Introduction

Social Psychology is a scientific discipline that mainly focuses on studying how their social circles influence people's psychological variables such as their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The discipline was realized even before the 20^th century, for example, by the Islamic philosopher Al-Farabi but its practice and the use of modern social psychology mainly began in the 20^th century. Contemporary Social Psychology was established primarily in the United States of America after the Second World War. The discipline majorly plays a significant role in creating an understanding of the social-psychological causes and the main motives of the humans and their behaviors in their social groups. Considerably, any discipline is mainly backed by theories, concepts, and models which are attributed as the key aspects which facilitate further researches and creates the ability to understand any given discipline (Myers, 2013, 24). This paper thus discusses the major concepts, models, and theories of the discipline that include the attributed method. It further discusses the historical influences in the field, which includes works and ancient philosophers and how they relate to the current theories, models, and concepts.

Part A: Major Theories, Models and Concepts in Social Psychology

Concepts

The discipline majorly concentrates on the interconnection of three significant aspects of human behavior, mental states, and social interactions. Social Psychology as a discipline majorly focuses on examining and creating an understanding of the factors or elements that causes the human behaviors to unfold in specific ways under the presence of their social groups that include friends and their community (Walter, 2017, 864). Considerably, social psychologists aim at creating an understanding and explaining the human behavior resulting from their social interactions or situations and their mental states that include their attitudes towards various aspects of the society.

Theories:

Attributed Theory

The attributed theory was a model invented by Fritz Heider in the early 20th century though it was later advanced by Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner then in the century. This theory, which is within the field concentrates on how people describe or explain the behaviors of others within their groups or intergroup (Martinko, 2019, 524). The theory is mainly categorized into two. In the first category, people use their reasoning to create an understanding of the internal states, which include goals and future aspirations and the behavior of others. Secondly, people use the differences and regularities which are attributed to causing certain events, for example, their surrounds and events like weather to understand people's behaviors, for example, their personal traits and their attitudes.

Self-perception Theory

In this theory, people attribute others behaviors and attitudes by observing them within their groups or the inter groups. This includes how the people being perceived act in particular situations. The theory which was created by psychologist Daryl Bern, therefore, attributes people's behaviors to their personal traits and attitudes in that people are capable of inducing specific reactions to without necessarily accessing their internal cognition or their moods (Kyle, 2018, 363). In theory, Bern mainly suggested that people interpret their behaviors rationally in a similar way they explain the acts of others within their social groups.

The social identity theory mainly resulted from the works of Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1960s and 1970s, respectively. The approach is considered the most significant and extensive theory within the social psychology discipline used in analyzing groups and intergroup in the classification of behaviors (Michael, 2016, 5). The theory is thus attributed to the identification of people's social identification, their evaluation, and definition of themselves and the members of their social groups. This includes the identification of people's behaviors such as discriminative, competitive, cooperative, prejudice, or stereotyping.

Cognitive dissonance

This is categorized as the most common theory within the field and its study in modern social psychology. The theory which was introduced by Leon Festinger in his work A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957) mainly aims at explaining a variety of ordinary and the extraordinary events in our social lives. Festinger stated that people are prone to experience mental discomforts which are attributed to the person having two or more contradictory aspects, for example, their values, ideas or their beliefs (Chang, 2016, 268). Considerably, the theory attributes the mental discomforts to the person's feelings or values being contradictory to the new evidence on the same situation that differs from their beliefs or their values. The theory thus unveils the social differences while aiming at creating an understanding of the reasons why certain conditions occur, thus enabling people to develop future predictions.

Attachment Theory

The theory aims at explaining the dynamics of long term and short term interpersonal relationship in humans. The attachment theory is considered a general approach within the social psychology discipline since it encompasses interpersonal relationships, which are a common aspect of the behavioral identification of humans. The theory which was developed by John Bowlby explains the evolutions of bonds, the development of relationships, and the implication of the bonds which are attributed to the evolutionary pressures (Zeifman, 2019, 141). The attachment theory was developed from the tendency of human infants developing attachments to their caregivers while growing up and the contributions of the relationships in the success in their social and emotional development and majorly facilitating the ability of the infants to regulate their behaviors during their tender ages and even in their adulthood.

