A review is due for this course and professor.

Personal take on the professor: Professor Brannon is a kind professor, who is happy to answer a lot of questions. In the my experience writing research papers at UCLA, I had encountered professors with power-tripping issues, and often refused to answer basic questions to help out students write their papers. Brannon, thankfully, is not one of those professors. If you want to do well on an assignment, you could literally ask her for advice on an idea, and she'll tell you her thoughts. The only bummer can be her lecturing style; she can put you to sleep with that voice, and the lectures are long. One other thing, this quarter was supposed to be in person, but Omnicron had other plans for us; this whole review is based on a virtual experience.

Best part of the class: Teacher/TA WANT you to do well; Brannon isn't a tough grader.

Worst part of the class: The giant weekly articles

Participation assignments: 10% -- Easy A, subjective answers, completed in class. Sometimes you just fill out a few question survey. The most I ever did was type a paragraph. Questions are simple, and relevant to the course topics. (ex: we were talking about socio-political topics in lecture, and a participation assignment asked, if you were researching a topic, what would be a set-back for you).

In-class Exam: 20%-- open note. This was very difficult for me (I got a B). The exam was based on all the articles we had read up until the halfway point of the quarter, & knowing the basics of a 2x2 design. I read all of the articles and attended every lecture. I asked what to focus on for the exam, and I got one of those, "as long as you have been keeping up w the readings and lectures you should be fine" answers. WRONG. Take notes on every article (just the who/what/why/conclusion points). I didn't take notes, I just paid attention, and it wasnt enough. I was not ready for the comprehension test despite keeping up with the class, it was way harder than they said it would be. The class averaged an 81% for the exam, thats all you need to know.

Group Project: 20% -- you design a 2-part (1 qualitative/1 experimental) study on a social psych topic that is preassigned to you. Your group will be 4-5 people and you create a powerpoint show that you present at the end of the quarter. I hated this personally, bc I was paired w a group of pseudo intellectual preppy brats that enjoy the idea of the college experience but complain about the actual work tied to it. My advice? Take charge, especially when you sense laziness in your group. I did that, and it saved my grade.

Introduction Paper: 10% -- Easy A. Follow the exact guideline they provide you, and you will be good. its 3 pages long, double-spaced. And its the first half of your research report mentioned below. I put time into it, but I got a 98%. A lot of people got 100%!

Critique Exercise: 5% -- Easy A; A simple 1 page paper. you read the introduction of another student any anonymously critique it and submit it. Introductions will have already been graded by the professor, so if anything, its just a student exercise,

Research Report: 25% -- Regarding your project. Half of this is your introduction. The other half, you write a methods, anticipated results, and discussion section. I felt very comfortable writing this bc they provide guidelines so you have a framework to refer to. I greatly appreciated that help. Biggest challenge? the 7-page limit. Restraint is everything when you write a research paper.

Class Participation: 10% -- Attendance is taken. Be there or be square. Plus, if you wanna do well on the exam, you wanna hear what key points re the articles you've read about to focus on. I showed up but I let boredom get the best of me. Pay attention when she's talking about articles, for real, no matter how bored you get.

I took this class simply as a filler, and it turned out to be one of my favorite classes I've taken at UCLA thus far. I remember being worried to take this class because her ratings on this website aren't great, but DONT BE FOOLED. Professor Brannon is a great teacher and I absolutely recommend this course. The workload is very very manageable, the tests are easy and open note, and furthermore, you actually gain really cool insights on how psychology varies across cultures. If you're a psych major in particular and plan on doing something in the field of psychology, I think this class is vital for your career. Prof Brannon is also dependable when it comes to answering emails, and she's always more than understanding with anything. The one thing is that her lectures aren't bruincasted, so if you want the full experience of this class attendance is mandatory (but worth it).

