1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias In sociology, social psychology (also known as sociological social psychology) studies the relationship between the individual and society.
Researchers broadly focus on higher levels of analysis, directing attention mainly to groups and the arrangement of relationships among people.
[9] The contemporary notion of symbolic interactionism originates from the work of George Herbert Mead and Max Weber.
The latter two theories, in particular, focus on the ways in which actions control mental states, which demonstrates the underlying cybernetic nature of the approach that is also evident in Mead's writings.
Stemming from the Chicago School, process symbolic interactionism considers the meanings that underlie social interactions to be situated, creative, fluid, and often contested.
Postmodern symbolic interactionism, which understands the notion of self and identity as increasingly fragmented and illusory, considers attempts at theory to be meta-narrative with no more authority than other conversations.
Some studies assess emotional variations, especially in happiness versus alienation and anger, among individuals in different structural positions.
Structural social psychology makes greater use of formal theories with explicitly stated propositions and scope conditions, to specify the intended range of application.
For example, social exchange theories have been used to predict human behavior in romantic relationships by taking into account each actor's subjective sense of cost (e.g., financial dependence), benefit (e.g. attraction, chemistry, attachment), and comparison level of alternatives (e.g. whether or not there are any viable alternative mates available).
In order to determine everyone else's relative ability and assign rank accordingly, such members use one's membership in social categories (e.g. race, gender, age, education, etc.
Although exhibiting dominant behaviors and, for example, belonging to a certain race has no direct connection to actual ability, implicit cultural beliefs about who possesses how much social value will drive group members to "act as if" they believe some people have more useful contributions than others.
One specific researcher in the field, Erving Goffman, claims that humans tend to believe that they are actors on a stage, which he explains in the book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.