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This is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What we can Learn from the T-shirt Cannon - Social psychologist Sam Sommers and L. Jon Wertheim have teamed up to write this engaging book about sports "through the prism of behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology."
 You can read a chapter of the text here - Excerpted from THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON SPORTS: THE SCIENCE OF UNDERDOGS, THE VALUE OF RIVALRY, AND WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE T-SHIRT CANNON. Copyright © 2016 by Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers. Published by Crown Archetype, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Activities and Exercises
Productive failure: A new teaching method
Interleaving retrieval practice - new support for this teaching approach in an applied setting
Activities across the topics - On this page you will find links to activities (Word documents) for many social psych topics. Also on this page there is a link to the handouts which accompany these activities.
A guide to teaching social psychology - A large variety of ideas
Random name picker - a fun way to pick student names or anyone's...
Media constructions of social justice - A number of lesson plans for high school and college courses on social justice
Variety of activities - You can find several in-class activities here that include analyzing videos for social judgment and helping behavior.
A collection of pedagogical ideas from conference presentations - The editors of this recent, freely-available book have scoured through many conference presentations for good ideas on how to teach psychology. Included are many for social psych and related topics.
Improving study skills - Michael Britt has created this nice demo of the value of certain study strategies that can be used in class or online.
Helping students learn - Here are two recent articles on powerful methods to promote student learning that are primarily student directed. This is the link to the second article.
Avoiding procrastination
Review activity for social psychology
Why sleep deprivation also hurts our social processes
Spacing practice in the classroom - teaching your students the benefits of spaced practice
Speed reviewing - Ziv Bell shared a technique he uses in his courses to help students review material that is based on the concept of speed dating. Sometimes he gives them a time limit for each pairing, and sometimes he does not. He says it works both ways.
Ziv says, "What I do find helps (and you can feel free to re-word this as you see fit) is (1) for the instructor to participate as well, (2) to make sure that students have a list of terms/concepts they can review, which could come from a study guide, the glossary/summary of the book chapter, etc., (3) to have students move to a part of the classroom they can easily move around, which could be the front or sides of a traditional lecture hall, for example, and (4) for the instructor to model introducing themselves to another student, asking "Can you tell me about ..." and saying thank you before parting ways and introducing themselves to another student. I find in a class of about 60 students this activity works well for between 5-10 minutes."
Using pre-questions - This study found that the simple use of pre-questions before students watch a short video significantly increased their memory for information in the video, even information unrelated to the pre-questions.
Is psychology the study of the obvious? - The first link is to an interactive exercise students can participate in online. This link is to a page on the Resources for Teaching Social Psychology website which includes an activity I shared a while back on this same topic. It still works very well for me on the first day of class.
A variety of activities -from Schacter et al. intro text
An updated Jigsaw Classroom - Scott Plous received an APS teaching grant to update and improve the Jigsaw Classroom website, which describes and provides resources around this collaborative learning technique developed by Elliot Aronson.
Applying social psych to real-life scenarios
Teaching
a course on the psychology of social media - [added
1/20/15]
The
social brain - As part of one activity I use in class I ask a
student how many really good friends he/she has at school. I have
done this many times, and I was surprised to find that students answered
4, 5, or 4-5 95% of the time. It was always the same! After reading
this article, I now know why. [added 1/20/15]
"Can
brief psychological interventions really work?" - Once again,
subscriber David Myers and C. Nathan DeWall provide an excellent review
of a recent Current Directions article with some accompanying activities.
In this case, the activities are simulations created by the article's
author, Gregory Walton, of some of interventions described within.
See the links at the end of the article for the exercises. Here
is a link to the original article by Walton. Here
is a description of a new test of an intervention for first-generation
college students. It is remarkable that these brief interventions
can have such significant effects. [added
1/20/15]
Variety
of activities/demos for social influence - a large collection
of annotated references to classroom activities including group influence
exercises [added
1/2/14]
How
evolution shapes social behavior - Joy Drinnon offers this interesting
activity: "This activity is designed to help students see the
role that evolution likely played in shaping many social behaviors.
I distribute equally 1 of the 4 different pages in the attached handout
to each student in the class. Students are told to read their handout
and to be on the lookout for examples while watching Episode 6 from
Going Tribal. As a class we watch some or all of the episode. The
episode is broken into 6 parts on Youtube so it is easy to show some
or all and there are no commercials. You can find it by searching
'Suri People Dangerous Game.' The episode illustrates easily how survival
pressures may have shaped social behaviors, such as bonding rituals,
mate selection, and responses to conflict. It also provides opportunities
for discussing cultural differences in how groups respond to the same
pressures for food and survival. There is a documentary called 'Tribal
Wives' too which can be used to continue the discussion about gender
differences." The link takes you to the four handouts Joy describes
above. [added
1/2/14]
Using
Current Directions in Psychological Science - two more
excellent sets of ideas from subscriber Dave Myers and Nathan DeWall
for using a couple recent Current Directions articles in
class [added
1/2/14]
"Encouraging
students' ethical behavior" - some good tips in this essay
[added
7/30/13]
Teaching
Current Directions in Psychological Science - An exciting
addition to the APS Observer is a new column by Dave Myers
and Nathan DeWall which will be "aimed at integrating cutting-edge
psychological science into the classroom. Each column will offer advice
and how-to guidance about teaching a particular area of research or
topic in psychological science that has been the focus of an article
in the APS journal Current Directions in Psychological Science."
See the first entries at the link above. Thanks, Dave and Nathan.
[4/1/13]
Social
Knowledge: The Game - "This smartphone app (Android or iPhone)
offers a statement on social psychological research every day, with
elaborate explanations (and the references!) the day after and feedback
on whether the person was correct or not. This game could be a weekly
icebreaker, source of fun/friendly competition, and/or way for Social
Psychology students to stay connected to course material outside of
class." [added
12/08/12]
Internet
search and discover activity - This comes from Chuck Schallhorn
through the excellent Teaching High School Psychology blog. [added
12/29/11]
Is
social psychology the study of the obvious?
On the first day of my social psych course I talk about how some have
considered social psych the study of the obvious. To illustrate how
that is not quite accurate and to illustrate the hindsight bias, I
tell my class that there is actually some research in the field that
has produced some quite surprising findings. I proceed to tell them
about three different studies one at a time. After each one I ask
my students if they also think the results are surprising or if the
results seem reasonable to them. I allow them to generate some explanations
of why those results might actually seem plausible or understandable.
Then, after the third study, I stop, look confused, and tell them
that I mixed up the results. (I get to have fun here doing some "acting.")
I tell them that somehow I mixed up the results. Actually, the findings
are exactly the opposite of what I told them. I then tell them the
real results. Most of them catch on that I was setting them up, and
I go on to explain how they generated very plausible explanations
after the fact for each of the study's "wrong" results.
I was reminded of this by the study on how "males are more tolerant
of same-sex peers." I think I will use that study next time as
one of my three. However, instead I will tell my students that the
study found that females were more tolerant. Isn't that surprising?
[added 6/23/09]
Social
Psychology Rocks - Brian Johnson passed along this interesting
idea:
"I'm doing something this semester that I am hoping improves
my students ability to retain and show me their learning on the exams.
The easiest way to describe it is to call it "Social Psychology
Rocks" (though I really doubt the idea is unique to me as it
borrows more than a bit from Teaching of Psychology articles on the
use of media in various class-Film Clips in Abnormal for example).
I'm not limiting it to musical examples and I'll even try to expand
it beyond rock music, but I'm using song lyrics to reinforce an important
idea (or a clip from a movie or TV show) from lecture. Today, it was
the idea of construals/constructing social reality. I had lyrics from
the Peter Gabriel song "In Your Eyes" and from the Buffalo
Springfield song "For What It's Worth" to demonstrate why
we actively construct our understanding of events in our lives. I
included some lyrics and bolded ideas that I could relate back to
what I had been discussing the previous few minutes.
On the paper I had: (From Peter Gabriel's song)
In your eyes
The light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
And I explained why I had those lines highlighted (related back to
subjective interpretation of the world that interests social psychologists)
and then asked the students to explain to me how one's interpretation
of a professor as a good teacher (an idea a student had mentioned
earlier in class with regard to a brief writing activity I had them
do) impacts one's behavior toward the professor and may help make
that professor a better teacher. Hopefully this helps make the abstract
more concrete and memorable and helps the students make some of the
deeper links that will help them take the topics of social psychology
from the classroom to the rest of their academic and personal lives."
