry, 2012)
The term social psychology was first used in the 1860’s. In 1908 the first textbooks on the subject were published. Floyd Allport in 1924 wrote a modern textbook and was regarded as the rebirth of social psychology. Kurt Lewin was called the father of social psychology. He was one of the first researchers to study organizational development and group dynamics by using looking at the situations that can cause individuals to react certain ways. Another key figure in the emergence of this discipline was Gordon Allport, the younger brother of Floyd Allport. He helped to advance Lewin’s idea that you cannot ignore the fact that individuals and situations happen together (Strube, 2012).
Social psychology employs scientific

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