Psychology

This course examines study abroad/overseas exchanges, aiming to integrate individual and collective insights for transformative learning. The course draws upon three main student experiences: 1) Pre-Departure (students intending to go on exchange or an equivalent experience) 2) Re-Integration (students returning from exchange or an equivalent experience) and 3) On- Going (incoming exchange students to HKU from overseas). It will first examine the concepts of transformation, experience, and learning, and how they can be integrated from interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., the metaphor of metamorphosis; the morality of human development; the phenomenology of perception and stereotypes). It will then examine the structures and theories of unfamiliar places, rootedness, mobility, cross-cultural encounters, reciprocity, and service learning in the context of students’ unique identities and experiences. It will conclude with reflections on transformation of the “whole person” as an embodied, transnational process.

This course deals with psychological phenomena, biases, and socially-oriented behavior that affect economically relevant decisions of people. The main focus is on what economists have learned from various experiments, as well as the methodology of answering questions by the means of an experiment. In order to understand better the motivation and contribution of experimental works, the course reviews the structure and predictions of standard models in Microeconomics and discusses the ways in which they are modified or extended to incorporate psychological theory and empirical findings. Students who have preparation in Calculus, Statistics, Econometrics, and Intermediate Microeconomics benefit from the course the most. Lack of background knowledge in one of these disciplines increases the amount of work that students need to do to keep up with their peers.

In this course, students are introduced to and practice three specific psychological skills, choosing two skills from a suite of optional skills, alongside a third compulsory skill (learning to carry out a literature search).  

Topics include (1) why modern psychology requires an understanding of neuroscience; (2) neuronal structure, function and information transmission; (3) the organization of the nervous system and how this reflects some principles of information processing; (4) methods used to study structure and information processing in the brain; (5) functional architectures in the brain; (6) the neural basis of learning; (7) brain evolution; and (8) the biology and psychopharmacology of reward, reinforcement, and psychological disorders.

This course provides a basic background into the current research on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and its treatment, including cognitive, exposure-based, narrative, and psychodynamic treatment approaches. Students present about the current literature behind a specific treatment method as well as engage in in-class exercises and discussions on the nuances and limitations of different approaches.

This course covers concepts of rationality, the "classic" research into the cognitive psychology of reasoning, and decision-making. Topics include nature of representation, operations on representations, and levels of analysis; different types of models in psychology (i.e., descriptive, normative, verbal vs formal); epistemic rationality and its connection to Bayes' Theorem; issues of rational belief revision; deductive reasoning in syllogisms and if-then conditionals, with a specific focus on the debate between mental rules and mental models approaches to these topics; probabilistic approaches to deduction. Dual process models of reasoning; instrumental rationality and its connection to decision theory; abductive reasoning & science of explanation; subjective expected utility theory and Prospect Theory; and decision by sampling and heuristics within the bounded rationality paradigm.

This course explores the role of Psychology in explaining variation in performance levels in sports and other aspects of physical activity. The course considers how levels of performance, including elite performance, might be influenced by psychological concepts including individual differences (such as in confidence, personality or perception), amount and nature of training or practice, effects of competitive stress, and other factors. The course also describes how techniques based on psychological theories and models may be used in interventions designed to improve performance (including coaching, and techniques such as imagery, arousal regulation, and goal setting). Students are introduced to the evidence base for these interventions, as well as the practicalities and challenges of applying these psychological techniques.

This course studies the psychology of language. It focuses on how language, specifically bilingualism, is psychologically manifested in children.

This course explores classic and contemporary issues in environmental psychology. Topics include belonging, place attachment, and place identity; restorative environments, health, and well-being; perceptions of natural and urban environments; socially marked spaces and stigmatized environments; territory, boundaries, contested spaces, and environmental conflicts; pro-environmental action and environmental protection. Seminars are discussion-based and structured around weekly set readings that incorporate theoretical and empirical work, including quantitative and qualitative studies.