Why Social Psychology?

[quick1]

I've noticed that this forum seems to have a large number of Social Psychology students (and hopeful students). It always seemed to me that Social Psych programs were some of the smallest programs, I expected to see far more Clinical Psych people floating around this forum as it is often touted as the "most competitive" and "most applicants applying in a given year" section of psychology.

I remember I initially wanted to get involved in Social Psych but started drifting more towards Clinical/Counseling Psych. As I moved more towards these areas I began to feel like I wanted to make a direct impact on clinicians practicing in the field (if not practice myself at times) and it seemed like these two areas of Psych help one do that.

Many of my professors in my Masters program are PhDs in Clinical or Counseling Psych and always talk (and through their actions) about how they teach, practice, and supervise in addition to sometimes writing professionally on the subject of practice.

Don't get me wrong, people are fascinating and human behavior is amazing to learn more about but I've always wondered what the drive was to get into Social Psych as it seems limited to teaching or researching (both fun) but seems distant from impacting the direct practice of psychology.

It's kind of like how chemists and biologists research medications, make them, and educate pharmacists on how to dispense and explain them...the pharmacists are consumers of these researchers' work. Or medical doctors who gain knowledge through researchers and educators. Practicing psychologists are often the consumers of Clinical/Counseling researchers (and many do both) like how to deal with this disorder or that pathology, new techniques, etc.

I suppose Social Psych research work could inspire new interventions, theories, and so forth but then you see so many studies that are things like "Having sex reduces stress," "Studies show that studying before a test improves test taker's ability to get higher grades," or " People who have jobs are less likely to be depressed than those without jobs." I guess I mean there seems to be a lot of "no duh" studies out there among the nuggets of really groundbreaking stuff.

But who are the consumers of Social Psych work?

( I don't mean to offend or anything, I'm just extremely curious how Social Psych plays a role in the application of Psychology. I'm very practical application oriented, I want to do work and research where a direct impact on the field is realized, especially on the clinical practitioner level.)

[stereopticons]

A big problem in social psych is that researchers have a tendency to publish their results in journals and leave it at that, so that the only people who consume the research are other researchers. There are a lot of findings in social psych that could have applications in policy and education, they just never get there. Part of the reason I want to go in to social psych is to try to change this.

[watson]

Hahah well, I originally thought I wanted to go clinical...until I realized I hated the idea of ever having to be a therapist!!!! I really have no drive to provide therapy for people. And I wasn't interested in studying "abnormal" behavior--that is the big difference. Social psychologists study what happens in the typical person, rather than disorders, so we actually see it as more broadly applicable. Plus, another difference is if your interests lie at the group or individual level.

For example, I study stereotyping/prejudice/intergroup relations. Pretty direct policy/education applications come out of my work, and it studies an issue that affects people on both the individual and group level. I do a lot of basic research, but I also do research on interventions which is super applied. Plus, my goal is to work in the government, so my research and background will ultimately end up being in a very applied sense, just on the group level again rather than the individual level.

Honestly, based on your examples of social psych studies, I think you probably have a fairly limited exposure to work that most social psychologists do these days, as those studies are not something we'd think is an acceptably worthwhile study to run in your first semester of grad school. Studies usually start at the 2x2 level and most people are more interested in big real world social issues. But even older ones are more interesting than what you seem to think! Milgram experiment! Stanford Prison Experiment! Asch conformity studies! Bystander effect studies! Those are all non-intuitive, social psych studies that had big impact on the field and led to some pretty applied recommendations. Just not for the applied practice of therapy, which is not what all of psychology is.

Edited February 24, 2012 by watson

[Behavioral]

It's kind of like how chemists and biologists research medications, make them, and educate pharmacists on how to dispense and explain them..

You do realize that pharma-scientists are only a tiny sub-sample of the biosci field, right?

There's always a need for basic science research before it can be translated to applied settings. Without Social Psychology, there is no Clinical Psychology (as we know it today); there is no Marketing or Consumer Behavior (again, as we know it today). Even tracing it back further, without cognitive psychology, there is no social psychology, and so on.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Behavioral

[quick1]

A big problem in social psych is that researchers have a tendency to publish their results in journals and leave it at that, so that the only people who consume the research are other researchers. There are a lot of findings in social psych that could have applications in policy and education, they just never get there. Part of the reason I want to go in to social psych is to try to change this.

