Social Psychology Network

Course Title: Social Psychology Semester: Fall, 2006 Instructor: Scott Plous Time: 1:10-2:30 PM, Tuesday and Thursday Classroom: Kerr Lecture Hall (107 Shanklin) Enrollment Limit: 150 students Credit: 1.0 A/F (graded only) Teaching Apprentices: Rachel Jacobson, Alex Lawrence, Rebecca Littman, Jessica Markowitz, Hannah Nam, Rebecca Rabison Course Assistants: Sara Green, Katherine Michelmore, Luke Olson, Harrison Peck For Fall, 2007: TA Application Form and CA Application Form

Quick Links Course Requirements Tentative Outline and Readings Electronic Reserve Readings Test-Taking Tips Grading Policy GradeGetter Sites of the Week Online Psychology Career Center Wesleyan Psychology Department

		Instructor and TA Office Hours

This course provides an overview of classic and contemporary research in social psychology. A wide range of topics will be covered, including:

Prerequisites:

No prerequisites are required, though many students have found it helpful to take "Foundations of Contemporary Psychology" (Psyc105) or "Psychological Science" (Psyc101) before this course. Students who have taken other general introductions to social psychology, such as "Exploring Social Psychology" (Psyc263) at Wesleyan, are not eligible to take Psyc260.

Attendance and Participation:

Because the lectures will cover material that is not contained in the readings, class attendance is absolutely essential. Repeated late arrivals to class, or talking while the instructor or other students are speaking, are disrespectful to the instructor and other class members. Please be punctual and do not talk in class while others are speaking.

Cell Phones:

Please respect others in the class by turning off all cell phones and pagers before entering the auditorium.

Special Needs:

If you have a disability or other special needs, please notify me and the Dean's Office during the first week of the semester, and I will do my best to accommodate them.

Readings:

Unless otherwise noted in class, the required readings are as follows:

• Myers, D. G. (2005). Social Psychology (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Psychology 260 reserve readings in the Science Library. When possible, readings will be placed on reserve in both electronic and traditional format.

I strongly recommend buying Myers' textbook, but if you would rather not, copies of Social Psychology are on reserve in the Science Library. You should not use earlier editions of this textbook, because too much material is different from the current edition.

Assignments:

During the semester you will be given several class assignments to complete, worth a cumulative total of 25 course points:

Three of these assignments are web-based, and two are participant-observation activities that require you to experiment with your life and report on the results. The details of each assignment will be given in class a few days before the assignment is due. If at any point you prefer not to complete an assignment (or if your attempt to complete it is unsuccessful), you can still receive full credit by turning in a one-page report discussing the barriers that prevented you from carrying out the assignment. Late assignments or reports will not be accepted, so please be sure to back-up your computer files and print your work at least one day before it is due.

Test Items:

To ensure the fairness, comprehensiveness, and diversity of test questions, our examinations will rely in part on items generated by the class itself. One week before each examination, you will be required to turn in a total of 5 exam questions based on the readings or lectures for that section of the course (3 multiple choice items and 2 true-false or other easily scored items of your choice, with the correct answer indicated for each question, and page number references for any items based on the readings). These items should be challenging but should never involve trick questions or picky information (and they should not simply be definitional).

For advice on how to construct good items, see Item Construction Tips. Particularly good items will appear on the examinations, thereby rewarding the item's author (Note: Even if your items are not chosen, I hope that generating these questions will help you study for the exams). Items must be typewritten to receive credit, and there is a 1-point penalty for each item not submitted on time (e.g., a 5-point penalty if the assignment is not turned in by the deadline). Because student test items are incorporated into examinations immediately after they are received, no extensions are given on this assignment.

At the beginning of class most Tuesdays (except the first Tuesday of the semester), I will typically begin by sharing a few illustrations of topics discussed in class or in the readings during the preceding week. In addition, the Teaching Apprentices and I will compile links to web sites that illustrate course topics, and we will post these links on a Sites of the Week web page. You are invited to contribute illustrations -- both web and non-web -- whenever you encounter illustrations that might be of general interest to the class. If you contribute an illustration, please try to include full length accounts with complete reference information (date, volume, issue number, and page numbers, or web address in the case of an illustration from the World Wide Web).

