ADVANCED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Fall 2017

Class Information

Instructor Information

PSYCH 6204

Dr. Helen C. Harton

Bartlett 34

Bartlett 2080

W 7-9:50pm

273-2235; harton@uni.edu

 

Office Hours: W 1:30-2:50; F 11-11:50; pretty much any time I’m around

 

Readings: 1) Nelson, T. D. (Ed.) (2017). Getting grounded in social psychology: The essential

                        literature for beginning researchers. New York: Routledge.

                  2) Articles available online through the library or other resources

                  3) Articles provided in dropbox

           

Course Description: In this class we will explore several major (and overlapping) areas of social psychology. In addition to the overview of each area provided by the text, we will usually focus on about three articles or chapters each week in depth. Social psychology has been defined as “an attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others" (Allport, 1954). This course will deal with the theory, research, and methodology of social psychology, including both classic and contemporary approaches. The readings will mainly focus on newer theoretical approaches, although we will also read a few empirical articles. The course will primarily be discussion-based, but I may sometimes give introductions to an area or provide you with further information about research findings.

 

Course Objectives: Through active participation in this class, you will become able to:

1) describe knowledge and theory relevant to each major area of research in social psychology;

2) discuss, evaluate, and apply theories in social psychology;

3) employ social psychological research and principles in your own life and to societal issues, including diversity; and

4) use social psychological research, theory, and methodology to design a novel research project that contributes to scientific knowledge.

 

Course Requirements:

            Class discussion                      25%                 Grades will be distributed as follows:

            Midterm exam                         20%                 93-100 = A; 90-92 = A-; 87-89 = B+;

            Final exam                               25%                 83-86 = B; etc.

            Research proposal                   20%

            Proposal presentation              10%

 

Class discussion. Active class discussion is essential to the functioning of the class. You are expected to contribute meaningfully (thoughtful, relevant, critical comments) to class discussions. While mere attendance is not enough to get a good grade for this component, it is imperative in that you can’t participate if you’re not here. You should read the readings carefully and critically before class and come to class with specific questions or comments about each of them to add to the discussion. Think about things like how the research or theory relates to other research you know about, how you could test the theory, criticisms and solutions of the theory or area, etc. I will drop your one lowest discussion grade. Participation (frequency and quality) will be graded each week on roughly the following scale:

            0 = absent

            2 = attended but didn’t participate very much; comments irrelevant (below average)

            3 = comments or questions relevant, but didn’t involve much insight (average)

            4 = comments or questions relevant and insightful (good)

            5 = several comments or questions showed a significant contribution (excellent)

I will try to get you feedback as soon as possible after class, but this means that I can’t always give a lot of comments related to your grade. The first few weeks, especially if you are below a 4, I will try to give some helpful hints for improving your grade. Feel free to come talk to me if you have further questions about your discussion grades.

 

You will also turn in at least four written discussion points each week (covering at least four of the readings for that week). This assignment is designed to help you prepare for discussion and better articulate your thoughts on the readings. They will be graded on the following scale (with in between points used as necessary), for a total of 6 possible points (rare).

            0 = nothing on that reading

            .5 = relevant, but not insightful or not developed

            1 = adequate discussion point

            1.5= very strong, significant point

 

The discussion points will count for 40% of your discussion grade. I may call on you in class to talk about your discussion points, so bring them to class. Your lowest score will be dropped. You don’t have to turn in discussion points for the first class (though you will be graded on participation, so you should have read and thought about the readings). If you want to turn in discussion points the first week, I’ll give you feedback on them that may be helpful for future weeks.

 

Midterm and final exams. There will be two noncumulative exams made up of essay questions. I will give you a longer list of questions from which the test questions will be drawn at least a week before the exam. Exams will be taken in the computer lab. The class can vote on whether you want to have 4 required essays, 4 required essays plus some identifications, or 5 essays on each test.

