Psychology (2022 - 2024)

Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) or the equivalent is a prerequisite for all courses in psychology, except for Data Literacy for Psychology (PSYCH-UA 8), Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10), and Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11). Some courses carry additional prerequisites, as noted below.

Introductory and Data Literacy/Statistics Courses

Introduction to Psychology
PSYCH-UA 1 No prerequisite. Offered every semester. Cimpian, Knowles, Reed, Rhodes, Van Bavel. 4 points.
Fundamental principles, with emphasis on basic research and applications in psychology’s major theoretical areas of study: thought, memory, learning, perception, personality, social processes, development, and physiological bases of psychology. Includes direct observation of methods of investigation through laboratory demonstrations and student participation in current research projects.

Data Literacy for Psychology
PSYCH-UA 8 No prerequisite. Offered every year. Ma. 4 points.
Equips students with a critical understanding of how behavioral data, statistics, and the results of psychological research are used and misused. Topics: lying with data, cognitive biases, Bayesian reasoning, coincidences, opinion polling, pseudoscience, the scientific process, academic publishing, navigating the scientific literature, types of data, experimental design, variables, the concept of a p-value, and the replication crisis.

Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
PSYCH-UA 10 No prerequisite. PSYCH-UA 10 and 11 may be taken in either order. Offered every semester. Bauer. 4 points.
Focuses on computation and the application of statistical tools and techniques for evaluating data and interpreting results from psychological studies. Data description, significance tests, confidence intervals, linear regression, analysis of variance, and other topics. Utilizes both randomized experiments and correlational studies.

Advanced Psychological Statistics
PSYCH-UA 11 No prerequisite. PSYCH-UA 10 and 11 may be taken in either order. Offered every semester. 4 points.
A more theoretical approach that provides a deeper understanding of the aim and use of various behavioral statistical analyses and procedures. Focuses on the use of statistical tests, software used to analyze data, data visualization, and empirical methodologies.

Core A: Psychology as a Natural Science

Two Core A courses must be taken for the major, one for the minor. Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) is the prerequisite for all Core A courses.

Perception
PSYCH-UA 22 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Landy, Maloney, Winawer. 4 points.
Survey of basic facts, theories, and methods of studying sensation and perception. Emphasis is on vision and audition, although other modalities may be covered. Topics include: receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation, pattern recognition, and the interaction of knowledge and perception.

Cognitive Neuroscience
PSYCH-UA 25 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Curtis. 4 points.
Provides a broad understanding of the foundations of cognitive neuroscience, including dominant theories of the neural underpinnings of a variety of cognitive processes and the research that has led to those theories. Covers the goals of cognitive neuroscience research and the methods that are being employed to reach these goals.

Cognition
PSYCH-UA 29 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Hilford, Rehder. 4 points.
Introduction to theories and research in some major areas of cognitive psychology, including human memory, attention, language production and comprehension, thinking, and reasoning.

Developmental Psychology
PSYCH-UA 34 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. Adolph, Cimpian, Dillon. 4 points.
Introduction of relevant theoretical issues and selected research. Focuses on infancy through adolescence. Lectures interweave theory, methods, and findings about how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings.

Social Neuroscience
PSYCH-UA 35 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Reviews theories and methods guiding social neuroscience and research examining the brain basis of social processes, including snap judgments; theory of mind; empathy; emotion; perceiving faces, bodies, and voices; morality; among others.

Core B: Psychology as a Social Science

Two Core B courses must be taken for the major, one for the minor. Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) is the prerequisite for all Core B courses.

Personality
PSYCH-UA 30 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Andersen. 4 points.
Introduction to research in personality, including such topics as the self-concept; unconscious processes; how we relate to others; and stress, anxiety, and depression.

Social Psychology
PSYCH-UA 32 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. West. 4 points.
Theories and research about the social behavior of individuals: perception of others and the self, attraction, affiliation, altruism and helping, aggression, moral thought and action, conformity, social exchange and bargaining, group decision making, leadership and power, and environmental psychology.

Developmental Psychology
PSYCH-UA 34 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. Adolph, Cimpian, Dillon. 4 points.
Introduction and overview of relevant theoretical issues and selected research. Focuses on infancy through adolescence. Lectures interweave theory, methods, and findings about how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings.

Core C: Laboratory Courses

One Core C course is required for the major. Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) and either Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10) or Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11) are prerequisites for all Core C courses. These courses have additional prerequisites as noted below.

Laboratory in Social and Organizational Psychology
PSYCH-UA 38 Prerequisite: Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Industrial and Organizational Psychology (PSYCH-UA 62). Offered in the fall. Heilman. 4 points.
Acquaints students with research methodology in organizational psychology. They perform an original study, such as a laboratory experiment or research survey, in one of these areas.

