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PSY3010 Social Psychology: Home

Course Description

This course introduces students to key topics, theories and research within the area of social psychology to illustrate the contribution it has made to our understanding of individual, interpersonal and intergroup relations (e.g., romantic relationships, intergroup conflict, pro-social behaviour, prejudice and discrimination) in a critical, interdisciplinary and historical manner.

Recommended Books

Social Psychology and Everyday Life

This book starts from reviewing the history of social psychology and outlining a contemporary orientation for the social psychology of everyday life. The discussion is then extended to how knowledge is constructed in everyday settings, what indigenous psychologies can contribute to developing understandings of people in social settings, how the cultivation of place-based identities can increase social participation, how human displacement affects individuals and the receiving communities, how the social influences on health and illness disrupts lifestyle choices, how the marginalized groups and everyday experience is overwhelmed with social injustice, how positive-focused traditions in social psychology can be connected with critical humanism, how people have interacted with media.

An Introduction to Social Psychology: Global Perspectives

The book begins with an overall introduction to social psychology which gives an idea of how social psychology has evolved to where it is today. Then it turns to a set of topics generally considered as fundamental and which relate primarily to the individual. Next, the book discusses how the influence of others often leads to changes in our attitudes and our behaviors, and how we communicate with others, verbally, non-verbally and virtually through social media. The book also deals with the social side of social psychology, exploring what happens in groups, how our identity is formed within the groups, and how groups find leaders and make decisions.

Understanding Critical Social Psychology

This book introduces some new ideas current in critical social psychology. Chapters One and Two examine and critique existing practices within social psychology. Chapters Three and Four lays the philosophical groundwork for an alternative way of thinking about social life and sketches an alternative, language-based orientation to research within social psychology, Chapters Five and Six includes material that offers a contrast between the way selected topics have traditionally been studied and how they have been examined by critical social psychologists. The book concludes with an Epilogue, restating the shame of social psychology, the relationship between critical and traditional social psychology, and aspects of criticality.

Social Psychology of Social Problems

This book offers a methodology for using social psychological theory to inform the practice of solving societal problems. Part One focuses on problems of prejudice and discrimination-racism, sexism and social discrimination. Part Two concentrates on problems related to social divisions, hierarchy and inequality- tyranny, pathological obedience, violent and non-violent social protest. Part Three focuses on intergroup violence, extremism, and terrorism. The chapters of each part are organized by societal problems. Each chapter begins by outlining a social problem and illustrating it with multiple examples, then moves to classic works on the subject, state-of-art social psychological research and various perspectives, and ends with a task for readers.

Themes in Chinese Psychology

The book begins with an exploration of the influence of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism on the Chinese culture. Then the book examines some major themes in Chinese psychology, including social-psychological characteristics of the Chinese, the concept of filial piety, fatalistic determinism, the significance of face in the management of interpersonal relationships, female gender roles and gender equality, emotions of the Chinese, the landscape of psychopathology in China, and the values, beliefs, and causal attribution of the Chinese outlined in classical literature. One more theme is added in this second edition, and that is Chinese learning.

Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Intercultural Psychology

This book showcases the approaches that epitomize the development of the psychology of culture across the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on the relationship between local cultures and ways of being, and knowledge production practices, imported theories, and methods from the global discipline. The authors argue that it is the resulting tensions and opportunities for dialogue that are central to the further development of intercultural psychology as a diverse scholarly arena, and that the combination of etic and emic approaches to theory, research, and practice is foundational to the development of intercultural perspectives and more comprehensive understandings of both the universal and local elements of human experience and psychological phenomena today.

Asian Indigenous Psychologies in the Global Context

This book explores the discipline, profession, and practice of Asian indigenous psychology. Part One collects essays dedicated to the study of indigenous psychology making a paradigm shift in social science and psychology. Part Two collects essays that use culture-inclusive concepts or methodologies to formulate theories. Part Three showcases the interflow among current culture-inclusive concepts and empirical research in Asian societies. Part Four concludes with the highlights of the distinctive contributions of Asian indigenous psychology to viable global psychology. This book sheds light on the dialectics of the universal and the particular in indigenous psychology and explores the possibilities for a more equitable global psychology.

Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context

This book surveys psychological and behavioral phenomena in native context in various developing and developed countries, with particular focus on Asia. It collects 28 essays that clarify culture-specific concepts, models integrative methods of study, and dispels typical misconceptions about the field and its goal. Part One discusses theoretical and methodological issues, including scientific and philosophical bases of indigenous psychology. Part Two focuses on family and socialization. Part Three focuses on cognitive processes. Part Four focuses on self and personality. Part Five presents the applications of indigenous psychology, especially the potential for indigenous psychology to lead to a global psychology.

Revisiting Psychology: A Student‘s Guide to Critical Thought

This textbook, aimed at developing critical thinking and scientific literacy skills through the analysis of prominent studies and ideas in psychology, presents overviews of landmark studies in psychology from diverse areas of research, such as consciousness, developmental psychology, learning, memory, social psychology, and psychopathology. Each chapter provides an overview of the studies or theory and includes a section that considers how the study has aged and how contemporary research has confirmed or failed to confirm the findings. Each study or theory addressed will offer a critical thinking section related to methodological and theoretical questions, and the aforementioned cognitive biases and logical fallacies.

A History of Psychology: A Global Perspective

This book contains 13 chapters that examine psychology’s development through ancient times, mid-millennium transitions, the age of modernity, and through the 20th century. The main emphasis of the book is psychology’s formative experiences during the past 150 years. Psychological science is presented here as increasingly interdisciplinary. A serious cross-cultural and cross-national focus brings diversity to this book. Besides, the book focuses on the interaction between scientific psychology and society in different periods of history. The book also pays attention to critical thinking, the relevance of yesterday’s knowledge to students’ diverse experience today, and psychology’s progressive mission.

Rethinking Psychology: Good Science, Bad Science, Pseudoscience

This book explores the interplay between psychology, science, and pseudoscience. It is organized around three main sections. The opening section comprises four chapters that consider the overall scope of the problem, including the nature of science, the nature of pseudoscience, the nature of psychology, and the nature of reasoning. The second section examines practical examples, containing three chapters that look at the way pseudoscientific reasoning has been applied to psychological subject matter. The final section attempts to locate the overall discussion within a social context, comprising three chapters that examine the biases and influences that lead to pseudoscientific thinking.

Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science

This book explores fundamental issues inherent in the study of human beings from the perspective of cultural and social differences. The approach is termed “multicultural” because it is multiculturalism that draws attention to the opportunities and dangers of a world of differences. Solipsism, Atomism, Holism, Perspectivism, Rationalism, Interpretivism, Intentionalism, Nomologicalism, Narrative Realism, and Objectivism are subsequently examined chapter by chapter, and each chapter title poses a question that is intended to arise out of typical multicultural experiences and that raises an important philosophical problem. The book concludes with a reflection on what’s to be learned from a multicultural philosophy of social science- beyond pernicious dualisms, interactionism, and recruitability and engagement.

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