Human Perceptions of Social World in Psychology

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Interpersonal Relationships
External Influences
Internal Influences
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

Researchers, such as Försterling (2013), Hareli (2014), and Erwin (2014) explain social conception and highlight several theoretical frameworks that could be used to explain how people interact with one another. In this paper, I explain how existing theories of psychology have helped to illustrate how people make sense of their social world and demonstrate how associated research has merged to create a common narrative that explains people’s worldviews.

Interpersonal Relationships

Mahendran (2015) draws our attention to interpersonal relationships as a possible tool for understanding how people view their reality because he says it stems from an evaluation of people’s actions, as opposed to how they speak or describe themselves. This school of thought premises on the philosophy that our actions and the reasons for taking them have a greater bearing on our identity and purpose in life.

A social psychologist, Ian Burkitt (as cited in Mahendran 2015), draws our attention to the concept of the self and says that it is a product of our relationship with other people. He also says that people’s recognition of their differences from others and their perceptions of their duties to other people affect how they make sense of the social world (however, people who have cognitive issues, such as children who suffer from autism, do not possess this ability) (Mahendran 2015; Hewson and Turner, 2015). In his analysis, Mahendran (2015) contends that human identity today is no longer defined by the responsibilities expected of them, but on their relationship with other people. Based on this assertion, we find his review presents the “self” as a product of interpersonal interactions.

Mahendran’s (2015) analysis contrasts with that of Bowes- Catton (2015) in her analysis of sex and sexuality because they both emphasize the role of interpersonal relationships in explaining people’s conception of reality. Her review shows that people’s identities are mostly conceptualized within unique cultural contexts and were developed after evaluating how people perceive their sexual identities in today’s world (Bowes- Catton 2015).

These views affirm Mahendran’s (2015) analysis on how people make sense of the world because both authors draw our attention to interpersonal relationships as a measure of how people make up their social identities. In her view of sexuality, Bowes- Catton (2015) says shared values and interests with other people influence people’s perceptions of themselves and others. The notion of being cared for and feeling supported by others also adds to the same perception, but sharing close relationships and feeling safe and secure within a social unit equally has a strong contribution to people’s understanding of their social world. This heightened emphasis on interpersonal relationships affirms the influence of social relationships in shaping people’s identities and their view of the world.

External Influences

Barker (2015) provides us with a different understanding of how people should make sense of their social world because, unlike Bowes- Catton (2015) and Mahendran (2015) (above), she talks about rewriting the rules of social interaction by demonstrating the potential for self-knowledge and acceptance in shaping people’s reality. Although her views seem like a departure from the norms of social interaction, it is important to draw the similarity between her evaluation of social relationships and those of Bowes- Catton (2015) because they both underscore the influence of culture in shaping social outcomes.

Indeed, Bowes- Catton (2015) says that social interactions are conceptualized within cultural frameworks, while Mahendran (2015) says conceptualized conflicts and relationships occur within a cultural lens (mostly within the western culture lens). Here, the role of culture in explaining human reality stands out. More importantly, we come to understand the role of context in explaining the same phenomenon through the works of Barker (2015).

Mahendran (2015) adds to the role of external factors in shaping people’s perception of the world by focusing on self-esteem and explaining its effects on how people perceive their worth to society. His analysis shows that different external attributes affect people’s self-esteem. For example, a culture emerges as a strong influence of self-esteem because it provides the social lens through which people perceive their self-worth. Mahendran (2015) delves deeper into this issue by saying that a person’s exposure to western and eastern cultures is likely to create different results, in terms of self-esteem outcomes. In other words, what may be deemed as a noble or respectable action in one culture may not be regarded as the same in a different one.

This analysis merges with the views of other authors who have investigated the role of context in shaping people’s identities and perception of the world because it highlights the influence of external forces in explaining people’s perception of themselves and the world. This merger of views excludes the understanding that people’s views of the world could be attributed to internal factors (related to the “self”).

The emphasis on external factors as an influence on people’s perception of reality was also highlighted in a Facebook experiment highlighted by Mahendran (2015), which reported that people respond positively or negatively to external stimuli, depending on the contents of the stimuli. The experiment involved intentionally exposing a series of negative messages on the Newsfeeds of unsuspecting Facebook users, who later responded by posting negative status updates about different aspects of their lives (Mahendran 2015).

The same result was replicated in experiments that involved exposing unsuspecting Facebook users to positive messages on their Newsfeeds because they responded by posting positive status updates (Mahendran 2015). This example highlights the power of external influences in shaping people’s perceptions of the world and themselves. More importantly, it demonstrates that people have little power to influence their perception of the world because their environments dictate it.

Andreouli (2015) also highlighted the role of context in explaining people’s perception of the world by arguing that the concept of people’s identity could be constructed from a set of common ethos and values shared within a nation. The concept of nationhood, as an instrument to construct personal identity and reality, is similar to the view of Barker (2015) in her portrayal of conflicts in close relationships. The latter teaches us that there is no universal metric to understand romantic relationships because this conception is often a product of context and specificity, which are subject to social and cultural conceptions of reality (Barker 2015).

Thus, both analyses draw our attention to the importance of contextualization in our understanding of how people perceive the world. The similarity between Andreouli (2015) and Barker’s (2015) views stems from the commonality between contextual social relationships and the social construction of nations because they are not natural communities. Instead, they are “imagined” societies that are derived from socially and historically constructed groups of people (Andreouli 2015).

