Psy 630: Social Cognition

Prof. Allen McConnell — Autumn 2005

Class meets in the 207 Benton Hall
Tuesdays, 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
 

Psy 630 on the World Wide Web: http://www.users.muohio.edu/mcconnar/psy630.html

Course prerequisite

Graduate standing in psychology or the instructor's permission
 
 

Readings

Course readings, available in the Graduate Student Computer Lab, Benton Hall.

American Psychological Assocation (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Since the 1980s, the social cognition movement has emerged as the dominant paradigm in social psychology.  Social cognition seeks to explore the cognitive underpinnings of numerous social psychological phenomena, including impression formation about individuals, group stereotyping, attributional thinking, self knowledge, affect, and judgment and decision making.  One of the primary goals of this research is to better understand the processes that underlie many of the forces that shape, and are shaped by, social interaction.  In addition to re-exploring traditional topics in social psychology (e.g., stereotyping and prejudice), social cognition has examined less traditional topics in social as well (e.g., the role of unconscious thought in social interaction).  Thus, social cognition represents less of “an area in” and more of “an orientation to” social psychology.  Each week, students will lead discussions about, write and submit reaction papers to, and critique readings from scientific research journals and edited volumes.  The primary project in the class will be a research proposal due at the end of the semester.

Most of the success in this course rests with the students and their preparation.  The format of the course has students who lead discussions each week, with a pair of students (facilitators) determining how to best organize and facilitate discussion on the week’s topics.  Because this is a small class, contributing to group discussion is essential.  Moreover, it is through the process of discussion and debate that one’s research acumen becomes defined and sharpened.  One of the major goals of this class is to help develop one’s thinking and problem solving skills, and this is best accomplished by expressing your ideas in writing and in class discussions.

Facilitating

During the semester, students will have the responsibility of facilitating discussion.  Facilitators will need to determine how best to accomplish this goal for the readings.  As facilitators, it is not your responsibility to explain the readings to others or review the important points of each paper.  Instead, your role is to provide a framework that seems sensible for discussing the topic.  For example, you may want to circulate questions via e-mail before class to pose questions of your colleagues.  Perhaps you might present an initial framework at the beginning of class (on the board or via overhead) to highlight common (or divergent) themes that run throughout the readings.  There are no right or wrong ways to facilitate.  The goal of facilitation is to provide structure and direction for fellow students during discussion, not be the discussion.
 
 

Reaction papers

Each week, students will submit a brief reaction paper (2-3 double-spaced pages) describing their reactions to the week’s readings during weeks that they do not facilitate class discussion.  They must be typed, but they need not conform to APA style.  This assignment is very open-ended and subject to great latitude in interpretation.  Because some students specialize in different disciplines (e.g., clinical, cognitive psychology), they may want to “spin” the week’s themes in a reasonable fashion toward their interests, which is fine.  The goal is to make sure that students come to class not only with the readings read, but come to class having put some degree of thought into the implications of, and interconnections among, the readings.  Each acceptable reaction paper contributes 4% to the overall grade.  Students must submit their reaction papers by e-mail attachment to the instructor before 6 p.m. of the day before class (i.e., by Monday at 6 p.m.).  The instructor will return them at the beginning of class (i.e., Tuesday).  Late reaction papers, regardless of the circumstances, will not be accepted.
 
 

Research proposal

Students will submit a major paper by choosing a topic in social cognition based on their own interests and developing a research proposal.  The topic need not be one that a student facilitated, though doing so may benefit some students.  The research proposal must address an important research question from the perspective of social cognition.  Students outside of social psychology are encouraged to relate social cognition to their area (e.g., developmental psychologists may want to study the formation of group stereotypes in children, clinical psychologists may want to explore how nonconscious processes affect client-therapist interactions).  Although students will not be required to carry out the research they propose, the opportunity to develop a well-thought-out proposal should be helpful to those who wish to develop new lines of research or explore ideas relevant to theses, minor projects, and dissertations.  This paper must take the form of a research proposal — it cannot be simply a literature review.  The instructor will be available to help students refine their ideas and suggest appropriate references.  There is no correct page length.  Papers must be written in accordance with the APA Publication Manual (5th ed.).  Additional details and guidelines will be provided later this semester.  Topics must be approved by the instructor no later than Tuesday, November 29, at the end of class.  The paper is due by noon, on Tuesday, December 13 in the instructor’s mailbox, Benton Hall (please submit a hard copy, not an attachment, to avoid any problems with formatting, printing, etc.).  Being late with either deadline (topic approval or submitting the final paper) without documentation of personal emergency or illness will incur a 10% deduction in the paper’s final grade for each 24-hour period that the relevant assignment is late.

8/23— Organizational meeting

8/30 — Major themes in social cognition

Bruner, J. S. (1957).  On perceptual readiness.  Psychological Review, 64, 123-152.

Snyder, M., Tanke, E. D., & Berscheid, E. (1977).  Social perception and interpersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 656-666.

Smith, E. R., & DeCoster, J. (2000).  Dual-process models in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual intergration and links to underlying memory systems.  Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 108-131.

