[PSY 202] Introductory Psychology

Introduction

This is a survey course in introductory psychology. Although a lot of the material we cover may seem quite detailed and overwhelming at first, we actually just touch the surface of ten different areas in the field of psychology. What you will find out as the course progresses is that experimental and research psychologists study people. That's one of the reasons that so many programs strongly recommend, or even require, that students take an introductory psychology class. Think about this. When you buy a car, or a computer, or a TV, or whatever, you probably spend at least some time looking through the owner's manual, finding out how the thing works and what to do if something goes wrong. Your introductory textbook, and this course, are like an owner's manual for you. You will find out how you work and how things can go wrong. Psychology is a search to understand what makes normal, everyday people behave the way they do. Most of us go through life on auto-pilot; we seldom stop to reflect on our own behavior, or the behavior of others, unless that behavior is strange or out of the ordinary.

We'll look at how your nervous system and brain work, the ways you take information in from the environment and process that information in your brain, how these processes allow you to remember and learn, individual differences in behavior and how those differences might emerge, the ways in which psychologists study behavior and mental processes, and what psychological research studies have shown us about social interactions.

This course covers a lot of different areas in psychology; this is why introductory psychology is considered a survey course. It is designed to expose you to a number of different areas within the larger field of psychology.

The students who are the most successful in this course will be those who show a high level of self-discipline. It is important that you keep track of all the deadlines during the semester, and that you submit your assignments and complete your quizzes in a timely manner. Also, the material in this course tends to be cumulative; later lessons refer back to concepts from earlier lessons.

You will not be a practicing psychologist by the time this course is over; however, you should be much more aware of how psychological concepts apply to your daily life, and how many everyday events and activities can be understood more clearly using principles drawn from basic psychology.

Description

UW Colleges Catalog Course Description for PSY 202: Introductory Psychology - 3 credits. Survey of major content areas in psychology. Topics include research methodology, learning, memory, cognition, biological psychology, sensation, perception, motivation, emotion, development, personality, psychopathology and social psychology. Students who have taken PSY 201 may not take this course for credit. This course fulfills the UWC requirement for Social Sciences (SS).

Proficiencies

Institutional proficiencies assigned to this course

Successful completion of this course will enhance students' ability to

• read, observe, and listen with comprehension and critical perception;
• demonstrate a large and varied vocabulary;
• interpret and synthesize information and ideas;
• analyze and evaluate arguments.

Department-specific proficiencies assigned to this course

By completing this course, students will

• understand the basic concepts of experimental and correlational methods;
• understand the basic paradigms for classical and operant conditioning;
• develop a basic understanding of the major theoretical perspectives in psychology (cognitive, behavioral, biological, psychodynamic, and humanistic), and how these perspectives approach personality, psychological dysfunction, and psychotherapy.

Requirements

Software

• A word processing package.

  It does not matter which one; the ability to create and save *.rtf or *.txt files. All word processing packages can do this; if you don't know how to do it with your package, you can contact the helpdesk by sending an email to uwconlinesupport@uwc.edu, or by calling 877-449-1877.

• The ability to view Flash files and PowerPoint presentations.

  If you do not have PowerPoint installed on your computer, you can download a free viewer from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/. If you don't have Flash installed on your computer, you can download a free player from http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/.

About the Instructors

• William Elmhorst
  Senior Lecturer, Psychology
  BA, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
  MA, Viterbo University
  MS, University of Wisconsin-Superior
  
• Shirley Hensch
  Professor, Psychology
  BComm, University of Alberta
  MSc, University of Alberta
  PhD, University of Alberta