Psychology of Group Behaviors

We are all members of a variety of groups. In a typical week, you may collaborate in a team of coworkers, eat lunch with your friends, gather with family and friends for a celebration, watch your children play after-school sports with other parents, read and comment on political news and opinion pieces on social media, or participate in an online support group. In this course, you will learn about the ways groups can affect your thoughts, behaviors, and the communities to which you belong. You will explore topics in social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group conformity, the bystander effect, groupthink, and group polarization. As one outcome of this course, you will learn about the processes and consequences of these group dynamics, both good and bad, and ways to identify and manage their effects.