Psychology

A study of gender comparisons in behavior. Selected topics include theories of female development; femininity, masculinity, and androgyny; gender comparisons in personality, adjustment, abilities, achievement, motivation, language, biological influences, sexuality; violence against women; and cross-cultural perspectives.

A study of the statistical techniques commonly used in the analysis of data in economics, politics, psychology, and sociology. Students will become familiar with the use of computers in data analysis.

A study of the changing meanings of the concept of abnormal behavior and the accompanying changes in methods of treatment.

This course reviews the major modern theoretical approaches to counseling and psychotherapy. Students select some number of these approaches to explore this is a lecture and seminar course examining the phenomenon of child abuse and neglect. Included in this course will be an overview of attitudes toward and legal definitions of child maltreatment. In addition, legal issues, parental factors, contextual influences and the developmental consequences of maltreatment will be explored. This course relies heavily on current research and issues in child abuse and neglect. Policy implications will also be emphasized.

This course will provide an examination of the influence on human behavior of such operant phenomena as positive reinforcement, extinction, aversive conditioning, and cognitive control. Text materials will place some emphasis on application through token economics in educational and other institutional settings. Lecture materials will stress clinical procedures such as desensitization, assertive training, modelling, and self-control. Students will plan a behavior modification program to modify some aspect of their own behavior.

This course will examine how a psychological test is designed and evaluated and will explore the personality inventories including the MMPI, the Myers-Briggs, and the California Personality Inventory. Vocational aptitude tests will be covered. The class will design a personality inventory as a project. Students will take a number of tests and will write a personality evaluation on themselves and on one other student.

In this course the basic theoretical approaches to the study of personality will be presented in the lecture. Lecture materials also will include the basic disturbances of personality such as dependency and passive-aggressiveness. The text will focus on areas of personality research such as interpersonal attraction, anxiety, authoritarianism, etc.

This is a lecture and seminar course examining the phenomenon of child abuse and neglect. Included in this course will be an overview of attitudes toward and legal definitions of child maltreatment. In addition, legal issues, parental factors, contextual influences and the developmental consequences of maltreatment will be explored. This course relies heavily on current research and issues in child abuse and neglect. Policy implications will also be emphasized.

The study of development and behavior through the life span.

Each offering covers a special topic in psychology. See semester schedule for specific topics