- Code
- PSY 101
- Name
- Introduction to Psychology
- Semester
- 1
- Lecture hours
- 3.00
- Seminar hours
- 1.00
- Laborator hours
- 0.00
- Credits
- 3.50
- ECTS
- 5.00
- Description
-
This course is designed to introduce you to the scientific study of human nature. They will learn how psychologists ask questions from several different perspectives: questions about the relation of brain and behavior, about perception, about learning and thinking, about development, about social behavior and personality, and about psychopathology and psychotherapy. They will also learn about the methods psychologists use to find the answers to these questions and become acquainted with many of the important findings and theoretical approaches in the field of psychology. By the end of this course, they will have learned to think critically about psychological evidence, and to evaluate its validity and its relevance to important issues in life.
- Objectives
-
Successful completion of this course will be determined by how well students demonstrate an understanding of the course objectives. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: - Understand the vocabulary and concepts of psychology. - understand the research upon which the knowledge of human thought and behavior is based - understand how critical thinking skills are developed - be a cautious and analytical consumer of information that is proclaimed to be scientific or based on research - have a greater understanding and accepting of him/herself and others - describe the critical developments that led to the present discipline of psychology contrast and compare the three major - describe and apply psychological theory in some areas of his/her life
- Java
- Tema
- 1
- Exploring Psychology: Thinking critically with psychological science: Once upon a time, on a planet in this neighborhood of the universe, there came to be people. Soon thereafter, these creatures became intensely interested in themselves and in one another: “Who are we? What produces our thoughts? Our feelings? Our actions? And how are we to understand and manage those around us?”
- 2
- The biology of mind: The human body is complexity built from simplicity. Part of this complexity is our amazing internal communication system, which makes the Internet look simple. Across the world, researchers are unlocking the mysteries of how our brain uses electrical and chemical processes to take in, organize, interpret, store, and use information. The story begins with the system’s basic building block, the neuron, or nerve cell. We’ll look first at its structure, and then at how neurons work together.
- 3
- Consciousness and the two-track mind: What is consciousness? Every science has concepts so fundamental they are nearly impossible to define. Biologists agree on what is alive but not on precisely what life is. In physics, matter and energy elude simple definition. To psychologists, consciousness is similarly a fundamental yet slippery concept.
- 4
- Nature, nurture and human diversity: In important ways, we are each unique. We look different. We sound different. We have varying personalities, interests, and cultural and family backgrounds. We are also the leaves of one tree. Our human family shares not only a common biological heritage—cut us and we bleed—but also common behavioral tendencies. Our shared brain architecture predisposes us to sense the world, develop language, and feel hunger through identical mechanisms. Whether we live in the Arctic or the tropics, we prefer sweet tastes to sour. We divide the color spectrum into similar colors. And we feel drawn to behaviors that produce and protect offspring.
- 5
- Sensation and perception: To phrase the question scientifically: How do we construct our representations of the external world? How do a campfire’s flicker, crackle, and smoky scent activate neural connections? And how, from this living neurochemistry, do we create our conscious experience of the fire’s motion and temperature, its aroma and beauty? In search of answers to such questions, let’s look more closely at what psychologists have learned about how we sense and perceive the world around us.
- 6
- Developing through the life span: As we journey through life—from womb to tomb—when and how do we develop? Virtually all of us began walking around age 1 and talking by age 2. As children, we engaged in social play in preparation for life’s work. As adults, we all smile and cry, love and loathe, and occasionally ponder the fact that someday we will die. Developmental psychology examines how people are continually developing—physically, cognitively, and socially—from infancy through old age.
- 7
- Learning: Much of what we do we learn from experience. Although we struggle to find the life direction a salmon is born with, our learning gives us more flexibility. We can learn how to build grass huts or snow shelters, submarines or space stations, and thereby adjust to almost any environment. Indeed, nature’s most important gift to us may be our adaptability—our capacity to learn new behaviors that help us cope with changing circumstances.
- 8
- Midterm Exam
- 9
- Memory: But it is our memory that accounts for time and defines our life. It is our memory that enables us to recognize family, speak our language, find our way home, and locate food and water. It is our memory that enables us to enjoy an experience and then mentally replay and enjoy it again. And it is our memory that occasionally pits us against those whose offenses we cannot forget.
