Ever wonder why people do what they do? This course—which includes more than $1,000 of video and reading materials—offers some answers based on the latest research from social psychology. Students taking the course for a Certificate will also receive free membership in Social Psychology Network (SocialPsychology.org). COURSE DESCRIPTION FROM PROFESSOR PLOUS: Each of us is dealt a different hand in life, but we all face similar questions when it comes to human behavior: What leads us to like one person and dislike another? How do conflicts and prejudices develop, and how can they be reduced? Can psychological research help protect the environment, and if so, how? This course offers a brief introduction to classic and contemporary social psychology, covering topics such as decision making, persuasion, group behavior, personal attraction, and factors that promote health and well-being. Our focus will be on surprising, entertaining, and intriguing research findings that are easy to apply in daily life. The course will also draw from the websites of Social Psychology Network, the world's largest online community devoted to social psychology. I hope you'll join me for this course, have fun, and learn some useful information that enriches your life.
Lecture 1.3: Tour of Social Psychology Network and Invitation to Join
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From the course by Wesleyan University
Social Psychology
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From the lesson
WEEK 1: Social Perceptions and Misperceptions
This week's goals are to: (1) learn what social psychology is and why it's worth studying; (2) take a "snapshot" of your thinking at the start of the course; (3) see how perceptions of reality are psychologically constructed; and (4) witness the shocking speed at which social judgments are made.
Meet the Instructors
Scott PlousProfessor of Psychology; Executive Director, Social Psychology Network; recipient of the American Psychological Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching
Department of Psychology
In this video, I'll give you a tour of Social Psychology Network
with an emphasis on resources of interest to students,
which isn't difficult because the Network began as a resource for students.
SPN was born in 1996 as an ugly duckling web syllabus for
my Social Psychology course at Wesleyan,
and it didn't really become a professional network until 1999,
when the U.S. National Science Foundation began funding it.
So, thank you NSF!
In 2004, two leading professional societies, the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology,
both became sponsors of the Network.
And in 2005, SPN became a member organization.
It also has wonderful staff members and
student interns who work around the clock— literally, nights, weekends, holidays—
to keep the network running and available 24 hours a day.
So, what exactly is Social Psychology Network, and what are its goals?
Well, as you can see on the home page of SocialPsychology.org,
the mission is to promote peace, social justice, and sustainable living
through public education, research, and the advancement of psychology.
So, to take just one example, suppose that you were interested in either learning or
teaching about the topic of racism.
One thing you could do would be to search SPN's database of more than twenty thousand
classified links by typing the key word "racism" into the search field here.
Let's do that, and when we hit Return, we'll get all manner of results—
it might be organizations, researchers, events, publications, and so on.
Now, let's suppose that we're particularly interested in, say, books on racism.
We can drill down by clicking on the Publications tab, and
then under that, we can see Books, and we'll click on those.
And there we have a number of books on racism—and not only that,
but we have links to book reviews.
SPN also has an Advanced Search in which you can
specify the type of item you're looking for—say, a college course.
And we can pop open that category to further specify whether we're looking for
a distance-learning course or a regular course.
And by the way, if you're interested in distance-learning resources,
SPN has a page specifically devoted to that in its navigation menu on the left.
And on that page, you'll find Degree Programs in Psychology, MOOCs,
and much more.
For instance, if we click on MOOCs, we're taken to that part of the page,
and we can scroll through a list of free online courses.
You might have noticed that SPN also has partner sites.
These are sites that the Social Psychology Network team designed
and manages on our web server.
During our course, we'll use several of these partner sites, beginning with
the randomizer form on Research Randomizer in Assignment #1.
Another point of interest:
SPN maintains topical pages that go way beyond social psychology—
everything from clinical psychology to cultural psychology to neuroscience
to peace psychology.
In fact, let's click on "Peace Psychology,"
and what you'll see is that these pages begin with a Table of Contents
on specific topics.
So, in this case, you see Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and Graduate Studies in Peace Psychology.
If we zoom back to the top of the page, you'll see the graduate programs in social
and personality psychology can also be searched geographically.
For example, let's click on… let's see, Asia,
and maybe click on one of the programs in India, which pops open a bubble
with a link that will in turn take us right to that graduate program's website.
So, there it is!
Or if I close this window and type in a location like CA
(short for California), we're taken to that geographic area,
and we can click on specific programs in the side panel.
So let's see, I'll click on the University of California at Berkeley—
wonderful school. There's the bubble,
and if I click on the link, I'm again taken to the program.
For anyone contemplating a career in psychology,
the Online Psychology Career Center is another resource that might interest you.