[added
3/25/09]
Developing
critical thinking skills in Social Psychology - My
colleague Heather Coon and I embarked on a project to more systematically
develop scientific thinking skills in our students. Click on the link
to read about how we used brief research articles to develop a variety
of thinking skills. You are welcome to use any of the materials. Feedback
is always welcome. [added
9/20/08]
"Resources
for the inclusion of social class in psychology curricula"
- The
American Psychological Association's Office on Socioeconomic Status
has created an excellent set of materials that includes classroom
activities, course syllabi, lists of relevant media, and more. Warning:
This is a large (11.75 MB) file. [added
6/3/08]
Icebreakers
- Sarah Estow from Guilford College shared some excellent "icebreakers"
for illustrating social psychology principles at the SPSP Teaching
Pre-conference. For example, she has begun the semester with
"Lying
to your peers" - Students were to go around the room and tell two
true and one untrue thing about themselves. Students tried to guess
which were true and which were untrue. She was able to connect this
exercise to self-concept, stereotyping and impression formation
among other concepts.
"Professor profile" - At the beginning of the course, students completed
questionnaires about their instructor (Sarah), identifying what
they thought would be her hometown, favorite music, favorite movies,
etc. They also rated how confident they were in these judgments.
She then had them discuss how easily they formed these impressions,
what data they used, confidence vs. accuracy, and more.
"24-hour sex change" - Students anonymously completed a questionnaire
identifying their sex and whether or not, if given the chance, they
would want to change sexes for 24 hours. She also asked them what
they would do as that other sex for those 24 hours. You could do
this as another ethnicity for a day. [added 7/6/07]
Reading
questions - Nick DiFonzo assigns his students reading questions
to accompany Susan Fiske's Social Beings (2004) text. These
one-page assignments are then brought to class to serve as a basis
for discussion. Although you may not use this text, the assignment
serves as a good model of how to encourage reading and discussion
in a course. [added 7/5/06]
Debates
in the Classroom
Useful or not? Talk among yourselves. I occasionally use debates in
class to promote student engagement and discussion of a topic. Sometimes
I randomly assign them to a position (good way to illustrate the saying-is-believing
effect) and sometimes I let them choose which side they will be on.
Topics I have used include:
-
Do
you believe your attitudes shape your behaviors more or do your
behaviors shape your attitudes more?
-
Is
there such a thing as a truly altruistic behavior?
-
Harry
Wallace shared the following debate topic: "Regarding debate topics,
I like to introduce the topic of stereotypes & prejudice in
my introductory social psych courses with a debate on affirmative
action as a university admissions policy. I divide the class in
half, have students generate their arguments (without having read
the relevant research), and then let them go at it. Then, after
students have thought about the issues, I introduce the research
that speaks to the issues they raised (and failed to consider)."
Multimedia
Resources (Audio / Video / Images)
Audio
Sociological songs - Here's a few examples of songs that your students can analyze for social psychological content. Do you have others?
Point of Inquiry podcasts - Quite a few interesting interviews with psychological researchers, including social psychologists
Podcasts - This document lists a number of regular psychology podcasts that includes social psych ones.
Growing
collections of psychology-related podcasts - [added
6/25/12]
TV
theme music and songs - Want to include some music from TV in a
presentation? Remember the haunting intro to the Get Smart show? Chills.
Can be freely downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes.
[added
4/01/08]
Conversation
with Elliot Aronson - Why it's hard to admit being wrong: "We
all have a hard time admitting that we're wrong, but according to a
new book about human psychology, it's not entirely our fault. Social
psychologist Elliot Aronson says our brains work hard to make us think
we are doing the right thing, even in the face of sometimes overwhelming
evidence to the contrary."
"If you download the (free) podcast via iTunes, the part with Aronson
starts at 48:30" -- from Marianne Miserandino. Thanks. [added
11/13/07]
"Freud's
nephew and the origins of public relations" - Listen to an
NPR episode on Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who was a pioneer
in applying psychological motivations to public relations and marketing.
[added 11/13/07]
"Inside
Intuition" - A BBC radio program in which neuroscientist Mark
Lythgoe investigates the concept of intuition -- includes a contribution
from David Myers, author of Intuition [added 11/13/07]
CBC
archives in Canada - a large, searchable collection of audio and
video from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio and television [added
12/27/06]
American
speeches
- The highlight of the American Rhetoric site is the Online Speech Bank
which includes a "growing database of 5000+ full text, audio and
video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings,
lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration
or two." Includes famous speeches from movies, current events and
memorable one liners which you can reference. [added
11/14/03]
Radio Zone - I know
I am getting away from direct links to social psych, but I leave it
to your imagination to find ways to connect any of this multimedia to
your courses. The Census Bureau provides one-minute, audio factoids
on a myriad of topics. There is also a Photo Zone and a Video Zone (from
which you can order videos). It will be interesting to see how this
resource develops. [added
11/14/03]
Famous
Speeches - Provided by The History Channel, listen to a large number
of speeches in a variety of categories including Arts, Entertainment
& Culture and Politics and Government. Written commentary is also
provided. [added 7/16/03]
Voices
from the Twentieth Century -
Historicalvoices.org is an ambitious attempt to capture audio worldwide
from the 20th century. This is not a social-psych specific, but you
may find some interesting material here. [added 12/03/02]
Video
Psych Dept video to students during pandemic - Sam Sommers shared this video Tufts Psychology Department created for its students to illustrate how psychology research can provide some answers for dealing with these challenging times. Has your department created anything similar? PANDEMIC
Collection of movies - Here is a large collection of short and full-length films on many topics, including examples of propaganda.
Opinion Rhapsody (5:54) - What a fun music video! A nice parody song addressing how polarized we have become online.
The National Screening Room - The Library of Congress is now providing access to many historic films, commercials, and other video that can be downloaded or streamed. Many social psychology-relevant videos can be found here.
The art of the elevator speech (5:42) - A nice, brief video from SPSP that describes and illustrates what a brief, engaging summary of your work (“elevator speech”) looks like
Famous social psychologists share their insights
SPSP videos - The Society for Personality and Social Psychology has started offering some short videos from personality and social psychologists.
Many collections of images and videos - The University of Masschusetts Dartmouth library has organized links to many large collections of open video and image resources available for viewing.
Images and Videos - Multimedia Resources for Educators and Students includes well-organized links to many freely available images, videos, audio sources, multimedia presentations and more.
Mirror neurons - a very good video about mirror neurons and their relationship to social behavior
Talks at SPSP - Like me, have you (and your students) been unable to attend recent Society for Personality and Social Psychology conferences? Well, here's video of several of the talks.
Career
advice from professors and grad students - [added
1/20/15]
An
interview with Albert Bandura - [added 1/20/15]
"Video
clips of elements of master teaching" - a well-designed and
well-organized resource which includes video clips of master teachers
illustrating one of eight different elements of good teaching -- h/t
to Marianne Miserandino [added
1/2/14]
Sociology
assignments - The site The Sociological Cinema contains a growing
database of videos as well as a few assignments. [added
7/30/13]
TV News archive - Search
375,000 TV News broadcasts. [added 12/07/12]
"The
five year engagement" - In a TIPS listserv email, Marie
Helweg-Larsen shared these thoughts about a movie, The Five Year Engagement,
that includes a social psychologist as a main character. "'The
five year engagement' is a romantic comedy at a theater near you.
The primary female character is a social psychologist who gets a 2-year
post doc at the University of Michigan (several shots of the “department
of psychology” sign there and lot of college scenes) causing
the couple to move there from San Francisco and her fiancée
to give up his job as a chef. Their adjustment to Michigan is presented
as one of the stressors in their relationship in addition to issues
with the supervising professor (no spoilers!).
