Teaching Social Psychology

Going with the social flow - "The key finding is that the participants in the high interdependent condition were rated as more joyful than participants in the low interdependence condition, based on self-report and on scores given by trained observers who watched their facial expressions and body language." [added 3/13/10]

How much do our social networks shape our behavior? - More contagion research -- Interesting New York Times article reviewing research on the contagious nature of behavior within social networks [added 1/19/10]

Gulf War Syndrome: Rumor or fact? - an interesting couple of articles -- one suggesting that Gulf War Syndrome might be exaggerated by rumor, the other suggesting it is real [added 4/25/09]

The Watercooler Effect - Nick DiFonzo is the author of the book, The watercooler effect: A psychologist explores the extraordinary power of rumors. At this site he does provide some excerpts of the text as well as links to some other good resources on rumors at his site. [added 4/25/09]

Serge Moscovici site - Sylvain Delouvée helped create a new website about Serge Moscovici. Most of it is in French, but there are a few documents and videos in English. The site will grow gradually, adding more content. Sylvain says that comments are welcome. [added 11/17/07]

"Contagious Behavior" - a lot of good articles in the most recent APS Observer including this cover article [added 7/6/06]

Don Forsyth's group dynamic pages - A few years back I pointed you to Don Forsyth's excellent resources available online. I am pointing you to them again because 1) they are still excellent! and 2) they have moved with Don to his new address at the University of Richmond. [added 1/15/06]

"Changing America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-being by Race and Hispanic Origin" - "This chart book documents current differences in well-being by race and Hispanic origin and describes how such differences have evolved over the past several decades. The book is designed to further one of the goals of the President's Initiative on Race: To educate Americans about the facts surrounding the issue of race in America." [added 7/16/03]

Timeline of Groups Research - 1890 to 1960 [added 3/6/02]

"The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings" - article by Eric Matson [added 3/6/02]

Studying Groups: SYMLOG Questionnaires - developed by David Heise and adapted from Robert Bales' SYMLOG Case Study Kit, these online
questionnaires can be used to "measure the behavior of group members whom you have observed, and also your perceptions of the way you behave in various settings, and your subjective attitudes about your own behavior" - data can be entered online and a graph of results can be produced online as well. [added 3/6/02]

 

Case Studies

The Cuban Missile Crisis - Declassified documents, audio clips, chronology, analysis and more from an exhibit "The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The 40th Anniversary" from the National Security Archive at George Washington University [added 12/1/04]

The Andes Survivors - description and resources related to true story of airplane survivors - good for the study of many group processes [added 3/6/02]

Failed Everest Expedition - Don Forsyth has pulled together a few resources that tell this 1996 story captured in the book Into Thin Air [added 3/6/02]

The Jonestown Massacre

Jonestown Massacre Resources [added 6/3/09]

"Jonestown" - detailed account in chapters from Court TV's Crime Library [added 3/15/05]

Multiple resources on the massacre - This site from NPR provides audio of stories about the event, an interview with a survivor, images of the massacre, review of the events and more. [added 3/19/04]

Multiple resources on the massacre from the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University - The Department has created a website entitled, “Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple," which provides a 25th anniversary review, personal reflections, tape transcripts and more. [added 3/19/04]

Crowding

Crowds as unruly mobs a myth? - good article describing how this perception is often at odds with the research [added 1/19/10]

Studying crowding in "synthetic" laboratory - "Torrens and his research team, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), are developing a synthetic laboratory populated with thousands of artificial agents to experiment with ideas and theories about crowd behavior and dynamics that would otherwise be impenetrable to academic inquiry. Of special interest are the geographic processes that occur for a crowd to become charged and then cross over the tipping point into a full-blown riot." [7/13/09]

"Crowd clout" - Interesting look at a relatively new phenomenon in which the Internet permits large groups of people to come together for a cause or a purpose -- the primary focus of this selection is on "buying together." CROWD CLOUT: “Online grouping of citizens/consumers for a specific cause, be it political, civic or commercial, aimed at everything from bringing down politicians to forcing suppliers to fork over discounts.” [added 7/8/07]

 

Deindividuation

Detailed description of phenomenon - by Tom Postmes [added 3/6/02]

