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CAS 408 – Interpersonal Influence

Students Teaching Students

In coordination with an undergraduate-run organization called Students Teaching Students, CAS department faculty members mentor exemplary students who develop and teach 1-credit courses on a variety of subjects that advance expertise in communication and its role in public life. This semester, Associate Teaching Professor Lori Bedell is supporting undergraduates Kara Miller (who was in Lori’s RCL course a few years back) and Jess Strait as they teach a course titled “Period Talk: The Impact of Stigma on the Menstrual Equity Movement.”
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CAS 408 – Interpersonal Influence

Because humans live in groups, they must grapple with who is in charge and how to get along with each other. All social animals have devised various means of answering these basic questions, but humans have the added complexities associated with the use of language and argument. This course aims to show how basic problems of sociality play out in common contemporary interactions such as getting help from others, enforcing rules and obligations, providing advice, and changing opinions. It covers theories of message production and of message effects, all of which are evaluated from evolutionary, social, and cognitive meta-perspectives.