Psychology

In this course, students cover topics in human and machine inductive inference. In the first half of the course, students are exposed to the problem of induction and how the problem manifests in a range of domains such as object recognition, categorization, and learning. The focus of the course then turns to analogy and relational reasoning, areas were humans make generalizations across situations and domains with much more success and flexibility than non-human animals and conventional machine learning approaches. Students cover research in analogical reasoning as well as the development of analogical thinking and the representations that support analogy and generalization. The second half of the course focuses on computational theories of how humans and artificial (i.e., machine) systems perform induction and generalization. Students cover broadly the main approaches to representing knowledge and modelling human cognition (symbolic and connectionist models). They then cover how these approaches have been leveraged to explain human induction and learning with focus on traditional production system models, Bayesian models, neural network models, and symbolic-connectionist models.

This course addresses the historical and philosophical background to current debates in psychology. Emphasis is placed on the development of critical analysis of alternative models and levels of explanations of behavior, and the ability to relate conceptual debates in psychology to issues in the real world.

In this course, students gain an in-depth understanding of what makes consumers buy some products and not others, how various psychological characteristics influence our consumer behaviors, how companies can best try to meet consumers' wants and needs, among other topics. Building on a general understanding of marketing, this course develops a useful, conceptual understanding of psychological theories relevant to the study of consumer behavior.

This course develops skills for conducting psychological evaluations through individual interviews in order to perform diagnostic, intervention, and clinical research functions.

In this course, students design social intervention programs from a promotional approach. Students also develop social intervention programs based on the self-directed school.

This course introduces students to key concepts and research in the study of developmental psychology, with particular focus on cognitive development, social and emotional development, moral development, and gender development.

This educational psychology course covers how humans learn and remember information. Topics are approached from the perspectives of Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism. Using different learning theories, the course discusses the most effective ways to learn and the best ways to build educational material. How people process information is covered, along with how people develop over time, how they behave in different learning situations, and the differences between beginners to experts. The course has both historical and current perspectives.

The course discusses research on the dynamics of peer interactions, their impact on multiple aspects of social development, and the risk factors and consequences of peer difficulties in childhood and adolescence. In particular, the course emphasizes the importance of peer relationships for emotional competence, psychological well-being, and achievement. The course reviews how individual characteristics interact with family, group, and contextual factors throughout development to shape social behavior. Each topic is presented with a brief theoretical overview, measures and methods used in research, research findings and implications, and future directions. The course discusses topics including conceptual origins of peer research; overview of concepts and methods of assessment of peer relations; individual characteristics, contextual factors, and peer interactions; group dynamics and their effects on peer relations; and methodological issues in studying peer relations. The course requires students to have basic knowledge of developmental social psychology and research methods as a prerequisite.