What are these reviews?! Professor Brannon was an amazing professor! This class is very easy and engaging. Make sure you do the readings (for the midterm), and you're golden.

tl;dr if you have no other choice this class is not hard to get an A in, just be prepared for the longest quarter of your life

can confirm that this prof's lecturing style is super annoying ... she basically talks at you in a monotone voice for hours each week about irrelevant topics and random LONG studies. I honestly learned NOTHING from this class and the group project was a joke; you're better off reading papers on your own to learn abt research methods. she is also kind of rude and was v disparaging and borderline passive-aggressive to a classmate when they tried to talk to her abt a grade. the upside is that this is a pretty easy class; she gave a lot of extra credit opportunities & if you put in the work you can probably get an A. here's the breakdown:
- participation grade assignments: 10% (these are super easy completion-based assignments that she'll sometimes give in class to take attendance)
- in-class exam: 20% (this took place in wk 6 and was 25 qs: 10 mc and 5 short answer. this exam was annoying & the class avg was 79%, so bad that she bumped everyone's grade up by 2%. it also took almost everyone the full class time to finish (2hrs). but it was also open note/open material and after cramming the night before I got an A on it, so definitely possible)
- group project: 20% (she assigns you to groups and you come up with a RQ which you use to design one experimental and one non-experimental study. you have to give a final presentation which is 20-25mins with your group. everything is hypothetical so it wasn't the most fun project to work on)
- writing exercise: 10% (3pg introduction paper on your study. I got an 86 and honestly the prof/TA did not grade this fairly but its not a huge part of your grade)
- critique assignment: 5% (1pg single-spaced anonymous critique of someone else's intro paper. super easy 100)
- research report: 25% (full 7pg paper on study; can't comment too much on this yet)
- class attendance/participation: 10%

tl;dr if you have no other choice this class is not hard to get an A in, just be prepared for the longest quarter of your life

Professor Brannon is an amazing professor and you will not regret taking this class. The subject itself is super interesting (and it's awesome that Brannon has conducted a lot of the research). You'll be easily able to apply class material to your life. Exams are very straightforward (it was open note in person) and we had 2 small papers (easy, just talk about how class material applies to your life). Learned a lot in this class, don't skip on taking it.

Dr. Brannon's course was very enjoyable and super applicable to many things. As someone interested in IO psych/ Org behavior, I think this course was very relevant to DEI in organizations/institutions. I loved how Dr. Brannon explained key issues, but also presented possible solutions to promote inclusion and belonging. She was also very understanding during difficult times on campus, and changed the grading policy so that the final was optional if we did well on the midterm. It is clear that she truly cares about her students and is also very passionate about cultural psychology.

She also gave out 2 extra points for extra credit! All I had to do was find an article that was relevant to the lectures/readings, explain why the article was relevant, and email it to her. The coursework was extremely manageable. In terms of the readings, there were a lot, but I think you could just skim through them. I read all of them in depth because they were very interesting!

Midterm and final were both very easy and straightforward - both were online/on Canvas given the situation on campus.

Professor Brannon really cares about the students' learning and does whatever she can to help. The lectures and readings are both very helpful and engaging. She expands knowledge beyond the classroom and how we can use it in real life. The discussions were not great, but that is because break out rooms were on zoom. If i would change anything, it would be to have readings that were easier to comprehend.

Dr. Brannon is incredibly knowledgeable and compassionate. She is very accommodating and assignments for 137F are very minimal. She has weekly assigned readings but she goes over them in her slides anyway. Easy A and everything is based on new research so it's never boring. Take this class!

I loved everything about the class! The format for the online class changed slightly. We had two essays (midterm and final that were quite doable), one exam, and discussion questions due every week (for participation and understanding of material).

The only thing I would advise is to not miss class and be on time. She does not record lectures although if it is in person, it doesn't count. She also does talk a bit fast.

The workload was not too much, and the topics were amazing!

Not only was this class easy, it was super interesting. I felt like I learned so much, my eyes were opened to so many things that I never thought twice about. Dr. Brannon is accommodating, kind, and an excellent lecturer who has done many studies in the past that have been revealing about different cultures, racism, and more. Courseload is pretty light, just a few readings before each class which I wouldn’t say are necessary but are interesting to read. She goes over the important ones, and does ask a few questions about some that aren’t covered in class on the exams. Five times in the quarter you get the opportunity to submit “discussion questions” which are just two questions that you have about the material that has recently been covered. You only need to submit three out of the five times to get full credit. There are two papers, a midterm reflection paper and final reflection paper. These are each one and a half to two pages long, just talking about what you’ve gotten/learned from the course. Very easy. There is a midterm exam and final exam, which isn’t cumulative. Each exam is thirty multiple choice questions and you get the full hour and a half of class to complete it, which is plenty of time. They are open note/open book as well, so as long as you understand/know the material and have it on hand you should score well. There are soooo many extra credit opportunities offered throughout the quarter, there’s no way you can fail this class. Overall, this is probably one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at UCLA. Please take it with Dr. Brannon!!