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Behavior and Society

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Behavior and Society

Interacting with society is a part of everyday human life that is not always thought about. However, just like other aspects in human nature, there are psychologists devoted to studying these interactions. Social psychology can be seen as a book with each chapter explaining a different step in understanding human interactions and the social growth. Beginning with how we view ourselves, then the view of others, how we influence others, their influence on us and finally with how we act in groups, human interactions and social psychology can be understood.
The first step in understanding human interactions and social psychology is to understand the self. We cannot expect to understand others if we do not know and understand ourselves first. How many times have we been asked to describe who we are? This question can arise in both a professional setting and in the personal setting. When we state we are a religious person, hardworking, funny or someone who does not believe in something, we are exhibiting our self-concept. Self-concept is the overall understanding of oneself (Feenstra, 2011). Once we have this understanding, we can organize the thoughts just as we do any other information we come across. We all have a way of storing what we know and learn. Organizing and storing information is the only way for us to remember all that we do. When it comes to descriptions of oneself, it is no different. We have what we call self-schemas to organize the information within the self-concept (Feenstra, 2011). If we see ourselves as religious, attend church regularly, seek religious events, and live according to the religious rules, we would have a religious schema.
All the information that we know about ourselves comes from self-awareness. By paying attention to who we are and how we act, we learn more about our values and attitudes. We

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