Unit VI. Social Psychology

Task 1. Read and translate the text “Social Psychology”:

Social Psychology

Social psychology is the study of how social conditions affect human beings. Scholars in this field are generally either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis. Despite their similarity, the disciplines also tend to differ in their respective goals, approaches, methods and terminology. They also favour separate academic journals and societies.

Social psychology is an interdisciplinary area. The greatest period of collaboration between sociologists and psychologists was during the years immediately following World War II. Although there has been increasing isolation and specialization in recent years, some degree of overlap and influence remains between the two disciplines.

Most social psychologists are trained within psychology. Their approach to the field focuses on the individual and attempts to explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of individual are influenced by other people. Psychologically oriented researchers emphasize the immediate social situation, and the interaction between person and situation variables. Their research tends to be highly empirical and quantitative, and it is often centered around laboratory experiments.

Psychologists who study social psychology are interested in such topics as attitudes, social cognition, cognitive dissonance, social influence, and interpersonal behaviour such as altruism and aggression. Two influential journals for the publication of research in this area are the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. There are also many other general and specialized social psychology journals.

A significant number of social psychologists are sociologists. Their work has a greater focus on the behaviour of the group, and thus examines such phenomena as interactions and exchanges at the micro-level, group dynamics and development, and crowds at the macro-level. Sociologists are interested in the individual, but primarily within the context of larger social structures and processes, such as social roles, race and class, and socialization. They use a combination of qualitative research designs and highly quantitative methods, including procedures of sampling and surveys.

Sociologists in this area are interested in a variety of demographic, social, and cultural phenomena. Some of their major research areas are social inequality, group dynamics, social change, socialization, social identity, reactance (Boomerang effect), and symbolic interactionism. The key sociological journal is Social Psychology Quarterly (from http://en.wikipedia.org).

Task 2. Translate the words from English into Russian:

1) conditions; 2) to favour; 3) isolation; 4) variables; 5) cognitive dissonance; 6) interaction; 7) social roles; 8) qualitative; 9) social inequality.

Task 3. Match the synonyms:

1. conditions	a. magazine
2. goal	b. circumstances
3. journal	c. to be educated
4. collaboration	d. aim
5. to be trained	e. cooperation

Task 4. Match the antonyms:

1. individual	a. qualitative
2. empirical	b. egoism
3. quantitative	c. specialized
4. general	d. group
5. micro-level	e. macro-level
6. altruism	f. theoretical

Task 5. Match the words and their definitions:

1. sociology	a. a lack of agreement in beliefs or between beliefs and actions
2. dissonance	b. the act or tendency of starting a quarrel, fight or war, especially without just cause
3. altruism	c. a general examination or study of conditions, opinions, etc., especially by asking people questions
4. aggression	d. the scientific study of societies and human behaviour in groups
5. survey	e. consideration of happiness and good of others before one’s own, unselfishness

Task 6. In the text find English equivalents to the following Russian words and word combinations. Write down your own sentences with the English words:

1) ученые; 2) сотрудничество; 3) совпадение, пересечение; 4) количественный; 5) альтруизм; 6) толпа; 7) социализация, подготовка к жизни в коллективе; 8) метод выборки; 9) социальная идентификация.

Task 7. Answer the questions:

1) What does social psychology study?

2) What are the objects of study in social psychology?

3) When was the period of cooperation between social psychologists and sociologists?

4) What does a social psychologist focus on in his studies?

5) What are the problems raised in social psychology?

6) What are the most influential journals for social psychologists?

7) What are the topics studied in sociological psychology?

8) What methods do sociologists use?

9) What is the main sociological journal?

Task 8. Say whether the statements are true or false. Correct the false statements:

1) There are two types of social psychologists: sociologists and parapsychologists.

2) Psychologists and sociologists have the same aims and use the same methodology.

3) Nowadays there is a certain interconnection between social psychology and sociology.

4) Social psychology is centred around theoretical phenomena and does not deal with experiments.

5) There are two journals on social psychology.

6) Sociologists are concerned with group behaviour.

7) Sociological psychologists examine individual at the macro-level.

8) Sociologists make benefit of using such methods as sampling and surveys.

9) Sociologists usually do not study social changes and process of socialization.

Task 9. In the text find the sentences with these words. Translate them into Russian. Write down words of different parts of speech from the following verbs. Check yourself and look through the vocabulary notes:

1) to affect; 2) to favour; 3) to specialize; 4) to centre; 5) to use.