- 10
- Thinking, language and intelligence: We study the human brain—3 pounds of wet tissue the size of a small cabbage, yet containing circuitry more complex than the planet’s telephone networks. We marvel at the competence of newborns. We relish our sensory system, which disassembles visual stimuli into millions of nerve impulses, distributes them for parallel processing, and then reassembles them into colorful perceptions. We ponder our memory’s seemingly limitless capacity and the ease with which our two-track mind processes information, consciously and unconsciously. Little wonder that our species has had the collective genius to invent the camera, the car, and the computer; to unlock the atom and crack the genetic code; to travel out to space and into the oceans’ depths.
- 11
- Motivation: “What’s my motivation?” the actor asks the director. In our everyday conversation, “What motivated you to do that?” is a way of asking “What caused your behavior?” To psychologists, a motivation is a need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it toward a goal.
- 12
- Emotions, stress and health: Where do emotions come from? Why do we have them? What are they made of? Emotions are our body’s adaptive response. They exist not to give us interesting experiences but to enhance our survival. When we face challenges, emotions focus our attention and energize our action. Our heart races. Our pace quickens. All our senses go on high alert. Receiving unexpected good news, we may find our eyes tearing. We raise our hands triumphantly. We feel exuberance and a newfound confidence. Yet, when prolonged and experienced as stress, emotions can also have a damaging effect on our health.
- 13
- Personality: Contemporary personality researchers study the basic dimensions of personality, the biological roots of these basic dimensions, and the interaction of persons and environments. They also study self - esteem, self - serving bias, and cultural influences on one’s sense of self. And they study the unconscious mind—with findings that probably would have surprised Freud himself.
- 14
- Psychological disorders: People are fascinated by the exceptional, the unusual, the abnormal. “The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so,” observed Ralph Waldo Emerson, “but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and [unusual] people.” But why such fascination with disturbed people? Do we see in them something of ourselves? At various moments, all of us feel, think, or act the way disturbed people do much of the time. We, too, get anxious, depressed, withdrawn, suspicious, or deluded, just less intensely and more briefly. It’s no wonder that studying psychological disorders may at times evoke an eerie sense of self -recognition, one that illuminates the dynamics of our own personality. “To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal,” proposed William James (1842–1910).
- 15
- Therapies: Among the dozens of types of psychotherapy, we will look at only the most influential. Each is built on one or more of psychology’s major theories: psychoanalytic, humanistic, behavioral, and cognitive. Most of these techniques can be used one on- one or in groups. Depending on the client and the problem, some therapists—particularly the many using a biopsychosocial approach—draw from a variety of techniques. Many patients receive drug therapy in combination with psychotherapy. Half of all psychotherapists describe themselves as taking an eclectic approach, using a blend of therapies. Psychotherapy integration attempts to combine a selection of assorted techniques into a single, coherent system.
- 16
- Final Exam
- 1
- Will be able to comprehend the psychology field as a scientific field
- 2
- Understanding related scientific methodology and research in psychology.
- 3
- Knowledge of sensory processes.
- 4
- Understanding of developmental theories.
- 5
- Establishes relationship the psychology knowledge with daily life.
- 6
- Will be able to explain the main concepts and subjects related to the psychology field.
- 7
- Explain the intelligence concept and intelligence theories.
- 8
- Explain the concepts of sensation, perception and memory.
- 9
- Understanding of motivation underlying behavior.
- 10
- Ability to differentiate normal and abnormal behavior.
- 11
- Knowledge of cognitive development.
- Quantity Percentage Total percent
- Midterms
- 1 40% 40%
- Quizzes
- 0 0% 0%
- Projects
- 0 0% 0%
- Term projects
- 0 0% 0%
- Laboratories
- 0 0% 0%
- Class participation
- 1 10% 10%
- Total term evaluation percent
- 50%
- Final exam percent
- 50%
- Total percent
- 100%
- Quantity Duration (hours) Total (hours)
- Course duration (including exam weeks)
- 16 4 64
- Off class study hours
- 14 2 28
- Duties
- 0 5 0
- Midterms
- 1 12 12
- Final exam
- 1 21 21
- Other
- 0 0 0
- Total workLoad
- 125
- Total workload / 25 (hours)
- 5.00
- ECTS
- 5.00