Unit 14: Social Psychology Movie Poster Project
For this project you will create a movie poster and a movie review based on one of the social psychology experiments described in the online articles “Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies” and “Why Smart People Do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 More Brilliant Social Psychology Studies.”
The experiments are listed below:

Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies
  1. The Halo Effect: When Your Own Mind is a Mystery
  2. How and Why We Lie to Ourselves: Cognitive Dissonance
  3. War, Peace and the Role of Power in Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment
  4. Our Dark Hearts: The Stanford Prison Experiment
  5. Just Following Orders? Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiment
  6. Why We All Stink as Intuitive Psychologists: The False Consensus Bias
  7. Why Groups and Prejudices Form So Easily: Social Identity Theory
  8. How to Avoid a Bad Bargain: Don't Threaten
  9. Why We Don't Help Others: Bystander Apathy
  10. I Can't Believe My Eyes: Conforming to the Norm
/ Why Smart People Do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 More Brilliant Social Psychology Studies
  1. Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read
  2. The Truth About Self-Deception
  3. How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation
  4. Why Groups Fail to Share Information Effectively
  5. Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive
  6. The Chameleon Effect
  7. How Other People’s Unspoken Expectations Control Us
  8. When Situations Not Personality Dictate Our Behavior
  9. Finding The Surprising Gaps in Your Self-Knowledge
  10. Stereotypes: Why We Act Without Thinking

Instructions:

  1. Read the information provided (on the web sites) about the social psychology experiments, and choose the experiment you would like to focus on for the project. No more than 2 students can select the same experiment in each class.
  2. Brainstorm how the experiment could be transformed into a movie (plot, type of movie, characters, settings…)
  3. Create a movie poster which advertises your movie (see below)
  4. Write a review of your movie (see below)

Movie Poster / 1-2 page Movie Review
  • Creative movie title (large lettering)
  • Tagline
  • Characters (including any prominent psychologists and participants in the study)
  • Actors/Actress who will play these characters
Production credits (director, producer, writer, studio, soundtrack/music, website, etc.)
  • Color Illustration/picture
  • Release date (or “coming soon”)
  • Rating
  • Neat, colorful, demonstrates your best work
  • See examples on the back 
/
  • Begin with a short statement than answers the question, “what is the movie about?”
  • Describe the major events of the film
  • Describe the key characters of the film
  • Include a plot summary that describes the main components of the experiment and the outcome.
  • Reference social psych terms, concepts and ideas from Chapter 16.


Kelsey Halfen