Social Psychology - Future Trends

What is Social Psychology and what are the future trends of Social Psychology from 2010 and beyond?
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Answer : Social Psychology is the scientific study of how we think about, influence and relate to one another.

The aim of social psychology, according to Psychologist Aronson, is to make life better, is to solve problems… better ethics in researches such as "remaining vigilant against their abuse..."

Future trends of social psychology, in my opinion, will be more integrated due to cross-cultural researches, with better equipments and with better ethics in researches which make researches more safe (less painful) and real in the tests.

Culture or even multiculturalism plays an important role in the future trends…


According to a Social Psychologist, David Matsumoto (1999), he claims that culture itself plays a very important role that forms an understanding of life which influences most of the decisions that are made everyday. For instance, the food we consume, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in, and the technology we use. Although we do not really see culture itself but it is manifested in the lives of the people. (Matsumoto, 1993)

Although culture changes over time (E.g.: Change in technology, fashion, etc…), but the manifestation could still be visible over the lives of the people.

Multiculturalism plays a role in future trends as it allows social psychologists to tests their hypotheses over many groups of people to understand whether the principles apply across different cultures. Through cross-cultural researches, social psychologists could run researches from one culture and compare them with researches over another culture. Hence, we will be able to see whether the principles work for all cultures (universal) or just for a few cultural specifics or probably just one…

Moreover, there is a new term called “Omniculturalism”. To simply put, it means mixed marriages. Through cross-cultural marriages, it gives social psychologists more data as in how couples understand each other through their different cultures. However, I argue that omniculturalism will probably start yet another culture.

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Another Answer :
With increasing globalization, the fundamental differences in the cultural boundaries may lead to inter-cultural misunderstandings with adverse results in the context of psychological studies. The tradition, local wisdom and diversity should be also considered in the contextualization. For example, American represents 5% of the world population but research findings are generalized to all tribes in the world.


Technological Innovation brings on new measurement tools. The results can be produced from more precise measurement, faster information processing and analysis.Moreover, sophisticated experimental methodology can be formulated to improve the accuracy and reliability of the study. e.g PET Scan about brain’s reaction. However, it can not be used in large scale.

Explanations for certain behavior may include biological, culture, environmental, and religion influences. The multidisciplinary professionals have to join together to achieve more affirmative result, which are more generally accepted.

E.g

1) Is friendship in cyber-world better?

2) Eating more colorants or preservatives make this generation more aggressive?


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Another Answer : Interesting questions. Is friendship in cyber-world better?

Not sure. I understand that face book, twitter and blogs allow for a sense of connectedness with people. I know the lost are found, and reunions are made. But I wonder at what level is the friendship. It has a rather 'famousness, I am in the spotlight, look at me' flavour to it. Do people really care that you just went to X restaurant or bought a new pair of shoes. Over stated but you get my point. Is that really 'friendship?'

I struggle with the publicness of these forums. In friendship, there should be some privacy and these forms seem to make that a challenge. I understand these forums have their place. I enjoy Blackberry messaging with my friend in the US, but nothing beats sitting down with a cup of coffee having a heart to heart.


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Another Answer : Very good questions asked..

1) Is friendship in cyber-world better?


I agree that face to face talk is better...as we can not only catch verbal cues but body language as well. Talking over cyber is quite dangerous as one moment you are talking to a person, next moment, that person may be a different guy :P



2) Eating more colorants or preservatives make this generation more aggressive? That's so true...personally, i am into natural ingredients...nothing beats nature. But in HK, everything is fast...so eating cup noodles is better than home-cook food if career is placed as first priority.


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Another Answer:

For the future trend of social psychology, I will consider two subjects: one is the world wide web platform that creates a complete new environment and group of users (for example, otaku culture in Japan), the other one is globalization that allows integration of ideas and culture through a global network.
Both of the two factors facilitate potential new area for research in social psychology. The first one relates to the individuals of research while the second one relates to ideas and thoughts of research in new social situations.

In cyber world, we are now reaching the era of "Web 2.0", which is a platform emphasis on web-based communities, generating products such as social-networking sites, facebook, discussion forum, blogs…etc. It emphasizes on interaction among users. Under the influence of World Wide Web, newly, even unexpected, groups of people will emerge in the coming near future. Such group of users will share the same interest and behavior from different regions rather than from specific region or geographic location.

This phenomenon has made research on social psychology both easier and harder. It is easier because there are fewer boundaries in connecting with people and also we can make use of facilities provides by the web platform to perform research, for example, some organizations are now practicing online therapy and counseling service. On the other hand, it is harder because we can hide our identity from the computer. If we use Internet channel as our research method, it is a hard task to get reliable data and resources. Even when we are doing online therapy, we may have to adjust our technique that used to be since the users on Internet do own specific language and behavior, for example netiquette, Internet slang and shorthand.

Globalization enables us to view the world as a globe village. It may contribute to integration of ideas and thought or, provoke conflicts between people. Social conflict will raise problem among people in developed countries and especially in metropolitan cities.

We are now in the transition of old content and methodology to the new one. Not only in the field of social psychology is facing challenge, but also many scientific research in different disciplines need to re-shape and re-evaluated their view to our world.

If I have to describe the future trend in short, I will say “change.” We may change the orientation of social psychology from human and human to human and computer. However, almost certainly, this will be an exciting future to emerge.