Teaching Assistant: Laura Dane, M. S., UNM Psychology Ph.D. Student
This syllabus includes the following information:
1. Instructor details:
Dr. Geoffrey Miller, Assistant Professor
Psychology, Logan Hall 160
(505) 277-1967 (office)
(505) 277-1394 (dept fax)
http://www.unm.edu/~psych/faculty/gmiller.html
Office hours: Tuesdays,
Instructor background:
I was born in 1965 in
I’m very happy to be here, since UNM is the world’s leading center for evolutionary research on human nature. Evolutionary social psychology is the focus of my research, especially person perception: how people make inferences about the hidden traits (e.g. intelligence, kindness, attitudes towards green chile) of others given how they look, behave, and talk. I’ve published about 40 research papers, and I recently published a book called “The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature” (it’s also available in Dutch, German, Italian, Portugese, Japanese, and Finnish – but not yet in Spanish unfortunately!). Anyway, it’s a popular science look at the evolution of human sexuality and human creative intelligence; it’s not hard to read, so get the paperback sometime if you want.
2. Teaching
Assistant details:
Laura Dane, M. S.
Office phone number to be announced
ldane@unm.edu
Teaching Assistant background:
Laura Dane
received her B.A. and Master’s degrees in Experimental Psychology from
3. Required
textbook:
Social Psychology (2nd Edition, 2002) by
Douglas Kenrick, Steven Neuberg, and Robert Cialdini. This is
available from the UNM bookstore. I
negotiated a special deal with the publisher so that, for the price of just the
textbook alone ($87.00), you will also get a free study guide, a free
practice test book, and a free access code to the textbook’s web site, all bundled together as a package.
I chose this textbook for several reasons: (1) it is new
and up-to-date, (2) it’s written by University of Arizona professors who really
know their stuff, (3) it tries to present social psychology as a coherent
science rather than a random assortment of gee-whiz stories, (4) it takes a
stronger evolutionary perspective than any other social psych textbook, (5)
it’s well-written, and has lots of real-world examples, data, and photos, (6)
it has a great web site. I think you’ll enjoy it.
It’s important to do the assigned readings before the
class in which I’ll lecture about the material.
The regular quizzes will motivate you to keep up with the readings.
4. Classes:
When, where, what
When: Tuesdays
and Thursdays,
Where: Dane Smith Hall room 125, UNM main campus
What: Classes will include a combination of me lecturing
with Powerpoint visuals, and in-class discussions and exercises which you will
do as individuals, pairs, or small groups.
Because the discussions and exercises are an important part of the
course content, I expect regular attendance and active participation.
Class rules:
Do not
arrive late. The regular in-class quizzes start at
Do not leave
early (before
Do not talk to other students in class unless I ask
you to.
Do not eat
or chew gum in class. It is OK to bring something with a lid to
drink (e.g. bottled water, cup of coffee with lid so it won’t spill and scald
other students).
Do not wear
hats, caps, or sunglasses in class. They
freak me out. I need to see your eyes to know if you’re paying attention.
Turn off
mobile phones when in class. I do not want to hear your phones
ringing. If your phone rings, I will ask
you to leave class immediately and not to return until the next class. If it keeps happening, I will ask you to drop
the course. The only exceptions are if
you have a child or other dependent for whom you have to remain available in
emergencies; if so, please let me know this is your situation in advance (i.e.
send me an email before the second class meeting, August 22), and get a phone
with a silent vibrating call alert rather than an audible ring.
Do not come
to class if you are too tired, ill, injured, depressed, hung over,
stoned, upset by corporate
If you are a parent: If you are a parent and need to bring a baby or young child to class occasionally, please see me as soon as possible. I try to run a family-friendly class, and will make every effort to accommodate you, but we must also reach agreement about what to do when the child cries, gets upset, etc., so they do not disrupt the class too much. If you wish to breast-feed your baby in class, that’s perfectly natural, and we can make some seating arrangement that allows you to see the lectures while also having some extra privacy. Please see me as soon as possible if you need any special arrangements such as this.
If you have a disability, or are on a UNM sports team that requires missing some classes: I will make every effort to accommodate your needs. Please see me in office hours or send an email explaining your situation.
5. Overview of
course content:
Social psychology is the scientific study of human social relationships, including how we influence each other’s behavior, and how we think and feel about each other. Traditionally, American social psychology has focused on how we interact with strangers, but in my course, we will focus on the more biologically and emotionally significant relationships in our lives – relationships with our families, friends, sexual partners, children, co-workers, communities, and so forth. Also, my course views social relationships in their evolutionary context, and I will sometimes talk about social relationships in other cultures, among primates and other animals, or in human prehistory. I hope these emphases on relationships in the real world and in biological context will help bring social psychology to life and help it make more sense as a science and as something worth knowing about.
