Surveys the fundamental principles, concepts, and issues in the major areas of basic and applied psychological science. Approaches the study of psychology as a method of inquiry as well as a body of knowledge. Introduces students to research methods and to psychological research on the biological bases of behavior, learning, sensation and perception, cognition and language, development, emotion, social psychology, personality, and psychological disorders.

PSYC

Foundations of Psychology

Introduces the range of topics that are of concern both to psychologists and to members of the legal profession. Covers the legal and ethical issues inherent in the conduct and process of professional psychology. Topics include confidentiality, ethical competence, duty to warn, expert testimony, malpractice, and forensic matters, such as the insanity defense. Discusses professional practice issues revolving around ethical concerns as they relate to specific weekly topics. Specifically, discusses five ethical theories (egoism, utilitarianism, deontology, care ethics, virtue ethics) used in case analysis. Examines the role of ethical theory as it applies to the expert’s self-interest and personal position, positive and negative consequences for the defendant and society at large, psychologist expert duties to themselves, and conflicts. Designed to help students think about the legal system and its role in society today through a psychological lens.

Psychology and the Law

Studies the physical, affective, and cognitive behaviors associated with sport participation and also examines the psychological theories and research related to sport and exercise behavior. Introduces students to the field of sport and exercise psychology by providing a broad overview of the major topics in the area, including the history of sport and exercise psychology, leadership, self-confidence, youth sports, aggression, moral development, team dynamics, anxiety and arousal, goal setting, imagery, and motivation. Covers the psychological makeup of athletes, how psychological factors influence involvement and performance in sport, and helps students acquire the skills and knowledge about sport and exercise psychology that they can apply to their everyday lives.

Sports Psychology

Offers beginning students a general overview of the effects of drug use/abuse in many segments of society with particular attention placed on the collegiate population. Describes historical aspects of drug use for treatments of clinical disease states along with psychological theories of drug abuse and strategies for prevention of drug use/abuse. Covers biological effects emanating from several drug categories and the clinical use of drugs to promote positive therapeutic outcomes.

Drugs and Behavior

Examines the empirical findings, theoretical approaches, and laboratory methods in the science of emotion. Emotion is integral to nearly every part of society, including legal and economic matters, health, and social relationships. But do we truly understand what emotions are and how they work? Offers students an opportunity to practice evaluating claims about emotion made in the popular press, to develop skills in communicating information in science effectively, and to examine the process by which scientists determine whether and how emotion plays a role in a wide range of phenomena (e.g., sports psychology, health, artificial intelligence, etc.).

Emotion

Studies materials that define and describe love and hate from the fields of literature and literary criticism, social psychology, and criminology and criminal justice. &#8220;Love&#8221; and &#8220;hate&#8221; are small words describing powerful emotions with profound effects on individuals and on social groups. Focusing largely on contemporary examples, offers students an opportunity to analyze the differences and areas of overlap in the above fields' approaches to love and hate, to discuss societal responses to these emotions, and to apply the methodologies of each field to research questions of their own. INSH 2101 and PSYC 2101 are cross-listed.

ENGW

ENGL

Love and Hate: Social, Psychological, and Literary Approaches

Covers basic principles of statistical analysis of research data, including descriptive statistics, probability, and hypothesis testing. Supplements AP statistics with more advanced statistical methods and the use of statistical software packages, including analysis of variance and the use of SPSS, which are foundational tools in psychological research but are not covered in the AP statistics curriculum.

Statistics in Psychological Research Supplement

Offers an overview of descriptive and inferential statistics with a focus on psychological applications. Covers standard material in undergraduate statistics including distributions, central tendency, variability, z-scores, the normal distributions, correlation, regression, probability, hypothesis testing (using the z, t, F, and chi-square statistics), and confidence intervals. Should be taken before the end of the sophomore year.

Statistics in Psychological Research

Introduces students to the role of culture in psychological science. Discusses the relationship of culture to psychological theories and research. Investigates psychological research in WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) populations compared to those less frequently studied. Demonstrates possible psychological universals while accounting for cultural influences on psychology and behavior. Critically considers theoretical and methodological issues, accurate interpretation of cross-cultural findings, and practical applications.

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Offers an opportunity to conduct introductory-level research or creative endeavors under faculty supervision.

Research in Psychology

Introduces students to the structure and function of the central nervous system (CNS) from spinal cord to cerebral cortex by using lesions of the human nervous system as a tool to reinforce and amplify learning of the structure and organization of the CNS. Assumes no prior knowledge of brain structures and begins with basic vocabulary, including directions, planes of dissection, and parts of brain cells. Seeks to provide the necessary anatomical foundation for further study in psychology and the neurosciences.

