Psychology 640
Advanced Social Psychology
Seminar in Social Cognition
Fall, 2008
Dr. Jerry I. Shaw
Office Hours: TTH 2:00 pm - 2:50 pm, or by appointment in ST 322
Dr. Shaw's Web Page: http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00f
Overview:
Social cognition is concerned with how individuals make sense of their social worlds. It is the study of the "social thinker" who attempts to understand social objects, including people, groups, and events. Its focus is on the perspective of the human actor/observer whose interpretation of reality is presumed to mediate social behavior. The core feature of social cognition is mentalism (cognition) which is characterized both as a consequence and a cause of the social world. People, events, and objects influence cognition, and cognition, through its behavioral expression, influences people, events, and objects. The cognitive elements people use to make sense of themselves and others include attributions (causal explanations for social behavior), attitudes (predispositions to evaluate social objects positively or negatively), and schemas (cognitive structures that represent social knowledge about a given domain). Social cognition is both structure-oriented (how are the cognitive elements organized in mental structures?) and process-oriented (what cognitive processes operate on the cognitive elements?). The principal cognitive processes include attention (a social stimulus is noticed and encoded as a representation of the external world), memory (a social stimulus is stored and retrieved for later use), and inference (interpretations and judgments are made about attributes of a social stimulus). The role of affect (feelings and emotions) in social cognition is considered as well as applications of social cognition to real world issues such as mental health, education, the legal system, and close relationships. Social cognition has become a central theme about which much contemporary social psychology is organized. Critics argue that mainstream social cognition is highly embedded within a dominant individualistic orientation that characterizes North American culture, at the expense of an alternative collectivistic orientation that dominates the European viewpoint. Contrasting and integrating these differing orientations is an important theme throughout the seminar.
Class Sessions:
Each class session will be conducted by a seminar leader(s) and will cover specific topics related to social cognition. I will lead the first four seminars, after which each student will be assigned to a seminar topic, planning meeting, and presentation date. Each seminar leader(s) will present an overview of key issues and then will lead a discussion about the current topic. The presentations will be scheduled for 1 hour 40 minutes (3:00 pm - 4: 40pm). The presentations must be accompanied by a written outline to be handed out in the seminar and should include essential aspects of the topic, major empirical findings, relevant theories, relevant methodological/conceptual issues, and current controversies. The outline will contribute to 10% of your seminar grade. In preparation, the seminar leader(s) must read the appropriate assigned readings and at least one or more additional readings which must be referenced on the outline. Each student will meet with me two weeks prior to the scheduled presentation date to discuss his or her plans for the presentation. At this meeting, it is expected that you will have already read the required readings for your seminar and will have made a draft attempt to organize your presentation. We will review your draft, suggest improvements, and add additional readings. These meetings will be in my office on Tuesdays from 2:15 pm - 2: 45 pm.
We will take a break from 4:40 pm - 5:00 pm and afterwards, the seminar leader (s) will preside over a discussion about the current topic. The discussion will be scheduled for 5:00 pm - 5:50 pm. To start things off, the seminar leader will prepare a discussion question to pose to the seminar. The question should be thought-provoking and raise important methodological, empirical, conceptual, theoretical, or applications issues. The question should not be of the type that has one correct answer. Instead, it should be provocative, discussion stimulating, and/or controversial. The seminar leader will also prepare a full, in-depth written reply to the question posed and may introduce some or all of this reply while guiding the discussion. The seminar leader's written discussion question and reply will be turned in to me and will contribute to 10% of each student's seminar grade.
All students will prepare each week by doing the assigned readings and by composing three written discussion questions (no written replies) to be turned in to me at the beginning of each discussion session. The written discussion questions are a course requirement and their quality will contribute to 10% of your seminar grade. The questions should be thought-provoking and raise important methodological, empirical, conceptual, theoretical, or applications issues. The questions will be used by me as the basis for followup discussion after the seminar has finished discussing the seminar leader's question.
