Psychology 2720A-650

Introduction to Social Psychology

If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.

1.0    CALENDAR DESCRIPTION

An introduction to the theories, findings, methods, and problems encountered in the study of people as social beings. Emphasis will be placed on experimental research, conducted both in the laboratory and in the field. Content areas include: attitudes and social cognition, social interaction and influence, group processes and applications of social psychology.

Antirequisites: Psychology 2070A/B, 2712F/G, 2780E, the former 170

Antirequisites are courses that overlap sufficiently in content that only one can be taken for credit. So, if this course has an antirequisite that you have previously taken, you will lose credit for the earlier course, regardless of the grade achieved in this one.

Prerequisite: At least 60% in a 1000 level Psychology course

0.5 course

Unless you have either the prerequisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.


2.0    COURSE INFORMATION

Instructor: Anjana Balakrishnan        

Email: abalakr2@uwo.ca                 

Office Hours: By appointment only

Office: SSC 6315

If you or someone you know is experiencing distress, there are several resources here at Western to assist you.  Please visit:  http://www.uwo.ca/uwocom/mentalhealth/ for more information on these resources and on mental health.

Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 519-661-2111 ext 82147 for any specific question regarding an accommodation.

3.0  TEXTBOOK

 Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., Fehr, B., & Akert, R. M. (2017). Social Psychology (6th Canadian edition). Pearson Education Canada, Inc. (REQUIRED)

Online notes and discussion board available on OWL (https://owl.uwo.ca/portal ).

For the textbook, you are only responsible for reading 11 of the 12 chapters.  The midterm exam will cover content from Chapter 1 as well as Chapters 3-6. The final exam will cover content from Chapters 7-12. The final exam is non-cumulative (i.e., you do not need to study any content from the midterm for the final exam). Chapter 2 or the three Social Psychology in Action Chapters will not be covered in either the midterm or the final exam (i.e., you are not responsible for the material). *However, reading Chapter 2 may be beneficial to enhance understanding of the material provided in latter chapters. This is because subsequent chapters primarily provide results from scientific research studies, and Chapter 2 provides an overview of research methodology. *

A recommended pace for going through the subject matter is to read a chapter per week. The course website has a discussion board in which a discussion question will be listed every week for the content covered during that week for students to comment on. In total, 10 such discussion questions will be posted. It is expected that students participate regularly and actively in these discussions, as a portion of your grade will come from discussion participation (See Evaluation and Mark Breakdown below). The forums are a space for safe, scholarly communication that demonstrates critical thinking and engagement with the content. Please do NOT post content which is derogatory, demeaning, or sarcastic about other students or their postings.

Online notes will be available for each chapter to be covered in the textbook. Until the midterm exam, you will have access only to the notes accompanying Chapters 1-6. The remaining set of online notes (for Chapters 7-12) will be available on the website after the midterm exam is completed. The online notes for a given chapter will be available to you by the Monday of the week pertaining to that chapter (see Recommended Course Progression Schedule below). In the online notes for every chapter, you will find several links to websites that contain related information and videos. You are NOT responsible for these links on the exams; they are provided only for interest. I hope, however, that you will visit some or all of them.

4.0    COURSE OBJECTIVES

This course will survey basic theory and research in social psychology. You will discover what social psychology is and what social psychologists do. Not only will you learn the basic content of social psychology, but the course should teach you to think critically about such everyday issues as: Does violence in the media affect the amount of violence in society? Why do bystanders to an emergency often fail to help the victim? What are the causes of prejudice? The social psychological perspective helps us to frame questions in a testable way, suggests how we might go about finding out answers, and requires us to evaluate the validity of our proposed answers. Because people are inherently social beings, you will hopefully recognize the applicability of social psychological concepts to your everyday life and can use these ideas to better your own life and the lives of those around you.

   4.1    STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, the successful student should be able to:

-       Identify key concepts, principles and overarching themes in social psychology.

-       Interpret and critically evaluate social psychological research.

-       Apply psychological principles to the understanding of everyday problems.

-       Communicate accurately, clearly, and logically, in a way that would be broadly understandable to a non-specialist audience.

-       Recognize the limits of one’s own knowledge and knowledge in the field of psychology and how this might influence the analysis and interpretations of broader issues.