6. Overview of
grading
Your grade for this course will depend on three types of assessment:
These are described in turn below.
7. Quizzes, not exams
Exams
suck. They cause great anxiety. They do not help students to stay on top of
the readings and the lecture material.
They encourage rote memorization and last-minute cramming. This
course has no exams. No midterm; no final.
Instead, it has a lot of little quizzes that will add up to determine
most of your grade.
At the beginning of every class (beginning with the second class on Thursday August 22) there will be a short, 5-minute quiz that includes 8 multiple-choice questions. By the end of the semester, you will have taken about 30 of these, and performance on these will determine 70% of your final grade.
Details about the quizzes:
The multiple-choice quizzes
will be computer-graded. For each quiz, you will receive two pieces of
paper: one question sheet with the day’s quiz questions, and one answer sheet
for marking your name, your ID number, and your answers. You can write on the question sheet if that
helps you to figure out the right answers, but the question sheets will not be
collected; you should keep them.
On
the answer sheet for each day’s quiz, you MUST fill in the circles to identify
your NAME and your STUDENT ID NUMBER. If
you do not fill both of these in, you will not get any credit for the quiz
because we will not know whose answer sheet we are grading. You must mark your answers (as A, B, C, D, or
E) in the first 8 answer rows on the form.
If you mark your answers in the wrong rows, the marking computer will
not be able to read them properly, and this will harm your quiz grade. Please bring a number 2 pencil to
every class in order to mark your quiz answers on the answer sheet. We will
bring a few extra pencils to each class, but not enough for everyone.
Quizzes will be graded on a 0 to 10 scale. You will get a minimum of 2 points just for showing up and taking the quiz, even if you get all of the answers wrong. If you show up late for class, you will not be able to take that day’s quiz. No exceptions. This should encourage prompt, regular attendance.
The questions within each quiz will range in difficulty from very easy to very hard. Most of the questions should be very easy if you have read the textbook assignment for that class and attended the previous class. There may be a couple of questions that require a bit of thought, and which I do not expect most students to get right. If you consistently get 7 or 8 out of 10 on the quizzes, you are doing very well, and would probably get at least a B in the course.
The quizzes will be machine-graded by CIRT using my master answer key. They should be able to do this fairly quickly, so I hope (but cannot guarantee) to be able to inform you of your grade on each quiz in the class immediately following that quiz. I may be able to do this by email to you; I will let you know soon about that. I will briefly discuss the right answers in class for each quiz after your grades are announced.
No
particular quiz matters very much. You can miss a few and still get an A. But if you miss most of them or do badly on
them, your grade will be poor.
Each quiz will cover two kinds of material: the textbook reading assigned for that class (i.e. to be read before that class), and your experiences in the previous class (i.e. my lecture material and our in-class discussions and exercises.) If you regularly read and understand the textbook assignments, and pay attention in class, you will do well on the quizzes.
Quizzes will be open-book. You can refer to the textbook or to your notes if you want. However, since you will have less than one minute to answer each question, you will probably not be able to find the right answers if you have not read the textbook assignments ahead of class, and if you did not attend the previous class. The open-book policy is to minimize rote memorization and maximize your ability to apply ideas from the course to real-life and hypothetical situations. Most real jobs are also “open-book” – but you’ll need to know where to look to quickly find the information you need, whether you go into medicine, law, business, research, or whatever.
You may not talk with other students during the quiz, and you may not copy their answers. No peeking, no cheating. Violations will be subject to the normal university procedures and penalties.
(1) You’ll know how well you’re doing in the class all the way through the semester. There won’t be the usual uncertainty and anxiety about that. Instead, you’ll be getting good feedback about whether you’re understanding the textbook and the lectures, so you can modify your study style if you are not happy with your grades.
(2) Quizzes will encourage regular, prompt attendance, so you actually get the benefits out of being at a real university with real students and a real live professor – rather than just reading the textbook by yourself at home, or watching psychology videos.
(3) Although the quizzes are multiple-choice, some of the questions will require critical thinking, imagination, and a good understanding of how to apply the course content to new situations. Multiple choice does not mean mindless.
(4) Mid-term and Final Exams give unfair advantages to students who cope better with high-stress situations. Quizzes are fairer, and more accurately reflect knowledge rather than just stress-coping ability.
