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Introducing Social Psychology - SOC00008C

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• Department: Sociology
• Module co-ordinator: Dr. Darren Reed
• Credit value: 10 credits
• Credit level: C
• Academic year of delivery: 2021-22
  • See module specification for other years: 2022-23

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Autumn Term 2021-22
B	Spring Term 2021-22

Module aims

To introduce the discipline of social psychology, identify the different perspectives within social psychology, and consider how these perspectives conceptualise the relationship between the individual and society.

This module will introduce you to the discipline of social psychology and how it helps us to make sense of the social world. In the first term you will be presented with a distinctively sociological social psychology (SSP). SSP draws from sociology and philosophy and examines the social, historical, and cultural context of behaviour and observes people in their own social worlds. You will be introduced to approaches which have redefined contemporary social psychology; social constructionism, ethnomethodology, and symbolic interactionism, and start to think critically about different ways of understanding the relationship between the individual and society. In the second term, we will examine the more traditional psychological social psychology, which tends to use experiments and observes people in laboratory settings in order to establish laws about human behaviour. We will encourage you to think critically about approaches to studying human social conduct.

Module learning outcomes

This module will enable students to:

• Understand sociological and social psychological theory and methods;
• Call upon sociological and social psychological approaches, methods and concepts to deal with and understand events and occurrences
• Place and understand social phenomena in a wider social context.
• Appreciate the foundations and contemporary debates in the disciplines of sociology and social psychology.
• Synthesise various literature so as to construct coherent arguments

Indicative assessment

Task	Length	% of module mark
Visiting Student Assessment Essay	N/A	100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	Length	% of module mark
Visiting Student Assessment Essay	N/A	100

Module feedback

Written feedback

Indicative reading

Franzoi, S.L. (2009) Social psychology. London: McGraw-Hill.

Goffman, E. (1969). The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Allen Lane Hewitt, J.P. (2010) Self and society: A symbolic interactionist social psychology. London: Pearson.

Hollway, W., Lucey, H., & Phoenix, A. (2007) Social Psychology Matters. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Rohall, D.E. Milkie, M.A., and Lucas, J.W. (2011) Social psychology: Sociological perspectives. London: Pearson.