This intensive laboratory course will train students to use the technical methods and tools commonly used in behavioral neuroscience research. Skills covered will include animal care and handling, use of behavioral assays, pharmacology, and neurosurgical procedures. Students will engage in weekly exercises and hands-on experiments to study the link between brain function and behavioral responses. These preclinical tools will be used to test research questions related to learning and memory, social-emotional responses, and drug-seeking behaviors.

In the role of a participant-observer, each student studies intensively the social and personality development of the children in one classroom at the Gorse Children's Center at Stonybrook. Students learn how to articulate developmental changes and individual differences by analyzing detailed observations. Topics include social cognition, peer relationships, social skills, concepts of friendship, emotional development, identity formation, self-esteem, and the social and cultural context of development.

This course is an introduction to laboratory and field methods in social psychology: methodology, data analysis, ethical problems, statistical inference, and research design. All students are expected to design and conduct a research project.

This course covers the major cognitive theories and research findings on the development of children's thinking from infancy to adolescence. Students will examine the nature and processes of change in six domains of knowledge: language, perception, memory, conceptual understanding, problem-solving and academic skills. Emphasis will be made on evaluating the practical implications of these cognitive theories and research.

What do we learn? How do we learn? Why do we learn? In this course, we will study issues of learning, teaching, and motivation that are central to educational psychology. We will explore the shifting paradigms within educational psychology, multiple subject matter areas, (dis)continuities between classroom and home cultures, students' prior experiences, teachers as learners, ethnic and gender identity in the classroom, and learning in out-of-school settings. Requires a prepracticum in a community-based setting.

Examines changes in cognitive, social, and emotional functioning, including theory and research that illuminate some central issues in characterizing these changes: the relative contributions of nature and nurture, the influence of the context on development, continuity versus discontinuity in development, and the concept of stage. Includes observations at the Gorse Children's Center at Stonybrook.

An introduction to the contested terrain of psychoanalytic theory, which has so hugely influenced twentieth-century thought. Reading widely across Freud's work and that of his colleagues, we will situate key ideas--repression, desire, masochism, neurosis, sublimation, feminine/masculine personality, etc.--within a range of interpretive frameworks. Intensive class discussions, oral presentations, and small group projects will allow students to analyze the varied implications of psychoanalytic theory for contemporary thinking about individuals and society.

What is race? Who decides? Are we a postracial society? This course focuses on historical, social, psychological, and legal underpinnings of the social construction of race and examines how perspectives on race have influenced the lives of students and teachers in schools. Class sessions compare the old vs. new racism, contrast the workings of white privilege with calls for white responsibility, explore perspectives on the achievement and opportunity gaps, and examine how antiracist pedagogies can address inequities in education at the curricular, interpersonal, and institutional levels.

This course focuses on individual and small-group behavior in the organizational setting. The basic objective is to increase knowledge and understanding of human behavior in organizations - especially each individual's own behavior. Three types of knowledge are stressed: (1) intellectual information regarding human behavior in an organizational context; (2) understanding of oneself as a person and as a leader; and (3) behavioral skills in dealing with people.

This course surveys a range of topics within social psychology. How do other people influence us? How do people perceive one another? How do attitudes develop and change? Under what conditions do people conform to, or deviate from, social norms? We will survey concepts across several areas of social psychology with an emphasis on empirical research evidence.