A couple of notes of interesting/awkward scenes
-the primary experiment the lab group discusses is delayed gratification
in the famous “don't eat the marshmallow” (they even show
some footage of kids trying to not eat the marshmallow). In the adult
version they want to offer stale donuts and tell the participants
that they can wait for 20 minutes to get fresh ones. The lab also
suggest a mood manipulation in the experiment. They don’t present
the dependent variable very clearly (presumably it would have to measured
over time). That part seems pretty well done (like the script writers
actually talked to some research/social psychologists). There is an
odd scene in which the lab researchers are all looking through the
one way mirror at the gathered participants and the lab researchers
are negotiating whom among them should deliver the key instructions
about the donuts. Obviously in real life that would have been carefully
rehearsed ahead of time.
-when she discusses her results she says that she “found a 25%
correlation” (yikes). Presumably you would not find correlations
in an experiment!
-a scene when the primary character first gets to U of Michigan shows
her supervising professor lecturing in a social psychology class about
obedience. The fire alarm goes off and as students get ready to leave
the professor reassures them that it is not necessary even though
you can see fire fighters rushing upstairs. Students sit back down
and he then talks about authority and then reveals that the fire alarm
and fire fighters were all a spoof. The only odd thing here is that
it appears that the primary character is a student (or maybe TA?)
in the class which she obviously would not be if she were hired as
a post doc. I assume the filmmakers could not figure out how to introduce
this scene other than by sticking her in the class room.
Oh and at the end the issue of delayed gratification come up in the
content of their relationship. Should you should eat the donut (slight
stale as it might be) or wait for something better? I don’t
know if research has examined the issue of delayed gratification in
the context of romantic relationships! Anyway, for those of you teaching
social psychology the topic of the accuracy of this movie might come
up. [added
6/27/12]
Lots
of movie clips - This site provides hundreds of movie clips to
"illustrate and inspire." They can do that, but they can
also be used in your classes to illustrate a variety of social psych
concepts. An excellent resource. [added 6/25/12]
Lots
of pranks - Just For Laughs TV has created hundreds of
videos of little pranks they have pulled on unsuspecting participants.
Many include some social psychological phenomena. What doesn't? [added
1/20/12]
Clips
for Class - Here is a nice, new resource from Cengage Learning
called Clips for Class. You can find quite a few videos here for most
areas of psychology. [added 1/15/10]
YouTube
EDU - YouTube EDU contains "videos and channels from our
college and university partners." A search for psychology brings
you to this set of videos. [added 7/3/09]
Video
lectures - From the Claremont Colleges Digital Library, find a
number social psych related lectures from Elizabeth Loftus, Philip
Zimbardo, and others. [added 3/22/09]
ABCNews.com
videos - a lot of short video news stories are freely available.
[added 1/16/06]
Video
Nation in the UK - a very large collection of video telling
personal stories throughout the UK -- The site archives the collection
that began with a TV show that passed out video cameras to citizens
to capture many and varied stories. [added 12/27/06]
CBC
archives in Canada - a large, searchable collection of audio
and video from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio and television
[added 12/27/06]
"Human
Behavior Experiments" - This new one-hour film that has
been shown on TV describes a number of classic social psychology
experiments. A couple good clips from the film can be found on this
page. [added 7/5/06]
Guiding
questions for videos - In Teaching of Psychology (Winter,
2006) there is an article describing the use of guiding questions
in the student viewing of "The Power of the Situation"
video from the Discovering Psychology series (which is freely available
online at the above link). Students in one section were given eight
guiding questions to be answered in writing during the watching
of the video. Students in this section outperformed students in
a no-guiding questions section on video related questions. The full
set of guiding questions can be obtained from Timothy Lawson at
tim_lawson@mail.msj.edu.
[added 7/5/06]
Mediasite.com - "a growing
library of expert presentations and lectures" [added
1/16/06]
Discovering
Psychology Series Available Online - So, our department lost
one of the videotapes from the Discovering Psychology series with
Phil Zimbardo. No problem! The entire series (the 2001 updated version)
is now freely available online, including the social psychology
programs! You can also find The Brain and The Mind series. [added
1/4/06]
"Using
The Simpsons to teach social psychology" - Judy
Eaton and Ayse Uskul present an interesting description of how they
use clips from the animated series The Simpsons to illustrate key
concepts in their social psych courses, published in an edition
of Teaching of Psychology, 31, Autumn 2004, pp. 277-278.
The link above takes you to a table listing the specific clips and
how they are used. Do you have other clips you use? Pass them along.
[added
on 12/1/04]
Frontline/World
shows available online - All the entire episodes of Frontline/World
dating back to 2002 are available for viewing online through streaming
video. "FRONTLINE/World is a national public TV series that
turns its lens on the global community, covering countries and cultures
rarely seen on American television. Each episode of FRONTLINE/World
features two or three "short stories" told by a diverse
group of reporters and video journalists. These first-person stories
will take viewers on adventurous journeys to foreign lands from
Argentina to Zimbabwe. Taking advantage of easily portable digital
cameras, our correspondents roam widely, observe closely, and when
necessary, film surreptitiously." Some shows address group
conflict, prejudice and other social topics. [added
4/06/04]
Scientific
American Frontiers episodes - You can view two complete, social
psych-relevant episodes online by searching for "Facing Feelings"
and "Power of Persuasion" in the search box. [added
3/23/04]
"Teach
with Movies" -
intended more for K-12 educators, this site nonetheless provides
you with an extensive list of movies and some description of each
that might give you some clue as to whether it could be useful [added
5/1/02]
"Internet
Moving Images Archive: Movie Collection" -
free to download and show for non-commercial purposes. Many are
of the documentary and instructional type and at least 30 or more
years old. But that is what makes some of them fun and useful. The
"social guidance" films of the 40's and 50's can be good
illustrations of changing norms, gender roles and conformity. A
good example is the 10-minute film from 1947 entitled, "Are
you Popular?" A few other titles that may be relevant to social
psychology include Are you Ready for Marriage?, The Bully, and Office
Etiquette. It is not always easy to get these movies to play. Read
download and play instructions. I was able to use Quicktime to play
them. Search Tip: On the "Movies by Title" page at this
site all the movies are listed in alphabetical order. Instead of
scrolling through all of them you can find the "social guidance"
films by hitting Ctrl+F (Find in Windows) and typing in social or
guidance. [added 5/1/02]
"Early
Motion Pictures in American Memory Collections"
- more
old films from The Library of Congress - most are historical in
nature but you may find something of interest or relevance [added
5/1/02]
Images
More free-to-use images from the Library of Congress
Animated gifs - Need some? The U.S. National Archives has plenty for you.
Many collections of images and videos - The University of Masschusetts Dartmouth library has organized links to many large collections of open video and image resources available for viewing.
Images and Videos - Multimedia Resources for Educators and Students includes well-organized links to many freely available images, videos, audio sources, multimedia presentations and more.
Millions of free photos - at Photopin
Lots of free military photos
National Portrait
Gallery - nearly 200,000 portraits and photos [added
1/20/15]
Images
of America - "In 1983, the Smithsonian American Art
Museum began collecting photographs. Today they have over 7000
images and this website offers a wonderful exploration of but
a few of their holdings. The title of this collection refers
to Walt Whitman's belief that photography was a quintessentially
American activity, rooted in everyday people and ordinary things.
The visual delights here are divided into four sections, including
American Characters and Imagination at Work. Each section contains
a brief narrative introduction and then a scroll board of images
for visitor consideration. The American Inhabited area includes
a number of dramatic vistas of infrastructure and harbors, right
next to more common objects, like a child's tricycle. Additionally,
the site contains a visual timeline and a glossary of terms."
[added
1/2/14]
General:
Posters/images of psychology from Flickr photostreams -
[added
6/26/12]
Collection
of Chicago images - large collection of 20th century scenes
and people you might find useful [added 12/16/10]
Life
Magazine collection - "Search millions of photographs
from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.
Most were never published and are now available for the first
time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."
