Psychology

First-Year Studies—Year | 10 credits

PSYC 1021

This course will consider several different ways to get insight into the world of the child. You were all children once, and though memory is imperfect, memories of childhood can still be useful. Psychologists such as Ainsworth, Piaget, Bandura, Gopnik, and Vygotsky have observed children, made systematic observations, and done laboratory research. Clinicians such as Freud and Erikson add ideas that come from their work with patients. In this course, another important source of insight will be your own observations as a participant-observer in our Early Childhood Center (ECC), a school for children between the ages of two and six. The theories and experiments raise questions that you can ask of your own observations—for example, what do you notice about the emotions of young children on the first day of their classes. Fieldwork at the ECC typically gives rise to ideas for the focus of your conference project. In the past, conference work projects have taken up topics such as children’s friendship, children’s block-building, shyness, and doing a case study of an individual child. In fall, students will meet weekly with the instructor for individual conferences; in spring, individual conferences will be biweekly.

Faculty

• Charlotte L. Doyle

First-Year Studies—Year | 10 credits

PSYC 1013

Sensory perception is a vital component of the creation and experience of artistic works of all types. Investigation of sensory systems has been foundational for psychologists and neuroscientists developing understanding of brains, minds, and bodies. Recent work in brain science has moved us beyond the Aristotelian notion of five discrete senses to a view of the senses as more various and interconnected, with each other, and with the fundamental psychological categories of perception, attention, emotion, memory, imagination and judgment. What we call “taste” is a multi-sensory construction of “flavor” that relies heavily on smell, vision, and touch (mouth feel); “vision” refers to a set of semi-independent streams that specialize in the processing of color, object identity, or spatial layout and movement; “touch” encompasses a complex system of responses to different types of contact with the largest sensory organ—the skin; and “hearing” includes aspects of perception that are thought to be quintessentially human—music and language. Many other sensations are not covered by the standard five: for example, the senses of balance, of body position (proprioception) and ownership, feelings of pain arising from within the body, and feelings of heat or cold. Perceptual psychologists have suggested that the total count is closer to 17 senses than five. We will investigate all of these senses, their interactions with each other, and their intimate relationships with human emotion, memory, and imagination. Some of the questions we will address include: Why are smells such potent memory triggers? What can visual art tell us about how the brain works and vice versa? Why is a caregiver’s touch so vital for psychological development? Why do foods that taste sublime to some people evoke feelings of disgust in others? Do humans have a poor sense of smell? Have the effects of COVID changed our views of its importance? Why does the word “feeling” refer to both bodily sensations and emotions? What makes a song “catchy” or “sticky”? Can humans learn to echolocate like bats? What is the role of body perception in mindfulness meditation? This is a good course for artists who like to think about science and for scientists with a feeling for art. This is a collaborative course. Biweekly in fall, students will alternate between individual conferences with the instructor and small-group activities, the main collaborative activity being a sensory lab where students will have the opportunity to explore their own sensory perceptions in a systematic way, investigating how they relate to language, memory, and emotion. Biweekly in spring, students will meet with the instructor for individual conferences. 

Faculty

• Elizabeth Johnston

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3043

Note: Same as ANTH 3043.

In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will explore child and adolescent development through a cross-cultural lens. Focusing on case studies from diverse communities around the world, we will look at the influence of cultural processes on how children learn, play, and grow. Our core readings will analyze psychological processes related to attachment and parenting; cognition and perception; social and emotional development; language acquisition; and moral development. We will ask questions such as the following: Why are children in Sri Lanka fed by hand by their mothers until middle childhood, and how does this shape their relations to others through the course of life? How does an Inuit toddler come to learn moral lessons through scripted play with adults, and how does such learning prepare them to navigate a challenging social and geographic environment? Is it true that Maya children do not do pretend play at all? How does a unique family role influence the formation of identity for Latine youth in the United States? How are unequal childhoods shaped by social exclusion and discrimination on the basis of race, class, gender, and immigration status? Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, our course material will draw from developmental psychology, human development, cultural psychology, and psychological anthropology and will include peer-reviewed journal articles, books, as well as films that address core issues in a range of geographic and sociocultural contexts. Students will conduct conference projects related to the central topics of our course and may opt to do fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center.

