INTRODUCTION

Social behavior is a necessary part of human life, and being social means much more than merely being in the company of others. Our social environment influences our thoughts, emotions and behavior in complex ways. Social psychologists examine various forms of social behavior and try to explain their basis.

EXPLAINING SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

It is because of social influences from views or attitudes about people and about different issues in life that exist in the form of behavioral tendencies. When we meet people, we make inferences about their Personal qualities. This is called impression formation. We are also interested in why people behave in the ways they do- that is, we assign causes to the behavior shown in specific social situations. This process is called attribution.

           Very often, impression formation and attributions are influenced by attitude. These three processes are examples of mental activities related to the gathering and interpretation of information about the social world, collectively called social cognition. Moreover, social cognition is activated by cognitive units called schemas. Cognitive processes cannot be directly seen; they have to be inferred on the basis of externally shown behaviour. There are other examples of social influence that are in the form of observable behaviour. To such examples are social facilitation/inhibition, i.e the improvement/ decline in performance in the presence of others, and helping, or prosocial behaviour, i.e responding to others who are in need or distress. Through systematic and objective observations, and by adopting scientific methods, it is possible to establish logical cause-and-effect relationships that explain social behavior.

SOCIAL COGNITION

‘Cognition’ refers to all those mental processes that deal with obtaining and processing of information. Social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects. These include all the processes that help in understanding, explaining and interpreting social behaviour. The processing of information related to social objects differs from the processing of information related to Physical objects. People as social objects made themselves change as the cognitive process takes place. Social cognition is guided by mental units called schemas.

STEREOTYPES

In social cognition, category- based schemas that are related to groups of people are called stereotypes. These are category based schemas that are over generalized, are not directly verified, and do not allow for exceptions. The inferences you have drawn are not the result of your logical thinking or direct experience, but are based on preconceived ideas about a particular group. Your behavior towards you will be influenced by your stereotype. It was mentioned earlier that stereotypes provide fertile ground for the growth of prejudices and biases against specific groups, but prejudices can also develop without stereotypes.

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