Psychology (PSYCH-UH)

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Introduction to the fundamental principles of psychology, emphasizing both the unity and diversity of a field that spans major theoretical and research areas, including biological bases of human behavior, learning, cognition, perception, language, development, motivation, as well as social and abnormal behavior. Opportunities to apply knowledge gained in lectures and readings are available through computer-based demonstrations, in-class exercises, and required field experiences.

Knowledge acquired through scientific research is bounded by the conditions under which the research is carried out. Consequently, informed consumers of information must understand how scientific research is carried out in order to decide what is true. This course provides an introduction to scientific research methods in psychological science, experimental design, and data interpretation. Students develop an appreciation for the methods involved in carrying out research on issues in psychology and, hopefully, become critical - but not cynical - consumers of scientific results, learning to distinguish sound conclusions from those based on faulty reasoning or flawed studies. Students in this course gain real experience by designing and conducting an experiment of their own, and presenting and reporting their results.

Biopsychology is the study of the biological basis of behavior. In this course, students discover connections among psychology and biology, pharmacology, and endocrinology. Lectures cover the structure, function, and development of the human nervous system and how this system can give rise to basic sensory, motor, cognitive, and regulatory processes that characterize human behavior. This course uses examples of the effects of brain damage and nervous system disorders to provide insight into how pathological thoughts and behaviors are rooted in physiological causes. Additionally, students develop a basic understanding of the methods used in biopsychology and evaluate the contributions as well as limitations of these approaches.

Statistics form a critical component of research, and this course is designed to introduce students to the foundations of statistical principles in psychological science. This course covers basic-level statistics concepts such as central tendency and variability; the theory and logic underlying hypothesis testing and statistical decision-making; and the basic principles behind linear models commonly used in psychology, including correlations, t-tests, analysis of variance, and basic regression. The course also introduces students to basic statistical computer programs.

The course considers current theoretical issues and research in developmental psychology in an effort to understand how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings. Throughout the semester, theories, methods and interdisciplinary findings are explored, covering physical/biological foundations of development, cognitive processes, social and emotional development. The course explores how various systems and contexts shape an individual's development, with a focus on risk and resilience. Attention is given to applying current research findings to trends in policy and intervention. Moreover, the course links conceptual frameworks to applied areas in the field of developmental psychology. The course also considers dynamics of culture, society, and social change on human development.

This course covers a wide range of topics in social psychology. Social psychology illustrates how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by social situations and the real or imagined presence of others (including parents, peers, authorities, and groups). This course covers several important subfields in social psychology, and uses this knowledge to understand and address social problems. Concepts discussed are attitudes, values, roles, norms, communication and conformity; areas emphasized are group processes, influence, social motivation, prejudice and authoritarianism.

The course provides an overview of the major theories and findings in research on motivation and volition. It addresses the history of research on motivation and volition, classic phenomena of being motivated versus lacking motivation and willpower, the psychology of goals, disorders of self-regulation, and cognitive-neuropsychological research as well as the perspective of economics on motivation and volition.

This course is an overview of the scientific study of personality. The topic is broad, with a range of theories, models and explanations for many aspects of human behavior, including altruism, authoritarianism, resilience, and even humor. Some of these theories - for example, those of Sigmund Freud - have been the source of great debate and controversy, at least within the field of psychology. Others - such as those of Gordon Allport - are less well known, but have contributed greatly to how psychologists have thought about and studied personality. We will consider trait, biological, humanistic, cultural, and behavioral approaches, and critically examine how each may help us (or not help us, as the case may be) to understand the complexity of human personality.

This course examines how research psychologists study and understand sex and gender. We will address gender issues that are complex, wide-ranging, and often controversial. My expectation is that your considerable "inside" understanding of gender will undergo expansion and transformation through course readings, lectures and discussions. We will concentrate on studies that put to scientific test common and uncommon notions about gender. The broad topics for the course include: Defining Gender, Psychological Perspectives on Gender, Gender and Sexual Identities, Acquiring/Doing Gender, Stereotypes and Bias, Gender Comparisons, Gender Consequences, Gender Roles/Relationships.

This course examines how psychodynamic, phenomenological, narrative, and cognitive psychology have informed therapy and counseling. Students will study how these alternative explanations for the mind and human behavior have contributed to the creation of different kinds of therapeutic intervention. Students will also have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with fundamental communication and interpersonal skills that counselors/therapists have to be able to apply and to learn about ethical issues that need to be taken into account when working with vulnerable individuals. Finally, the course will include a critical examination of the extent to which the different approaches to counseling are informed by empirical research and been evaluated in terms of their effectiveness.

Abnormal psychology is the study of mental disorders from a psychological perspective. The central rational for this course is to provide students with a better understanding of how different mental health disorders may be caused, how they manifest themselves, and how they may be treated. Abnormal psychology constitutes a very controversial and contested field of study and clinical practice, as the manifestation of mental health issues and when they may or may not be diagnosed as abnormal invariably come up against socially and culturally acceptable standards as to what constitutes normal, and how persistent deviation from the norm should be labeled and treated. Hence an important purpose of the course is to introduce students to different perspectives on what it means to have a mental health disorder and how such disorders should be treated by mental health services, families and the wider community. Finally, this course also aims to introduce students to elements of clinical practice in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders.

