Psychology

This course examines the development of thought, language and personality as well as issues in clinical psychology. It also covers social issues including communication, aggression, and altruism.

Through the lens of sociology and psychology, this course explores interpersonal relationships, including kinship, friendship, love, and marriage. It looks at interpersonal relationships as an essential component of human social interaction. The course also analyzes the reasons for conflict and ways to improve interpersonal relationships.

This course makes students familiar with diverse aspects of human behavior in organizations. The course considers the following: how organizations select good employees, how organizations maintain a healthy and motivated workforce, effective leadership styles, and the characteristics of high-performing teams. An array of different topics from work and organizational psychology are studied such as work stress, occupational health, emotions in organizations, leadership, personnel selection, work motivation, and teamwork. The course consists of lectures, assignments, and a group project in which students focus on one of the topics mentioned above.  At the end, there is a ‘mini conference’ in which groups present the results of their group work.

This course highlights the core processes for developing theory-and evidence-based interventions. Several topics in the field of applied psychology are discussed, for example obesity, sexual behaviors, but also topics like traffic safety, and pro-environmental behaviors. Additionally, students are provided with applications of more fundamental insights (e.g., emotion regulation, stigma), and first-hand examples of existing behavior change programs: from problems they target and who are involved, to theory and empirical evidence, to development, implementation, and evaluation.

In this course, students learn about various ways to enhance cognition covering a broad range of approaches. The focus is on current hot topics such as brain stimulation, neuro-feedback, smart drugs, and meditation. Additionally, students have the opportunity to critically discuss the scientific basis of other (potential) cognitive enhancers such as sleep, hypnosis, nutrition, physical exercise, and neuro-linguistic programming. Lastly, the possibility of cognitive enhancement poses ethical questions that are discussed. At the end of this course, students have basic knowledge of the potential, current limitations, and risks of cognitive enhancement.

This version of the Positive Psychology course includes an Independent Study Project (ISP) done under the direction of the instructor. The ISP is 10-12 pages and counts for 1/3 of the overall grade for the course. Positive psychology was introduced by Martin Seligman around 2000 and can be viewed as a supplementary approach to clinical psychology. The positive psychological movement formulated three aims: (1) to focus on well-being and happiness instead of abnormal behavior and psychopathology, (2) to be concerned with building positive qualities and strengths instead of repairing damage, and (3) to prevent future problems instead of correcting past and present problems. This course starts with a general introduction to the field of positive psychology. The main concepts are introduced and clarified, and an overview of the results of happiness studies is presented. In subsequent meetings, various topics are discussed in lectures and group discussions including mindfulness, positive emotions, resilience, self-determination theory, self-compassion, and research in the field. There is ample room to gain hands-on experience with positive psychological techniques ranging from simple journaling exercises to mindfulness meditation. The course provides participants with the tools to be able to evaluate and design research in the area of positive psychology, but also with the skills to apply some important intervention techniques. Final assessment is by means of an individual paper on a topic of choice within the field of positive psychology. The course includes a field trip.