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Social Psychology and Behavior

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Social Psychology and Behavior
Kary Garrett
University of Phoenix
PSY/300 General Psychology
October 2, 2010
Dr. Stephanie Sencil
Social Psychology and Behavior Social Psychology is the scientific method concerning how people react in situations in which they are interacting with other people and to understand or explain why they act this way. These interactions can be positive, negative, or neutral. Most people prefer to have positive or neutral interactions. However, there are some personality types who prefer the negative interactions and seem to thrive on interacting with others in this manner. Completing tasks in a group environment can cause the tasks to be performed at a higher rate, or faster than if the task were performed when an individual was alone. “This tendency for people to perform simple tasks better when in the presence of others was called social facilitation” (Unknown, n.d., para. 5). Students often perform tasks in group situations in which they are being timed. These tasks can be taking a test, such as a math test, or running distance, such as a mile. That individuals want to perform well in the presence of their peers encourage them to complete the task more rapidly and efficiently. Runners in a group will have faster speeds while in this group, then if they were running alone. Group behavior and social facilitation also can be shown in animals. Teaching a dog to walk on a leash can often be met with resistance. One way to overcome this is to take the dog learning to walk on a leash out on a walk with another dog that is already trained to do so. It would be best also to socialize these two dogs and allow them to become acquainted with each other prior to setting out on this journey. Working in groups will not always be a positive social facilitation experience for everyone. There will likely be at least one

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