This course is an introduction to the scientific study of language as a cognitive ability. We will explore questions such as: What is a language from a cognitive perspective? What should a scientific theory of language explain? How can we describe our cognitive ability for language in the terms of cognitive (neuro-)science (such as representations and processes)? What does a scientific theory of language tell us about the complexity of the human mind? How is it that children can acquire languages relatively effortlessly while adults require intense training and practice? And, ultimately, how can we use our scientific knowledge of language to be better citizens in a global society? By the end of this course, students will be able to apply the tools of language science to their own languages, and apply the lessons that we learn about the nature of language to their own experiences in the world.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and human thinking. This course is aimed at providing the student with a better understanding on how we humans perceive and think about ourselves and about the world. Our perception and thought processes are fraught with biases that nonetheless routinely inform human actions. Knowing about these biases and understanding their effects is crucial in a world in which human societies are becoming increasingly more interconnected. The course covers different aspects of attention, memory, language, concepts, reasoning, problem solving, expertise, creativity, decision making, conscious and unconscious cognition, and theory of mind. The course will emphasize how psychologists use experiments to learn about the structure of the human mind.

How do we construct an understanding of the physical world based on our sensory experience? This course provides a survey of basic facts, theories, and methods for studying sensation and perception. The major emphasis is on vision, but other modalities (hearing, touch, vestibular system, olfaction, taste) may be covered. Representative topics include: eye and brain; receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation; pattern recognition; interaction of knowledge and perception.

This course provides students with a broad understanding of the connections between mind, brain, and behavior. Students learn dominant theories of the neural basis of a variety of cognitive processes and the research that led to those theories. Topics are organized into modules on sensation, perception, and action; attention and memory; and other aspects of high-level cognition and behavior. Lectures are complemented by practical lab demonstrations of cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience techniques and discussions of journal articles.

The Research Seminar in Psychology provides students with an overview of the diverse research areas of the NYUAD Psychology faculty. Students will identify a faculty mentor to guide them through their capstone research project and help them develop and write an in-depth research proposal. The final capstone proposal is due at the end of the semester so that students can begin the Capstone Project in the fall semester of their senior year. Students who have chosen Psychology as their secondary major do not need to complete the research seminar course; students must instead take two courses in their chosen elective which are not research courses.

This course covers historical and contemporary scientific approaches to understanding prejudice, specifically prejudice that exists between social groups across different cultures. Readings cover topics including the origins of prejudice, the justification of prejudice, the different forms of prejudicial expression, the identification of prejudice in individuals and institutions, the consequences of being a victim of prejudice, and the value of different prejudice reduction strategies.

This course approaches the study of human memory from an applied/ecological perspective to try and understand how human memory functions in everyday life. Specifically, the course will focus on various topics related to memory for personally significant or meaningful events (i.e. episodic/autobiographical memories). Readings will draw from both adult cognitive and developmental literatures in psychological science, and will cover topics including the organization of autobiographical memory system and its development, remembering and forgetting significant events, eyewitness testimony, the functions of memory, and how memory is related to identity development and healthy adjustment. This class meets the requirements of an advanced elective in psychology and includes an intensive writing component. However, it does not include a laboratory component.

This class is a comprehensive introduction to the study of terrorism. We will unpack the complexity of this phenomenon by analyzing the motivations, strategies, tactics, and groups processes associated with ideologically-motivated violence. In addition to covering the psychological processes putting individuals on a path of violence and self-destruction, we will examine perennial questions debated in the field such as: "Are terrorists mentally ill?", "To what extent are terrorists knowledgeable about the ideology they are fighting for?", and "Can terrorists be rehabilitated?" Importantly, you will be exposed to scientific evidence on both sides of the debate to provide you with a balanced perspective and stimulate your critical thinking. This course will not focus on a specific ideology; we will cover various types of terrorism: eco-terrorism, ethno-nationalism, right and left-leaning movements, religiously-motivated political violence. This class is writing intensive. There are numerous small writing assignments and a more substantive final paper at the end of the term.

The course provides students with a strong foundation of knowledge in early childhood education. The course begins with a description of historical movements and the contemporary international landscape of early education. Students then identify processes of early childhood development as they apply to learning and teaching in early childhood education programs, including the service for children with special needs. As part of the course students observe an early childhood education classroom and work on a research project that requires them to collect and/or analyze data, and to write up their research results.

Our perceptual experiences are the product of the information gathered through all our highly specialized senses and are often tightly linked to motor activity such as grasping objects or moving in the environment. This course addresses current concepts and experimental approaches central to understanding human multisensory perception and sensorimotor control. Students are introduced to topics in the fields of psychophysics, active vision, haptics, multimodal processing and motor behavior. Concepts taught in class are reinforced in practice by hands-on assignments involving experimental design, data collection and analysis, and interpretation of results.

