Social Psychology Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course will examine how people think, behave and feel in social situations. Students will learn about the importance of the social environment in shaping people’s personality, attitudes, and approaches to relationships, which can be of more intimate nature, or can involve group and between groups dynamics. In essence, this course focuses on how human behaviour is influenced by other people and the study of social behaviour; it answers the question, how does society construct our psychological being? Different theoretical approaches will be presented (e.g., Experimental, Humanistic and experiential, social constructionism) to students, who will learn to compare and contrast their main findings. This course will also enable students to explain the historical and cultural contingency of many descriptions and explanations of human behaviour. Studying social psychology will provide students with tools which could  be used in every type of career they will undertake.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures/seminars/labs/studios/workshops

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups.

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within office hours, interactive teaching sessions, and/or the VLE. Summative grades are typically provided through the VLE.

Summative Assessments

Both types of assessment will  require  students to draw upon their understanding of the role that society has on human behaviour

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments or through email or the VLE) and oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).    

Feedback on summative examinations is typically provided through generic internal examiners’ reports which are made available on the VLE. Feedback on all summative assessments is made available to the student through the VLE or another appropriate method. 

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

• An Introduction to Social Psychology by W. Stroebe, 2020 (BPS Textbooks in Psychology)
• The Social Animal, E Aronson, 2011, Worth Ed.
• Advances in Social Experimental Psychology, 2016, Zanna & Olson eds., San Diego Academic Press
• Talking to Strangers: What We Should About the People We Don’t Know, M Gladwell, 2019, Little, Brown & Co.
• The Psychology of Totalitarianism by D Desmet, 2022

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as part of the approval/modification process only.

• Social Cognition
• Attitudes, Violence, and Aggression
• Social Identity
• Prejudice and discrimination