SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (psy 340) SYLLABUS – FALL 2012
Tuesdays/Thursdays 8:00–9:15 am, PS 130
Instructor: Dr. Jahna Ashlyn,
Office Hours: Tuesdays 9:30-10:20 am (no appt necessary), Life Sciences 24-C
10:30-11 am by appt (just email or ask at the end of class)
Email: jashlyn@mail.sdsu.edu
Phone Message: 594-5359 (psych dept. office)
Course Website: Blackboard, (syllabus, lecture outlines, exam scores)
Required Text: Social Psychology (11th Ed.) David G. Myers (you need the latest edition; it is not on reserve)
Also: McGraw-Hill’s online learning resource companion to the Myers test: Connect (accessed via Blackboard)
Also Required: Four Scantron F 289 PAR-L (Red & White) test forms (kiosks near cashiers @ bookstore); try not
to crease/curl (No Bluebooks needed)
Course Objectives: This course combines elements of learning, cognition, physiological and even developmental
psychology in order to teach the understanding of social thinking and behavior. Common themes are the power of the
situation, personal characteristics and previous experience. After completing this course you should have an
understanding of the following social psychology topics: research methodology, the self, social perception, social
cognition, attitudes, persuasion, prejudice, group influences, conformity and obedience, attraction, aggression, altruism,
phenomena in everyday living and settings.
Blackboard:
To get to Blackboard, go online and use the link:
https://blackboard.sdsu.edu/webapps/login/ then use your SDSU Red ID and password, choose ‘psy 340, Social
Psychology, Fall 2012’, and that’s where you get the course outlines (‘Course Documents’), the syllabus, Grades (‘Grade
Center’, and read any ‘Announcements’ (e.g., that midterm scores have been posted).
Connect: Perhaps the best part of the learning in this course is a new online learning resource created by the publisher of
the course text book (McGraw-Hill) called “Connect”. Connect works in tandem with Blackboard, so that once you have
set up your connect account, you’ll just log into Connect automatically via Blackboard. You can either purchase Connect
bundled with the text from the bookstore (purportedly the best deal), or purchase it by itself or bundled with an e-text
(called “Connect Plus”) when you first go to the Connect sight to register (instead of putting in your access code which
comes with the printed version of the text, you just click the “Buy Online” button and pay with a credit card.
So, start in Blackboard, choose this course, then ‘Tools’, then “McGraw-Hill Higher Education” (you may have to scroll
down), then click on “Go to My Connect Section”, which takes you to the Connect Site.
Then you click on “Register Now” (it might ask you to enter your email address), then you either enter you access code or
select “Buy Online”.
There are a variety of things that you can do at this site, but “Learn Smart” is the main learning device. Have fun with it.
This site will really help you with the course material and prepare you well for the exams.
If you need help, Connect provides it from their site. Here is the info:
Visit: www.mhhe.com/support
Call: (800) 331-5094
Monday – Thursday  6AM – 9PM (PST)
Friday  6AM – 4PM (PST)
Sunday  4PM – 9PM (PST)
Exams/Grading: There will be three non-comprehensive midterms, plus a comprehensive final exam with all new
questions (see schedule below for exam dates). Each exam, including the final, are closed-note, closed-book, consist of
40 multiple choice questions (worth 1 point each), are administered in class and require Scantron F 289 PAR-L (Red &
White) test forms. Each exam, including the final is worth 1/4 of your overall grade (no, there is no “class
participation” part of your grade). If you take all four exams your lowest test score, including that of the final exam, can
be dropped.
Note that the third midterm is given the last class meeting before the final exam.
If you add up all your scores for the quizzes (see below) and midterms 1-3 (assuming that you didn’t miss one) and that
adds to a course grade you are happy with (see ‘grades/curve below’), you don’t have to take the final. You don’t have to
be getting a particular grade and you don’t need to inform your instructor.
Quizzes. There are 8 multiple choice quizzes given for points (plus the first one, which is just practice and will not
count). Each quiz consists of between 12 and 20 questions and are worth 8 points each. All quizzes will be given online
only.
There will be a 24 hour window for taking each quiz, which begins at 9:30 am (right after class). In Blackboard, you will
find the Connect Quizzes under ‘Assignments’. There will be 3 quizzes prior to each midterm exam.
Make sure you look under ‘Assignments’ to see when the quizzes will be available and when the dates are that they
will be available. The first one is a practice quiz (does not count) and will be available after the first class meeting
of the second week of class. Quizzes will always appear at least one week before you can take them, along with the
date/time that they will be accessible.
