2007–2008 Psychology Courses
Perspectives on Child Development
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
A noted psychologist once said, "What you see depends on how you look." Our subject is the worlds of childhood, and in this class we try out the lenses of different psychological theories to highlight different aspects of those worlds. Freud, Erikson, Bowlby, and Stern provide differing perspectives on emotional development. Skinner, Bandura, Piaget, and Vygotsky present various approaches to the problems of learning and cognition. Chess and her colleagues take up the issues of temperament and its interaction with experience. Chomsky and others deal with the development of language. We will read the theorists closely for their answers and but also for their questions, asking which aspects of childhood each theory throws into focus. We will also examine some systematic studies developmental psychologists have carried out to confirm, test, and critique various theories - studies of mother-infant relationships, the development of cognition and language, and the emergence of intersubjectivity. In several of these domains, studies done in cultures other than our own cast light on the question of universality versus cultural specificity in development.
Direct observation is an important complement to theoretical readings. In this class, all students will do field work at the Early Childhood Center. At times, we will draw on student observations to support or critique theoretical concepts as part of the seminar. The field work also will provide the basis for developing conference work. Ideally, conference projects combine the interests of the student, some library reading, and some aspect of field work observation. Among the many diverse projects students have designed in the past are topics such as children's friendships, the meanings of block building, and how young children use language.
This replaces the course, "Children’s Literature: Developmental and Literary Perspectives" being taught by Ms. Doyle and Ms. Wilford, that was listed in the 2007-08 course catalogue.
First-Year Studies: Experience and Imagination in Childhood
Level: FYS
Semester: Year
This course will examine the ways young children experience themselves and their physical and social worlds and gradually come to represent those experiences internally and in the various domains of imaginative functioning. Students will carry out once or twice weekly fieldwork at the College’s Early Childhood Center, where they will have the opportunity to develop their observational skills, follow young children’s growth over the year, and carry out studies of symbolic functioning in language, play, art, and emerging literacy. In the seminar meetings, we will read and discuss various developmental psychologists’ theoretical and empirical work on the emergence and development of sense of self, attachment to and communication with significant others, internal models of the world, and the construction of experience and knowledge in various modalities. We will consider such topics as the emergence of autobiographical memory, the functions of narrative for oneself and for communication with others, the development of pretend play and other realms of imaginative functioning, and the complementary processes of general developmental progression and individual style. For conference work, students may focus on any aspect of early development that intrigues them, drawing on their observations at the ECC as well as relevant readings in developmental psychology. Class readings in psychology will be supplemented by some autobiographical and fictional works and some documentary and theatrical films depicting the phenomena of childhood.
“The Talking Cure”: Twentieth-Century Variations on a Theme
Level: Open,Lecture
Semester: Year
“He didn’t answer. He rather said: ‘It is possible to think this: without a reference point there is meaninglessness. But I wish you’d understand that without a reference point you’re in the real.’”
—Sharon Cameron, Beautiful Work: A Meditation on Pain
Over the past century, the concepts of “wisdom” and “ignorance” have been replaced by the concepts of “health” and “illness.” We consult psychiatrists and psychologists rather than philosophers in the hope of living “the good life.” We become “cured” rather than educated. The cure is accomplished through a series of conversations between patient and doctor, but these are not ordinary conversations. This relationship between doctor and patient is vastly different from the typical relationship of physician and patient. Moreover, despite a century of practice, there is little agreement among these practitioners of “health” regarding what the content of these conversations should be or the proper role of the doctor. Consequently, the patient who sees a psychoanalyst has a very different kind of experience from a patient who seeks the help of a person-centered therapist or a behaviorally oriented psychologist. This course will examine the rules of conversation that govern various psychotherapeutic relationships.
The Psychology of Race and Ethnicity
Level: Open,Lecture
Semester: Fall
What is race? Is it “real”? What does such a question mean in face of four hundred years of American history and a continuing legacy of racial discrimination and prejudice? Race as a “scientific” biological concept holds little currency; yet as a political and psychological construct, race holds much power in American society. This lecture explores the effects of the construction of race, ethnicity, and social class on the individual and how these constructs implicitly and explicitly inform psychological inquiry. We will examine the social construction of race and development of racial/ethnic identity in childhood and adolescence, as well as gendered and sexual aspects of race/ethnicity. In the latter half of the course, we will move toward a broader understanding of psychological aspects of prejudice, ethnic conflict, and immigration and how these themes are expressed within the U.S. and abroad.
