Introduction - the emergence of social psychology science
Social psychology is a relatively young science. Compared to the development of other public and humanities, it is too late to identify. Her birth is in the early twentieth century. The history of sociopsychological ideas, knowledge and research is related to the history of psychology. Psychology becomes a science in the full sense of the word (subject, principles, approaches, methods and methodology, studies, etc.) in the second half of the 19th century, when Wilhelm Wund's laboratory began operating in Leipzig. Social psychology was born 30-40 years later - at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the exact birth date remains controversial to this day. The history of social psychology in popular opinion includes three main stages that are very different in duration. The first stage began somewhere in ancient times and ended in the middle of the 19th century. It is an accumulation of knowledge about sociopsychic things (phenomena, qualities, processes, tendencies, etc.) and takes place in the sphere of religion, philosophy, and later of psychology. They call this stage a pre-history, as it precedes and determines the creation of social psychology as a science.
The synthesis of empirical and conceptual knowledge about the social psyche and its numerous aspects, characteristics and manifestations make it possible, after the first stage, to separate a separate sociopsychological scientific area. This process lasted for almost half a century - from the second half of the 19th century to the first decades of the twentieth century. This is the second period in the history of social psychology. The third stage is the formation and development of self-reliant social psychology. It begins in the early twentieth century and continues worldwide. Social psychology, since psychology, in the most categorical way, refers to the human psyche and operates with the main psychological categories. The closest collaboration between sociology and psychology is the science of social psychology itself. It occupies a special place in the system of science and interacts with many of them (linguistics, theosophy, ethnology, folklore, politics, PR, military science, advertising, management, etc.) because they need it precisely because of this basic characteristic . Social psychology is closely related to other psychological sciences from both main groups: age psychology, family psychology, psychology of religion, psychology of management, pedagogical psychology, psychology of communication, labor psychology, organizational psychology, criminal psychology, political psychology, etc. . Of a different nature are its connections to experimental psychology, motivational research, psychological testology, etc. From this group of psychological sciences, social psychology draws on the necessary methodological knowledge. Applied social psychology interacts with a number of other applied sciences such as forensic science, advertising, public relations, management studies, legal science, and more. As social psychology views its subject of research in dynamics and development, it also interacts well with history.
Subject of social psychology
The goal of social psychology is to make the relationships between individuals and groups of individuals visible and to explore them, to find the laws and to suggest ways to use them in social practice best by answering a number of questions such as:
- What is the social network? What are the group of people?
- To what extent is the existing social reality, society itself and human interaction being facts of human consciousness? What laws do they have in this area?
- What are the relationships between people, what connects them and what opposes them? (It is interesting that the things that connect and divide people are the same: love, hatred, destiny, common interests, instincts, personal problems, etc.)
- What new phenomena, qualities, processes, trends arise when people come together and become a group? What are the main social psychic phenomena?
- What are the phenomena between people in a social community? What are they? Why are they as they are? What is their dynamics?
- How best to use socially psychological knowledge for the benefit of man and society?
The subject of social psychology is social communities, real or conditional groups of people. In a narrower context, we can define the subject of scientific interest as a human being in its social essence. This is the subject of interest of many other sciences: ethnology, sociology, politics, ethics, psychology, social anthropology and others.