Vocabulary notes:

1) to affect – действовать, воздействовать, поражать (о болезни), трогать, волновать, задевать, затрагивать, притворяться, делать вид; affectation – притворство, жеманство, искусственность (языка); affected – тронутый, задетый, находящийся под влиянием, пораженный болезнью; affection – привязанность, любовь (toward, for); affectionate – любящий, нежный; affective – эмоциональный.

2) to favour – благоволить, оказывать внимание, поддерживать, беречь, оберегать, щадить, быть похожим; a favour – одолжение, любезность, одобрение, пристрастие, польза, интерес, значок, бант; favourable - благоприятный, удобный, симпатизирующий; favoured – привилегированный, благодарный; favourite – любимец, любимая вещь, любимый; favouritism – фаворитизм.

3) to specialize – специализироваться, приспосабливаться, адаптироваться, индивидуализировать; special – специальный, особый, особенный, индивидуальный, экстренный, дополнительный; specialism – специализация; specialist – специалист; speciality – специальность, отличительная черта, особенность, детали, подробности, специальный ассортимент товаров; specialization – специализация; specially – специально, особенно.

4) to centre – помещать в центре, концентрироваться, сосредотачиваться; centre – центр, середина, центральный игрок, центровой; centrepiece – украшение из серебра, хрусталя и т.п. на середине стола; centric – центральный; centrist – центрист; central – расположенный в центре, центральный, главный; centralization – централизация, сосредоточение; to centralize – централизовать.

5) to use – использовать; use – употребление, применение; usable – годный к употреблению, удобный, практичный; usage – обхождение, обращение, обычай, обыкновение, употребление; usance – установленный торговым обычаем срок платежей по иностранным векселям; used – подержанный, старый, отработанный; used to – привыкший; used up – измученный, изнуренный; useful – полезный, пригодный, способный, успешный; useless – бесполезный, в плохом настроении; user – лицо, осуществляющее пользование, пользователь, потребитель.

Task 10. Translate the sentences into Russian, pay attention to the words from task nine:

1) Low pressure affects his cardiovascular system.

2) The news of her leaving affected him greatly.

3) Don’t affect ignorance. I know you are aware of the news.

4) He behaves in a strange way. I think he is affected by some religious organisation, a sect or something.

5) The boy favours his mother.

6) Do me a favour, read this article aloud.

7) He gained his position more by merit than by favour.

8) We wish you favourable wind all through your journey.

9) This book is a great favourite of mine.

10) You should specialize the sphere of your future research project.

11) In summer a lot of people go to the South and railway administration form special trains in that direction.

12) What is your specialization?

13) The discussion centred round one point: What shall the government do to raise pensioners’ income.

14) Stop that harsh usage with your employees!

15) In the North of Scandinavian countries the night lasts for half a year and the day lasts for the rest of the time. It is strange but soon you’ll get used to it.

16) Vegetables are very useful for health.

Task 11. Translate the sentences into English, pay attention to the words and phrases from task nine:

1) Джон Браун попал под дождь, промок и простудился.

2) Экономическая активность Австралии затронула интересы Китая.

3) Обратите внимание на искусственность стиля. Вам нужно заменить тяжеловесные грамматические конструкции на более разговорный вариант, если вы хотите, чтобы ваш доклад имел успех.

4) Власть и деньги – вот предметы его любви.

5) В качестве одолжения он все же передал ее письмо.

6) На ваш запрос получен благоприятный ответ.

7) На юге Франции особенно благоприятный климат для выращивания винограда.

8) Наш специальный корреспондент находится на Северном Полюсе вместе с экспедицией полярников. Он находится в самом центре событий. Сейчас вы увидите его экстренный репортаж.

9) Он известный специалист в области орнитологии. У него более пятисот научных работ опубликованных в специализированных научных изданиях.

10) В канун Нового года магазины пускают в продажу свой специальный новогодний ассортимент.

11) Мы возлагаем все наши надежды на тебя.

12) Где здесь торговый центр? – Прямо за углом.

13) Патифоны вышли из употребления много лет назад.

14) Рынок подержанных автомобилей сокращается в пользу рынка новых машин.

15) Что случилось? Ты выглядишь таким измученным. С тобой все в порядке? – Я чувствую себя отвратительно. Я не спал всю ночь. Мой сосед сверху всю ночь репетировал. Он играл на скрипке до самого утра.

