MSc Social Psychology

Entry standards

Normally a First or Upper Second class honours degree in psychology from a UK university (or recognised equivalent overseas qualification). 

English language requirements

Non-native speakers of English will normally be required to have IELTS 6.5 or above, with a minimum of 6.0 in each component (or equivalent).

Please note that the University of Surrey offers English language programmes and is also an IELTS Test Centre.

MSc Social Psychology - structure and modules

Module Titles

Compulsory modules:

• Social Change and Influence
• Self and Identity in Context
• Quantitative Research Approaches
• Qualitative Research Approaches
• Critical Reflections on Social Psychological Research
• Crafting Research: Linking Theories and Methods

Module Overview

You are required to complete two compulsory core-content modules and four compulsory research-oriented modules. In addition, you will need to complete two additional modules of your choice, selected from the MSc module catalogue and from a list of final-year undergraduate modules.

You will also be required to present a dissertation comprising an original piece of empirical research within any area of social psychology. Your dissertation will be approved and supervised by one of the Department’s academic staff.

Core-content Modules

Social Change and Influence

This module provides an advanced understanding of current theories of social change and influence in social psychology.

Self and Identity in Context

This module introduces you to current advances in theories of identity and self-concept from a social psychological perspective.

Research-oriented Modules

Qualitative Research Approaches
Quantitative Research Approaches

These two modules provide you with a background in the philosophy underlying research methods and the skills to assess and conduct qualitative and quantitative research effectively.

Critical Reflections on Social Psychological Research

This module exposes you to a range of methods, techniques and tools to enable you to make informed choices about how to conduct your own empirical research.

Crafting Research: Linking Theories and Methods

This module aims to enable you to link theoretical and empirical questions to social issues and to provide you with an in-depth understanding of the practical applications and action implications of social psychological theories and empirical findings.

Subject information

Social Psychology at Surrey 

These are just a few of the questions explored and researched by the social psychologists at the University of Surrey: 

• Does gossip distinguish humans from animals? 
• Why can some people resolve conflicts but others cannot? 
• Why do people kill and die for their national identities? 
• Why do women seem to have gender more than men do? 
• How is society transformed by new genetic technologies? 
• Why do right-wing groups tell their most loyal members that they hate themselves? 
• How is ‘social integration’ described when ‘multiculturalism’ is debated in the media? 

As psychologists, we study human action, emotion, cognition and discourse. As social psychologists, we understand human behaviour to be inseparable from its social context. We use a range of methodologies, including experiments, questionnaires, interviews and archival analyses. Our work is organised around investigating novel, surprising, creative explanations of the ways that people are. As the anthropologist Michelle Rosaldo put it, ‘social beings first, and individuals only second’. 

The MSc Social Psychology features specialist modules which draw on classic and contemporary research, to allow you to engage with a diverse range of methodological practices and draw on the programme team’s diverse professional skills.

MSc Social Psychology - entry standards

Entry standards

Normally a First or Upper Second class honours degree in psychology from a UK university (or recognised equivalent overseas qualification). 

English language requirements

Non-native speakers of English will normally be required to have IELTS 6.5 or above, with a minimum of 6.0 in each component (or equivalent).

Please note that the University of Surrey offers English language programmes and is also an IELTS Test Centre.

Application procedure

Planned intake

20

Start date

September

Programme director

• Dr Adrian Coyle

MSc Social Psychology - fees and funding

Fees

Social Psychology (full time):

UK/EU - £6,400 
Overseas - £14,830

Social Psychology (part time):

UK/EU - £3,200 
Overseas - £7,415

www.surrey.ac.uk/pgfees/2012

Funding opportunities

Funding Opportunities 

Funding is now linked to continuation funding for a PhD – that is, successful applicants to the Economic and Social Research Council will be given a grant for the MSc year and then further support (subject to satisfactory progress) to enable them to undertake a PhD. Occasionally students receive financial support from industry through sponsorship. This would involve students undertaking a piece of research for their dissertation which would be of interest and value to industry or commerce, in return for which they will be given a grant by the commissioning company. In the past this sponsorship has ranged from £500 to £6000.

MSc Social Psychology - professional context

Professional recognition

Recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council for research training.

MSc Social Psychology - teaching

Staff perspective

Dr Adrian Coyle

Rather than focusing on one particular perspective, we encourage students to engage fully with the diversity of outlooks and approaches represented across the teaching and across the social psychology staff here.

Our hope is that, through this, students will be able to piece together their own perspectives on social psychological questions in an informed way – to find their own voice – as well as to assess other perspectives. The development of such a wide-ranging and informed critical outlook is a valued skill that transfers readily to a host of professional contexts.

The commitment to pluralism within social psychology at Surrey certainly makes for an intellectually stimulating environment. Its fruits can be readily seen in the diverse ways that students have addressed a range of socially important research topics in their dissertations.

We also strongly encourage students to present their dissertation work at conferences and to submit it for publication so that it can be heard and can stand a chance of influencing social policy and practice. That might sound like a rather grandiose aspiration but research by Surrey students has done just that in the past. Hence it’s not so far-fetched to say, ‘Come to Surrey and prepare to change the world’!

MSc Social Psychology - learning

suggested_reading

Recommended Reading 

There is no requirement for you to have read up on social psychology prior to commencing the programme. However, when compiling your application, you will be asked what relevant reading you have done and you may find it useful if you are invited for interview. 

