Social Psychology

Course Description
Social Psychology will provide you with an introduction to the field of social
psychology. Social psychology is a subfield of the science of psychology that focuses on
the perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals and groups within a
social context. This class will give you a broad overview of the major theories and
findings within social psychology.

Course Goals and Methodology
- Demonstrate an understanding of the basic scientific method underlying social psychological research.
- Demonstrate a general knowledge of the major theories and current findings within each of the research topics covered this semester.
- Recognize and appreciate how basic theory and experimental findings apply to everyday situations.

Course time will be split among lecture, discussion, and in-class activities. Students are expected to keep up with the readings and assignments in order to be responsive in class when discussion is called for and to contribute to in-class activities.

TOPIC CONTENT     
1. Introduction to Social Psychology What is Social Psychology? How does it explain human behavior? In this chapter we will take off from these questions to introduce Social Psychology as a field, looking at its methodological possibilities and most sound findings.     
2. The Social Self What is the self? And how do we know our selves? To tackle these two questions, we will revise the contributions of the most relevant theories in the field of self-construction and self-evaluation.     
3. Social Perception How are our impressions formed? How do first impressions work? Do we always perceive the others consciously? Do we control how we process information? We will discuss how we “read” situations, people, elaborating impressions that reach our behaviors and our emotions.    
4. Prejudice and Discrimination - When considering prejudice, we come acrosswith two other interrelated concepts:stereotypes and discriminations. These threeconstructs form a triad that are beneath theprocess of intergroup conflict and contributeto the creation of negative positions,emotions, and behaviors of the ingroup.
5. What is love and how do we feel attracted to others? In this section, we explore these and more questions connected with love, need of Close Relations -affiliation and intimacy. The topic includes comments on non-verbal communication, linked to close relations.     
6. What is a group? How do groups evolve? How can we produce efficiently in teams? Group dynamics - We will explore the vast literature on psychology of groups in the context of community and organizations. It also includes comments on how virtual teams, should be managed.