Excellent professor! I loved this class. Her slides are available online and she explains everything so well that it's difficult not to do well. As a bonus, the subject is pretty interesting. There are two tests with multiple choice and fill in the blank (I would recommend reading the book, but most of it is based on the notes). There are also pop quizzes in class based on the reading to make sure you're keeping up with it and not leaving it to right before the test, but they're not worth very much. You get free points for having your iclicker in class, signing up for studies, and printing up questions you have about the test. Take this class!

Professor Shapiro is one of the two best Professors I've ever had at UCLA. Before taking her class I was really dreading Social Psychology, now I'm considering getting a PHD in it. There is no excuse not to get an A in her class. I'm sorry but I find the whining of a previous poster about having to show up to class just laughable. If you actually show up and keep up on the reading the quizzes are pretty damn easy and they all have extra credit questions on them so I averaged over 100%. The class is loaded with extra credit opportunities to the tune of at least 5% of your total grade, and the midterm and final have both extra credit questions on the actual exam and small projects you can do before hand for additional extra credit. There may be a fair amount of work, but I've certainly had classes with a lot more work than this before and a lot lower payout for what you put in. I think it is also worth noting that Professor Shapiro is a charismatic lecturer and genuinely passionate about Social Psychology, just make sure you know stereotype threat well, because as it is her research interest it will definitely be on tests. My impression of her emphasis on tests was not so much in checking if you had memorized the terms but more did you understand the concepts behind the terms. I would also highly recommend this class to guys. The girl to guy ratio was way beyond the normal 60-40 split you find in the psych department and Professor Shapiro is very easy on the eyes.

New professor. Very enthusiastic, but went psycho with the amount of assignments/quizzes/materials counted into the grade.
The class would have been much better if it was based on tests alone. She had way too many quizzes, iclicker attendance, homework, etc. than the class needed. Very unnecessary busy-work. Let's say, I didn't do any iclicking, didn't do a single quiz, was absent to section, and already knew ALL of the material from previous courses (so I never bought the book either) and managed a B+ in the class from tests alone (which I aced) based on my own knowledge. That should give you an idea of how retarded her system is: relying on attendance and busy work.

Professor Shapiro is by far the BEST professor I have had so far in UCLA.

Lecture-wise: She's extremely clear and eloquent, and incorporates various class experiments to keep her students engaged. Her experiments are always humorous and interesting! Also, never hesitate to ask her questions during her class (of 250+ students); she's ALWAYS willing to clarify ambiguity and is very open to everyone's opinions. Every once in a while, she uses clickers during demonstrations/experiments(worth 3% of your grade). You only have to click 70% of the time to get the full 3% participation.

Exams: 1 midterm and 1 final. As the person below me stated: Both exams consist of multiple choice questions (very straight forward) and a writing portion (couple fill-in-the-blanks and some short answers). Do NOT be intimidated by the writing portion. As long as you go through her lecture slides and do the reading, you'll be fine. I took social psychology before with Benjamin Karney, and he was an extremely helpful and knowledgeable professor as well. However, his exams were VERY difficult. His questions were long and tricky, so you have to read them a few times in order to pinpoint exactly what he's trying to ask. However, Professor Shapiro's exams are very clear and to-the-point. As long as you do the reading and go through her lecture notes, you will be able to apply the concepts to her test questions.

Quizzes: There are 6 or 7 pop quizzes, and they are very easy as long as you are caught up with the reading. She'll only quiz you on the reading material for the specific day she hands out the quiz. SO, be sure you do the reading before you go to class! She also drops the lowest quiz. PLUS, she always gives an extra credit question for each of her quizzes!

Misc: There are 6 or 7 journal entries - all are very easy to do! You only need to write 1 paragraph about a social psychological phenomenon and relate it to a real-life event. Very simple assignment.
Other than that, she gives out plenty of extra credit opportunities, so if you did poorly on quizzes, you can make it up through extra points.

Overall, TAKE PROFESSOR SHAPIRO. She's extremely helpful, organized, humorous, clear, concerned, and knowledgeable. I HIGHLY recommend her!

Professor Shapiro is an awesome professor! She gives out a lot of extra credit points! For our class - we could get 3 SONA credits, 2 extra credit for bringing questions to both midterm and final reviews, 1 extra credit for attending PURC, and 1 extra credit for doing in-class questionnaire. There are 6 or 7 in-class surprise quizzes so make sure to do your reading ahead of time and attend the class!! Only two exams (midterm and final) and contain both multiple and short answer questions. The short answer questions are not that hard; if you study your notes and do your reading, you should be fine. She also throws in extra credit questions on the tests (one of them is always a free giveaway)! Oh, and you also have to write weekly journals and turn them in during your section meetings - the journals don't have to be that long (only 1-2 paragraph) and if you follow the instructions, you should be able to get all the points you need. I highly recommend you to take this class!