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