BackStage

I don’t know who this would actually help, but I’m going to start posting materials from my social psychology course. Why? Well, from what I’ve seen, it was a fairly unique course. Also, I did a LOT of legwork finding good examples of concepts that others might find useful — even if it’s the only useful thing you get from all of this. There are very few helpful websites for people teaching sociological social psychology. Of course you can use some stuff on the psych side. But, I knew a lot of my students would have taken the psychological version of the course — and DAMMIT — we have plenty in sociology to fill a few semesters, much less one. These existing websites are:

• Teaching Social Psychology
• Social Psychology Network

Of course, there are some soc bloggers that put up great material sometimes. So, watch for that as well.

Course Schedule

I organized the class around the historical development of American social psychology (mostly, brought in some European) mainly after WWII. One of the first day of classes, I give an overall lecture on the history of social psychology in sociology (some psych in the early years). The undergrads didn’t LOVE this lecture, but I think it helped provide framework. I would SO change the attitudes reading. Way beyond most of them. Also, I didn’t use week 10, had a guest lecturer instead (I’m sure all of you who know who I am — which is all of you, can guess who that was).

Here is the schedule:

Week One History of Social Psychology-Overview

August 26: Course Introduction and Social Psychological Perspectives

August 27: Stryker, Sheldon. 1977. “Developments in ‘Two Social Psychologies’: Toward an Appreciation of Mutual Relevance.” Sociometry 40: 145-160.

Stolte, John F., Gary Alan Fine, and Karen S. Cook. 2001. “Sociological Miniaturism: Seeing the Big Through the Small in Social Psychology.” Annual Review of Sociology 27: 387-413.

Week Two Attitudes—Historical Importance and Current Research

September 2: Eagley, Alice H. and Shelly Chaiken. 1998. “Attitude Structure and Function.” Pp. 269-322 in Handbook of Social Psychology Volume 2, edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey. Boston, MA; McGraw-Hill.

September 4: ****Sign-up for paper topics

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 6

Week Three Symbolic Interactionism: Origins and Process

September 9: Blumer, Herbert. 1969. “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism.” Pgs. 1- 21 in Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

September 11: CHOOSE ONE:

Becker, Howard S. 1953. “Becoming a Marijuana User.” The American Journal of Sociology 59(3):235-242.

Fine, Gary Alan. 1979. “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball.” American Sociological Review 44(5):733-745.

Suggested: Mead, George Herbert. 1913. “The Social Self.” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 10(14):374-380.

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 1, pgs. 5-18

****Last Day to sign-up for extra credit!!!!

Week Four Socialization

September 16: DeLamater, John D. and Daniel J. Myers. 2007. “Socialization.” Pp. 52-81 in

Social Psychology, Sixth Edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.

September 18: CHOOSE ONE:

Adler, Patricia A., Steven J. Kless, and Peter Adler. 1992. “Socialization to Gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls.” Sociology of Education 65(3):169-187.

Cahill, Spencer. 1999. “Emotional Capital and Professional Socialization: The Case of Mortuary Science Students (and Me).” Social Psychology Quarterly 62(2):101-116.

Suggested: Kain, Edward L. 1999. “Building the Sociological Imagination through a Cumulative Curriculum: Professional Socialization in Sociology.” Teaching Sociology 27(1): 1-16.

Week Five Impression Management and Dramaturgy

September 23: Goffman, Erving. 1959. Pp. 1-76 in Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

New York: Doubleday.

September 25: CHOOSE ONE:

Collett, Jessica L. 2005. “What Kind of Mother Am I? Impression Management and the Social Construction of Motherhood.” Symbolic Interaction 28(3):327-347.

Schweingruber, David, Sine Anahita, and Nancy Berns. 2004. “‘Popping the Question’ When the Answer is Known: The Engagement Proposal as Performance.” Sociological Focus 37(2):143-161.

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 9

****Paper 1 Due

Week Six The Golden Age: Early Group Research

September 30: Asch, Solomon E. 1955. “Opinions and Social Pressure.”

Tajfel, Henri. 1970. “Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination.” Scientific American, 223, 96-102.

Read the NYT Article

October 2: Film: Special Victim’s Unit, Season 5, Episode E4421, “Mean”

Suggested: Selections from Robber’s Cave, Sherif (link in WebCT)

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 14

Week Seven Social Exchange and Power

October 7: Cook, Karen S. and Eric Rice. 2003. “Social Exchange Theory.” Pp. 53-76 in Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by John DeLamater. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

October 9: None

Week Eight The Beginning Decades of Sociological Social Psychology

October 14: The “Crisis” in Social Psychology (Stryker from week 1) and a look ahead

Class Workshop

October 16: ****Exam

****Paper 2 Due

Week Nine Symbolic Interactionism and Social Structure/Agency

October 21: Stryker, Sheldon. 1980. “Contemporary Symbolic Interactionism: A Statement.” Chapter 3 in Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company.

