Introduction to the Science of Psychology

"I liked the fact that we were able to discuss and share our opinions. It really got me involved in what I was learning."

- From a 2012 Student Program Evaluation

Course Description

This course is designed to introduce students to the study of the mind, brain, and human behavior.  Students are introduced to most of the broad areas of scientific research in psychology and typically spend a portion of each day in lecture and a portion of the day in some other learning activity such as group work, discussion, field trips, or hands-on experiments. The course establishes a strong grounding in scientific principles and methodology and then applies these concepts to areas like personality, learning, memory, child development, psychopathology, and other topics in psychology.

Armed with an understanding of the scientific method and an introduction to important findings in psychology, students actually conduct scientific psychology in the afternoon sessions. Playing the role of a scientist, students learn to formulate their own research questions in groups of peers with related interests.

During the final part of each afternoon session, one student in the class leads a group discussion. In generating discussion about the assigned reading for the day, students are encouraged to integrate the information learned in that day’s lecture with their own everyday experience and observations in presenting an example of a psychological phenomenon from a popular medium.

Instructor(s)