What is social psycholgy?

Social psychology is the area of psycholog ythat investigates the ways in which individuals create and interpret social situations and is study of ways in which thoughts, feelings, perceptions,motives and behavior are influenced by interactions and transactions between people.

What is cognition?

Oxford explains: action or process of acquiring knowledge by reasoning or intuition or through the senses

Bing dictionary says: the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses.

What is relationship?

Oxford explains: first,  the way in which  people , groups or countries behave towards each other or deal with each other. second, the way in which two or more things are connected, third, a loving or sexual friendship between two people.

'Social cognition and relationship' means understanding these two concepts in the realm of society.

'Imagine circumstances in which you 've done everything to get to a job interview on time, but nothing has gone your way. The electricity went off during the night so your alarm didn't wake you up. The friend who was supposed to give you a ride  had a flat tire. When you tried to get money for a taxi, the ATM ate your card. When you finally get to the office, you know what the manager is thinking: why would I give a job to someone this unreliable? You want to protest: It's not me, it's the circumstances'- from <psychology and life>

Among all the rough luck above, electricity going off will not bring about a hitch to the alarm which has been triggered by smartphone at present. I guess everyone has got a smartphone to kick off the alarm every morning.

When we have contemplated this scenario, we have begun to enter the world of social psychology-the area that investigates the ways in which individuals create and interpret social situations. 

Individuals are creating social situation almost every minute , but the ways in which they interpret are varying wildly in multiple dimensions. Now let us be more precise about the definition of social psychology- the study of ways in which thoughts, feelings, perceptions, motives and behavior are influenced by interactions and transactions between people.

It's easy to know what are thoughts, feelings, motives and behavior, but what is perception? Oxford explains: way of seeing or understanding something.

Social psychologists try to understand behavior within its social context.

What is social context? It is the vibrant canvas on which are painted the movements, strengths and vulnerabilities of the social animals. If defined broadly, the social context includes the real, imagined or symbolic presence of other people; the activities and interactions that are taking place between people; the features of the settings in which behavior occurs; and the expectation and norms that govern behavior in a given setting(Sherif 1981).

However, entering AI era might have included more social context featuring robots, a forthcoming symbolic presence of real persons.

Let's turn to social psychology which is the process by which people select, interpret and remember social information. Take the Huawei crisis and the intensifying trade battle between the U.S and China for instance. This incident of arrest of a top Huawei excutive with second identity of  this tech giant's founder's daughter has gripped worldwide attention. People from diverse culture and backgrounds would select and interpret the information in various ways.

First, we exmine the ways in which people construct social reality and the ways in which attitudes are formed and changed. After the CFO of Huawei has been arrested, the nationality and the number of passports which she had been holding during the transfer remained unknown to public.It brought about enormous speculations through constructing social reality.  After their own version of stories have been remembered, attitudes towards this leading technology company are formed and consequently changed.

Among all the attitudes, prejudice plays a crucial role in affecting people's behavior. We need to consider the circumstances of prejudice in which beliefs and attitudes have distressing consequences for social interactions. Prejudice against gay marriage, women, colored race has kept roiling every corner of the world.

Finally, we consider the relationship of loving and liking.

Throught this chapter, we illustrate how research in social psychology has immediate applications to our lives and in next chapter, we will extend our analysis of social psycholgy's relevance beyond personal to societal concerns.

Philip promotes in the book 'abstract theory meets the stern test of practicality' aimed at answering  the question: Does psychological knowledge make a difference in the everyday lives of people and society?