Teaching

Social Psychology

Social Psychology (UTSC - intranet)

Social Psychology is the study of how feelings, thoughts, and behaviour are influenced by the presence of others. The course is designed to explore social behaviour and to present theory and research that foster its understanding. The course will survey a wide range of phenomena relating to social behaviour.

Social psychology Laboratory (UTSC - intranet)

Introduces conceptual and practical issues concerning research in social psychology, and provides experience with several different types of research. This course is designed to consider in depth various research approaches used in social psychology (such as attitude questionnaires, observational methods for studying ongoing social interaction). Discussion and laboratory work.

Cross-cultural Psychology (UTSC - intranet)

This course is a survey of the role of culture in social thought and behaviour. The focus in this course in this course will be on research and theory that illustrates ways in which culture influences behaviour and cognition about the self and the others, emotion and motivation. Differences in individualism and collectivism, independence and interdependence as well as other important orientations that differ between cultures will be discussed. Social identity and its impact on acculturation will also be explored.

Social Psychology Attitudes.

Intensive study of social attitudes and opinions development, description, measurement, modification, and organization.

Critical Analysis in Social Psychology

(access to course information and lecture slides via UTSC’s Intranet)

The development of social psychology is examined both as a discipline (its phenomena, theory, and methods) and a profession. The Natural Science approaches to phenomena are contrasted. Students are taught to observe the lived-world, choose a social phenomenon of interest to them and then interview people who describe episodes from their lives in which these phenomena occurred. The students interpret these episodes and develop theories to account for their phenomena before searching for scholarly research on the topic.

Cognition and Neuroscience

Memory and Cognition

(access to course information and lecture slides via UTSC’s Intranet)

Why can we remember the names of people in our first grade class but not know where we parked our car? Why do our eyes sometimes see things that aren’t there? How is the brain organized? How do we see the things we see? How are affect and cognition related? Do emotions affect our recall of memories? What are the effects of multitasking on our memory? The purpose of this course is to stimulate curiosity about both the content and the process of cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is an experimental field. This course also provides an analysis of the research on encoding, storage and retrieval of information, the emotional unconscious, affect, memory and social cognition, attention, thinking, and problem solving.

Neuroscience: Sensory and Motor Skills (UTSC - intranet)

A focus on the mechanisms by which the nervous system processes sensory information and controls movement. The topics include sensory transduction and the sensory physiology for each of the sensory systems (olfactory, visual, somatosensory, auditory, gustatory) and models of sensory processing. Both spinal and central mechanisms of motor control are also covered.

Developmental Psychology

Adolescent Developmental Psychology

This course involves the scientific study of changes in affective, social and cognitive development during the second decade of life. Focus is on fundamental developmental changes, the contexts in which development occurs, and the central psychosocial issues of adolescence.

Statistics for Behavioral Sciences

Statistics level I. Data analysis in psychology

(access to course information and lecture slides via UTSC’s Intranet)

This course will focus on the fundamentals of the theory and the application of statistical procedures used in psychological research. Topics will range from descriptive statistics to simple tests of significance, such as t tests, correlation and regression, and one-way ANOVA. A working knowledge of algebra is assumed.

Statistics level II. Research analysis.

Psy202 is a continuation of Psy201 and further focuses on experimental designs and various models of data analysis. Topics will range from ANOVA, post-hoc analyses, effect size, power analysis, correlation and regression. Students will learn the use of SPSS in statistical analyses.

Introduction to Psychology

This course introduces psychology by exploring several frameworks, such as the biological, behaviourist/learning, cognitive, and psychodynamic. The emphasis is on examining the ways in which the various perspectives have influenced our understanding of how people act, think, and feel, and the contributions that each has made to psychology as a discipline.