-       Contribute to a shared learning pool (i.e., OWL forum discussions) and facilitate learning through engaging in thoughtful dialogue on core content.

-        Clearly discuss how social psychological concepts are represented in popular media (i.e., movies).

5.0     EVALUATION


Although the Psychology Department does not require instructors to adjust their course grades to conform to specific targets, the expectation is that course marks will be distributed around the following averages:


70%     1000-level and 2000-level courses
72%     2190-2990 level courses
75%     3000-level courses
80%     4000-level courses
   
The Psychology Department follows the University of Western Ontario grading guidelines, which are as follows (see http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf ):

A+  90-100      One could scarcely expect better from a student at this level
A    80-89        Superior work that is clearly above average
B    70-79        Good work, meeting all requirements, and eminently satisfactory
C    60-69        Competent work, meeting requirements
D    50-59        Fair work, minimally acceptable
F    below 50    Fail

5.1 MARK BREAKDOWN

10% Movie Essay Assignment

20% Online Discussions

30% Midterm

40% Final Exam

Senate policy requires that students receive feedback on their work worth at least 15% of the final grade before the Add/Drop deadline. This 15% will be based only on your participation grades till the 28th of May and the Movie Essay Assignment grade.

5.2 MOVIE ESSAY ASSIGNMENT (10%)

You will be required to write and submit a mandatory essay assignment by the 26th of May at 11:55 PM. For this assignment, you will be required to watch a movie and discuss in essay format key details about the movie, and how the movie is associated with social psychology. Additional details about the assignment will be provided online on the OWL Page under the heading Movie Essay Assignment. Late essays will not be accepted.

5.3 ONLINE DISCUSSION BOARDS (20%)

There will be a discussion board on the course website. A total of 10 questions about issues related to the textbook chapters will be posted on the discussion board, one each week, unless otherwise specified (see Section 7.0). Students are expected to participate in all of these discussions, both by posting their own thoughts or observations and by commenting constructively on other students’ comments. 20% of your grade will be assigned based on the quantity and quality of your contributions to these discussions. This said, only those students who go above and beyond in their contributions will be allocated with the highest score each week. In the Discussion area of the course, you, as a student, can interact with your classmates to explore questions and comments related to the content of this course. A successful student in online education is one who takes an active role in the learning process. You are therefore encouraged to participate in the discussion to enhance your learning experience throughout the course.

The discussions will be graded for the quality and content of your contributions. Examples of quality posts include:

-       providing additional information to the discussion;

-       elaborating on previous comments from others;

-       presenting explanations of concepts or methods to help fellow students;

-       presenting reasons for or against a topic in a persuasive fashion;

-       sharing your own personal experiences that relate to the topic; and

-       providing a URL and explanation for an area you researched on the Internet.

-       suggesting and elaborating on research questions or a study proposal that could stem from the topic

A new discussion question will be posted each Monday at 11:00 a.m. These discussion questions will be related to one of the textbook chapters. The discussion will be open until the following Sunday at 11:55 p.m. It should be noted that only making a single posting that responds to the discussion question posed is insufficient to get full marks. ***The highest marks will be allocated to those students who not only respond to the discussion question, but also interact with their peers by responding to other students’ postings in addition to replying to students who have responded to your post. ***

 Please note that once a discussion thread closes, no more posts can be made.

For each discussion, you will be assigned a grade out of 2 based upon your discussion. Grades will be assigned as follows:

0 = Incomplete (no posting, question not answered)

0.5= Partially Complete (posting made, but question answered only partially or unclearly)

1 = Satisfactory (question answered fully, contributes to discussion by responding to at least 1 other post)

1.5=Strong (posting(s) go beyond the basic requirements, presenting additional information from outside the textbook, and responding to others posts in ways that enhance the conversation)

2 = Excellent (posting(s) goes well beyond basic requirements, present additional information from outside the textbook, responding to several other students posts in ways that enhance the conversation)

** Receiving 2 one week doesn't necessarily mean that you will receive the same grade in future weeks**

There will also be a general discussion thread wherein you can pose questions about material from the textbook or online notes or inquire about things related to exams or the optional essay assignment. Please note that you may not use this thread to post late topic thread contributions. In other words, the general discussion thread is unrelated to participation.