Once you begin the quiz you will have 15 minutes to answer the questions.
Note: Once you have begun, you will not be permitted to pause or stop the quiz and go back to it later (there are no
resets). It is designed not to be open book by virtue of the time limitation – if you use your text you probably won’t have
enough time to finish. (essentially, you have about 1 minute per question). Only 5 of the 8 graded quizzes count towards
your grade: your best five scores. So, three of them will NOT count (either ones that you miss or have technical problems
with, or your lowest scores tossed out until 5 scores remain.
In summary, five quizzes worth 8 points each = 40 points count toward your course grade, making the combined total
points of the quizzes worth the same as an exam. If you miss a quiz that is the one that will be thrown out, no exceptions:
No matter what, there are no multiple attempts or makeups for quizzes (same as exams), no taking them
earlier/later, no exceptions. The reason that you are allowed to throw out so many (3 out of 8) is to allow for
computer/technical/internet problems. Seriously, access a stable computer with a stable internet connection and
browse through the helpful guides at the Connect site, because even if your computer crashes or you push the
wrong button and submit your answers before you are finished (there are warnings to prevent you from actually
doing this), you won’t be able to retake the quiz. Please do not email your instructor asking her to do this.
Total Class Points: 160, 40 x 3 for the exams = 120, and 40 total for the quizzes.
If you miss an exam, you do not get to throw out an exam (you just get a zero for that exam and that one is the one
that is not counted toward your grade) – no exceptions. NOTE: That does not mean that you need to come to the
exam and turn in a test form if you want your instructor to throw out a particular exam – just don’t show up (midterm,
final, whichever); and, you don’t need to email her to let her know which exam to throw out (she will know – it will either
be the lowest one if you took all four, or the one you missed if you just take three). If you miss two midterms, your
instructor will make your final exam worth 1/2 of your total course grade.
On exam days, bring an extra scantron (for big mistakes!), two #2 pencils and a good clean eraser. No kidding – none of
these will be provided, and if your eraser smears the test form it may be marked wrong and your instructor may not catch
it when grading. Don’t wait until there is no time left to fill out and bubble in your test form and then ask for extra time.
You can, but are not required to, write on (circle answers on) your exams. Always include your first and full last name
(the one you used when you enrolled) on everything you turn in. For subject put psy 340, ‘Date’ write the date. Also,
indicate the exams version (a letter or number, e.g., ‘v.1’ or ‘form A’ usually found either at the top or bottom of the 1 st
page of the exam). You DO need to bubble in your student ID on the test form. You do not need to write your ID number
on your question sheet.
Don’t Be Late on exam days: If you arrive after the first student has finished and left you will not be able to take the
exam, no matter what made you late (even emergencies, no exceptions).
No makeup exams (midterms or final) will be given for any reason (even emergencies); nor will exams be given earlier
or later than the date/times scheduled for the rest of the class.
Also note that, it is not possible to simply take an incomplete to avoid getting a bad grade. Incompletes are for
assignments (not exams) or projects that are not finished on time.
If you are having a difficult semester (personal/family/work/social/health issues), you should consult an advisor (dean’s
office) about petitioning for a late withdrawal (note however, that they have pretty strict policies about this). But, this is
not something that your instructor deals with for you. Other than throwing out an exam there are no extra credit or "makeup papers/projects".
Special Needs Accommodation/Testing students are encouraged to contact Disabled Student Services. Also, please
bring DSS exam accommodation forms to office hours for your instructor to fill out (after first filling out the student
portion) or drop them off for her. Don’t ask her to fill them out in the classroom.
Grading is on a very “friendly” curve. Here’s the breakdown (numbers refer to total class points, best 3 of 4 exams, and
best 5 of 8 quizzes, all totaled, out of 160 course points):
137.5+ = ‘A’, 133-137.4 = ‘A-’,
129-132.9 = ‘B+’, 123-128.9 = ‘B’, 118.5-122.9 = ‘B-‘,
114-118.4 = ‘C+’, 108-113.9 = ‘C’, 103.5-107.9 = ‘C-‘,
99-103.4 = ‘D+’, 93-98.9 = ‘D’, 89-92.9 = ‘D-‘,
<89 = ‘F’.
Your instructor will do all the calculations for you and post the scores on Blackboard.
Notes about grades:
- The numbers above are exact, there is no rounding, nor ‘if you are close it goes up to the higher grade’.
