Conclusion

This free course introduced you to a social psychology developed for a twenty-first century where grounds, it feels, are continuously shifting. Social, political, technological change is permanent and so is the requirement that we make sense of these ever-transforming situations. Social psychology, as introduced in this free course, is the science of making sense in a disciplined and systematic way of the various practices by which we in our everyday lives make sense of the world around us – as well as ourselves in the ever-transforming situations.

You therefore completed a number of activities which helped you understand the everyday sense-making occurring around you. You learned about the concepts of the frame and the symbol which are the essentials of sense-making. And you also saw how the perspective of sense-making can be applied to a classic study in social psychology.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course D360 Social psychology for the 21st century. You can find out more about The Open University courses and qualifications, tuition fees and funding options by visiting our online prospectus.