The Drive Theory

The drive theory mainly analyzes, defines, and classifies the psychological drives and their contributions to human behavior. Developed by psychologists Clark Hull and Kenneth Spence, the theory primarily concentrates on the psychological aspects that motivate people to act or relate in a certain way to others. This was an extension of the attachment theory since it mainly focused on explaining the early drive-in attachments of the infants and their caregivers. The theory thus concludes that humans are born with innate drives which are majorly psychological for example thirst, hunger, fear which due to their inability to orally communicate them can only be reduced or responded to by their caregivers. Considerably, through their drives and attention from their caregivers, they learn to interact with their caregivers in order to reduce their drives and bond. Thus infants depend on their psychological drives in their social interactions.

Part B: Historical Influences of Social Psychology

Secondly, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also played a major role historically in ‘influencing the modern-day Social Psychology. Hegel, who lived between 1770 and 1831 was a German philosopher who played a major role in the modern political situation of the country through his model of German idealism (Kivela, 2017, 76). Through his idealism theory, he stated that society inevitably provides links for the development of the human mind. This introduced the idea of a group mind, which is the most important study in social Psychology in understanding the influence of groups and intergroup in human behaviors and attitudes.

Philosophers Lazarus and Steinthal also contributed to the development of the social psychology discipline through their idea of a collective mind. The two emphasized the notion that a person’s character is mainly developed due to the cultural and community influences in their lives. Considerably, the community or and the cultural values and beliefs, especially the language expectation of the community is implemented in the early lives of the children and adopted to their later stages in life. This encourages a person to have a specific perspective on some world view issues. The idea further encourages people to have specific social thoughts on other individuals. Their idea led to the creation of researches on cultural influences such as the language and its influence on social beings, which contributed to the development of the social psychology discipline.

Additionally, works of McDougall in his book An Introduction to Social Psychology in 1908 laid a foundation for future researchers to conduct more methodological studies in the field developing modern-day social psychology. This was the first English book published in the field. In his work, McDougall, which consisted of chapters such as sentiment and emotions, morality, character, and religion, he believed that social behavior in humans was innate. As much as his beliefs are no longer upheld in the modern social psychology, his beliefs encouraged thorough research in creating an understanding and learning the influence of the social interactions by a human in determining their behavior, attitudes and personality traits (William, 2013, 23).

Considerably, Allport’s work of 1924 extensively underpins modern social psychology to a greater extent compared to other works in the same period. In his work, Allport believed that social behavior in humans results from the interactions with other people within society.

Through his methodological studies, he considered the field as a science discipline. He introduced the study of the behavior of people in stimulating other individuals and as the primary influencer on the behavior of others (William, 2016, 34). His works concentrated insignificant issues which are relatable to the modern social psychology field, which include aspects of emotions and the effects of an audience on others within the same group.

Conclusion

Modern social psychology is as a result of initial ideas developed by writers and psychologists on social interactions and their influence on people's behavior. The scientific discipline mainly focuses on creating an understanding of how the psychological variables such as thoughts and feelings are influenced by people's social interactions. Through-out the years and primarily in the 20^th century, many theories or models have been introduced in creating an understanding of the field. This includes the significant theories of; cognitive dissonance, social identity theory, self-perception theory, attributed theory and the attachment theory which majorly create an understanding of how social interactions contribute to people's perception of others and their own judgments in life. Considerably, modern social psychology could not have been a success without the intuitive studies in the ancient centuries. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato who were the Greek philosophers created a foundation for the discipline through their works in understanding how the social aspects such as political control of a state enabled people to act in a certain way.

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