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BARTON COMMUNITY COLLEGECOURSE SYLLABUSSPRING 2006GENERAL COURSE INFORMATIONCourse Number:PSYC 1016Course Title:Social PsychologyCredit Hours:3Prerequisite:PSYC 1000 General Psychology with a grade of C or betterDivision and Discipline:Liberal Arts and Sciences/PsychologyCourse Description:This course will be concerned with the forces on individual and group behavior in social situations. Topics will include the creation of attitudes and prejudice, persuasion and conformity, obedience to authority, group decision making, theories of aggression and altruism, social cognition and perception, and interpersonal attraction.CLASSROOM POLICYStudents and faculty of Barton Community College constitute a special community engaged in the process of education. The college assumes that its students and faculty will demonstrate a code of personal honor that is based upon courtesy, integrity, common sense, and respect for others both within and outside the classroom.The College reserves the right to suspend a student for conduct that is detrimental to the College’s educational endeavors as outlined in the College Catalog.Plagiarism on any academic endeavors at Barton Community College will not be tolerated. Learn the rules of, and avoid instances of, intentional or unintentional plagiarism.Anyone seeking an accommodation under provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act should notify Student Support Services.COURSE AS VIEWED IN THE TOTAL CURRICULUMWhile often confused with sociology, social psychology offers a unique perspective different from either sociology (by its focus on the individual) or mainstream psychological thought (because it emphasizes the power of the situation). Because of this unique perspective, a course in social psychology has much to offer psychology majors, sociology majors, business majors, and all who seek to understand and appreciate the complexity of human behavior.ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING/COURSE OUTCOMESBarton Community College is committed to the assessment of student learning and to quality education. Assessment activities provide a means to develop an understanding of how students learn, what they know, and what they can do with their knowledge. Results from these various activities guide Barton, as a learning college, in finding ways to improve student learning.Once this course is successfully completed, the student should:Have an appreciation of how social psychologists conduct scientific experiments; and how experimental results are used to develop theories.Have an understanding of how social beliefs are formed and sustained.Have achieved a greater understanding of such social behaviors as conformity, persuasion, altruism, aggression, attraction, prejudice, and conflict.Appreciate the application of social psychology to such situations as the therapeutic situation, the courtroom; law, business, and health.COURSE COMPETENCIESDefine social psychology. Identify the kinds of questions that social psychologists try to answer.Explain how social psychology differs from sociology and other fields of psychology. Explain how social psychology findings may be distinguished from common sense.Describe the early origins of social psychology. State the field up until 1950. Identify when the field of social psychology became a separate field of study, who the founders are considered to be, and the incident that inspired interest in and shaped the field of social psychology. Explain the contributions made by Allprot, Sherif, and Lewin.Distinguish between social psychology perspectives that emphasize “hot” versus “cold” approaches to understanding human behavior. Define social cognition. Summarize the increasing effort in social psychology to develop an international and multicultural perspective. Explain the utility of learning about research methods in social psychology. Describe the process of generating ideas in social psychology, searching the relevant literature, and developing hypotheses. Distinguish between hypothesis and a theory, and between applied and basic research.Explain the usefulness of surveys. Define random sampling, and explain its importance. Contrast correlation research with descriptive research. Define the correlation coefficient, and explain what it means to say that two variables are negatively correlated, positively correlated, or uncorrelated. Summarize the advantages and important disadvantages and an important disadvantage of co relational research.Explain the importance of control and random assignment in experimental research. Differentiate random sampling from random assignment, and laboratory experiments from field experiments.Define the following terms associated with experimental research: independent variable, dependent variable, control group, and experimental group.Discuss the function of ethics in social psychological research. Describe the roles of institutional review boards, informed consent, and debriefing in protecting the welfare of human participants.Identify which animals are capable of recognizing themselves, and the age when self-recognition occurs in humans. Explain the role of self-recognition and the role of others in the development of the self-concept. Distinguish between sources of self-concept and components of self-concept.Describe self-perception theory, and explain how it can be used to understand emotion, behavior, and motivation. Define the over justification effect, compare and contract intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and identify factors that can influence the effect of extrinsic factors on intrinsic motivation.Summarize social comparison theory, identifying when people tend to engage in social comparison and with whom they tend to compare themselves. Explain the two-factor theory of emotion. Identify situations in which social context does not influence interpretation of unclear emotional states.Explain how our self-concept influences our memories.Identify four ways that people strive for self-enhancement and discuss the implications of self-enhancement for mental health.Describe self-presentation. Compare and contrast strategic self-presentation and self-verification.Define social perception.Describe the impact of appearance on people’s perceptions of others.Explain how people use nonverbal cues to judge others. Identify the six “primary” emotions. Summarize the research concerning perception of angry faces. Discuss the roles of other nonverbal cues, including body language, eye contact, and touch.Describe people’s ability to detect deception. Contract the channels of communication that are most likely to reveal that someone is lying with the channels that perceivers typically try to use to detect deception.Define dispositions and attributes. Distinguish between personal and situational attributes.Describe cognitive heuristics in general and the availability heuristic in particular. Explain how the availability heuristic can give rise to the false-consensus effect. Describe the base-rate fallacy. Define counterfactual thinking and identify when it is likely to occurDefine the fundamental attribution error. Describe the factors that make the Fundamental attribution error less likely to occur.Explain how attribution biases may stem from motivational factors, such as the desire to take more credit for success than for failure. Define what is meant by the “belief in a just world.”Define implicit personality theory. Explain how people’s implicit personality theories affect their impressions of other people. Describe the effects of central traits and the primacy effect on these impressions.Define the confirmation bias. Describe how belief