5.4 EXAMINATIONS (MIDTERM 30%, FINAL 40%)

There will be two examinations in the course: a midterm worth 30% and a final worth 40%. Each exam will have 60 multiple choice questions. The midterm exam will cover chapters 1 & 3-6, and the final exam will cover chapters 7-12. Thus, the final exam is non-cumulative. You are responsible for the textbook material and the online notes for the relevant chapters for each exam. Grades will be posted on OWL approximately one to two weeks after each exam. (It takes time to receive the exams from locations outside of London).

5.5 MAKEUP EXAMS

Tests must be written on the scheduled dates unless you have a legitimate excuse recognized by the university. Valid excuses include medical or compassionate reasons, and must be substantiated by the proper documentation (e.g., a medical certificate, which will be verified by an Academic Counselor in your Faculty, i.e., Science, Social Science, Arts etc.). A student who misses a regularly scheduled exam for other reasons, or who cannot justify a claim, will be assigned a 0 for the exam.


6.0  TEST AND EXAMINATION SCHEDULE

Midterm Exam: Saturday, June 17th, 2017 at 2:00 PM (Location TBA)

Final Exam: TBA by Registrar: check Office of the Registrar for this information

The exact dates and times for the two exams will be posted on OWL as soon as they are available.

7.0   CLASS SCHEDULE

Week

Date

Chapter and Discussion Topic

Topic

1

May 8-14

Chapter 1 and Topic 1

Introduction to Social Psychology

2

May 15-21

Chapter 3 and Topic 2

Social Cognition: How we Think about the Social World

3

May 22-28

Chapter 4 and Topic 3

Social Perception: How we Come to Understand Other People

Movie Essay Assignment Due Friday May 26th by 11:55:00PM -Worth 10%

4

May 29-June 4

Chapter 5 and Topic 4

Self-Knowledge and the Need to Maintain Self-Esteem

5

June 5-11

Chapter 6 and Topic 5

Attitudes and Attitude Change

6

June 12-18

Midterm Exam          June 17th at 2 pm

Chapters 1, 3-6

7

June 19-25

Chapter 7 and Topic 6

Conformity: Influencing Others

8

June 26-July 2

Chapter 8 and Topic 7

Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups

89

July 3-9

Chapter 9 and Topic 8

Interpersonal Attraction: From First Impressions to Close Relationships

10

July 10-16

Chapter 10 and Topic 9

Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help?

11

July 17-23

Chapter 11 and Discussion 10

Aggression: Why We Hurt Other People

12

July 24-30

Chapter 12 and no discussion

Prejudice: Causes and Cures

13

July 31-Aug 3 

Final Exam Period

Chapters 7-12

8.0     STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC OFFENCES

Students are responsible for understanding the nature and avoiding the occurrence of plagiarism and other scholastic offenses. Plagiarism and cheating are considered very serious offenses because they undermine the integrity of research and education. Actions constituting a scholastic offense are described at the following link:  http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf

As of Sept. 1, 2009, the Department of Psychology will take the following steps to detect scholastic offenses. All multiple-choice tests and exams will be checked for similarities in the pattern of responses using reliable software, and records will be made of student seating locations in all tests and exams. All written assignments will be submitted to TurnItIn, a service designed to detect and deter plagiarism by comparing written material to over 5 billion pages of content located on the Internet or in TurnItIn’s databases. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between Western and Turnitin.com http://www.turnitin.com

Possible penalties for a scholastic offense include failure of the assignment, failure of the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.



9.0    POLICY ON ACCOMMODATION FOR MEDICAL ILLNESS

Western’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://westerncalendar.uwo.ca/2017/pg954.html 

Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation:
http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html


10.0        OTHER INFORMATION

Office of the Registrar web site:  http://registrar.uwo.ca

Student Development Services web site: http://www.sdc.uwo.ca

Please see the Psychology Undergraduate web site for information on the following:

    http://psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/student_responsibilities/index.html

- Policy on Cheating and Academic Misconduct
- Procedures for Appealing Academic Evaluations
- Policy on Attendance
- Policy Regarding Makeup Exams and Extensions of Deadlines
- Policy for Assignments
- Short Absences
- Extended Absences
- Documentation
- Academic Concerns
- 2017 Calendar References

No electronic devices, including cell phones, will be allowed during exams.