Stryker, Sheldon. 1994. “Freedom and Constraint in Social and Personal Life: Toward Resolving the Paradox of Self.” Pp. 119-138 in Self, Collective Behavior and Society: Essays Honoring the Contributions of Ralph H. Turner, edited by Gerald M. Platt and Chad Gordon. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

October 23: Burke, Peter J. 2004. “Identities and Social Structure: The 2003 Cooley-Mead Award Address.” Social Psychology Quarterly 67(1):5-15.

Suggested: Stryker, Sheldon. 1987. “The Vitalization of Symbolic Interaction.” Social Psychology Quarterly 50(1): 83-94.

Week Ten Self & Identity

October 28: Foddy, Margaret and Yoshihisa Kashima. 2002. “Self and Identity: What is the Conception of the Person Assumed in the Current Literature.” Pp. 3-26 in Self and Identity: Personal, Social, and Symbolic edited by Yoshihisa Kashima, Margaret Foddy and Michael Platow. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

October 30: None

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 4

****Extra Credit Paper Due

Week Eleven Expectations States Theories

November 4: Berger, Joseph, Susan Rosenholz, and Morris Zelditch Jr. 1980. “Status Organizing Processes.” Annual Review of Sociology 6: 479-508.

November 6: Ridgeway, Cecilia L. 2000. “The Formation of Status Beliefs: Improving Status Construction Theory.” Advances in Group Processes, edited by EJ Lawler, M. Macy, SR Thye, and HA Walker, 17: 77-102. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Suggested: Pugh, Meredith D. and Ralph Wharman. 1983. “Neutralizing Sexism in Mixed-Sex Groups: Do Women Have to be Better than Men?” American Journal of Sociology 88: 736-762.

Driskell, James E. and Brian Mullen. 1990. “Status, Expectations, and Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review and Test of the Theory.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 16: 541-553.

Week Twelve Social Identity and Group Conflict

November 11: Brewer, Marilynn B. and Michael D. Silver. 2000. “Group Distinctiveness, Social Identification, and Collective Mobilization.” Pp. 153-171 in Self, Identity, and Social Movements, edited by Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens, and Robert W. White. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

November 13: Douglas, Karen M., Craig Mcgarty, Ana-Maria Bliuc and Girish Lala. 2005. “Understanding Cyberhate: Social Competition and Social Creativity in Online White Supremacist Groups.” Social Science Computer Review 23(1): 68-76.

Resource: http://www.prisonexp.org/

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 16

****Paper 3 Due

Week Thirteen Social Cognition & Beyond

November 18: Howard, Judith A. 1995. “Social Cognition.” Pp. 90-117 in Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology edited by Karen S. Cook, Gary Alan Fine, and James S. House. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

November 20: Hollander, Jocelyn A. and Judith A. Howard. 2000. “Social Psychological Theories on Social Inequalities.” Social Psychology Quarterly 63(4): 338-351.

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 5

Resource: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Week Fourteen BREAK

November 25: NO CLASS – BREAK

November 27: NO CLASS – BREAK

Week Fifteen Emotions

December 2: Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979. “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85(3):551-575.

Robinson, Dawn T., Lynn Smith-Lovin and Olga Tsoudis. 1994. “Heinous Crime or Unfortunate Accident? The Effects of Remorse on Responses to Mock Criminal Confessions.” Social Forces 73: 175-190.

December 4: CHOOSE ONE:

Thoits, Peggy. 1985. “Self-labeling Processes in Mental Illness: The Role of Emotional Deviance.” American Journal of Sociology 92:221-249.

Smith, Allen C. and Sherryl Kleinman. 1989. “Managing Emotions in Medical School: Students Contacts with the Living and the Dead.” Social Psychology Quarterly 52(1): 56-69.

Text: DeLamater and Myers Chapter 10

Resource: http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ACT/interact.htm

Week Sixteen Wrap-up

December 9: Social Psychology: What we have learned and the future of the discipline

December 11: Class Workshop

****Paper 4 Due

Finals Week Final exam

December 18^th The final is preliminarily scheduled for 2:15 – 4:15, this is subject to change. I’ll let you know when the university finalizes the time and place.