This is a survey of psychology that fulfills the lab science (Y) GE. We meet three times a week for lecture/discussion sessions that cover foundational topics in psychology such as development, the biological bases of behavior, cognitive and social factors that impact behavior, and learning. There is also a weekly lab section where we explore how to apply the scientific method to understand behavior. This course serves students interested in studying psychology as a major or minor as well as students simply looking to complete their lab science requirement.
This course provides an overview of the basic principles of psychological research, various methodological approaches, and the statistics used to organize and analyze data. The concepts and skills cultivated are necessary for the research courses that follow in the psychology curriculum, and the ability to think critically about psychological science plays a role in all classes in the department. This course carries a Q GE overlay and is a required course for the psychology major and minor.
This lecture/discussion course provides an overview of the psychological study of reasoning. We approach topics such as decision making and problem solving with the perspective that such cognitive activities rely on the representation and processing of information. Students can take PSYC 290 as an elective in the psychology curriculum or in conjunction with PSYC 291 as their 200-level research combination.
PSYC 291 is “yoked” to PSYC 290; a subset of the students from the content course takes this research class as a requirement for the major or minor. Students are introduced to correlational and experimental research. During the semester, students complete three studies, each consisting of a brief literature review, design, data collection, analysis, and writing an APA style research report. The course fulfills a W overlay in the GE curriculum.
The seminar emphasizes the use of primary materials and discussion to develop student knowledge about a specific topic in psychology. I have taught several versions of the seminar course:
Creativity and Cognition. One of the truly wondrous aspects of human cognition is its generative nature. This seminar focuses primarily on the cognition that underlies creative thought. Basic empirical work examining problem solving, conceptual combination, and analogy are discussed in relation to creativity. In addition, we consider case studies of “creative” individuals, historical, social, and cultural factors that impact creativity, the possible relationship between mental illness and creativity, as well as numerous other digressions and topics of interest.
(un)consciousness. This seminar examines the assumptions we have about consciousness (and the unconscious) so that we can better understand how it impacts our thinking about psychology more generally. We begin by reading a selection of historical works in order to understand how the concept has been formalized in psychological theorizing. Building off our initial inquiry, we explore more contemporary issues such as the neural correlates of consciousness and the role of unconscious processing (thus delimiting the role of consciousness). The final section of the course focuses on topics students have identified as being of interest during the semester.
The Life of the Mind. The purpose of this seminar is to consider factors (besides just the mental processing) that play significant roles in our thinking and reasoning. For instance, the developmental trajectory of our cognitive abilities is fascinating and can inform the understanding of our mature, “fully formed” cognition. There is ample evidence that our thinking is influenced and constrained by our physical bodies in important ways. How we use technology impacts how we think. The social and cultural milieus that surround us shape and inform our mental activities in fundamental ways. To truly understand the life of the mind, we need to expand our lens beyond just the mental activities we associate with thinking.
This course examines basic cognitive functions, e.g. memory and attention, from both psychological and neuroscientific perspectives. We focus on cognition itself and how it applies to a range of issues such as education and social behaviors. Students take PSYC 330 as an elective or in conjunction with PSYC 331 as their 300-level research combination.
PSYC 331 is “yoked” to PSYC 330; a subset of the students from the content course takes this research class as a requirement for the major. This course focuses on using more complex experimental methodologies and give students more independence in their research. During the semester, students complete two research projects.
This course examines major issues in psychology. These issues include mind-body relations; processes of knowledge acquisition such as perception and learning; nature and nurture; the nature of mind and consciousness; characteristics of human motivation and personality; and the nature of thought and memory. We also consider the philosophy of scientific inquiry in relation to the field of psychology. The course is a unifying experience for psychology majors.
This course is designed to introduce first year students to college level writing. To focus our inquiries, we consider the notion of "innovation". We incorporate multiple lenses - including historical, cultural, environmental, and psychological perspectives - to examine how and why innovation occurs. As we explore the topic, students practice different forms of writing. We engage explicitly with the writing process (drafting, review, and revision) as the students produce four formal papers and final portfolio of their work.