Introduces prospective majors to the scientific study of behavior and mental processes and also provides an overview for non-majors. Emphasizes social, cognitive, developmental, and personality psychology and their interrelations.
Instructor
Cambpell Leaper, Hannah Raila, Jeremy Yamashiro
General Education Code
PE-H
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
An introduction to elementary statistical principles and techniques relevant to psychological research. Topics covered include basic parametric and nonparametric statistics, analysis of variance, and simple factorial designs. This course is prerequisite to PSYC 181.
Instructor
Audun Dahl, Kim Cardilla
General Education Code
SR
Quarter offered
Winter, Spring, Summer
Addresses psychological development from conception through adolescence. Provides an overview of developmental psychology.
Instructor
Nameera Akhtar, Adriana Manago, Katie Silva
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Introduces basic concepts in cognitive psychology with a focus on theoretical explanations of cognitive functioning. Topics include perception, attention, memory, concepts, language, visual cognition, executive functions, and reasoning processes. (Formerly course 20A.)
Instructor
Jason Samaha, Alan Kawamoto, Bryan Holbrook
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
An analysis of contemporary research in social psychology and of what that research can teach us about the world we live in. Problems of conformity, propaganda, prejudice, attraction, and aggression. Focuses on a person's relationship with other people, how he or she influences them and is influenced by them.
An overview of major personality theories from Freud to the modern day, and an introduction to contemporary research on personality development and assessment.
An introduction to research methods used to investigate human psychology. Course emphasizes critical thinking, designing and conducting research, analyzing and interpreting data, and writing a professional research report.
Instructor
Campbell Leaper, Benjamin Storm, Rebecca Covarrubias
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
These topics, offered at different times by different instructors, examine selected topics in developmental psychology.
Focuses on individual and relational development from early adolescence into emergin adulthood. Emphasis on the mutual influences of family relationships and adolescent development, and on the interface of family, peer group, and school experience in cultural contexts.
Instructor
Margarita Azmitia
Overview of the cultural, societal, biological, interpersonal, and cognitive processes of adult development and aging. Class discusses how each of these contexts and processes promotes stability and change as adults experience adulthood, reflect on their lives, and prepare for death.
Instructor
Margarita Azmitia
Focuses on psychological development in infancy. Presents research on perceptual, cognitive, and social-emotional development during the first two years of life.
Instructor
Nameera Akhtar
Cognition in children from infancy through adolescence. Basic and current research on children's understanding of the social and physical world. Focus on major theoretical perspectives: especially Piaget's constructivist approach and sociocultural approach.
Quarter offered
Fall, Spring
An examination of contemporary theory and research on social and emotional development from infancy through childhood.
Examines the developmental psychology of gender in childhood and adolescence.
Instructor
Campbell Leaper
An overview of psychological theories and principles applied to formal and informal educational settings. Topics include: learning, motivation, cultural diversity, individual differences, and assessment. Students complete a research project.
How and why do children develop into moral beings? This course covers key theories and empirical research about the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of moral development, including psychoanalytic, behaviorist, constructivist, nativist, and evolutionary approaches.
Examines interdisciplinary theory, research, and methods of studying the cultural basis of human development, and variations and similarities in human lives and practices in the United States and worldwide cultural communities.
Instructor
Barbara Rogoff
General Education Code
CC
Examines theory and research on developmental psychopathology. Emphasizes the origin and longitudinal course of disordered behavior. Explores the processes underlying continuity and change in patterns of adaptation and age-related changes in manifestations of disorders.
Instructor
Kimberly Cardilla
What is the role of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in human development and sociocultural change? Offers insights into how human cultures are changing with the proliferation of ICTs by examining how ICTs are incorporated into cognitive, social, and identity development in late childhood through adulthood.
Instructor
Adriana Manago
Making children's lives better is the ultimate objective of the developmental scientists who study children's development and the professional practitioners who work with children and families. Course bridges basic and applied research in effort to redesign future policy and practice initiatives for children and families.
Examines the development and behavioral ecology of children affected by war. Discusses refugee children, displaced children, abandoned children, orphaned children, children living in protracted conflict, and child soldiers. Reviews child protection strategies and psychosocial intervention for war-affected children.
Reviews child survival in life-threatening contexts. Examines the lives of street children, institutionalized children, orphans, children in extreme poverty, enslaved children, war-affected children, abandoned children, and children whose parents have HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses.
Reviews recent research on how children come to understand the human mind, such as desire, belief, goals, and intention. Also discusses the implications of this research on typically and atypically developing children.
