PSY 530 Module One Short Paper Guidelines and Rubric

Overview

This paper will help to you explain and apply significant contributor.

Prompt

Write a short paper on the history of social psychology and the people who have contributed to the field that engages the following:

1. How has the field of psychology changed over the course of history?
2. Who do you believe was the most significant contributor to the creation and evolution of social psychology throughout its history? Explain your reasoning.
3. How does knowledge of social psychologys history inform analysis of classic and modern social psychology theories and research?

Use the Shapiro Library for your research. Do not use internet references (e.g, .com, .org, .net websites).

What to Submit

Submit your short paper as a 2- to 3-page Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, title page, subject headers, and all sources cited in APA style within the text and in the reference section.

Also can you respond to these two discussions?

1.) The focus of social psychology shifted significantly after 1990 from considering only biology and/or culture when trying to explain an individual’s behavior. Neuroscience and biology advances allowed researchers to study and understand how the brain processes information, how hormones affect social behavior (emotion), attachment, and decision making, as well as how genetics impacts these processes. With a greater understanding of how the biological aspects of humans interact with each other and with culture, it was determined that biology provides the basic or foundational aspect of social behavior, but not as a fixed determinant of social behavior.

Also, as the use of biology in the explanation of social behavior increased, so did the importance of culture in explaining social behavior. Social psychologists began to recognize the variability of social behavior, values, and expressions of emotions across different cultures. Rather than assuming that there were universal psychological processes, social psychologists began to explore how culture influences how we express biological tendencies through cultural norms, beliefs, and social structures. In fact, as Hoss et al. (2019) argue, biology and culture work in tandem; biology provides the potential, and culture provides the direction and meaning to behavior.

Therefore, it is probable that the interdisciplinary nature of social psychology will grow in the future. Social psychologists will continue to develop research that combines neuroscience, genetics, and cultural studies to better understand the ways in which social environments affect the biological process over time. The integrated approach to developing a comprehensive understanding of social behavior will enable social psychologists to respond to complex social problems more successfully by acknowledging that human behavior is influenced by both the individual’s biological make-up and their experience with culture.

2.) In order to examine cultural processes, social psychology has been gradually incorporating biological sciences like stress physiology, neuroscience, and genetics since the 1990s. Researchers can now investigate how cultural experiences impact our biological systems and how these systems, in turn, shape culture, thanks to new technologies like neuroimaging, biomarker testing, and genomic analysis. This biocultural approach, according to Causadias, Telzer, and Lee (2017), goes beyond the traditional “nature versus nurture” argument by viewing biology and culture as interrelated components that interact to affect our feelings, ideas, and development.

According to research, cultural stressors like economic hardship, acculturation, and discrimination can have real biological effects like altering cortisol rhythms, heart rate variability, and allostatic load. According to cultural neuroscience, cultural norms and values influence the brain processes involved in controlling emotions and assessing oneself.

This change will probably continue to change the field by encouraging multilevel, interdisciplinary models of human behavior. Social psychology will examine the effects of structural inequality on individuals as biocultural research grows, bolstering the scientific justification for interventions at the system and policy levels. Future studies will examine how positive cultural experiences improve biological resilience, a topic that has only recently been covered in the literature. More focus on neuroscience, genetics, and ethical protections against biological essentialism will probably be emphasized in graduate training.

All things considered, social psychology is in a position to produce complex, contextually based explanations of risk, resilience, and well-being across a range of populations thanks to the integration of biology and culture.