The most important journals in which social psychologists tend to publish their work are: 

• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 
• Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 
• Personality and Social Psychology Review 
• Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 
• British Journal of Social Psychology 
• European Journal of Social Psychology 
• Discourse and Society 
• Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 

Dissertation and Projects

Dissertation Titles 

The MSc Social Psychology stimulares interest in a wide variety of research areas. Below is a list of recent dissertation titles to give you an idea of the range of subjects and environments studied on the programme: 

• Exploring language and identity through the reflective accounts of second generation Asians: a qualitative study 
• Conflict management in work teams 
• Attitudes of UK citizens towards the enforcement of security measures, their results and their consequences: a conjoint analysis 
• Social memories of the Second World War: exploring the relationship between British identity and the European Union 
• Construction of national identities and the other in political discourses in the context of the intergroup conflict resolution in Cyprus 
• Explicit and implicit methods for measuring gender differences in sexual prejudice 
• Sexism and feminism: a not so ambivalent relationship 
• Constructing America: a qualitative analysis of presidential inauguration speeches 
• In the name of freedom: a discourse analysis of Liberal Democrat justifications for and oppositions to military intervention

MSc Social Psychology - graduate profile

Graduate Profile: Ola Musleh

Social Psychology

Surrey was highly recommended by one of my professors at Bethlehem University, who took his Masters degree at Surrey.

The programme was stimulating and very challenging. The teaching methods are based on the students’ interests and encourage students to build their critical thinking and their personal and professional development within different fields of psychology. I enjoyed the discussions that took place between me, my classmates and my teachers. Those discussions contributed significantly to developing us as psychologists, and I appreciated my lecturers’ involvement which impacted on my dissertation and made it worthwhile presenting at international and local conferences.

I’ve developed many skills including self-awareness, other-awareness, personal development, critical thinking, setting long-term and short-term goals and how to achieve them, engaging in selfreflection and providing constructive criticism. I also learned to give respect to all people of different religions, nationalities, sexualities, genders and ages. 

For people in my country, studying in the UK is a dream, so coming to the UK, and to Surrey, was a life-changing experience. It changed my perspective on life and my approach to living it, and made me more open to the world. I am more self-aware and more attuned to the things that are happening globally related to politics, sociology and religion.

Surrey helped in making me a better person and because of that, if I ever have the chance to get my PhD, Surrey will be my first and only choice.

MSc Social Psychology - more

Aims of Social Psychology at Surrey

The Social Psychology programme aims to: 

• Provide you with advanced knowledge of the history and philosophy of social psychology, and a competent understanding of classic and contemporary theories, findings and methodologies in the field 
• Train you to engage in the practices that make up both ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ research 
• Engage and expand your ability to think critically and to discuss theories and findings about the social nature of human beings 
• Train you to formulate research problems, to select and apply appropriate methodologies, to interpret resultant quantitative and qualitative data, and to communicate your research effectively to a diverse range of audiences 
• Develop your interpersonal, technical and communication skills 
• Raise your awareness of related disciplines including sociology, anthropology, cognitive science and history to assist your engagement in cross-disciplinary dialogue 
• Enable you to link social psychological theories and empirical findings to social issues, with a view to understanding the practical policy implications of research, and research-led interventions in public life 
• Inform you about the procedures and practices of ethical research conduct 

These educational goals are realised through teaching and learning strategies on both the taught modules and the individual dissertation which aim to enhance your ability to become an active member of the social psychology profession.

Social Psychology Research 

The Social Psychology Research Group has an international reputation in research and teaching. The Group includes full-time academic staff, research officers, postdoctoral research fellows, PhD students, MSc students and visiting academics. Students on the MSc in Social Psychology are encouraged to participate in the Department’s ongoing activities, particularly research seminars. 

The Group undertakes research for the EU, UK research councils, government departments and agencies, industry and commerce, and the charitable sector. 

Social psychologists at Surrey have attracted a large number of research projects to the Department, including: 

• Social and behavioural consequences of AIDS/HIV (ESRC) 
• Cross-national studies of the social and psychological determinants of proenvironmental attitudes and behaviours (EU) 
• The 16–19 initiative project on the political and economic socialisation of 16–19 year olds (ESRC) 
• Monitoring and modelling consumer perceptions of food-related risks (MAFF)

Psychology at Surrey 

The Department of Psychology at the University of Surrey is one of the most active and highly regarded psychology departments in the country. We specialise in applied and policy-oriented teaching and research within a strong theoretical context. The international, interdisciplinary, policy and applied strengths of the Department mean that students’ theoretical and methodological research puts them at the cutting edge of the discipline. 

We are one of the highest ranked departments in the country for graduates entering employment, and also one of the largest providers of postgraduate training in the UK. 

The University of Surrey Department of Psychology has been the centre for many cross-national studies and has attracted funding from research councils and local and national government departments, such as ESF, Defra, the MoD, the Home Office, the Environment Agency, the Countryside Agency, Surrey County Council and the EU. 

If you choose to study psychology at the University of Surrey, you will be provided with a combination of opportunities that would be hard to match elsewhere. We offer you a degree that provides a thorough grounding in the theories, methods and practice of contemporary psychology. 

Our programmes lay particular emphasis on the application of psychology to real-world problems, and also consider issues related to professional practice in preparation for your career as a professional psychologist. The basis of good postgraduate courses is the research activity of staff, the incorporation of current research programmes in teaching material and a reciprocal relationship between theory development and applied research in everyday contemporary issues. We believe in involving all postgraduate students in the research life of the Department through active participation in one of the research groups, by attendance at research seminars and, where possible, an attachment to ongoing research projects. As a student of the Department of Psychology, you will also have access to a number of conferences, seminars and workshops hosted throughout the year.

MSc Social Psychology - apply

• MSc Social Psychology - Full-time - starting September 2012
• MSc Social Psychology - Part-time - starting September 2012