This area interests me because it deals with the use of scientific methods so as to understand and explain how the feelings, thoughts and behaviours of people can be controlled by an imagined, actual or implied pressure from other people. This field encompasses several areas which are very interesting to learn about. These areas are social perception, group behaviour, non verbal behaviour, leadership, prejudice and aggression. Social psychology is drawn from the interaction between people and social situation variables.
In this field, research is done in the field or in the laboratory to establish the behaviours of human beings in the society. The work involves research design; sampling and statistical analysis and later these results are published in journals which are peer reviewed. These peer reviewed journals include Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and journals such as Psychological Science and Science (Alsworth, 1999).
So as to become a social psychologist, an individual ought to be possessing good grades which he obtained in high school or colleges which are accredited, he ought to have done psychology majors when in the undergraduate program and should be having experiences in doing research in social psychology field and he must be having strong verbal, quantitative and analytical abilities. Individuals who express and interest in social psychology should also be talented, smart, hard-working, creative and conscientious (Richmond).
When explaining social psychology to a non-psychology student, I would consider introducing issues like social cognition, attitudes, social influence, cognitive dissonance and interpersonal behaviours such as aggression and altruism. These issues are the common day behaviours that man always possesses and therefore it will be easier for the non-psychology student to understand. Perhaps it would even be very easy for the student to associate himself or herself with social psychology because they possess one or more of these characteristics.