Global Arc

This course examines the scientific study of the way ordinary people think about, feel, and behave in social situations and how they influence, and are influenced by, others around them. We will first examine how people think and feel about others and about themselves; then we explore how they induce others to conform, to comply, to obey, and occasionally to see the world differently. Later, we examine how groups influence individuals and how individuals influence groups, how members of different groups relate to one another, and the seeds of attraction, altruism, and aggression. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Babies, who look like helpless blobs, are capable of impressive feats of learning. 3-year-olds, who can't cross the street alone, know an astounding amount of information about their environments. We will focus on landmark studies that elucidate how children's biology, cognition, language, and social experiences interact to set the stage for what we do and who we are. Is the baby's world a 'blooming, buzzing confusion', or do babies enter the world prepared to make sense of their environments? How can we understand the collaboration between nature and nurture during development? Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The course will survey discoveries and progress made over the past 50 years of research, from classic experimental findings and fundamental theoretical principles to the cutting edge of research that lies increasingly at the interface of psychology with neuroscience (neural mechanisms underlying cognitive processes), computer science (artificial intelligence and machine learning), and mathematics (formal models of complex processes). Topics will include perception, attention, memory, decision making, reasoning, problem solving, language, and cognitive control. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey of major approaches to the study of personality, including psychodynamic, social learning, and trait-theory approaches. The focus will be on the assumptions made by each approach, relevant techniques for collecting and analyzing data, and theoretical and practical implications. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The goal of this course is to illuminate the interactions between the brain, body and behavior over the course of development and how this shapes a species' evolution. We will first explore developmental events at the cellular level that are shaped by parental behavior. We will then see how these events influence the developing circuits of the brain. Finally, we will learn about influences at the level of niche or culture, where the changes that organisms make to their environments and to themselves influence and modify the patterns of behaviors exhibited in the next generation.

This course covers foundations of the research process for experimental Psychology: reviewing and evaluating published journal articles, refining new research questions, conducting pilot studies, creating stimuli, sequencing experiments for optimal control and data quality, analyzing data, and communicating scientific methods and results clearly, effectively, and professionally in APA style. Lectures survey time-tested excellent methods, and labs provide opportunities to recreate interesting experiments and innovate, building toward an original research final project. Two lectures, one laboratory.

Cultural psychology as a discipline strives to understand and identify universal principles of human thought, feeling, and behavior. The major goal of this course is to examine a range of psychological areas from a cross-cultural perspective, designed to provide opportunities to increase awareness and sensitivity to global similarities and differences in human functioning. The course will survey theoretical perspectives, empirical studies, and methodological issues pertaining to psychological study of culture. Topics to be covered include culture and gender, morality, personality, social cognition, motivation, the self, social interaction,

This course aims to understand humans in social interaction, from communicating with one another, to jointly remembering the past, to coordinating our actions. This course will also teach you how to be a more efficient and persuasive communicator, create more meaningful connections with others, and focus your motivation to achieve your goals. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course is an integrative treatment of memory in humans and animals. We explore working memory (our ability to actively maintain thoughts in the face of distraction), episodic memory (our ability to remember previously experienced events), and semantic memory (our ability to learn and remember the meanings of stimuli). In studying how the brain gives rise to different kinds of memory, we consider evidence from behavioral experiments, neuroscientific experiments (neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and lesion studies), and computational models. Two lectures, one preceptorial. Prerequisite: 255 or 259, or instructor's permission.

Principles of psychology relevant to the theory and practice of education. Through selected readings, discussion, and classroom observations, students study theories of development, learning, cognition (including literacy), motivation, assessment, and the social psychology of the classroom. Individual and group differences in these areas are addressed. The course focuses on how learning by children and adolescents at the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels is influenced by their own characteristics and experiences and the various contexts in which they learn: family, school, community and culture. One three-hour seminar.