Faculty

• Deanna Barenboim

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3618

When interactions between therapists and patients appear on-screen, how closely do they mirror real life sessions? What cultural, social, and technological influences shape these portrayals, and what do they reveal about societal attitudes toward mental health? This seminar will use “the reel” of film, television, and social media vignettes to highlight “the real” foundational clinical theories and core concepts. From classic onscreen analysts to the modern rise of TikTok therapy and self-diagnosis, students will examine how psychological concepts are translated and reshaped for public consumption. Students will bring curiosity, questions, and assumptions to class as they reflect on assigned readings. Each week will focus on a clinical theme that students will explore through media excerpts, case vignettes, and academic readings. Students will engage with these materials through guided discussion, small group dialogue, and role-play. By the end of the semester, students will develop a clearer understanding of therapeutic boundaries, the clinician’s role, and their own assumptions about psychological care. They will also be able to evaluate portrayals of psychology and interpret fictionalized cases through key concepts from the course. For their conference project, students will select a format of their choice, such as a research paper, podcast, short film, or multimedia journal, to explore in depth a specific question, theme, theory, or cultural dynamic from the course. Functioning as an introduction to clinical psychology, the seminar will move beyond traditional lecture by integrating diverse media, clinical case material, and social platforms to examine foundational psychological theories and practices.

Faculty

• Amy Brown

Open, Small Lecture—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 2038

What makes linguistic communication possible? Do other primates “talk”? How do we understand messages from one another despite uncertainty and noise? In this course, we will consider central questions about language: Are we the only ones who have it? When did we learn it? How does artificial intelligence mimic it? This course will start with an introduction to comparative research with other species (nonhuman primates, whales, and insects), allowing students to consider many possible forms of communication. Next, we will look at humans. What can studies with babies and children tell us about the nature of our communication system? Finally, we will explore how large language models, such as ChatGPT, produce text that might look and feel like human writing. What have these models learned, and how should we study them? Students should come prepared to engage with the topic of communication from multiple perspectives, including empirical/scientific and critical. Through weekly small-group conferences, students will develop projects that relate the course to their collective interests, such as learning and communicating in Toki Pona (a philosophical artistic-constructed language), researching the limits of artificial intelligence language models, observing and analyzing children’s communication, or designing a behavioral intervention study that implements and evaluates different communication practices.

Faculty

• Sammy Floyd

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3003

This seminar is intended as a broad survey of the different branches of psychology, with an examination of their underlying principles and organizing major theories from a “critical” perspective. A critical perspective suggests an integration of “normative” perspectives on behavior and mental processes with an empirically informed analysis of societal, cultural, and structural effects such as social categorization of race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social class on these matters. We will begin with a brief history of psychology as a science, unpacking the benefits and the costs of a positivistic scientific approach to the study of behavior, moving through neural, sensing, and perceiving approaches to self, then development, cognition, personality, and ending with the definition and treatment of psychological disorders. Conference work can focus on deeper analyses within a particular area of psychology of interest to students.

Faculty

• Linwood J. Lewis

Open, Lecture—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 2162

Note: This is a complex, composite course; interviews are strongly encouraged. Same as ARTS 2162 and FLMH 2162. Also offered as First-Year Studies ARTS 1162.

Why is the topic of laughter so often siloed or scorned in discussions of high art, literature, and the sciences? Why don’t we take laughter seriously as a society? How many professors does it take to teach a course on laughter? (Two more than usual...) In this lecture with weekly seminars, students will develop a highly interdisciplinary understanding of laughter as a human behavior, cultural practice, and tool for creative expression. Based on the expertise of the three professors, lectures will primarily investigate laughter through the lens of psychology, film history, and visual arts. The goal of placing laughter at the center of our discourse is to think and play across disciplines to explore the many contradictory ideas and experiences signified by laughter, from humor and collective joy to unease and social rupture. For weekly class assignments, students will be asked to conduct observational studies of themselves and others’ laughter patterns, make artworks inspired by stand-up, sitcoms, and slapstick comedy, or write close analyses of classic cinematic gags. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the building blocks of laughter; classic devices of modern comedy; and laughter as a force of resilience, resistance, and regeneration. Topics to be discussed will include the evolutionary roots of laughter as a behavior; the psychological and physiological substrates of laughter as a mode of emotional and self-regulation; humor in Dada, surrealism, performance art, and stand-up comedy; jokes and the unconscious; comic entanglements of modern bodies and machines; hysterical audiences of early cinema; and how to read funny faces, word play, spit takes, toilet humor, and sound gags. Experiential, hands-on opportunities for engaging with the course will involve expert panels, improv/comedy workshops, scientific laughter labs, and an art exhibit organized around laughter.

