Similarities And Differences Between Psychology And Sociology

Social psychology and sociology, can you tell the difference between the two? Even if we can think that they are the same thing, they are nevertheless two different areas. On the other hand, we know that social psychology and sociology share certain elements in their definition and that the birth of one depended, in part, on that of the other. In the beginning, there was only sociology and psychology. Part of psychology has been interested in social and group processes, and this is how social psychology was born. This is why the names are linked. Social psychology is born from the integration of psychology with sociology.

Sociology, on the other hand, is also interested in the individual processes studied by psychology. The interaction between subjects and their environment has become an object of reflection for sociologists, thus moving away from other macro-sociological approaches. Therefore, it can be said that one has had a great influence on the other – and vice versa – in the evolution of both because their evolution is largely common.

Today, the two fields of knowledge, in their evolution, have leaned towards specialization. Each has invested its efforts in ever more specific and particular aspects; as a result, both ended up isolating themselves. Thus, sociologists have focused on macro-type variables, such as social structure (Bourdieu, 1998) or migrations (Castles, 2003), while social psychology has focused on micro variables such as group identity (Tajfel and Turner, 2005) or influence (Cialdini, 2001).

It is necessary to emphasize that the two sciences share a common object of study: human behavior. However, social psychology is said to be a branch of psychology which studies how the environment directly or indirectly influences the conduct and behavior of humans (Allport, 1985). For its part, sociology is a social science devoted to the systematic study of society, social action and the groups which form it (Furfey, 1953). You could say that the two study the relationships between people, but from different perspectives.

The fact that each has its height in different places means that one can enrich the other, just as the differences between the two are accentuated. One of the main differences between the two is that psychology studies the effect of the social on the individual, while sociology focuses on collective phenomena in themselves. In other words, social psychology studies human behavior at the individual level and sociology at the group level.

The ultimate goal of social psychology is the analysis of the interaction between the individual and society (Moskovici and Markova, 2006). These interaction processes take place at different levels, which generally break down into intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup and intergroup processes.

In short, processes between people and between groups. In the area of interpersonal processes, the differences between people, we study the processing of information and the way this information is used within groups. As for intergroup processes, between groups, the emphasis is on the study of the role of groups in the construction of the identity of people.

Social psychology takes social phenomena greatly into account, but does not focus its study on them. Instead, she analyzes how these social phenomena affect the individual. Social psychology is responsible for understanding how the majority of individuals are affected by social factors, regardless of individual differences in personality.

Sociology, in its research, studies how the organizations and institutions that shape the social structure are created, maintained or changed (Tezanos, 2006). In turn, she also studies the effect that different social structures have on the behavior of groups and individuals; and the changes that occur in these structures as a cause of social interactions (Lucas Marin, 2006).

In other words, in the words of Richard Osborne (2005), “ sociology is about explaining something that seems obvious (how our society works) to people who believe it is simple and who do not understand how. how complicated it is in reality ”. The actions that we perform on a daily basis have explanations that we would never have thought of.

If social psychology and sociology have representatives who number in the thousands, some have stood out and stood out from the crowd. Unable to do credit to all the great researchers who have left their mark, in the rest of this article, we present to you some of the theories and methods that two of the most famous representatives of the two fields, and which will help you understand the differences between the two sciences:

• Pierre Bourdieu (1998) is known, among others, for having introduced the concept of habitus. According to him, habitus is a set of patterns through which we perceive the world and act within it. Habit has a great influence on our thoughts, perceptions and actions. Habitus becomes the fundamental dimension which explains social class, which is integrated from its own characteristic habits. It is the actions that we perform that place us in one social class or another.

• Henri Tajfel, with John Turner (2005), developed the theory of social identity. According to this theory, through categorization processes, we end up identifying with groups whose norms will modulate our behavior. The greater the identification with a group, the more we will be willing to follow the norms of that group, and even to sacrifice ourselves to maintain them.

While Bourdieu proposes that the patterns from which we perceive the world will determine our behavior, for Tajfel, belonging to a group will be the one that will determine our behavior, since we will seek to protect the norms of this group. As we said before, social psychology and sociology study the same thing, but from different points of view.

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Discover one of the fascinating branches of psychology: social psychology. Did you know that our environment influences our behavior …