Psychology

This course covers the basic principles of research and theory in social psychology, with a special emphasis on understanding how people relate to each other. Issues such as the nature of human sociability, the perception and interpretation of social behavior, ambiguities of interpretation of interpersonal behavior, verbal and nonverbal communication processes, impression formation and impression management, and related topics will be covered. The course also covers developmental psychology, including the age at which certain abilities or dispositions develop or are learned, and the processes by which developmental changes occur. Issues such as nature and nurture, continuity vs discontinuity, nomothetic vs ideographic approaches, and the methods and ethics of developmental research will be covered from various perspectives— psychodynamic, biological/ethological, environmental/learning, and cognitive-developmental.

This course is designed to help students understand the psychology of persuasion and consumer behavior as they relate to marketing communications. It provides an overview of the key psychological concepts and theories and how those apply to consumer behavior and advertising persuasion. 

This course examines why children do what they do and how they think and acquire skills. It covers physical development, including biological development (e.g., genes, development of the brain, stress and hormone systems) motor and perceptual development (e.g., development of locomotion and perception of the object world), and cognitive development (e.g., development of language, learning, memory, self-regulation); interactions between developmental processes across these domains; how these developments influence behaviors and vice versa; how these developments are shaped by the various ecological systems within which they take place and vice versa.

This course introduces psychology as an empirical behavioral science and provides an overview of the various fields of psychology. Students learn to appreciate the diversity and richness of the psychology discipline, and learn the questions and approaches used by psychologists. Topics covered include the biological bases of perception, cognition, and behavior, and an introduction to the subfields of behavioral, developmental, social, cognitive, and clinical psychology.

This course provides a general introduction to social psychology. It also covers research methods and classical theories to recent research findings and practical applications of social psychological principles. 

This course introduces social and developmental psychology. It considers behavior in the context of social interaction, and on key stages of perceptual, cognitive, and social development. The course takes a biological perspective where appropriate and placing an emphasis on experimental findings. This course covers the ways in which social and developmental psychologists think, the major theoretical perspectives they might take, how they carry out research, and what the results of this research mean.

The course provides an overview of working in the United Kingdom and examines the changing organizational structures of work in Britain. It examines the social and economic changes that affect the workplace in the UK. Topics covered include the sociology of work; trade unions; oppression at work; generational changes at work. 

This course examines the main theories and research in the field of decision psychology, and the methods that are conducive to rational decision making in different realistic situations. Topics include the main ideas of the human reasoning (unlimited, limited, and ecological rationality); major research paradigm in the field of decision making and judgment (standardization, descriptive, evolution) and related research progress; common decision-making in real world cases or hot social phenomena; common decision-making traps and deviation; and effective decisions applicable to different situations, especially with the heuristic social decision-making.