7 COMMON THEORIES AND EFFECTS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The theories of social psychology encompass a wide range of types of studies concerning humans. Almost always when we hear the term psychology we think of the understanding of the other as a unitary being. But the reality is that the human being is a social animal and that it lives in continuous contact with other people.

This is why the importance of human behavior in a group is of great relevance to be able to understand even how an individual behaves alone. In this article we are going to focus on social psychology, which focuses on the study of human behavior as a group and not just as an individual.

Psychologists working in the social branch are dedicated to studying the mental processes that occur in relation to the responses that humans have when they interact together.

Although there are a wide variety of theories of social psychology, we are going to talk about the five most relevant theories in this branch, the ones that have yielded a greater understanding when it comes to understanding how human beings relate to each other.

The collective unconscious

So that you understand how close human relationships can be, before starting to talk about theories I will tell you about Carl Gustav Jung.

Jung, a psychiatrist and psychologist, understood that there were three parts to the structure of the human psyche: consciousness, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. It is this last part that for Jung was most important in the life of the person, since it is present in all humans since we are born.

It would be like a database that is accessed from birth, in which a great deal of information is available about all the generations that have lived before.

The collective unconscious implies that in the mind there is the concept of archetype, which can be understood as basic dimensions of the human species; love, fear, being… Everyone can feel and suffer these dimensions in the same way.

The 7 most common theories in the world of social psychology

Here are some of the best known and most important theories in social psychology.

1- Social learning theory

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As its name suggests, this theory is based on the way we humans learn as a whole.

The theory postulated by Bandura, is based on vicarious learning, by which a person is able to learn from what he observes in others. This means that humans have the ability to acquire knowledge and learn skills simply by watching what others do.

Perhaps you remember a time when you needed a role model to be able to take an action.

For social learning to take place, it is necessary that specific phases take place:

• Attention phase: the process must attract the attention of the subject to want to learn.
• Retention phase: the process must be able to be presented at the mental level, since the mental image offers information about the execution of the action.
• Reproduction phase: in this phase, the process in question would be put into practice.
• Reinforcement phase: based on behaviorism, if the process has been carried out successfully, the individual will learn and retain the way to do it in a faster and more efficient way. Furthermore, the probability of repeating the process on future occasions will be high.

2- The halo effect

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It is one of the best-known cognitive biases in psychology.

The halo effect is based on the fact that humans, in general, make unfounded attributions from a single characteristic or quality that we observe that a person possesses.

That is, we make a preliminary judgment, which does not have to be correct, by which we will guide ourselves to think about what that person is like.

It is true that the halo effect saves us many energy resources at the mental level, since those attributions that we carry out from a single quality are executed as a result of past experiences in which we already find them.

But this does not mean that the attribution or the judgment is correct, since as you well know, appearances are often deceiving.

For example, if you meet someone who is ugly to you, it is likely that your brain automatically attributes characteristics such as boring, unfriendly, unintelligent… However, if you meet someone with a pretty face, you will surely attribute much more graceful qualities than the previous person.

3- Social desirability

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It is a theory that refers to the need for people to look good and be well seen by others.

It is based on the fact that many times human beings act and make decisions based on what others expect of us.

When we are in a group, we usually want to be as homogeneous as possible with the rest of the people.

In the world of psychology, social desirability represents a problem when evaluating subjects, since it causes people to not be totally sincere in tests or interviews. In fact, in psychological tests, measures are taken so that social desirability does not prevent knowing the real values ​​of what is being evaluated.

There are specific issues that are sensitive to social desirability, such as:

Economic income, compliance with a pharmacological treatment, religion to which one belongs, appearance, achievements, sexuality, as well as acts of violence and illegal.

4- Theory of social exchange

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This theory is based on the costs and benefits of human relationships.

It assumes that people will relate to others based on a choice that is made rationally, analyzing the cost and benefit that they will obtain from said relationship.

That is, if there are two people who have recently started a love relationship and the couple begins to have conflicts, both members of the couple will assess that there are more costs than benefits in the relationship, so the probability that the relationship will break up is elevated.

In addition, this theory includes that humans make comparisons with alternatives to what we already have.

In relation to the previous example of the affective couple, if there are more costs than benefits and there are other people with whom to start a new relationship, the probability that the couple relationship will break up is even higher.

5- Theory of social identity

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It is based on the categorization of people, including ourselves, into known membership groups or external groups.

As social beings we need to feel that we belong to different groups. For example family, friends, work… This gives us information about ourselves and what attitudes and behaviors we should have.

This categorization affects both perceptions and attitudes and human behavior.

The theory has three central ideas:

• Categorization: humans tend to make categories where we can classify the people around us, since in this way we can understand the social environment to which we belong.

By making categories with individuals, we ourselves can find the category to which we belong and in this way adopt behaviors and attitudes typical of our category.

• Identification: we humans identify with groups to which we believe we can belong. Identification has two different meanings, since regarding the group we can think as "we", and regarding the individual we would think as "I".

This translates in the jargon of psychology into the following: when we think of ourselves as a group we would be talking about social identity. However, when we think of ourselves as individuals we would refer to personal identity.

Both identities are necessary for the identification of the human being.

• Comparison: this idea refers to the fact that in order to evaluate ourselves we tend to compare ourselves with those people we consider similar to ourselves.

6- Social facilitation

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It refers to the positive effect that the presence of other people causes on the performance that an individual has in a task.

This means that people improve the efficiency of the tasks they do if they are surrounded by other people who observe their execution.

However, if the task is unfamiliar or complex in nature, the person will find it more difficult to perform it in the presence of an observing audience.

I'll give you an example: surely when you were little and you were learning to read, when your teacher ordered you to read aloud in front of the whole class, you read much worse than when you read aloud alone at home.

This happened for two reasons: the task of reading aloud was not yet mastered and your classmates were also watching you.

7- Theory of social loafing

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Also known as social laziness, this theory may sound familiar to you if you tend to work in a team.

Social loafing is based on the idea that people, when they are in a group and must carry out a task towards a common goal, tend to make less effort if the contribution they are going to make to achieve the task cannot be identified.

That is, if, for example, in group work, the rating will be global, the individuals will tend to make less effort than if the rating were individual and proportional to the work they have done.

Laziness will occur more easily when teamwork is done in situations such as:

• Groups where there is no clear cohesion between the members.
• There is no leader and if there is, it is not effective.
• The role assignment was not correct or is non-existent.
• There is no communication or it is negative.

But this is not always the case, as there are situations in which laziness can be reduced. For example; when working with friends or colleagues, when the group has high group cohesion, when evaluating the contributions of each person or even applying rewards collectively based on performance.

References

1. Bandura, A. (1982). Social learning theory. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.
2. Gutiérrez, F., & Alberto, C. (2004). Models for the analysis and diagnosis of work teams. Management Studies, 20 (91), 35-48.
3. Velo, JS (2005). Personality and social desirability in organizational contexts: implications for the practice of work and organizational psychology. Psychologist Papers, (92), 115-128.