PSY 400: Senior Thesis in Psychology
Dr. Amanda Diekman
2:00-3:15, W

This seminar is designed to facilitate the process of conducting an honors thesis in psychology. The goals of the seminar are (1) to provide advanced training in methods and statistics to benefit students’ projects, and (2) to provide an introduction to scientific writing. In addition, the seminar will devote some time to professional or pragmatic issues, including graduate school in psychology. Note: PSY 400 is not a capstone seminar; this was an error in the course listing.

PSY 410.A: Neuroscience of Fear & Anxiety
Dr. Jennifer Quinn
11:00-11:50, MWF

• This seminar will explore the basic science of fear and anxiety
• We will assess the behavioral and neural mechanisms of these evolutionarily adaptive emotional states and explore the effectiveness of clinically relevant interventions (behavioral and pharmacological) utilized when these emotional states become maladaptive.

PSY 410.8: Contemporary Israeli Society: Psychological and Social Challenges
Dr. Mia Biran
12:00-12:50, MWF

• Examine the complexity of issues facing the Israeli society today (diversity of national origins, political and religious tensions, history of Holocaust, survival threats, etc.)
• Examine the attempts made toward integration and healing

PSY 410.5: Capstone in Social Cognition
Dr. Heather Claypool
2:00-3:15, TR

• Social Cognition is the study of how individuals encode, interpret, process, recall, and respond to social information.
• In this class, students will learn about topics such as: social memory, priming effects on the interpretation of social information, stereotyping, automaticity, thought suppression, the effects of mood on social information processing, etc.

PSY 410.G: Capstone in Psychotherapy
Dr. David Knight
8:00-9:15, TR

• This class will utilize a text that surveys 12 major schools or forms of psychotherapy
• This information will serve as the background for class discussions and student writing
• The central issue will be the student’s integration of a wide variety of information into a coherent opinion regarding the contributions of the various schools and/or the potential for their integration
• Students will select an additional book that is specific to one approach to therapy. They will write 3 brief position papers during the semester and a more extensive synthesis in lieu of a final exam.
• The class will be conducted as a discussion group informed by the text, outside readings, the student writings, personal experiences of the instructor as a therapist, personal experiences of the students, depictions in the media and any other relevant source.
• The official prerequisite of statistics may be waived in some cases. It is preferred that the student has already taken Abnormal Psychology and/or Personality Theory.

PSY 410.S: Dreams/Dreaming/Dreamer
Dr. Roger Knudson
2:00-3:15, TR

• Emphasizes broad multi-disciplinary thinking about the nature and function of human dreaming as well as, independent individual scholarship
• Students will complete a term project on a topic related to dreams of their choosing, which will count for about ½ the total grade for the course
• Most class periods are devoted to group discussion of assigned readings ( a heavy load of readings) or to experiential dream exercises. Lecture will only make only 3 or 4 class periods the entire semester
• In addition to regular class time, a dream group meets once a week for 90 minutes (5 students with a grad student as a group facilitator)
• Each student will keep a dream journal, this is more than a mere daily record of dreams—it involves some work! The workload is heavy – or so most students say. But it will be for many students – again based on their reports at the end of class as well as their letters many years later – the most memorable class of their undergrad education. That is because dreams really do matter, in spite of academic psychology’s tendency to ignore them or discount them.

PSY 410.V: Capstone: Stress, Health & Wellness
Dr. Terri Messman-Moore
9:30-10:45, TR

This course will explore aspects of stress and coping strategies. We will focus on the prominent idea (emotion regulation theory) that individuals engage in many problematic behaviors in order to regulate, change, or cope with negative emotional states. We will focus on several types of maladaptive and potentially problematic behaviors often used by college women to cope with negative emotional states:
• Binge eating and bulimic behavior
• Risky sexual behavior & sexual miscommunication
• Misuse and abuse of alcohol and other drugs

Participants in this seminar will:
• Will become familiar with the stress and coping literature, particularly as it pertains to women, as well as the focused topics (e.g., binge eating)
• Will learn about emotion regulation theories and the relation of this process to the development and maintenance of psychopathology
• Will learn to identify, critically review, summarize and synthesize information from the relevant theoretical and empirical literature
• Will learn about clinical interventions (e.g., psychotherapies) based upon emotion-regulation theory including cognitive-behavioral approaches and mindfulness-based interventions
• Will help to identify issues relevant to stress and adjustment in college women for development of an education-based group intervention program for college women
• Will help to develop materials for intervention with college women, focusing on improving healthy emotion-regulation strategies

PSY 420:  Nonconscious Social Life
Dr. Allen McConnell
12:30-1:45, TR

Much of social life is determined by nonconscious processes. Everyday phenomena such as romantic attraction, stereotyping and prejudice, and consumer and voter behavior are driven by factors operating "under the radar" of conscious awareness. In this advanced seminar in social psychology, we will explore the mechanisms involved in how our behavior is influenced by these nonconscious factors. In the course, students will read and discuss psychological reports of experiments examining these issues, make oral presentations to the class, and write position papers on these topics. Grades will also be determined by class participation and all-essay exams. Although not required, having previous social psychology coursework should prove helpful.

Important links for our undergrads:

List of seminars to be offered next semester

Handbook for Psychology Majors (a PDF file)

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Psi Chi

Course listings

Areas of research emphasis

Summer employment resources

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Faculty list