Course Catalogue

Module Title: SOCS 232 Social Psychology

Credit Value: 12

 

General Objectives:

This module explores the complex relationship between the individual and society. Students in this module will be invited to think about the multiple ways their ethnicity, social class, gender, age, religious beliefs, sexuality, nationality, and culture have influenced their own identity. They will be asked to reflect on the impact their family and other relationships have contributed to the person they have become in Bhutanese society. They will read sociological texts that will help them sort through the ways their many social encounters continue to affect their personal development as individuals. For example, how is the experience of college affecting them as individuals? Finally, students will be urged to explore a politicized social psychology of identities that brings together the structures of everyday lives and the socio-cultural realities in which those lives are lived. Specifically, what makes a person Bhutanese? During the current transition to democracy, as Bhutan selectively ‘develops,’ what are the consequences of these changes for Bhutanese identity? Are there particular challenges that need to be confronted? Do policies like GNH adequately mediate these changes and ameliorate any negative results?

 

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Analyze central concepts such as self, identity, social construction, and symbolic interaction.
  • Recognize that dimensions of identity (ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, class, age, (dis)ability, nationality, culture, religious tradition, and space (geographic and virtual)) formation work independently and also intersect with each other.
  • Recognize the performative nature of and relative flexibility of social identities.
  • Relate sociological ideas about self & society to examine Bhutanese identities, especially in the context of contemporary social changes.
  • Examine how traditional identities in Bhutan are shifting and what are the consequences for individuals and Bhutanese society at large?”
  • Discover the relationship between macro-level structures/policies and the construction of an individual sense of well-being and a meaningful life.

 

Learning and Teaching Approach Used:

This course will be taught using interactive lecture and class discussion.  In other words, students must be actively involved in the discussion of course material.  Because Social Psychology deals directly with individual life experiences and reflection on social relationships, it lends itself nicely to student participation. Students have a bountiful store of lay ‘data’ to be examined and turned into sociological knowledge on the topic.

            Furthermore, we will have a weekly student-led discussion session (presentation of readings) in which each student will make a comment on that week's readings.  These discussion sessions will be coordinated by a small group (2 or 3 students) of student presenters, one or two of whom will summarize the readings and highlight the significant material found therein, and one or two others of whom will raise questions for the class to consider and direct the resulting discussion. Students will take turns being student presenters and each student will be a presenter at least once during the semester.  The lecturer will be responsible for organizing these discussion sections and assigning roles to student presenters. 

Assessment:

Continuous Assessment:                               60%

            Presentation of readings:       20%

            Assignments:                          25%

            Participation*:                         5%

            Midterm test:                          10%

 

End of Session Assessment:                           40%

            Final Exam:                40%

 

Subject Matter:

    • Introduction: historical roots and evolution, relationship to psychology and current status
    • Focus on us: where we come from – neurology, creation, evolution; how we work; how we process; how we communicate; how we interact;
    • Classical Beginnings: Marx and the relation between abstract beliefs and social orders; Durkheim and the production of shared subjective experience; Weber and the relation between social structure and doctrine/
    • Interaction and Roles: Symbolic interactionism; Primates, gesture and meanings; The idea of a role; Generalization of a role; Internalization of roles; 
    • Social Factors Impinging on the Self: Moral judgment; Perceptual judgement; institutions and the self; Socialization;
    • Theoretical perspective in social psychology: symbolic interactionism, Attribution Theory, Stereotyping, Social Distance and Social Morphology, What is a Self? Self Concept, Identities
    • Influence of social insitutions: Religion; Science; School; formal organizations.

 

Pre-requisite:

Students must have successfully completed Introduction to Sociology (SOCS 111), Cultural Anthropology (SOCS 121), and Social Theory (SOCS 122) prior to enrolling in this module.

 

Reading List:     

Delamater, John D., & Meyers, Daniel J. (2007). Social Psychology, 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.

 

Newman, David M. (2005). Identities and Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. McGraw-Hill.

 

Pettijohn, Terry F. (2001). Notable Selections in Social Psychology, 3rd edition. New York:

McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

Berger, P., & Luckmann, T.  (1966).  The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.  Anchor Books.  New York.

Cahill, S. (1998). “Toward a sociology of the person”. Sociological Theory. 16:131-48.

Charmaz, K. (1995). “The body, identity, and self: adapting to impairment.” Sociological Quarterly. 36:657-80.

Comas-Diaz, L., Lykes, M.,  &  Alarcon, M. (1998). “Ethnic conflict and the psychology of liberation in Guatemala, Peru, and Puerto Rico”. American Psychologist. 53:778-92.

Cooley, Charles H. (1902). Human Nature and the Social Order, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, revised edn 1922.

Cuba L., and D. Hummon. (1993a). “Constructing a sense of home: place affiliation and migration across the life cycle.” Sociological Forum. 8:547-72.

Cuba, L., & Hummon, D. (1993b). A place to call home: identification with dwelling, community, and region. Sociological Quarterly. 34:111-31.

Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre.

Hunt, S., R.D. Benford, & D.A. Snow. (1994). “Identity talk in the peace and justice movement”. Contemporary Ethnography. 22:488-517.

Kendall, L. (1998) Meaning and identity in ‘cyberspace’: the performance of gender, class, and race online. Symbolic Interaction. 21:129-53.

 

Date: November 2008