Social psychologists agree that the research findings in the field can be very helpful when they are applied to our own lives (Nelson A., 2017). Social psychology can be used in different areas of our lives such as, our way of thinking, relationships (personal and professional), physical and mental health etc. At the center of all these, it’s human social cognitive system interacting with everyday situations. What are some ways that we can use applied social psychology to better our everyday lives? I am sure that we all can work on ourselves and improve different areas of our lives. Some of us have relationship issues, whether personal or professional and we can always use findings from applied social psychology research to improve the said relationships. I had mentioned Social cognitive system initially and how it interacts with our everyday real situations which brings me to the question of what is Social Cognition?
Social cognition means the process of thinking about ourselves and other people. According to Allport (1985) social cognition is a major idea in social psychology attempting to understand how our thoughts, personal feelings and behavior of individuals are all influenced by the actual, imagined and or implied presence of others (Nelson A., 2017). Our minds are designed for hot action-oriented cognition rather than cold. What that means is that, it’s better to think less and act quickly in an emergency rather than analyzing the situation and risk the consequences of not responding swiftly. The “hot and “cold” action-oriented cognition is another example of a basic characteristic of human cognition that I personally find very interesting. It has been proven that applied social psychology can be used to better our relationships with others. Some of us have issues with our personal relationships, whether it be with our significant others, siblings or our boss and associates at work.
Given how critical our personal relationships are to our happiness, how we can improve the quality of all our relationships? Based on research evidence five practices can be used to nurture our personal relationship with our significant others. According to research listening to our partner we validate their importance to us and increasing the relationship bond with him or her. Compliment is also very important in our relationships, and it increases the closeness of our relationship with our partner. It is very important to notice our spouse and telling her or him what we have noticed shows our interest and can enhance our relationship bond. One thing that we want to steer clear of is social comparison. Social comparison can be very toxic to our happiness, so when we see someone excelling at work for example, we would want to celebrate and congratulate them on their achievements. Lastly, we need to unplug and spend more time with our partner. According to research we spend average of 53 hours a week plugged in to some sort of device (Holder M., 2017).
According to social psychology jealousy is a major issue in our personal relationships and one thing that causes jealousy is attraction. While we have learned that opposites attract, that is only true in short term relationships. In long term relationships, we tend to look for a partner that is like ourselves. In social psychology that is explained as similar-to-me-effect. An example of this effect can be seen not only in our personal lives but it is evident that it also exists in our workplace as well. The “Similar to Me” effect refers to a well-researched tendency of interviewers and supervisors to favor those individuals who are similar to them. Put simply, people are attracted to candidates with similar senses of humor, similar conversational styles, even similar physical appearances (Cliff H., 2011).
In conclusion, it is safe to say that applied social psychology is used in our everyday lives. According to Social Cognition our thoughts and personal feelings and behavior of individuals are all influenced by the actual, imagined and or implied presence of others. Moreover, we tend to use social psychology to better our personal relationships in our personal and professional lives. For example, the evidence of similar-to-me-effect can be seen almost everywhere from workplaces to our personal individual lives. when people must think about how to communicate with another person it becomes a cognitive drain or overload that makes the relationship more work than it is possibly worth. It is more common than not to see those with knowledge of applied social psychology use what they’ve learned from research and studies to better their personal and professional lives.
References
Allport, A. (1985). The historical background of social psychology. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.). Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, 3rd ed., pp. 1-46). New York: Random House.
Cliff H., Weddedness, (2011, October 7). Similar to Me. Retrieved April 8, 2017, from www.weddedness.com
Holder M., Psychology Today, (2017, February 5). Five Simple Steps to Better Relationships. Retrieved April 8, 2017, from www.psychologytoday.com
Nelson, A. (2017). Lesson 12. Applied social psychology: Relationships / Everyday life. Presented on the PSYCH 424 course content site lecture at the Pennsylvania State University.