Call us: +44 (0)1227 789 649 - Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm
Social Psychology
Social Psychology Level 3 100 Hours Certificate Course
Course Code:
BPS205 CLD
Level:
3
Start:
Anytime
Finish:
Anytime
Study From:
Anywhere
Tutor Support:
Unlimited Access
Pinterest
Twitter
Facebook
Email
LinkedIn
Facebook
Contact us
PayPal Pay Later
Pay in 3 interest-free payments
Choose PayPal at checkout to pay later with Pay in 3.
Complete your purchase with the first payment today.
Remaining payments are taken automatically.
Pay in 3 is a form of credit, so carefully consider whether the purchase is affordable and how you will make the repayments. Be aware of the possible impact of using Pay in 3 and of missing payments, including making other borrowing more difficult or more expensive. Pay in 3 eligibility is subject to status and approval. 18+ UK residents only. Available for purchases of £30 to £2,000. Terms and conditions apply. PayPal Pay in 3 is a trading name of PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg.
Learn About Social Psychology
Social Psychology Online Course
Through our Social Psychology Online Course Learn how to help others develop better social skills to interact at work and personally
Social psychology affects us all in our social and work interactions, even if we don’t know it, so it is important to be able to know how we relate to the people around us.
By knowing this, professionals can understand how to help others to develop better social skills. Therefore, this course will be invaluable to those working in, or looking to work in:
Counselling
Psychotherapy
Psychology
Anthropology
Social work
Personnel management
Nursing
Caring roles
Health professions
Research
Education
This course is accredited at Level 3 by ACCPH and allows you to join as a professional member after completion. Membership allows you to add the letters MACCPH after your name (post-nominals).
This course has been accredited by the CMA – The Complimentary Medical Association. On completion of any qualifying module, you can join as a “Fully Qualified Practitioner” and be entitled to use the post-nominal latters “MCMA” after your name. CMA Full Membership is a privileged position and the fact that you have been accepted for CMA Membership demonstrates that you have a clear commitment to standards and professionalism. CMA Members in all categories are recognised as the elite in their field.
Attribution and Concensus, consistency, distinctiveness
Attribution errors
Culture and attributional style
Criticisms of the theory
Practical uses of attribution theory
4 Attitudes and Attitude Change
Defining attitude
Characteristics of attitudes
ABC of attitudes
Affective elements of attitude
Behavioural elements of attitude
Self attribution
Specificity
Constraints
Cognitive elements of attitude
Attitude formation
Factors affecting attitude change
5 Prejudice, Discrimination and Stereotypes
Introduction
What is prejudice
Functions of prejudice
How we measure prejudice
In groups and out groups
Reducing prejudice
Stereotypes
Functions of stereotypes
Dangers of using stereotypes
Changing stereotypes
Discrimination
6 Interpersonal Attraction
Introduction
Theories of attraction
The social exchange theory
The reinforcement affect model
Factors affecting interpersonal attraction
Physical appearance
Biological underpinnings
Similarity
Familiarity
Positive regard
Mis attribution of emotions
Proximity
Attachment styles
Cultural similarities
An evolutionary perspective
The cost of sex
7 Helping Behaviour
Bystander intervention
Diffusion of responsibility
Social facilitation
Compliance
Obedience
Conformity
Why do people conform
Factors affecting conformity
Desire for affiliation
Reinforcement and punishment
Obedience to authority
Why does social influence work
8 Aggression
Introduction
Types of aggression
Theoretical approaches to aggression: Freudian, Drive theories, Social learning theories, Biological and evolutionary theories
Aggrssion against outsiders
Aggression in a species
Aggression in humans
Environmental influences on human aggression
Imitation or modelling
Familiarity
Reinforcement
Aggression and Culture
Other factors
9 Groups
What is a group
Kinds of groups; recreational, social, work, family, sportingFeatures of groups
Factors relating to groups: productivity, social loafing, insufficient coordination, social facilitation
Group decision making: group think, group polarisation, minority influence
Deindividualisation
10 Cultural Influences
Defining culture
Culture and social exchange
Individualistc vs reciprocal societies
Cross cultural psychology vs cultural psychology
Culture bound syndromes
Trance and possession disorder
Learning Goals
Learning Goals: Social Psychology I BPS205
To determine how physical characteristics and non-verbal behaviour affect our formation of impressions of others, and how that information is processed;
To understand the sociological perspective of the self and how we relate to others;
To discuss attribution theory, the internal and external causes, and its role in self-perception and the perception of others;
To understand the emergence of attitudes, changes in attitude, and the effect of attitudes upon behaviour and use as predictors of behaviour;
To discuss the emergence of prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination from the perspective of social psychology and attitudes;
To understand the influence of physicality, similarity, familiarity and proximity on interpersonal relationships;
To understand helping behaviour through the influences of conformity, compliance, obedience and diffusion of responsibility;
To define social psychological theories of aggression and to apply those theories;
To understand the nature of group behaviour and to demonstrate awareness of group cognition;
To understand the effect of culture on behaviour of individuals and groups.