Rape accounts from Woodstock '99 [added 3/6/02]

 

Group Decision-making

"How to improve group decision making" - Meta-analysis reviews the role of information sharing in group decisions. [7/13/09]

Does asking yourself more than once improve your decision? - Blog entry reviews an interesting study. [added 8/10/08]

"Four failures of deliberating groups" - This blog entry reviews some interesting research on group decision making and possible decision failures, such as when the majority influence can override correct answers. Here is the research study. [added 8/10/08]

"Is a team different from the sum of its parts?" - This research examines whether groups or individuals are more risky in mutual fund management using "real business data." [added 4/13/08]

Group decision making: Editing Wikipedia - interesting article that starts out with a different focus, but primarily examines how entities such as Wikipedia evolve through group editing [added 12/11/07]

 

Group Performance

 

The N-effect and competition - Research has typically found that the larger the size of the group (the N-effect) a person is in the less motivation that person will have to compete. Some possible explanations are included in this good article. [added 12/28/10]

"Working in a team increases human pain threshold" - [added 1/19/10]

"Three perspectives on team learning" - a research paper, "Three perspectives on team learning: Outcome improvement, task mastery, and group process," from the Harvard Business School [added 12/30/06]

 

Groupthink

Groupthink explanation and examples [added 11/17/07]

Groupthink framework - graphical depiction of theoretical framework of groupthink

 

Group Polarization

Group polarization in today's climate - "The polarization of extremes" is an interesting essay arguing that polarization is even greater now because it is even easier to seek out similar views and ignore disconfirming views. [added 3/23/08]

 

Ostracism

Acetomeniphen reduces pain of social rejection - Yep, soon there will be a pill for everything. Apparently, "social rejection and physical pain really do share some of the same brain circuits." The first link is to the journal article; the second link is to a blog entry about it. [added 7/21/10]

"Does social exclusion literally feel cold?" - "In another experiment, instead of relying on volunteers' memories, the researchers triggered feelings of exclusion by having the volunteers play a computer-simulated ball tossing game. The game was designed so that some of the volunteers had the ball tossed to them many times, but others were left out. Afterwards, all the volunteers rated the desirability of certain foods and beverages: hot coffee, crackers, an ice-cold Coke, an apple, and hot soup. The findings were striking. As reported in the September issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the "unpopular" volunteers who had been ostracized during the computer game were much more likely than the others to want either hot soup or hot coffee. Their preference for warm food and drinks presumably resulted from physically feeling cold as a result of being excluded." [added 4/25/09]

Cyberball! - Kipling Williams offers downloads of Cyberball, "a virtual ball-toss game that can be used for research on ostracism, social exclusion, or rejection." Could also possibly be used for lab activities. [added 1/8/06]

 

Social Facilitation

Social facilitation simulation - explanation an interactive simulation of social facilitation

"The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition" - classic article by Norman Triplett on bicycle racing and social facilitation (1897)

Cults

Heaven's Gate

Cult Controversies - resources from the Washington Post describing various controversial cults since the 1950s [added 12/1/06]

F.A.C.T.Net.org - F.A.C.T.Net (Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network) "focuses on protecting freedom of mind from harms caused by all forms of mind control and unethical influence" - lots of information and resources on cults, scientology and attempts at mind control [added 12/06/02]

Cults and sects - variety of resources - from About.com guide on alternative religions [added 3/6/02]

"A social psychological critique of "brainwashing" claims about recruitment to new religions" - article by James T. Richardson - from J. Hadden and D. Bromley, eds. (1993), The Handbook of Cults and Sects in America. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc., pp. 75-97. [added 3/6/02]

International Cultic Studies Association -- "Founded in 1979, the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is a global network of people concerned about psychological manipulation and abuse in cultic groups, alternative movements, and other environments. ICSA is tax-exempt, supports civil liberties, and is not affiliated with any religious or commercial organizations."

Transcendental Meditation - a critical look from trancenet.org

 

Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology is a part of the CROW Project, Course Resources on the Web. CROW was initially sponsored by the Associated Colleges of Illinois and generously supported by UPS. This site was created by Jon Mueller, Professor of Psychology at North Central College, Naperville, IL. Send comments to Jon.