SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Psychology

Social Psychology

Introduction

Social psychology has played an essential role in sociology during the twentieth century; the nature of this role has altered through the years. Earlier in the century, social psychology was viewed by many as a separate body of research distinct from other, more accepted parts of sociology. Today, however, this field occupies a much more central role in the discipline, increasingly interconnected with other areas of sociological research. In this paper, the nature and history of social psychology will be addressed, with special attention to key developments in this area, particularly in current decades and discuss the factors impacting aggression (e.g. individual differences, personality, and environment) along with media aggression. This research will focus on providing a broad framework for the role of individual differences in the investigation of the effects of situations and individual's social information processing systems that mediate them (Cronbach, 2001, pp: 675).

Main Body

People think, feel, and do different things in different situations, and the changes and variations from situation to situation are not all random. Understanding the nature of such variations, of course, is one of the main missions of social psychology. The goal is to figure out what processes and mechanisms underlie the observed variations. This research is full of examples of thoughtful and ingenious ways to pursue that goal (Baron, 2008, pp: 650).

Almost half a century ago, Lee Cronbach, in his APA presidential address observed that there had been two largely independent research traditions in psychology, which he called the experimental and correlational. In the experimental tradition, one varies the aspects of situations hypothesized to influence the behavior of interest, while holding constant all other factors. The focus is on the variation created by the experimenter and isolating the effects of it. In contrast, the correlational approach focuses on the already existing variations “presented by Nature”, embedded in a complex web of interrelated variables, only a small fraction of which are observable. Cronbach argued then, as well as 20 years later in his APA distinguished scientist award address that neither alone is likely to be sufficient, and that one must focus on the interactions between manipulated situational factors and naturally existing individual differences (Baron, 2008, pp: 676).

This paper argues that there is a potential problem in this strategy. The problem is not simply that it is difficult to manipulate some variables of importance. To be sure, it is unfortunate if the field relies solely on situational manipulation of General Aggression Model (GAM) and as a result risks excluding factors whose variations are largely “presented by Nature” rather than created in laboratories. But some variables can be manipulated; so, can't their effects, at least, be established confidently? That may be the case if the effects of those variables don't depend on other variables that are not manipulated. But what if the effects of the situational manipulation of General Aggression Model (GAM) critically depend on some unobserved variables? Then effects of situations can differ from one person to ...