Practical (Set Tasks)
What you will be doing during this Course
Define social cognition;
Determine the possible impression a jury might have of defendants and the social basis of those impressions;
List the three general biases that may affect the jury’s attributions and explanations and briefly describe each one;
Different types of schema;
Explain why people are motivated to justify their own actions belief and feelings;
Explain cognitive dissonance;
Explain how can the desire for self-consistency influences our self-perception;
Determine the purposes served by dissonance -reducing behaviour;
Identify factors that form self-concept;
Describe attribution theory;
Describe how discounting principles relate to our perception of others;
Identify the fundamental attribution error;
Discuss how we use attribution to protect our self esteem;
Discuss how consistency, consensus and distinctiveness help to form our explanations of another person’s behaviour;
Explain how attitudes develop;
Discuss how attitudes affect behaviour;
Explain what makes people prejudiced;
Explain how physicality influences our behaviour;
Discuss the principle of similarity;
Explain how familiarity and proximity influence the development of friendship;
Explain why people conform;
Discuss Millgram’s experiment on obedience;
Explain why is a lone person more likely to help than a person in a group;
Discuss how conformity, compliance, obedience and diffusion of responsibility influence helping behaviour;
List the causes of aggression;
Explain the concept of group polarization;
Discuss how group decision-making influences conformity;
Examine the influence of culture and society on each other.
More Information
Your learning experience with ADL will not only depend on the quality of the course, but also the quality of the person teaching it. This course is taught by Iona Lister and your course fee includes unlimited tutorial support throughout. Here are Iona’s credentials:
Iona Lister Licentiate, Speech and Language Therapy, UK, Diploma in Advanced Counselling Skills.
Iona has been a clinician and manager of health services for fifteen years, and a trainer for UK-based medical charities, focusing on psychosocial issues, mental health disorders, and also the promotion of communication skills for people in helping roles. She tutors and facilitates groups via workshops and teleconferences, and now specialises in Sight Loss. As a freelance writer, she contributes regular feature articles for magazines, has written five published books, as well as published courses relating to personal development and counselling skills.
Iona has aslo written published books, courses and articles across a wide range of subjects, mostly in the areas of health, counselling, psychology, crafts and wildlife.
She has drawn experience from clinical and managerial experience within the NHS as well as medical and humanitarian subjects. She has been a regular feature writer and expert panel member of a national magazine for six years.
Books include: A Guide to Living with Alzheimer’s Disease (and associated dementias), The Psychology of Facial Disfigurement; a Guide for Health and Social Care Professionals, When a Medical Skin Condition Affects the Way you Look; A Guide to Managing Your Future, Facing Disfigurement with Confidence, Cross Stitch: A Guide to Creativity and Success for Beginners. Courses written include: Mental Health and Social Work, Counselling Skills, Understanding and Responding to Substance Misuse, Journalling for Personal Development, Guided Imagery, Stress Management. Current work includes: Tutor: Courses associated with Creative Writing, Counselling Skills, Psychology, Holistic Therapy, Certified Hypnotherapist and Hypnotension Practitioner. Facilitator of Teleconference Groups: Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) Trainer (Skills for Seeing): Macular Society Reviewer of Books/Information: Macmillan Cancer Support Fundraiser: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Embroidery/Art Groups Facilitator, Board Member Website Manager: The Strathcarron Project, Coordinator (Delaware & Tennessee) Human Writes
Excerpt from the Course
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Attribution is the process of assigning causes for the behaviour of others and ourselves. It is a theory within social psychology of how we explain the behaviour of others. According to Heider’s (1958) attribution theory, when we offer explanations about why things happened, we attribute them to either situational factors causes (situation and circumstance) or dispositional factors (thinking, personality, attitude, motivation, effort etc).
Weiner further developed Heider’s theory and claimed that attribution is a three step process through which we perceive others as causal agents.
Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why other people do what they do – that is, attribute a cause to their behaviour. A person trying to understand why a person did something may attribute their behaviour to one or more causes. There is therefore, a three stage process underlying the attribution.
For example, you are walking along and someone throws some litter on the floor. Three thoughts may cross our minds –
“I saw that” (perception of the action) – step 1
“You meant to do that” (judgement of intention) – step 2
“You are a litter lout” (attribution of disposition) – step 3
We must first observe or perceive the behaviour (step 1). We must then believe that the person did the behaviour intentionally (step 2) and finally determine if the person was forced to perform that behaviour – if they were forced to do it, the cause would be attributed to the situation, if they were not forced, the cause would be attributed to the person.
