Social psychology's broad scope and cultural mandate framework

Social Psychology Differ When Applied in Different Cultural Context

Social Psychology within a humanistic critique

Being social is a harmless and innate characteristic of the human nature. People who like to socialize like to share their own personal space with people around them. They encourage and even initiate interactions like conversation and friendship. The reality TV shows have become a rage due to the fact that our society as a whole has become so interested in the social lives of other people. The word 'sociable' has been described by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as "inclined by nature to companionship with others of the same species" and/or "inclined to seek or enjoy companionship" ("Sociable," 2013, n.d.). In other words, we can say that sociable is looking for companionship as, it's a part of our nature to look for companions belonging to the same genus and searching or looking for company that one can enjoy ("Sociable," 2013, n.d.).

The meaning of the word psychology doesn't get changed when social is applied with it however; the term 'social psychology' in application does become scientific. This concept is used by the psychologists and sociologists so that they can answer the questions regarding the world and life (Fiske, 2010, p. 1, para. 1).

The central themes which you glean from these readings

Broad Scope

There are four major characteristics that form social pshychology according to Susan Fiske (2010) who is not only an author but Professor of Psychology as well. Following are these four characteristics:

1. broad scope,

2. cultural mandate,

3. scientific methods and

4. search for wisdom (p. 31, para. 1).

Social psychology has been influenced by a number of things as this field has a very broad scope. Broad scope has a lot of relevance to the social psychology as there are a lot of various aspects of socialization that are addressed by it such as; self and groups, conformity and deviance, attitudes and action, and loving and hating as, all of these things are related to the human behaviour (Fiske, 2010, p. 32, para. 1). Ideas are borrowed from the principles of social psychology on continuous basis by other scholars, scientists, researchers and even other colleagues.

Cultural Mandate

Cultural mandate is the 2nd and certainly most crucial feature of social psychology. Culturally speaking a society is influenced by a number of factors like music, cuisine, fashion, music and many other fads. If this same principle is applied to the social psychology then a particular path can be seen followed by the cultural mandate which will dictate the response of an individual to a specific social scenario (Fiske, 2010, p. 32).

Exactly like religions and cultures are essential to many cultures, the social psychology is paid a lot of attention in some cultures as well as, it is considered to be very important and a source of great understanding (Fiske, 2010). It was further said by Fiske (2010) that, "social psychology is something that is mandated by a culture as an established type of knowledge" (p. 33, para. 2).

Scientific Methods

There are basically three important ways in which the social psychologists have been aided by the scientific methods in giving shape to the social psychology. Firstly, scientific theories are developed by the social psychologists and the validity of those theories is tested in order to move the scientific understandings forward (Fiske, 2010).

Secondly, in order to get trustworthy answers for the current as well as future scientific references, the scientific methods are made use of by the researches which help them in creating and using innovative ways and technologies (Fiske, 2010). Lastly, suitable research engines should be used by the social psychologists. Therefore, it can be said that at the end of the day all kinds of scientific studies are dependent upon the scientific methods to help them in supporting, proving, expanding and introducing new theories. Same is the case with social psychology (Fiske, 2010).

Search for Wisdom

Wisdom has been defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, "scientific or philosophic learning / knowledge that has been accumulated" ("Wisdom," 2013, n.d.). However, it has to be kept in mind that wisdom itself or the search for it as it is related to the social psychology is a lot more than mere knowledge. In every field of study knowledge has an important place and efforts should always be made to obtain more and more knowledge however, a platform to make use of this knowledge in our daily lives is provided by wisdom along with improving the overall quality of a person's life (Baron et al., 2008, p. 35-6).

Concept of Situationism

Situation has been defined by Hewitt and Shulman (2011) as "a container which contains social interaction" (p. 223, para.4) which shows the affects of the various circumstances on the individuals and the way that individuals influence various scenarios. Three ways in which individual influence the social scenarios and vice versa have been explained by Snyder and Ickes (1995, as cited in Myers, 2009):

1. A particular situation will have different impact of different individuals as, all of us the reality differently.

2. When provided with a choice, people mostly choose the situations for themselves, for example the social people look for situations in which they can socialize and interact with others.

3. Situations are often created by the people themselves. Such as, if we would expect a person to be hostile, sexy, extrovert or intelligent we might behave in a way that would make them behave in the way that we were expecting them to. (p. 224, para. 1)

Important roles are played by various situations in social psychology. As it has been mentioned above people and their behaviours play a very important role in shaping up the outcomes of various situations.

What is the use/purpose of social psychology in today's world?

