Have you ever walked down a road, stopped, and looked at the world around you. What types of environment that you are in, the type of people that is around you? You are able to tell a person's self esteem by just looking at them. How they carry themselves, how they talk, and maybe how they dress! Sit back and look at yourself, how are you dressed, how do you carry yourself, can you tell your self-esteem by looking at yourself?.
In social psychology (the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situations) you can evaluate someone by their behavior. Self-esteem (the self-evaluation made by each individual; one's attitude toward oneself along a positive negative dimension) can also show us how we interact with one another. It seems that social psychology focuses on the behavior of individuals, and seeks to understand the causes of social behavior and thought.
One major theme in modern social psychology is the growing influence of a cognitive perspective. This perspective suggests that individuals" interpretations of social situations strongly shape their behavior. Modern social psychology adopts a multicultural perspective. This perspective recognizes the importance of cultural factors in social behavior and social thought, and notes that research findings obtain in one culture do not necessarily generalize to other cultures.
Important causes of social behavior and thought include the behavior and characteristics of other persons, cognitive process, aspects of the physical environment, culture, and biological factors.