Clinical Neuroanatomy

Offers a systematic study of the normal personality and its development. Focuses on behavioral, dynamic, social, and cognitive determinants, assessment of personality, and current research topics; surveys the major theories of personality.

Personality

Provides an introductory survey of social psychology. Topics include aggression, attribution, attitude formation; and change, attraction, gender and culture, conformity, impression formation, and group processes.

Social Psychology

Examines change throughout the life span in social relationships, emotional functioning, language, cognition, and other psychological domains, with emphasis on infancy through adolescence. Introduces major theories of development. Stresses the interaction of social and cognitive factors in development, and the interaction of the developing person with the environment. Also explores individual and cross-cultural differences in patterns of development, and research issues in developmental psychology.

Developmental Psychology

Addresses diagnosis, theoretical perspectives, anxiety, and defense mechanisms. Examines the symptomatology, etiology, and treatment of a number of disorders including anxiety, dissociative, somatoform, affective (depression, mania), and schizophrenic disorders.

Abnormal Psychology

Offers an introduction to the basic learning and motivational principles that permit humans and animals to adapt effectively to a changing environment. Emphasizes research and theories of operant and Pavlovian conditioning, with discussions of discriminations and generalization, avoidance and punishment, acquired motivational states (for example, addiction), concept formation, biological constraints on learning and behavior, animal cognition, and other related topics. Relates learning and motivational principles to the understanding and treatment of behavioral, affective, cognitive, and motivational disorders.

Learning and Motivation

Introduces the basic concepts and theories of applied behavior analysis as they relate to learning and motivation. Topics include operant and classical conditioning, reinforcement, punishment, extinction, discrimination training, stimulus control, concept formation, and generalization. Throughout the course, offers students an opportunity to apply these principles to learning that occurs in their everyday lives as well as in the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities and other learning disorders.

Learning Principles and Behavior Analysis

Discusses how our five senses work to aid us in perceiving states of the body and of the world, how our perceptions are modified by what we know and expect, and how sensation and perception develop (especially in infancy). Includes discussion of neural and anatomical bases of sensation and perception. PSYC 3458 is highly recommended.

Sensation and Perception

Focuses on the relation between brain function and human behavior. Examines how nerve cells function individually and work together both in small networks and in the nervous system; the structure of the nervous system; how our sense organs provide the nervous system with information about the outside world; how the brain controls movement; and how psychological concepts from motivation to language and memory are represented in the brain.

Biological Psychology

Provides a basic introduction to psycholinguistics. Topics include the nature and structure of languages, processes involved in the production and comprehension of language, the biological bases of language, and aspects of language acquisition. Examines current theories of language processing and related experimental findings.

Psychology of Language

Provides a basic introduction to human cognition. Topics include pattern recognition, attention, memory, categorization and concept formation, problem solving, and aspects of cognitive development. Examines current theories of cognitive processing and related experimental findings.

Cognition

Explores our understanding of the physiological and cognitive aspects of fear, from early theories of emotion to current research in both humans and animal models. Emphasizes linking brain structure to function&#8212;how do different brain regions contribute to fear processing and expression? Also focuses on psychiatric illnesses whose symptoms suggest a maladaptive fear response, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias. What causes these illnesses, and how does our understanding of the neural basis of fear inform our treatment strategies for these disorders? Students who do not meet course prerequisites may seek permission of instructor.

Neuropsychology of Fear

Presents an overview of the field of behavioral endocrinology from a psychological perspective. Examines how hormones influence brain structure and function; how hormones affect behavior and vice versa; sex differences in brain and behavior; and the role of hormones in mood disorders, cognition, and stress.

Behavioral Endocrinology

Explores how our behavior is affected by (and how it affects) our immune system. The brain and the immune system regulate our behavioral responses to the world around us, which helps explain why we feel “down” when we're sick and why we often catch a cold when we're stressed. Offers students an opportunity to better understand how we have evolved to psychologically adapt to environmental challenges—and, importantly, how this can sometimes backfire with mental illness as an outcome. Students who do not meet course prerequisites may seek permission of instructor.

Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

Incorporates themes from cognitive psychology and environmental science to examine how people understand the environment and their place in it and how this understanding varies with culture, informal experience, and formal education. Examines relations between environmental cognition, environmental attitudes, values and norms, and sustainable behavior.