There's a direct link listed a few lines above the distance
learning page in the navigation menu on the left.
And the Career Center includes everything from searchable job databases
to tips on graduate schools, internships, and financial aid.
Let me just mention a few other resources that were developed specifically with
students in mind.
I'll go fast because you can always rewind the video.
SPN has a Job Forum that allows you to receive
email alerts whenever a particular type of job opens up that might interest you.
For example,
you could request alerts if a postdoctoral position opens up in Australia—
one of my favorite countries.
Another key element of the Network is that it contains a searchable directory of
approximately 2,000 social psychology experts from 50 different countries.
One way to search for experts is through a map,
similar to the graduate program map that I showed earlier.
Or, you can search the directory through the Directories menu here.
If you're interested in a particular topic— say, obedience—
you can search all SPN profiles by typing a keyword or phrase into this field.
So, we'll just type "obedience," and then once the results come in,
I'll click on the top result so that you can see what a profile page looks like.
There we go!
As you can see, SPN profiles have tabs with an overview statement, publications,
contact information, and anything else the profile holder's decided to add,
just as you might create a profile in Facebook or LinkedIn.
For example, we can click on publications by Professor Blass and
flip through his books, some of which will actually be mentioned later in the course
when we discuss research on obedience.
We can also search the directory by research interests.
So, let's look for someone with expertise on attitudes, prejudice,
intergroup relations, neuroscience, and
let's throw in the Internet for good measure.
Because we combined so many different areas of expertise,
there's currently only one person who covers them all:
Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard University.
And if we click on her profile, there are several things worth noting.
First, there are links to social media, to her curriculum vitae, and
an article about her in Wikipedia. You can see that there's also a link to her
research laboratory under the Research tab.
And if we click on the Files tab, there are some nice photos in her Image Gallery.
But the profile feature that I especially want to highlight
is the SPN Mentor designation under the Teaching tab.
This means that the expert is willing to offer free career advice and
assistance to students from underrepresented groups, as defined in this box.
To receive that assistance, you just visit the SPN Mentorship Program page,
and follow the instructions.
There are over 500 mentors to choose from worldwide, and
we've set it up so that students can even geosearch the database.
For example, if we go to the map of Profiled Experts, and we choose Europe,
we get a map of SPN Profile Holders which we can then limit to mentors with
expertise in, for example, let's choose personality psychology,
and there you go!
With respect to the Mentorship Program,
all I ask is that you please don't contact Professor Banaji, because I don't want
to flood her with requests as a result of showing her profile in this video.
Well, that's a lot of ground that we've covered, geographically and
otherwise, so let's pause for a pop-up question.
Hello again!
In an earlier lecture video, I mentioned inviting you to join
Social Psychology Network, which I very much hope that you'll do,
but let me say up front that unlike the course, joining the Network is not free,
and I understand that some of you may not have the resources to join,
or may not have the desire.
That's okay.
Everyone is welcome to take this course and use the resources in
Social Psychology Network for free,
regardless of whether you're a member or not.
But for those of you who can afford to join,
I want to strongly ask that you do, for two reasons.
First, it helps us cover the cost of offering all the resources and
services shown in this video.
Neither Wesleyan nor I receive any funds from SPN memberships;
100% of the money goes toward resources for students and
other users of the Network.
Second, Coursera students who join the Network will be given their own SPN page,
very similar, actually,
to the professional profiles I showed you earlier, but with an extra feature.
Through a special arrangement, Coursera students with an SPN member page will have
the option of displaying their Course Certificate directly on their
Network page, which can be used when applying for jobs or internships,
or really any situation in which you want to display credentials and experience
that might relate to psychology, education, business, health, and so on.
How much does it cost to join the Network?
A basic membership is $25 dollars per calendar year, but for Coursera learners,
we've dropped the membership rate to $10 dollars per year, or free if you're taking this course for a certificate.
That is, if you purchase the course from Coursera, it comes with a free membership in Social Psychology Network.
To purchase the course, simply sign in to your Coursera account, visit the list of courses you've enrolled in,
choose to purchase Social Psychology, and then after a 24 hour processing period,
visit our course page and click on "Join Social Psychology Network" under the Resources area on the left.
So, I hope that you join the Network.
We would love, love, love to have you as a member if it doesn't present a financial burden.
There's a "Join the Network" button right on our course page,
and when you complete the Snapshot Quiz, you'll also be given an opportunity to
join the Network, or just complete the quiz.
And either way, all the instructions are right there.
Please complete the Snapshot Quiz before watching any further videos,
and then once you're done, you're most welcome to watch the next video,
which is on the psychological construction of reality.
It should be a fun video!
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