Key Principles of Social Psychology - Flex Version

Week #1: Introduction to Social Psychology; Social Cognition and Social Perception; Justifying Our Actions
Social psychology is the scientific study of the way individuals think, feel, and behave in social situations. Social psychologists seek to answer many questions that are relevant to our everyday lives. Students will discuss how we are influenced by our environment and by other people; how we come to know ourselves; how we form impressions of the people we meet and how we explain others’ behavior.

Week #2: Attitudes & Attitude Change
Review of how attitudes affect us; where do attitudes come from - nature versus nurture.

Week #3: Conformity - Obedience and Compliance
We will explore the reasons that people comply with demands even if the demands go against their beliefs; why do people conform to the majority? We will look at examples of researchers Solomon Asch, Milgram and the Infamous Shock experiment and Zimbardo's Prison Study. We will also look at how this research applies to cults. 

Week #4: Prosocial Behavior/Group Processes
Students will focus on why people are sometimes helpful, but at other times aggressive or even cruel; the difference between altruistic acts and prosocial behavior will be discussed. The bystander effect and deindividuation will be defined and examples of each will be given. How group processes affect us will be discussed including social loafing and social facilitation, as well as the concept of groupthink and why it can have negative consequences. 

Course Structure:
This class will not meet weekly on video chat but will have active participation in the classroom with both the teacher and their peers. Students will have pre-recorded lectures of the lesson which covers the topic of the week and will have questions to answer following each lecture. Powerpoints and hand-outs of vocabulary and notes will supplement each video. The video and powerpoint/hand-outs will be available on Sunday evening at midnight for each week's upcoming lesson. Initial responses to discussion questions will be due on Wednesdays of each week and responses to classmate's posts in the Outschool classroom will be due on Friday. Assigned activities will be due on Fridays each week. Students can submit work to the instructor via private classroom message.The instructor will provide weekly feedback on activities and will facilitate the weekly discussion in the Outschool classroom. 

Team and group activities will be completed that allow learners to apply the course material to real world scenarios. These activities can include but are not limited to puzzles, role plays, and internet resources.  Discussion question prompts will be posed to the learners in the Outschool classroom each week and learners will be expected to respond to the discussion question as well as to other classmates and/or the instructor asynchronously. Students will be asked to answer questions relevant to the topic each week, based on their opinion and will be asked to share this through the outschool classroom tab.

This class is a flexible class set up and all posts/communication will be made directly in the Outschool Classroom. We will interact directly on the Outschool Classroom and use other resources as supplementary tools -  these resources will be created by the instructor. 

Students will participate in class each week by watching the video lesson, engaging in interactive activities, participating in peer discussion questions on the classroom page, and engaging in team/group activities to allow for more peer to peer engagement.    

Prior experience in psychology will not be necessary. The instructor will provide the option of live video chat if any student requests a face to face meeting. 

I am very much student centered. I enjoy an interactive environment with a lot of discussion. There will be hand-outs provided to the students as well as a powerpoint used during the course.