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Course Descriptions

WIS 101,102: Wesleyan Integrative Seminar Experience I and II
Goal: To provide students with an understanding of the nature and value of a Wesleyan education; to provide students with the skills and strategies needed to make a successful transition to college; to expose students to juxtaposed disciplinary methods and to have students be part of an academic community committed to the free and open exchange of ideas; to ask students to reflect critically on their beliefs and frames of reference; and to help students discover and explore their talents and passions through study, service, and work.
Content: Problems and issues relating to who women are and what tools women need to be successful in today’s world.
Taught: Fall. Spring
Category: General Education
Credit: 3 hours each, see General Education section of this Catalogue for regulations governing enrollment in WIS 101 and WIS 102.

 

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 201: Sexual Decisions
Goal: To explore biological, psychological, interpersonal and sociocultural aspects of human sexuality.
Content: Issues surrounding multiple and often contradictory elements that shape sexual attitudes and behaviors.
Taught: Spring.
Credit: 3 hours; cross-listed as WST 201.

PSY 301: Psychology of Women
Goal: To further students’ understanding of psychological knowledge as it applies to women and gender issues.
Content: Exploration of the manner in which psychology defines and studies women with emphasis on research methodologies, empirical findings, theory, and current and historical controversies.
Taught: Spring. Alternate years.
Prerequisites: PSY 101 or WST 200.
Credit: 3 hours; cross-listed as WST 301.

PSY 304: Psychology of Personality
Goal: To promote synthesized understanding of the person through an integration of theory and research.
Content: Exploration of environmental and inherited factors which produce a particular personality structure; includes psychoanalytic, humanistic, existential, trait, behavioral, social learning, and cognitive theories.
Taught: Fall.
Prerequisite: PSY 101.
Credit: 3 hours.

PSY 325: Abnormal Psychology
Goal: To lead students to a fuller understanding of abnormal behavior and the ways that psychologists study and attempt to treat it.
Content: Issues and controversies in defining psychological abnormality; classification and description of abnormal behaviors including physical symptoms and stress reactions, anxiety, addictive disorders, sexual dysfunction, personality disorders, schizophrenia and mood disorders; and theory and research on etiology, treatments and prevention of pathology.
Taught: Spring.
Prerequisite: PSY 101 and PSY 207 or PSY 304.
Credit: 3 hours.

PSY 340: Testing and Therapy
Goal: To study the value, uses, and limitations of many types of tests including general and special abilities, interests, personality surveys, projectives, and aptitudes. To study the value, uses and limitations of many types of psychotherapies, including individual, family, and couples interventions.
Content: Study of testing ethics, reliability and validity determination, specific test uses and misuses, statistical analysis of test results, the therapeutic alliance, ethics in psychotherapy, models of intervention, and effectiveness of various therapeutic approaches.
Taught: Fall, alternate years.
Prerequisite: PSY 101.
Credit: 3 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.

PSY 442: Senior Seminar: Applied
Goal: To encourage the senior student to make connections between a specific content/research area within psychology and a focused content/research area in an academic discipline outside of psychology.  Seniors in psychology should already have focused research interests within psychology. This seminar allows students to
broaden this focus and apply knowledge gained in psychology to other, relevant areas of study within the liberal arts.  Inherently integrative, this course serves as a option for the integrative component within the psychology major.
Content: Students complete an interdisciplinary independent research project in which they design a detailed program that addresses a pressing social problem, such as teenage pregnancy, school violence, or homelessness.
Taught: Fall.
Prerequisites: PSY 101, 220, 230S, 305 and senior standing.
Credit: 3 hours.

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Rev. 08.15