Psychology 🧠

What is psychology?

Psychologists try to explain why people have certain thoughts and feelings and why they behave in a certain way. Organizational psychology focuses specifically on the social behavior of people within organizations. Social psychology focuses on several social contexts, including (for example) the influence of media and cultural norms on human behavior.

Characteristic of social psychology and organizational psychology is that people usually do not explain human behavior from the person, but from the social context and organizational context. The behavior of friends and family, colleagues, prevailing cultural norms and media have an enormous influence on people.

Based on their expertise and research, many psychologists are involved in solving social problems such as gender inequality, financial debts, aggression and overweight.

The difference between psychology and other disciplines:

Sociology places more emphasis on relationships and social structures (eg social networks, institutions), while social psychology focuses more on the behavior of individuals when others are present explicitly or implicitly.

Personality theory emphasizes the sustainable differences between people (differences in personality and character), while social psychology investigates how social factors will affect most people.

Clinical psychology deals with malfunctions or abnormalities, while social psychologists focus on the typical way in which ('normal') individuals think, feel, behave and interact.

Like social psychology, cognitive psychology is interested in mental processes (thinking, learning, remembering), but social psychologists are concerned with the relevance of these processes for social behavior.

Why is psychology a science?

The behavior of people is a favorite subject at the social table, but psychology is not the same as exchanging opinions. Social psychologists and organizational psychologists conduct research using systematic methods such as experiments with a control group and objective measurements of physiology or behavior. Surveys or questionnaires are often also used as a research tool. They take into account reliability, internal and external validity. Experiments are often conducted in laboratories so that researchers can check the context and accurately measure variables. But lab experiments are increasingly supplemented with field research, so that the researchers can check whether their conclusions hold in practical situations.

The importance of good theory

The explanations for why people have certain thoughts and feelings and behave in a certain way are designed as "theory." In the case of psychology, a theory is therefore an explanation for the (possible connection between) behavior, thoughts and / or emotions of people that has been tested through scientific methodology. Social psychologists and organizational psychologists always approach scientific and social questions from a theoretical point of view. This method helps to generalize conclusions from specific investigations into other situations and to better predict future events.

The adage of Kurt Lewin, one of the founders of modern psychology, was: "There is nothing as practical as a good theory."

Examples of commonly used theoretical approaches in social psychology and organizational psychology:

Socio-cultural : preferences and behavior are determined from someone's cultural background (eg religion, social class, economic possibilities, political conviction).

Evolutionary approach: certain behavioral patterns are rooted in pre-programmed patterns because they have survival value. Including emotions, herd behavior.

Social learning: our behavior is the result of a learning history of rewarding and punishing (classical and operant conditioning).

Social-cognitive: people cannot perceive objectively, they construct their interpretation based on expectations and prejudices. Cognitive processes of perception, thinking, decision making and remembering play a role in this.

These approaches are not contradictory but complement each other. Take smoking, for example. Some people (start to smoke) because they have got that example from their parents (socio-cultural), or because they have the idea that they will seem 'tough' because of that (socially cognitive). People keep smoking because it calms them and makes them feel good (social learning) or because they are 'naturally' more sensitive to addiction than others (evolutionary). For most people it is therefore a combination of factors that play a role in determining their behavior, and not a single cause.

Why does a psychologist understand everything?

The idea that lives in psychology is that if you understand how behavior in general comes about, you can explain many different types of behavior. The above approaches are not only applicable to one theme, but they can be used to analyze all types of behavior. Social psychologists and organizational psychologists therefore apply their knowledge about behavior to all kinds of behavior.

Social themes within psychology

Despite the fact that psychologists nowadays have a large selection of subjects for research, certain themes are found to be particularly popular. Some themes that have been investigated frequently and frequently are:

Racism and prejudice
Gender inequality
Radicalization
Smoking, drinking and other unhealthy behavior
Economic decisions and consumer behavior
Advertising, information and political campaigns
Behavior change
Well-being and happiness
Sustainable love relationships