Environmental Psychology

Examines interactions between drugs, brain, and behavior. Focuses on such topics as synaptic transmission, behavioral functions of specific neurotransmitter systems, pharmacological treatment of mental and neurological disorders, and drug abuse.

Psychopharmacology

Examines the behavior of neurological patients and normal patients to develop an understanding of how the human brain works to produce higher mental functions. Topics include discussions of brain scans, human neuroanatomy, cerebral lateralization, language, memory, neurological disorders, and neural plasticity and recovery of function.

Neuropsychology

Explores the neurobiological, genetic, and neurochemical etiology of mental illness as described and categorized according to the DSM. Discusses how psychology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and medicine come together to manage mental illness. Investigates, for each specific mental illness covered, how changes in physiology and biology might manifest in the aberrant behaviors that define psychopathology. Lastly, examines how pharmacology is often used to treat these various mental illnesses and how genetic expression is involved in predisposing some people to these disorders while sparing others.

Clinical Neuroscience

Surveys key quantitative topics in psychology and behavioral neuroscience. Emphasizes theory and modeling, not statistics. Specific topics vary, but all are drawn from domains in which mathematics and computation play a significant role. Topics may include Fourier analysis with applications to vision and hearing, neural circuit computation, signal detection theory applied to human and nonhuman animals' decisions, measurement of sensory magnitudes in vision and hearing, the linear algebraic theory of color matching in humans, and analysis and models of human response time. Students complete weekly readings and a final project, typically involving use of software for data analysis.

MATH

Quantitative Topics in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience

Explores the genetic basis of behavior. Behavioral genetics is considered to lie at the intersection of psychology and genetics and is a dynamic field with plenty of possibility. Offers students an opportunity to hone and develop a stronger foundation in the principles of Mendelian, population, and quantitative genetics. Studies the genetic basis for sleep, social behavior, responses to environmental stimuli, learning, memory, addiction, and the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders.

BIOL

Behavioral Genetics

Addresses the theoretical concepts, design, execution, analysis, and communication of research in psychology. Provides students with various methods to acquire hands-on experience performing a research project of their own creation. Students move systematically through the research process, from refining their original idea in the context of existing literature to interpreting and communicating their results. Requires prior completion of research-area course.

MGSC

Laboratory in Research Design

Introduces the methods of research in psychobiology. Students work in small groups, conducting three to four hands-on laboratory exercises under supervised conditions. Students read selections of the relevant scientific literature, analyze the collected data, and write experimental reports.

Laboratory in Biological Psychology

Provides students the opportunity to acquire firsthand experience in conducting research on issues in the psychology of language. Focuses on experiments and their implications for broader issues of language processing. Involves students in all aspects of each experiment including collecting and analyzing data and preparing lab reports.

Laboratory in Psycholinguistics

Provides students the opportunity to acquire firsthand experience in conducting research on issues in human cognition. Focuses on experiments and their implications for broader issues of cognitive functioning. Involves students in all aspects of each experiment including collecting and analyzing data and preparing lab reports.

Laboratory in Cognition

Provides an introduction to the methods of social-psychological research. Assists students in developing the ability to read published social research with a critical eye, to pose questions in a testable manner, to apply experimental methods to social research, and to express themselves in APA journal style.

Laboratory in Social Psychology

Provides an introduction to the methods and areas of personality research. Discusses problems of measurement, control, and interpretation. Critically examines representative published experiments. Students design, collect data for, assess, and write up several experiments.

Laboratory in Personality

Focuses on experiments using psychophysical methods in the various senses, typically including audition, vision, and others. Students collect data on themselves, analyze the data statistically, and write reports. Critical thinking is stressed.

Laboratory in Sensation and Perception

Provides instruction in the methods of affective science (i.e., the study of what emotions are and how they work). Students are expected to become members of a functioning lab team, which uses a multimethod approach combined with various theoretical frameworks to guide research in affective science. Offers students an opportunity to develop the ability to read the scientific literature; think critically about research questions; design, conduct, and analyze experiments; and write in APA journal style, as well as to gain valuable interpersonal and organizational skills that come from working on a team.

Laboratory in Affective Science

Studies life-span development and how emotional experience, perception, and regulation changes across the life span. Lab teams use a multimethod approach and theoretical frameworks to guide research in emotional development. Offers students an opportunity to learn how to read the scientific literature; think critically about research questions; design, conduct, and analyze experiments; write in the journal style of the American Psychological Association; and gain interpersonal and organizational skills while working on a research team. PSYC 3402 highly recommended.

