Psychology

This course examines psychological theory and its research applications to the real world. In particular, this course focuses on health psychology, forensic psychology, and organizational psychology. The health psychology component investigates why individuals engage in risky health behaviors, including smoking, overeating, and alcohol use; inequalities in health, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island health; and dealing with chronic illness, including death, dying, and survivorship. The forensic psychology section explores lie detection, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and eyewitness memory. The organizational psychology component focuses on personnel selection, training in organizations, performance measurement, workplace motivation, and leadership.

This biologically-oriented course gives students an introduction to generally applicable stages in learning and memory, namely encoding, storage, and retrieval. In addition, students are exposed to the different brain areas and structures that contribute to the different types of memory, and to the contribution of individual neurons to forming short- and long-term memory traces. This course aims to significantly deepen the students' concepts of working memory, episodic memory, different forms of conditioning, and skill learning, emotional learning, and learning by example. Insights into how memory works may help enhance memory and learning in many daily activities, educational contexts, and clinical contexts that involve revalidation after physical or emotional trauma, neurological disease, brain lesions, or aging. The course stimulates students to make the link between theoretical insights and applications. The corresponding practicals for this course are: Measuring Cognitive Functions 1, Measuring Cognitive Functions 2, Cognitive Disorders in Practice

This social psychology course introduces theory, research methods and empirical findings of how people think, feel, and behave in social situations. It builds a contemporary understanding of the field and study of social psychology. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on developing critical and integrative ways of thinking about theory and research in social psychology. Topics covered include: research methods, the social self, cognition, perception, persuasion, conformity, prejudice, aggression, intimate relationships, and group dynamics. Students cultivate skills to analyze social situations and events encountered every day. In addition, students explore how social psychology informs our understanding of culture and society, with special attention to comparative cultural influences.

The course is taught jointly by the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Psychology, and begins with a brief history of behavioral research. Students are introduced to various aspects of learning, cultural transmission, cognition, play, and intelligence in animals, including humans. They explore the animal’s behavior in its environment and why all individuals of a species do not behave in the same way. The course addresses the importance of an understanding of behavior in relation to conservation in the wild and in zoos, and in relation to climate change.

This course covers approaches to meeting the needs of people with neurological disorders and progressive neurological diseases. As the production of purposeful goal directed movement pervades all aspects of behavior, there is a specific focus upon the physical, psychological, and social consequences of movement dysfunction. The course deals with the scientific principles underlying neurological rehabilitation, including motor control and learning. Students are also introduced to intervention strategies that are designed to maintain or re-establish functional capability, such as brain-computer interfaces, robot assisted therapy, deep brain stimulation, and cortical stimulation.