[3/29/09]
Copyright-free
images - I have mentioned before that photos on government
web sites are copyright free. Now, a new site, Uncle Sam's Photos,
has made finding those images a little easier. [added
7/19/07]
Huge
collection from the New York Public Library [added
7/14/07]
Public
domain images - a large list of links to freely available
images you can use in your lectures or elsewhere [added
7/06/07]
Large
photo database - Fotosearch is one of a number of stock
photography websites. This one has over 700,000 images including
photos, clipart and illustrations. Two things make this site
better than most for educators. First, I find it easier than
most other sites to search for an image, pull it up, and display
a large version of it in class. However, that is probably not
something you would do that often. But, the second feature is
much better! We educators have been given permission to occasionally
download an image, free of charge, to insert into our PowerPoint
slides, or web pages, or other projects as long as it is for
non-commercial, educational purposes and we give credit to Fotosearch!
So, take a look, and let me know if you have further questions
about its use. Thanks, Fotosearch. [added 7/6/05]
Images
and Clipart - Classroom Clipart provides a large and very
good collection of images and clipart you can insert into your
PowerPoint, web pages, etc. [added
on 12/1/04]
Lots
of random images - Just for those of you who are often looking
for an image of all kinds of things to stick in a slide or a
webpage, this new site begins with a few thousand images and
promises to add many more, all free to download and use. [added
4/06/04]
Specific
Topic Collections
Psychological
Image Collection - "This is a collection of images
useful for research in Psychology, such as sets of faces and
objects. They are free for research use." [added
1/10/06]
Social
Issues Image Database - "The Social Issues Collection
is an ongoing database of historial images from the Western
United States and the Pacific Northwest region. The collection
covers political and social topics such as women's issues, labor
and government, as well as ethnic groups." Lots of high
quality images of Japanese internment, women's issues and more.
Class
Assignments
These
assignments ask students to apply course concepts through the
analysis of movies, television shows, novels and other works
of fiction or non-fiction.
Film
analysis
- over 25 films for students to choose from - from Monica
Biernat's social psych course [added 3/29/02]
Guide
for conducting a content analysis [added
3/1/05]
Apply
a theory - this "assignment involves selecting a theory
from the text or a topic discussed in lecture that you find
particularly interesting, evaluating it, and relating it to
an event you believe is important or to your own social experience"
- many of the sample topics provided ask students to
apply a theory to a film, ads or common behaviors
Opinion-based
article - students analyze an article of their choosing
in terms of course concepts
Group
conflict article - students analyze article in terms of
course concepts
These
assignments typically ask students to summarize a research article
to develop and demonstrate an ability to read and interpret
the literature.
Methodological
critique - Mark Schaller asks his Thinking Clearly About
Psychology students to critique the article "Don't the
girls get prettier at closing time: A country and western
application to psychology." Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 5, 122-125. [added 3/23/04]
Social
proverbs - students select a social proverb from list
and review a few relevant articles
Team-based service learning project
- From Jessica Traylor
Group Projects
- Some good suggestions on how to make group projects and group work more successful
Applying social psych concepts to a real-world problem
Putting social psychology in action - Kim McClure Brenchley provides her students with a variety of ways to try social psychology out in the world.
Group work - A very nice evidence-based overview of how to effectively conduct group work in your courses
A
photographic assignment - An Action Teaching Award Honorable
Mention: "For this assignment, students can work alone
or with a partner. They venture out into a community or metropolitan
area near our college and become amateur street photographers.
Students are asked to find five people, couples, or families
whom they consider to be different than themselves or somehow
outside the norm in society and who are willing to allow the
students to take their picture and ask them a few questions.
Students then join a Facebook group I created for the assignment
and post the photos for the class to see. Like the Humans of
New York project, they also add a caption to each photograph
that best represents the interaction. Most often this caption
is in the form of a quote from the subject of the photograph."
[added 1/20/15]
"Achieving
'good article' status in Wikipedia" - Paula Marentette,
in the latest issue of the APS Observer, describes her
and her students' experience with adding to Wikipedia articles
on psychological topics. Her students were able to reach "good
article" status on two articles, meaning they have met
"a basic set of criteria that indicate the material is
well written, neutral, and appropriately sourced." Paula
provides an excellent, detailed description of the challenges
that were met and overcome to achieve that status. I am planning
to include a similar component in an upper-level seminar on
the psychology of helping I will be teaching next spring. If
anyone else has or is planning to engage your students in the
APS Wikipedia Initiative next year, I would love to hear from
you. Perhaps we can share experiences and ideas. I could create
a Facebook group page where we can share experiences and ideas.
Let me know. [added 1/20/15]
Bringing
Organizational Psychology to Life Through Fundraising -
This project won honorable mention for the 2013 Social Psychology
Network Action Teaching Award. "Over a three-year period
undergraduates, business students, and law students used principles
from organizational psychology to raise over $118,000 for the
Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that gives hope, strength,
and joy to children with life-threatening medical conditions.
Specifically, students deepened their understanding of five
key areas of organizational psychology: leadership, collaboration,
networking, negotiation, and prosocial behavior. In one iteration
of the activity, for example, teams of four MBA students and
three undergraduate students were given two days to create and
execute a fundraising plan. After selecting a leader and agreeing
on a vision and strategy, the team then held raffles, auctioned
signed memorabilia, and convinced local restaurants to donate
proceeds. In another iteration, business students developed
negotiation expertise by bargaining for corporate donations.
And in still another iteration, law students took a week-long
intensive course with organizational psychology taught in the
morning and team fundraising in the afternoon. These team fundraising
activities brought organizational psychology alive, benefited
a worthy cause, and gave students a memorable opportunity to
express what Abraham Lincoln once described as 'the better angels
of our nature.'" [added
7/30/13]
Make
your own IAT - FreeIAT lets you or your students create
your Implicit Association Tests. [added
4/01/13] Putting
positive psychology into action - a service learning project
[added 8/1/10]
The
psychology of sustainable behavior: Three action teaching projects
- [added 8/1/10]
Financial
education for refugees - a field experience [added
8/1/10]
"Your
students = Wikipedia editors" - A good blog for teaching
high school psychology described this interesting idea: "Ask
students to poke around in psychology topics on Wikipedia until
they find a page for a psych topic (term, concept, experiment,
psychologist, etc.) that seems "thin" - one that needs
more information, better information, better references, etc....Then
your students research to fill in the gaps, write up potential
revisions to the page, and submit the changes to Wikipedia.
Hopefully there are other "editors" out there in Wiki-space
who are monitoring that page and the students will get the experience
of discussing the potential changes and going through a revision
process. In the end, your students may see their work represented
permanently on Wikipedia and they will be much more experienced
not only in their chosen topic, but in the process of "Web
2.0" knowledge "creation" and writing."
[added
7/4/09]
Fact
or fiction? - A list of 20 "hints" for resisting
unwanted influences from Philip Zimbardo -- you could ask students
to pick one hint from the list and evaluate its validity in
terms of current research, or have them design a test of it.
(Also, find more excerpts here from Zimbardo's book The Lucifer
Effect.) [added 12/12/07]
The
International Tsunami Museum - The 2007 Social Psychology
Network Action Teaching Awards were announced, and the winner
was this very inspiring museum project from David Sattler. Students
in David's independent study course helped build and designed
exhibits for a museum in Thailand that "could educate the
public about tsunamis and help people move forward with their
lives by emphasizing hope, resilience, and the strength of human
spirit." A less intensive variation on this idea would
be for your students to create online exhibits applying course
concepts around some theme. [added 7/7/07]
Read
a trade book and translate it into a useful application
- Traci Giuliano shares a creative assignment in which she asks
"students to read a trade book written by a social psychologist
(in a few cases, they are not written by social psychologists
but have many relevant applications, as in the case of Malcolm
Gladwell or John Gottman) and then develop a useful application
(e.g., a workshop, video, website, pamphlet, etc.) from it."
Here is the
grading sheet for it. Here is a
list of trade books Traci has compiled. But she is looking
for more. If you have any examples of good books written for
a lay audience by social psychologists, please send them to
Traci at giuliant@southwestern.edu. [added 7/6/07]
Demonstrate
a phenomenon: An assignment update! - The link takes
you to an assignment I posted a couple years ago from my colleague
Heather Coon. She has since updated it in a manner she says
works much better. So, I thought I would tell you about it.
Briefly, the assignment asks students to design a little study
of their own to test out a question related to course material.
It gets them involved in social psych more personally, and it
gets them to think like a social psychologist a bit. Because
this is a lower-level psych course, and many of the students
have not yet had research design, Heather doesn't ask for a
lit review and a complicated design. She simply asks them to
design a task related to a social psych topic, have some group
or groups complete it, and collect the data. Then they take
3-5 minutes to present their findings to the class.
