PSYC 372 (Sec. 1):
Attitude Organization and Change
Prof. Blair T. Johnson

(Offered previously: 2006, 2004)

Offered previously as PSYC 372
Course No.: 10270 (Consent Required)

This course provides a survey of the psychology of attitudes. According to the graduate catalog, the course is “an overview of the field of attitude theory and research focusing on problems of attitude formation, attitude organization, and attitude change.” Within these general areas, the course will cover the organization, formation, and change of attitudes and beliefs as well as the relations of attitudes to behaviors and of behaviors to attitudes. The course is organized in seminar format: Students are expected to take a lively role in not only participating, but also creating lively, well-informed discussions of the nature and consequences of attitudes, processes of attitude change, and theoretical and methodological approaches to studying them.

The course is designed primarily for graduate students in social psychology, but it provides a good general background for graduate students in other areas of psychology and in related fields. A background in social psychology is valuable to enhance understanding of the material covered; because of the quantitative nature of this material, it is helpful for you to have some background in research methods and statistics common to psychology (e.g., What is a factorial design and how is it used? What is a meta-analysis and can you critique one’s results?). As a result of taking and passing this course, you should obtain a solid background in the psychology of attitudes and have one or two research ideas with the solid potential of contributing to scholarship on attitudes.

Desirable course background: PSYC 337 (Advanced Social Psychology) and 343 (Experimental Methods in Social Psychology).

(last updated: 27 July 2007)

Related links: UConn Social Psych; Courses; Faculty