Social Thinking
This seminar examines the major theories, methodologies, and content areas of social cognition, with a primary focus on how individuals create their social reality and use this construction to provide a normative context for their engagement with each other. We will analyze the role of unconscious processes in our interpretations and explanations of the social world, emphasizing in particular our mistakes in judgment and our misperceptions of causation. The individual as a social “cognizer” will be explored further to see how we derive interpretations for our own behavior in comparison to those attributed to others’ behavior. Finally, the issue of attitude as the first epistemological inquiry of social psychology will be analyzed in an attempt to understand how it has given impetus to the cognitive revolution.
We shall explore these issues from an historical and theoretical perspective while focusing on the classic studies in social psychology and applying the knowledge thus gained to contemporary issues of general interest.
Reading list
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication.
Cerulo, K.A. (Ed.) (2002). Culture in Mind: Toward a Sociology of Culture and Cognition. New York, NY: Routledge.
Gilovich, T. (1991). How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, New York, NY: Free Press.
Complementary reading
APA (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Wegner, D. (2002). The Illusion of Conscious Will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Week-2: The psychological and sociological dimensions of social psychology
Week-3: The methodology, levels of analysis, and the social nature of knowledge
Week-5: The history of attitudes
Week-6: Attitudes and behavior
Week-7: The mental structure of the world
Week-10: The use of false beliefs
Week-11: Attribution theory and the fundamental attribution error
Week-13: A critical understanding of reality
Week-14: Student Presentations
Week-15: Student Presentations
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Week- 1: Defining the field and reviewing its history
Introduction
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 1-10.
1- Farr, R. M. (1991). The long past and the short history of social psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 21(5), 371-380.
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Week- 2: The psychological and sociological dimensions of social psychology
1- Cerulo, K.A. (Ed.) (2002). Culture in Mind: Toward a Sociology of Culture and Cognition. New York, NY: Routledge, chap-1.
2- Graumann, C. F. (2001). Introduction to a history of social psychology. In M. Hewstone, W. Stroebe,. (Eds.). Introduction to Social Psychology: A European Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Chap-1.
3- Wilson, D.W. & Schafer, R.B. (1978). Is Social Psychology Interdisciplinary? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 548 - 552.
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Week-3: The methodology, levels of analysis, and the social nature of knowledge
1- Forgas, J.P. (1981). What is social about social cognition? In J. P. Forgas. Social Cognition, London: Academic Press.
2- Rosenthal, R. (1963). On the social psychology of the psychological experiment. American Scientist, 51, 268-283.
3- Sarup , G.(1975) Levels of analysis in social psychology and related social sciences
Human Relations, 28(8), 755-769
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Week- 4:
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Week-5: The history of attitudes
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 12-19, 19-31.
1- Breckler, S.J. (1984). Empirical validation of affect, behavior, and cognition as distinct components of attitude. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1191-1205.
2- LaPiere, R.T. (1934). Attitudes vs actions. Social Forces. 13, 230-237.
Complementary reading:
Thomas, W. & Znaniecki, F. (1918-20). The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: A Classic Work in Immigration History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp 23- 84.
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Week-6: Attitudes and behavior
1- Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J.M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210.
2- Festinger, L., Riecken, H.W., & Schachter, S. (1956) When Prophecy Fails. New York: Harper & Row
3- Lieberman, S. (1956). The effects of changes in roles on the attitudes of role occupants. Human Relations, 9, 385-402.
Complementary reading:
Millar, M.G. (1998). The effects of prior experience and thought on the attitude-behavior relation. Social Behavior and Personality.26, 105-113
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Week- 7: The mental structure of the world
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 32-42.
1- Asch, S. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.
2- Bruner, J.S. & Goodman, C.D. (1947). Value and need as organizing factors in perception. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42, 33-44.
Complementary reading:
Cantor, N. & Mischel, W. (1977). Traits as prototypes: Effects on recognition memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 38-48.
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Week- 8: Unconscious processes
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 42-49.
1- Nisbett, R.E. & Schachter, S. (1966). Cognitive Manipulation of Pain. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 227 - 236.
2- Steele, C. Aronson, J. (1995 Stereotype threat and the intellectual performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797-811.
3- Wallbott, H. G. (1988). In and out of context: Influences of facial expression and context information on emotion attributions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 27, 357-369.
Gilovich, T. (1991). How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, New York, NY: Free Press.
Class paper: Essay of 5-7 pages, Due 10-28
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Week- 9: Explaining the world
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 42-49.
1- Baumeister, R., & Newman, L. (1994). How stories make sense of personal experiences: Motives that shape autobiographical narratives. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 20, 676-690.
2- Jussim, L. &. HarberK.D.(2005). Teacher expectations and self-Fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2),131-155.
3- Rosenhan, D.L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250-258.
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Week- 10: The use of false beliefs
1- Langer, E.J., Roth, J. (1975). Heads I win, tails it’s chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 951 - 955.
2- McFarland, C., Ross, M. & DeCourville, N. (1989). Women's Theories of Menstruation and Biases in Recall of Menstrual Symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 522 - 531.
3- Thompson S.C. (1999). Illusions of control: How we overestimate our personal influence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(6), 187-190.
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Week-11: Attribution theory and the fundamental attribution error
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 60-67, 67-85.
1- Abbey, A. (1987). Misperceptions of Friendly Behavior as Sexual Interest: A Survey of Naturally Recurring Incidents. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11, 173 - 194.
2- Deaux, K. & Emswiller, T. (1974). Explanations for successful performance on sex-linked tasks: What is skill for the male is luck for the female. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 80-85.
3- Duncan, B.L. (1976). Differential social perception and attribution of intergroup violence: Testing the lower limits of stereotyping of blacks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 590-598.
4- Jones, E.E. (1976). How do people perceive the causes of behavior. American Scientist, May/June, 300-305.
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Week- 12: The role of culture
1- Markus, H.R. & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self. implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review. 98(2), 224-253.
2- Miller, J.G., Bersoff, D.M. & Harwood, R.L. (1990). Perceptions of social responsibilities in India and in the United States: Moral imperatives or personal decisions?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(1), 33-47.
3- Sampson, E. E. (1988). The debate on individualism: Indigenous psychologies of the individual and their role in personal and societal functioning. American Psychologist, 43, 15-22.
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Week -13: A critical understanding of reality
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. (2000). Social Cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, pp. 134-144.
1- Gergen, K.J. (1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 40, 266-275.
2- Philogene, G. (2000). Social representations. In A. Kazdin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of psychology. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association and New York: Oxford University Press.
3- Philogene, G. (2004). The Dialectics of Social and Cognitive Psychologies. Paper presented at Third International Workshop on the History and Philosophy of the Social
Sciences (HPSS-04), Donostia - San Sebastian.
Complementary reading:
4- Wertsch, J. & Cole, M. (2003). The role of culture in Vygotskyean-informed psychology. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/colevyg.htm.
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Week -14:Student Presentations
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Week -15: Student Presentations