ChabotCollege

Course Outline for Psychology 1 Page 1

Fall 2003

ChabotCollegeFall 2003

Replaced Fall 2010

Course Outline for Psychology 1

GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

Catalog Description:

1 - General Psychology3 units

Basic psychological concepts underlying human and animal behavior in such areas as learning, motivation, perception, personality and social behavior. Strongly recommended: Eligibility for English 1A. 3 hours.

[Typical contact hours: 52.5]

Prerequisite Skills:

None.

Expected Outcomes for Students:

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  1. demonstrate an understanding of the major theoretical perspectives in psychology;
  2. identify and apply key findings and principles established through empirical research in psychology;
  3. define major methods of research and investigation used in psychology;
  4. assess how the field's findings have been applied in various specialized professional practices, including the helping professions;
  5. demonstrate an understanding of the scope and diversity of psychology's methods and subject matter.

Course Content:

  1. Foundations:
  2. History of Psychology
  3. Key Theoretical Perspectives in Psychology: Biological, Behavioral, Evolutionary, Social, Humanistic, Cultural, Psychoanalytic
  4. Empirical Methods of Research and Investigation in Psychology
  5. The Scope and Diversity of Psychology’s Methods and Subject Matter
  1. Research Findings, Key Principles and Major Theories:
  2. Biological Basis of Behavior
  3. Sensation and Perception
  4. Conditioning and Learning
  5. Memory
  6. Emotion
  7. Motivation
  8. Personality
  9. Life-span Development
  10. Social Behavior

Course Content (Cont'd):

  1. Application in Specialized Areas of Professional Practice:
  2. Measurement of Mental Abilities
  3. Measurement of Personality
  4. Behavior Disorders
  5. Therapies: Psychological and Biological
  6. Behavior Modification
  1. Optional Topics:
  2. Human Consciousness: Normal and Altered States
  3. Drugs and Behavior
  4. Adjustment

Methods of Presentation:

1.Lecture - discussion

2.Classroom participation

3.Audio visual aids

4.Classroom experiments

Assignments and Methods of Evaluating Student Progress:

  1. Typical Assignments
  1. Assigned reading
  2. Classroom exercises and experiments. For example, demonstration of the serial position effect using memorization of nonsense syllables.
  3. Computer simulations of laboratory experiments in psychology. Students perform the simulations as homework and then complete a worksheet that provides questions about the essential features of the experiment. Simulations used include operant and classical conditioning demonstrations, classic studies of feature-detecting neurons in the visual cortex and hemispheric differences in the cerebral cortex, and an experiment on visual attention phenomena
  1. Methods of Evaluating Student Progress
  1. Midterm examinations
  2. Quizzes
  3. Student reports
  4. Student/instructor conferences
  5. Final examination

Textbook(s) (Typical):

Discovering Psychology, Hockenbury, D.H., & Hockenbury, S., Worth Publishers, 2000,

or latest edition.

Exploring Psychology, Myers, D., Worth Publishers, 2002, or latest edition

Psychology, Zimbardo, Weber, Johnson,, Allyn & Bacon., 2002, or latest edition.

Special Student Materials:

None.

tf: Doc:\Psy 1

Revised: 10/21/02