So using the example above –
Person throws the litter
Step 1 – I saw that
Step 2 – You meant to do that.
Step 3 – The piece of litter was on fire – the person was forced to do it, so the cause is environmental. (external attribution)
Or
Step 3 – You are a litter lout – the person was not forced to do it, so the cause was their own personality (internal attribution).
Kelley (1967) used the terms external and internal to describe these attributions. An external attribution assigns causality to an outside agent or environmental factor, and claims that something or someone motivated the event, or caused the results. In contrast, an internal attribution assigns causality to factors within the person, and claims that the person was directly responsible for the event. The behaviour is due to their personality, attitude, character or disposition. For example, if you think Fred failed his psychology exam because he had a late night, his cat died or his girlfriend left him that would be an external attribution. If you thought he failed because he was not clever enough to pass, that would be an internal attribution. These two types of attribution lead to different perceptions of the person engaging in the behaviour. For example, if we thought Fred failed his psychology exam because he was lazy and didn’t study (internal attribution), would we be less sympathetic than if we though he failed his exam because his girlfriend left him the night before (external attribution)?
We tend to form schemata about behaviour that lead us to expect people to act in certain ways in certain situations. For instance, we expect people to cry and grieve at a funeral, but do not expect laughter (though there are some societies in which that would be acceptable). We also form schemata about individuals, which can include expectations we have formed of their behaviour, and attribute what we believe a fairly characteristic behaviour to their personality or other internal factors.
When someone acts out of character, however, we might attribute the behaviour to external factors, wondering “What happened to him? What has made him act this way?” and looking for perhaps work or marriage problems, or other external influences on the person’s behaviour. When a stranger or someone we don’t know well – or don’t like – acts in a way that is unexpected and considered out of the norm, we are inclined to attribute it to internal causes, such as unpleasant personality, aggressiveness, ignorance, or jealousy.
Attribution has a direct influence on our behaviour, and can either encourage us or discourage us from taking action in a situation. For example, when Asian students began out-performing Western students in western schools, many people attributed their superior performance to “being smarter”. Most research into this matter, however, suggests that the key factor is that many Asian students tend to attribute both their successes and their failures to their own efforts, and therefore, put much more effort into achieving successes and avoiding failures. Many western students, on the other hand, are more likely to attribute their failures to external factors, such as teacher incompetence, unfair questions, time pressures, or luck, and therefore tend not to exert the same effort to achieve results.
Stable and Unstable Attributions
Attributions may be internal or external as already discussed, but they can be stable or unstable. A stable attribution is when a person believes that an event or behaviour is due to stable, unchanging factors. When they make an unstable attribution, they may infer that an event or behaviour is due to temporary, unstable factors. For example, Fred fails his psychology exam, but thinks it is because he always has bad luck (stable attribution), but if he thinks it is because he didn’t have time to study for this particular exam, he is making an unstable attribution.
Assessment
Assessment is based on a combination of completing all assignments and sitting for a final short one and a half hour exam, in your own location.
If you don’t cope well with exams then you may elect to undertake a project instead. This is a popular option.
In addition, most modules have a Set Task at the end of each lesson placed before the assignment. This is an opportunity to undertake practical work to help you acquire knowledge and skills and practical experience. This ADL feature is an added bonus not found at most online schools. Set Tasks are not required for assessment.
Some courses also have optional Self-Tests which are available on our online learning platform. These are not available by correspondence or by USB, and do not form part of your overall grade.
How our courses work
Choose Your Learning Method You choose how you would like to receive your course material, i.e., Online, USB or Correspondence. The choice is yours. You may also work on online or offline.
Tutor Allocation Every student is assigned their own dedicated tutor who is an expert in their subject area. They provide as much or as little individual contact as you require. You can contact your tutor whenever you need – your hours are not limited.
Feedback and Assignments Tutor Feedback is an essential component in helping you understand the subject matter. Tutor feedback is given in the form of notes written on the assignment. We encourage you to contact your Tutor where help with clarification and understanding of course material may be required.
Your assignments are located at the end of each lesson. You submit them for marking whenever you are ready. There is no time limit.
Set Tasks and Self-Tests Most modules have a Set Task at the end of each lesson before for the assignment. This is where you get the opportunity to undertake practical work to help you acquire knowledge, skills and practical experience. Many modules also have short Self-Tests.
Exams Once all assignments have been completed you may then elect to sit for a one and half hour exam in your own location. If you prefer not to take the exam you do have the option to undertake a project instead. Once the exam or project part of the course is completed, your Certificate is then processed. Please allow approximately 4 weeks for this.