Faculty

• John O’Connor
• Maia Pujara
• Leana Hirschfeld-Kroen

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3202

Care and caregiving are aspects of daily life that each of us depend upon at various times throughout our lives. Yet, care remains hidden and devalued in our current sociopolitical climate in which women continue to provide a majority of care. In this course, we will look at care, both as an orientation and an activity provided by family and friends to people with disabilities and older adults. Utilizing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory as a framework, we will explore the multilevel experiences of family caregivers. Specifically, we will focus on caregiving triads in all their diversity, including paid care workers and care receivers living with a variety of chronic illnesses. This course will take an interdisciplinary approach and introduce students to the various literature on family caregiving. From psychology to public health, we will consider care as a reciprocal process that ebbs and flows throughout the life course. We will read from feminist theory, critical disabilities studies, psychology, and public health, as well as look at how care is portrayed in popular culture, film, and books. We will learn about multilevel interventions, such as individual and policy responses geared toward supporting family caregivers, as well as organizations and social movements dedicated to creating better conditions of care for all.

Faculty

• Magdalena Ornstein-Sloan

Open, Lecture—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 2075

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. —William James, 1887, Habit

We all want happy lives filled with meaning and satisfaction. Yet, for many of us, happiness can be difficult to obtain with regularity or to sustain over a long period of time. Happiness is more than a feeling; rather, it is a state of well-being that should last a lifetime. Like exercising to improve physical health, it takes sustained cognitive effort to improve our mental health and engage in practices to promote well-being. We can look to evidence from the fields of psychology and neuroscience that tells us that we are mentally unprepared to: 1) predict what will make us happy, and 2) engage in behaviors that are known to make us happier. This course will cover the psychological and brain-based factors for why happiness feels so fleeting and what we can do to build better and more effective habits that have been shown to lead to longer-term maintenance of a positive mood and well-being. Students will read foundational work in the field of positive psychology by Martin Seligman, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Edward Diener, Daniel Kahneman, and others. We will also discuss studies in neuroscience that show how behavioral interventions in positive psychology can impact the brain’s structure and function—just like building stronger muscles during exercise. Through small-group conferences, students will apply evidence-based practices, such as bringing order and organization to their daily lives, expressing gratitude, and building social bonds (i.e., “cross training” for the mind) in activities called “Rewirements.” For the final project, called “Unlearning Yourself,” students will learn to undo or replace a detrimental habit (e.g., overspending, social-media use, poor sleep hygiene, complaining, or procrastinating) by establishing a plan to cultivate evidence-based practices for sustained well-being. By the end of this course, students will have gained the ability to sift through the ever-booming literature on positive psychology and neuroscience to identify the practices that work best for them, along with an appreciation for the notion that finding and keeping happiness and well-being requires intentional practice and maintenance. Students should come prepared to engage in meaningful self-work.

Faculty

• Maia Pujara

Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3416

This course will engage a feminist psychology that recognizes how the psychological and physical well-being of women, queer, and/or trans people—but also all people—requires understanding and challenging oppressive structures and building more life-affirming ones. As such, this seminar will explore the category of gender within and beyond the psychological discipline and will aim to familiarize students with major theoretical perspectives on gender including social constructionism, various feminist traditions, queer theories, post-colonial theories, and various psychological traditions. Engaging these traditions, we will think expansively about how gendered practices—from sexuality to labor and family—have been studied in relation to patriarchy and racial capitalism, but also how they form meanings in the physical and psychological lives of individuals. We will examine psychological empirical research as well as interdisciplinary theoretical and multimedia works on gender across history and culture, emphasizing the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, disability, and immigration in the experiences of women, girls, two-spirit, trans, and/or nonbinary individuals. We will, for example, read Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and Sandra Harding and watch film/documentary clips about Indigenous frameworks of gender. We will engage with how gender is embedded in contested relations of power in diverse communities and how feminists and psychologists have pushed for change in and beyond academia to envision healing, solidarity, and justice.

Faculty

• Sonia Sánchez

Sophomore and Above, Lecture—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 2042

This course will analyze children’s media, specifically preschool media through middle school, using cognitive and developmental psychology theory and methods. We will examine specific educational television programs with regard to cognitive and social developmental issues related to family life, peer relationships, and education issues. Because media has an enormous impact on children’s behavior, this has increasingly become a subject of interest among researchers and the public. This course will address that interest by applying cognitive and developmental psychological research and theories for the development and production of educational media. In addition, the course will help identify essential elements that determine the positive and negative qualities of media for children. Finally, the course will examine and evaluate how psychological theories and frameworks can guide the successful production of children’s media (e.g., social cognitive theory). Projects and assignments will include weekly class discussions on peer-reviewed journal articles, watching television programs, group preschool television pitchbook preparation, child observations interacting with screens, and media artifact critiques, as assigned.

Faculty

• Jamie Krenn

Sophomore and Above, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3214

Note: No experience with Dungeons and Dragons is required, although some familiarity—through play, shows, or podcasts—may be helpful.