Bargh, J. A., & Ferguson, M. J. (2000).  Beyond behaviorism: On the automaticity of higher mental processes.  Psychological Bulletin, 126, 925-945.

9/6 — No class:  Monday-Tuesday switch day

9/13 — Social categories:  Activation and implications

Higgins, E. T., Rholes, W. S., & Jones, C. R. (1977).  Category accessibility and impression formation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 141-154.

Bargh, J. A., Bond, R. N., Lombardi, W. J., & Tota, M. E. (1986).  The additive nature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 869-878.

Schwarz, N., & Bless, H. (1992).  Constructing reality and its alternatives: An inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgments.  In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 217-245). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Macrae, C. N., Bodenhausen, G. V., Milne, A. B., & Jetten, J. (1994).  Out of mind but back in sight:  Stereotypes on the rebound. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 808-817.

9/20 — Limits to our understanding of ourselves

Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977).  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231-259.

Wilson, T. D., Lisle, D. J., Schooler, J. W., Hodges, S. D., Klaaren, K. J., & LaFleur, S. J. (1993).  Introspecting about reasons can reduce post-choice satisfaction.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 331-339.

Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J., & Wheatley, T. P. (1998). Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 617-638.

Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211-222.

9/27 — Goals

Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans.  American Psychologist, 54, 493-503.

Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being.  American Psychologist, 54, 462-479.

Ferguson, M. J., & Bargh, J. A. (2004).  Liking is for doing: The effects of goal pursuit on automatic evaluation.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 557-572.

Förster, J., Liberman, N., & Higgins, E. T. (2005). Accessibility from active and fulfilled goals.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 220-239.

10/4 — No class: Person Memory/SESP

10/11 — Self-regulation

Carver, C. S. (2001). Self-regulation. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Intraindividual processes (pp. 307-328). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998).  Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource?  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1252-1265.

10/18 — Affect influencing thinking and perceiving

Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974).  Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 510-517.

Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1996).  Feelings and phenomenal experiences.  In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 433-465).New York: Guilford.

Bodenhausen, G. V., Kramer, G. P., & Suesser, K. (1994).  Happiness and stereotypic thinking in social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 621-632.

Gasper, K. (2003).  When necessity is the mother of invention: Mood and problem solving.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 248-262.

10/25 — Cognitive consistency and self-perception

Zanna, M. P., & Cooper, J. (1974).  Dissonance and the pill: An attributional approach to studying the arousal properties of dissonance.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 703-709.

Comer, R., & Laird, J. D. (1975).  Choosing to suffer as a consequence of expecting to suffer: Why do people do it?  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 92-101.

Cooper, J., & Fazio, R. H. (1984).  A new look at dissonance theory.  In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 17, pp. 229-266). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

Fazio, R. H. (1987).  Self-perception theory: A current perspective.  In M. P. Zanna, J. M. Olson, & C. P. Herman (Eds.), Social influence: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 5, pp. 129-150). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Fried, C. B., & Aronson, E. (1995).  Hypocrisy, misattribution, and dissonance reduction.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 925-933.

11/1 — Attitudes

Petty, R. E., & Wegener, D. T. (1998).  Attitude change: Multiple roles for persuasion variables.  In D. T. Gilbert, S. T., Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 323-390). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Fazio, R. H., & Towles-Schwen, T. (1999).  The MODE model of attitude-behavior processes.  In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual process theories in social psychology (pp. 97-116).  New York: Guilford.

Schwarz, N., & Bohner, G. (2001).  The construction of attitudes.  In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Intrapersonal processes (pp. 436-457). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

11/8 — Stereotyping and prejudice

Fazio, R. H., Jackson, J. R., Dunton, B. C., & Williams, C. J. (1995). Variability in automatic activation as an unobtrusive measure of racial stereotypes: A bona fide pipeline? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1013-1027.

Bodenhausen, G. V., & Macrae, C. N. (1998). Stereotype activation and inhibition. In R. S. Wyer (Ed.), Stereotype activation and inhibition: Advances in social cognition (Vol. 11, pp. 1-52). Mahwah , NJ : Erlbaum.

McConnell, A. R., & Leibold, J. M. (2001).  Relations between the Implicit Association Test, explicit racial attitudes, and discriminatory behavior.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 435-442.

Beilock, S. L., Rydell, R. J., & McConnell, A. R. (2004).  Stereotype threat and working memory: What is threatened and can it be alleviated?   Manuscript under review.

11/15 — Coming to understand individuals

Srull, T. K., Lichtenstein, M., & Rothbart, M. (1985).  Associative storage and retrieval processes in person memory.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 11, 316-345.

Gilbert, D. T. (1998).  Ordinary personology.  In D. T. Gilbert, S. T., Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 89-150). New York: McGraw-Hill.

11/22 — No class:  Thanksgiving week

11/29 — The self* (class will run from 4-6:30 on this day only)

Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988).  Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health.  Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991).  Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.  Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

12/6 — No class:  Writing day

12/13 — Paper due

Last updated Wednesday 31 August 2005