Overview of Course

This course will introduce fundamentals of the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. We will cover major theories, research methods, ethical issues, and concepts in many sub-disciplines of psychology, including development, social behavior, cognition, sensation and perception, biopsychology, learning and memory, motivation and emotion, personality, and psychopathology. For each major area, we will discuss contextual, environmental, and sociocultural factors that shape human behavior and mental processes. In particular, across the course, we will focus on cross-cultural similarities and differences, focusing on the regions of the world that we will visit, and will discuss the influence of culture on our definition and application of psychological constructs.