(5) Taking lots of little quizzes rather than two big exams provides a more accurate assessment of how well you really know the material. With two big exams, if you happen to have a bad argument with your boyfriend or girlfriend the night before the midterm, and happened to get a cold during final exam week, you might perform poorly on both – not because of poor preparation, but because of how bad you feel. With lots of quizzes, you might feel rotten for a few of them, but all the other students will too on some of them, so it all evens out more fairly.
I want you to be able to apply ideas from the course to understand social situations in real life. But how can I assess this? We don’t share the same experiences, so I can’t see whether you really understand your life in a deeper way from learning social psychology. Well, in modern society, one way we can share the same experience is by watching the same videos. This gives us some common references points – common characters, behaviors, and relationships – that you can write about in the light of what you have learned about social psychology. You’ve probably watched a total of about 15,000 hours of television before coming to UNM, so I expect your ‘video literacy’ should be well developed, and your ability to interpret and to critically analyze what you watch should be well-honed.
Video analysis reports are short, concise, thoughtful reactions to videos that I will suggest as relevant to particular parts of the course, and that you will rent somewhere and watch at home, or wherever you have access to a VCR or DVD machine and a television.
Each report will be a maximum of ONE PAGE, with no more than 600 words on that page. They must be printed out from a computer on standard white 8½ by 11 inch paper. You must print them out single-spaced in 11 point font in font type “Arial” (which I prefer) or “Times New Roman”, with one-inch margins at top, bottom, and sides. Do not use smaller font, weird font, or any print color other than black. If you don’t print your reports single-spaced, you won’t be able to fit your 600 words on one page, and I will only read one page.
At the top of the paper you must put the following information exactly as it is shown below:
A video analysis report by:
Your name, your student number, your email address, your phone number
For example,
The fundamental attribution error and social judgment biases in:
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
A video analysis report by:
Eric Cartman, 341-44-9999, southpark@unm.edu, 976-6969
Or,
Nonverbal flirtation and verbal courtship displays in:
Bambi
meets Godzilla
A video analysis report by:
Wolf Blitzer, 222-77-1234, most-macho-reporter-name@cnn.com, 555-2000
You will turn in three (3) video analysis reports for this course:
Each report will be graded on a scale of 0 to 10. You will get a minimum of two points if you turn in a report in the required format, on time, that demonstrates to my satisfaction that you watched the video attentively. You will get more points if you show that you can interpret characters, behaviors, and relationships from the video in the light of new things you have learned in this class. I will give 10 full points very rarely, if you turn in an exceptionally interesting, creative, thoughtful, and knowledgeable report. If you consistently get 7 or 8 points on the video reports, you are doing very well.
1. Elizabeth (1998):
Historical drama about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth
I of England circa 1554.
Starring Cate Blanchett
(as Queen Elizabeth I), Geoffrey Rush (Sir Francis Walsingham), Joseph Fiennes
(Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester), Christopher Eccleston (Duke of Norfolk),
Richard Attenborough (Sir William Cecil), etc.
Directed by: Shekhar Kapur
Thoughtful, atmospheric science fiction story about an
aspiring astronaut and his genetic secret.
Starring Ethan
Hawke (Vincent Freeman), Uma Thurman (Irene Cassini), Jude Law (Jerome Eugene
Morrow), Gore Vidal (Director Josef), Elias Koteas (Antonio Freeman), etc.
Directed by: Andrew Niccol
3. Memento (2000):
A highly praised
psychological thriller with an unusual structure that requires some concentration: the main character
has lost his ability to form new memories, and we see things from his point of
view ….
Starring: Guy
Pearce (as Leonard ‘Lenny’ Shelby), Carrie-Anne Moss (Natalie), Joe Pantoliano
(John Edward ‘Teddy’ Gammell), etc.
Directed by Christopher Nolan
4. The Usual Suspects (1995):
A thriller about
a band of thieves forced to do a big job for a mysterious arch-criminal –
apparently.
Starring: Gabriel
Byrne (as Dean Keaton), Kevin Spacey (Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint), Stephen Baldwin
(Spencer McManus), Chazz Palminteri (Dave Kujan), Pete Postlethwaite
(Kobayashi), Kevin Pollack (Todd Hockney), Benicio del Toro (Fred Fenster),
etc.
Directed by Bryan Singer
(A big more violent than the other films.)
Starring Russell Crowe (as John Nash), Jennifer Connelly (as Alicia Lopez Harrison de Larde-Nash), Ed Harris (as William Parcher), Christopher Plummer (as Dr. Rosen), etc.
Directed by Ron Howard
Military drama aboard a nuclear missile submarine.
Starring Denzel Washington (as Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter), Gene
Hackman (as Captain Frank Ramsey), James Gandolfini (Lieutenant Bobby Dougher),
Viggo Mortensen (Lieutenant Peter ‘Weps’ Ince), etc.
