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Psychology 3410-D Introduction to Social Psychology Distance Education Course Syllabus University of Utah Psych © Dec 2010 1Instructor Information: Professor: Cristina Hudak Department of Psychology [email protected] Office Hours: Office hours will be set by appointment. Also please feel free to ask questions via email and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner. You are encouraged to read, reread and understand this entire syllabus prior to beginning the first lesson. In addition, please explore and become familiar with the entire course site. Course Epistemology: This course is designed to make use of various sources of knowledge. The first, experience, is what you bring to the class. The topics of social psychology derive from everyday life, thus your personal experiences and stories are relevant. We will access this knowledge source primarily through sharing of student papers and via class discussion on the discussion board. Other sources of knowledge in this course include the Kenrick textbook (and accompanying online resources), additional assigned readings, videos, and written lectures. Each source of knowledge derives from a unique perspective and each offers unique information concerning the topics and/or the study of social psychology. In addition, there is some overlap between these knowledge sources. It is this overlap, or double description, that often sparks deeper conceptual learning. Though it will certainly be important to memorize some specific terms, concepts, and sections of the text and lectures, rote memorization is not the sole focus of this course. Rather, making connections across descriptions will be our higher learning goal. Achieving this aim, you will leave this class able to understand the introductory topics of social psychology from both a research perspective as well as how these processes function relevant to everyday life. Course Design: This course is designed to promote the learning goals described above, and we will employ various methods to achieve these objectives. These activities are discussed below, and the grade/point distributions for each aspect of the course are also outlined. LECTURES: The written lectures (found under the Course Content folder) are designed primarily to guide you through the course material. Although new information is occasionally presented, thePsych 3410 Course Syllabus University of Utah Psych © Dec 2010 2lectures are typically used to highlight points made from the other sources of knowledge utilized in this course. These lectures can help serve as a roadmap to help you navigate understanding of the major points from the text, videos, etc. TEXT: Required for all students: Kenrick, D.T., Neuberg, S.L., & Cialdini, R.B. (2007). Social Psychology: Goals in Interaction (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. ISBN: 978-0205493951 This textbook may be obtained from online retailers such as Amazon (http://www.amazon.com). Also be sure to purchase the textbook edition that comes with access to the companion website called MyPsychLab because we’ll use the resources on this website often. Before creating this class I spend a lot of time considering which social psychology textbook would best serve our learning goals. I think that the Kenrick et al. book is informative, readable, and keeps our focus on higher learning goals by constantly asking ‘why?’ It has also been evaluated very highly by students in my previous versions of PSY 3410. This course requires that you read each chapter that is assigned, complete the relevant online homework (see below) for the chapter, and write a 1-2 page paper relevant to each chapter (see below). We will use the textbook as our primary source for learning terminology, traditional concepts, and research in social psychology because it contains most of the information you’ll need to understand the basics of social psychology. We will then use the knowledge we gain from the text and expand it through other means, such as class papers and discussion. Your textbook also has an accompanying website. The website contains activities and additional information that can bolster your understanding of the text. I have also selected several additional readings that are actual articles from social psychology. These articles represent some very important ideas in social psychology and allow us to go deeper into certain topics than the text. Understanding both the textbook and these articles will certainly be emphasized on exams. The articles for the course are available in the reserve reading room of the Marriott library under the name “Thoman” and under course number P3410-90. The articles are also available at the Marriot Library course reserve web site. I have provided a link to the website on our course OLMS page, under the ‘resources’ section. HOMEWORK: Each chapter of the Kenrick text is accompanied by a homework assignment online. Each homework assignment consists of multiple choice questions that will help point out the important ideas and details from the text. If you take your time and understand every answer in the homework, you will be about 80% ready for the exams (the other 20% of material on exams comes from videos, class discussion, additional readings, etc.). The homework is intended to help prepare you for the exam! Thus, you can do the homework as many times as you want. That’s right, if you don’t get all of the answers correct the first time you can redo the homework at no penalty. Now, the homework component of the class is worth about 20% of your final grade, soPsych 3410 Course Syllabus University of Utah Psych © Dec 2010 3if you can do them as many times as you want I expect that these are easy points! I hope that everyone in the class earns all of the possible points on the homework. Also, I’ve found in the past that those who take these homework assignments more serious always do better on the exams. I recommend that you read very quickly through each chapter once, and then read through the chapter again more slowly while you’re doing the homework. This strategy will help you get an overall sense of the concepts in the chapter on the first pass, and then help you focus on details in the second reading. EXAMS: We will also have three exams. Their format will be multiple-choice. They will test your knowledge of fundamental principles of social psychology as well as your ability to apply these principles to


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U of U PSY 3410 - Syllabus

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