Area Overview

The social area of psychology focuses on how social interactions and the environment influence behaviour.
Central to this area is the examination of individual behaviour in social situations, and the effects of others on individual behaviour.
The social area of psychology developed from the work of early psychologists such as Floyd Allport, who believed our social behaviours could be studied scientifically.

Key Concepts

Social influence: Looks at how individual thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are shaped by social interactions. This may include influence from authority figures, peers, and societal norms.
Aggression: Analyses the different types of aggression (e.g., proactive and reactive) and the potential social causes and impacts.
Prejudice and discrimination: Examines why certain social groups are subject to prejudice and discrimination, looking at the psychological mechanisms behind these behaviours.
Conformity and obedience: Explores the factors that lead people to follow group norms or obey authority, such as the famous experiments conducted by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram.
Prosocial behaviour: Investigates why individuals assist others even at a cost to themselves. This includes exploring theories of altruism and empathy, and the bystander effect.

Behaviourism: Considers that our actions are a response to environmental stimuli, including the influences from those around us.
Cognitive approach: Examines the role of mental processes such as perception, memory, and thought in social behaviour.
Humanistic approach: Emphasises the importance of subjective experience, personal growth and self-fulfilment in understanding social behaviour.

Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments: These studies aimed to understand the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.
Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment: This experiment aimed to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers.
Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments: These experiments investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could lead a person to conform.

The social area has been criticised for the ethical issues raised by some of its most famous experiments, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s Obedience Experiment.
There are also concerns over validity and reliability as many experiments in the social area take place in a controlled setting, which may not accurately reflect real-world social dynamics.
The area has also faced criticism for the Western bias in many studies, as societal norms, behaviour, and mental processes can vary widely across different cultures.