Directed by Tony Scott
Romantic drama about manipulations and seductions in 18th
century France
Starring Glenn Close (as Marquise de Merteuil), John Malkovich (as Vicomte de Valmont), Michelle Pfeiffer (as Madame de Tourvel), Keanu Reeves (as Chevalier Danceny), Uma Thurman (as Cécile de Volanges), etc.
Directed by Stephen Frears
Drama about a research scientist trying to reveal secrets of the tobacco industry with the help of a journalist
Starring Al Pacino (as Lowell Bergman), Russell Crowe (as Jeffrey Wigand), Christopher Plummer (as Mike Wallace), etc.
Directed by Michael Mann
Note: These should all be widely available on both VHS and DVD, including from local video rental stores Blockbusters and Hollywood Video (both at Central & Girard). They are also available through online rental services such as Netflix (c. $20/month for all the videos/DVDs you want, max 3 out at a time, via mail – www.netflix.com).
9. Class
participation
Class participation will constitute 10% of your course grade. It will be determined by attentive listening to lectures, active participation in in-class exercises, and asking reasonable questions in class, by email, and in the office hours of the instructor and the T.A. Geoffrey and Laura will keep track of these things, and will jointly decide your class participation grade based on our records. We will give you an indication of how well your participation grade is developing about half-way through the course, so you can improve it if you wish in the second half of the semester.
It should be easy to get a terrific grade in this class, if you do the work on time and think about what you are learning. If you read the textbook assignments and listen to the lectures, you will probably do very well on the quizzes. If you watch the videos attentively and polish your rough drafts into good final versions, you will probably do very well on the video analysis reports. If you participate actively in the course, and let me learn who you are and how you’re thinking about the class content, you will get a good class participation grade. I love giving As to students who learn a lot and who think about their lives and relationships in new ways by learning social psychology.
On the other hand, if you treat Social Psychology 271 as a soft option, you will do badly. If you skip lectures, do last-minute video reports, and leave me with no idea who you are at the end of the course, you will get a disappointing grade. I am not at all afraid to give a C, D, or F to someone who deserves one. Nor can I be talked out of giving the appropriate grade by a last-minute appearance in my office hours.
You will get a lot of feedback in this course: about 30 quiz grades, 3 video report grades, and an estimate of your class participation grade half-way through the semester. If you find that you are coming to class and doing the work, but are not doing as well on these as you would wish, please see the instructor or the TA to discuss how you can do better. We will be glad to help.
Here are some key things to do, in order to excel in this course:
11. Schedule:
List of assignments, readings, and topics for each class
1: Aug 20 Tuesday Introduction to the course
A: Read this syllabus carefully
A: Read chapter 1, pp. 1-16
A: Prepare for the first quiz at the beginning of this class
2: Aug 22
Thursday Introduction to social
psychology, and its major perspectives and principles
A: Log in to the course website and look around
A: Have a look at your course study guide and practice test book
A: Read chapter 1, pp. 16-33
A: Prepare for the second quiz; remember that from now on, there will be a quiz in every class
3: Aug 27 Tuesday How
social psychologists study behavior
A: Read chapter 2, pp. 35-55
4: Aug 29 Thurs The person and the situation: People’s knowledge, feelings, motives, people
as presences and affordances, descriptive norms
A: Read chapter 2, pp. 55-71
5: Sept 3 Tuesday The person and the situation: Injunctive norms, cultural differences, person-situation interactions
A: Read chapter 3, pp. 73-90
6: Sept 5 Thursday Social cognition 1: Social attention, interpretation, judgment, memory, and goals; conserving mental effort, confirming expectations, self-fulfilling prophecies, inferring dispositions, the “fundamental attribution error”, social judgment heuristics; effects of arousal, circadian rhythms, mood, and time pressure on social judgments
A: Read chapter 3, pp. 90-113
7: Sept 10 Tuesday Social cognition 2: Self-image, social comparison, self-serving biases,self-esteem, seeking social accuracy, sex differences in social cognition
A: Read chapter 4, pp. 115-133
8: Sept 12 Thursday: Self presentation 1: impression management, self-monitoring,
detecting deception, appearing likeable, facial expressions, attracting friends and power-holders, dealing with multiple audiences
A: Read chapter 4, pp. 133-149
9: Sept 17 Tuesday Self presentation 2: appearing competent, self-promotion, self-handicapping, competence motivation, showing status and power, competing for resources