 

Research proposal. This original proposal should be based on one or more social psychological theories (they don’t have to be ones discussed in class, but make sure you check with me early on whether your theory is appropriate for this assignment) and add to the literature in the area. For this paper, you can either 1) choose a theory and propose a study to test a new prediction from the theory (this may take the form of extending or limiting the theory); 2) choose two or more theories and design a study to integrate them, either showing that they would lead to similar predictions or differentiating conditions under which they would lead to conflicting predictions; or 3) apply a theory to a research area to which it has not been previously applied (e.g., your area of interest). The proposals should contain an abstract, a relevant and focused literature review (at least 7-8 pages), a detailed method section, a results section with proposed analyses and expected results, a discussion section examining the implications and limitations of your expected findings, references, and appendices with any questionnaires or measures you designed. The paper should be in APA style. Papers with APA style or citation errors will be returned for you to fix, and late points will be deducted until the corrected paper is turned back in. Topics will be due and discussed in class October 18, and the final paper will be due on December 15. I will be happy to read and give you comments on (fairly complete) rough drafts, but you have to turn them to me by November 13 to get this feedback. If you have any questions about whether a paper topic is appropriate for any reason, ask me about it. Obviously proposals for projects that you are working on with other faculty or students or for another class are not appropriate for this assignment, but you can do something related to (but different from) your thesis or do something that may become your thesis. I will give you a rubric to help explain what I expect to see in each section of the proposal.

 

Presentation. During one of the last class sessions, you will present your proposal to the class (background, method, expected results, what they would mean, etc.). Your presentation, which should include some audio-visual effects (e.g., PowerPoints), should last about 15 minutes, followed by a discussion of the proposal by the class of no more than 5-10 minutes. You can integrate any helpful comments from the class into your proposal before you turn it in. Presentation schedule is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gxcZgRO7D-PHNwB3apxbL9xSMvA8ZKbB7dZwws7RIts/edit?usp=sharing

 

Makeup and Late Paper Policies: Class discussion grades cannot be made up. Makeup tests will only be given in very limited circumstances. Proposals will be accepted up to three days (days, not business days) past the due date, but one letter grade will be deducted for each day until they are turned in. The proposals are due at 12pm (noon), so after that counts as the next “day.” Plan ahead and don’t wait until the last minute to finish (or start) the paper, in case something unexpected arises. 

 

Academic Honesty Policy: Cheating and plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated and will result in a 0 on the assignment in question. This includes using a paper from another class or that you have worked on with another faculty member to fulfill a requirement in this class, quoting material in a paper without proper attribution, or looking at or using any outside information (outside your head) during tests. For more information on UNI’s academic honesty policies, see the UNI website as well as the information in the Department of Psychology Graduate Student Handbook. If you have any questions about what is acceptable, ask.

 Reading List and Class Schedule

The readings should be read carefully and critically. You should be ready to discuss them in class, and have points in mind that you want to bring up.

t indicates that there are published responses to the article you may want to check out

*not available online (see dropbox)

 

August 23     Introduction: History, Theory, and Methodology

Textbook Chapter 1

*Ellsworth, P. C. (2004). Clapping with both hands: Numbers, people, and simultaneous hypotheses. In J. T. Jost, M. R. Banaji, & D. A. Prentice (Eds.), Perspectivism in social psychology: The yin and yang of scientific progress (pp. 261-273). Washington, DC: APA. doi:10.1037/10750-019

*Van Lange, P. A. M. (2013). What we should expect from theories in social psychology: Truth, abstraction, progress, and applicability as standards (TAPAS). Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17, 40-55. doi:10.1177/1088868312453088

Klein, R. A., Ratliff, K. A., Vianello, M., Adams, R. B. Jr., Bahnik, S., Bernstein, M. J….Nosek, B. A. (2014). Investigating variation in replicability: A ‘many labs’ replication project. Social Psychology, 45, 142-152. doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000178 

Ramscar blog post

Motyl, M., Demos, A. P., Carsel, T. S., Hanson, B. E., Melton, Z. J., Mueller, A. B., …Skitka, L. J. (2017). The state of social and personality science: Rotten to the core, not so bad, getting better, or getting worse? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 34-58. doi:10.1037/pspa0000084

 

 

August 30    The Self

Textbook Chapter 2

*Baumeister, R. F., Maranges, H. M., & Vohs, K. D. (2017). Human self as information agent: Functioning in a social environment based on shared meanings. Review of General Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/gpr0000114

*Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2015). Thirty years of terror management theory: From genesis to revelation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 52, 1-70. doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2015.03.001

Watts, A. L., Lilienfeld, S. O., Smith, S. F., Miller, J. D., Campbell, W. K., Waldman, I, D.,…Faschingbauer, T. J. (2013). The double-edged sword of grandiose narcissism: Implications for successful and unsuccessful leadership among U. S. Presidents. Psychological Science, 24, 2379-2389. doi:10.1177/0956797613491970

 

 

September 6    Cultural Differences, Emotion, and Morality

Textbook Chapter 13

Miyamoto, Y. (2013). Culture and analytic versus holistic cognition: Toward multilevel analyses of cultural influences. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 131-188. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-407236-7.00003-6

tGelfand, J. J. et al. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332, 1100-1104. doi:10.1126/science.1197754     

