Discipline Social Psychology. As a Part Examination,

¶ … discipline social psychology. As a part examination, address items: a. Define social psychology. b. Discuss social psychology differs related disciplines (e.

Social Psychology

Social psychology is a study of individuals' act in a social context. The study is a branch of psychology that study's why and how people feel, think, and do things the way they do given the situations they face (Howard, 2000). In studying social psychology it is possible to understand the formation of stereotypes, their existence and what makes people seem different in different situations. Despite the fact that social psychology seeks to explain people's behavior, it cannot be said to explain all social problem people face. Social psychology resides in a special in science since it is suspended between methodological orientations deduced from biological sciences and social sciences (Ash, 2005).

The subject matters of Social psychology are the social interactions, feeling, thinking about others, relating to and subsequently influencing them. Social psychology as a science entails description of a phenomenon, determination of causes, prediction of outcome and explanation of the phenomenon. These four aspects make social psychology to be considered as a science (Ash, 2005).

Description entails identifying and reporting the details and nature of a phenomenon, often distinguishing between the classes or types of the phenomenon and recording its frequency of occurrence. Prediction form of understanding requires knowing what factors are systematically related (i.e., correlated) to the phenomenon of interest. Determining causality between two factors means determining that changes in one factor produce (i.e., cause) changes in the other factor. Just because two factors are related does not necessarily mean that they are causally related. Explanation pertains to establishing why a phenomenon or relationship occurs. We may understand that one factor causes another factor without knowing exactly why the effect occurs (Howard, 2000).

Difference between social psychology and clinical psychology

Clinical psychology integrates science, theory and clinical know-how to understand, relieve and prevent psychological-based distresses and dysfunctional promoting individual well-being and development. Clinical psychology is a branch of psychology that concerns with treatment of abnormal mental cases and behaviors. Clinical psychology analyses, predicts and alleviate disturbances occurring to individuals due to mental psychological issues. Unlike social psychology, clinical psychology works with the individual to closely understand their phenomenon and come up with way to reduce their distresses. While social psychology analysis interactions between individual, clinical psychology concentrates on the individual looking at the inner interacting of an individual's mind (Howard, 2000).

Difference between social psychology and general psychology

Ash (2005) argues that social psychology is nothing more than a sub-field of study, given that its subject material has an overlap with its parent fields of psychology and sociology. This sub-field- Social Psychology- examines what tends to shape people, how we tend to react in social situation, how we form and express attitudes and beliefs about the world, how we attribute causes to phenomena, conformity and racism.

Personality psychology is a disjoined area of probe, but is more and more combined with Social Psychology. The focus of Personality in direct contrast to Social is on qualities we are born with or that form that are maintained across situations and over time. The psychology of Personality tends to examine how people differ from one another whereas Social Psych. will emphasize general laws of behavior or how humans, on average, react to various situations (Howard, 2000).

Difference between Social Psychology and Sociology

While social is the study of human behavior psychology relies on sociology to give insights on these behaviors. Social psychology is related to sociology in this way. However, instead of centering group factors such as socioeconomic class and race, it focuses on the individual. Social psychology, it banks on the scientific research to come up with social behavior theories of. Sociologist take after the psychological factors to construct social structures (Ash, 2005)

The core differences between the two are that sociology studies the whole while social psychology looks at the individual behavior as a social being. While sociology deal with a social process social psychology looks are the mental processes that lead to actions and thoughts. From the study of sociology social structures and social forms are created while social psychology concerns with the individual behavior and what will result.