In this course, we will explore research on judgment and decision making from psychology and behavioral economics while playing the tabletop fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). Students will learn economic and statistical theories about how people should make decisions under uncertainty, as well as the heuristics and biases people use to make decisions efficiently, if not rationally. We will discuss classical and modern work on heuristics (mental shortcuts) and biases (systematic errors) by researchers such as Tversky and Kahneman, Sheena Iyengar, Tom Gilovich, and Daniel Gilbert, and learn how to avoid common pitfalls to make better decisions. Applying course concepts in game will help your character succeed, while falling for statistical traps and cognitive fallacies can have disastrous consequences (for your character)! The course will be organized as half seminar, half game. We will use the first class of each week to discuss the readings from a theoretical standpoint, and the second class of each week to apply course concepts in our D&D game. Conference work will include keeping detailed campaign notes and will culminate in an empirically supported written chapter of your party’s story.

Faculty

• Julia Smith

Intermediate, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3809

Prerequisite: a prior course in psychology

Some of the most interesting and important pieces of knowledge a child will ever learn are not taught in school; so it is with the child's social world. Unlike “reading, writing, and ’rithmetic,” there is no “Social Thinking 101.” Further, by the time children reach school age, they have already spent years learning the “lessons of life” and affecting those around them. This course will explore the social world of the child from birth through adolescence, with a special focus on the parent-child relationship. For example, we will examine such issues as different parenting “styles,” the long-term consequences of divorce, and the “hurrying” of children to achieve major milestones at ever-earlier ages. We will also explore the parents’ role in the child’s moral development, investigating the growth of moral emotions such as empathy, shame, and guilt. We will then expand our focus to include the role of gender, culture, and the power of peers in shaping the child’s sense of right and wrong. Conference work may include field placement at the Early Childhood Center or other venues, as interactions with real children will be encouraged.

Faculty

• Carl Barenboim

Intermediate, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3651

Prerequisite: a prior college-level psychology course

How does the human mind represent the world? How do these representations vary across people? Could using a different language change how we experience time—or even how we see color? Seemingly straightforward concepts such as “in” versus “on” mean different things in different cultures; and words such as “two” and “three” may not be linguistically universal. Indeed, this very course description makes culturally-specific assumptions about psychology and implicitly assumes objectivity. At the same time, humans seem to share many central experiences, such as perceiving events, creating categories, and recalling the past. In this course, we will draw on research from psycholinguistics, cognitive development, and cultural psychology to learn cognitive science in a larger context. Critically, we will consider how these fields have been affected by a focus on Western, white, industrialized experiences. The course will investigate the broader social and ethical consequences of these assumed perspectives and explore insights and challenges that emerge when we step out of them. We will draw on primary and secondary sources, including scientific research articles, literature, and recordings. Students will develop projects in conference work that combine their interests with the course content, such as designing an experiment to test cross-linguistic effects on visual attention, analyzing vocabulary from languages other than English, or developing proposals to redesign existing experiments using culturally-informed practices.

Faculty

• Sammy Floyd

Intermediate, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3456

Prerequisite: at least one college-level psychology course

Psychological trauma has been described as unspeakable, so cognitively disorganizing and intense that it is difficult to put into words the experience and the emotions that it evokes. Yet, the language that survivors use to describe their traumas provides insight into the psychology impact of trauma and the process of recovery. This course will begin with an overview of theories of trauma, resilience, and post-traumatic growth, as well as an introduction to the study of trauma narratives and how language reflects emotional and cognitive functioning. We will then explore different aspects of the cognitive, emotional, and biological impact of undergoing a trauma and how these changes are reflected in the language that trauma survivors use as they speak and write about their experiences. We will consider works by experts on trauma and language, including Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, and James Pennebaker, as well as current research in the field of trauma and trauma narratives. Through these readings, we will address topics such as what makes an experience traumatic, how representations of trauma in popular culture color our perceptions of trauma and recovery, the role of resilience and growth following a trauma, and what we can learn from attending to the content and structure of language. This course will be of interest to students who are curious about how the words we use reflect our cognitive and emotional functioning, especially for students interested in pursuing topics such as these at an advanced or graduate level.

Faculty

• Emma Forrester

Intermediate, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3175

Prerequisite: at least one college-level social sciences or psychology course

We have time, energy, questions, and few responsibilities. We want to push the envelope, resist compromise, lead revolutions, and turn the world upside down. Because we do not yet know quite how to be, we have not settled and will not let the dust settle around us. —Karlin and Borofsky, 2003

Many traditional psychological theories of development posit a brief transition from adolescence to adulthood; however, many people moving into their 20s experience anything but a brief transition to “feeling like an adult,” pondering questions such as: How many SLC alums can live in a Brooklyn sublet? What will I do when I finish the Peace Corps next year? In this course, we will explore the psychological literature concerning emerging adulthood, the period from the late teens through the 20s. We will examine this period of life from a unified biopsychosocial and intersectional perspective. This course will be a hands-on introduction to conducting qualitative and quantitative psychological research on the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality with people in emerging adulthood.