Child and Adolescent Development
Level: Open
Semester: Year
In this course, we will study the psychological growth of the child from birth through adolescence. In the process, we will read about some of the major theories that have shaped our thinking concerning children, including psychoanalytic (Freud and Erikson), behaviorist (Skinner), and cognitive-developmental (Piaget). The ways in which these theories evolved from particular philosophical traditions will also be explored. Throughout the course, we will take notice of the actual methods used to study children and the practical and ethical issues raised by these methods. A number of aspects of child development will be considered, including the capabilities of the infant; the growth of language, thinking, and memory; various themes of parent-child relations (including attachment and separation); peer relations (friendships, popularity, the “rejected child”); sex role development; the growth of moral understanding and behavior; and some of the “real-world” problems facing today’s children and adolescents (e.g., day care, single-parent families). Direct experience with children will be required, including possible fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center. Written observational diaries will be used as a way of integrating these experiences with seminar topics and conference readings.
The Ecological Context of Infant and Child Development
Level: Open
Semester: Year
This course will provide an overview of infant and child development from a cultural-ecological perspective. We will look at how the social and physical environment (including interactions with people and objects in the immediate environment), culture and biology, and interactions between these factors influence early development. We will also discuss how the ecological contexts in which we live may influence the questions we ask about development, as well as the ways in which we interpret our data. For example, much of the classic research in developmental psychology was conducted by researchers living in Western, industrialized contexts. Examples will focus primarily on the African context in comparison to the “standard” North American context. Topics will include African and American family structures and values, contemporary issues in Africa such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the growing orphan problem, and assessing competence within different cultural contexts. Readings will be drawn from both classic and contemporary research in developmental psychology, human development, anthropology, sociology, and public health, with a critical eye toward understanding both the usefulness and the limitations of this research in light of the populations studied and the methodologies employed. Conference work will provide the opportunity for students to focus on a particular context of children’s lives in greater detail. This may include fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center or in another setting with children.
Individualism Reconsidered
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Year
“I wish to be alone,” said Jean to Howard.
“I’m jealous, Jean.”
“Of whom?”
“Of those you wish to be alone with.”
A Hasidic Story
“When Reb Zusye went to heaven, God didn’t ask him why, in his life on earth, Zusye wasn’t Moses, but why he wasn’t even Zusye.”
—Gerald Sorin, Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent
“Ronnie wanted to take just one more look at herself before going to her high school prom. She didn’t like what she saw. She felt utterly false. The mirror reflected a cloned image. Her very being seemed plagiarized. She removed her nose ring and wondered why she had ever put it there in the first place. A wet towel removed shadows, powder and lipstick, then the dress, the black slip until finally she beheld herself utterly naked. Her thighs were not harmoniously proportioned to the rest of her leg. From the knees down she looked pretty good but she knew some guy would have an unpleasant surprise if he ventured beyond her knees. Her calves were misleading. Her body was as false as the cover she had just removed. The only thing she could claim as truly her own was the recognition of her falseness and so she embraced it.”
—R. C. Donovon, Previews of Coming Attractions
The solitary individual is inhabited by others—to think is to converse. Our individual acts are acts of loyalty and/or disloyalty. A person is tenanted by all the groups that compose his individuality and “if the groups of an individual are in conflict: if they urge him to contradictory actions, duties, thoughts, convictions; if, for instance, the state demands what is disapproved by the church and the family, then the respective egos will be mutually antagonistic. The individual will be a house divided against himself, split by the inner conflicts. There will be no peace of mind, no unclouded conscience, no real happiness, no consistency in such an individual. He will be like a ball pushed in opposite directions by several forces.”
—Pitirim A. Sorokin, Society, Culture, and Personality
After confessing to being nothing more than an instrument in the killing of millions of Jews at his trial, Eichmann proclaimed in his final days: “I am not the monster I am made out to be. I am the victim of a fallacy.”