Initially, Heather used each presentation as an introduction
to that topic in class. This time around she had students pick
a topic and try it out after that topic had been discussed.
She has found that the "experimenter" and the other
students in class have a much better grasp of what is going
on if they design the task for something that has already been
discussed. The students recognize that their "test"
is rather limited in a number of ways, and Heather has found
that students are good at identifying the limitations and possible
alternative explanations, particularly since they now understand
the material better. Most of the students conduct experimental
tests, but they can be descriptive or correlational questions
as well. Many students create materials ahead of time, even
occasionally pre-testing them. Typically they will meet with
Heather to make sure what they are trying makes sense.
Heather also requires that their presentation use PowerPoint
(typically only 3-5 slides are needed) to add some professionalism
to it and to make sure they can use it. She tries to have a
few better students go first to serve as good models. Next time,
she might try it in pairs to reduce the number of presentations
and to promote some collaboration. If you want to talk to Heather
about this more, you can contact her at hmcoon@noctrl.edu.
Do you have any assignments you have revised or adapted that
have significantly improved the outcome you are getting from
students? I would love to hear about them and possibly share
them in the Newsletter. Your assignment doesn't have to be online.
You can either just describe it to me or send me a copy at jfmueller@noctrl.edu.
[added 1/1/07]
Research
for community action - Lori Rosenthal teaches her students
"about research methodology through research projects that
make an important difference to the local community." This
project assignment was selected as the winner of the Social
Psychology Network's inaugural Action Teaching Award. [added
4/6/06] Merging
art and social psychology - Nick Schweitzer asks his students
to demonstrate/comment on any of the social psychological phenomena
discussed by using any artistic medium they wish to create a
project. He includes some samples of acceptable and unacceptable(!)
projects. [added 8/30/05]
Create
an original game - Erin Strahan has taken an idea applied
in math and other subjects and adapted it to social psychology,
i.e., having groups of 4-5 create an original game incorporating
social psychology concepts. [added 6/15/04]
Web
tutorials - Richard Sherman asks his
advanced social psychology students "to inform and educate
a visitor to the website about a specific topic in Social Psychology."
See examples.
Experiential
projects - from Phil Zimbardo's Psychology of Mind Control
course - students experience social psych first-hand by being
a "Deviant for a Day," or "an Agent or Target
of Social Influence," or by engaging in "self-directed
change"
Concept
maps - In the past, I (Jon Mueller) asked my students to
graphically describe the relationship between eight or more
concepts in relation to some theme. For example, in the first
concept map assignment students drew a map describing the relationship
between three social motives (social comparison, consistency
and control) and related concepts (e.g., relative deprivation,
insufficient justification, reactance, unrealistic optimism)
we discussed as they connect to an event of their choosing.
On my essay tests I ask short questions that require students
to connect two or three concepts together. But the map allows
me to see them connect significantly more concepts in a more
complex manner. In Fall 2002 when I first assigned concept maps
the students struggled with the first map because they (and
I) did not quite know what they should be doing. In Spring 2003
I shared a couple maps from the Fall, and I received a much
better collection of maps. The first map was completed in pairs;
some of the remaining maps will be completed individually and
others in pairs.
I
welcome any feedback on
this assignment. [added 7/21/03]
Social
psychology portfolio - students collect popular press material
(e.g., newspaper articles, magazine articles, advertisements,
comic strips, photographs, advice columns) and write brief reflections
applying social psychology
Journal
assignment - same as above - a very large sample
of "best of" entries collected over the years - at
the beginning of class I list the entry #'s on the board of
the concepts we will be discussing so students can read entries
generated by previous students
Essay:
Oral
Presentations/Discussion
Oral
Presentations
Scoring
rubric for poster and PowerPoint presentations - from Bill
Altman [added 1/26/10]
Group
PowerPoint presentations on controversial issues - Ronald
McLaughlin requires his students to put together a PowerPoint
presentation applying social concepts to a controversial issue.
Click on "Syllabus" to read the assignment. Click
on a list of student presentations at the bottom to see some
good student examples. [added 6/9/04]
Group
presentations: Jonahue! -
While knocking around in Don Forsyth's site, I couldn't help
remembering the times I taught Group Dynamics many years ago
(using Don's excellent text). So, bear with me as I reminisce
and share a rather odd class assignment. I was looking for some
way for my students to learn about group dynamics while working
in groups, and at the same time I wanted to develop their oral
speaking skills. But I didn't want them to give the usual oral
presentations in which they delivered a prepared speech. They
got enough of that (or at least some of that) in their other
courses. I wanted them to learn to speak extemporaneously and
knowledgeably about a topic. So, I asked myself, where do we
find experts speaking publicly extemporaneously? One venue I
thought of was the talk show. Sometimes experts are invited
to come on a talk show, not to give a speech, but to answer
questions. At the time, one of the talk shows doing this was
hosted by Phil Donahue. My first name is Jon, and, voila...
"Jonahue" was born! Each week I turned my Group Dynamics
classroom into a talk show. I, Jonahue, was the host. A group
of three students was "invited" to be the guests on
the show because they were experts (if they prepared well) on
a particular group dynamics topic. More specifically, the group
was there to use its expertise on the topic to apply it to a
specific topic-related problem. The other members of the class
were the audience and were required to ask questions. As host,
I also asked questions. And, I recorded my wife asking questions
I prepared for her that I played during class as if she were
a live caller to the show. Each group of three students went
through this ordeal three times during the term. It was fun!
And, more importantly, I think it worked. [added
3/6/02]
Discussion
and Question-asking
Grading
rubrics/scales
Online
discussion grading rubric - a very good, detailed rubric
from Lynn Sprott [added 9/2/05]
Participation
grading scale - Helen Harton offers a good grading scale
for class participation in her Social Psychology course.
Scroll down page to find Class Discussion section.
[added
11/18/04]
Grading
Schemes for Participation/Reading - In Erin Ross' class
above, the reading questions are worth 10% of a student's
grade. Instructors often look to some kind of incentive
to get students to participate in class or online or to
do the reading. (See the last issue, Vol. 1, No. 10, for
subscribers' suggestions.) But some instructors are reluctant
to give a significant number of points for tasks that may
not be indicative of understanding of course material for
fear of inflating the grades. I use a couple schemes to
provide incentive without giving away too many points. One
simple approach I and others use is to remove points for
failure to meet obligations. No points can be earned for
contributing entries to the online discussion board or performing
small tasks in class I may ask of them, but they will lose
a few points if they don't complete the assignment. The
potential loss of a few points is all it usually takes to
get my students to complete the tasks.
A more complicated scheme I have successfully used to encourage
completion of reading assignments was adapted from Barbara
Walvoord, Director of the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence
at Notre Dame University. (Ed note: I highly recommend Barbara
Walvoord faculty development workshops.) I assign one or
two brief questions for a reading, chapter or portion of
a chapter. Students can typically answer the questions in
one or two sentences. However, they cannot just look up
the answers in the reading. The nature of the questions
require them to make some sense of the reading, even though
a very brief response is required. I can grade a stack of
30 of these answers (which students must turn in at the
beginning of the class at which we will discuss the reading)
in less than five minutes because I simply look for effort.
I give an answer a "check" if sufficient effort
is apparent and a "minus" if it is not. Then I
apply the following grading scheme. If a student received
90% or more checks on the questions assigned throughout
the term then I will raise that student's final course grade
to the next highest grade level (e.g., B to A) if the student's
final grade is within 10 points of the next highest grade
level. For example, if 450 points are required for an A
in the course, and a student has accumulated 443 points
by the end of the course and has received at least 90% checks
then that student will receive an A in the course. However,
if another student received at least 90% checks but only
accumulated 438 points (i.e., more than 10 points away from
450), that student would receive a B in the course. Additionally,
if a student received fewer than 70% checks on the questions
then I will lower (yes, lower) the student's final grade
to the next lowest grade level if the student's final grade
is within 10 points of the next lowest grade level. So,
a student with 455 points could have her final course grade
lowered from an A to a B if she did not put enough effort
into answering the reading questions. Finally, students
who receive between 70% and 90% checks will not have their
final grades altered. Did you follow all that?
