PSYC3520 covers the theoretical core of social psychology — attitudes, attribution, and group influence — building the conceptual foundation that PSYC2520's applied examples draw upon.
Attitudes and attribution theory
PSYC3520 covers attitude formation and change (including cognitive dissonance theory), and attribution theory — how people explain the causes of their own and others' behavior, including well-documented attribution biases like the fundamental attribution error (overweighting personality/disposition and underweighting situational factors when explaining others' behavior).
Group dynamics and social influence theory
The course covers foundational theories of group dynamics and social influence — social identity theory (how group membership shapes self-concept), deindividuation, and the theoretical mechanisms underlying conformity and obedience — giving students the conceptual frameworks behind phenomena studied more applicationally elsewhere in the curriculum.
Key topics in PSYC3520
- Attitude formation and cognitive dissonance theory
- Attribution theory: dispositional vs. situational explanations for behavior
- The fundamental attribution error and other attribution biases
- Social identity theory: group membership and self-concept
- Deindividuation and its effect on individual behavior in groups
- Theoretical mechanisms underlying conformity and social influence
Working on an attribution theory paper or a cognitive dissonance analysis?
Our psychology experts build PSYC3520-level coursework with genuine social psychology theory depth.
Worked example: the fundamental attribution error in everyday judgment
- Situation: A driver cuts someone off in traffic
- Fundamental attribution error: The observer assumes the driver is simply rude or reckless (a dispositional explanation), rather than considering situational factors (they might be rushing to an emergency)
- Self-serving asymmetry: When the observer themselves cuts someone off, they're far more likely to attribute it to situational factors ("I was running late") rather than their own disposition
- Lesson: This asymmetry — explaining others' behavior dispositionally while explaining our own situationally — is a well-replicated, predictable bias in social judgment
Get Help With PSYC3520
Social psychology theory and attribution analysis assignments.
Place Your OrderView All ServicesRelated courses
Frequently asked questions
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overemphasize dispositional (personality-based) explanations for other people's behavior while underemphasizing situational factors that may have influenced that behavior — assuming someone who arrives late is simply lazy or disorganized, rather than considering they may have been dealing with a genuine, unavoidable situational obstacle. PSYC3520 teaches this as a foundational social psychology concept because it has been replicated across numerous studies and cultural contexts (though its strength varies somewhat by culture, being generally stronger in more individualist cultures), and it has significant practical implications — it can lead to unfair judgments of others in everyday interactions, in hiring and performance evaluation, and in broader social and political judgments about why people in different circumstances behave as they do, often underestimating the genuine influence of situational and structural factors on behavior.
Cognitive dissonance theory, developed by Leon Festinger, proposes that people experience psychological discomfort when they hold two or more contradictory beliefs, or when their behavior contradicts their attitudes, and this discomfort motivates them to reduce the inconsistency — often by changing their attitude to align with their behavior, rather than changing the behavior itself, especially when the behavior has already occurred and can't easily be undone. PSYC3520 teaches this theory because it explains a genuinely counterintuitive pattern in attitude change — people often adjust their beliefs to justify actions they've already taken (rationalizing an expensive purchase as a better decision than it objectively was, for example) rather than the more intuitive assumption that attitudes simply and directly determine behavior — this insight has significant applications in understanding persuasion, decision justification, and why people sometimes maintain beliefs that seem inconsistent with the evidence in order to preserve consistency with their own past actions and choices.