Faculty

• Linwood J. Lewis

Intermediate, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3475

Prerequisite: prior coursework in research methods and statistics

Note: Prerequisite coursework may be one course on each topic or at least one course that covered both topics.

What drives behavior in groups? When do people rebel or follow the rules? What makes us want to help or harm others? And, importantly, how do we find the answers to big questions like these? In this course, students will learn how to apply the scientific method to questions about human social behavior using various research methodologies in the field of social psychology. Assigned readings will focus on research methods and ethics, and students will also complete a literature review on their research topic of choice as part of their conference work. By the end of the course, students will be able to (a) generate feasible, falsifiable research questions, (b) identify appropriate research methods to answer a variety of questions, (c) write a research proposal, (d) create suitable data analysis plans and implement them in R, and (e) communicate research findings in academic and casual settings. Conference work will culminate in an APA-style paper (a research proposal or paper using secondary data) which can be used as a writing sample to demonstrate students’ research and writing abilities.

Faculty

• Julia Smith

Intermediate/Advanced, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits

PSYC 3664

Prerequisite: a prior psychology course

Note: Open to juniors and seniors. Also offered as PSYC 7162.

Play provides us with an amazing and informative lens for observing the development and complex inner lives of young children. Yet, play is being threatened by increasing amounts of time spent on technology and a growing societal focus on scheduled activities and academic goals. This course will offer an introduction to the many fascinating aspects of play, including the importance of unstructured free play, how play shapes the brain, sensory processing and self-regulation in play, outdoor play, cultural contexts of play, and humor development in play. Through readings, video illustrations, and discussion of student fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center, we will explore the many ways in which play contributes to the complex social, cognitive, emotional, and imaginative lives of children. This course will provide a foundation for Early Therapeutic Approaches for Young Children and Families (PSYC 7220). Fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center is required for this course.

Faculty

• Cindy Puccio

Advanced, Seminar—Fall | 3 credits

PSYC 4500

Prerequisite: previous college-level research methods course work in psychology or a related discipline

Note: Interested students are strongly encouraged to interview with the faculty member they wish to work with.

In this research internship course, students will gain research experience through active engagement in a psychology research lab with a member of the psychology faculty. This will involve an internship within a research lab on campus, including a weekly lab meeting, a weekly collaborative meeting across labs, ongoing contributions towards research and practice within their lab and/or community settings, additional individual and group meetings as needed, and additional synchronous and asynchronous research work. Weekly lab meetings will involve reading and discussing research articles and research-methods papers specific to the topics of research being undertaken by each student and faculty member. Students will be expected to learn the current research approaches being employed by their supervising faculty member and to contribute toward ongoing research in the form of a research practicum. They may also have the opportunity to develop and implement their own independent research projects within the labs in which they are working, depending on lab priorities. Students will be expected to make progress on research projects between meetings, as determined in collaboration with their primary supervising faculty.

The weekly collaborative cross-labs meeting will include readings on, and discussions of, research methods and ethics—both broad and specific to the research in which students are involved—as well as the discussion of contemporary research articles that are relevant to student and faculty research projects. All faculty and students involved in the research experience will take turns leading the discussion of current research, with faculty taking the lead at the beginning of the semester and students taking the lead as their expertise develops. 

Students participating in the course will be expected to attend and actively participate in weekly collaborative cross-labs meetings and weekly lab meetings; keep an ongoing journal and/or scientific lab notebook; select and facilitate group and lab discussions of relevant contemporary research articles (at least once for each meeting type); work within a lab and/or community setting, as appropriate for their projects; contribute toward ongoing research and practice within their lab or community settings; report on their ongoing lab research in the form of a short paper prepared for possible publication and a poster at the Science and Math Poster Symposium; and provide their colleagues with ongoing verbal and written feedback on their projects. Students will be responsible for working collaboratively with their colleagues to further develop their understanding of each of the topics covered in class.

