AP Psychology Resources for Unit 9 Social Psychology

The LAST unit of the content (if you follow College Board's CED which is not mandatory)... can you even believe it?

I can't.

But I do love rounding out new content with this unit, social psychology.  The reason being twofold.

1. It may be the most applicable material of the entire course - students can easily make connections and recall examples from their own lives, but are also challenged to think of their behavior and judgements in ways they never have before. And,
2. Instead of focusing on activities or guided practice, this unit is more dedicated to demonstrating the concepts, rather than memorizing or simply encoding them.

So you'll want to present the unit in exactly those two ways... the foundational concepts with notes and readings (as usual), and then application through demonstration, simulation, and reflection.

And, I'd like to provide you with some resources to help you do all of that for the social psychology unit.

Social Psychology Resources

First, be sure to have slides and guided notes that cover the standards outlined by College Board's CED.  I've made both of these resources, and they follow the free flipped videos I've made available on my Youtube channel here.

Find the Powerpoint slides for social psychology linked on this image:

And the guided student notes that follow right along with these slides can be found at the link on this image.

 Finally, if you use Myers' Psychology for AP textbook, the following resource is a great one to help guide your students through the readings you assign.

Demonstrations

Most of class time during this unit for me, as I've said previously, is full of demonstrations.  I'd like to give you an example that you can easily implement.

Deindividuation (or mob mentality) is when individuals in a group lose inhibition they normally have due to anonymity and an exhilarating environment, and therefore behave in ways they normally don't.

To demonstrate this I give students a slip of paper and YELL AT THAT to NOT put their name on the paper.  This is the MOST important step!

Then I tell them they now have a super power of being invisible, and they would NEVER get caught no matter what they did.  They then need to describe what they would do on the slip of paper.  I tell them they have one minute and they need to turn it in to a certain spot, then I walk out of the room so I can't see when they turn it in.

Then...

I read them all OUT LOUD!  

It's so fun, funny, and even a bit embarrassing... but for who?  No one, because we won't know who wrote it.

Be sure to dispose of these immediately and don't let anyone find them because some of them will NOT be pretty (and even break school policy).  

Students may ask what they are allowed to write... the answer is, "I won't know it's you."

When you make it through all of them, have students do an exit ticket or simply find some blank space in their notes and ask them what this activity demonstrated.  Have students share out, and clarify to come to one acceptable answer students can model their answers after.

Seriously, I LOVE this unit and I love wrapping up content with it.

There are so many other possible demonstrations, so don't stop there.

All my best,