Social Psychology - PSY 216
https://courses.vccs.edu/courses/PSY216-SocialPsychology
Effective: 2021-05-01
Course Description
Examines individuals in social contexts, their social roles, group processes and intergroup relations. Acquaints students with a scientific understanding of how the presence of other people, interactions with other people, and other situational factors influence human thoughts and behaviors. The assignments in the course require college-level reading, analysis of scholarly studies, and coherent communication through written reports (including the production of at least one APA-formatted individual writing assignment).
Lecture 3 hours. Total 3 hours per week.
3 credits
The course outline below was developed as part of a statewide standardization process.
General Course Purpose
PSY 216 prepares students to complete ethical research and explain other's research related to social psychological topics. This course also connects social influence processes to everyday life and explores social relations and similarities and differences among different cultures. This course can fulfill a requirement for psychology majors and other related fields.
Course Prerequisites/Corequisites
Prerequisites: PSY 200 or departmental consent.
Course Objectives
- Research Methods
- Differentiate between different research methods in social psychology: experiment, survey, correlational research, and observational research
- Ethical Considerations
- Evaluate ethical issues and principles in social psychological research: informed consent, deception of research participants, consequences of deception
- Social Perception
- Explain research on social perception, including perception of the self, of other individuals, and of social groups
- Social Influence
- Describe social influence processes, conformity, obedience, and group processes, and how these processes are found in everyday life
- Social Relationships
- Identify processes involved in social relations, including attraction, altruism, conflict, and aggression
- Culture and Social Implications
- Recognize similarities and differences among different cultures regarding social psychological processes
- The Self
- Describe the self-concept, self-esteem, self-control, self-serving bias, self-presentation
- Social Cognition
- Identify examples of social cognition: priming, belief perseverance, heuristics and biases, self-fulfilling prophecy, attribution
- Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
- Define and explain the differences between stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination; including social, cognitive, and motivational aspects and consequences
- Attitudes
- Define and explain attitudes and their formation, persuasion, and attitude change, and the links between attitudes to behavior and behavior to attitudes
Major Topics to be Included
- Research Methods
- Ethical Considerations
- Social Perception
- Social Influence
- Social Relationships
- Culture and Social Implications
- The Self
- Social Cognition
- Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
- Attitudes