PERSON, SITUATION,
INTERACTION
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVE
Kuliah Psikologi Sosial I
Ross and McDougall: Two Early Versions of Social Psychology
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The year was 1908, a sociologist, Edward Ross and
the other a psychologist, William McDougall,
published their separate introductory textbooks in
social psychology.
Both were concerned with understanding the
relationships between person and society and
therefore their field was called social psychology;
however, each offered a different analysis.
Ross and McDougall: Two Early Versions of Social Psychology
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Ross emphasized the important role that social and
situational factors played in shapping the person;
McDougall stressed the role that person factors
played in shaping social interaction and society.
According Ross: Human Behavior = f (situational
factors)
According Behavior: Human Behavior = f (person
factors)
Social Psychology
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The scientific study of the ways in which the
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one individual
are influenced by the real, imagined, or inferred
behavior or characteristics of other people.
Social psychology –
the scientific study of how people’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other
people
Characteristics of social psychology
1.
2.
3.
The level of analysis is the individual in the social
context (i.e., how an individual influences and is
influenced by other individuals)
Social psychology studies individuals’ overt
behaviors as well as their internal psychological
states such emotions, motivations, and beliefs
Social psychologists use the scientific method to
answer questions
Scientific Description and Explanation
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Social Psychology, like any science, involves:
 Description
–
careful and reliable observation
 Explanation –
development of theories that connect and organize
observations
Scientific Description and Explanation

Theories are scientific explanations that:
 Connect
and organize existing observations
 Suggest fruitful paths for future research.
Major Theoretical Perspectives
Sociocultural
 Evolutionary
 Social Learning
 Social Cognitive

Sociocultural

Sociocultural perspective –
a theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes
of social behavior in influences from larger social
groups
 E.g.,
norms within cultural groups, social class
differences, nationality/ethnicity, fads
Evolutionary

Evolutionary perspective –
a theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes
of social behavior in the physical and psychological
predispositions that helped our ancestors survive
and reproduce
Evolutionary

What drives social behavior?
 Genetic
predispositions inherited from our ancestors
that promoted their survival and reproduction, such as:
 The
tendency to automatically recognize an angry face
 The tendency for mothers to feel protective of their children
Social Learning

Social learning perspective –
a theoretical viewpoint that focuses on past learning
experiences as determinants of a person’s social
behaviors
Social Learning

What drives social behavior?
 Classically
conditioned preferences
 For
example, the feeling of fear at sight of person who hit
you.
 Habits
 For
rewarded by other people
example, a boy who fights frequently after his father
praised him for winning fight with neighborhood bully.
Social Learning

What drives social behavior?
 Imitating
 For
the rewarded behavior of others
example, buying a gun after seeing a movie in which the
hero wins true love after shooting half the people in his
girlfriend’s neighborhood.
Social Cognitive

Social cognitive perspective –
a theoretical viewpoint that focuses on the mental
processes involved in paying attention to,
interpreting, and remembering social experiences
 E.g.,
self-enhancing biases
The study of social behavior
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Descriptive methods involve attempts to measure or
record behaviors, thoughts or feelings in their
natural state.
Experimental methods involve attempts to
manipulate social processes by varying some aspect
of the situation.
Descriptive Methods
Social psychologists use five major types of descriptive
methods:
 Naturalistic
Observation
 Case Studies
 Archives
 Surveys
 Psychological Tests
Experiments

An experiment is a research method in which the
researcher sets out to systematically manipulate one
source of influence while holding others constant.
Experiments
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Independent variable –
the variable manipulated by the experimenter
Dependent variable –
the variable measured by the experimenter
Experiments

Social psychologists use two major types of
experimental methods:
 Laboratory
experiments
 Field experiments
Experiments

Advantages:
 Allows
cause-effect conclusions
 Allows control of extraneous variables

Disadvantages:
 Artificial
situations may not represent relevant events as
they naturally unfold (subjects’ responses may not be
natural, since they know they are being observed).
Orientation in Social Psychology
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The Reinforcement-Theory Orientation
The Field-Theoritical Orientation
The Cognitive Orientation
The Psychoanalytic Orientation
Role Theory