Task 12. Translate Russian words in brackets into English to make the text complete:

Russian (социальная психология) goes back to 1962 when the first (лаборатория социальной психологии) was opened at the psychological faculty of (ленинградского университета). From this point, and (особенно) in recent years, there was a great flow of (литературы) on socio-psychological matter. The number of (переводных изданий) grew rapidly. The authors of these books are from (Западной Европы и США). So there are (многочисленные) articles, monographies and other books on general and (специализированным) topics and problems.

Task 13. Translate an abstract from Russian into English:

Социальная психология – это научное исследование того, о чем люди думают, как они влияют друг на друга и как относятся друг к другу. Социальная психология – дочерняя отрасль социологии и психологии, которая стремится быть более индивидуальной по своему содержанию и более экспериментальной в своих методах, чем другие области социологии. По сравнению с психологией личности, социальная психология менее сосредоточена на различиях между индивидами и более – на том, как люди в общем оценивают друг друга и влияют друг на друга. Социальная психология – экзогенная наука, она выявляет, как социальные условия влияют на поведение.

Task 14. Read an abstract and choose suitable words from the brackets:

The majority of socio-psychological … (studies, study, stadiums) are related either to correlation or to experimental studies. Correlation research … (under cover, coverless, uncovers) interrelations between different … (vary, variables, varies), for example, between the education level and … (income, input, outcome). In correlation research … (science, scientists, scientific) use the method of surveys. While experimenting, social psychologists … (inform, forms, form) situations which affect human emotional … (sphere, spheres, sphinx). In such situations they should follow their professional … (ethnic, enthusiastic, ethic) principles. There are, at least, three of them. First, researchers … (shouldn’t, should, needn’t) receive subjects’ agreement. Second, they should be centred on the rule “do not do … (ham, harmful, harm)”. And third, after the experiment the researchers should reveal any possible temporal … (deceitful, detective, deceit). Social psychologists … (integrate, interact, internet) their ideas and data in the fundamental theoretic works. Laboratory experiments … (helps, help, helpless) to prove ideas which came from everyday life and then to use their … (resultative, resultless, results) in real life.

Task 15. Read and translate the text “Psychology of Crowd”. Choose the best answer to the questions:

Psychology of Crowd

There are different attitudes to the notion of crowd in politics and psychology. From the political point of view, crowds are any protest actions of many people which are not sanctioned by the legislative or executive power. But this is not always true because unsanctioned meetings could be organized, ruled and disciplined. It should be said that human behaviour in a crowd is changeable and is under the influence of sudden or specially prepared circumstances. At any point it can start being irrational.

From the psychological point of view, crowd is a mass of people which is not originally organized or lost organisation, which does not have an aim or lost the goal and which is in the emotionally excited state.

Gustav Lebon is the founder of social psychology. His work “Psychology of Crowd” is the basis of examinations of human crowd’s behaviour. A. Rand and V.M. Behterev also dealt with this problem. G. Spencer supposed that the crowd represents the arithmetic sum or average arithmetic of the individual characters of gathered people. The crowd has a special universal method for people to be involved in it. Each person “acquires” power because of the large number of the gathered people. G. Lebon coined this phenomenon to hypnosis and showed connection between involvement in a crowd and collective unconscious. This idea was further developed by S. Freud.

Questions:

1) Are there different opinions about the phenomenon of a crowd?

1. Yes, there are politic and psychological points of view

2. Yes, there are ideas in police, Parliament and schools

3. No, the notion of crowd is one and the same for different disciplines

2) What is the definition of crowd in politics?

1. crowd is a protest action with a large number of people included

2. crowd is a meeting of unorganized, drunken people

3. crowd is a meeting of protest which is not sanctioned by the administration

3) Are unsanctioned meetings always a crowd?

1. Yes, they are always crowds

2. No, they are always disciplined

3. No, they can be organized

4) What can be said about human behaviour in a crowd?

1. it is changeable under the circumstances

2. it is always irrational

3. it is often ruled by the leaders

5) What is a crowd from psychological point of view?

1. protesting people in the emotionally excited state

2. non-organized, aimless people in an excited state

3. emotionally excited people whose aim is to change some situation

6) Who is Gustav Lebon?

1. the founder of sociological psychology

2. the creator of sociographic psychology

3. the pioneer of the social psychology

7) What is the title of Lebon’s book?

1. Psychology of a Crowd

2. Psychology of Crowd

3. Social Psychology of Crowd

8) Who also worked in the field of social psychology?