Uses The Hunger Games trilogy to explore contextual factors in child development and critically examine the parallels between Panem and the real world using psychology research. Topics include poverty, media, oppression, exposure to violence, resilience and resistance,
Examines theory and research in sociocultural approaches to how people (especially children) learn and develop through participating in activities of their communities with other people. Emphasizes the organization of social interactions and learning opportunities, especially in communities in the Americas where schooling has not historically been prevalent. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Examines cultural influences on adolescence from diverse cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic communities from the perspective of current interdisciplinary theories and research. Topics include: identity development; changes from early adolescence to adulthood; links among family, school, peer, and community experiences; programs for youth; and implications of bridging research, social policy, and community practice. Includes research practicum. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Adriana Manago
Focuses on how infants learn about intuitive physics, naive psychology, and shared culture. Also discusses how cultural communities shape infants' learning. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
An introduction to language developmentin young children. Explores current theory and research in language development; and focuses on the preschool years. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Nameera Akhtar
Explores ways that research in developmental psychology can be used to address real-world problems facing children. With an analytical focus on evidence and generalizability, we will investigate research-policy connections in topics of popular interest (e.g., child custody, poverty). Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement (Formerly Developmental Psychology Research and Real World Problems)
Instructor
Maureen Callanan
Examines a special topic of current interest in developmental psychology centering on the features of self-identity that develop in the context of telling stories of individual and/or shared experiences, such as self-defining memories or family stories. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Covers classic and contemporary work on the nature and development of human emotions. Both theoretical perspectives and empirical research are discussed. Major topics include: emotion-cognition interplay, the measurement of emotion, universality and cultural variability, and emotional communication. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Cheating and dishonesty occur in most human activities: academic assignments, sports, and politics. Most people have cheated or acted dishonestly at some point, even if they are honest most of the time. Why do humans sometimes decide to cheat or be dishonest? And how do we develop this tendency? This class covers developmental, cognitive, and social psychological perspectives on cheating, dishonesty, and integrity. Course covers classic research from the past century, as well as contemporary work and real-life cases. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Senior seminar that focuses on identity development in adolescence and young adulthood. Discusses theory and research on the development of personal and social identities and the sociocultural contexts in which these personal and social identities are negotiated. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Margarita Azmitia
Uses The Hunger Games trilogy to explore contextual factors in child development and critically examines the parallels between Panem and the real world using psychology research. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Covers current research and theory related to children and technology. Topics include: how children learn to use new technologies; how technology use impacts children's thinking; computer gaming and aggression; and how children's social relationships are influenced by technology. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Maureen Callanan
Explores multiple perspectives on autism, highlighting those of autistic scholars, disability studies scholars, and philosophers. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Nameera Akhtar
Drawing upon key theoretical and empirical findings from across psychology's subfields, this course explores how the experience and expression of love evolves across the life course and how the unique contributions of both partners to relationship dynamics contour relationship trajectories. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Focuses on the role of media in adolescents' and young adults' identity development, friendships, and peer relationships. Topics include: globalization; physical/body image; friendships and peer acceptance; and educational and career goals. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Kimberly Cardilla
Focuses on high-level perception and visual, spatial, and other sensorimotor representations as elements of human cognition. Topics include imagery, visual attention, mental models, spatial language, the body schema, near-body space, and brain organization for representing space.
Instructor
Bryan Holbrook
Explores what we can learn about human cognition by studying sensory loss and language in a different sensory modality. Topics include brain organization, sensory compensation, working memory, visual cognition, and psycholinguistics.
Introduces the study of human perception. Topics include: the structure and function of the human eye and early visual cortex, perception of motion, color, and objects; recognition of faces; and audition, sensory integration, and synesthesia.
Instructor
Bryan Holbrook, Nicolas Davidenko
Quarter offered
Fall, Spring
Academic success often entails managing and mastering multiple courses covering a variety of topics, each with their own unique requirements. However, what study methods are effective versus ineffective, and why? For example, is learning based on the amount of time a student spends studying? Is highlighting an effective method of learning? Is it better to study by reviewing notes or testing oneself? How will you know if a study tip you read on the internet will really help you learn? Course poses questions about studying and discuss the answers that have been uncovered through scientific research on human memory.
Instructor
Hannah Hausman
An examination of the physiological mechanisms of psychological processes, including sensory systems, motor systems, control systems, and memory and learning. Principles of nervous system organization are discussed at each level.
Instructor
Jason Samaha, Megan Boudewyn
Focuses on the cognitive processes that underlie reading in adults. Additional topics include different writing systems, learning to read, and reading deficits. Recommended for upper-division students.
An analysis of human communication as a function of psychological, linguistic, and social factors. Focuses on language comprehension and production, including the processing of sounds, words, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and dialogue.
Instructor
Jean E. Fox Tree
Explores how conversations work and how speakers accomplish their goals in an interaction. Topics include conversational structure, turn-taking, politeness, and the functions and use of collateral signals, among others. Collateral signals include pauses in speech, words like um, uh, you know, and like, and processes, such as how words and utterances are produced. (Formerly PSYC 139G.)
Provides an introduction to cognition as it relates to how people communicate using computers and the Internet. Focuses on the cognitive and social aspects of communication.
Human factors psychology studies human-machine interaction and computer usability, and involves diverse topics including user requirements analysis, user interface design, implementation and evaluation.
Examines basic theories, models, methods, and research findings in human memory. Both traditional and nontraditional topics are covered.
Instructor
Hannah Hausman
Focuses on behavioral and brain manifestations of deception. Topics include developmental changes that allow us to understand and to use deception, physical implications of lying expressed in the face, voice, posture, and brain activity. Also covers mechanical or behavioral techniques used in deceptive behavior, whether in the form of overt behavior or brain activity.
Instructor
Travis Seymour
Introduction to how evolutionary principles can help us understand origins of the human mind. Covers evolutionary approaches to cognitive, social, and developmental psychology with emphasis on how cognition has been shaped by natural selection.
Introduces students to the use of computer simulations in experimental psychology. Students use existing software to explore topics in cognition such as learning, memory, and psycholinguistics. One upper-division course in cognitive psychology (courses 120-139) is recommended.
