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What are the foundations of social psychology?

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I need help in creating an outline for a 1000-1,400 word paper on analysing the conceptual foundations of Social Psychology. I need to address these items:
1. Define social psychology.
2. Analyse the four key characteristics of social psychology as outlined in Social Beings.
3. Explain the concept of Situationism and the role that it plays in social psychology.
4. Identify the five core social motives and explain how they affect the field of social psychology.

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Solution Summary

The foundations of social psychology are given. The four key characteristics of social psychology as outlined in social being are given.

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Social psychology takes the insights of social and political philosophy and brings them to the level of a social science. This concept should be understood broadly. It's main themes, as referenced in Fiske are: life context, moral judgements (positive or negative) and the foundation, but the four social motives are:

Understanding:
This is essential because it requires a basic and general unity. For a society to be a society (rather than a random heap of human beings), it must have a basic sense of linguistic, ethnic and moral unity, broadly speaking. Without these, there is no society, no communication and no agreement. Discussion and debate are impossible because core commonalities are absent.

Control:
It is assumed here that the mind demands a connection between motivation and consequence. This is naive, since, as mentioned already, all is context and communication. It is very difficult to tell what will the long term consequences be of any action or effort. This connection assumes that our internal motivations and ideas will be interpreted by those we are trying to influence in exactly the same way as we see them. Community and commonality are essential for this to even remotely be possible.

Self concept:
There has to be some rudimentary self esteem. People that are trying to influence things must have a sense of self and purpose. They must have a sense of self worth. This is consistent with humility or arrogance. In both cases, self-esteem is at the root. Those with superiority complexes and those who see themselves as inferior behave in the exact same way, though motivations differ (hence, the problem with Control). The superior behave in a way that continually justifies their perceived superiority. Those who feel themselves inferior behave in the same way, to act differently than their internal feelings to compensate for them.

Trust:
This is an aspect of community and social life. Without important, yet general, commonalities, there can be no trust. Strangers do not trust one another unless then can see themselves manifest in the stranger (who is not really a stranger). Hispanics and whites might not trust each other as such, but when the white person reveals that he is Polish Catholic, there is then a significant commonality between the Pole and the Peruvian. This is essential.
These are all aspects of belonging. This implies that human beings are naturally social. Congregation for safety, significance or social change is needed and an aspect of human nature. Human nature might be fixed, but it does not manifest itself identically relative to context and the nature of the commonalities that are stressed.

As for the field as such, four characteristics can be ...

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