Because we as human beings spend a good deal of our time interacting with other people--being influenced by them, influencing them, being delighted, amused, saddened, and angered by them--it is natural that we develop hypotheses about social behavior.  In that sense, we are all amateur social psychologists.

Eliot Aronson, The Social Animal , 2012

In this full-time program, we will explore the fundamentals of social psychology, the field that bridges psychology and sociology, to examine how people think, feel, and behave because of the real (or imagined) presence of social others. This program starts with the premise that human beings are inherently social beings informed, influenced, and constituted by the social world. Using this perspective as a launching off point, we will investigate everyday life--from the mundane to the extraordinary--as it is lived and experienced by individuals involved in an intricate web of social relationships.  This social psychological view of the self explores the ways that individuals are enmeshed and embodied within the social context both in the moment and the long-term, ever constructing who we are, how we present ourselves to the world, and how we are perceived by others.

Through lecture, workshop, twice-weekly seminar, film, reading, writing and research assignments, we will cover most of the fundamental topics within the field including: conformity, emotions and sentiments, persuasion and propaganda, obedience to authority, social cognition, attitudes, aggression, attraction, and desire. We will also learn about and practice social psychological research methods. A final project will be to conduct primary and secondary research on a social psychological phenomenon of students’ own interest, and to use one’s findings to create a segment for a podcast in a style similar to NPR’s “This American Life."