Provides in-depth discussion of bilingualism from a cognitive perspective. Psycholinguistic researchers who study bilingualism are interested in questions such as how to measure bilingualism, how the brain acquires more than one language, how bilinguals organize and manage two (or more) languages in one brain, and the consequences of the bilingual experience on cognition. Students are introduced to current research that investigates these topics as well as current controversies in the literature that are yet unresolved.
Focuses on contemporary research in the psychology of human emotions. Special attention given to work in cognitive science, including psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and anthropology, on how emotions are central to understanding human action and mental life.
Psychologists primarily view the mind as being separate from the body, and the body as being separate from the external world. This course questions this widely held position and explores the way that minds arise from individuals' bodily interactions with others and the world around them. Particular attention is paid to the role of human embodiment in language use and everyday cognition.
Offers a practical introduction to computer programming for psychology and cognitive science students. Students learn simple and effective techniques for collecting, parsing, and analyzing behavioral data from behavioral experiments. Students create programs to present visual stimuli, collect keyboard responses, and then write response time and accuracy to datafiles on disk. Students then write new programs to extract information from the datafiles, perform statistical analysis, and present summaries of the findings. Students learn to use the Python programming language for cross-platform application development. No previous programming experience is necessary.
Matlab is a powerful and widely used programming language to design stimuli, collect behavioral data, conduct statistical analyses, and visualize results. This course provides students with basic tools to use Matlab in a range of cognitive science applications. The course includes in-class coding, weekly assignments, and a term project in which students write a program to analyze, collect, or visualize a dataset or model a cognitive phenomenon. No previous programming experience is required. Topics include modeling of cognitive and neural processes and principal components analysis.
Instructor
Nicolas, Jason Davidenko, Samaha
Provides a psychological study of human consciousness. Aim is to explore the following questions: What is consciousness? Where does consciousness come from? What functions does consciousness have in everyday cognition? How do we best scientifically study consciousness? These issues are examined from the perspective of contemporary research in cognitive science. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement.
Hands-on experience using computational modeling to understand human cognitive-task performance by comparing simulated and human data. Satisfies senior seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement. Enrollment restricted to senior psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and computer engineering majors, or by permission of instructor. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Travis Seymour
Human psychology is examined from the viewpoint of evolutionary theory, including perspectives from ethnology, anthropology, and neuropsychology. Upper-division students from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to enroll. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Examines eye-tracking as a valuable research method to study cognition. Research using this method has established that eye movements are closely linked to ongoing cognitive processes in the human brain. Course covers the use of this technique in research on reading, language comprehension, scene perception, visual search, infant cognition, and other areas of cognitive science. Students read and review journal articles, participate in class discussions, and analyze publicly available eye movement data for a final report due at the end of the quarter. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Explores the relationship between science and pseudoscience from a cognitive psychological perspective, including discussion of collection and selection of data, statistical assessment of data, cognitive illusions, memory distortions, reasoning, and decision-making. Also highlights the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Explores forgetting as an essential and adaptive process in human memory. Topics include: intentional and unintentional forms of forgetting; the (re)constructive nature of memory; and cases of extreme remembering. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Benjamin Storm
To navigate our social world, we need to extract a wealth of information from faces, including identity, expression, gaze, age, and gender. This seminar reviews current topics in face-recognition research, from cognitive, neuroscience, developmental, social, and computational perspectives. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Nicolas Davidenko
Illusions arise when our perception differs from reality. In this course, students investigate the mechanisms of visual, auditory, and proprioceptive illusions as an approach to understand the capacities and limitations of our perceptual system. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Nicolas Davidenko
Explores the social and psychological processes underlying the design and evaluation of robotic systems that coexist with people. Topics include: current texts in the philosophy, psychology, and state-of-the art. Students develop new psychological explorations in human-robot interaction. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Lists of influential contributors to cognitive psychology insufficiently represent the influence of more diverse, non-traditional scientists. This course profiles the life and work of women and minority scientists who've made well-documented contributions to cognitive psychology, as well as those who've received less recognition. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Travis Seymour
Introduces one approach used in artificial intelligence: deep learning. This approach is inspired by the architecture and processing of real neural networks. Students learn about the algorithms developed and their applications in simulating intelligence. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Examines the cognitive processes involved in analogical reasoning (understanding one example, object, problem, or event in terms of another better-understood one) and the transfer of knowledge (applying knowledge from one situation to another). Although discussion includes analogical reasoning and transfer in "genius" or exceptionally creative moments, students primarily focus on all the ways in which the same cognitive processes of analogy and transfer support day-to-day learning, thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Hannah Hausman
Remembering is an activity that we often do with others, and shared representations of the past bind us to one another as couples, families, and nations. Remembering is a fundamentally social process. Topics include extended cognitive systems, conversational remembering, family reminiscence, how social networks shape how and what we remember, cognitive content biases supporting collective convergence, and the psychology of collective memory. This includes social representations of history and their biases, cultural tools for thought, intergenerational transmission, and collective future thought. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Jeremy Yamashiro
Incorporates historical and conceptual foundations; issues of social psychology; individual and developmental processes; and adjustment and clinical issues. Readings expose students to attributes of African American culture that have an impact on the psychology of African Americans as well as methodological issues relevant to key psychological topics.
Introduces how social, cultural, and historical contexts shape psychological experiences, including self-concept, perception, emotion, health, and behavior. Draws from theories and research in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to highlight cultural variations in national populations (e.g., North Americans, East Asians) and multicultural populations within the United States (e.g., working-class Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans).