*Cameron, C. D., Lindquist, K. A., & Gray, K. (2015). A constructionist review of morality and emotions: No evidence for specific links between moral content and discrete emotions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19, 371-394. doi:10.1177/1088868314566683

 

September 13    Social Cognition

Textbook Chapters 3 and 4

Jost, J. T., Becker, J., Osborne, D., & Badaan, V. (2017). Missing in (collective) action: Ideology, system justification, and the motivational antecedents of two types of protest behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26, 99-108. doi:10.1177/0963721417690633

Vohs, K. D. (2015). Money priming can change people’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors: An update on 10 years of experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4), e86-e93. doi:10.1037/xge0000091

Martin, J. M., Reimann, M., & Norton, M. I. (2016). Experience theory, or how desserts are like losses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 1460-1472. doi:10.1037/xge0000215

 

 

September 20     Prejudice

Textbook Chapter 11

Crandall, C. S., & Eshleman, A. (2003). A justification-suppression model of the expression and experience of prejudice. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 414-446. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.414

*Barreto, M. (2015). Detecting and experiencing prejudice: New answers to old questions. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 52, 139-219. doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2015.02.001

Richeson, J. A., & Sommers, S. R. (2015). Toward a social psychology of race and race relations for the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 439-463. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115115

 

 

September 27     Attitudes

Textbook Chapter 5

Kruglanski, A. W., Jasko, K., Chernikova, M., Milyavsky, M., Babush, M., Baldner, C., & Pierro, A. (2015). The rocky road from attitudes to behaviors: Charting the goal systemic course of actions. Psychological Review, 122, 598-620. doi:10.1037/a0039541

Hornsey, M. J., & Fielding, K. S. (2017). Attitude roots and Jiu Jitsu persuasion: Understanding and overcoming the motivated rejection of science. American Psychologist, 72, 459-473. doi:10.1037/a0040437

Dalege, J., Borsboom, D., van Harreveld, F., van den Berg, H., Conner, M., & van der Maas, H. L. J. (2016). Toward a formalized account of attitudes: The Causal Attitude Network (CAN) model. Psychological Review, 123, 2-22. doi:10.1037/a0039802

 

 

October 4    Midterm exam

 

 

October 11   Social Influence and Cultural Emergence

Textbook Chapter 7

t Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., McNamara, R. A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, 1-19. doi:10.1017/S0140525X14001356

*Harton, H. C., & Bourgeois, M. J. (2004). Cultural elements emerge from dynamic social impact. In M. Schaller & C. S. Crandall (Eds.), Psychological foundations of culture (pp. 41-75). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.

Griggs, R. A. (2017). Milgram’s obedience study: A contentious classic reinterpreted. Teaching of Psychology, 44, 32-37. doi:10.1177/0098628316677644

*Cialdini, R. (2016). Pre-suasion (Chapter 1). New York: Simon & Schuster.

Kramer, A. D., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America, 111, 8788-8790. doi:10.1073/pnas.1320040111

 

 

October 18    Groups

Textbook Chapter 8

*Tindale, R. S., Smith, C. M., Dykema-Engblade, A., & Kluwe, K. (2012). Good and bad group performance: Same process—different outcomes. Group Processes and Interpersonal Relations, 15, 603-618. doi: 10.1177/1368430212454928 

Hogg, M. A. (2015). Constructive leadership across groups: How leaders can combat prejudice and conflict between subgroups. In S. R. Thye & E. J. Lawler (Eds.), Advances in group processes, Volume 32 (pp. 177-207). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

*Bettencourt, B. A., Manning, M., Molix, L., Schlegel, R., Eidelman, S., & Biernat, M. (2016). Explaining extremity in evaluation of group members: Meta-analytic tests of three theories. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20, 49-74. doi:10.1177/1088868315574461

 

Describe your paper idea in class.

 

 

October 25     Relationships

Textbook Chapter 9

Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., Griffin, D. W., & Derrick, J. L. (2015). The equilibrium model of relationship maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 93-113. doi:10.1037/pspi0000004

Reis, H. T., Lemay, E. P., Jr., Finkenauer, C. (2017). Toward understanding understanding: The importance of feeling understood in relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11, e12308. doi:10.1111/spc3.12308.

