Sociology vs Social Psychology?

Question

I'm just wondering what the differences were. I'm trying to decide between these to as a major for undergrad. Thank You!

Answer 1

Social Psychology is the combination of the two, where they overlap-much more fascinating than either separately.

Answer 2

Sociology is the scientific study of society, social institution and social relationship;the systematic of development, structure, interaction and collective behavior of organized group of human being.while Social Psychology looks only at the factor that influences the behavior of specific individual.

Answer 3

Sociology is the study of groups of people from two to three on up to an angry mob.  The full range of demographics is fuel for the study of generations and will include evolving political systems, and institutionalization--rites of initiation, privilege, and why a race of human being might not ever want to change.

Social Psychology which is a class I had to elect, was about what little I'd get in a communications course...impact of commercial advertising and marketing, but also love, and what it would take to walk away, and still have a  good impact on a relationship, or rather, to have the least amount of bad luck.  Friends are hard to come by in a big city.

Answer 4

The answers so far have been great, and mostly quite true (though maybe a bit biased towards soc :)  ).  

From a psych grad student's point of view: the systemic study that is sociology is indeed interesting, but so is psychology in looking at specific factors that contribute to behavioural and group phenomena.  Because of this, sociology is largely a qualitative field of study (observation, focus groups, interviews), while social psych is mostly quantitative (applied experiments with statistical analysis). From an employment perspective, I think it is more valuable to have the quantitative background.  Univariate and multivariate stats can be a pain, but if you plan to go into research or be employed in something related to this field, knowing how to do stats gives you a big advantage.  Good luck with your decision!