Instructor
Rebecca Covarrubias
Examines gender as a psychological and social factor that influences women's experiences in different contexts. Cuts across other areas of psychology by taking a women-centered approach. Emphasis also placed on understanding how intersections between gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, etc., impact women's psychological well-being.
Addresses sexual and gender identity diversity in social, historical, and political context. Highlights current social justice issues and cultural ideologies related to sexual and gender identity diversity. Discusses social and scientific activism for sexual liberation; gay and lesbian identities and communities; sexuality beyond binaries and categories (e.g., bisexuality, pansexuality); asexuality; kink/fetish; transgender identities and sexualities; sexual fluidity and heteroflexibility; and queer sexual ethics and politics.
General Education Code
TA
Examines how women's bodily experiences (e.g., sexual objectification, violence, menarche, sexual health) are uniquely tied to their subordinate status and impacts their psychological well-being. Theories of gender inequality will address how social control directed at women's bodies through power relations embedded in societal institutions contributes to women's marginalized status. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology, sociology, feminist studies, and community studies majors.
Drawing on research in social psychology, political psychology, and critical policy studies, course examines how beliefs legitimize inequality, influence intergroup relations, and inform policy attitudes. Both hierarchy-enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating beliefs are reviewed.
Instructor
Heather Bullock
Considers individual, interpersonal, and cultural influences on gender similarities and differences in thinking, motivation, and behavior. Emphasizes factors related to power and status inequalities between women and men.
Overview of psychological theory and research on trauma and traumatic stress, including responses to childhood trauma (especially sexual abuse), combat, and natural disasters. Variety of theoretical frameworks presented, including developmental, cognitive, neuropsychological, clinical, and social/contextual.
Instructor
Eileen Zurbriggen
Survey of theory and research on privacy and surveillance. Topics include: the functions of privacy; threats to privacy in multiple domains; the psychological impact of surveillance; historical and cultural differences in privacy and surveillance practices; and the relationship between privacy, surveillance, and social justice.
Instructor
Eileen Zurbriggen
Provides theoretical frameworks for understanding interlocking systems of oppression from the perspective of the oppressed as well as the oppressor nationally and internationally. Goes beyond mainstream (traditional) psychology and emphasizes critical psychological perspectives that include micro- and macro-level theories of oppression; importance of ideology in oppressive systems; and theories of social change and liberation across contexts.
Instructor
Robert Majzler
Offers an overview of psychological frameworks and interdisciplinary research for understanding Latinx populations, behaviors, identities, and values systems related to their mental health. Examines socio-cultural contexts, best research practices, and culturally responsive strategies for working with Latinx communities.
Instructor
Saskias Casanova
An advanced course for upper-division undergraduates interested in the study of the persuasion process. The course investigates common influence tactics and how those tactics are used in various settings.
Humans are the only animal capable of living in both authoritarian and democratic regimes. Course explores the nature of these forms of social relationships with a goal of promoting democracy. Topics include: obedience to authority, conformity, self-justification, propaganda, power, and conflict resolution.
A systematic analysis of the social and contextual determinants of human behavior, with special attention given to concepts of situational control, social comparison, role and attribution theories, as well as the macrodeterminants of behavior: cultural, historical, and sociopolitical context.
Current and future relationships between law and psychology, paying special attention to gaps between legal fictions and psychological realities in the legal system. Topics include an introduction to social science and law, the nature of legal and criminal responsibility, the relationship between the social and legal concepts of discrimination, and the nature of legal punishment.
Cross Listed Courses
LGST 147A
Continuing discussion of current and future relationships between law and psychology and to contrasting psychological realities with legal fictions. Special attention is given to the criminal justice system including crime causation, the psychology of policing and interrogation, plea bargaining, jury selection and decision making, eyewitness identification, and the psychology of imprisonment.
Cross Listed Courses
LGST 147B
Introduction to and analysis of the social psychology of stereotyping, prejudice, and racism in the United States. Examines how individuals both perpetuate and experience these phenomena, through the lens of race as a system of privilege and disadvantage.
Enrollment is restricted to declared Critical Race and Ethnic Studies majors and Black Studies minors.
Cross Listed Courses
CRES 148
Instructor
Courtney Bonam
Introduces community psychology, a discipline that blends social psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Topics include levels of analysis, ecologies, prevention, intervention, feminisms, empowerment, sense of community, coalition building, and social justice and action.
Instructor
Regina Langhout
Examines how social class shapes attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Emphasis is placed on structural barriers and their impact on the well-being of low-income groups. Strategies for reducing classist discrimination, improving interclass relations, and strengthening social policy are discussed.
Instructor
Heather Bullock
This service-learning course requires time in the classroom and the field. Students gain a deep understanding of social justice paradigms, community-based collaborative research, ethics, field-based research, reflexivity, and socio-cultural development modes. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 3 or PSYC 100; PSYC 149 and PSYC 182 are recommended prior to taking this course. Admission by application and interview only.