Required Readings:
All students are required to read the following:
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I., & Donaghue, N. (2006). Social cognition: An integrated approach. (2nd Ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (AWD)
Moskowitz, G.B. (2005). Social cognition: Understanding self and others. New York: NY: The Guilford Press. (M)
The following text is a classic in the field and contains additional recommended reading for seminar leaders in preparing their presentation:
Fiske, S.T., & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social cognition. (2nd Ed.). New York, N.Y.: McGraw- Hill. (FT)
Grades and Evaluation:
Grades will be based on six evaluative criteria, including (1) your seminar presentation (30%), (2) your seminar outline (10%), (3) your seminar leader written discussion question and reply (10%), (4) your weekly discussion questions (10%), (5) your participation in seminar discussions (10%), and (6) a final examination that will include both objective and essay type questions (30%). The exam will include material from the required readings as well as from seminar discussions. A plus-minus grading system will be used.
Course Topics:
I. Introduction to Social Cognition
A. Cognition in psychology
B. Cognition in social psychology
C. Characteristics of social cognition
II. American and European Approaches to Social Cognition
A. The individualistic orientation of American social psychology
B. The collectivistic orientation of European social psychology
C. Integrations of the differing perspectives
III. Elements of Social Cognition
A. Attributions: Theories
1. Heider's naive psychology
2. Jones & Davis' theory of correspondent inferences
3. Kelley's covariation theory
4. Bem's self-perception theory
5. Weiner's motivational theory
B. Attributions: Errors, biases and styles
1. Fundamental attribution error
2. Actor-observer effect
3. Self-serving attributions
4. Attributional style
C. Attitudes
1. Definitions and structure
2. Behavioral approach - Yale attitude change program
3. Cognitive approach - Cognitive consistency theories
4. Functional approach - motivation theories
5. Attitude processing and persuasion
6. Attitude - behavior consistency
D. Categories and Schemas
1. Social categorization
2. Definitions and types of schemas
3. Schema acquisition and use
4. Schema stability and change
IV. Category Availability, Accessibility, and Priming
A. Knowledge availability
B. Knowledge accessibility
C. Priming
V. Attention, Automatic and Controlled Processing
A. Attention
1. Salience, vividness and accessibility
B. Automatic processing
1. Mindlessness
C. Controlled processing
1. Plans and goals
VI. Person Perception and Memory
A. Dual process models
B. Contents: traits, appearances, and behaviors
C. Information search and impression formation
D. Biases
VII. Social Inferences
A. Inference processes
1. Heuristics
2. Errors and biases
VIII. Prejudice and stereotypes
A. Prejudice
B. Stereotypes
C. Intergroup relations
IX. European Approaches to Social Cognition
A. Social identity theory
B. Social representations theory
C. Discursive theory
D. Social cognition and the European approaches
X. Summary and Conclusions
A. The big picture
B. Where do we go from here?
Course Calendar:
Seminar Date Topic Common Reading Seminar Leader Planning Meeting
1 T 08/26/08 Shaw
2 T 09/02/08 Introduction to social cognition AWD (1,2); M (Intro,1);
American & European traditions Shaw
3 T 09/09/08 Attributions: Theoretical perspectives AWD (5 [149-169]); M (6) Shaw Seminar 5
4 T 09/16/08 Attributions: Errors,biases, applications M (7) Shaw Seminar 6
5 T 09/23/08 Attitudes AWD (4 [112-132]); FT (Handout, Ch 11) Seminar 7
6 T 09/30/08 Categories and schemas AWD (3 [67-88]); M (3 [110-141], 4) Seminar 10
7 T 10/07/08 Category availability, accessibility, and priming M (9, 10) Seminar 11
8 T 10/14/08 No class
9 T 10/21/08 No class
10 T 10/28/08 Attention, automatic and controlled processing M (2) Seminar 12
11 T 11/04/08 Person perception: Information processing models and biases M (5, 8) Seminar 13
12 T 11/11/08 Social inferences: Heuristics M (3 [141-152]); FT (Handout, Ch 9 [381-406] Seminar 14
13 T 11/18/08 Prejudice and stereotypes AWD (7 [225-246]); M (11, 12)
14 T 11/25/08 Social identity, social representations, discursive psychology & social cognition AWD (3 [89-111]
4 [133-147], 5 [169-185], 6 [203-224], 7[247-270])
15 T 12/02/08 Summary & conclusions AWD (9); M (13) Shaw
16 T 12/09/08 Final Examination
Notes:
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