Students like this grading scheme and assignment, it takes
very little work on my part, and I have found it effectively
encourages students to do the reading and makes class discussions
better without inflating grades. [added 8/30/02]
Do you use other schemes you would like to share? Send them
to me at jfmueller@noctrl.edu.
Debates
in the Classroom
Useful
or not? Talk among yourselves. I occasionally use debates
in class to promote student engagement and discussion of
a topic. Sometimes I randomly assign them to a position
(good way to illustrate the saying-is-believing effect)
and sometimes I let them choose which side they will be
on. Topics I have used include:
-
Do
you believe your attitudes shape your behaviors more or
do your behaviors shape your attitudes more?
-
Is
there such a thing as a truly altruistic behavior?
-
Harry
Wallace shared the following debate topic: "Regarding
debate topics, I like to introduce the topic of stereotypes
& prejudice in my introductory social psych courses
with a debate on affirmative action as a university admissions
policy. I divide the class in half, have students generate
their arguments (without having read the relevant research),
and then let them go at it. Then, after students have
thought about the issues, I introduce the research that
speaks to the issues they raised (and failed to consider)."
- Eric
Hansen shared the following topics: "In a research
methods course I have used the article:
Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S:, & Matter, C. F (1976).
Personal space invasions in the lavatory: Suggestive evidence
for arousal. JPSP, 33, 541-546.
I have had students write a critique of the study including
identifying the theory being tested, the dependent and independent
variables, the methodology, etc. In class I've had debates regarding
the ethics of the study (is it okay to hide in a stall and use
a periscope to watch men urinate and see how long it takes them
to start and finish without their knowledge or consent) based
on the current APA ethics guidelines. When I first started I
let the students pick the side they wanted and it was more of
a whole-class discussion, but I quickly found that no one wanted
to argue that the study was ethical so I was forced to defend
it. Since then I have instead told them in advance that they
should prepare both sides of the debate and wherever possible
know how they would respond to counterargue their own position
and arguments, and that which side they would be on would be
decided by a coin toss. I then let them have the
debate in groups of 4 with 2 for and 2 against randomly assigned
to position. That seemed to work better.
I more recently have tried a similar type of debate with Baumeister
and Vohs article taking an economic view of sexuality:
Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2004). Sexual economics:
Sex as female resource for social exchange in heterosexual interactions.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 339-363.
I tried to let a coin toss decide whether they should defend
or attack the theory, but the discussion was very strained and
awkward, so the students asked if they could decide which side
they wanted to be on to which I agreed. In my experience the
article leads to lively discussions."
-
In
a few listserv posts, faculty were sharing some ideas for
conducting class debates. Here are a couple examples which
the authors graciously allowed me to share:
From Shelby Morrison: "Marlo Smith asked about
classroom debates. I use a version for which I have prepared
before class by posting signs on three walls reading "YES,"
"NO" and "?." I come to class with a list
of statements and I ask the students to move to sign with
which they agree. (This is a great ice breaker for first meeting
of a class. It also gets the students moving!) I'm getting
ready to begin an Adolescent Psych class and I will use provocative
statements such as "Males are inherently better in math
and science"; "It is a OK for parents to make monetary
rewards for good grades"; "Early maturation is an
advantage for females." Depending on class size, each
group is given 3-4 minutes to discuss its stance among themselves
and to select someone to report back to the class. Then, students
are given the chance to change their position (to go from
"Yes" to "?", etc.). Lastly, I report
to the whole class the relevant research on the question after
this process. I especially like this activity for Intro Psychology
using statements that deal with the myths about psychology.
Sometimes I do an evaluation and I find that the learning
from this activity "sticks." It's a good way to
get an important concept across. Plan on about six minutes
of class time for each question and don't overdo it. Four
to five good statements are usually enough. Shelby Morrison
Ph.D. Valencia Community College Orlando, Florida Shelby4087@aol.com"
From Gail Knapp: "Shelby Morrison talked about
having students stand in front of signs that say "yes"
"no" or "?" for statements to start a
class discussion and serve as an ice breaker. I do something
similar, but with a few twists. I make the signs into a continuum
with choices from Strongly agree, Moderately agree, Neutral
or No opinion, Moderately Disagree, and Strongly Disagree
across the room. Then I let the students write the questions
they want their classmates to answer. I give them guidelines
about how to write a good survey question before we do this,
and I explain the kinds of things that make good survey questions.
Then I collect their papers (one question from each) anonymously
so no one will know who asked what. Then I read the questions
one at a time and they stand in front of the appropriate sign.
Our conversation is less about what their opinion was on the
issues, than it is about the questions themselves. Were they
easy to understand? Were the terms clear? What information
did they gather? One thing they notice is that some questions
don't provide useful information. For example, a question
where the whole class is grouped at one sign causes a discussion
about why that happened. Or questions where they don't know
what to answer and find themselves all grouped in the center
cause a different kind of discussion. We also talk about the
public nature of this kind of survey since almost always there
are questions that I tell them to listen to but not answer.
This exercise is a good icebreaker, but it is also a great
way to get students to understand more about surveys and survey
data. -Gail Knapp gknapp@edtech.mcc.edu Mott Community College"
[added 7/19/07]
What
topics have you had students debate? I would be interested
in hearing how you have used debates in your classes and
the topics you have used. Send me replies at jfmueller@noctrl.edu.
I will share them on this page. [added 7/5/06]
Designing/Conducting
Research
Applying social psychology
for good - I have always been so impressed and energized
by the research of social psychologist Nalini Ambady. Sadly,
as many of you likely know, she passed away in October, 2013.
But her inspiration, creativity, and concern for sharing and
using psychological science have "sparked" some initiatives
that will carry on her spirit and her ideas. One of these is
SPARQ (Social Psychological Answers to Real-world Questions),
a new center at Stanford University dedicated to helping "policymakers,
educators, and nonprofit leaders apply social psychology’s
insights and methods to their work." Here
is a link to a number of remembrances of Dr. Ambady. Here
is a fuller description of SPARQ. I list these resources here
because SPARQ contains a "Solutions Catalog" which
is "a searchable online database of proven-effective social
psychological interventions in seven areas: education, health,
law and justice, peace and conflict, the environment, parenting,
and relationships." These are very accessible interventions
that your students can read about, but they may also be interested
in replicating some of them or trying local variations of them.
[added 1/20/15]
Group
experiments - Jeff Stone has students in his Social
Psychology of Attitudes course and his Honors Seminar on the
Science of Prejudice Reduction collaboratively create, conduct,
and analyze experiments to persuade or influence people or to
reduce prejudice, respectively. Scroll down page to find the
Group Research Project. [added
12/4/10]
Creating
an informed consent form - a tutorial for students on why
and how to create an informed consent form -- it includes a
quiz to test them on their knowledge. [added
1/1/07]
Experience
sampling
Research
design scoring guide; Final
paper scoring guide; Thesis/hypothesis
paper rubric; Source paper
rubric; Authentic
Assessment Toolbox - The first link is to a very detailed
scoring guide for the design of research projects. The second
link is to a very detailed guide for grading the final paper
for this project. The third link is to a rubric for scoring
a paper identifying a thesis and a hypothesis for a research
project. The fourth link is to a rubric for an assignment on
locating and citing sources for a research project. All of these
are from Bill Altman. Why do I call the first two scoring guides
and the last two rubrics? Because the last two scoring scales
include the criteria used to evaluate the student work (as does
the first two), but the last two also articulate levels of performance
for each criterion. The inclusion of criteria and levels of
performance are the defining attributes of a rubric. To learn
more about rubrics follow the final link above. [added
2/22/06]
Group
participation rubric - a very good and detailed rubric for
"assessing group members' ability to participate effectively
as part of a team" - from Bill Altman [added
2/22/06]
SurveyWiz
- This simple-to-use tool by Michael Birnbaum allows you or
your students to create surveys for use on the Web or elsewhere.