*Durante, K. M., Eastwick, P. W., Finkel, E. J., Gangestad, S. W., & Simpson, J. A. (2016). Pair-bonded relationships and romantic alternatives: Toward an integration of evolutionary and relationship science perspectives. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 1-74. doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2015.09.001

 

 

November 1    Helping and Happiness

Textbook Chapter 10

Dierner, E., Heintzelman, S. J., Kushlev, K., Tay, L, Wirtz, D., Lutes, L. D., & Oishi, S. (2017). Findings all psychologists should know from the new science on subjective well-being. Canadian Psychology, 58, 87-104. doi:10.1037/cap0000063

Heintzelman, S. J., & King, L. A. (2014). Life is pretty meaningful. American Psychologist, 69, 561-574. doi:10.1037/a0035049

*Franco, Z. E., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2016). The psychology of heroism: Extraordinary champions of humanity in an unforgiving world. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (2nd ed.) (pp. 494-523). New York: Guilford. doi:10.7748/ns.19.51.37.s38

 

 

November 8  Aggression and Rejection

Textbook Chapter 8

Freedman, G., Williams, K. D., & Beer, J. S. (2016). Softening the blow of social exclusion: The Responsive Theory of Social Exclusion. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1570. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01570

Calvert, S. L., Appelbaum, M., Dodge, K. A., Graham, S., Nagayama Hall, G. C., Hamby, S.,… Hedges, L. V. (2017). The American Psychological Association Task Force assessment of violent video games: Science in the service of public interest. American Psychologist, 72, 126-143. doi:10.1037/a0040413

Hilgard, J., Engelhardt, C. R., & Rouder, J. N. (2017). Overstated evidence for short-term effects of violent games on affect and behavior: A reanalysis of Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 143, 757-774. doi:10.1037/bul0000074

Kepes, S., Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). Violent video game effects remain a societal concern: Reply to Hilgard, Engelhardt, and Rouder (2017). Psychological Bulletin, 143, 775-782. doi:10.1037/bul0000112

 

 

November 15   Terrorism, and Extremism

*Gibson, J. T., & Haritos-Fatouros, M. (1986). The education of a torturer. Psychology Today, 20, 50-58.

*Bandura, A. (2004). The role of selective moral disengagement in terrorism and counterterrorism. In F. M. Moghaddam & A. J. Marsella (Eds.), Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences, and interventions (pp. 121-150). Washington, DC: APA.

Kruglanski, A. W., Jasko, K., Chernikova, M., Dugas, M., & Webber, D. (2017). To the fringe and back: Violent extremism and the psychology of deviance. American Psychologist, 72, 217-230. doi:10.1037/amp0000091

McCauley, C., & Moskalenko, S. (2017). Understanding political radicalization: The two-pyramids model. American Psychologist, 72, 205-216. doi:10.1037/amp0000062

Alison, L., & Alison, E. (2017). Revenge versus rapport: Interrogation, terrorism, and torture. American Psychologist, 72, 266-277. doi:10.1037/amp0000064

Doosje, B., Moghaddam, F. M., Kruglanski, A. W., de Wolf, A., Mann, L., & Feddes, A. R. (2016). Terrorism, radicalization and de-radicalization. Current Opinion in Psychology, 11, 79-84. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.06.008

*Verkuyten, M., & Yogeeswaran, K. (2017). The social psychology of intergroup toleration. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21, 72-96. doi:10.1177/1088868316640974

Swann, W. B., Jr., Buhrmester, M. D., Gómez, A., Jetten, J., Bastian, B., Vázquez, A., . . . Zhang, A. (2014). What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 912-926. doi:10.1037/a0036089

 

 

November 29   Final exam

 

 

December 6   Student presentations

 

 

December 13    Student presentations (7-9pm)

 

 

December 15  12:00 pm   Papers due

 

 

Bonus Readings:

Jordan, C. H., & Zanna, M. P. (1999). How to read a journal article in social psychology. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), The self in social psychology (pp. 461-470). Philadelphia: Psychology Press. Available at https://pages.stolaf.edu/2014psych-230/files/2013/08/ReadaJournalArticle.pdf

Bem, D. J. (2002). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. L. Roediger III (Eds.),  (2002). The compleat academic: A career guide. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Available at http://dbem.ws/WritingArticle.pdf

Bem, D. J. (1995). Writing a review article for Psychological Bulletin. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 172-177. doi:10.1037//0033-2909.118.2.172

Sternberg, R. J. (1993). How to win acceptances by psychology journals: 21 tips for better writing. APA Observer. Available at http://www.csustan.edu/psych/todd/sternbrg.html