—Eichmann Interrogated, Jochen Von Lang and Claus Sibyll (editors)This course is in part an examination of the meaning of such a presumed fallacy. Is the concept of the individual a fallacy? If so, then are the feelings of personal responsibility, guilt, and shame fallacies as well? Is there a germ of psychological truth to Howard’s jealousy? Can psychological aloneness ever be achieved, or is aloneness nothing more than an implicit harmony with a select other or others? Is Reb Zusye’s failure to realize Reb Zusye and Ronnie’s quest for a true self better viewed as a search for an original self? Does the person maintain a sense of wholeness by sustaining social compartments that are sealed off from one another? What role does conflict play in creating a compartmentalized self or alternatively a coherent self? Is the individualism that illuminates the distinction between the “me” and the “you” any different from the collectivism that distinguishes the “us” and the “them” from a psychological perspective?
Rainbow Nation: Growing Up South African in the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid Eras
Level: Open
Semester: Fall
“It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.”
—Nelson Mandela (1994), Long Walk to Freedom
In this course, we will discuss what it was like to grow up South African in different contexts during the apartheid era, and what it is like to grow up South African today, during the post-apartheid era. We will consider how people from different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds have dealt, and are still dealing, with the transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid era. Part of this discussion will involve identity formation for South African children and adolescents. We will also discuss how children’s cognitive, language, social, and emotional development, as well as their mental and physical health, are influenced by the environment in which they live, which during apartheid was determined by the governmental classification of race. We will also discuss South African psychological research during and after apartheid and its relationship to public policy. How did researchers’ political affiliations, race, and culture affect the questions they asked, the measures they used, the ways in which they interpreted their data, and even whether and where they published their research findings? Readings will be drawn from psychological research, memoirs and other firsthand accounts (including Nelson Mandela’s autobiography), and literature. We will also view and analyze several classic and contemporary films, including The Power of One, Tsotsi, Catch a Fire, and Cry, the Beloved Country.
Narrative Neuropsychology
Level: Open
Semester: Fall
“The self is an incredibly ingenious novelist.”
—Richard Powers
Narrative neuropsychology explores notions of mind, memory, sensory perception, language, mind-body interactions, consciousness, and self through study of cases of the breakdown, hyperdevelopment, or recovery of mental function. In this course, we will draw upon a mixture of neuropsychological case studies, scientific research papers, novels, and memoirs to investigate conditions such as agnosia, amnesia, synesthesia, aphasia, autism, and other alterations in consciousness that arise from brain damage or variations in brain development. Narrative refers to the narrative accounts of neurologists, but also to the view of the human brain as primarily a storyteller. A third sense of the term narrative will be invoked in our reading of current fiction and memoirs that incorporate neuropsychological material. This course is designed for students interested in the intersections of science and art.
Life and Work: Psychology via Autobiography, Biography, and Memoir
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
Psychology is a vast subject with levels of analysis that vary from neural to cultural. This course is designed as an introduction to the expansive subject matter of the discipline through consideration of the life and work of a few famous, and sometimes infamous, psychologists. Some of the themes of the course are the nature of autobiographical memory and the selective representations of self that result; the enduring intellectual questions that hold psychologists’ attention; how the wider social and cultural context impacts on the reception of psychological work; the historical construction of gender and its effects on female psychologists; and what makes psychological experiments compelling to a wider audience. The individual psychologists whose lives and works we will immerse ourselves in will include the tortured pragmatist William James, the pioneering feminist researcher of sex differences Leta Stetter Hollingworth, the romantic Russian Lev Vygotsky, the true believer in behaviorism B. F. Skinner, the artistic Gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim, the complex investigator of mother love Harry Harlow, the debunker of myths about homosexuality Evelyn Hooker, and the progressive child psychologist Lois Barclay Murphy. Conference work will focus on the life and work of an individual psychologist.
Sexuality Across the Life Span
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
The study of human sexuality is inherently an interdisciplinary undertaking: anthropologists to zoologists all add something to our understanding of sexual behaviors and the meanings we attach to these behaviors across cultural and sociohistorical boundaries. What does psychology add to the study of the construction of sexual identity and desire? How do race and gender come together in the production of sexual behavior and meaning? In this seminar, we will study sexualities in social contexts across the life span, from infancy and early childhood to old age. Within each period of life, we will examine biological, social, and psychological factors that inform the experience of sexuality for individuals. We will also examine broader societal aspects of sexuality, including sexual health and sexual abuse. Students are encouraged to do fieldwork or community service as a part of conference work in this seminar.
