Course Requirements
The minimum course requirements for the graduate
Social Psychology major are established from the perspective
that there is a need for certain common experiences in social
psychology for all students, while recognizing that students
should be afforded opportunities to develop special expertise
in more narrowly-defined interest areas. A central value
of the program is the preservation of maximum time to conduct
independent research and develop special expertise. Thus,
the requirements delineated in this document are to be regarded
as a common minimum core. It is expected that students will
take a variety of courses not specified here, in order to
create the special competencies they desire. Students may
also be required to sign up for additional course hours
in order to satisfy university requirements for full-time
enrollment while being supported on fellowships and assistantships.
Full time enrollment is defined as 9 hours for those eligible
for a tuition waiver. Twelve hours are required for students
receiving fellowships. Eligibility for a waiver is based
on receiving a departmental, research, or teaching assistantship
of at least 10 hours per week. Underload permits may be
obtained from the Graduate Training Office (209 PSY) if
the student is not eligible for a tuition waiver. Alternatively,
students not eligible for a full tuition waiver may receive
one for 8 hours and pay out-of-pocket the tuition for the
9th hour. Other requirements, which apply to the Psychology
Department as a whole, are contained in the document titled
"Guidelines
for the Operation of the Graduate Program" (see Appendix
A).
Required courses are identified in three areas, the psychology content core, the research/experiential core, and the statistics/methodology core. A specific number of courses must be taken from each of these areas. No distinction is made here between requirements for the master's degree and Ph.D. The only specific requirements for a master's degree are those listed as departmental or university requirements. It should be noted that the university requirement for the master's degree involves thirty semester hours (18 of which must be those in which a letter grade is assigned).
Psychology Content Core:
All Social Psychology students are expected to take SOP 5053 Social Psychology or the Social and Personality core. A student can take both classes and one of them will be counted toward the advanced courses requirement. In addition, students are expected to take at least one additional course from among those designated by the Psychology Department as the departmental core: EXP 5508 Cognition and Perception, DEP 5165 Developmental Psychology, EXP 5406 Conditioning and Learning, PPE 5055 Personality Theory, PSY 6919 Cross area seminar, PSB 6059 Behavioral Endocrinology, PSB 5056 Biological Psychology or PSB 5341 Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience or PCB 5845 Cell and Molecular Neuroscience.
SOP 6920, Current Issues in Social Psychology (a one-hour seminar taught in the Fall). The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with work of the Social Psychology faculty, to accomplish specific skills instruction that is outside of other course content, and to create unity in the first year class.
Four advanced courses. These may be either seminars or regularly offered courses that are not listed as part of the department wide core. An exception is the cross area seminar, which may be counted toward this requirement if it is not used to fulfill the core requirement. Also, as indicated above students may take both SOP 5053 Social Psychology and the Social and Personality core and count one as an advanced course. Students are encouraged to take SOP (Social Psychology) courses for as many of these as possible. Listed below are some examples of courses that satisfy this requirement. Other courses used to satisfy this requirement (e.g., courses offered by other departments, such as Sociology, Communications, or Business) must have the approval of the student's major professor and supervisory committee.
SOP 6753 Seminar in Psychology and Law
SOP 6939 Seminar in Social Psychology (sample topics: Stereotypes and Prejudice, The
Self). May be repeated to a maximum of twelve (12) semester hours.
EXP 5642 Psychology of Language
Research/Experiential Core:
PSY 5917r Supervised Research - maximum
of 5 credits per degree (MS, PhD)
PSY 5973r Master's Thesis - 6 hours
minimum, and no maximum
PSY 6656r Preliminary Exam Preparation-
Minimum 3 hours, maximum 12 hours
PSY 6980r Dissertation - Minimum
24 hours
In addition to these required courses, students may wish to gain additional hours of supervised research/experience by signing up for PSY 5908r (Directed Individual Study), which may be repeated for a maximum of 16 hours.
Statistics/Methodology Core:
In completing the statistics requirements, the Social area strongly encourages students to take one class in ANOVA, one in regression, and at least one other statistics/methodology course.
Students must take three of the following courses:
STA 5206 Analysis of Variance & Design of Experiments (3 hrs.)
STA 5207 Applied Regression Methods (3 hrs.)
STA 5507 Applied Nonparametric Statistics (3 hrs.)
EDF 5401 General Linear Model Applications (4 hrs.)
EDF 5402 Advanced Topics in Analysis of Variance Applications (3 hrs.)
EDF 5406 Multivariate Analysis Applications (3 hrs.)
EDF 5410 Nonparametric Analysis (3 hrs.)
EDF 5411 Factor Analysis (3)
PSY 6919 Multivariate Applications: Observable Variables (3 hrs.)
PSY 6919 Design and Analysis in Psychology (3 hrs.)
PSY 6919 Meta Analysis
PSY 6919r Multivariate Applications: Latent Variables
Note: none of the statistics/methodology courses can be used to substitute for an advanced psychology content course.
