Special Issues in Social and Intercultural Psychology

Recommended Prerequisites

Non applicable.

Teaching Methods

Lectures; seminar(s) with invited specialist(s), group work, critical analysis, discussion and presentation of texts, practical activities and field work.

Learning Outcomes

To be able of:

- understanding, discussing and using the theory of social representations to analyse the relations between science, ideology and common sense in contemporary societies;

- analyse, interpret and evaluate, based on a deep social psychology and intercultural psychology' knowledge, the immigration, the processes of cultural diversity and of relation with the other in current societies;

- understanding and analysing the social, cultural and psychosocial dimensions of health and well-being.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Understanding common sense: the study of social representations (SR)

- Basic notions of SR and current research (SR of infectious diseases and stigmatization of the other; SR of human rights and of world history)

- Science, conspiracy theories and common sense in an age of post-truth and fake news

2. Immigration and cultural diversity

- Immigrants: differents and unequals

- Explanations: from race to culture (and from culture to race)

- Representations of national identity and attitudes towards immigration

- From problems to solutions

3. The relation with the other

- Prejudice: psychosocial approaches

- "Images of savages" and construction of the "scientific racism"

- Ideas that persist: anchoring of social representations and stereotypes about the other

4. Health and well-being: psychosocial and cultural dimensions

- Socio-cultural factors in health and medicine

- The social cure: the importance of social links

- Representations of health and the self-control ethos.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Research work: 25.0%
Mini Tests: 25.0%
Synthesis work: 25.0%
Report of a seminar or field trip: 25.0%

Bibliography

Jahoda, G. (1999). Images of savages. Ancient roots of modern prejudice in western culture. Routlegde.

Jetten, J., Haslam, C., & Haslam, S., A. (2015). The social cure. Identity, health and well-being. Psychology Press.

Joffe, H. (1999). Risk and ‘the other’. Cambridge University Press.

Lo Monaco, G., Delouvée, S., & Rateau, P. (Eds.) (2016). Les représentations sociales. de Boeck.

Moghaddam, F. & Hendricks, M. (Eds.) (in press, 2022). Contemporary immigration: Psychological perspectives to address challenges and inform solutions. American Psychological Association.

Sammut, G., Andreouli, E., Gaskell, G., & Valsiner, J. (2015). The Cambridge handbook of social representations. Cambridge University Press.