Instructor
Regina Langhout
General Education Code
PR-S
Considers the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals from a psychological perspective. Reviews theory and research on compulsive heterosexuality, heterosexism and homophobia, culture and sexual-identity diversity, issues of history and community of LGBT individuals, and perspectives on sex, gender, and sexuality from queer theory. Satisfies the seminar requirements. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Phillip Hammack
An overview of psychological theory and research related to sexual aggression, focusing on both perpetration and victimization. Includes a discussion of the social construction of masculinity and femininity, media representations of sexual violence, and alternative (non-aggressive) visions of sexuality. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Eileen Zurbriggen
Is war inevitable? What is peace? Is it more than the absence of violence? Explore how psychology—the study of human behavior—can help to decrease violence and enhance cooperation at multiple levels including the personal, interpersonal, community, and international arenas. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Robert Majzler
Topics include: what makes a successful intervention; what happens before the formal intervention begins; the ethics involved with interventions; different methods for assessing interventions; and different praxis models. Satisfies the seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement. A service component is involved.
Instructor
Regina Langhout
Provides an overview of the social and cultural psychological study of immigrants in the United States. Examines the migration/immigration process; immigrants' social identities; schooling of immigrant youth; and impact of policy on the well-being of immigrants. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Saskias Casanova
Why do some situations seem fair and others unfair? Are all people concerned with justice or are some scoundrels? This course looks at the principles of distributive, procedural, and retributive justice and at real world applications of theories. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement.
Looks at the psychological studies of mentoring. Examines empirical studies and connects those to lived experience. Critical inquiry is stressed. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Examines racially and ethnically marginalized and dominant conceptions of the environment throughout U.S. history. Also explores events and policies revealing how human behavior shapes and is shaped by environmental inequality, and strategies for achieving environmental justice. Satisfies the seminar requirements. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Courtney Bonam
In this interactive seminar, we draw on research and theories in social and cultural psychology to examine persisting disparities in education and achievement for varying social groups (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, social class) and to identify intervention strategies for reducing these disparities. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Rebecca Covarrubias
Examines the science of relationship diversity through the lens of social psychology. Reviews popular and psychological literature on same-sex relationships, polyamory/consensual non-monogamy, kink/fetish/BDSM relationships, chosen families, asexuality, and transgender intimacy. Concludes with discussion of the impact of queer intimacies on heterosexuality. Satisfies the seminar requirements. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Phillip Hammack
Covers social-psychological scholarship relevant to social justice activism that receives limited academic attention in conventional psychology. The seminar aims at understanding how knowledge gained in action-oriented research can be applied to social change. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
Robert Majzler
A review of the major methods of psychotherapy most currently practiced, including ethical standards and dilemmas, and client-therapist-system variables affecting efficacy.
How do we really know a person? Provides experience assessing such individual differences as intimacy motivation, dominance, creativity, and well-being. Students construct their own personality test and learn to evaluate the kinds of self-report, observational, projective, and interview techniques used in organizational and clinical contexts.
Serves as an in-depth introduction to the field of clinical psychology. Covers issues of clinical assessment, interviewing, testing, and a range of therapeutic modalities.
Instructor
Andrea Cook, Hannah Raila
Quarter offered
Fall, Spring
An overview of dream studies by several major theorists and researchers of the 20th century, including Freud, Jung, and Hall. An emphasis on studies that reveal cognitive conceptions and personal concerns through quantitative and qualitative analyses of sets of dreams from individuals and groups. Other topics covered more briefly include dream recall, children and dreams, and the role of dreams within cultures.
Instructor
George Domhoff
How can we improve mental health? Examines theory, method, and efficacy research of outreach, prevention, and intervention methods with various mental health populations in community settings (e.g., victims of sexual violence, new immigrants, those with severe mental illness, children in foster care). Presents characteristics of successful CMH agencies and programs and how to develope one's own agency or intervention model.
Survey of theory, research, and intervention in human psychopathology. Covers psychological, biological, developmental, and socio-cultural approaches.
Instructor
Andrea Cook, Hannah Raila
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter
A critical and intensive exploration of a wide variety of specific disorders within their biological, developmental, and social contexts. Concepts of psychopathology in childhood, major and minor diagnostic systems, and a variety of theories of etiology are explored. General intervention strategies and a wide range of specific psychotherapy systems for treatment are closely examined and demonstrated.
Instructor
Donald Saposnek
Course examines the psychological aspects of health, illness and healing. Focuses primarily on etiology, treatment and prevention; specific topics include stress and the immune response, social support, compliance, health beliefs, and the healing relationship. (Formerly course 140C.)
Explores the reciprocal development of personalities and emotions/emotion regulation in the context of close relationships.
Instructor
Kimberly Cardilla
Explores the interactive relationship between nutrition and mental health. Includes a review of the research on the impact of different components of nutrition (e.g., protein, minerals, sugar) on the function of the brain, the nervous system, and the endocrine (hormone) system, and how that translates into changes in mood and cognitive capacity. Also explores the psychological factors that influence food choice and eating behaviors in the context of cultural beliefs and pressures.
General Education Code
PE-H
A seminar course with focus on theories of moral development from the psychoanalytic, social learning, cognitive-developmental, and humanistic perspectives. Students confront and discuss moral dilemmas from the four perspectives, working toward their own individual theories of pro-social behavior. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement. Prerequisite(s): essay required on a moral issue or dilemma relevant to the student's life.