Faculty

• Kim Ferguson
• Linwood J. Lewis
• Maia Pujara
• Sammy Floyd

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3205

By the time you read this course description, you have most likely learned more than 40,000 English words. That is at least an average of six words per day—and many more if you are multilingual. How is this possible? Were you born with this ability, or did you learn it? This course will be about how humans come to develop language so early and so quickly among striking environmental variation. For example, caregivers in the United States often alter and repeat their words when talking to children, while caregivers in other communities speak almost exclusively to other adults. And yet, children in both settings successfully learn language on similar timescales. How is this possible? At the same time, no two children are exactly alike. The course will explore how the spectrum of neurodiversity sets many learners on their own developmental and communicative path. We will centrally consider how language learning must be flexible to modalities by learning about babies in deaf communities who rapidly learn to comprehend and produce sign. Crucially, we will always begin by looking at data and methods: How do you actually measure a neonate’s language abilities? Or an adults? Each week, we will try out some of these experimental methods, such as artificial-language learning, and work with mini-studies to collect our own data. The conference project will ask students to propose their own theory of the kind of learning mechanism that can operate under such diverse inputs. The existing proposals will be evaluated to generate critiques and improvements. The course will bring these ideas beyond the seminar room, drawing connections to second-language learning in adults, early-childhood education, and social and economic structures. Conference projects will root novel theoretical proposals of language learning in data and will be developed in conversation with existing theories of nature versus nurture, domain-specificity, and modality.

Faculty

• Sammy Floyd

Open, Lecture—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 2119

In recent decades, dialogues among architects, designers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have markedly increased in frequency, leading to the creation of a new field of interdisciplinary study: neuroarchitecture. The formation of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in 2002 intensified and facilitated these communications across disciplinary boundaries. The architecture-neuroscience conversation is productive in both directions. Advances in contemporary understanding of the neural dynamics of constructive perception can inform architects; for example, mapping of neural pathways can provide points of access to the variety of largely unconscious processes that contribute to humans’ responses to the built environment. On the other hand, consideration of the complexities and specificities of buildings created by architects, engineers, and builders encourages neuroscientists and psychologists to advance their understandings of how a host of cognitive and emotional processes are integrated. The study of the responses of brains and bodies to buildings brings together work on sensory perception, attention, emotion, imagination, memory, planning, spatial navigation, aesthetics, and language. We will listen in on these lively architecture-neuroscience conversations by sampling from the wealth of new cross-disciplinary writings, such as Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander’s Cognitive Architecture: Designing for How We Respond to the Built Environment and Michael Arbib’s When Brains Meet Buildings: A Conversation Between Neuroscience and Architecture. A vital component of this course will be furthering the conversation by applying the concepts discussed in our readings to our own lived experience of the built environment. Many of the examples presented in weekly lectures will come from the instructor's experiences with the cities of New York and Edinburgh. The examples that students bring to our weekly seminars will draw on their own lived experience of diverse environments. Throughout the semester, we will explore how the design of healthy, sustainable buildings can enhance well-being. 

Faculty

• Elizabeth Johnston

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3029

What does it mean to live a flourishing life? This is one of the most fundamental questions of human existence. This course will explore this question through an engagement with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture’s Life Worth Living program's key principles. Specifically, we will explore the universal human experiences of care, aging and death. Together, we will dig deep into the centrality of caregiving to the human experience and identify and explore normative claims around care, aging, and death. Specifically, we will explore issues of avoidance, dependence, and interdependence, as we think together about the role of care in our lives across the lifespan but especially leading up to the final stages of life. In dominant United States culture, notions of individualism prevail—and caregiving is often conceptualized as a burden. But who has decided that the care of other humans is a burden, or that an unburdened life is one most worth living? Who is to say that we would prefer or be better off to be “unburdened” from the most important relationships in our lives? Collectively, we will consider more life-affirming, meaningful, and pluralistic ideas about care and consider who is most served by current mainstream normative claims. Finally, we will look at the ways these ideas are being resisted. Guest speakers will help us explore how individuals have responded to questions concerning how one lives life well by discussing how they have addressed these questions with their own lives for meaningful engagement. Readings in this interdisciplinary course will include works by Viktor Frankl, Lyn Lofland, Carol Gilligan, Atul Gawande, and the Handbook of Death and Dying. Students may explore various cultural approaches, such as Native American, Hindu, Muslim, Japanese, Taoist, and Jewish ways of death.

Faculty

• Magdalena Ornstein-Sloan

Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3855

How do people make moral decisions? What makes something morally right or wrong? How do people balance selfish motivations with prosocial ones? And how do moral emotions—like guilt—guide our moral reasoning? In this course, we will explore research on human morality in a variety of contexts. Drawing on theories such as Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development and Skitka's Integrated Theory of Moral Conviction, we will learn about how morality develops during childhood and how moral cognition can differ in important ways from similar reasoning about non-moral topics. We will also discuss theories about the origins and purpose of morality and the interplay between morality, religion, politics, and law.