perseverance, confirmatory hypothesis testing, and the self-fulfilling prophecy can each contribute to this bias and identify which factors can reduce the likelihood that these effects will occur.Define discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes. Explain the different mechanisms by which stereotypes from. Describe social categorization and the ingroup/outgroup distinction. Discuss advantages and disadvantages of social categorization. Delineate sociocultural and motivational factors that can influence social categorization.Describe how stereotypes distort perceptions of individuals.Describe how the mechanisms of illusory correlations, attributional processes, subtyping, and confirmation biases help perpetuate stereotypes.Describe the Robbers Cave study and explain the significance of its results.Explain realistic conflict theory and relative deprivation.Describe way in which gender stereotypes are strengthened and maintained. Describe the impact of the media on gender stereotyping and explain social role theory. Explain whether sex discrimination currently exists and, if so, in what way.Explain modern racism and describe procedures that can be used to uncover it.Explain the contact hypothesis and identify the conditions that enable intergroup contact to reduce prejudice.Describe how attitudes are defined and how they are measured. Address both self-report and covert techniques.Discuss how attitudes are related to behaviors. Explain what types of attitudes are most likely to predict behavior, and under what circumstances.Define the peripheral and central routes to persuasion, and explain their differences. Describe how persuasion differs in the two routes. Explain how self-esteem and intelligence are related to persuasion. Identify factors that influence which route of processing is chosen.Explain how the source of a persuasive message affects whether people are likely to be persuaded by the message.Explain how the content of a message can affect whether people are persuaded by it. Compare primacy and recency effects. Describe how both the cognitive and emotional contents of a message affect its persuasiveness.40. Explain how characteristics of the audience can moderate the extent to which it is persuaded by a message. Describe how forewarning and inoculating the audience may affect levels of persuasion.Explain the elements of the classic version of cognitive dissonance theory.Define social influence. Define, compare, and contrast conformity, compliance, and pare normative with informational influence and public with private conformity.Identify and explain each of the factors that have been shown to affect levels of conformity, including group size, awareness of norms, having al ally, age, sex, and cultural influences. identify factors that distinguish collectivistic from individualistic cultures.Differentiate between majority and minority influence. Explain how to account for the effects of minority influence, and how majorities and minorities exert pressure to effect people’s behavior.Define and explain the sequential request strategies known as the foot-in-the door technique, low-balling, the door-in-the fact technique, and the that’s-not-all technique. Explain why each works. Address how to resist these strategiesExplain blind obedience. Describe the procedures used in Milgram’s research on obedience to authority. Compare the predictions made about how participants would behave to what actually happened. Summarize how each of the following affected levels of obedience in the study: participants (e.g., their sex, personality), authority figure (e.g., his or her prestige, presence), proximity of victim, and experimental procedure (e.g., the roles of responsibility and gradual escalation).Distinguish between a group and a collective. Explain how the presence of others affects people’s performance on easy and hard tasks, and how Zajonc accounts for these effects. Describe three alternative accounts for this phenomenonDescribe how working with others on a task affects people’s productivity. Identify factors that can reduce the likelihood that people will engage in social loafing. Explain how the presence of others can lead to increased arousal and social facilitation or decreased arousal and social loafing, depending of whether each member of the group is evaluated separately, or the group is evaluated as a whole.Define deindividuation. Explain how being in a crown can lead people to engage in destructive behaviors. Describe how environmental cues and a sense of identity can affect this process.Describe group polarization and delineate the processes that can create it.Define groupthink. Describe its antecedents, behavioral symptoms, and consequences. Explicate recent work on groupthink addressing the role of cohesiveness and personality of group members. Address how groupthink can be prevented.Explain how GRIT, negotiating, and finding common ground can lead to the reduction of group conflict. Distinguish between an arbitrator and a mediator.Explain the need to belong. Describe social anxiety and the need for affiliation. Address the relationship between affiliation and stress.Summarize the social difficulties of shyness and loneliness.Explain the role of rewards in interpersonal attraction. Describe the role of familiarity in attraction, making reference to the proximity and mere exposure effects.Discuss reasons for people’s bias toward beauty. Describe the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype and why it endures. Explain the benefits and costs of beauty.Explain the influence of similarity and dissimilarity on attractiveness. Describe the matching and complementarity hypotheses. Discuss the role of reciprocity in relationships.Define intimate relationships and explain how they develop.Explain social exchange theory. Describe the influence of comparison level, comparison level alternative, and investment on perceptions of and commitment to relationships. Explain equity theory.Summarize different approaches to classifying love. Describe Lee’s love styles, Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, and Hatfield’s distinction between passionate and companionate love.Discuss differences between the sexes regarding sexuality. Define jealousy, and address the influences of gender on jealousy and reactions to jealousy.Explain how evolutionary theory accounts for helping pare and contrast egoistic and altruistic motives for helping. Explain the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Identify the factor that helps reveal whether egoistic or altruistic motives are present. Delineate why a distinction between types of motives is important. Discuss how external rewards can influence helping.Explain how being in a group of people affects the likelihood that helping behavior will occur. Also explain how being in a group affects the ability of people to notice whether help is needed, to interpret an ambiguous helping situation, and to take responsibility for helping. Identify additional factors that influence the helping behavior of individuals in a group. Define the “bystander effect.”Explain how the interaction between the person in need and the helper affects helping. Identify how similarity, closeness, and gender affect helping.Explain why help is sometimes seen as threatening and sometimes seen as supportive by those receiving it. Describe the situations in which people are most likely as well as least likely to seek help from others.INSTRUCTOR'S EXPECTATIONS OF STUDENTS IN CLASSTEXTBOOKS AND OTHER REQUIRED MATERIALSREFERENCESMETHODS OF INSTRUCTION AND EVALUATIONATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTSCOURSE OUTLINE ................
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