Lecture 1 Getting started with Social Psychology

Humans have been described as ‘social animals’ - it can plausibly be argued that our ability to cooperate in social groups is what sets us apart from our otherwise close animal relatives. This can obviously result in prosperity and beautiful cultural creations, but also in mass violence and destruction. Social psychology attempts to understand how individuals behave in groups, and thus what the conditions are for positive and negative outcomes to arise.

1.1 Video lecture for this week

Here the lecture for this week. I would encourage you to also have the slides open when you watch it, so that you can easily pause and reread the slides when I go too fast. Also, please take note of all your questions, so that we can address them in class.

You can download the slides here

1.2 Preparation before class

1. Watch the video and note down key points and questions
2. Read Chapter 1 in the textbook (link below)

1.3 Recommended readings

• Textbook: Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 in Principles of Social Psychology

• Further (non-academic) reading: Humankind (Bregman 2020) is a beautiful book that draws on social psychology and related disciplines to argue that humans are fundamentally good. It provides a novel perspective on many ‘landmark’ research findings and offers hope in these troubled times. At the moment, you can find an online copy here; chapters 1 and 2 give a good overview of the book and intro to some ideas in this course.