Schedule and readings

Course calendar

Date	Topic	Assignments due
9/5	Introduction to the course
9/12	Ethics	Syllabus quiz
9/19	Emotion
9/26	Social networks
10/3	Curiosity and information seeking	Data tutorial draft
10/10	Collective memory	Participation reflection
10/17	Data tutorial presentations	Data tutorial
10/24	Student choice! (See note below)
10/31	Student choice!
11/7	Student choice!
11/14	Student choice!
11/21	Student choice!	Op-ed pitch
12/5	Student choice!	Due 12/12: Final op-ed + supplement

Note on readings

Readings for each topic should be completed by the date listed in the above table. “Readings” doesn’t necessarily just mean reading scientific literature. Sometimes it means reading newspaper articles, watching videos, listening to podcast episodes, using a program, or exploring a corner of the internet. All links to readings are included in the reading list citations below. If you can’t access a reading for some reason, just let me know and I can send you the PDF.

Student choice note: The six topics for Module 2 will be chosen by you, from a list of ten topics. The ten topics are organized into five pairs. For each pair of topics, you as a class will vote on which topic you would prefer to be part of the syllabus. The losing topic in the pair of topics with the most even vote split will also be part of the syllabus, for a total of six topics. We will vote during the second class session. After voting, I will update the syllabus with the correct course calendar and readings. The topic pairs you will vote on are as follows:

Module 1: Psychology with the Internet

9/12: Ethics of using the internet for psychology research

Anabo, I. F., Elexpuru-Albizuri, I., & Villardón-Gallego, L. (2019). Revisiting the Belmont Report’s ethical principles in internet-mediated research: Perspectives from disciplinary associations in the social sciences. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(2), 137-149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9495-z (12 pages)
Rosenberg, M., & Dance, G. J. X. (2018, April 8). ‘You Are the Product’: Targeted by Cambridge Analytica on Facebook. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/08/us/facebook-users-data-harvested-cambridge-analytica.html (General article, 7 pages)
Linden, S. van der. (2023, April 10). Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Tracing the Story of Psychological Targeting on Social Media - By Sander van der Linden. Behavioral Scientist. https://behavioralscientist.org/weapons-of-mass-persuasion-tracing-the-story-of-psychological-targeting-on-social-media/ (General article, 10 pages)
Calma, J. (2023, May 31). Twitter just closed the book on academic research. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/31/23739084/twitter-elon-musk-api-policy-chilling-academic-research (General article, 7 pages)
Pick one social media website or web browser and look at all the settings for privacy/data use, as well as the privacy/data use terms of service. Take notes on anything you find interesting. What were you surprised you had the ability to control? What do you wish you had the ability to control, but don’t?

9/19: Emotion expression

Luhmann, M. (2017). Using big data to study subjective well-being. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 18, 28-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.006 (4 pages)
Metzler, H., Rimé, B., Pellert, M., Niederkrotenthaler, T., Di Natale, A., & Garcia, D. (2023). Collective emotions during the COVID-19 outbreak. Emotion, 23(3), 844. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/emo0001111 (13 pages)
Goldenberg, A., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Digital Emotion Contagion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(4), 316–328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.01.009 (10 pages)
Play around with the LIWC free trial with social media texts from any platform of your choosing, and read about what the output means. Save the input and the output. Does it seem accurate? What other metrics would you like to see calculated?

9/26: Social networks

Dunbar, R. I. M. (2016). Do online social media cut through the constraints that limit the size of offline social networks? Royal Society Open Science, 3(1), 150292. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150292 (7 pages)
Roy, C., Bhattacharya, K., Dunbar, R. I. M., & Kaski, K. (2022). Turnover in close friendships. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 11018. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15070-4 (9 pages)
Wolfram, S. (2013, April 24). Data Science of the Facebook World. Stephen Wolfram - Writings. https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2013/04/data-science-of-the-facebook-world/ (24 pages)

10/3: Curiosity and information seeking

Lydon-Staley, D. M., Zhou, D., Blevins, A. S., Zurn, P., & Bassett, D. S. (2021). Hunters, busybodies and the knowledge network building associated with deprivation curiosity. Nature human behaviour, 5(3), 327-336. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-00985-7 (9 pages)
Kelly, C. A., Blain, B., & Sharot, T. (2024). “How” web searches change under stress. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 15147. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-65895-4 (9 pages)
Play around with trends.google.com and record your searches on the Explore page. What can the Trending Now page tell you about what people are thinking about, and what can the Explore page tell you about what people have thought about in the past? How might the information provided be used in psychology research?

