Learning objectives
'Understanding Patterns of Action'
Final Year Undergraduate Lecture Course
University of Nottingham, School of Psychology 

General objectives

In addition to the specific objectives listed below for each topic, there are general objectives that apply to all of the topics:

•   To explore the topic beyond the specific material provided in lectures and reading lists, using published literature and the Web

•   To think about the issues to the point where you can explain them in terms that differ from the original presentation or paper, using new examples of your own

Introduction and overview: Concepts of action and structure

•   To state the course objectives and teaching strategies

•   To list the advantages and limitations of the experimental method in psychology, especially in social and applied psychology

•   To define in detail the terms ‘structure’ and ‘system’ as applied to behavioural phenomena

•   To describe the relations between the concepts of ‘action’, ‘behaviour’ and ‘meaning’

Action and language

•   To define basic concepts in the analysis of language, such as ‘competence’, ‘performance’, ‘langue’, ‘parole’, ‘grammar’ and ‘rule’

•   To illustrate the possible application of such terms to the analysis of macro-structures in conversation and patterns of non-verbal action

•   To outline the basic elements in a syntactic theory of action

•   To outline the basic elements in a semantic theory of action

Systems of action

•   To define what ‘systems’ are in terms of four key properties

•   To illustrate systems concepts, such as ‘openness’, ‘equilibrium’, ‘trajectory’ and ‘equifinality’

•   To give a brief account of ‘Catastrophe Theory’ explaining such terms as ‘hysteresis’ and ‘bimodality’

•   To give a brief account of ‘Chaos Theory’ explaining such terms as ‘phase space’, strange attractor’, and ‘sensitive dependency on initial conditions’

•   To describe the basic properties of hierarchical control systems, with behavioural examples

•   To evaluate Clarke’s three-level model of action regulation

Action sequences

•   To give the rationale for the sequence-analytic approach to psychological investigation

•   To describe in detail the stages in carrying out a standard ‘Markovian’ or ‘stochastic’ sequence analysis

•   To explain how the method may be modified to extract other more complex patterns of events

•   To provide examples of real problems where sequence analysis has been used successfully

Action forecasting

•   To describe the history, rationale and framework of forecasting in psychology, and psychology in forecasting

•   To explain in detail the workings of one procedure for qualitative behavioural forecasting which might be used as an action-analysis technique

•   To outline the requirements and problems for evaluation studies in the field of forecasting

•   To illustrate by reference to specific studies how empirical research in forecasting psychology has developed in recent years

Cybernetic and computational models

•   To describe the major parts and properties of a single-loop control system

•   To illustrate the problems and approaches encountered in the analysis of multi-loop phenomena

•   To illustrate hierarchical multi-loop control with behavioural examples

•   To explain the elements of finite-state automata theory, showing how it might be used to represent sequential patterns in human action

The role of emotion

•   To review the main ways in which emotion and cognition could be interrelated

•   To summarise experimental work on mood and memory, and on mood and attention

•   To evaluate the different positions in the Zajonc / Lazarus ‘primacy of emotion’ debate

•   To describe the basic principles behind cognitive therapy for emotional disorders

•   To review the main features of ‘cognitive appraisal’ theories of emotion

•   To describe Clarke’s ‘Micro Affect Theory’ of anticipatory affect and planning

•   To show how cognitive appraisal theory and ‘Micro Affect Theory’ can be elaborated using Teasdale and Barnard’s ICS (interacting cognitive subsystems) model

Action and common-sense understanding

•   To define ‘natural psychology’

•   To review the case for and against a re-unification of scientific and common-sense psychology

•   To enumerate the strengths and weaknesses of common-sense psychology

•   To list the features of an ideal, broad-range psychology

•   To describe the problems of extending tacit knowledge, and strategies for their solution

•   To explain the problem of boundary conditions (or conditional generalisation) and its relevance for applied psychology

•   To explain the problems of particularising from and applying statistical generalisations

•   To summarise the implications of the points above for psychology as a whole

Attribution: Understanding the understanding of others

•   To summarise the basic covariationist models of attribution, and the vignette-based paradigm of investigation

•   To describe the main patterns of error and bias in attribution making

•   To relate attribution theory to theories of self-knowledge, including the studies of Nisbett and Wilson, and White’s reply

•   To contrast the roles of implicit and explicit psychological knowledge in self-understanding

•   To review the recent development of language-based models of attribution

•   To evaluate the current position of attribution theory and research overall

•   To summarise and evaluate the main themes and concepts of the module overall