PSY 202 Introduction to Psychology: Mind and Society

1. Identify the uses and abuses of intelligence tests in the United States.
2. Describe the role of emotions and motives in energizing human behavior, and the theories which attempt to explain the operation of each.
3. Describe the development of intelligence testing, including its assumptions, role in public policy and the resulting tests in use today.
4. Distinguish the contributors to understanding human personality by various theorists and research approaches.
5. Identify the criteria for establishing normal and abnormal classes of behaviors used in various societies.
6. Summarize the symptoms, causes, and development of the major classes of psychological disorders.
7. Explain how psychological and biomedical therapies are used to treat mental disorders and evaluate their effectiveness.
8. Describe the rights of patients receiving treatment for mental disorders and how these rights may conflict with evaluation strategies.
9. Describe the social processes involved in attitude formation, conformity, altruism, and leadership.
10. Evaluate the interaction of social and individual factors in the formation of prejudice and describe the systematic attempts to reduce prejudicial attitudes.
11. Identify sources of psychological stress and explain the biological and psychological consequences of uncontrolled stress.
12. Contrast the roles of genetic and environmental influences in personality formation.
13. Describe how the human capacity for thought develops and what processes aid or impede intelligent problem solving.
14. Describe the structure, acquisition, and use of human language, and compare it to non-human communication systems.
     

Statewide General Education Outcomes:

1. Apply analytical skills to social phenomena to understand human behavior.
2. Apply knowledge of experience to foster personal growth and better appreciate the diverse social world in which we live.

Cultural Literacy Outcomes:

1. Identify and analyze complex practices, values, and beliefs and the culturally and historically defined meanings of difference.

 

Content Outline

• Motivation
  • Motivational Concepts
  • Hunger
  • Sexual motivation
  • Need to belong
  • Motivation and work
• Emotion, Stress, and Health
  • Biological, behavioral, and cognitive components of emotion
  • Emotional expression
  • Emotional and personality
  • Theories of emotion
  • Stress and health
  • Coping with stress
• Intelligence
  • Nature of intelligence
  • Assessing intelligence
  • Aptitude and achievement testing
  • Genetic and environmental influences on intelligence
• Personality
  • Psychoanalytic perspective
  • Humanistic perspective
  • Trait perspective
  • Social-cognitive perspective
• Psychological Disorders
  • Perspective on abnormal psychology
  • Assessment and classification
  • Major categories of psychological disorders
• Psychological Therapies
  • Historical background
  • Psychodynamic therapy
  • Client centered therapy
  • Group therapy
  • Behavior therapy
  • Biomedical therapies
  • Prevention of psychological disorders
  • Evaluation of treatment
• Social Psychology
  • Social thinking and attitudes
    • Attributions of behavior to persons versus situations
  • Social influence
    • Conformity and obedience
    • Group influence
    • Power of individuals
  • Social relations
    • Prejudice
  • Group structure and leadership
  • Ethics of social experimentation
• Language and Thinking
  • Language structure and processing
  • Language acquisition
  • Animal and nonverbal communication
  • Cognitive development
  • Problem solving and decision making
    • Primates and humans