10/10: Collective memory

Michel, J.-B., Shen, Y. K., Aiden, A. P., Veres, A., Gray, M. K., The Google Books Team, Pickett, J. P., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D., Norvig, P., Orwant, J., Pinker, S., Nowak, M. A., & Aiden, E. L. (2011). Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books. Science, 331(6014), 176–182. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199644 (6 pages)
García-Gavilanes, R., Mollgaard, A., Tsvetkova, M., & Yasseri, T. (2017). The memory remains: Understanding collective memory in the digital age. Science Advances, 3(4), e1602368. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1602368 (5 pages)
West, R., Leskovec, J., & Potts, C. (2021). Postmortem memory of public figures in news and social media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(38), e2106152118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106152118 (8 pages)
Take a look at some data visualizations with Wikipedia data from The Pudding: here, here, here, and here. How might these types of analyses be applied to psychology research?

Module 2: Psychology about the Internet

Note: This section will be updated with dates once topics are chosen. The topic pairs you will vote on are as follows:

TBD: Impression formation and self-presentation

Bailey, E. R., Matz, S. C., Youyou, W., & Iyengar, S. S. (2020). Authentic self-expression on social media is associated with greater subjective well-being. Nature Communications, 11(1), 4889. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18539-w (8 pages)
Brady, W. J., McLoughlin, K. L., Torres, M. P., Luo, K. F., Gendron, M., & Crockett, M. J. (2023). Overperception of moral outrage in online social networks inflates beliefs about intergroup hostility. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(6), 917–927. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01582-0 (10 pages)
Schlosser, A. E. (2020). Self-disclosure versus self-presentation on social media. Current Opinion in Psychology, 31, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.025 (4 pages)
Show the social media account of one of your friends to someone who doesn’t know them. Ask them to form an impression of your friend, and record their responses.

TBD: Social interactions

Kou, Y., Johansson, M., & Verhagen, H. (2017). Prosocial behavior in an online game community: An ethnographic study. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3102071.3102078 (6 pages)
Pandita, S., Garg, K., Zhang, J., & Mobbs, D. (2024). Three roots of online toxicity: Disembodiment, accountability, and disinhibition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, S1364661324001426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.001 (12 pages)
Combs, A., Tierney, G., Guay, B., Merhout, F., Bail, C. A., Hillygus, D. S., & Volfovsky, A. (2023). Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(9), 1454–1461. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01655-0 (6 pages)
Find and save threads of people interacting on at least two different platforms and save screenshots of the interactions. Could be Reddit, comments on social media posts, comments on a forum, etc. Take notes on similarities and differences between these interactions and typical offline interactions.

TBD: Nudging and decision-making

Lorenz-Spreen, P., Lewandowsky, S., Sunstein, C. R., & Hertwig, R. (2020). How behavioural sciences can promote truth, autonomy and democratic discourse online. Nature human behaviour, 4(11), 1102-1109. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0889-7 (6 pages)
Wu, A. X., Taneja, H., & Webster, J. G. (2021). Going with the flow: Nudging attention online. New Media & Society, 23(10), 2979-2998. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820941183 (18 pages)
Grüning, D. J., Riedel, F., & Lorenz-Spreen, P. (2023). Directing smartphone use through the self-nudge app one sec. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(8), e2213114120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213114120 (8 pages)
Use the app one sec on your phone and/or as a browser extension and record how it impacts your screen time.

