This seminar is for students who are completing an honors thesis. The primary purpose of this course is to provide students with constructive support during all stages of their research. In particular, this class will assist students with organizing the various components of their thesis work and help them meet departmental thesis deadlines.

Explore how psychology, neuroscience, and medicine come together to study the etiology and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. Students will examine the behavioral features and neurobiology behind various clinical disorders such as Autism, ADHD, Substance Use Disorders, Mood Disorders, Schizophrenia, Anxiety, and Neurodegenerative Diseases. The course will rely on primary research to identify how changes in physiology and biology might manifest in the behaviors that define psychopathology.

Art and music are a part of all human cultures. Is there something about the human brain that drives us to paint and sing? We will examine how the brain simultaneously processes different aspects of visual and auditory stimuli, ask how this processing may affect the way we do art and music, and explore where these phenomena may occur in the brain. As we engage in discussion and hands-on activities, we will discover the commonalities between the arts and the sciences including practice, experimentation, exploration, innovation, and creativity.

This course will cover developmental implications of close relationships from infancy through adulthood with a focus on parents, friendships, and romantic partners. The goal is to examine normative developmental processes through a relational lens.

What is play? What behaviors do children exhibit as they play together in an early childhood setting? In what ways are traditional play and digital play (with educational apps) similar and different? What types of stories and images do young children create as they engage with apps together? This course provides opportunities to interact with young children while exploring these and related questions about digital play and social learning. Students collect observational data of preschool children playing with iPad apps, conduct qualitative analyses, and increase their understanding of play.

Are children "wired" to be able to learn without direct instruction? Does the process of schooling diminish or enhance our capacity to be self-directed learners? What factors determine one's readiness for self-directed learning, and can self-directed learning be "taught?" What role, if any, do teachers play in self-directed learning? This seminar explores these questions in the context of an ongoing ethnographic study of an alternative education program within a public high school.

This course examines the emerging field of Positive Psychology which uses science to understand and enhance positive aspects of the human experience (i.e., "the good life"). Positive Psychology stands in contrast to more traditional psychological approaches that focus on pathology. We will critically examine theory and research in Positive Psychology, including strengths and virtues, meaning in life, positive coping, authenticity, happiness, gratitude, flow, religion/spirituality, and optimism.

This course provides a hands-on introduction to psychological research in the domain of personality psychology. We will consider research methods, personality assessments, the intersection of personality and social psychology, and issues broadly relevant to psychological research. Students will work collaboratively in groups through all phases of a research project, including conducting a literature review, designing a study, receiving ethics approval, collecting data, conducting statistical analyses, and reporting the results.

In this seminar course we will examine theory and research on racial group relations. While most theory on race relations has been framed within a Black-White paradigm, in this course, we will pay particular attention to relations between minority groups existing within a context of White sociopolitical power. We will examine social, political, cultural, and psychological perspectives on the causes of prejudice between racial groups, as well as theory and research that promotes healthy group relations and solidarity between oppressed groups.

Psychopharmacology focuses on the impact that drugs (both illicit and prescription) have on the brain, neurocircuitry, and behavior. Students will explore the underlying neurotransmitter systems of the brain and discover how substances influence nervous system function including the experience of pain, sleep, emotional states, motivation, addiction, and mental health. The course will bridge concepts in chemistry, biology, psychology, and neuroscience by highlighting major drug classes and their underlying mechanisms of action.