Spring 2027

Social Influence in Political Behavior

The course examines how social influence shapes political attitudes and actions, focusing on emotions, economics, intergroup relations, social networks, and evolutionary or psychological explanations.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Matthew Pietryka

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2007: 2.73 GPA, 33.1% A/AB (n=121 letter grades); Fall 2007: 2.88 GPA, 35.9% A/AB (n=64 letter grades); Spring 2008: 2.98 GPA, 39.1% A/AB (n=69 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Analyze the limitations of "common sense" reasoning when explaining complex political and social phenomena.

  • Understand the fundamental principles of social network analysis, including concepts such as homophily and transitivity.

  • Examine how political behaviors, ideologies, and emotions spread through social networks via contagion and emergent processes.

  • Critique traditional individualistic models of political behavior by applying a network-oriented perspective to case studies of elections and social movements.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
POLISCI 404

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 600

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2007: 2.73 GPA, 33.1% A/AB (n=121 letter grades); Fall 2007: 2.88 GPA, 35.9% A/AB (n=64 letter grades); Spring 2008: 2.98 GPA, 39.1% A/AB (n=69 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Emotions, economics, and intergroup relations as they relate to politics.
  • Social networks shaping attitudes and behavior, plus evolutionary and psychological reasons for sensitivity to social influence.

Skills

  • Analyze the limitations of common-sense reasoning when explaining complex political and social phenomena.
  • Understand fundamental principles of social network analysis, including homophily and transitivity.
  • Examine how political behaviors, ideologies, and emotions spread through social networks via contagion and emergent processes.
  • Critique traditional individualistic models of political behavior using a network-oriented perspective in election and social movement case studies.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2008— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2008

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2008 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

716 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
POLISCI 404 · Spring 2027

Social Influence in Political Behavior

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:778:027451",
    "course_id": "POLISCI 404",
    "course_uid": "course_93374ed67400abeb9f214937",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "027451",
    "source_subject_id": "778",
    "title": "Social Influence in Political Behavior",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "e16dcd5d072a4a517a13c947898a5265cfaab4cc81584fcaa27a5866ccfb98ed",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}