Laboratory in Life-Span Emotional Development

Offers students an opportunity to acquire firsthand experience in conducting research on issues in human development. Focuses on experimental and observational research across the life span. Involves students in all aspects of each research project, including designing original research, collecting and analyzing data, preparing lab reports, and presenting findings.

Laboratory in Developmental Psychology

Offers intensive study, discussion, and practice in lab studies of physiological variables. Covers evolution of the nervous system, neurological disorders, motivation and emotion, sleep, attention and perception, learning, and memory.

Seminar in Biological Psychology

Offers intensive study and discussion of issues in the psychology of language. Specific topics vary by semester.

Seminar in Psycholinguistics

Offers intensive study and discussion of issues in cognitive psychology. Specific topics vary by semester.

Seminar in Cognition

Provides an in-depth analysis of specific topics in social psychology. Students read original research and theory papers involving these topics, make presentations, and write papers related to their readings.

Seminar in Social Psychology

Focuses on psychotherapy: theory, methods, and outcome research. Provides an overview of clinical psychology: history, ethical and legal issues, the therapeutic relationship, cross-cultural counseling, the process of change. Students write and present papers on a topic of interest.

Seminar in Clinical Psychology

Expects students to present in class on topics such as how perceptions are organized, formed, and modified by sensory, attentional, motivational, and cognitive factors, how our sensory systems extract information from the environment in a consistent and logical manner, despite large changes in environmental conditions, and how to account for this in physiological terms.

Seminar in Sensation and Perception

Offers intensive study and discussion of issues in cognitive neuroscience: the study of human cognitive processes, and their underlying neural substrates. Considers both theoretical and methodological issues, as well as applications to related fields of study. Specific topics vary by semester.

Seminar in Cognitive Neuroscience

Offers intensive study and discussion of issues in developmental psychology, the study of how social, emotional, cognitive, and other psychological processes emerge and change over different periods of the life span. Considers both theoretical and methodological issues, as well as applications to real-world contexts. Specific topics may vary by semester.

Seminar in Developmental Psychology

Addresses fundamental questions about mind-brain mapping (e.g., distributed vs. modular processing, predictive coding, sensory integration, etc.), with a focus on social and affective processing. Offers intensive study and discusses issues in social and affective neuroscience. Considers both theoretical and methodological issues, as well as applications to real-world contexts. Specific topics may vary by semester.

Seminar in Social and Affective Neuroscience

Serves as first-level graduate course in cognition, focusing on theoretical, experimental, and methodological issues. Includes faculty lectures, student presentations, and discussion. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Proseminar in Cognition

Serves as first-level graduate course in sensation, focusing on theoretical, experimental, and methodological issues. Includes faculty lectures, student presentations, and discussion. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Proseminar in Sensation

Serves as first-level graduate course in perception, focusing on theoretical, experimental, and methodological issues. Includes faculty lectures, student presentations, and discussion. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Proseminar in Perception

Serves as first-level graduate course in the biological basis of behavior, focusing on theoretical, experimental, and methodological issues. Includes faculty lectures, student presentations, and discussion. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Proseminar in Biology of Behavior

Serves as first-level graduate course in clinical neuroscience, focusing on theoretical, experimental, and methodological issues. Includes faculty lectures, student presentations, and discussion. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Proseminar in Clinical Neuroscience

Serves as first-level graduate course in social psychology, focusing on theoretical, experimental, and methodological issues. Includes faculty lectures, student presentations, and discussion. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Proseminar in Social Psychology

Presents first course in a two-course sequence that surveys a variety of quantitative methods used in experimental psychology. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology.

Quantitative Methods 1

Continues PSYC 5180. Presents second course in a two-course sequence that surveys a variety of quantitative methods used in experimental psychology. Requires permission of instructor for students who are not enrolled in the PhD program in psychology.

Quantitative Methods 2

Identifies and investigates ethical issues (such as privacy, fairness, social responsibility, or animal use) that research psychologists face in acquiring and using scientific knowledge. Also addresses broader professional issues relevant to pursuing a career as a research psychologist in an academic, government, or industrial setting.

Ethics and Professional Issues

Conducts theoretical and experimental research for the master's degree. May be repeated without limit.

Thesis

Continues research for the master's degree.

Thesis Continuation

Conducts research project in selected area of experimental psychology. May be repeated without limit.

Research Project

Offers in-depth analysis of critical topics in psychology. Specific topics vary by semester. May be repeated without limit.

Special Topics in Psychology

Offers the student the opportunity to conduct doctoral research. May be repeated without limit.