Social Psychology

• Social psychology is defined as the branch of knowledge which studies the relationships arising out of the interaction of individuals with each other in social situations.
• It results when two distinct branches of knowledge, sociology and psychology, come together. It is asserted to fill the gap between the two sciences.
• In brief, it deals with the thinking, feeling, and acting of an individual in society. It attempts to determine the character of social behaviour.

Social behaviour involves one of the four following basic reactions;

1. When one individual meets another individual there is a reaction. Each individual affects the other individual with whom he comes into contact and is in turn affected by them.
2. Individual may be reacting to group (e.g) extension worker meeting a group of farmers.
3. As a counterpart of the above situation there will be a reaction of a group of individuals to a single individual (e.g) group meeting its leader.
4. There is a reaction of one group of individuals to another group of individuals. Social psychology studies the characteristics of all these four forms of social behaviour.