What Do You Learn in Advanced Social Psychology? Psychology 310 Chapter by Chapter

In advanced social psychology, you learn how people think about, influence and relate to one another, from persuasion and prejudice to helping and online behavior. Psychology 310 approaches those topics through theories, examples and research. Its chapters move from foundational concepts to relationships, group behavior and the digital world.

What is advanced social psychology?

Advanced social psychology is the study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by other people and social situations. An advanced course goes beyond naming concepts: it asks students to apply theories, consider research evidence and explain the limits of an interpretation.

For example, a student might ask why someone agrees with a group despite privately disagreeing. Conformity offers one explanation, but the student would also need to consider the situation and the evidence before drawing a conclusion.

What is in the advanced social psychology syllabus?

The table below shows every chapter and lesson in UPI Study’s Advanced Social Psychology course, along with the listed hours for each part.

The syllabus begins with how people think and form attitudes, then turns to identity, relationships and groups. Its final chapters look at helping, aggression and behavior in digital settings.

What do you learn in social psychology about attitudes and identity?

The first four chapters build a foundation for analyzing how people interpret their social worlds:

1. Introduction to Social Psychology: Define the field and examine social cognition, mental shortcuts and cognitive biases. For example, the availability heuristic involves judging an event’s likelihood partly by how readily examples come to mind.
2. Attitudes and Behavior: Study how feelings, behavior and thoughts relate to attitudes, and distinguish implicit from explicit attitudes. The chapter also introduces central and peripheral routes to persuasion.
3. Persuasion and Cognitive Processes: Explore emotion, social judgment, attitude inoculation, planned behavior and cognitive dissonance—the discomfort that can arise when beliefs and actions conflict.
4. The Self and Identity: Examine self-concept, self-esteem and how people present themselves to others, as well as social and cultural influences on the self.

These chapters offer tools for asking why a person holds an attitude and whether that attitude predicts what they do. A useful study habit is to pair each theory with a concrete example and consider what evidence would support it.

What are advanced topics in social psychology about prejudice and relationships?

Chapters 5 through 8 focus on how people perceive groups and form interpersonal bonds:

1. Prejudice, Discrimination, and Stereotyping: Distinguish a stereotype, or belief about a group, from prejudice, an attitude toward a group, and discrimination, behavior directed at people based on group membership.
2. Gender, Race, and Reducing Prejudice: Consider gender norms, racial discrimination and the contact hypothesis, including the conditions under which contact between groups may reduce prejudice.
3. Attraction and Interpersonal Relationships: Examine the need to belong and factors associated with attraction, including similarity and reciprocal liking.
4. Friendship, Love, and Relationship Dynamics: Study how friendships develop, Sternberg’s triangular theory of love and factors that can strain or end relationships.

The distinction between beliefs, attitudes and actions matters: someone may express an attitude without acting on it, while a discriminatory action can also reflect a broader social context. The course asks students to analyze these concepts rather than treat any one explanation as sufficient in every case.

What are advanced topics in social psychology about groups and behavior?

The final four chapters extend the analysis to groups, helping, harm and online interaction:

1. Group Dynamics, Conformity, and Obedience: Explore social roles, norms, groupthink and conformity. Normative conformity involves fitting in; informational conformity involves looking to others for guidance about what is correct. See also types and dynamics of social groups.
2. Altruism, Helping, and Prosocial Behavior: Compare explanations for helping and examine the bystander effect. Diffusion of responsibility describes how a person may feel less personally responsible when others are present.
3. Aggression and Violence: Study theories of aggression, social learning, bullying and interventions. For a closer look, read what causes aggression in social psychology.
4. Social Psychology in the Digital Age: Apply social psychological concepts to online identity, communication, relationships and cyberbullying. The discussion of how social media shapes attitudes and bias explores that connection further.

As you study, compare explanations instead of assuming that a single trait or situation determines behavior. For instance, understanding a failure to help may require attention to what bystanders noticed, how they interpreted the event and whether they felt responsible.

Which colleges list Advanced Social Psychology on an equivalency chart?

These colleges show Advanced Social Psychology (Psychology 310) on their equivalency charts with UPI Study. Open a college for its full chart.

See the rest of the equivalency on the Advanced Social Psychology course page, or open a college above for its full chart. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Frequently Asked Questions about Social Psychology

Final Thoughts on Social Psychology

Start by reviewing the syllabus and identifying the concepts you most want to understand. As you work through each chapter, practice explaining a theory in your own words and applying it to a specific situation.