I think that's what bothers me about social psych and even other academic disciplines. It's a lot of research and publishing but only within the community of fellow researchers and publishers. That's awesome you want to push more of the social psych research into applied settings because it can be helpful.

Hahah well, I originally thought I wanted to go clinical...until I realized I hated the idea of ever having to be a therapist!!!! I really have no drive to provide therapy for people. And I wasn't interested in studying "abnormal" behavior--that is the big difference. Social psychologists study what happens in the typical person, rather than disorders, so we actually see it as more broadly applicable. Plus, another difference is if your interests lie at the group or individual level.

For example, I study stereotyping/prejudice/intergroup relations. Pretty direct policy/education applications come out of my work, and it studies an issue that affects people on both the individual and group level. I do a lot of basic research, but I also do research on interventions which is super applied. Plus, my goal is to work in the government, so my research and background will ultimately end up being in a very applied sense, just on the group level again rather than the individual level.

Honestly, based on your examples of social psych studies, I think you probably have a fairly limited exposure to work that most social psychologists do these days, as those studies are not something we'd think is an acceptably worthwhile study to run in your first semester of grad school. Studies usually start at the 2x2 level and most people are more interested in big real world social issues. But even older ones are more interesting than what you seem to think! Milgram experiment! Stanford Prison Experiment! Asch conformity studies! Bystander effect studies! Those are all non-intuitive, social psych studies that had big impact on the field and led to some pretty applied recommendations. Just not for the applied practice of therapy, which is not what all of psychology is.

I do some clinical therapy work now at the MA level and think it's really great. I hope to be able to do research that benefits the practice of psychology. I didn't think I'd like the front line work with clients but it's been a great experience and really helped to shape some of my interests. That said I tend to look up to those professors who do what I call the trifecta of work: teach, counsel, research. All three interact with one another and working in one informs the other two areas I think.

You're correct though, I am limited in my experience with social psych and research in that area. I'd love to see more of the work like you are doing get applied to policy, theory, and so forth. I realize it can be broadly applied and I appreciate you shedding some light on what goes on behind the scenes in these programs, esp a top program like Northwestern. I think there is a lot of misconception about what goes on and where the real world impact of the research is felt. It's good to know more researchers are working to take what they've studied and put it to applications.

You do realize that pharma-scientists are only a tiny sub-sample of the biosci field, right?

There's always a need for basic science research before it can be translated to applied settings. Without Social Psychology, there is no Clinical Psychology (as we know it today); there is no Marketing or Consumer Behavior (again, as we know it today). Even tracing it back further, without cognitive psychology, there is no social psychology, and so on.

I totally agree that marketing and consumer behavior psychology wouldn't exist without social psych. I hadn't considered that! I'm not sure so much that social psychology led to clinical psychology and I wonder if cognitive psychology grew out of social psychology. After all social behavior, social views, etc were studied and able to be studied without a complete understanding of the cognitive processes and brain itself. As technology progressed it seemed cognitive psychology could develop to explain the cognitive processes and chemical reactions in the brain as they related to the results found from social psych research.

[watson]

Behavioral is correct--as we understand them today, cognitive predates social, and social predates clinical. These days each branch influences the others (e.g., social borrows cognitive methods, clinical borrows social theory, clinical problems like stress are investigated in social labs to see the impact of situation to improve social theory...etc etc etc). Cognitive does not necessarily = neuro. In fact, most cognitive work has no neuro component. I could go into detail, but when I started to I realized I was basically reiterating an entire course on the history of psychology, so suffice to say they are different. Indeed, most departments have a cognitive area, and a separate area for more neuro-focused research (NU calls it BBC, the first B standing for 'brain').

In general, social psych is theory-focused, but a good number of people do applied social psych (some schools actually have dedicate applied social psych degrees).

[crazygirl2012]

I was hesitant to try social, but I began to explore it because I was interested in clinical topics (like disordered eating and substance abuse) in subclinical populations. Social psychology is a very broad field. For example, I'm entering grad school to study college adjustment. The social environment has an enormous impact on the type of behavior that can (but usually does not) become a clinical disorder. In social psychology, I can study the same behavior as it applies to more people. That line of research can directly influence policy decisions. Some social psychology research is clearly applicable, but I agree that plenty of it is not.