The effort to understand and describe the way that the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of individuals are affected and influenced by the implied, actual or imagined presence of others around them is social psychology (Allport, 1968, as cited in Hewitt & Shulman, 2011). The four major characteristics of social psychology which are scientific methods, broad scope, search for wisdom and cultural mandate make up a very important part of the whole research process. It has also been proved by the empirical evidence that the level of sociability among individual with a society is measured to a certain extent with the help of some measurable situations (Allport, 1968, as cited in Hewitt & Shulman, 2011). The five social motives: trusting, belonging, understanding, self-enhancing and controlling also influence social psychology to a great extent (Allport, 1968, as cited in Hewitt & Shulman, 2011).

How does social psychology differ when applied in different cultural context, be it gender or ethnicity?

Social psychology differs from culture to culture. For example in the Japanese culture the employees tend to identify themselves by the companies that they belong to rather than their own individual identities (Nakane, 1970)such as, if they meet someone instead of introducing themselves by talking about their position at the firm they will say that 'they belong to ABC firm' etc. In Japanese culture more importance is given to the group identification rather than the personal attributes. However, if we talk about the behaviour of the American employees in a cultural context, for the Americans group identification is secondary while individual or personal identification is of primary importance (Johnson, 1985; Nakane, 1970)

It has been noticed that in the Japanese culture the loyalty to the company or firms that the employees work for is very high (Cole, 1971) and the bosses take care of the employees and threat them as family too. The bosses in the Japanese culture go as far as arranging the marriages of their employees (Takezawa & Whitehill, 1981). This paternalistic attitude of the bosses for their employees is seen in public and private scenarios in Japanese culture (Lincoln & Kalleburg, 1990).In the American culture the employees do have loyalty and devotion towards their firms but for them personal interests are more important than company's and they put their needs above those of the company (Cousins, 1989).

The social psychology of Japanese with regards to their social environment is to try to go along with others in a harmonious manner. To keep the relationships smooth Japanese people have no problems in making compromises (Hamaguchi, 1985). Whereas, in case of the American culture, it is very important for the people there to have distinctive image as compared to others (Devos, 1985).

In Japanese culture the teamwork is given a lot of importance and strong interdependence among the employees can be seen in Japan (Levine & Campbell, 1972). However, this interdependence does have a negative aspect that these Japanese people don't really open up to the outsiders or people belonging to other ethnicities (Levine & Campbell, 1972). Therefore, the social psychology of Japanese cultures shows more in-group bias (Levine & Campbell, 1972). Whereas, in case of the American culture the employees there are relatively open towards the outsiders.

Social psychology of the Japanese people shows that higher collective self-esteem is exhibited by the Japanese people whereas; higher individual self-esteem is exhibited by the American people (Roland, 1988). Past researches have also shown that the American consider their personal achievements to be responsible for higher individual self-esteem whereas, Japanese people hold their families and firms responsible for their higher individual self-esteem (Roland, 1988).

As, Japan has a high context culture the people there feel very close to their families and relationships and give them a lot of importance. They believe that it is because of their relationships that they get everything in life (Devos, 1985). Whereas, the Americans have a low context culture because of which they have a more self-centred approach towards life and believe that whatever they get in live is because of their own abilities (Devos, 1985).

The image or concept of 'self' is found in the Japanese culture as well but there it is associated with the concept of 'we', 'us'and 'ours' (Devos, 1985). Therefore, the people in Japan associate their individual, personal selves with their family, friends and relationships. While in the American culture the concept of self revolves only around one's self (Devos, 1985). There is this believe of independence in the American society due to which the people their believe themselves to be unique and different than others (Devos, 1985).

Hence, from the above and examples it can be seen that different cultural have very different social psychologies and these psychologies are based on the environment that they live in and the behaviour of the people that they live around as, it was noted that Japan has a high context culture because of which family values are very important there while, American has a low context culture because of which Americans have more self oriented approach as compared to family oriented.

Reference

Baron, R.A., Branscombe, N.R., & Byrne, D. (2008). Social psychology (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Cole, R.E. (1971). Japanese blue collar: The changing tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Cousins, S.D. (1989). Culture and self-perception in Japan and United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56 (1), 124-131.

Devos, G. (1985). Dimensions of the self in Japanese culture. In A.J. Marsella, G. Devos, & F.L.K. Hsu (Eds.), Culture and Self (pp. 141-184). New York: Tavistock

Fiske, S.T. (2010). Social beings: Core motives in social psychology (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Hamaguchi, E. (1985). A contextual model of the Japanese: Toward a methodological innovation in Japanese studies. Journal of Japanese Studies, 11, 289-321

Hewitt, J.P., & Shulman, D. (2011). Self and society: A symbolic interactionist social psychology (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Johnson, F. (1985). The western concept of self. In A.J. Marsella, G. Devos, & F.L.K. Hsu (Eds.), Culture and Self (pp. 91-131). New York: Tavistock

Levine, R.A., & Campbell, D.T. (1972). Ethnocentrism: theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes and group behaviour. New York: Wiley.

Lincoln, J.R., & Kalleburg, A.L. (1990). Culture, control and commitment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.