This course provides students with an in-depth exploration of a selection of fundamental topics in psycholinguistics - the study of how we acquire, comprehend, and produce language. This course is a seminar and students will present and critique research from primary sources and original studies. This course includes a laboratory component, in which students will focus on designing replication experiments and collecting data on seminal findings in the field in order to critically evaluate them. As part of the course, students will also write a research proposal aimed at answering novel questions in one of the sub areas of psycholinguistics.

This course provides a detailed overview of multiple regression (MR) analyzes as a data-analytic method. Theory and practice of the General Linear Model will be reviewed in order to show how MR can be used to carry out analyses of quantitative and categorical data. Practical problems in estimating and testing regression models will be emphasized. Students will gain experience in carrying out MR analyses using computer software.

Visual perception is the primary sense through which we interact with the world. This course provides the tools to help you probe the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception. You will design, conduct and analyze data in the context of 4 projects, which combine behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. You will gain a working understanding of how visual information is coded and processed in the brain. Furthermore, the course will help you understand differences in visual performance in terms of neural differences. The course will cover relevant vision science and programming principles throughout the semester. As such, courses such as Computer Programming for Engineers (ENGR-UH 1000), Biopsychology (PSYCH-UH 1003) and Perception (PSYCH-UH 2411) are recommended but not required. By the end of this course, you will be able to design, conduct and analyze data from your own visual neuroscience experiment. You will be able to analyze the data - by writing your own data analysis/model fitting tools if no pre-written tools are available, and critically evaluate your results.

This course will examine visual representations of women, men, and non-binary individuals, femininity and masculinity, sexual minorities, and gender norms and relations from a psychological perspective. We will closely survey the nature of social perception, consider several systems for coding and interpreting visual images and language in media, and examine how gender images psychologically impact those who see them. We will explore questions such as: How is gender portrayed visually? What are the methods that psychologists employ to assess this? And, what are the psychological consequences of exposure to certain kinds of gender images? Students in the course will develop media literacy and expand their knowledge of how gender is represented in media in ways that both mirror and reinforce cultural stereotypes. They will gain a deep understanding of the tools that psychologists employ to study media content and its effects on viewers scientifically. Students will apply what they learn in the course by conducting a research project of their own.

Economic inequality, both within and between nations, has increased steadily since the early 1980s, reaching unprecedented levels during the Covid-19 pandemic (Oxfam, 2022). The fast-growing scientific literature on the psychology of economic inequality documents the substantial detrimental consequences for society, including higher rates of physical, mental, and social problems, increased status competition, and reduced social cohesion, trust, life satisfaction and happiness. The consequences of economic inequality are particularly severe for lower-class individuals, as inequality reduces cognitive resources needed for rational decision-making, thus rendering individuals less capable of coping with daily needs. In this seminar course we will examine the recent psychological literature on the antecedents and consequences of economic inequality and analyze social class differences in personality, motivation and cognition. We will also identify the reasons why people often don't engage in collective action to change the situation and why some redistribution strategies are more likely to be endorsed than others.

Neuropsychology is a subfield of Psychology that utilizes key discoveries in neuroscience to assess and interpret brain-behavior relationships and apply this to neuropsychological syndromes and individual patients. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach that integrates key ideas and methods from medicine (neurology, radiology, psychiatry) and psychology (abnormal, biological, cognitive and developmental), with a focus on the basic science underlying brain-behavior correspondences that guide evidence-based, individualized patient interventions. This advanced elective course combines lectures, discussions, student presentations and exercises to introduce students to the theory and practice of Neuropsychology. Previous background in neuroscience (Biopsychology and/or Cognitive Neuroscience) is required and knowledge of the fundamental knowledge will be tested early in the course in order to create the framework to dive into specific disorders/diseases. By the end of this course, you will be able to link behavioral symptoms to potential neural mechanisms and understand the main assessment and diagnostic tools in Clinical Neuropsychology. This is a Lab course with a research report as a significant component of the grade.

The cognitive capacity to construct complex sentences, what language scientists call “syntax”, is unique to humans (i.e., is not found to the same degree in other animal species). Language scientists leverage multiple experimental methods, ranging from behavioral tasks to neuroimaging, to explore the complexity of this ability. This course is a practical introduction to both the theory and the methods used to study syntax. The course will be divided into three sections: an introduction to a theory of the cognitive representations of sentences, an introduction to behavioral experimental methods in syntax, and an introduction to cognitive neuroscience methods in syntax (with a focus on EEG data analysis). Over the course of the semester, students will learn to design and analyze psychometric and electrophysiological experiments.

Special Topics offers high-level seminars on a wide variety of topics, including the history of psychology, emotion, motivation, social influence, intergroup relations, clinical and counseling psychology, and other focal themes. The topics reflect areas of research of the faculty.

The capstone experience in psychology requires students to engage in a long-term, mentored learning experience that culminates in original research and/or scientific theory. The specific project is developed during the Research Seminar in Psychology. The proposed work comes to fruition in the form of a research paper along the lines of a scientific journal. Students also participate in a capstone research symposium during which they present their work orally.

Continuation of Capstone Project in Psychology 1.