PSY4130 – Promoting Change through Social Psychology
Course description
Course content
Applying psychology and doing psychological research in any field requires skills that go beyond merely knowing about theories and evidence. In particular, researching and applying social psychology in a scientific way requires three building blocks:
- connecting theory and evidence to observations in the field
- designing interventions based on these insights
- evaluating interventions.
In this course, students learn about and practice these three basic building blocks of social-psychological science in an integrated way. Whether you desire a career as a research scientist or a consultant, this course will provide you with valuable knowledge and the necessary skillset to fulfill these roles.
Learning outcome
Knowledge
In this course, students acquire fundamental knowledge about the scientific process in social psychology. After this course, students have detailed knowledge about the steps in scientific observation, theorizing, hypothesis testing, intervention, and evaluation, and their connectedness.
In addition, the course will provide knowledge in selected fields of classic and contemporary social psychology that are used as examples in the three parts of the course. This knowledge about basic and applied social psychology can be related to various subfields, such as social cognition, social relations, or emotional and motivational processes.
Skills
This course focuses on the acquisition of skills that characterize a social-psychological scientist. After completing this course, students are able to:
- Gather, evaluate, summarize, and integrate theories and research findings, and apply them to specific questions that have applied significance
- Conduct research to describe and compare populations, evaluate interventions, test correlational and causal hypothesis
- Plan and conduct interventions
- Collaborate with others in pursuing these research activities
General competence
In terms of general competence, students learn:
- how to deal with larger bodies of scientific texts
- how to evaluate theorizing and research
- how to translate applied problems into scientific questions, how to back-translate theoretical models and empirical findings into interventions and answers for applied problems
- how to communicate with practitioners
- how to work collaboratively on problems
Admission to the course
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.
Formal prerequisite knowledge
You must have completed PSY1010 – Innf?ring i metode or equivalent and PSY1101or equivalent. Completion of PSY4111 – Applied Social Psychology is also mandatory as part of the specialization in social psychology.?
Overlapping courses
- 10 credits overlap with PSYM4830 – Promoting Change through Social Psychology (discontinued).
Teaching
The teaching will be given through lectures, seminars, and an internship. All classes are compulsory. We expect you to participate actively in various classroom assignments, either alone or in small groups.
The course includes an obligatory internship of 80 h. The internship can be done either in an external organisation (preferable in person) or as a research internship at UiO. Students have the main responsibility in finding an internship place. They will be provided with a list of suitable organisations and can also approach additional internship places themselves. Internship placements have to be approved by the course responsible. If no external organisation is found or if a research internship is preferred, then the student will be offered a research internship with a researcher at PSI.??
Compulsory tuition activities
- Attendance must be at least 80%
Compulsory tuition activities are valid for the 2 next semesters after approval date.
Absence from compulsory tuition activities
If you are ill or have another valid reason for being absent from compulsory tuition activities, your absence may be approved or the compulsory activity may be postponed.
Examination
Three written papers and one oral presentation.?
The first written paper will be an expertise on a justice issue or debate of your choosing, following up on the justice module. The second paper will be a description and evaluation of an intervention of your choosing, following the intervention module. The third paper will be a brief report on your internship, mainly for our information.?
All exams are designed such that they further your learning process and give your room to reflect on the discussed material and give you space to integrate it with the topics you are interested in. In short, we see exams as an integral part of teaching.
All four exam components must be passed during the same semester in order to get a passing grade.
Language of examination
The examination text is given in English, and you submit your response in English or Norwegian.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.
If you are an exchange student, please note that you will receive a pass or fail for this course and this cannot be converted into an A-F grading scale.
More about examinations at UiO
- Use of sources and citations
- How to use AI as a student
- Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
- Withdrawal from an exam
- Illness at exams / postponed exams
- Explanation of grades and appeals
- Resitting an exam
- Cheating/attempted cheating
You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.