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The Science of Psychology

Level: Open to students entering grades 11 or 12 or freshman year of college in fall 2013.

Session: II, July 16-August 2, 2013

Days & Time: Monday-Friday, 10:00 AM–12:00 PM, 2:00 PM–4:00 PM

Instructor(s): Jason Buhle, Christopher Crew , Steen Sehnert,

Related Courses: Students interested in this course might also be interested in The World's Religions in New York.

"The amount of knowledge and information was astounding but presented in highly interesting ways."

- June Dong, 2012

"I loved creating and carrying-out my own experiment. The experience taught me about effective group work and independent responsibility"

- Raquel Serruya, 2012

Course Description

This course is designed for students interested in the fundamental concepts, principles, and theories of psychology, the science of mind and behavior. It examines this basic question: What influences human behavior? The course provides an overview of the diverse topics within psychology, including biological bases of behavior, learning and memory, sensation and perception, cognitive development, language acquisition, and personality and social influences on behavior. Special emphasis is placed on current psychology research and topics relevant to both individual experience and real-world events.

In addition to lectures, students attend tours of several of Columbia's psychology and neuroscience laboratories and participate in in-class experiments demonstrating key psychological phenomena. Working in teams, and under instructor supervision, students design, run, and present data from an original psychological experiment.

Instructor(s)

Jason Buhle

Jason Buhle received his bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. He studies how contextual factors and cognitive strategies influence emotional experiences and physical pain. His work has been published in journals including Psychological Science, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and PAIN. He is currently an adjunct assistant professor in the department of psychology at Columbia University.

Christopher Crew

Christopher Crew received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California, Riverside and his master's degree in cognitive psychology, with a minor in statistics, from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Crew is currently a Ph.D. student at Columbia University in the lab of Professor Geraldine Downey. His research centers on understanding the interplay of social-cognition and rejection sensitivity (RS) as they relate to the deployment of attention, thought suppression, perceptions of the legal system, and the development of interpersonal relationships.

Steen Sehnert

Steen Sehnert majored in psychology and philosophy at Colby College and holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. He studies the effect of engagement with material on learning and comprehension, investigating the best ways to engage students in the classroom and at home. Most recently he has been trying to understand where value comes from and how people can affect their own experience of value in the way they engage with a stimulus.

Specific course information, such as hours and instructors, are subject to change at the discretion of the University.