Psychology

Psychology

How Social change could be addressed in Social Psychology

Social psychology is the process that deals with people’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings and how they are affected by either actual or imagined presence of others. Social psychology illustrates that, individual behavior is always an outcome of the interaction of mental states and social circumstances (Buss, 1999). Nevertheless, social change is defined as the interference in the procedures of a society or the functions of a society. Factors that determine or lead to social change include culture, religion, scientific, economic and technological advancements.

Social change can be addressed in social psychology by identifying the influences that lead to social changes. For instance, social change can be influenced by peer pressure, leadership, persuasion, or socialization. Social change could be addressed by identifying the right information from other sources to show evidence concerning reality (Armistead, 1994). Influence of information is because of uncertainties due to either stimuli being intrinsically huge or due to social disagreement.

Social change can also be addressed in social psychology by considering the intrapersonal factors such as attitude. Attitude is referred to as the acquired significant evaluations of an individual, or a place that affects feelings or thoughts and action of a person. However, because many people are affected by circumstances, attitude in most cases cannot act as a predictor of specific characters and action. In addition, social change can be addressed by dealing with the issue of persuasion, which is an approach that provides guidance to individuals towards acceptance or changing of an attitude, behavior or a concept through emotive patterns.

Global implications of Social changes in Social Psychology

Globally, in social psychology any social change is because of social movement. Research shows that social change in most cases leads to a change in values, ideas, behaviors, and attitudes. According to studies, social changes revolve around locality, problems or ideas, and social categories (Babones, 2006). For instance, social change in terms of locality implies that individuals of local community tend to create or make changes on the image they own in an attempt to recognize the operation of their culture. In most cases, social changes may be forced to acquire its own tools and approaches in order to be successful in its objectives.

Social changes may also imply adoption of new and advanced ways of life and values. For instance, this mostly applies to individuals who have attempted to put themselves in the current-time conditions, lifestyles and other ways in general. It may imply that as people adapt new ideas and change their attitudes, they are likely to make great changes in their habits concerning food, dressing styles, tastes, values, and other recreational practices (Archibald, 1998). Individuals who are in the process of being transformed socially give more to social psychology and technology. This is because many societies have been enhanced because of both technological and psychological changes. Significant changes have been brought in hence, improving social relationship and improved ideologies replacing the traditional attitudes and ideas.

Generally, social psychology tends to link together psychology and sociology. Therefore, social changes are experienced because of adoption of new ideas, attitude, values, and behaviors as implied in social psychology. Social changes can be addressed in social psychology through various ways just as discussed above. For instance, it can be addressed in social psychology by identifying the influences that causes the changes, by considering the intrapersonal factors such as attitude, and by valuing the idea of persuasion.

References

Archibald, W. (1998). Social Psychology as Political Economy. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Armistead, N. (1994). Reconstructing Social Psychology. Washington, DC: Penguin Books.

Babones, S. (2006). Global social change: historical and comparative perspectives. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press.

Buss, A. (1999). Psychology in Social Context. New York, NY: Wiley.