Laboratory in Personality and Social Psychology
PSYCH-UA 39 Prerequisite: Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Abnormal Psychology (PSYCH-UA 51), or Industrial and Organizational Psychology (PSYCH-UA 62). Offered every semester. Balcetis, Gollwitzer, Knowles. 4 points.
Methodology and procedures of research and exercises in data analysis and research design. Statistical concepts such as reliability and validity, methods of constructing personality measures, merits and limitations of correlational and experimental research designs, and empirical evaluation of theories. Student teams conduct research projects.

Laboratory in Developmental Psychology
PSYCH-UA 40 Prerequisite: Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34). 4 points.
Review of observational and experimental techniques for studying children. Requires a short-term study in a field or laboratory setting. Two presentations requiring a literature review and a proposed experimental design, with a report of the results of the study due at end of term.

Laboratory in Infancy Research
PSYCH-UA 42 Prerequisite: Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34), and/or to be taken with a second semester of Tutorial in Infant Research (PSYCH-UA 992). Permission of the instructor required. Offered every semester. Adolph. 4 points.
Part of a year-long research training program. General methods for studying infant development and specific methods for examining infants’ perceptual-motor development. Students design and conduct laboratory research projects, code and analyze data, and prepare results for presentation and publication (grant proposals, conference submissions, and journal submissions).

Laboratory in Cognition and Perception
PSYCH-UA 46 Formerly PSYCH-UA 28. Prerequisite: Perception (PSYCH-UA 22), or Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 25), or Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29). Offered every semester. Gureckis, Hilford, McElree. 4 points.
Experience and knowledge of empirically-based investigations into cognition and perception is provided. Students engage in class-designed experiments and carry out research projects. Students learn to formulate experimental questions, design and conduct an experiment, complete statistical analyses, write research papers and present a short research talk.

Psychological Science and Society
PSYCH-UA 53 Formerly PSYCH-UA 300. Prerequisite: Perception (PSYCH-UA 22), or Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 25), or Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29), or Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34), or Social Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 35). Offered every semester. 4 points.
Provides an understanding of the research process in psychology, starting with empirical investigations and proceeding to the communication of the research (e.g. through primary journal articles and popular media). Emphasizes critical review and analyses of methods, statistical examinations, descriptions, and claims and interpretations of scientific research.

Advanced Elective Courses

Two advanced electives are required for the major, one for the minor. All have prerequisites in addition to Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1), as noted below. A student who takes a quantitative advanced elective (identified in the course descriptions below) for the major requirement of "one additional quantitative course" cannot double-count the course as a general advanced elective.

Teaching in Psychology
PSYCH-UA 2 Prerequisite: admittance by application only. Offered every semester. Hilford. 2 points.
Students attend a weekly seminar on teaching psychology, as well as the Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) lecture. Students put their training to immediate use by teaching a weekly Introduction to Psychology recitation.

Language and Mind
PSYCH-UA 27 Identical to LING-UA 3 (formerly LING-UA 28). Prerequisite: Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29). McElree, Pylkkänen. Offered in the spring. 4 points.
Introduces the field of cognitive science through an examination of language behavior. Begins with interactive discussions of how best to characterize and study the mind. These principles are then illustrated through an examination of research and theories related to language representation and use. Draws from research in both formal linguistics and psycholinguistics.

Practicum in Clinical Psychology Research
PSYCH-UA 43 Formerly Laboratory in Clinical Research. Prerequisite: Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Abnormal Psychology (PSYCH-UA 51), or Clinical Psychology (PSYCH-UA 81). Offered every semester. Westerman. 4 points.
Students complete a set of hands-on research exercises. Methods include correlational and experimental designs and observational procedures. Topics include: psychotherapy process research; case formulation approaches to psychopathology and therapy; theoretical perspectives that are employed in both research and clinical practice.

Linguistics as Cognitive Science
PSYCH-UA 48 Identical to LING-UA 48 and LING-GA 48. Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every other year. Marantz. 4 points.
See linguistics for course description.

Abnormal Psychology
PSYCH-UA 51 Prerequisite: any Core B course or permission of the instructor. Offered every semester. Reed, Westerman. 4 points.
The kinds, dynamics, causes, and treatment of psychopathology. Topics: early concepts of abnormal behavior; affective disorders, anxiety disorders, psychosis, and personality disorders; the nature and effectiveness of traditional and modern methods of psychotherapy; viewpoints of major psychologists past and present.

Introduction to Psycholinguistics
PSYCH-UA 56 Identical to LING-UA 5. Prerequisite: Language (LING-UA 1). Offered every other year. McElree. 4 points.
Theories and research concerning the cognitive processes and linguistic representations that enable language comprehension and production. Topics: speech perception, visual processes during reading, word recognition, syntactic processing, and semantic/discourse processing.

