Guiding questions and discussion leaders
The weekly guiding questions for your reading log will be posted below. You can find the reading log template here.
You can also find below the discussion leader for each class. The discussion leader requirements can be found here. Some classes will have two discussion leaders. In those cases, both of you will pose discussion questions during class. You do not have to coordinate or work together in your preparation.
9/12: Ethics of using the internet for psychology research
Discussion leader: Sarah Riley
- Does it make sense to apply principles of research ethics to online research, given that these principles were established well before online research was possible? Or should we start completely from scratch, and have a separate set of principles for online research?
- The vast majority of data online is originally collected by private companies who use that data to make their products better serve the company’s goals. How should we think about scientific researchers making use of this data? Do researchers have a right to use that data? Should companies be held to the same ethical standards as science research?
- Who do you believe is at fault in the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Is it the scientist who conducted the experiment? The people who run Cambridge Analytica? Facebook? The government? (And which ones?)
9/19: Emotion expression
Discussion leader: Josh Black
- What are reasons (from a psychological perspective) people might post emotionally other than their actual emotions? Is the disconnect between emotional experience and emotion expression more pronounced online than it is offline? How should this impact how we make sense of emotional expressions online, and our ability to apply them to offline behavior?
- In general, what types of emotional experiences are better-studied online than offline, and why? Provide examples.
- From Goldenberg: “Digital emotion contagion should be understood as mediated emotion contagion…the goals of digital media companies that serve as its mediators may influence the way digital emotion contagion unfolds.” In general, do you think that the role of third parties in mediating emotion expression (and other psychological processes) is more pronounced online than it is offline? Why or why not? How can we account for these mediators when studying human behavior online?
10/3: Curiosity and information seeking
Discussion leader: Kyara Ralliford
- Do you think that the internet makes us more or less curious? In both online settings and offline ones. Has the nature of human curiosity changed since the internet became widespread?
- Psychology research often makes a distinction between (more temporary) states and (more persistent) traits. Do you think curiosity is more state-like online than offline, or is it similar in both contexts? Why or why not, and how might it change in each context?
- What are reasons one might search for information online? How does the way you search for information online change depending on what your goal is? How does the structure of online resources impact how people use them to achieve those goals?
10/10: Collective memory
Discussion leader: Victor Fernandez
- What types of things do you think we as a society are most likely to remember and are most likely to forget, and why? How does the internet influence what gets remembered and forgotten?
- How has the way we’ve catalogued information changed? In the past 300 years, or even in the past 20? What are the implications of those changes for how we use data to make sense of psychological processes, such as collective memory, throughout history?
- What does collective memory look like when people have different perceptions or evaluations of the person/event that is being remembered? How might those dueling collective memories play out, both offline and online?
9/26: Social networks
Discussion leader: Ava Kamdem