- It is strictly against university policy for a professor to change a grade for any reason other than a clerical error.
- Please, do not try to bargain for your grade or ask your professor to change your grade. It is against university
policy.
Exam scores for quizzes and midterms are posted on Blackboard (in the ‘Grade Center’) by the next class meeting
following the exam. Exam scores/grades will not be emailed, phoned, etc. to students, no exceptions. Please do not
email your instructor to ask when grades/exam scores will be posted. There will be a Blackboard
announcement/email when they are posted.
Material Covered on the Exams. Most but not all of the material on the exams is in the text. It is approx equally
divided between lecture and text, with a lot of overlap. You are responsible for all material covered in lecture including
videotapes and examples via class discussion. Course lectures will have occasional quizzes that do not count toward your
grade, but that are very similar to the online quizzes that do count and will therefore help prepare you for them (a little
bonus for attending lectures).
The final exam is all new questions and emphasizes all topics/chapters equally.
All course documents were designed to be opened with a pc (Windows) computer, using Office/MS Word 2007. If you
have something else (a Mac, Linux, an older version of Office/MS Word), it may not work and your instructor will be
unable to help you.
Course outlines, available on the course web page are close to but not exactly the same as your instructor’s Power Point
slides (you are responsible for any differences – just write down any changes during lecture) are available from the course
web site. They are undergoing revision, so the entire course’s set of PowerPoint slides will NOT be available at the
beginning of the semester, but instead will be added, probably on a weekly basis, usually before the in-class lecture in
which they are presented.
Studying. Students often ask for the best way to study for the exams in this course. In addition to the course outlines,
mentioned above, the following information should help:
Approximately 50-60% of the questions on the exams will be covered in both lecture and in the text – there is a lot of
overlap between the exam and lectures, but they are not completely redundant. Approximately 20-25% of the questions
are covered in the assigned text readings but are not covered in lecture. About 20% of exam questions are covered in the
lectures but not covered in the text. In other words, you need the text and you should attend lectures, and you should
emphasize them equally.
Print out lecture outlines and bring them to class and add your own lecture notes/comments/examples to them (remember,
they are only lecture outlines, not standalone lecture notes). Conversely, you can just take the additional notes in class,
knowing that you have the outlines on your computer at home or wherever (some students bring their laptops to class and
add notes directly to the outlines). Find time as soon after each lecture as possible to go over the notes and material for
that lecture with the textbook. Edit – add, delete, revise, clarify, elaborate on your lecture notes. Review the previous
lecture’s notes also. Then review notes from even earlier lectures, all the way back to the earliest material that will be
covered on the next exam.
Reading. Get the course text and use it. It is best to have the latest edition of the text. This discipline is currently
expanding fairly rapidly, and it would not do it justice to teach a course using an old edition. I don’t know how many
questions on each exam will be from the newest addition. Do the assigned reading BEFORE it is covered in lecture.
While doing the assigned reading from the text, make text outlines. One method that has been widely used to great
success is to stop reading after covering every subsection of a chapter (usually a couple of pages) and write a sentence or
two summarizing it. This will probably force you to look back over those couple of pages to: find the main points, check
key figures (tables, diagrams, etc) and terms. After you write the sentence or two, read it then ask yourself if it makes
sense: Will you understand it in 1-4 weeks when you begin using these outlines to study for the next exam? You may
need to make changes (editing). Then read it again, and keep revising until it would make sense to someone else if they
read what you wrote. Continue on, reading and summarizing the key points of what you read, building your outlines.
This method will obviously take longer than just reading the text, but once you’ve done it, you’ll save time later when you
use them to prepare for an exam, because you’ve got the best outlines possible – you created them and made certain, at
short intervals in the process, that it made sense to you before you continued.
Finally, for studying in general, there are web sites and self-help books devoted to improving study skills, which you
might check out.
Returning Exams: The test forms and test questions will not be returned to you. You can look at a copy of the test
after the class meeting only in office hours, but you will not be allowed to keep or copy or photocopy an exam.
Attendance: Your instructor does not take attendance (so no, attendance is not part of your course grade).
In-class decorum (not to be insulting, but some people have no clue): Please, be diligent about turning off noisemakers
(cell phones, tablet/laptop speakers, etc.). Once class time begins, your instructor needs to get lecture started, so please
reserve individualized questions for office hours. If you can’t stay for the entire class period, please leave during the
scheduled break if there is one. Otherwise, if it’s an emergency (i.e., not happening on a regular basis) please sit at the
very back of the classroom near the door and be quiet when leaving so as not to interrupt your classmates. Otherwise, you
should skip that class meeting.
