SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Psychology
Spring, 2008

Professor: Dr. Travis Langley (870)230-5222 langlet@hsu.edu

Teaching assistant: hsu_social@yahoo.com

Required textbook: Social Psychology (7th, 8th, or 9th edition) by Myers, and Social Psych Lab access code.

OVERVIEW:

This course is designed to provide an overview of the scientific study of how people interact. Topics of discussion include social behavior, intimate relationships, aggression, prejudice, propaganda, various means of intentional and unintentional manipulation.

SCHEDULE

Chapter numbers are for the 9th edition. If you have a different edition, see that edition's version of this syllabus.

Unit	Exam dates	Chapters
1	Wednesday, February 6	1-3
2	Monday, February 25	4-5, 14 (Earlier editions call chapter 14 "module A.")
3	Wednesday, March 12	6-8
4	Wednesday, April 9	9-10, 15 (Earlier editions call chapter 15 "module B.")
5	Monday, April 28	11-13

FINAL EXAM: Refer to semester schedule.

Refer to official schedule for last day to drop with grade of W. After that date, the professor absolutely will not assign you a grade of WP if you're failing.

EXAMS

Each unit will conclude with a 40-item multiple choice exam covering lecture notes, assigned readings, and class discussion. Bring number 2 pencils for every test. If you have trouble erasing mistakes completely, ask your professor for a clean answer sheet. Any answer marked wrong due to an incomplete erasure is simply wrong.

On every test, put your name and ID number on the front of the answer sheet and on the back of your test. Follow instructions to put your test and answer sheet face down and in the right stack; otherwise the Scantron machine might grade the back of your answer sheet or grade it according to the wrong answer key.

There will be NO makeup tests, so don't even ask. As long as you do not miss any tests, your lowest test will be dropped, even if it is the final exam. If you do miss one but have an excused absence, the missing test will be the one that gets dropped. Because the 60-question final will be cumulative, it is strongly advised that you do not miss any exams if you can help it. The final will weigh the same as any other test in figuring your grade.

COMMUNICATION

The best way to contact your professor is via email at langlet@hsu.edu. If you are going to miss class, do NOT tell him; ask another student what you missed instead of pointing out to the professor that you weren't (or won't be) here. If you have a question about the Internet grades, contact the teaching assistant about those at hsu_social@yahoo.com.

If you do not use your reddies.hsu.edu email address, you must set it up to forward messages to you because if I have to email a message to the class, that's where the system will send it. You are responsible for making certain you are set up to receive messages from your professor.

PARTICIPATION

A class on social behavior should call for some interactions. Therefore there is a participation grade. If you aren’t here when I take role, the reason does not matter. You weren’t here to participate, regardless of why. Participation is more than just showing up anyway. Contributing to class discussions without trying to monopolize is crucial. Because this is about social behavior, you’ll sometimes divide into groups at times for discussions. Your involvement in those groups contributes to this grade. You should participate as a volunteer in at least one experiment this semester.

GRADING

Test questions range in difficulty to get an accurate idea of exactly how much you know and understand about the course material. I do not feel it is right to establish a curve based on the highest grade in the class, in which case only one score would determine everyone's grade. The scale on the 40-point tests (although bonus credit makes them worth more than 40) is simply this:

A 35.1 --> B 30.1 - 35.0 C 25.1 - 30.0 D 20.1 - 25.0 F <-- 20.0

Your professor reserves the right to subtract any number of points from the grade of someone who disrupts class, or to assign a course grade of F to someone caught cheating. Anyone caught cheating will also be referred for University disciplinary measures.

Keep track of your own grades for each test. Write down your numerical scores along the way. If you are not in class when a test is returned graded, you can learn the score on that test when the next test is returned graded.

The professor reserves the right to drop any student for a pattern of profound absenteeism. The professor does take roll whenever he thinks of it, so that if someone has a borderline grade at the end of the term, attendance might be taken into consideration.

Writing Across the Curriculum: The last question on every test will be "What else did you learn from the current course material that was not otherwise covered by this test?" For that question, you will need to explain concepts in complete sentences, making certain that you are not simply copying the wording as it appears in the book. Convince me you understand. There can be other essay questions to assess your understanding of material.

INTERNET DAYS

Except for the last Friday of the semester (because we can't have assignments on Restricted Days), classes will be held online on Fridays. That way, you'll have plenty of time to do the Understanding Experiments and related work.

UNDERSTANDING EXPERIMENTS

Online Experience

Using your Social Psych Lab access code, go to http://soclab.wadsworth.com and register to complete ten labs in the Social Psych Lab Online Laboratory program. These are simple tasks that should only take a few minutes each. We will discuss these in class.

Group ID: HSU Group password: KurtLewin

Experimental Idea Log

You will keep a notebook (to be turned in at the end of the semester) in which you jot down ideas for experiments, to demonstrate your understanding of key concepts in social psychology as well as your understanding of what an experiment is. Those of you who have not yet taken Experimental Methods should find that course much easier after doing this. Those of you who are completing your capstone projects this semester can use some of these ideas to beef up your papers' introduction sections or flesh out your discussion sections.

You’ll post these ideas on Reddie Connect along the way to see what other students have suggested and to learn from each other.

You’ll record two kinds of experiment ideas: (1) For every Social Psych Lab you complete online, you will suggest a way to change the experiment and explain why that change might be useful. (2) For some topic of your choosing (see examples below), you will go through and suggest an experiment relating this topic to the material covered by each chapter in the textbook. For example, suppose your topic is humor. When we reach the chapter that really explains cognitive dissonance theory, you could suggest an experiment that would test how experiencing cognitive dissonance might alter whether or not someone considers an offensive remark to be funny.

Examples of topics:

advertising animal social behavior bullies con artists conflict resolution conventions

cooperation courtship rituals crime dating discrimination education entertainment