1. A. Rand, V.M. Behterev, G. Spencer

2. A. Rand, B.M. Behterev, G. Spencer

3. A. Rand. V.M. Behterev, J. Spencer

9) What are G. Spencer’s ideas about a crowd?

1. average arithmetic of individual characters forms the hyper-crowd

2. individual characters are not simply summed to form a crowd’s character

3. gathered people’s characters form an arithmetic sum of crowd’s character

10) What do people feel in a crowd?

1. self-power due to a large mass of people

2. consciousness because of numerous gathered people

3. aggression towards other people in a crowd

11) What is the method for involving people into the crowd?

1. due to illusions

2. a kind of hypnosis

3. thanks to human ideas

12) Who further developed the notion of collective unconscious?

1. Gustav Lebon

2. Alexander Block

3. Sigmund Freud

Task 16. Read the text and say whether the statements are true or false. Correct false statements:

Crowd is a universal way to average people. In a crowd highly intellectual people go down and people with highly organized psychology degrade. Crowd, according to G. Lebon, is a human organisation having special features which do not coincide with the sum of individual features, it is a social system.

In the crowd there are no individuals, personal feelings or thoughts, they are leveled. The crowd has a single soul which is reflected in the law of mental singularity of a crowd.

Members of crowd should not be necessarily at one place. The only principle for them is to have the same thoughts and feelings. The crowd can coincide with the whole nation or several persons. On the other hand, even one hundred people could not be a crowd if they do not share the same ideas.

Collective soul of the crowd is unconscious, consciousness separates it back into individuals. Unconsciousness presupposes that crowd is simple, not clever though it can comprise intelligent and smart people. In the crowd, individual, due to a great number of people, acquires the feeling of power but loses the sense of responsibility.

In the crowd people “transfer” their feelings, thoughts and actions to each other through the mechanism of hypnosis. It results in rejecting of individual consciousness and people are able to do any thing. People in a crowd resemble ancient people, they are prone to aggression, violence, enthusiasm, heroism, though as separate persons they are quite conscious and aware of their actions and would never do the things they did being a part of a crowd.

Statements:

1) In a crowd people receive extraordinary intellectual abilities.

2) Crowd makes people with high psychology be average.

3) A crowd can not be called a social system.

4) Crowd has special features which comprise the sum of individual features.

5) There is a law concerning mental plurality of a crowd.

6) The main rule for people to be a crowd is to be concentrated in one and the same place.

7) A crowd is characterized by sharing the same ideas.

8) The crowd consists of several people: from ten to one hundred.

9) The crowd is ruled by consciousness and unconscious separates the crowd.

10) If the crowd includes clever people then we can call such a crowd clever.

11) The crowd is anonymous that means nobody is responsible for its actions.

12) In the crowd a person feels powerful thanks to his individual features of character and leadership.

13) In the crowd people exchange ideas, feelings and thoughts through the process of hypnosis.

14) Individuals in the crowd are hard to rule.

15) Individuals in the crowd do the same things which they do in everyday life.

Task 17. Read abstracts and put proper words in the blanks:

Types of crowds

a) Mixed crowd consists of individuals of different professions, education, level of … (1), age, etc. Main factor gathering such a crowd … (2) would be race. Thus a crowd comprising individuals of one race and … (3) crowd would have different specific features.

Unified crowd can have several … (4) of organisation, for example, sects and castes. A sect includes people of various professions, social development and age on the basis of the same … (5) or political beliefs. Caste is the highest type of crowd organisation. It consists of individuals of one and the … (6) profession which influences the education and social level. One more type of crowd organisation is a … (7). It is formed on the … (8) of the same social position, way of life, education and interests. Class can … (9) people of different professions and religions. A class can be bourgeoisie, agricultural, etc.

Words: integrate, same, intellect, levels, class, together, religious, basis, multiracional.

b) A crowd can be active and passive. Passive … (1) of a crowd is characterised by the absence of stimulus or integrating … (2). Passive crowd is a sudden … (3) of people which is fast to gather and fast to … (4). Emotional component in such a crowd is not … (5) completely and reflects itself in human interest.

Active crowd has a completely formed … (6). One of the most … (7) types of crowds is an aggressive crowd. It tries to solve its problems in a violent way. It loses conscious and rational basis of its … (8).

Saving crowd can become panic when the supply of safety devices is … (9) or uncertain.

A crowd may be marauder when people are prone to … (10), theft if the goods suddenly became free under different circumstances.

Words: limited, idea, formed, dangerous, burglary, type, emotional element, gathering, actions, separate.