Locate a film or book (popular fiction, not a psychology text or instructional/academic film) that illustrates one of the concepts we’re discussing this semester. For example, the film/book might depict situations that are relevant to the concepts of obedience, conformity, altruism, persuasion techniques, groupthink, interpersonal attraction, etc… Any topic discussed in our readings is fair game, but the concept needs to be clearly depicted in the source you chose.
For the purposes of this assignment, films/books that actually depict any of the classic experiments we’re discussing this semester (e.g., the recent film titled “Stanford Prison Experiment”) are explicitly not allowed. Work to “stretch” and use your critical thinking skills to determine whether your source is clearly related to a social psychology concept or not.
After referring to the film or reading the book, please use any of the following formats to report your observations: Power Point slides, narrated slideshow, or video diary (e.g., “vlog”). This assignment is not intended to be a formal writing assignment. Rather, the intent is to see you make connections between your readings and “real-life” situations as depicted in popular media sources and to express your thoughts succinctly and coherently. Be creative, but be sure that the reader/viewer is able to clearly discern that you can critique the film/book in a scholarly way as related to course material (e.g., don’t just give a “book report” in which you describe the plot of the movie/book).
- Describe which social psychology concept you are choosing (e.g., conformity, obedience, altruism, persuasion, etc…) and indicate how you see it manifested in the film/book you chose.
- Describe the social psychology concept. What does it mean? How has it been studied in the field of social psychology? What have you learned about it this semester?
- Briefly describe the film/book you chose (e.g., its plot, characters, themes, etc…). This description does not need to be really lengthy (you don’t need to summarize the entire plot; hit the high points), but should be sufficient to demonstrate that you actually viewed the entire film or read the entire book.