Office Hours/Email/Messages, if you have questions that you don't want to ask during class, you may ask the instructor
during office hours (top of previous page). The office hours listed at the top of the first page are the only hours available
for your instructor to meet with you this semester.
Regarding email: Please read your syllabus and look on Blackboard for announcements before sending email
questions to your instructor/TA’s. In a class this size, replying to emails asking questions that are already stated in the
syllabus or in Blackboard announcement(s) will have a lower priority and, during busiest times of the term, may not even
get a reply.
When sending your instructor an email, please include the following information: 1. Your first and last name, 2. The
course that you are asking about (e.g., social psychology, psych of personality, human sexual behavior), and 3. The
campus where the course meets – i.e., SDSU, CSUSM (your instructor teaches courses at both campuses). And, try to get
to the point/question within the first sentence (rather than writing 2 paragraphs and at the end asking, “So, can I take the
exam early?” [Answer is in the syllabus]).
Also, because so many class resources are provided (e.g., outlines, objectives) some students get the idea that they don’t
need to go to class and just show up for exams. Those students tend to do a lot of emailing right before exams asking to
be “caught up on things” via email. This is just not possible with a class this size. If you are not going to go to class, you
should find a classmate you can get lecture notes from. Because of past issues with students doing mass emailing,
abusing the feature, due to students’ requests, the Blackboard feature allowing students to email each other will not be
enabled for this class.
Each exam will focus on the material covered in lecture, including all overheads and videotape segments presented since
the last exam (from the beginning of the course for the first exam) up to and including the lecture prior to the first
midterm; and all of the chapters/readings related to the topics covered in lecture during that time frame. When a chapter
appears in the schedule below without specific page numbers, it means read the entire chapter.
APPROXIMATE SCHEDULE
Note: DON'T BE LATE for exams! If you arrive after the first student leaves, you cannot take the exam, no
exceptions. There are practice exams for the first three exams (not for the final). There are no review sessions.
Date
Aug 28, 30
Sept 4, 6
Sept 11, 13
Sept 18, 20
Sept 25
Sept 27
Oct 2, 4
Check carefully below for exact exam times and dates!! There are no review sessions
Orientation: Intro to social psych., and methodology, Myers Ch. 1
Intro/Methodology (finish); The Self, Ch. 2
Attribution, Judgments, Social Beliefs, Myers Ch. 3
Behavior, Attitudes, Myers Ch. 4
Finishing up Behavior, Attitudes, Myers Ch. 4
MIDTERM 1; covers Intro – Attitudes/Behavior, Ch’s 1-4,
Prejudice, Ch. 9
Oct 9, 11
Oct 16, 18
Oct 23, 25, 30
Nov 1
Nov 6, 8
Nov 13, 15
Nov 20
Nov 22
Nov 27
Nov 29, Dec 4
Dec 6
Dec 13, Thurs
8:45-10:00 am,
Final Exam
Conformity, Compliance, & Obedience, Myers Ch. 6 (Ch. 4 section 2: just the portions on the "footin-door”, and “low-balling", a couple of pages, already covered)
Social Facilitation & Group Influence, Myers Ch. 8
Interpersonal Attraction & Relationships, Myers Ch. 11
MIDTERM 2 covers Prejudice – Attraction, Ch’s 6, 8, 9, 11, part of 4 (see above)
Aggression, Myers Ch. 10
Altruism, Myers Ch. 12
Legal Psychology, Myers Ch. 15
Thanksgiving Holiday, NO CLASS!!
Finish Legal Psychology
Deviant Behavior (outlines only, no additional readings)
MIDTERM 3; covers Aggression – Deviant Behavior, Ch. 10, 12, 15
Exam is Comprehensive: covers all topics/chapters/journal articles; equal emphasis on all
sections; same length, format, level of detail as midterms; all new questions. Don’t be Late!!
Yes, it does say 8-10 am in the schedule of classes, but the exam is the same length (40 multiple
questions) as the midterms and 75 minutes is more than enough time, and coming in at 8:45 am
instead of 8 am is going to be so much easier when you are used to coming to a 8:00 am class.
~ = approximate. It is your responsibility to be present for the exam, based on scheduled class meetings.
Safety Issues. To be prepared for emergencies, each student is responsible for becoming familiar with the evacuation
plan specific to each classroom. The evacuation plan is posted within each classroom and should be examined on the first
day of class.