[added 6/9/04]
Replication
Research Project - In Kristi Lemm's Social Cognition course,
students are to "replicate an established effect in social
cognition." With a partner or alone, they collect the data
and prepare a poster to describe the study. [added
8/30/02]
Replicating
Experiments
- Mary Inman assigns students to groups to replicate (and possibly
extend) one of six experiments - she provides detailed and structured
directions - more detailed instructions for each experiment
can be found here:
Using
op-eds to advance public understanding of psychological science
- "In this assignment, used in both an introductory-level
social psychology course as well as a first-year writing seminar,
students write a science-based op-ed of 750 words or less that
brings relevant psychological research to bear on an important
social problem. Students are informed that, although op-eds
come in many forms, the best papers share several key features:
They identify a specific puzzle (e.g., Why are U.S. obesity
rates increasing?), examine the problem in light of current
scientific thinking (theory) and evidence (e.g., research findings),
and communicate some novel insight about the nature of the problem
or propose a solution based on available evidence. Students
are required to use three or more external sources beyond course
readings to support their arguments and are asked to provide
either (a) evidence that the article has been submitted for
publication (e.g., a submission confirmation page), or (b) detailed
instructions for submitting the op-ed to two prospective outlets
of the student's choice." This assignment, by Adam Pearson,
was the 2014 winner of the Social Psychology Network Action
Teaching Award. [added 1/20/15]
Sociology
assignments - The site The Sociological Cinema contains
a growing database of videos as well as a few assignments.
[added
7/30/13]
"Portfolios
in psychology classes" - some good advice and examples
[added
4/01/13]
Research
Analysis Assignment - [added
12/12/12]
Variety
of assignments - Mark Stasson offers a variety of assignments
in his Social Psychology syllabus. [added 3/6/10]
Six
short essays - several interesting essay assignments from
Kevin Grobman's graduate Social Psychology course [added
3/6/10]
Developing
critical thinking skills in Social Psychology - My
colleague Heather Coon and I embarked on a project to more systematically
develop scientific thinking skills in our students. Click on
the link to read about how we used brief research articles to
develop a variety of thinking skills. You are welcome to use
any of the materials. Feedback is always welcome. [added
9/20/08]
Group
paper - interesting
assignment in Michael Milburn's Social Attitudes and Public
Opinion course [added
9/20/08]
Correlation
or Causation? - updated - I have added quite a few
more links to my collection of popular press articles that often
include questionable headlines. I use the links on this page
to teach about the language of correlations versus causal relationships,
the type of research commonly associated with each, and how
to evaluate the quality and quantity of evidence to support
such claims. I also have added an assignments section that includes
brief tasks that could be used as in-class activities or out-of-class
assignments. I would love to hear of any activity/assignment
ideas you have or create to accompany this resource. I will
add them to the site. Thanks. [added
1/1/07]
Critical
analysis paper and peer review
Syllabus
Rubric
CRITIC
Approach
Article
Lou Manza, of Lebanon Valley College, has shared a very well
thought and detailed assignment for his Paranormal Phenomena
--A Critical Examination course that I believe is relevant here.
The first link above is to the syllabus for his course. It describes
a few interesting assignments including the C.R.I.T.I.C. paper,
a critical analysis of a paranormal belief. The very elaborate
description of the assignment can be found in Appendix D of
the syllabus. The assignment also includes an element of peer
review. The second link above is to the rubric students are
to use for the peer critique of student papers. Also included
there is the rubric the instructor uses with good explanation
of the scoring criteria. The third link is to a fuller description
of the CRITIC approach Lou uses which could be implemented in
any course promoting critical thinking. Finally, the fourth
link above is to an article in The Skeptical Enquirer by Wayne
Bartz which originally described the CRITIC approach. Lou adapted
the idea from this article and "blended it with some stuff
from other sources" to create what you find above.
How
can Psychologists Obtain Accurate Measurements? - This is
an assignment from Karen Gasper's Self and Social Judgment course
in which she asks students to visit the IAT site, another measurement
site, read a linked article and answer a few questions in response.
[added 7/23/03]
Homework
Assignments - several short, interesting assignments for
Lisa Schulte's social psych students [added 2/1/03]
Trace
an article - Scroll down to "Term Paper." Jonathan
Brown asks graduate students in his Advanced Social Psychology
course to "select one article of contemporary (1999-2001)
research from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
You must then (1) trace its historical and theoretical roots,
(2) describe what was done and what was found, and (3) say something
about why it’s important." [added 11/7/02]
Confounded
variables assignment - in PDF - several scenarios
are presented for which students are to identify the independent,
dependent and confounding variables, and describe how to "unconfound"
the experiment - good in-class activity also
Application
of Course Concepts
"Life
Application Essays" - In his Social Psychology course,
Jeff Joireman assigns his students five essays in which they
find different ways to apply course content to their own lives.
Also, check out his "goal setting"
section. [added 1/8/06]
Day
of ...... - Scott Plous' Day of Compassion assignment has
been posted on the Resources website for quite a while. Now
I have the pleasure of pointing you to three other similar,
creative assignments Scott engages his Social Psychology students
in: Day of Nonconformity, Day of Nonviolence, and Day of Social
Justice. [added 6/9/04]
Application
Paper: September 11, 2001 -
This assignment is an interesting example of asking students
to apply specific research articles to real-life events from
Sara Hodges' Mind and Society course. [added
2/4/03]
The opposite of a great truth is also true - David Myers lays out some fascinating psychological paradoxes in this entry of his Talk Psych blog. Could lead to some good class discussion.
The individual and collective response to the pandemic - Here is an interesting essay about how we often focus on individual interpretations of behavior (e.g., fundamental attribution error) only to sometimes miss the more collective and structural influences. PANDEMIC
Why people are bending the Covid safety rules? - An excellent article which addresses a variety of social psych ideas to explain why it is so difficult for people to abide by. Hat tip to Catherine Sanderson! PANDEMIC
What does it mean to be 78 years old? - Well, if it means being as sharp and insightful as David Myers, then I'm all for it! Here David talks about Joe Biden turning 78, and describing what some of the research says about the perils and possibilities of reaching that age. Not specifically social psych, but interesting reading
"PsyCorona: A world of reactions to COVID-19" "In March 2020, a collaboration of over 100 researchers pooled available resources to launch a rapid international survey with the goal of creating a historical record of certain psychological and behavioral responses to the pandemic." PANDEMIC
More failures of replication - "In a surprising and, to many, disquieting discovery, the 2015 “Reproducibility Project: Psychology” found that out of 100 published psychology studies, only 40% could be successfully reproduced. These results sparked debate about the credibility of psychological research and prompted global interest in finding the reasons behind the lack of reproducibility. Some researchers proposed that this lack of reproducible results was possibly a consequence of inadequate sample size and the replicators’ not adhering to experts’ insight when designing the replication studies. A new collection of 11 articles published in the Association for Psychological Science’s journal Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS), however, found that a dramatic increase in sample size and prior expert peer review of replication designs did not increase replicability of the original findings." These include some well-known social psych studies.
Trying to study human behavior in and about the pandemic PANDEMIC
Academic Phrasebank - This seems like it could be a useful resource for you or your students. “It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological ‘nuts and bolts’ of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation.”
Some great data resources - David Myers points to some very cool sources of information that you can use in your courses, including social psychology.
“How Houston lost its mind over a Trump shirt” - This is just a fascinating story with lots of social psych connections. I’ll let you figure out how you could use it.
How can social science help us respond to the pandemic? - Molly Metz passed along this excellent article which draws upon a lot of psychological research, particularly from social psychology, to provide insights on how we can respond to this remarkable challenge. Here is a critique of the article which argues psychology is not quite ready to offer such remedies. Here is a critique of the critique from social psychologist Chris Crandall. PANDEMIC
The APS Backgrounder Series - This timely series of articles draws on psychological research to address the pandemic's effects on topics such as relationships and working remotely. PANDEMIC
Social psychology in the pandemic - David Myers offers many good suggestions for discussion of the pandemic through the lens of social psychology. PANDEMIC
Teens and social media use - interesting Pew Research Center survey of teens’ perceptions about their interactions with social media
How should instructors (and citizens) handle contentious, public issues? - As usual, David Myers offers some sage advice in these two essays. Here's the second one.
Social and Personality Psychology Blog Roll - No, not log roll. That would be yummy. This is a new resource from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology which collects blog posts from a variety of social psychology-related sources and feeds them to a single page for you. Yes, you.
