Required Text: Smith, Eliot R. & Mackie, Diane, M. (1999). Social Psychology (Second Edition). Philadelphia PA: Psychology Press.

The purpose of this course is to introduce undergraduates to the field of social psychology. There are three major sub-goals: (1) To explain how social psychologists think about and study human behavior.  (One of the recurring themes will be that social psychology relies on experimental studies of the social processes that surround us in everyday life. The results of such experiments sometimes do, and sometimes do not, support intuitions that people might have about social behavior.) (2) To introduce the body of knowledge and underlying principles that currently exist in the field. (3) To encourage reflection about the implications of social-psychological research for the situations we encounter in everyday life.

This class will involve two lectures and a recitation each week.  The 50-minute lectures will cover the topics listed on the flip side of this syllabus. The text covers these same topics, but the lecturer strives to overlap with the text only about 50% of the time, explaining and expanding material presented there. Consequently students will both need to attend lecture and read the text to learn all of the expected material. Basic notes for the class will be posted on the class web page.

Students will also be assigned to a recitation section, which will meet once each week, sometime after the second lecture. In recitation, students will take part in a variety of activities meant to build on and extend lecture material. Such activities will include discussions of readings, demonstrations of classic social psychological phenomena, and the design of a social-psychological study by small class groups.  Recitation is designed to give students greater insight into the research process and to provide opportunities to discuss course material in smaller groups. The TAs leading recitations are all advanced social psychology graduate students, who are quite capable of clarifying class material, as well as directing recitation activities.