Introduction to Psychology

Academic year 2011-12

Date last modified

23-4-2012 1:29

Period

Period 1

Startdate:

05-Sep-11

Enddate:

28-Oct-11

Code

SSC1005

ECTS credits

5.0

Organisational unit

University College Maastricht

Coordinator

V.G. van de Ven

Description

Psychology studies behavior and mental processes, and aims at understanding, predicting, and sometimes changing behavior. Its scope is wide: from fundamental to applied research, covering micro level research such as firing of single cortical neurons to macro level research such as observing social behavior in groups. Psychology addresses normal healthy human behavior as well as abnormal behavior, which might be due to mental or biological problems. However, there are many ways or perspectives, such as biological, cognitive, social or Freudian, to explain behavior. Some perspectives complement each other, other perspectives conflict each other; some perspectives were valuable at some time but were later “falisfied”. In contemporary psychology the brain plays an important part in explaining human behavior. We know how single nerve cells “see the world”, and which brain areas are activated during hallucinations. But psychologists have not yet unraveled how the brain supports consciousness, or how we interact with one another. Studying these perspectives in this course will reveal that psychology is a behavioral science, relying heavily on scientific methods and experimental design. In this course, the perspectives and scientific methods will be introduced, and used to explain how we (think we) see the world around us, learn and memorize (and forget) information, (mis) communicate with others, solve puzzles and play chess, experience fear or happiness, or become smarter. Some of these topics will be elaborated on in 200 and 300 level courses. Practical examples of psychological experiments are introduced in the tasks where possible or applicable. At the end of this course, you will know that modern-day psychology is a multi-disciplinary and scientific meeting-ground for those who wish to learn more about “what makes us tick”.

Goals

• To introduce students to various research fields of psychology. • To introduce psychology as an empirical science.

Instruction language

Prerequisites

Recommended literature

Teaching methods

PBL
PRESENTATION(S)
LECTURE(S)
ASSIGNMENT(S)
PAPER(S)

Assessment methods

FINAL PAPER
ATTENDANCE
PARTICIPATION
WRITTEN EXAM
ORAL EXAM
TAKE HOME EXAM

Key words