Play and Culture
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
“For many years the conviction has grown upon me that civilization arises and unfolds in and as play.”
—Huizinga, Homo Ludens
Many adults look back fondly on their memories of childhood play and the rich imaginary worlds created. And yet, play in our current sociopolitical climate is threatened by the many demands of our over-regimented lives and standardized goals of education. In this course, we will look closely at the amazing complexity of those playworlds and at the many aspects of children’s experience through play. Observing and reading about play offer the opportunity to understand children’s thinking, communicating, problem solving, nascent storytelling, emotional and imaginative lives. We will also consider the variations in play within different family and cultural contexts, as well as play’s relationship to scientific and aesthetic activities of adult life. Other topics will include therapeutic uses of play, importance of play for early literacy, the current plan unfolding in New York City to train “playworkers” to guide play in new adventure playgrounds. Students will be encouraged to choose a context in which to observe and/or participate in play, either at our Early Childhood Center or other settings with children or adults.
Quantitative/Qualitative Research Methods in Health Psychology and Public Health
Level: Intermediate,Advanced
Semester: Year
How can psychology help to affect public health? How do we move from an individually oriented science to design and implement change in the realm of social health? In this course, we will examine research issues in the psychological study of health and illness. The course emphasizes theoretical perspectives in epidemiology and in the psychology of health, illness prevention, stress, and coping with illness. The fall semester will highlight quantitative research methods (e.g., survey, case-control studies, experimental design), while the spring semester will focus on qualitative research methods (e.g., focus group methodologies, individual interviewing). Our primary goal will be to use our expanding knowledge to design and implement a research project focused on health psychology or public health. Readings and class discussion in the latter half of the course will involve sharing information about studies in progress and receiving feedback and suggestions from class members.
Previous course work in statistics is helpful, but not required. Previous course work in psychology or social sciences is required.
Puzzling Over People: Social Reasoning in Childhood and Adolescence
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Fall
We humans tend to find other people the most interesting “objects” in our lives, and for good reason: as infants, we are completely dependent on them for our very survival, and throughout our lives other people serve as the social bedrock of our existence. We are a social species, one that derives “fitness” through our abilities to read the social terrain, to figure out social meaning in our interactions with others. There are a range of timely questions to address: how do we do this, and how does it develop throughout childhood? Are we “hardwired” in some ways to feel what other people are feeling? What about the special case of childhood autism? How do our emotions interact with our cognitions about the social world to affect our views of self and other, and our future social lives? What would cause us to have a relatively good or poor “emotional IQ,” and what are the consequences? What are the roles of family and childhood friends in this process? These are some of the issues we will address in this course. The opportunity will be available in this class for hands-on fieldwork with children, so as to observe children puzzling over people in real life.
Theories of the Creative Process
Semester: Fall
The creative process is paradoxical. It involves freedom and spontaneity, but also disciplinary expertise and hard work. In this course, we look at how various thinkers conceptualize the creative process, chiefly in the arts, but in other domains as well. We see how various psychological theorists describe the process, its source, its motivation, its roots in a particular domain or skill, its cultural context, and its developmental history in the life of the individual. Among the thinkers we consider are Freud, Jung, Arnheim, Franklin, and Gardner. Different theorists emphasize different aspects of the process. In particular we see how some thinkers emphasize hard work and expert knowledge as essential features while others emphasize the need for the psychic freedom to “let it happen” and speculate on what emerges when the creative person “lets go.” Still others identify cultural context or biological factors as critical. To concretize theoretical approaches, we look at how various ideas can contribute to understanding specific creative people and their work. In particular we consider works written by or about Picasso, Woolf, Welty, and some contemporary artists and writers. Though creativity is most frequently explored in individuals, we also consider group improvisation in music and theatre. Some conference projects in the past have involved interviewing people engaged in creative work; others consisted of library studies centering on the life and work of a particular person. Some students chose to do field work at the Early Childhood Center as part of a consideration of some aspect of creative activity in young children.
Sophomores and above. Background in college psychology or philosophy is required.
