In Anthropology and Psychology. The study of mind and human behaviour is called Psychology. Psychologists investigate a diverse range of topics through their theories and research. These topics include the relationship between the brain, behaviour and subjective experience; human development; the influence of other people on the individual’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour; psychological disorders and their treatment; the impact of culture on the individual’s behaviour and subjective experience; differences between people in terms of their personality and intelligence; and people’s ability to acquire, organise, remember and use knowledge to guide their behaviour.
Thus for the psychologists the focus of study is upon all aspects of human behaviour: and its personal, social and cultural dimensions which will never be complete without having the knowledge of social anthropology. Therefore, for understanding the social processes and meanings in the world around us one has to study social anthropology.
Both Social Psychology and Social Anthropology deals with the manifold relations between individuals on the one hand and groups, communities, societies and cultures on the other hand.
According to Barrett (2009:135) British social anthropology has historically been quite opposed to psychology. Another way of stating this is to say that social anthropology has been anti-reductionist, which means opposed to reducing the explanation of social life to other disciplinary levels such as psychology. This perspective can be traced back to Durkheim, who declared that any time a psychological explanation is provided for a social phenomenon we may be certain that it is wrong.
American cultural anthropology has been much more receptive to psychology, especially the focus on the individual. Boas was interested in the relationship between the individual and society, and eventually there was the culture and personality school, with its emphasis on modal personality. In more recent years a distinct approach called psychological anthropology has emerged, with a focus on attitudes and values, and child-rearing practices and adolescence (Bourguignon 1979).
The only line of difference is that social anthropology examines the group, psychology the individual. Social anthropologists specialise in social structure or culture psychologists in the personality system, and in mental process such as cognition, perception, and learning, and emotions and motives. Social anthropologists take personality system as constant and look for variation in the social structure as the basis of their investigations whereas, psychologists accept the social structure as constant and look for variations in the personality system as the basis of their analysis.
Barrett (2009) in his work has stated that for both psychologists and anthropologists the only real entity is the individual human being. Social anthropologists abstract and generalise at the level of the social system whereas psychologists also abstract and generalise, but in their case at the level of the personality system. Finally, the work of some social anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists, occupies a common ground, reflecting shared interests in integrating social structure and personality.