First Language Acquisition
PSYCH-UA 59 Identical to LING-UA 59. Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every year. Cournane. 4 points.
See linguistics for course description.

From Illusions to Inference
PSYCH-UA 60 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1), and either Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11) or Calculus I (MATH-UA 121) or equivalent. Counts as a quantitative advanced elective. Offered every other year. Ma. 4 points.
Examines illusions (visual, auditory, tactile, vestibular, and multisensory) to understand the central concept of inference in perception: how the brain constantly forms hypotheses about the outside world and tries to figure out which is most probable.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology
PSYCH-UA 62 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1); either Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10) or Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11); and one Core B course chosen from Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34). Offered every year. 4 points.
Psychology applied to the workplace; human behavior from the perspective of employees and employers. Analyzes the individual, the team, and the organization as a whole. Topics include employee engagement, satisfaction, identity, esteem, and career interests, as well as hiring, firing, and motivating and rewarding staff to increase performance and productivity.

Motivation and Volition
PSYCH-UA 74 Prerequisites: Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29) and Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32). Offered every year. Oettingen. 4 points.
Major research, theories, and findings. Topics: willpower and its absence, the psychology of goal setting and implementation, self-regulation disorders. Cognitive-neuropsychological and economic approaches.

Political Psychology
PSYCH-UA 75 Prerequisite: Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32). Offered every year. Jost. 4 points.
Comprehensive survey of political psychology— a dynamic sub-discipline at the intersection of psychology and political science. Topics include: historical development of political psychology; role of values in social science; authoritarianism and mass politics; personality and political leadership; mass media and candidate perception; individual and group decision-making; social identification; racial and ethnic prejudice; protest and collective action; revolution and terrorism.

Experiments in Beauty
PSYCH-UA 79 Offered every year. Pelli. 4 points.
Beauty is famously hard to study scientifically, but students in this hands-on laboratory course will each week formulate beauty-related questions and design and implement experiments to answer them. We also read and discuss one article or chapter each week from authors including Kant, Woolf, Berlin, Donoghue, Kuhn, Quine, and Wittgenstein.

Clinical Psychology
PSYCH-UA 81 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) and Abnormal Psychology (PSYCH-UA 51). Offered every year. Reed, Westerman. 4 points.
Provides a broad overview of the field. Topics include: assessment and treatment of psychological disorders. Attention is devoted to psychotherapy, but early intervention, psychopharmacology, and behavioral medicine also receive consideration. Combines theory, research, and practice; uses illustrative clinical examples; and discusses current controversies.

Special Topics in Psychology
PSYCH-UA 300 Topics determine prerequisites. Offered every semester. 4 points.
Advanced-level seminars. Topics vary. Some courses offered can count towards the quantitative advanced elective requirement (i.e. Computer Programming for the Psychological Sciences, Computational Neuroscience, Decision Making).

Special Courses

Supervised Reading
PSYCH-UA 993 Prerequisite: permission of the department. May be repeated for credit. Counts only as elective credit toward the degree if taken for less than 4 points. If taken for 4 points, students may seek permission of the department to count toward the major as an advanced elective. Hilford. 1 to 4 points per term.
Independent study, which may include research, readings, and written work. Supervised by a faculty member. May be used for internship or other practical training (academic work is required to earn credits; average of two hours a week at internship per point). Students may take no more than 12 points of independent study and/or internship; no more than 8 points may be taken in any one department.

Research Experience in Psychology
PSYCH-UA 996 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1), Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10), and permission of the department. May be repeated twice (a total of three enrollments) up to a maximum of 6 points. Hilford. 2 points.
Students identify a faculty member sponsor in the Department of Psychology and complete work in a research laboratory under the direct supervision of the faculty mentor. Provides critical preparation for graduate study and develops students' skills in research; data management, analysis, and visualization; statistics; computer programming; grant and paper writing.

Honors Courses

Open only to students who have been admitted to the psychology honors program. The Honors Seminars (PSYCH-UA 200 and PSYCH-UA 201) may be counted as the two advanced electives required for the major.

Honors Seminar I
PSYCH-UA 200 Prerequisite: admission to the honors program. Offered in the fall. 4 points.
Recent studies and classical papers related to current controversies in psychology. Discussion of theoretical and technical aspects of each student’s thesis project.

Honors Seminar II
PSYCH-UA 201 Prerequisite: Honors Seminar I (PSYCH-UA 200). Offered in the spring. 4 points.
Students present preliminary results of their thesis projects and interpret their findings.

Graduate Courses Open to Undergraduates

Certain courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Science are open to junior or senior psychology majors who have (1) permission of their undergraduate psychology adviser, (2) permission of the Department of Psychology (graduate division), (3) the additional specific prerequisites listed for each course, and (4) permission of the instructor. For further information, please consult the department and the Graduate School of Arts and Science Bulletin.

Course Offerings