Personality Development
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Fall
Sigmund Freud postulated a complex theory of the development of the person a century ago. While some aspects of his theory have come into question, many of the basic principles of psychoanalytic theory have become part of our common culture and worldview. This course will center on reading and discussion of the work of key contributors to psychoanalytic developmental theory since Freud. We will trace the evolution of what Pine has called the “four psychologies of psychoanalysis”—drive, ego, object, and self-psychologies—and consider the issues they raise about children’s development into individuals with unique personalities within broad, shared developmental patterns in a given culture. Readings will include the work of Anna Freud, Erik Erikson, Margaret Mahler, Daniel Stern, Steven Mitchell, Nancy Chodorow, and George Vaillant. Throughout the semester, we will return to such fundamental themes as the complex interaction of nature and nurture, the unanswered questions about the development of personal style, and the cultural dimensions of personality development. Fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center or other appropriate setting is required, although conference projects may center on aspects of that experience or not, depending on individual student’s interest.
Open to sophomores and above with previous background in psychology, preferably including some developmental psychology and/or work with children.
Memory Research Seminar
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Fall
Experimental study of remembering has been a vital part of psychology since the beginning of the discipline. The most productive experimental approach to this subject has been a matter of intense debate and controversy. The disputes have centered on the relationship between the forms of memory studied in the laboratory and the uses of memory in everyday life. We will engage this debate through study of extraordinary memories, autobiographical memories, the role of visual imagery in memory, accuracy of memory, exper-tise, eyewitness testimony, metaphors of memory, and the anatomy of memory. Frederic Bartlett’s constructive theory of memory will form the theoretical backbone of the course. Most conference work will involve experimental explorations of memory.
Some previous course work in psychology is required.
Language Development
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Fall
Learning language is a fundamental aspect of human experience that is reproduced from generation to generation all over the world. Yet, how similar are the processes of language development among people of different places and backgrounds? This course will explore the nature of language and its relation to thinking, meaning making, and culture. We will begin with a look at the phenomena of first language acquisition—how naming, categorizing, conversation, private speech, storytelling, metaphor constitute and express children’s experiences in their worlds. We will then consider second language learning in such contexts as bilingualism, transitions from home to school, immigration. Readings will be drawn from psychological studies, ethnographic accounts, and memoirs. Where possible, students will be encouraged to gather language samples from children and/or adults, to illustrate processes we will be studying or as the basis for conference projects.
Previous course in psychology or another social science.
Theories of Development
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Fall
“There’s nothing so practical as a good theory,” suggested Kurt Lewin almost a hundred years ago. Since then, the competing theoretical models of Freud, Skinner, Piaget, Vygotsky, and others have shaped the field of developmental psychology and been used by parents and educators to determine child-care practice and education. In this course, we will study the classic theories—psychoanalytic, behaviorist, and cognitive-developmental—as they were originally formulated and in light of subsequent critiques and revisions. We will also consider new directions in theorizing development that respond to recent challenges from gender, cultural, and poststructuralist criticism. Questions we will consider include: Are there patterns in our emotional, thinking, or social lives that can be seen as universal or are these always culture-specific? Can life experiences be conceptualized in a series of stages? How else can we understand change over time? We will use theoretical perspectives as lenses through which to view different aspects of experience—the origins of wishes and desire, early parent-child attachments, intersubjectivity in the emergence of self, symbolic and imaginative thinking, problem solving. For conference work, students will be encouraged to do fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center or in another setting with children, as one goal of the course is to bridge theory and practice.
Seniors and graduate students only.
Brain and Early Experience
Level: Open
Semester: Fall
Neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change as a result of experience—has emerged as a vital new area of neuroscience research with clear educational policy applications. This research has sparked increased concern—and propaganda—over the role of early experience in brain development. We will examine the research most often cited in media and policy discussions relevant to early childhood education, including studies of the effects of stress, deprivation, and environmental enrichment on brain development and function. Our focus will be on original research articles as we emphasize the critical evaluation and appropriate application of research studies
Open to sophomores and above.
