The attitude of social psychology and the ideology of society is very complex, even confusing. After all, it would seem, one follows from the other, but on the other hand, one excludes partially the other. If we divide these two concepts as simply as possible, it turns out that social psychology is the emotional perception of the world, and ideology is the fruit of rationalism. That is, the concepts are extremely contradictory.
What is social psychology?
Public psychology and social consciousness are at each epoch, the people and even the class. It is a collection of traditions, customs, historical events, customs, motives, feelings , etc. Each nation has its own social psychology, as evidenced by expressions like "German accuracy," "Swiss punctuality," "Italian talkativeness."
But, nevertheless, in the people living in one epoch, a different psychology of social relations can reign. This is a class division, when people and have common characteristics in connection with belonging to one people and era, but behave in a different way.
What is ideology?
So, we came to the point of contact of social psychology and ideology. Ideology is also a reflection of the world, but this process takes place at a higher level - not on the emotional, but on the theoretical.
Typically, ideology is formed as the fruit of rational thinking of especially "gifted" representatives of the class (and the founder of an ideological direction need not necessarily belong to this class). For example, the ideology according to which slavery and subordination of the bourgeoisie is bad, can easily be proclaimed by a person himself belonging to the bourgeoisie.
According to the famous "ideologue" - Karl Marx, ideologists (theorists, thinkers) come, in principle, to the same conclusions as the people. Just the conclusions of the ideologist are theoretical, but the people reach the same in practice, in practice.