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The Self

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Submitted By jmenrig
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Social Psychology
PSY/400
Jamie Enright
December, 3 2012
Leslie Binnix

Social psychology is not a very old practice. In fact, it started after World War II. The unfortunate incident with the Holocaust made researchers want to study the effects of social influence, conformity and obedience because of how badly those groups of individuals were treated. Social psychology is the study of how we, as human beings relate to one another. It is the study of how we interact, how we think, and how feel towards actual individuals that are similar and those that are different from us as well. It makes us ask ourselves questions that we have wanted to know about ourselves. Individuals as a whole want to know other aspects or contributions that make them unique and by researching or studying other individuals, they are able to acquire that different perspective. It also helps one to see/view and affect another individual whether it is in a positive way or not. It also would show how different individuals’ attitudes or behaviors affect another depending on their environment. There are many different psychologies out there that deal with some of the same aspects as social psychology, however, there are really three different types of psychology that social psychology has a very close relation to. One of which is sociology. Sociology deals with people that are in large groups and/or people in different societies. The difference is social psychology has to do with how an individual deals with the groups and societies with an emphasis on the individuals using experiments and sociology deals with the group aspect in itself. Personality psychology is another one. It deals with an individual’s traits, thoughts, and characteristics, whereas social psychology has to deal with situations and how an individual’s environment affects their attitude and behavior.

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