Social Interaction - PSY00058M
- Department: Psychology
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: M
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Spring Term 2022-23 |
Module aims
Social interactions are central to everyday life. We use them to learn, discuss ideas, collaborate, address conflict and cultivate relationships. But understanding their interdependent and dynamic nature presents a considerable challenge to psychology and neuroscience. This module explores this challenge in detail, examining how cognition, affect, physiology and behavior unfold during face-to-face interactions.
Students enrolling on this module should demonstrate a good understanding of core knowledge in cognitive psychology, as well as intermediate skills in quantitative statistical analyses.
Module learning outcomes
- Explain how and why recent research assesses subjective experience, physiology and behavior during social interactions.
- Provide examples of ways in which social cognition during an interaction differs from “offline” processing of social stimuli.
- Discuss specific effects of interpersonal distance, interpersonal touch and chemosignaling on social cognition during face-to-face interactions.
- Describe the neural and physiological mechanisms underlying emotional and stress contagion.
- Discuss research on performance and decision-making within groups and describe practical implications of that research.
- Describe and interpret important findings regarding behavioural and physiological synchrony.
Module content
- Nonverbal communication
- Mental state inferences
- Physiological and behavioral synchrony
- Group performance and decision-making
- Intergroup relations
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 40 |
| Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) | 60 |
Special assessment rules
None
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 40 |
| Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) | 60 |
Module feedback
The marks on all assessed work will be provided on e-vision.
These marks will be accompanied by module feedback forms which will be circulated by e-mail.
Students will meet supervisors in wk 6 in AuT, SpT and wk 9 in SuT to discuss their marks.
Indicative reading
Sample Reading:
De Jaegher, H., Di Paolo, E., & Gallagher, S. (2010). Can social interaction constitute social cognition? Trends in cognitive sciences, 14(10), 441-447.
McCall, C. (2016). Mapping Social Interactions: The Science of Proxemics. In M. Wöhr Sören Krach (Eds.), Social Behavior from Rodents to Humans: Neural Foundations and Clinical Implications. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences.
Schilbach, L., Timmermans, B., Reddy, V., Costall, A., Bente, G., Schlicht, T., & Vogeley, K. (2013). Toward a second-person neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(04), 393-414.
Woolley, A. W., Aggarwal, I., & Malone, T. W. (2015). Collective Intelligence and Group Performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(6), 420-424.