Linking Sociology to Psychology   

The study of Sociology and Psychology comes in common as they both study the behaviors and their sets of patterns humans do have. However, they handle it differently. 

Sociology is concentrated mainly on the sets of behaviors that determine the social relation of a person with the rest of the society while Psychology focuses on the inner part of the thoughts humans possess and how these things affect the personal behaviors and mode of their understanding towards external matters.    

Sociology is in the society and Psychology is personal. During social researches, Psychologists still play a vital role in examinations and social experimentation. Sociologists in the field would always need the field of Psychology because one cannot simply understand a certain social behavior of an individual without having a grasp in the personal level of his or her preferences or choices or own understanding of different things. To make it clear, Psychology deals with the micro-level of analyzing human behaviors while Sociology is in the macro-level.    

Many people have been confused with whether a particular study is psychological or sociological. Well, we can say both or any of the two but still using two different approaches. No good research can be reliable and credible without using both theories taken from the two fields of study. At least one researcher can use psychological theories in a sociological research paper regardless of the presence of a helping hand from a psychologist. Psychological approaches are highly relevant in any sociological paper since humans perform behaviors other than social in influences.    

While Sociology believes in the claim that all human behaviors are products of the social influences, it also recognizes extraordinary phenomena such as the pathological events and any happenings Psychology can only explain. For instance, there are people who practice things based on their hallucinations or mental disorder, and that these things cannot become social in influence since no any other person performs the same thing. Also in a society without mentally-ill people, Psychology is also applicable by examining sets of behaviors based on the characteristics and other traits of the people and their recent activities.      

Social Psychology

Social psychology is a combination of Sociology and Psychology. Nothing between the two dominates the whole research studies. Its study lies in the boundary of the two fields. This modern approach focuses on the social relations of different people. While maintaining the psychological approaches in identifying sets of behaviors and ways of thinking, its main focus is on their applications to the society in the way that people interact with each other.  

  

Meaning to say, the patterns of behavior, the preferences of things, the sets of priority, philosophy, cultural orientations, organizational principles and many more guide the people in their social interaction with each other and shape their identities distinguished by the whole society. To draw a line from the area of Sociology, it is not a study of groups, nor the society as a whole. It is concentrated in the individual level.      

Person to Person 

In a social research, there are questions pertaining to the relationship of an individual to another one and to another one around. This is relevant because it gives connection to the whole situation. Sociologists utilize some of the psychological theories to different individuals in a one-on-one interview beginning with the family to neighbors single by single. It produces additional ideas to the hidden truths of the individuals.    

For instance, one researcher can identify a specific person's motive around a particular group by knowing his or her means of interaction with different persons to know whether his or her treatment to a single person is different to how he or she treats the other one. In Psychology, it can also be a form of intimacy that controls the mind of an individual towards the other person.      

Person to People 

Another one is the examining of the patterns of behavior an individual acts to a group of people whether he or she behaves the same towards all the groups or not. Sociology sees it as having interests towards the goals of a particular group of people as the motivating factor of an individual in treating the group in a good manner and in the opposite to other group that does not give benefit to him or her.    

Psychology, on the other hand, views one's relationship to a group of people as some sort of emotional satisfaction. An individual likes to mingle with the certain group because he or she may be comfortable with them or he or she feels happy whenever he or she is in the group. These two different approaches are needed to be opened up in a research study to make it more reliable and credible.      

Person to Society 

It is an individual's portrayal to his or her environment. Sociology explains the thing by ways of social acceptance. An individual pose a certain sets of behaviors that are pleasurable to the people in the society while he or she finds ways to be accepted by the whole society. Moreover, social pressures put to individuals are the threats from which any person is trying to avoid by conforming to the norms of the society. Psychology sees it as self-fulfillment. People try to fit in to the society because they want to fulfill being human beings by meeting the demands of the society. Isolation to the groups of people is also part of the study focus since it happens by anyone anytime.    

To distinguish Sociology from Psychology, one must ask whether it is something personal or a sort of social form. The linking of Sociology to Psychology cannot make Sociology to become psychological and vice-versa. Human behavior is just a very complex matter. Sociologists cannot conclude their sociological studies in a single dimension, so as Psychology cannot neglect the existence of social influence in studying human behavior. In fact, because of the difficulty in and the complexity of studying human behaviors, social psychology emerged in the 90's as an additional force in seeking the truth about human behaviors.