Social Psychology 2404-P-1-PSPO-Sj

Lecture topics:
1. Introduction: social psychology as a science. Research methods of social psychology
What is social psychology? Definition, specificity and scope of social psychology. Problems related to acquiring knowledge in the field of social psychology.
Observation. Correlation and causation. Laboratory and natural experiments. Main advantages and disadvantages of correlation and experimental methods.
2. Minimal social impact
Can the mere presence of others (people) influence our behavior? Social facilitation and social inhibition. Ringelmann phenomenon. Imitation.
3. Conformism and obedience
Informational and normative social influence. Mechanisms and determinants of conformity. The influence of authority. Extreme obedience
4. Social cognition
Knowledge activation and its mechanisms. Schemes and scripts. Contrast and assimilation effects. Attribution theory. Fundamental attribution error and its mechanisms. Assessment heuristics.
5. Me and self-esteem
What is Me? Content of I. The self-reference effect. Self functions. Basic manifestations of striving to maintain self-esteem (including Tesser's theory of maintaining self-esteem). Why do we want to think well of ourselves so much?
6. Perceiving people
The specificity of social perception. Determinants of the interpretation of human behavior. Basic dimensions of social perception. The role of community and agency in perceiving oneself and others.
7. Stereotypes and prejudices
Origin of stereotypes and prejudices (conflict of interest; transfer of aggression; social categorizations, social inheritance). Theories of social identity. Influence on people's perception. Cognitive, emotional and social functions of stereotypes. Why are stereotypes so difficult to change?
8 and 9. Attitudes and their change
Can attitudes be measured? Mechanisms of the genesis of attitudes: direct formation of attitudes (classical and instrumental conditioning, the effect of mere exposure); attitude as a result of beliefs: a model of a perfectly rational attitude; attitude as a result of observing one's own behavior. Theories of attitude change.
10. Interpersonal attractiveness
Why do we like some and not others? Determinants of physical and interpersonal attractiveness: appearance, advantages, similarity, favors, compliments, cooperation.
11. Close relationships and partner selection
Basic assumptions of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. Parental input theory (Trivers). Strategies of sexual selection in humans (Buss). Love as attachment – ​​three types of attachment and their relationships with social functioning. The three-component theory of love: intimacy, passion and commitment.
12 and 13. Life in social groups
Man – a social being. What group do we belong to? Effects of working in groups. Are groups "better" or "worse" than individuals? Communicating information in groups, groupthink, brainstorming.
14. Aggressive behavior
Why are we aggressive? Definitions of aggression. Main theories of aggression. Aggression as an instinct. Aggression as a drive. Frustration-aggression theory. Learning aggression. Determinants of aggression. Watching violence in the media.
15. Prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, helpful behavior, altruism. Theories explaining helping: sociobiological theories (reciprocal altruism, kin selection), arousal theories (arousal-balance model), norm theories. Determinants of helping.

Exercise topics:
1. Introduction. Methods
discussing in groups and trying to predict research results, discussing theories and research results and comparing them with intuitive assessments, folk and scientific psychology
2. Ethics
introduction to researcher ethics, discussion of cases in groups and determining which principles of the psychologist's ethical code apply in a given case - photocopies of the code available during classes
3. Social influence
Group roles and authority.
Homework 1 (How people explain their successes and failures)
4. Me and self-esteem
Defensive functions of the self. Attributional egotism. Group work – attributions of successes and failures.
Homework 2 (interview with a person belonging to a stereotyped category)
5. and 6. Social cognition
Schemes and their functions. Heuristics – what are they? Types of heuristics. Independent tasks and group discussions.
7. Stereotypes and prejudices
Social experiences of people belonging to stereotyped categories. Group discussion on the conducted interviews.
8. Social exclusion
Feeling excluded. Emotional consequences.
Homework 3: breaking a social norm.
9. and 10. Life in social groups
Scripts. Group norms and their functions. Are there universal standards? An individual in a group. Deindividuation. Independent tasks and group discussions.
Homework 4: watch any children's cartoon and count the scenes of violence.
11. Aggressive behavior
How much violence does the average person watch every day? The effects of observing violence - a task carried out in small groups and group discussions.
12. Prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, helpful behavior, altruism. Is there true altruism? Determinants of helping.
13. and 14. Attitudes and their change
Group presentations of social campaign projects regarding a selected issue.
15. Summary of classes and assessment.