Social loafing

Social Experience Assignments

In this course, you will write a series of short (no more than one single-spaced page) Social Experience assignments. The purpose of this assignment is:

to point out the relevance of social psychology to everyday life
to stimulate critical thinking about social psychology
to give you an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of course concepts

See the Course Calendar for a list of due dates.

Guidelines

Every week before the SE assignment is due, you should choose one specific major concept that you would like to write about. You can choose your concept by looking at the list of major concepts that is posted on Blackboard, but keep in mind that this list is just a suggestion. You may find it helpful, but you aren’t limited to the concepts on the list. You are free to select any process, phenomenon, theory, or psychological tendency that is relevant to the material we’re currently covering in class. Your textbook and the material discussed in lecture will be helpful in generating ideas for you to write about.

Once you’ve selected a concept, your assignment is to write about how it relates to a recent event in your life. The body of each entry should begin with a description of an event or experience in your life in four or five sentences. A page-long story about how you spent your weekend is too long, and one line reading, “I went out with my friends” is insufficient. You should pick a specific event or interaction and describe it in enough detail so that your subsequent discussion will make sense to someone who was not there. If you can’t apply the concept to an event in your own life, you can also write about events you’ve heard about from other people, current events in the news, or even interactions that you watched on TV. Next you should describe how the social psychology concept you have chosen is relevant to this event. Once you’ve made the connection between the experience you described and the concept you’ve chosen, the rest of your discussion should address some (but not necessarily all) of the following questions:

How does your current awareness of this psychological phenomenon change the way you interpret what happened during this event?
If you (or others) had been aware of social psychological research about this phenomenon during the event, how might the outcome of the interaction have been changed?
How will your learning about this phenomenon influence your attitudes/behavior/perceptions in the future?
What questions do you now have after considering the event in light of psychological theory?
What type of experiment(s) might help address these issues? Don’t be too formal – just a couple of sentences about research idea will be sufficient.

You can also discuss an event that seems to be inconsistent with the topic you have chosen to write about. In such cases, you might also want to consider some (but not necessarily all) of the following questions:

How was this interaction inconsistent with the theory or phenomenon you have chosen?
Why do you think the outcome of this interaction seems to be inconsistent with the phenomenon you chose?
What aspects of the situation, if changed, would have resulted in a less surprising outcome?
What type of experiment(s) might help answer these questions?

Format

I’m not going to be nitpicky about formatting on these, because I want this writing assignment to be as informal as possible. However, here are some general guidelines you should keep in mind in order to get full credit for your work:

Be sure your name, the date, and the SE assignment number is at the top of each entry
The top of your entry should list the specific concept you’ve chosen to write about
Your entry should be typed, spellchecked, and absolutely no more than one single-spaced page. One shorter paragraph summarizing the experience and one longer paragraph of discussion is a good model to follow. In order to adequately complete the assignment you will need to write about half a page of single-spaced text.
Don’t change margin widths, font sizes, or line spacing. These are really obvious attempts to make your work seem longer than it really is, and I’m very experienced at spotting them.

You can use the Sample SE Assignments I’ve posted on Blackboard as a template for your writing. If you’re concerned about formatting issues, come see me and I’ll be happy to show you what an acceptable entry should look like.

Final Remarks

I look forward to reading about your experiences with social psychology! I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about yourself and about social psychology. Be creative and challenge yourself. As you know, my exams focus on application and inference rather than rote memorization. These weekly SE assignments will give you a chance to process the course material on a deeper and more meaningful level, which is a good way to practice the critical thinking skills you’ll need to succeed on the exams.

“Nothing relevant happened to me this week” is not an excuse for not writing. Remember, you can always write about something that happened to you previously or about something that happened to someone you know. If all else fails, watch any TV sitcom or reality TV show for a half-hour and you’re bound to find good material to write about. Fiction is full social psychological material. My personal recommendations are The Office, Lost on DVD, or really any reality show.

Make sure the topic you choose is specific and interesting enough to be useful to you and your learning about social psychology. Something like “this interaction is relevant because I made an attribution” is not informative or very sophisticated. Writing “in this interaction I made a self-serving attribution that allowed me to maintain high self-esteem” conveys more information, deals with a more specific phenomenon, and is more interesting to read.

Remember that these assignments are not anonymous. Don’t write about anything you would be embarrassed to have me read, and please don’t write about any involvement you may have had with illegal activities.

Chapter 9:

Group Processes

SUBTOPIC

Social Roles, Group Cohesiveness, Social Facilitation, Social Loafing, Deindividuation, Process Loss, Transactive Memory, Groupthink, Group Polarization, Social Dilemma, Tit-for-Tat Strategy, Public Goods Dilemma, Commons Dilemma, Negotiation, Integrative Solution,

Solution Preview for Social loafing

APA

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