Summer Courses

Summer Psychology Courses

Pre-Session

PSY 101 - INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

Survey of psychology including history, systems, and methods; structure and functions of the nervous and endocrine systems; learning; motivation and emotion; perception; memory; thought and language; personality; development; social cognition and behavior; psychopathology and psychotherapy.

Taught online by Rachel Skocypec

PSY 230 - PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT AND STATISTICS

Does sleep improve memory? Does having friends improve mental health? These questions can be examined through controlled scientific experiments. This course will teach students the methods of statistics that are used for exploring data collected in experiments and for evaluating scientific hypotheses. Students will learn how to apply the core statistical tools used in science such as t-tests, ANOVA, regression, and Chi-square tests. In addition, a basic introduction to bayesian statistics will be included.

Taught online by Alexa Chandler

PSY 300 - COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: MIND AND BRAIN

Explore 'the last frontier in science': the human brain. Go on a whirlwind tour of theories, tools, techniques, and findings of the highly interdisciplinary, growing field of cognitive neuroscience. Aim to understand how the human brain allows us to think, feel, imagine, and act in the world (and how developmental or abnormal occurrences -such as aging or head injury- change this).

Taught online by Jasmine Benjamin

PSY 358 - PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Introduction to theory and research on both normal and altered states of consciousness, from a natural science and cognitive psychology viewpoint. Topics reviewed include philosophical foundations, brain systems and consciousness, introspection, sleep and dreaming, hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelic drugs. This is a Writing Emphasis course.

Taught online by Quentin Raffaelli

PSY 360 - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

How did you know you did something bad as a child? How do you know if someone is an agreeable person when you’ve only seen their face? What’s love got to do with any of it? This course will introduce the major theories and research findings of social psychology. Specific topics covered in the class include social learning, social affect, the self, social perception, social interaction, and groups and culture.

Taught online by Ciara Atkinson

PSY 383 - HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY

The main aim of Health Psychology is to introduce students to the broad theories, terminology, and substantive research findings of the field through consideration of the psychological influences on illness and wellness, as well as the effects of physical health on psychosocial functioning. Throughout the term, we will examine how these processes operate across varied levels of analysis, including, for example, consideration of the different biological systems of the body, how people make health behavior changes, the effects of interpersonal contexts on physical health, the development, maintenance, and psychosocial correlates of specific diseases, cultural variation in disease and health behaviors, and the role of larger systems in promoting wellness and the management of chronic illness.

Taught online by Eva-Maria Stelzer

5 Week-1 (6/8/20 - 7/9/20)

PSY 230 - PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT AND STATISTICS

Offered: 5 week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20) and 5 week 2 (Dates 7/13/20 - 8/12/20)

PSY 290A - RESEARCH METHODS

Psychology majors must learn the content of psychology, but they also must learn how psychologists know what they know. Research Methods is a critical thinking skills class in which the main goal is to help you become a better consumer of information – both in psychology and in the real world. You will learn how to systematically evaluate the validity of different claims that you might encounter in classes, research articles, the media, or in casual conversation. This class will also teach you how to plan psychological research that can test different claims. You will learn to articulate the pros and cons of different research choices and plan research that optimizes these pros and cons.

Offered: 5 week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20) and 5 Week 2 (Dates 7/13/20 - 8/12/20)

PSY 352 - PERSONALITY

This course is an introduction to the major theories and ideas in personality psychology. Personality psychologists conduct scientific research to understand the factors that define people as individuals. In other words, they study individual differences that distinguish you from other people. Topics in this class will include individual differences in traits, physiology, motivation, cognition, emotion, self-concept, and stress responses. This course will also examine the effects of gender and culture on personality, as well as the topic of personality disorders.

Offered: 5 week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20)

PSY 368 - PSYCHOLOGY OF TERRORISM

This course is intended to be an introduction to the scientific study of the psychology of terrorism. Topics will include definitions of terrorism, pathological and non-pathological psychological reactions to terrorism, psychological factors that may contribute to terrorist behavior, systems for communicating terrorism threats, possible methods to reduce terrorism, and resilience and post-traumatic growth.

Offered: 5 Week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20)

PSY 380 -CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT: CLINICAL AND RESEARCH ISSUES

This course will serve as a broad introduction to the topic of child maltreatment from a psychological perspective. The course will examine the history of child maltreatment in the United States as well as the numerous roles that professionals play in the prevention, investigation, and treatment of maltreatment. Students will be challenged to critically examine the methodological approaches to the study of maltreatment and the way maltreated children interact with multiple institutions. Moreover, students will be introduced to literature as it applies to various types of maltreatment, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, neglect, and less common forms of abuse (such as factitious disorder by proxy, sibling abuse, bullying, and institutional maltreatment).

Offered: 5 week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20)

PSY 381 - ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

Who is most likely to suffer from a mental health disorder? What factors contribute to (and buffer against) the likelihood of developing a mental health disorder? Abnormal psychology is a branch of psychology that empirically studies abnormalities in cognition, emotion, and behavior. During this class, you will learn a broad overview of mental illness, with a special emphasis on the classification of mental illness by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 (DSM-5). Additionally, we will cover theoretical approaches to treating mental health problems and specific treatments that work and do not work for different diagnoses. Finally, students will be introduced to the biopsychosocial model and the causal theories behind diagnoses.

Offered: 5 Week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20) and 5 Week 2 (Dates 7/13/20 - 8/12/20)

PSY 413 - DRUGS, BRAIN, AND BEHAVIOR

Humans are drawn to mind-altering substances. We’ve discovered or created chemicals that stimulate us, relax us, relieve depression and pain, make us social, make us see god, and cause life-crippling addictions. This course will explore how chemicals work to alter our brain and our behavior. Some brain-altering chemicals are found in nature, some are synthesized, and some are produced by the brain itself. The course will cover topics in cellular biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. A previous background in these topics is helpful but not required if students are proactive in filling the gaps in their understanding by accessing resources outside of the main texts.

Offered: 5 week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20)

PSY 458 - VIOLENCE AND YOUTH

In this course we will broadly address a number of topics related to youth and violence, including various aspects of the juvenile justice system, etiology of youthful offending, correlates of juvenile violence, media and violence, specific offending groups, and prevention and treatment programs for violent youths and their families. The aim of this course is to provide you with a better understanding of what we know (and what we don't) about the lives of youthful offenders. This is a Writing Emphasis course.

Offered: 5 Week 1 (Dates 6/8/20 - 7/9/20)

5 Week-2 (7/13/20 - 8/12/20)

PSY 101 - INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

This course is intended to provide you with an overview of the foundational concepts and principles of the field of psychology. This includes covering the history of psychology, formative individuals, key perspectives, fields of inquiry, and application into real-world phenomena. Key components of this course include: psychological systems and methods, structure and functions of the nervous and endocrine systems, learning, motivation and emotion, perception, memory, thought and language, personality, development, social cognition and behavior, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.