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Course Descriptions
PSY 101: General Psychology
Goal: Understanding self and others, predicting behavior, and
understanding and control of behavior. To be able to apply methods of research
and application of psychological principles to everyday life.
Content: Research methods; child, adolescent, and adult
psychology; psychological testing; personality, and abnormal psychology;
psychotherapy; social psychology; applied psychology; history of psychology; and
physiological processes, principles of learning and memory, human perception,
and cognition.
Taught: Fall, Spring.
Gen. Ed. Category: Critical thinking.
Credit: 3 hours.
PSY 207: Physiological Psychology
Goal: To provide the student with an understanding of
physiological processes that mediate psychological functioning.
Content: The biological bases of sensation, perception, learning,
memory, cognition, motivation, emotion, and consciousness; overview of recent
and significant developments in this area.
Taught: Fall.
Prerequisite: PSY 101.
Credit: 3 hours.
ECO/MAT/PSY 220: Statistical Methods
Goal: To introduce students to the logic of designing and
experiment and interpreting the quantitative data derived from it.
Content: Study of binomial and normal distributions, measures of
central tendency, and tests of hypotheses.
Taught: Fall, Spring.
Prerequisites: MAT 130, 140, 192 or equivalent placement.
Credit: 3 hours; cross-listed as ECO 220, MAT 220.
PSY 230: Reading, Writing, & Review: Preparing
to Conduct Research in Psychology
Goal: To encourage students to acquire knowledge of an issue
within psychology and critically analyze this topic using appropriate research
methodology.
Content: Provides students an opportunity for focused research in
their area of interest. The class will function as a research group, providing
each student with a place for discussion and critical review of her topic.
Taught: Fall.
Credit: 3 hours; S-course.
PSY 260: Drugs and Behavior
Goal: To examine the major classes of drugs which affect behavior,
including drugs of abuse and drugs used in the treatment of mental disorders.
Content: The pharmacology of drugs of abuse and drugs used in
treating mental disorders is explored. Exploration of historical background of
drugs as well as social context.
Taught: Fall. Alternate years.
Credit: 3 hours.
PSY 310: Cognitive Psychology
Goal: To foster an understanding of the human mind and how it
operates by discussing the major theories, concepts, and research in cognitive
psychology.
Content: Detailed examination of how humans encode, perceive,
remember, and use the information encountered in daily life. Topics examined
include pattern recognition, mental imagery, attention, memory, language,
problem solving, creativity, and artificial intelligence.
Taught: Fall. Alternate years.
Prerequisites: PSY 101.
Credit: 3 hours.
PSY 314: Learning and Memory
Goal: To provide students with a clear and comprehensible
integration of classic and contemporary achievements in the field of learning
and memory.
Content: Principles of respondent and operant conditioning as well
as memory and cognition in terms of possible mechanisms, current research, the
theory.
Taught: Spring.
Prerequisites: PSY 101 and 220; PSY 305 or BIO 203; or permission
of department chair.
Credit: 4 hours.
PSY 441: Senior Seminar: Research
Goal: To encourage the senior student to apply accumulated
knowledge to critical analysis of a selected issue or problem in psychology.
Seniors in psychology should have developed an interest in a given area and
mastered the methodological skills central to the science of psychology. This
senior seminar provides each student with the opportunity for focused research
in her area of interest. As an integrative component within the psychology
major, the seminar requires the student to connect her own research to other
areas of the liberal arts.
Content: Students, either individually or in pairs, complete a
research project and submit a written report of the literature, methods,
results, and discussion of findings.
Taught: Fall.
Prerequisites: PSY 101, 220, 230S, 305 and senior standing.
Credit: 3 hours.
Rev. 12.09