Explores history and psychology of divorce and the short- and long-term effects of divorce on children. Examines wide range of findings that have drawn diametrically opposed conclusions; delves into social attitudes and legal structures that have impeded and enhanced divorce transitions for children and parents; investigates future models for divorcing that are child-friendly and consistent with findings from newly emerging longitudinal research on children and divorce. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Seminar explores analytic, Jungian, and object-relations interpretive systems in-depth, using qualitative research methods on film, music, literature, and art, as well as psychological measures such as TAT, dream, and interview protocols. Interprets psyche of author, audience, and engendering culture. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
The Staff The Staff
Our emotions influence nearly everything we do—from how we perceive the world to how we connect with other people. The scientific study of emotion, or affective science, investigates how emotions shape our lives. What purpose do emotions serve? How do we regulate them? How do they color cognitive processes like memory? Course considers emotions from several levels of analysis, including their evolutionary basis, their associated physiological responses, and the behaviors they motivate. Students gain a scientifically informed understanding of daily emotions and insight into how scientists study them. Satisfies seminar requirement. Satisfies senior comprehensive requirement.
Focuses on the methods and empirical findings that led gradually to development of a neurocognitive theory of dreaming between 1953 and 2016. Emphasis is on the difficulties of adapting methods useful in studying waking thought to the study of dreaming, the counterintuitive nature of many of the findings, the importance of replicating new results, and the general lessons about the nature of science that can be drawn from this particular scientific odyssey. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Instructor
George Domhoff
Allows students in psychology field study to conduct senior capstone projects on topics related to their service learning (field study). The seminar is devoted to creating projects related to community systems that address the needs of at-risk child, youth, and families. Students in the seminar should be pre-enrolled in PSYC 193. Satisfies the senior seminar requirement. Satisfies the senior comprehensive requirement.
Intermediate statistical methods widely used in psychology (e.g., ANOVA, ANCOVA, multiple-comparisons, bivariate correlation, multiple regression, repeated-measures), corresponding SPSS or R programs, and elements of measurement theory.
Designed to equip students with the ability to evaluate, conceive, and carry out psychological research. A variety of techniques (interpretive,phenomenological analysis, grounded theory and narrative inquiry) are examined and experienced. Students carry out research projects.
Instructor
Robert Majzler
General Education Code
PR-E
Quarter offered
Fall, Spring
An overview of the history of psychology. Examines issues of paradigm and philosophy of science. Reviews central paradigms in the history of the discipline. Assumes a critical-historical approach, linking scientific knowledge produced to prevailing societal beliefs about mind and behavior.
Instructor
Phillip Hammack
Teaching of a lower-division seminar (PSYC 42) under faculty supervision. Available only to upper-division or graduate students. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Series designed to provide advanced psychology undergraduates opportunity to apply what they have learned in the classroom to direct experience in a community agency. Students earn academic credit by working as interns at a variety of psychological settings where they are trained and supervised by a professional within the agency. Faculty also supervise the students' academic work by providing guidance and helping them integrate psychological theories with their hands-on intern experience. A two-quarter commitment. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 3 or PSYC 100. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
General Education Code
PR-S
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Work in a community-based setting while completing self-directed academic work focused in the developmental area under the guidance of a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency; applications due one quarter in advance to the Psychology Field Study Office. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 3 or PSYC 100. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
General Education Code
PR-S
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Work in a community-based setting while completing self-directed academic work focused in the cognitive area under guidance of a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency; applications due one quarter in advance to the Psychology Field Study Office. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 3 or PSYC 100. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
General Education Code
PR-S
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Work in community-based setting while completing self-directed academic work focused in the social area under guidance of a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency; applications due one quarter in advance to the Psychology Field Study Office. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 3 or PSYC 100. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
General Education Code
PR-S
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Work in community-based setting while completing self-directed academic work focused in clinical or personality area under guidance of a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency; applications due one quarter in advance to the Psychology Field Study Office. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 3 or PSYC 100. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
General Education Code
PR-S
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Provides students with intensive experience conducting current research in developmental psychology. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. (Formerly Advanced Developmental Research.)
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Provides students with intensive experience conducting current research in cognitive psychology. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. (Formerly Advanced Cognitive Research.)
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Provides students with intensive experience conducting current research in social psychology. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. (Formerly Advanced Social Research.)
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Provides students with intensive experience conducting current research in clinical psychology. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Preparation of a senior thesis over one, two, or three quarters, beginning in any quarter. When taken as a multiple-term course extending over two or three quarters, the grade and evaluation submitted for the final quarter apply to each of the previous quarters. Students contemplating a senior thesis should have a superior academic record and be well prepared with a suitable background of previous coursework or independent study for performing their proposed research. Students must file a petition with the Psychology Office the quarter in which they would like to begin the thesis. Senior thesis petitions are available in the Psychology Department Office. Check with office for enrollment conditions.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Preparation of a senior thesis over one, two, or three quarters, beginning in any quarter. When taken as a multiple-term course extending over two or three quarters, the grade and evaluation submitted for the final quarter apply to each of the previous quarters. Students contemplating a senior thesis should have a superior academic record and be well prepared with a suitable background of previous coursework or independent study for performing their proposed research. Students must file a petition with the Psychology Office the quarter in which they would like to begin the thesis. Senior thesis petitions are available in the Psychology Department Office. Check with office for enrollment conditions.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Preparation of a senior thesis over one, two, or three quarters, beginning in any quarter. When taken as a multiple-term course extending over two or three quarters, the grade and evaluation submitted for the final quarter apply to each of the previous quarters. Students contemplating a senior thesis should have a superior academic record and be well prepared with a suitable background of previous coursework or independent study for performing their proposed research. Students must file a petition with the Psychology Office the quarter in which they would like to begin the thesis. Senior thesis petitions are available in the Psychology Department Office. Check with office for enrollment conditions.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Provides psychology majors with the opportunity to apply what has been learned in the classroom to direct experience in a community agency outside the local community. Students earn academic credit by working as interns at a variety of psychological settings, where they are trained and supervised by a professional on site. Faculty also supervise the students' field study, providing guidance and help integrating psychological theories with their hands-on experience. Two-quarter commitment required. Admission requires completion of lower-division psychology major requirements; students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Applications are due one quarter in advance to the Psychology Field Study Office. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Individual directed study for upper-division undergraduates. Students must file a petition with the Psychology Office the quarter in which they would like to take the tutorial. Petitions may be obtained in the Psychology Department Office.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Specialized study with individual faculty as psychology peer advisors. May not be applied toward major requirements. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Application and interview required during the previous quarter. Enrollment restricted to junior and senior psychology majors.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Specialized study with individual faculty. May not be applied toward major requirements. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
Provides graduate students with practical teaching skills in the areas of developing and stating a general philosophy of teaching, course design, writing a course syllabus, assessment techniques, evaluation procedures, effective teaching strategies, and media use.