Are there good sides to bad behavior? - This brief essay looks at research on objectification, aggression, and gossiping.
Applying to grad school in personality or social psychology - some resources for your students (or you!)
Is social psychology research really in that bad of shape? - This two part essay reviews recent efforts to examine the "crisis" in social psychology and personality research in terms of failed replications and questionable research practices. Here is part two of this essay.
The situation of fear - An article about how we are wired to respond with fear to all kinds of stimuli, and people are good at feeding that fear.
The growth and evolution of social media - The first link is to a timeline of Instagram from 2010 to the present. Here is an infrographic providing a broader history of social media.
10 famous psychology case studies - Most of these are not directly social psychology related, but it is a nice collection with updated information and resources.
"The social power of primates" - Be sure to check out the 1936 video.
What do we know about Facebook? - Here is a summary of some of what researchers have learned about the new world of Facebook and its users.
Remembering
Donn Byrne - I remember my Masters Thesis was a test of a Donn
Byrne theory. He was a prolific personality and social psychology
researcher and theorist. [added 1/20/15]
Teaching
contentious classics - excellent essay by Carol Tavris on how
to teach some of psychology's most controversial studies including
the Robbers Cave study and Milgram's obedience study [added
1/20/15]
The
emergence of the unconscious - interesting article reviewing
research that reflects our new view of the importance of unconscious
processing and decision making [added 1/20/15]
"Three
reasons why you should ask!" - good essay discussing the
advantages of making a request [added 1/20/15]
Blog
on cultural influences - Larry White is writing an interesting
blog that addresses a variety of social psych topics. Check it out.
[added 8/30/13]
Beards
-- good or bad? Discuss. - Blog entry reviews some of the research
on beards. [added 8/30/13]
Juicy
social psych tidbits - I had missed this nice little collection
of some of David Myers' favorite studies over the last couple years.
[added
7/30/13]
Sociological
history of Boston Marathon - an interesting description of some
of the past history of the marathon [added
7/30/13]
Psychology
then and now - The January issue of the Observer contained
a couple good articles describing some history of psychology, specifically
in the study and support of Blacks and women (link above) and the
influence of Gordon Allport (here).
[added
7/30/13]
Sociology
of music - This blog entry provides an interesting discussion
of a number of social psychological elements within music.
"Pop
music is getting sadder and more emotionally ambiguous"
- "The researchers analysed the tempo (fast or slow) and mode
(major or minor) of the most popular 1,010 pop songs identified
using year-end lists published by Billboard magazine in the USA
from 1965 to 2009." [added
12/24/12]
Social
psychology song list - The good folks at Teaching of Psychology
Idea Exchange (ToPIX) have been compiling a nice list of songs relevant
to the different areas of psychology. [added
7/4/12]
What
is social psychology, anyway? - Here is a very interesting discussion/debate
of the social psychology narrative by Daniel Gilbert, Timothy Wilson,
Steven Pinker, and Hugo Mercier. Thanks to Larry White for this
contribution. [added
7/4/12]
Interview
of Harry Harlow - The first link is to a brief revisiting of
the interview of Harry Harlow conducted in 1973. The second link
is to that original interview. Some interesting stuff. [added
7/4/12]
Essay
on Abraham Maslow - [added 7/4/12]
Psychology
to the rescue - The excellent BPS Research Digest blog
celebrated its 200th issue by asking "a handful of leading
psychologists to write 200 words on a time in their lives that their
psychology knowledge or skills came to their rescue." Read
some very interesting uses of psychology. [added
1/29/12]
9/11
psychology-related links - The Research Digest blog
provides some links to psychology-related items regarding 9/11.
[added
1/29/12]
"Social
networking sites and our lives" - A report from the Pew
Research Center providing a detailed look at our online experience
based on survey research -- you can view the surveys also. [added
1/29/12]
More
on mirror neurons - Here's a good overview of what we know about
mirror neurons and their relationship to behavior in this article
about Giacomo Rizzolatti's talk at the APS convention. [added
1/29/12]
Culture,
brain, and behavior - Nalini Ambady reviews research on cultural
influences on the brain and behavior. [added
8/18/11]
Most
underappreciated ideas in social psychology? - Ask the researchers
who came up with them -- that's what the APS Observer did.
You can read what some prominent social psychologists believe are
some of their lost gems. [added
8/18/11]
This
Week in Sociology - This is a new website that provides sociological
commentary on current events, people, and ideas. [added
8/18/11]
Mirror
neurons and social behavior - interesting review of what we
know so far about mirror neurons and their relation to social behavior
[added 6/12/11]
historical
figures in social psychology - [added 6/12/11]
Science
on the subway - interesting article about how sociologists and
psychologists study human behavior as it is occurring on the subway
[added 1/19/10]
Psychology
and global warming - APA has entered the fray of global warming
by releasing a report on "Psychology and Global Climate Change:
Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges."
It addresses quite a few social psychological concepts. [added
1/19/10]
Mirror
neurons and social behavior - an interview with a leading researcher
on mirror neurons who discusses their potential role in our social
perceptions and interactions [added
12/14/08]
The
Amethyst Initiative - As you may have heard, more than 100 university
administrators, through the Amethyst Initiative, have called for
reducing the drinking age from 21 to 18. If a behavior is made legal
will it become less desirable? More amenable to education? The first
link is to a college president's support for the Initiative. Here
is an explanation from a professor of why he thinks the Initiative
is misguided. Here
is the Amethyst website. A lot of potential topics (e.g., reactance)
for discussion in your class on this issue relevant to your students.
[added
12/14/08]
Top
10 social psych studies - a review of ten classic studies in
social psychology -- would they be in your top ten? [added
12/16/07]
The sports cliche - I
don't know what you can do with these, but they relate to stereotypes,
roles, persuasion, etc. Can students evaluate the truthiness of
some of them? [added 12/11/07]
TV's
effects on children - This site from the University of Michigan
Health System pulls together a brief summary and set of resources
on TV's effects on violence, attitudes, and more for children. It
includes some advice for parents. [added 7/14/07]
Personality
Pedagogy - Marianne Miserandino has begun developing an excellent
resource for instructors of personality psychology using a Wiki
model. Definitely worth a look. [added 7/5/06]
Understanding
Katrina - a series of essays from social scientists from the
Social Science Research Council [added 1/9/06]
Psychology
Matters
- The APA is building a "web-based compendium of psychological
research that demonstrates the application and value of psychological
science in our every-day lives," including research on some
social psychology topics. [added 11/20/03]
What
is a Personality/Social Psychologist? - from SPSP [added
6/19/02]
Necessary
and sufficient conditions
- excellent explanation of these concepts with good examples and
practice exercises from Norman Swartz
1919
Social Psychology textbook
- by Edward Alsworth Ross - courtesy of the Mead Project
Kenneth
Gergen - manuscripts on social psychology as social construction
and other topics
Articles,
Books, and Book Chapters (available online)
Sommers,
S. (2011). Situations matter: Understanding how context transforms
your world. Riverhead Books.
Excerpts of Situations Matter can be read here
and here.
Wegner,
D. M., & Giuliano, T. (1982). The
forms of social awareness. In W. J. Ickes & E. S. Knowles
(Eds.), Personality, roles, and social behavior (pp. 165-198).
New York: Springer-Verlag.
Bickert,
K. C., Wright, C. I., Dautoff, R. J., Dickerson, B. C., & Barrett,
L. F. (2010). Amygdala
volume and social network size in humans. Nature Neuroscience,
December, 26, 2010.
Krueger,
J.I., & Funder, D.C. (2004). Towards
a balanced social psychology: Causes, consequences, and cures for
the problem-seeking approach to social behavior and cognition.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 313-327.
Nave, G., Nadler, A., Zava, D., & Camerer, C. (2017). Single dose testosterone administration impairs cognitive reflection in men. Psychological Science, 28, 1398-1407.
Slavich,
G. M., & Cole, S. W. (2013). The
emerging field of human social genomics. Clinical Psychological
Science, 1, 331-348.
Copyright
2000-2023. This site was created and is maintained by Jon
Mueller, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at North
Central College, Naperville, IL. Send comments to Jon.
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