Overview of Course

Social psychology seeks to understand how the essential ABCs of our daily experience (affect, behavior, and cognition) are affected by other people (both people who are physically present and those who are not - imagined/implied others affect us powerfully as well!). Our emotions, actions, and thoughts arise from the interaction of what we bring to the situation (e.g., our personalities, our unique histories) and the situation itself (including social factors such as norms and culture). In this course, you will learn about social psychological research and theory in areas such as persuasion, discrimination, close relationships, altruism, aggression, and more. We will discuss cross-cultural differences in these domains with particular focus on the areas of the world we will be visiting.