TBD: Misinformation and disinformation

Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2021). The psychology of fake news. Trends in cognitive sciences, 25(5), 388-402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.02.007 (13 pages)
Globig, L. K., Holtz, N., & Sharot, T. (2023). Changing the incentive structure of social media platforms to halt the spread of misinformation. Elife, 12, e85767. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85767 (19 pages)
Allen, J., Watts, D. J., & Rand, D. G. (2024). Quantifying the impact of misinformation and vaccine-skeptical content on Facebook. Science, 384(6699), eadk3451. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk3451

TBD: Mental health

Twenge, J. M. (2020). Why increases in adolescent depression may be linked to the technological environment. Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 89–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.036 (5 pages)
Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Sheppes, G., Costello, C. K., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2021). Social Media and Well-Being: Pitfalls, Progress, and Next Steps. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(1), 55–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.10.005 (10 pages)
Beyens, I., Pouwels, J. L., Van Driel, I. I., Keijsers, L., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2020). The effect of social media on well-being differs from adolescent to adolescent. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 10763. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67727-7 (9 pages)

TBD: Changes to cognition

Firth, J., Torous, J., Stubbs, B., Firth, J. A., Steiner, G. Z., Smith, L., Alvarez‐Jimenez, M., Gleeson, J., Vancampfort, D., Armitage, C. J., & Sarris, J. (2019). The “online brain”: How the Internet may be changing our cognition. World Psychiatry, 18(2), 119–129. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20617 (9 pages)
Uncapher, M. R., & Wagner, A. D. (2018). Minds and brains of media multitaskers: Current findings and future directions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(40), 9889–9896. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611612115 (7 pages)
Heersmink, R. (2016). The Internet, Cognitive Enhancement, and the Values of Cognition. Minds and Machines, 26(4), 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-016-9404-3 (16 pages)

TBD: Artificial intelligence

Pataranutaporn, P., Liu, R., Finn, E., & Maes, P. (2023). Influencing human–AI interaction by priming beliefs about AI can increase perceived trustworthiness, empathy and effectiveness. Nature Machine Intelligence, 5(10), 1076–1086. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-023-00720-7 (8 pages)
De Freitas, J., Agarwal, S., Schmitt, B., & Haslam, N. (2023). Psychological factors underlying attitudes toward AI tools. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(11), 1845–1854. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01734-2 (7 pages)
Chat with at least three different AI chatbots and save your conversations with them. Talk to them about anything you’d like: your day, a current dilemma, etc.

TBD: Folk beliefs

Dogruel, L. (2021). Folk theories of algorithmic operations during Internet use: A mixed methods study. The Information Society, 37(5), 287-298. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2021.1949768 (10 pages)
Huang, S. A., Hancock, J., & Tong, S. T. (2022). Folk theories of online dating: Exploring people’s beliefs about the online dating process and online dating algorithms. Social Media+ Society, 8(2), 20563051221089561. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221089561 (10 pages)
Try to find a description from a tech company about how their algorithm works

TBD: Humor and memes

Wong, E. F., & Holyoak, K. J. (2021). Cognitive and motivational factors driving sharing of internet memes. Memory & Cognition, 49(5), 863–872. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-020-01134-1 (9 pages)
Akram, U., & Drabble, J. (2022). Mental health memes: Beneficial or aversive in relation to psychiatric symptoms? Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), 370. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01381-4 (5 pages)
Pick a humorous meme that is popular now or has been popular recently. Save some examples of variations of the meme, and try to find its origin. https://knowyourmeme.com/ may prove useful.

TBD: Activism

Leach, C. W., & Allen, A. M. (2017). The Social Psychology of the Black Lives Matter Meme and Movement. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 543–547. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417719319 (4 pages)
Greijdanus, H., De Matos Fernandes, C. A., Turner-Zwinkels, F., Honari, A., Roos, C. A., Rosenbusch, H., & Postmes, T. (2020). The psychology of online activism and social movements: Relations between online and offline collective action. Current Opinion in Psychology, 35, 49–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.03.003 (4 pages)
Priante, A., Ehrenhard, M. L., Van Den Broek, T., & Need, A. (2018). Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research. New Media & Society, 20(7), 2647–2669. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817744783 (18 pages)