Instructor
Kimberly Cardilla
Introduces the programming language Matlab, focusing on its data analysis, visualization, stimulus presentation, and data-collection tools. Students develop Matlab skills by completing weekly assignments and a term project. No previous programming experience is required.
Instructor
Nicolas Davidenko
Teaches students how to use the statistical programming language and environment R to load, analyze, simulate, and visualize data. Assumes a basic understanding of descriptive and inferential statistics, but no prior experience with programming.
Intermediate statistical methods widely used in psychology (e.g., ANOVA, ANCOVA, multiplecomparisons, repeated-measures) and corresponding SPSS or R programs.
Instructor
Douglas Bonett
Application of statistical methods for analyzing binomial and multinomial response variables in survey and experimental designs. Topics include hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, assessing effect size, sample size requirements, and an introduction to logistic regression models. Data analysis applications use SAS, SPSS, and R.
Instructor
Douglas Bonett
Explores the philosophy and practice of the experimental method in social psychology.
Instructor
Eileen Zurbriggen
Provides an introduction to social psychology, focusing on various individual-level social justice topics, including the self, social comparison, individual and collective identity, social historical and social structural determinants of behavior and various policy and social change-related issues.
Provides an introduction to social psychology, focusing on empirical and theoretical developments related to social justice and group and intergroup dynamics. Topics include: prejudice and discrimination, power, collective action, and psychology's relationship to social policy.
Supports first-year social psychology graduate students in completing their first-year projects. Involves discussion of research methods, but the primary emphasis is on writing and presenting the APA-style report. Includes writing exercises as well as practice talks on the presentations that students give in colloquium. Because this is a workshop tailored specifically to each student, over the course of the quarter we will work collaboratively to discuss each others' work, read each others' drafts, and establish a challenging and supportive context for thinking, writing, and presenting. First- and second-year projects required to be reported in two ways: a manuscript approved and signed by the first (adviser) and second readers, and a presentation of the project in the colloquium.
Instructor
Heather Bullock
Focuses on particular issues of theoretical and practical importance in social psychology. Topics vary from year to year and often concentrate on issues of social justice, social identity, intergroup relations, and social policy.
Instructor
Eileen Zurbriggen
Introduces multiple regression, analysis of covariance, and random coefficient models. Both methodological and statistical aspects of data analysis are discussed. Practical problems of estimating and testing in general linear models are addressed. Students gain experience in carrying out and interpreting analysis using SPSS and R.
Instructor
Douglas Bonett
Introduces factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM). Develop skills in defining, estimating, testing, and critiquing models. Topics include the rationale of SEM, model identification, goodness of fit, and estimation. Learn how to use relevant software packages (R, SAS, LISREL, EQS, or AMOS) to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and latent variable path analyses.
Instructor
Douglas Bonett
Seminar on spontaneous communication. Typical topics include discourse markers (including historical origins, cross-linguistic borrowing, second-language learning, children's acquisition), enquoting devices, backchannels, and spontaneous written communication.
Topics announced when offered. Seminars involve discussion and critical evaluation of current, historical, and interdisciplinary readings relevant to topic. Emphasis on development of research ideas.
Seminar to study human perception, its methodology, and driving issues as illustrated by selected research topics (e.g., adaptation to unusual sensory environments). Where possible, parallels with other areas of psychology are drawn.
The recognition of words is a critical step in natural language processing. Discusses a range of contemporary issues related to the representation of a word and the access of this information from the perspective of psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence.
A proseminar reviewing current topics in cognitive psychology, designed to introduce new graduate students to the field.
Instructor
Megan Boudewyn
A proseminar reviewing current topics in cognitive psychology, designed to introduce new graduate students to the field.
Instructor
Nicolas Davidenko
A proseminar reviewing current topics in cognitive psychology, designed to introduce new graduate students to the field.
Instructor
Hannah Hausman
Examines the rationale and techniques of research in developmental psychology. Topics include theories and paradigms in developmental psychology; translating theoretical ideas into researchable hypotheses; diversity issues in sampling; and conducting ethical research. Multiple-term course; students receive 6 credits in the second quarter of attendance; the grade and evaluation submitted for the final quarter applies to both quarters.