To avoid the stress of grades based solely on a midterm and final examination, the course will include three examinations and five assignments. All three exams will cover material from class as well as the readings, and all three will contain a mixture of fixed choice formats (roughly 20 general multiple choice items, 20 applied multiple choice items, and 25 true-false items).

Before you turn in a completed exam, please check that no items have been accidentally skipped. In the event that a full page of items is skipped, 50% credit will be given for true-false items and 25% for multiple choice items (the average value that would be received by chance responding), and the final exam score will be rounded up or down to the nearest whole point. Please note: Make-up exams or extensions will NOT be given, except in the event of a serious illness or family emergency (e.g., death of a relative).

To help prepare for the tests, see Tips on Taking Multiple-Choice Tests and Online Social Psychology Quizzes. The Myers textbook also comes with a CD-ROM that contains study questions.

Because students often take awhile to develop a successful study strategy for the exams, the first exam will count less than the later two exams. Specifically, the first exam will count for 130 course points (2 points for each of 65 items on the test), and the later two exams will each count for 195 points (3 points per test item). Final letter grades will be determined by adding together points from three different sources: (1) the three exams (worth a total of 520 points), (2) the five assignments (worth a total of 25 points), and (3) any test item penalties you received (see above). In other words, all course points are counted equally, regardless of whether they involve exams, assignments, or test item penalties.

During the semester, you will be able to check your point total by clicking on the "GradeGetter" link at the top of this page. Within 72 hours of turning in an assignment or receiving a scored exam, you should check GradeGetter and email Professor Plous immediately if you discover an error (after that time, your scores will generally remain fixed). Likewise, if after speaking with the TAs you feel that your answer to an exam item marked wrong should actually be considered correct, you have 72 hours to email Professor Plous a statement explaining why your answer is correct.

Once the course is over, your cumulative point total will be translated into a final letter grade. Because the exams in this class will be created from scratch, it is difficult to specify in advance how various exam scores will translate into particular letter grades. Nonetheless, you may use the following cutoffs from a previous year as a rough guide in translating course point totals into letter grades (the final cutoffs will be different from these, but not by much).

Assignments should be read in the order below following each class (except for assignments immediately before an exam, which may be read early if you prefer).

Tuesday, Sept. 5: Introduction

• Myers Chapter 1--Introducing Social Psychology
• Pages 10-13 of Ellyson, S. L., & Halberstadt, A. G. (Eds.). (1995). Explorations in social psychology: Readings and research. New York: McGraw-Hill. [Start with "A Note About Nonsexist Language"]

Thursday, Sept. 7: The Social Construction of Reality

• Myers Chapter 2--The Self in a Social World
• Ellyson and Halberstadt, Reading 7: Burger and Burns (1988)

Tuesday, Sept. 12: Interpreting Behavior ("IPT" Video)

• Milgram, S. (1992). The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments ("Cyranoids," pp. 337-345). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  
• Ellyson and Halberstadt, Reading 5: Rosenhan (1973)
  
• Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger. J. (2003, June). Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(3), 83-87.

Thursday, Sept. 14: Attributional Biases

• Myers Chapter 3--Social Beliefs and Judgments
• Ellyson and Halberstadt, Reading 6: Abbey (1982)

Tuesday, Sept. 19: The Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior

Deadline: Random Assignment Assignment Due
• Myers Chapter 4--Behavior and Attitudes (pp. 132-150)
  
• Myers, D. G. (2001, December). Do we fear the right things? APS Observer, 14(10).

Thursday, Sept. 21: Cognitive Dissonance

Deadline: 1st Exam Items Due
• Myers Chapter 4--Behavior and Attitudes (pp. 150-165)

Tuesday, Sept. 26: Deindividuation and Dehumanization ("Quiet Rage" Video)

• Myers Chapter 5--Genes, Culture, and Gender
  
• Baird, V. (2003). Transgender identities: Like stars in the sky. In S. Plous (Ed.), Understanding prejudice and discrimination (pp. 414-420). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Thursday, Sept. 28: First Examination

Tuesday, Oct. 3: Obedience to Authority ("Obedience" Video)

• Blass, T. (2002, March/April). The man who shocked the world. Psychology Today, pp. 68-74.
  
• Elms, A. C. (1995). Obedience in retrospect. Journal of Social Issues, 51(3), 21-31.
  