Social Development Research Seminar
Level: Intermediate,Advanced
Semester: Spring
Have you done a conference project before in the social sciences that raised interesting questions, and you’ve had the wish to take it a step further, to conduct your own research on the subject? This course is designed for students who would like to do just that. The goal of the course is to have each student propose and conduct an original piece of research within the broad sphere of the social development of childhood and adolescence. The work could be done, for example, through quantitative testing, through observation, through direct interviews, or through questionnaires. The course will be divided into three parts. In the first third of the course, we will be reading a range of past studies that exemplify different types of research approaches to the study of children, and we will discuss the strengths and possible weaknesses of each approach. At the same time, in conference, each of you will begin the planning process for your own study. In the second third of the course, each student will take turns serving as the facilitator of class discussion by assigning the readings for that particular week (on studies relevant to her or his own project) while sharing with the class the current progress on her or his research ideas. In turn, the rest of the class will serve as a “working group,” to give feedback and helpful suggestions on each project. Depending on the size of the class, we may have time for several rounds of this presentation/advising format. The final portion of the course will involve students presenting what they have found. The conference paper will consist of the write-up of your study.
Prior course work in psychology necessary.
Pathways of Development: Psychopathology and Other Challenges to the Developmental Process
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Spring
This course addresses the multiple factors that play a role in shaping a child’s development. Starting with a consideration of what the terms “normality” and “pathology” may refer to in our culture, we will read about and discuss a variety of situations that illustrate different interactions of inborn, environmental, and experiential influences on developing lives. For example, we will read theory and case material addressing congenital conditions such as deafness, and life events such as acute trauma and abuse, as well as the range of less clear-cut circumstances and complex interactions of variables that have an impact on growth and adaptation. We will examine a number of the current conversations and controversies about assessment, diagnosis/labeling, early intervention, use of psychoactive medications, and treatment modalities. Students will be required to engage in fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center or elsewhere and may choose to focus conference projects on aspects of that experience.
For upperclass and graduate students with previous background in child development.
Poverty and Public Policy: An Ecological and Psychobiological Approach
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Spring
One-fifth of all American children live in poverty. Why? And what can be done about it? In this course, we will take an ecological and psychobiological approach to poverty in America and its relationship to public policy, with a focus on child poverty. We will discuss how physical and psychosocial environments differ for poor and non-poor children and their families in both rural and urban contexts, specifically rural upstate New York and urban New York City. We will explore how these differences affect mental and physical health and motor, cognitive, language, and socioemotional development. We will also discuss individual and environmental protective factors that buffer some children from the adverse affects of poverty, as well as the impacts of public policy on poor children and their families, including the recent welfare reform in the United States. Topics will include environmental chaos, cumulative risk and its relationship to chronic stress, and unequal access to health care services. This course has a service learning component. Students will be expected to participate in a community partnership addressing issues related to poverty as part of their conference work.
A previous course in the social sciences or permission of the instructor is required.
The Feeling Brain: The Biology and Psychology of Emotions
Elizabeth Johnston, Leah Olson
Semester: Spring
For a full description, see Biology.
Human Resilience
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Spring
The texts of our study will be the biographies of individuals who have undergone and transcended the extreme adversities of urban and rural poverty, the Nazi Holocaust, North American slavery, political hostage captivity, physical trauma, chronic mental illness, South African apartheid, domestic violence, sexual assault, and prisoner-of-war confinement. We will examine these life histories to seek answers to the question of what enables some individuals to escape the worst psychological consequences these kinds of conditions can inflict while others are severely damaged by the same circumstances. Psychologists became interested in resilient survivors long after they had constructed theories that established the optimal prenatal, constitutional, child-rearing, and environmental requirements of healthy individual development. The exceptional survivors of suboptimal and traumatic circumstances were overlooked because they were a statistical minority. In more recent years, however, these survivors have become the source of valuable insights into human adaptability. Controversy prevails among scholars and researchers about how to conceptualize the phenomenon of resilience, so it is variously equated with or distinguished from such constructs as hardiness, invulnerability, and the protection that comes from certain personality traits and personal experiences. Our examination of the accounts of actual lives and their contexts will illuminate the theoretical debates and empirical literature on this subject.
The course is intended for students who have had an introduction to psychological theory and methods.
Language, Mind, and Brain
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Spring
The ability to communicate with language is, according to some, the most remarkable skill that we as humans possess. In this semester course, we will use the perspective of cognitive neuroscience to examine how the brain represents and processes language. We will explore classical and contemporary debates about language, addressing questions such as, Is language separate from other cognitive abilities? What are the commonalities and differences between signed and spoken languages? Does the brain ever lose its capacity to learn language? Throughout the course, we will focus on the hierarchical levels of language processing (sound, meaning, and grammar) and how the brain represents different aspects of language. Our readings will focus on empirical research articles, including studies of both children and adults.