Examines the rationale and techniques of research in developmental psychology. Topics include selecting appropriate research designs; measurement and statistical approaches for research problems; issues of validity; and communicating research findings. Multiple-term course; students receive 6 credits in the second quarter of attendance; the grade and evaluation submitted for the final quarter applies to both quarters.
Focuses on drawing reasonable conclusions from research findings by working on students' first-year research projects and critiques of existing research.
Instructor
Campbell Leaper
Special topics in thought and language are examined from the perspectives of cognitive science. Particular attention given to embodied experience and higher-order cognition.
Colloquium series to study and critique research in cognitive psychology and cognitive science.
Instructor
Benjamin Storm, Jeremy Yamashiro, Megan Boudewyn
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Seminar to study, critique, and develop research in social psychology.
Instructor
Shelly Grabe, Saskias Casanova
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Explores current research on evolution of human cognition, drawing on findings from other species and from the archaeological record. Topics include language, working memory, episodic memory, numerical abilities, and social cognition.
Seminar on how contextual factors influence the development in infancy, especially on cognitive domains. Discusses at least four types of contextual factors: cultural, experiential, event, and interpersonal contexts.
Seminar to study, critique, and develop research in developmental psychology.
Instructor
Campbell Leaper, Barbara Rogoff, Margarita Azmitia
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Explores major theories and research in the fields of cognitive development and language development. Begins with classic theorists, such as Piaget and Vygotsky, and proceeds to theories and research on topics of current interest.
Instructor
Nameera Akhtar
An examination of contemporary theory and research on social and personality development across the lifespan.
Instructor
Adriana Manago
Examines cultural influences in development from the perspective of current theories and empirical research in developmental psychology and related fields (including social psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, education, and social policy). Focuses on understanding development in diverse cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic communities by examining the interplay of social, cultural, institutional, and psychological processes.
Instructor
Barbara Rogoff
Focuses on particular issues of theoretical importance in developmental psychology. Topics vary from year to year. Particular issues in language, culture, cognitive, social, and personality development may be covered.
Practicum to give students hands-on experience with survey methods by conducting their own survey on the topic of their choice. Course requires the survey to be conducted off campus at a local agency or program chosen by student with approval of instructor.
Designed to train graduate students in applied field methods. Emphasis is on gaining knowledge and experience with actual field methods, by conducting social ethnography in the community. Field research in community placements required.
Examines the ways in which the various branches of psychology have approached the issue of prejudice. Attention paid to the assumptions underlying each approach and their relation to core psychological ideas such as the self and emotion.
Course bridges feminist theory and social psychological research to explore connections between theory covered and empirical studies on various topics in social psychology. Seminar format allows students opportunity for extensive discussion.
Cross Listed Courses
FMST 251
Focuses on particular issues in cognitive psychology. Topics vary from year to year. Particular issues in language, memory, perception, cognitive modeling, cognitive neuroscience, and more are covered.
Instructor
Benjamin Storm, Nick Davidenko
Quarter offered
Winter, Spring
Examines, compares, and contrasts a variety of theories in intergroup relations while examining relevant empirical research. The relevance of both theory and research findings to contemporary social issues is explored.
Course reviews recent theory, research, and applications in the psychology of gender. Developmental, social-psychological, cultural, and feminist approaches are emphasized.
Instructor
Campbell Leaper
A broad survey of qualitative inquiry in psychology. Presents epistemologies; reviews ethnography, interpretative-phenomenological analysis, grounded theory, interviewing and narrative analysis, discourse analysis, focus groups, thematic analysis, content analysis, intuitive inquiry; discusses disciplinary guidelines for reporting and reviewing qualitative research.
Instructor
Phillip Hammack
Course examines the social psychological antecedents, correlates, and consequences of economic inequality in contemporary U.S. society. The impact of social class on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors is assessed. Strategies for reducing classist discrimination, improving interclass relations, and strengthening social policy are discussed.
Instructor
Heather Bullock
Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a theoretical standpoint and collaborative methodology that is designed to ensure that those affected by the research project have a voice in that project. Topics include philosophies of science; defining and evaluating PAR; ethics; and reflexivity.
Instructor
Regina Langhout
A transnational feminist lens examines international development as linked to broader ideologies that transform gender relations and enhance women's empowerment. A social-psychology framework brings theoretical and practical import to the issues and examines how research can contribute to social justice and women's human rights.
Tailored to graduate students' interests among topics involving research and scholarship in sociocultural approaches to development, methods for research design, data collection, coding, and analysis, and preparing and reviewing grant proposals and journal manuscripts. Multiple-term course; students receive 6 credits in the third quarter of attendance; the performance evaluation and grade submitted for the final quarter applies to all three quarters.
Instructor
Barbara Rogoff
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Designed to aid advanced psychology graduate students with development of competence in professional activities (e.g., preparing a vita, making job and conference presentations, submitting and reviewing manuscripts and grant proposals, professional communication, career decisions).
Discusses how to write and put together a grant proposal for psychological research, culminating in a completed proposal.
Student-designed and student-conducted research carried out in field settings.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Independent study and research under faculty supervision.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Independent study and research under faculty supervision.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Independent study and research under faculty supervision.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Independent study and research under faculty supervision. Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring
Quarter offered
Fall, Winter, Spring