Faculty

• Julia Smith

Open, Lecture—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 2044

How do people make decisions about their physical health? What can doctors, coaches, and policymakers do to encourage healthy behaviors? To what extent does pain exist in the body versus the mind? How do socioeconomic factors influence our health? In this course, students will explore the interrelationship between physical and mental health at the individual, community, and policy levels. We will discuss the impacts of psychological factors (such as stress) on physical health, as well as psychologically informed healthcare interventions to promote physical and mental well-being and coping with illness.

Faculty

• Julia Smith

Sophomore and Above, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3237

Note: Same as ANTH 3237.

This course asks how contemporary immigration shapes individual and collective identity across the life course. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that bridges cross-cultural psychology, human development, and psychological anthropology, we will ask how people’s movement across borders and boundaries transforms their senses of self, as well as their interpersonal relations and connections to community. We will analyze how the experience of immigration is affected by the particular intersections of racial, ethnic, class, gender, generational, and other boundaries that immigrants cross. For example, how do undocumented youth navigate the constraints imposed by “illegalized” identities, and how do they come to construct new self-perceptions? How might immigrants acculturate or adapt to new environments, and how does the process of moving from home or living “in-between” two or more places impact mental health? Through our close readings and seminar discussions on this topic, we seek to understand how different forms of power—implemented across realms including state-sponsored surveillance and immigration enforcement, language and educational policy, health and social services—shape and constrain immigrants’ understanding of their place in the world and their experience of exclusion and belonging. In our exploration of identity, we will attend to the ways in which immigrants are left out of national narratives, as well as the ways in which people who move across borders draw on cultural resources to create spaces and practices of connection, protection, and continuity despite the disruptive effects of immigration.

Faculty

• Deanna Barenboim

Sophomore and Above, Lecture—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 2074

All of us today live in a technology-rich environment, which is not only different from the one in which we grew up but also is still changing and evolving rapidly. The course will examine the use and design of an array of educational technologies (computer programs, multimedia software, television, video games, websites, and so on) from the perspective of basic research and theory in the human cognitive system, developmental psychology, and social development areas. The course aims to provide a framework for reasoning about the most developmentally appropriate uses of technologies for children and young adults at different ages. Some of the significant questions that we will focus on include: How are their developmental experiences affected by these technologies? What are the advantages and disadvantages for children using technology, especially for learning? In this course, we will try to touch upon these issues by reading classic literature, researching articles, playing games, watching programs, using apps, and discussing our experiences. Projects and assignments will include weekly class discussions on peer-reviewed journal articles and media artifact critiques written by individual students and through group project work.

Faculty

• Jamie Krenn

Intermediate, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3862

Prerequisite: a prior course in psychology

Making friends, losing friends, keeping friends...through the use of psychological and literary texts, we will explore the important functions of friendship for children and adolescents. During much of the 20th century, psychologists had assumed that adults serve as the major social influence on a child’s developing sense of self and personality, that perhaps only toward adolescence would children’s social relations with peers come to play an important role in their lives. We now know better. In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in the study of friendships and peer relations throughout childhood, even in toddlerhood. The important psychological benefits of having friends are increasingly recognized. So, too, are the potential problems of its obverse: Children who are truly without friends are at greater risk for later social-emotional difficulties. We will explore the writings of major theorists such as Piaget, Sullivan, Youniss, and Rubin; read and discuss the recent studies that have observed “friendship in the making”; and examine what friendship means to children and adolescents in their own words. In addition, fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center or elsewhere will be encouraged, so that students can have firsthand knowledge of children’s social relations.

Faculty

• Carl Barenboim

Intermediate, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3770

Prerequisite: prior psychology courses; prior lab-based computer science, natural science, or statistics course recommended

We have never known as much about the minds of children as we do now. Using the same tools, our understanding of adult cognition has also led us to surprising conclusions: Babies are often better than adults at distinguishing faces of other races, and toddlers perform spontaneous scientific experiments with their toys. This research has also raised questions: Why do adept adult readers seem to skip over entire words? Can we simultaneously entertain multiple possible interpretations of the sentences that we see and hear? And, as the movie Frozen forces us to consider: How do we finish each other’s sandwiches? In this course, students will learn about classical and cutting-edge methods for studying learning and reasoning. This course will be a deep dive into multiple measures of behavior, starting with measurements of looking behaviors (e.g., real-time eye tracking, habituation paradigms, headturn methods), reading time, reaction time measures, and naturalistic tasks and interviews with toddlers and children. We will also review the promise of neural methods (fNIRS, fMRI, EEG), as well as their constraints. For each of these methods, we will explore how they shape ongoing debates about how best to design experiments, analyze data, and build inclusive theories that reflect human variation. In conference projects, using one of the studied behavioral methods, students will design an experiment to test their own research question, revise the proposal after peer review, and analyze and present their findings in an APA-style scientific paper. During lab sessions and conference meetings, students will learn to use their chosen behavioral method, implement the experiment, and collect preliminary data. By the end of the course, students will have a strong understanding of several central research methods in psychology, their own perspective of the strengths and limitations of different approaches, and the tools to critically evaluate and communicate about published findings.