Design Your Own Qualification ADL offers students the flexibility to self-design their own qualification – bundling together a combination of 100-hour modules into a qualification higher than a certificate.
FAQ
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Here is a list of the most often asked FAQ’s.
General
Q. Why should I enrol with the Academy for Distance Learning? A. Here at ADL, our students are our priority – we treat everyone as a unique individual.
Q. Do I need to buy text books? A. No, as each module has been written by highly qualified industry professionals. The content of the material is presented in such a way that text books are not required. However, if you require additional reading your tutor will be able to supply a list.
Q. What happens if I have to stop studying for a while? (eg. become sick, go on holidays, have a baby, move house, etc) A. It’s OK to take a break and start up your study at a later point in time. Just let us know.
Q. Is there an age limit? A. There is no maximum age limit. We do however, have a minimum age limit of 18 years. Below that age parental consent would be required.
Q. Are your courses up-to date? A. Our courses are revised and updated on a rotation system.
Q. Do you have a Cancellation policy? A. Yes. We have a cancellation policy that is fair and equitable. For further details please click here.
Q. Will I have any opportunity to engage with other students? A. We have a Student Community group based on facebook! If you don’t have a facebook account already, you could make one just for talking with fellow students on the group.
Enrolment
Q. When can I enrol/start? A. You may enrol and start at any time of the year – it’s all self- paced.
Q. Can I study from anywhere in the world? A. Our courses are available to anyone, anywhere in the world from the comfort of your own home. The course content is relevant to any country, culture or economy.
Q. How long do I have to complete the course? A. You complete the course at any time that is convenient for you.
Q. Completing a 100 hour module – how long will it take? A. For some students a 100 hour module will take approximately to 3- 6 months to complete. Others take less time and some even longer.
Assessment
Q. Assessment – how does it work? A. For each 100 hour module you are assessed by assignments (at the end of each lesson) and a final one and a half hour exam (or you may elect to complete a Project, instead of sitting the exam) – the choice is yours – you sit for the exam in your own location.
Q. I don’t cope well with exams – what can I do? A. You may elect to undertake a Project (set by your tutor) instead of sitting the exam. Projects are completed from your home and can usually take a couple of weeks to complete.
Q. If my assignment is not up to standard is there an opportunity to resubmit my work? A. Yes –
Q. How many assignments do I need to complete for each module? A. At the end of each lesson, there is an assignment – so if a course has say, 10 lessons, there would be 10 assignments.
Q. I am having difficulty attending workshops/industry meetings, what can be done? A. If your course requires attendance at workshops, conferences, or industry meetings; alternative arrangements can be made in your country.
Qualifications
Q. What qualification will I receive? A. For individual modules, you would be awarded a Certificate endorsed by TQUK (Training Qualifications, UK), providing you complete all assignments and the exam. If you just want to complete only the assignments and not sit for the exam or finish a Project, then a Letter of Achievement would be awarded. For more details on qualifications available please click here.
Q. Can I customize my diploma/higher qualification? A. Not all educational institution’s certificates /diplomas meet everyone’s needs. The opportunity to Design Your Own Diploma at the Academy (subject to our approval) is an added bonus, not found at other colleges. You choose modules that you think will help you in achieving your goal.
Q. What do I get when I complete the course? Will I receive a transcript? A. At the completion of all courses and providing all assignments and exam requirements have been met, you will receive your Award and a Transcript.
Tutors
Q. Our tutors – who are they? A. We appoint Tutors and require that they must be currently active in their industry, with at least 5 years’ experience in their chosen profession.
Q. Can I contact my tutor at any time? A. Yes – you have unlimited access to your tutor via email through our Online Classroom. You can always leave a message with ADL requesting your tutor to contact you. You decide on how much or how little contact you wish to have.
Q. Practical work – How is this done? A. To find out more about this part of the course please visit the section on How Our Courses Work here.
What's Included
What your tuition fees include
All Course Material via Online, USB or Correspondence
Assignments Marked
Professional Tutor Feedback
Set Tasks - Practical Exercises to help you develop skills
Self-Tests – multiple choice questions at the end of lessons in most modules
Unlimited Personal Tutor Support – via our student classroom
Committed and Friendly Admin Support – vital to your success
All ADL Exam or Project fees (exception RHS exams)
To speak to one of our course advisors, please enter your name and phone number below and click the "Please Call Me" button. We will call you back as soon as possible!
By submitting this form, I provide my consent to ADL to contact me via email or telephone, regarding the course I selected. All information provided is protected in conformity with our Privacy Policy.
CONTACT US
required fields are marked with *
By submitting this form, I provide my consent to ADL to contact me via email or telephone, regarding the course I selected. All information provided is protected in conformity with our Privacy Policy.
Iona Lister