National identities are propagated in different ways, including the use of the media to shape national debates or the understanding of how political discourses follow national narratives (Andreouli 2015). This analysis is captured in the social construction view of psychology, which is advanced by different researchers, including Lefrancois (2012), Leman (2012), and Wall (2015).

Close to this analysis is the attribution theory, which outlines the argument above, but in the context of the need for people to belong to a specific social context (Graham, 2014). As an investigative process to explain why people behave in certain ways, some researchers and proponents of the theory have explored the role of external influences on people’s actions and labeled it the “group effect” on people’s behaviors (Lefrancois 2012). The group effect is based on the findings of psychological theories that show people’s actions are influenced by group dynamics, or the need to belong to certain social groups (Lefrancois 2012). This analysis reflects situational attribution, which is a core tenet of the theory.

Internal Influences

Psychological theories have also tried to explain how people perceive their social reality by adopting an outward-in approach where they are mindful of how their actions fit with their personalities. Fullwood and Fox-Hamilton’s (2015) analysis of the online space highlight this approach because they say that personal conversations that happen in the virtual space could create flexibility in human interaction that could shape people’s conception of their world. The existence of virtual communities highlights this fact (Fullwood and Fox-Hamilton’s 2015). This analysis represents what many researchers regard as “self-concept” (Lefrancois 2012).

It is based on cognitive consistency and was proposed by influential social researchers, such as Festinger, Schacter, and Black in the 1950s (Leman 2012). Cherry and Barker (2015), in their analysis of how people could use self-help to change their experiences, also highlight the importance of understanding personal factors in shaping people’s reality. The concept of cognitive consistency stems from the concept of dissonance, which happens when people engage in actions that contravene their beliefs, faiths, and values (Lefrancois 2012). This theory implies that most people would try to avoid engaging in actions that contravene their beliefs and values and instead engage in those that resonate with the same.

The self-perception theory also falls within the same category of behavioral theories that explain worldviews. It presupposes that most people develop ambiguous attitudes about the world, based on their lack of experience on the issues they choose to judge (Erwin 2014).

However, based on either negative or positive outcomes, they choose to keep only those attitudes that are favorable to themselves (Fong, 2016). Often, they do so by reflecting on their behaviors and figuring out which attitudes they possess about the world that may have caused the outcome. Although this analysis demonstrates that internal influences affect how people perceive their social world, it is important to point out they are partly shaped by external influences as well. For example, people’s internal beliefs and values often stem from religious or cultural factors, which are external to their conception of reality. Thus, it may be difficult to draw a strong distinction between internal and external influences on social reality.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have explained that people’s reality and their conception of the social world stem from three building blocks that include external factors, internal influences, and interpersonal relationships. These influences are supported by the social construction theory, which explains how people share common assumptions about their reality (Leman 2012). In the context of this study, interpersonal relationships emerge as the main platform through which people share these assumptions because constant interactions with one another lead to an exchange of ideas, values, and beliefs, which later form a common conception of reality.

Nationhood is one product we have identified as a symbol or manifestation of this process because nations are imagined communities bound by common values, beliefs, and cultures. Thus, based on the findings of this paper, we deduce that interpersonal relationships, external influences, and internal views of the self underscore people’s understanding of their social world.

Reference List

Andreouli, E. (2015) ‘Nations and immigration’, in Turner, J. Hewson, C. Mahendran, K. and Stevens, P. (eds) Living psychology: from the everyday to the extraordinary (Book 1.), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 30-32.

Barker. M. J. (2015) ‘Conflict in close relationships’, in Turner, J. Hewson, C. Mahendran, K. and Stevens, P. (eds) Living psychology: from the everyday to the extraordinary (Book 1), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 12-24.

Bowes- Catton, H. (2015) ‘Sex and sexuality’, in Turner, J. and Barker, M.J. (eds) Living psychology: from the everyday to the extraordinary (Book 2), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 27-32.

Cherry, S and Barker, M, J. (2015) ‘Self-help: changing people’s understanding to change their experience’, in Turner, J and Barker, M, J. (eds) Living psychology: from the everyday to the extraordinary (Book 2.), Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Erwin, P. (2014) Attitudes and persuasion, Psychology Press, New York.

Fong, B. (2016) Death and mastery: psychoanalytic drive theory and the subject of late capitalism, Columbia University Press, New York.

Försterling, F. (2013) Attribution: an introduction to theories, research and applications, Psychology Press, New York.

Fullwood, C and Fox-Hamilton, N. (2015) ‘Week 25: living online’, The Open University. Web.

Graham, S. (2014) Attribution theory: applications to achievement, mental health, and interpersonal conflict, Psychology Press, New York.

Hareli, S. (2014) ‘Making sense of the social world and influencing it by using a naïve attribution theory of emotions’, Emotion Review, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 336 – 343.

Hewson, C and Turner, J. (2015) ‘Week 4: mindreading difficulties – examples from clinical psychology’, The Open University. Web.

Lefrancois, G. (2012) Theories of human learning: what the professor said, Cengage Learning, London.

Leman, M. (2012) Music and schema theory: cognitive foundations of systematic musicology, Springer Science & Business Media, New York.

Mahendran. K. (2015) ‘Self Esteem’, in Turner, J. Hewson, C. Mahendran, K. and Stevens, P. (eds.) Living psychology: from the everyday to the extraordinary (Book 1.), Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Wall, J. (2015) Being and owning: the body, bodily material, and the law, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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