A: Read chapter 5, pp. 151-165 (to end of page)
A: Be working hard on first video analysis report
10: Sept 19 Thursday Persuasion 1: persuasion vs. commitment, measuring attitude change, cognitive responses to persuasion, deep vs. superficial processing of persuasive messages, goals of persuasion
A: Read chapter 5, pp. 166-189
A: First video analysis report due Sept 24
11: Sept 24 Tuesday Persuasion 2: short-cuts to persuasion, factors motivating the search for accuracy, defensiveness and denial, consistency vs. cognitive dissonance, gaining social approval
A: Read chapter 6, pp. 191-209 (to end of section summary)
12: Sept 26 Thursday Social influence 1: conformity vs. compliance vs. obedience, Asch’s research on group influence, foot-in-the-door technique, participant observation, Milgram’s research on obedience, the nature of authority, social validation, consensus
A: Read chapter 6, pp. 209-229
13: Oct 1 Tuesday Social influence 2: gaining social approval, social norms, reciprocal favors and concessions, obligation norms across cultures, collectivism vs. individualism, managing self-image, commitment tactics, sex differences in conformity
A: Read chapter 7, pp. 231-245 (end of section at top of page)
14: Oct 3 Thursday Affiliation and friendship 1: affiliation motives, costs and benefits of friendships, agreeableness vs. dominance, goals of affiliation, getting social support, loneliness and depression
A: Read chapter 7, pp. 245-261
15: Oct 8 Tuesday: Affiliation and friendship 2: getting information from friends, social comparison, self-disclosure, social similarity, gaining status from friends, social exchange
(no class Oct 10 Thurs: fall break)
A: Read chapter 8, pp. 263-280
16: Oct 15 Tuesday Love and sex 1: The nature and varieties of love, functions of romance, sexual desire, sex differences, nonverbal flirtation, attachment style
18: Oct 22 Tuesday Prosocial behavior 1: Altruism, benevolence, and prosocial behavior; goals and evolution of altruism, learning to help, familiarity in helping, status from altruism, the helping norm
19: Oct 24 Thursday Prosocial behavior 2: managing self-image through altruism, personal norms and ethical codes, altruistic self-image, managing emotion in emergencies, emotional empathy as evolutionary selfishness
A: Read chapter 10, pp. 335-356 (to very end of page)
A: Second video analysis report due
20: Oct 29 Tuesday Aggression 1: Nature and varieties of aggression, sex differences, goals, frustration-aggression hypothesis, arousal and irritability, gaining material and social awards through aggression, empathy vs. psychopathy, TV and computer games
A: Read chapter 10, pp. 357-375
21: Oct 31 Thursday Aggression 2: Sexual selection and aggression, testosterone, cultures of honor, self-defense, abusive relationships, preventing aggression
A: Read chapter 11, pp. 377-398 (to end of section summary)
22: Nov 5 Tuesday: Prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination 1: prejudice and stereotypes, the nature of discrimination, costs and benefits of discrimination, ingroup advantage, social dominance orientation, intergroup competition, gaining social approval, religiosity and prejudice, social identity, authoritarianism
23: Nov 7 Thursday Prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination 2: mental efficiency through stereotypes, outgroup homogeneity, ethnic slurs, reducing prejudice, classroom interventions
24: Nov 12 Tuesday Groups 1: social facilitation, deindividuation, emergence of group norms, group identity and structure, functions of groups, dividing labor, social loafing, optimal group size
A: Read chapter 12, pp. 435-455
25: Nov 14 Thursday Groups 2: group decision making, group polarization, group thinking, jury decision-making, group leadership
A: Read chapter 13, pp. 457-472 (end of section summary)
26: Nov 19 Tuesday Social dilemmas 1: Prisoner’s dilemma, tragedy of the commons, individual goals vs. group outcomes, social traps, egoistic vs. prosocial orientations, command vs. market vs. voluntarist solutions
A: Read chapter 13, pp. 472-491
27: Nov 21 Thursday Social dilemmas 2: outgroup bias, ethnocentrism, competition and threat, international conflict, tit for tat,
[Geoffrey Miller will be away at conferences in New Zealand
Class will be conducted by TA Laura Dane]
A: Read xeroxed material passed out in earlier class
28: Nov 26 Tuesday Evolutionary social psychology: some more material not in the textbook
(no class Nov 28: Thanksgiving)
A: Read chapter 14, pp. 493-521
A: Be working hard on your third video analysis report
29: Dec 3 Tuesday Integrating social psychology: five theoretical perspectives, major social goals, person-situation interaction, applications and future of social psychology
A: Third and last video analysis report due
30: Dec 5 Thursday: Social psychology and real life: discussions of personal relevance on the last day of class
(Final exams Dec 9-13): No final exam in this course)