Resource:
The POWER OF US Course: A Syllabus For Teaching About Social Identity
This course, created by psychologists Dominic Packer & Jay Van Bavel, provides an overview of the psychology of shared social identities and their surprising influence on human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Students will learn frameworks for understanding identity and group dynamics from the book The Power of Us. Videos and case studies can be used to analyze effective and problematic uses of identity in achieving cooperation, reducing bias, and fostering social change. Students will apply course principles through projects focused on harnessing the power of shared identities.
The course is broken into 10 weeks of content (each week focuses on a different chapter from the book). However, the length can be adapted to add exams (e.g., adding two midterms and a final exam turns this into 13 week course) or assignments (e.g., we recommend adding a day at the end for class presentations).
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Explain theories on social identity, social categorization, and intergroup relations
- Analyze how shared identities shape perceptions, beliefs, values, and behaviors
- Assess the role of identity in contemporary issues like polarization, inequality, and climate change
- Evaluate effective and problematic uses of identity in case studies
- Design interventions to leverage shared identity for cooperation, performance, and overcoming bias