Faculty

• Sammy Floyd

Intermediate, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 3145

In this course, we will explore research methodologies and traditions that scholars and non-academic communities have used toward transformative change. We will focus specifically on research approaches that support efforts to address injustice at the root and build collective community power. While drawing from across disciplines for decolonial, feminist research methodologies, we will be rooted in a critical social psychological lens that illuminates the importance of structural and historical analysis as well as analysis built through individuals’ subjectivity and lived experience of oppression and resistance. Students will learn about various liberatory uses of research methodologies and analytic frameworks from across time and space —including community-engaged and participatory action research, oral history and testimonio, black feminist ethnography, and other activist scholarship. Many of these research approaches and frameworks have been forged through and shaped by liberatory traditions/social movements, hence we will explore them firmly rooted within these histories—in particular, Black, Indigenous, and queer liberation, and disability justice and abolitionist movements. We will learn how these movements’ ideals and theoretical and strategic interventions are critical for justice-oriented research because of (a) their invaluable, sharp analysis of the conditions and root causes of oppression, and (b) their expansive, transformative visions and approaches toward justice. Theoretical and empirical readings from psychology and other disciplines will be enriched by visits to learn about activism and engagement with multimedia sources offering important theorizing (e.g., documentary and other film clips, podcasts, art, music, etc.). This course may be of special interest to students considering a future in interdisciplinary research, who plan to engage in projects that address injustice, or more generally, who wish to engage with transformative theories of change.

Faculty

• Sonia Sánchez

Intermediate/Advanced, Graduate Seminar—Spring | 5 credits

PSYC 7220

Note: Open to juniors and seniors.

This course will explore several therapeutic approaches for young children and their families, with a particular emphasis on the theory and technique of play therapy. While this course will focus most on Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT), we will also look at the methodology of other types of approaches, such as filial therapy, cognitive behavioral play therapy, and DIR/Floortime therapy. In addition, course material will highlight cultural considerations, therapeutic work with parents and caregivers, challenges in treatment, self-reflection, self-regulation, sensory processing, interoception, and analysis of clinical case studies. Readings, class discussions, group play-based activities, and video illustrations will provide students with both a theoretical and introductory clinical basis for play-based therapeutic work with young children in early intervention approaches.

Faculty

• Cindy Puccio

Advanced, Seminar—Spring | 3 credits

PSYC 4500

Prerequisite: previous college-level research methods course work in psychology or a related discipline

Note: Interested students are strongly encouraged to interview with the faculty member they wish to work with.

In this research internship course, students will gain research experience through active engagement in a psychology research lab with a member of the psychology faculty. This will involve an internship within a research lab on campus, including a weekly lab meeting, a weekly collaborative meeting across labs, ongoing contributions towards research and practice within their lab and/or community settings, additional individual and group meetings as needed, and additional synchronous and asynchronous research work. Weekly lab meetings will involve reading and discussing research articles and research-methods papers specific to the topics of research being undertaken by each student and faculty member. Students will be expected to learn the current research approaches being employed by their supervising faculty member and to contribute toward ongoing research in the form of a research practicum. They may also have the opportunity to develop and implement their own independent research projects within the labs in which they are working, depending on lab priorities. 

The weekly collaborative cross-labs meeting will include readings on, and discussions of, various concepts in research related to open science practices, finding funding/grant writing, collecting and analyzing data, as well as the discussion of contemporary research articles that are relevant to student and faculty research projects. All faculty and students involved in the research experience will take turns leading the discussion of current research, with faculty taking the lead at the beginning of the semester and students taking the lead as their expertise develops. 

Students participating in the course will be expected to attend and actively participate in weekly collaborative cross-labs meetings and weekly lab meetings; keep an ongoing journal and/or scientific lab notebook; select and facilitate group and lab discussions of relevant contemporary research articles (at least once for each meeting type); work within a lab and/or community setting, as appropriate for their projects; contribute toward ongoing research and practice within their lab or community settings; report on their ongoing lab research in the form of a short paper prepared for possible publication and a poster at the SciMath Poster Symposium; and provide their colleagues with ongoing verbal and written feedback on their projects. Students will be responsible for working collaboratively with their colleagues to further develop their understanding of each of the topics covered in class.

Faculty

• Kim Ferguson
• Sammy Floyd