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Academic Goals
Departmental Learning Goals for Psych 345: Social Psychology
Course Description:
How do we form impressions of others? When do we help others? What causes aggression? Why do we conform? Who do we fall in love with? How do stereotypes affect their targets? These are just some of the many questions that social psychologists address in their research. Social psychology is the scientific study of how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence or imagined presence of other people (Allport, 1985). This course provides an overview of broad themes in social psychology. Classes and discussion sections will consist of lectures, discussions, films, and activities.
Learning GoalsStudents should leave this course with an understanding of:
- How other people and our social environments (e.g., contexts, cultures, roles, our place in society) shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
- The power of subjective construals in shaping cognition, emotion, and behavior -and how core human motivations (e.g., motivations to self-enhance and understand our social world) shape how we interpret and influence our social world
- How social psychological processes are shaped by our cultures, societal norms, social status, and more generally, the cultural groups to which we belong
- How theories about human behavior are translated into empirically testable hypotheses
- How hypotheses are tested and evaluated by conducting experiments and observing behavior
- How to communicate scientific thinking through discussions and writing assignments
- How to be a good consumer of research, and to critically evaluate scientific findings about social psychological issues that affect us all
- How to draw connections between course information and everyday life (e.g., interactions with other people and groups, relationships, mind-body issues/heath, political processes, law and policy, and social processes more generally)
