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Prior to enrolling in courses at this language level, students must have completed or tested out of a minimum of four semesters (or six quarters) of college-level Spanish at their home university in the U.S.

THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRANO
Social Psychology

UNIT 1: What is Social Psychology?

• The social psychology perspective
• Historical roots of social psychology
• Main methodologies and theories
• Applications of the field

UNIT 2: Social Cognition

• Socio-cognitive focus
• Cognitive structures: categories and schemes
• Categorization process and the formation of stereotypes
• Processing of social information: “guided by data” vs. “guided conceptually”
• Heuristic approaches to the processing of information
• Attribution Theory

UNIT 3: Attitudes

• Define the concept of “attitude”
• Principal theories
• Equilibrium Theory
• Dissonance Theory
• Theory of Rationalized Actions
• Changes in attitude: effects of persuasive communication
• Prejudices

UNIT 4: Social Identities

• Theory of Social Identity
• National Identity
• Nationalism and national stereotypes
• Positive and negative social identities
• Ethnocentrism and altercentrism

UNIT 5: Social Tolerance and Authoritarianism

• Social and psychological variables that impact the development of social tolerance
• Authoritarian individual
• Style authoritarianism vs content authoritarianism
• Dogmatism as a variable of authoritarianism in general
• “F” scales (Adorno) and “D” scales (Rokeach)
• RWA scale (Altmeyer) and Polarity scale (Tomkins)

UNIT 6: Conformity vs. Social Influence

• Social influence
• Conformity and innovation
• Psychology of active minorities
• Phenomenon of obedience to authority

UNIT 7: Groups and Leadership

• Group characteristics
• Formal and informal structures
• Group dynamics
• Decision-making process and the phenomena of “group thinking”
• Leadership phenomena
• Personal characteristics of a leader
• Followers and their relationship with the leader
• Technical leadership vs. adaptive leadership
• Visionary leader

UNIT 8: Behavior

• Factors that impact social participation and behavior
• From mass psychology to the new social movements
• Material values

UNIT 9: Social Psychology in Action. 4 examples…
9.I. Social psychology, public opinion and the media
• Concept of public opinion: “super citizen” vs. “unsophisticated citizen”
• Theoretical approach to the effects of the media: hypodermic model, thesis of minimal effects, two-way communication, the critical paradigm, the spiral of silence, the theory of cultural indicators.
• Three functions of mass communications: Agenda-Setting, Priming and Framing
9. II. Social psychology in organizations

• Concept of organizations as a “system”
• Groups within organizations
• Organizational leadership
• Conflict within organizations

9. III. Electoral behavior

• Study different analytical methods to better understand electoral behavior:

1) Sociological model used by Columbia University
2) Socio-psychological model by the University of Michigan
3) The Voter and the economic theories by Columbia University and London School of Law and Economics

• Current discussions and perspectives

9.IV. International Relations

• Psycho-social dimensions of international relations
• Conflict and its phases
• Ironic perceptions and implicit rationalities
• Conflict as a constructed phenomenon: logic and discourse