Social Psychology

What is Social Psychology?

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. - Social Psychology Network

Social psychology is closely tied to personality psychology which is the study of how individual differences are associated with thoughts, feelings, and behavior. At NDSU we study topics related to both social and personality psychology. Undergraduate students interested in social psychology may enroll in our many social psychology related courses and are encouraged to seek research assistantships in our health psychology labs.

Study Topics

Examples of topics studied by social psychologists here and in general include:

  • attitudes and attitude-behavior relations
  • self-regulation
  • nostalgia
  • mood and emotion
  • prejudice
  • decision making
  • persuasion
  • friendship
  • helping
  • aggression
  • conformity
  • group interaction 

 

 

Undergraduate Courses
  • PSYC 214 - Social Interaction
  • PSYC 216 - Cultural Psychology
  • PSYC 221 - Psychology at Work
  • PSYC 280 - Introduction to Health Psychology
  • PSYC 340 - Psychology in Sport
  • PSYC 370 - Forensic Psychology
  • PSYC 453 - Organizational Psychology
  • PSYC 468 - Personality
  • PSYC 470 - Experimental Social Psychology
  • PSYC 481 - Health Psychology
Graduate Programs

Prospective graduate students interested in social psychology may apply to our Ph.D. in Psychology program.

Social Psychology Faculty and Research at NDSU

Martin Coleman, Ph.D. - Research Interests: Social cognition and emotion

Katherine Duggan, Ph.D. - Research Interests: Personality, sleep, cardiovascular disease, lifespan development, healthy aging, statistics/methods

Anna Finley, Ph.D. - Research Interests: Social and affective neuroscience, emotion regulation, self-regulation, well-being, healthy aging, loneliness

Jeremy Hamm, Ph.D. - Research Interests: Motivation, emotion, self-regulation, life transitions, healthy aging

Clayton Hilmert, Ph.D. - Research Interests: Stress, psychophysiology, and health

Michael D. Robinson, Ph.D. - Research Interests: Personality, emotion, cognition, self-regulation

Social Psychology Resources

Tell me more about social and personality psychology. - The Society for Personality and Social Psychology

How does a person become a social psychologist? - Social Psychology on psychologycareercenter.org

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