• Pages 177, 183-193 of Brief, A. P., Buttram, R. T., Elliott, J. D., Reizenstein, R. M., & McCline, R. L. (1995). Releasing the beast: A study of compliance with orders to use race as a selection criterion. Journal of Social Issues, 51(3), 177-193.

Thursday, Oct. 5: Conformity ("Candid Camera" Video Clips)

• Myers Chapter 6--Conformity

Tuesday, Oct. 10: Persuasion: An Overview of Tactics

• Myers Chapter 7--Persuasion

Thursday, Oct. 12: Compliance

Deadline: Norm Violation Assignment Due
• Cialdini, R. B. (2003, August). Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(4), 105-109.
  
• Gueguen, N., & De Gail, M. (2003). The effect of smiling on helping behavior: Smiling and good Samaritan behavior. Communication Reports, 16(2), 133-140. [Reprinted in Lesko, W. A. (2006). Readings in social psychology: General, classic, and contemporary selections (6th ed., pp. 286-291). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.]

Tuesday, Oct. 17: Fall Break!

Thursday, Oct. 19: Negotiation and Group Dynamics ("Abilene Paradox" Video)

Deadline: Internet Persuasion Assignment Due
• Harvey, J. B. (1988). The Abilene Paradox: The management of agreement. Organizational Dynamics, 17(1), 16-43.

Tuesday, Oct. 24: Individual Versus Group Performance (Class Experiment)

• Myers Chapter 8--Group Influence

Thursday, Oct. 26: Group-Level Biases

• Myers Chapter 9--Prejudice

Tuesday, Oct. 31: The Faces of Prejudice ("A Class Divided" Video)

• Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2003). An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justifications for gender inequality. In S. Plous (Ed.), Understanding prejudice and discrimination (pp. 225-231). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  
• Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Banker, B. S., Rust, M. C., Nier, J. A., Mottola, G. R., & Ward, C. M. (2003). The challenge of aversive racism: Combating pro-White bias. In S. Plous (Ed.), Understanding prejudice and discrimination (pp. 491-499). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Thursday, Nov. 2: Group Discussion on Discrimination ("Blue Eyed" Video)

Deadline: 2nd Exam Items Due
• Herek, G. M. (2000, February). The psychology of sexual prejudice. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(1), 19-22.
  
• Optional reading: Plous, S. (2003). Is there such a thing as prejudice toward animals? In S. Plous (Ed.), Understanding prejudice and discrimination (pp. 509-528). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Tuesday, Nov. 7: Aggression ("Bobo Doll" and "Does TV Kill?" Videos)

• Myers Chapter 10--Aggression
  
• Bushman, B. J., & Phillips, C. M. (2001, April). If the television program bleeds, memory for the advertisement recedes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(2), 43-47.
• Optional reading: American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Public Education. (2001). Children, adolescents, and television. Pediatrics, 107, 423-426.

Thursday, Nov. 9: Second Examination

Tuesday, Nov. 14: Attraction and Intimacy

• Myers Chapter 11--Attraction and Intimacy
  
• Optional reading: American Psychological Association. (2004, July). Resolution on sexual orientation and marriage. Washington, DC: APA.

Thursday, Nov. 16: Bystander Intervention ("Brother's Keeper" Video)

• Myers Chapter 12--Helping

Tuesday, Nov. 21: Clinical Applications of Social Psychology

Deadline: Web Interview Assignment Due
• Myers Chapter 14--Social Psychology in the Clinic

Thursday, Nov. 23: Thanksgiving Break!

Tuesday, Nov. 28: Peace and the Psychology of Terrorism

Special Event at 8:00 pm in Science 150: Expert Panel on Social Marketing
• Myers Chapter 13--Conflict and Peacemaking
• Plous, S., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2004, September 10). How social science can reduce terrorism. Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. B9-B10.
  

Thursday, Nov. 30: Guest Lecture by Joel Brockner (Columbia Business School): "It's Not Only What You Do, It's How You Do It"

Deadline: 3rd Exam Items Due
• Myers Chapter 15--Social Psychology in Court

Tuesday, Dec. 5: Empathy--A Magic Bullet?

Deadline: Day of Compassion Assignment Due
• Myers Chapter 16--Social Psychology and the Sustainable Future

Thursday, Dec. 7: Third Examination

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