Plan of School Event by Psychological Theme
Topic and Event
Among the huge range of psychological themes, in order to bring an event to school it is necessary to choose a topic not too theoretical. At least one goal is to evoke student’s interest in Psychology. A good way to do so is to try to link already existing knowledge with new views and facts.
I chose as a topic “The Psychology of Persuasion” because I think it’s a popular opinion among people and already among students in school that as a psychologist you are able to “read one’s mind” or to influence thinking and behaviour of people. Introducing students to Psychology as a science may change their opinion. That’s why during the school event it is important to point out psychological research methods and findings and compare them to the popular knowledge about psychology.
Bringing Psychology to school is showing that we talk about a very unique science, interesting and widespread.
The school event I planned for students from the age of 15 at least comprises a topic related experiment, in which the students should participate, plus two or three lessons to talk about research, some phenomena and findings concerning “The Psychology of Persuasion”, summed up and shortened as “Cialdini’s Weapons”.
I am referring to Robert B. Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
(1999, 2nd edition)) and several scientific articles (see Sources).
1. The Experiment1
One approach to understanding psychological phenomena is participation in an experiment. Let the students being object of psychological research allows a deeper insight into these phenomena. Moreover it gives them the chance to work with real data afterwards.
The experiment or quasi-experiment should take place before the lessons in which the students will get all the information about the psychological topic.
Furthermore, as scientific work requires, students should not be aware of the fact that