PSY-705 Social Bases of Behavior

1. Describe social construction, including how we construct the concepts of normalcy and pathology, culture, gender, ethnicity, and social class.
2. Analyze the literature on group dynamics and leadership.
3. Identify cultural differences and similarities, including stereotyping, prejudice, oppression, and discrimination.
4. Describe sociopolitical influences that impinge upon the lives of identified groups (e.g., poverty, stereotyping, powerlessness, and marginalization).
5. Summarize the literature on attitudes and attitude change, including cognitive consistency, dissonance, persuasion, and the relationship of attitudes to behavior.
6. Summarize the literature on social cognition, including person perception (know the classic studies on impression formation and attribution theory).
7. Describe the literature on aggression and violence, with a focus on the role of social learning.
8. Summarize the work on social influence (conformity, obedience, bystander psychology, cooperation, altruism, brutality).
9. Describe the literature on interpersonal attraction and relationships.
10. Identify methodological problems in social psychology research, including demand characteristics.