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Yale PSYC 110: Introduction to Psychology

Instructions

Yale PSYC 110 Introduction to Psychology is a broad introduction to the scientific study of thought and behavior. It asks questions such as what dreams mean, whether apes can learn sign language and why we cannot tickle ourselves. It looks at how the mind develops in children, how people differ, how the mind is wired in the brain, and how it breaks down through illness and injury. Recorded in Spring 2007 for Open Yale Courses, licensed CC BY-NC-SA. Original link https://oyc.yale.edu/introduction-psychology/psyc-110 Instructor Paul Bloom, Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Yale University Main topics (20 lectures plus 2 guest lectures) - Foundations: the brain, Freud, Skinner - Development: how babies think - Language and communication, vision and memory, brain and perception - Evolution, emotion and reason: love, rationality, emotions - Individual differences and motivation: sex, food - Social psychology: morality, self and other - Sleep, dreams and laughter - Mental illness - Happiness and the good life - Guest lectures by Peter Salovey, Marvin Chun, Kelly Brownell and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

Contents · 40

  1. 01-IntroductionIntroduces the scientific study of the mind, covering neuroscience, development, cognition, social and clinical psychology, and related disciplines.
  2. 01-IntroductionIntroduces the psychology course, its topics, readings, exams, assignments, research participation, and advice for succeeding.
  3. 02-Foundations: This Is Your BrainCourse evaluation, study advice, mind–brain dualism, neural communication, brain regions, hemispheric specialization, consciousness, and free will.
  4. 02-Foundations: This Is Your BrainIntroduces the mind–body problem through Crick’s materialist hypothesis and Descartes’ arguments for dualism.
  5. 03-Foundations: FreudFreud’s theories of unconscious conflict, personality development, defense mechanisms, and psychoanalysis, assessed against scientific standards and modern views of the unconscious.
  6. 03-Foundations: FreudIntroduces psychoanalysis as Freud’s grand theory of mind, his influence and reputation, and controversial ideas such as penis envy.
  7. 04-Foundations: SkinnerSkinner’s behaviorism, conditioning, reinforcement, and shaping, including critiques of behaviorist explanations and their legacy.
  8. 04-Foundations: SkinnerEvolutionary theories of the unconscious as a tool for deception, followed by a transition from Freud and psychoanalysis to Skinner and behaviorism.
  9. 05-What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of ThoughtFreudian and behaviorist explanations of alcoholism, plus a proposed behaviorist treatment for stopping drinking.
  10. 05-What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of ThoughtPiaget’s theory of cognitive development, including children as active learners, assimilation and accommodation, developmental stages, object permanence, and egocentrism.
  11. 06-How Do We Communicate?: Language in the Brain, Mouth and the HandsExplores human language’s shared structure, including phonology, morphology, syntax and recursion, and how language develops in children. Also introduces language and communication in nonhumans.Covers shared features of human language, including phonology, morphology, and syntax, and how language develops in children. Also raises questions about language and communication in nonhuman animals.
  12. 06-How Do We Communicate?: Language in the Brain, Mouth and the HandsIntroduces language as a subject of cognitive science, its shared features and variation, and evidence for an innate human capacity to acquire it.
  13. 07-Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Language (cont.); Vision and MemoryAnimal communication and primate language learning, language and thought, and perception, attention, and memory.
  14. 07-Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Language (cont.); Vision and MemoryAnimal communication systems, the limits of language learning in trained primates, and newborns’ preference for their own language.
  15. 08-Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Vision and Memory (cont.)Short-term memory’s 7 ± 2 chunk capacity, memory encoding and retrieval, forgetting, amnesia, and false memories.
  16. 08-Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Vision and Memory (cont.)Change blindness, the limits of visual awareness, and differences between sensory, working, short-term, and long-term memory.
  17. 09-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Professor Peter Salovey)Explains Sternberg’s components and types of love, plus how proximity, similarity, familiarity, competence, attractiveness, changing evaluations, and misattributed arousal shape attraction.
  18. 09-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Professor Peter Salovey)Sternberg’s three components of love—intimacy, passion, and commitment—and social psychology research on romantic attraction.
  19. 10-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Evolution and RationalityEvolutionary psychology, natural selection, adaptation and human cognition, including incest avoidance and reasoning heuristics such as framing and bias.
  20. 10-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Evolution and RationalityIntroduces Darwinian evolution as an explanation for the origins of biological and psychological complexity, contrasting it with Paley’s argument for intelligent design.
  21. 11-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part ICovers emotion theories, facial expressions, fear, kin selection, and parent–infant attachment.
  22. 11-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part IIntroduces evolutionary approaches to emotion, questioning why reactions such as disgust, pleasure, love, and anger feel natural and previewing the course’s study of how emotions work.
  23. 12-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part IISocial emotions, reciprocal altruism, cheater detection, and cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Ultimatum Game; also examines honor cultures and evolutionary explanations of altruism.
  24. 12-Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part IIThe lecture examines emotions, primate smiling, parental bonds, and Emperor penguin mating and childcare as a lens on human family behavior.
  25. 13-Why Are People Different?: DifferencesExamines personality and intelligence differences, how they are measured, and how heredity and shared or nonshared environments shape individual and group differences.
  26. 13-Why Are People Different?: DifferencesIntroduces individual psychological differences, focusing on personality and intelligence, and explains reliability and validity in psychological assessment.
  27. 14-What Motivates Us: SexMidterm scores and course updates, followed by evolutionary explanations of sex differences, parental investment, human mating behavior, and mate preferences.
  28. 14-What Motivates Us: SexEvolutionary and empirical perspectives on sex differences, sexual attractiveness, sexual preference, and the moral and social implications of Darwinian explanations.
  29. 15-A Person in the World of People: MoralityEvolution of moral feelings, empathy, group loyalty, cultural frameworks for moral judgment, and Milgram’s studies of obedience.
  30. 15-A Person in the World of People: MoralityExplains the evolution and psychology of moral feelings, including kin selection, cooperation, and empathy.
  31. 16-A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part ISocial psychology topics including attraction, self-presentation, cognitive dissonance, attribution biases, and how they relate to romantic interest.
  32. 16-A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part ISocial psychology, social connections, Milgram’s six-degrees experiment, and individual differences in how many people we know.
  33. 17-A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part II; Some Mysteries: Sleep, Dreams, and LaughterCovers attraction, first impressions, self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotypes and implicit bias, followed by an introduction to sleep and dreaming.
  34. 17-A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part II; Some Mysteries: Sleep, Dreams, and LaughterImpression formation, including confirmation bias, the lasting influence of first impressions, and how quickly people judge others from brief observations.
  35. 18-What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part I (Guest Lecture by Professor Susan Nolen-Hoeksema)Covers mood disorder diagnosis, criteria for depression and mania, biological and psychological theories, and treatments including medication, brain stimulation, CBT, and interpersonal therapy.
  36. 18-What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part I (Guest Lecture by Professor Susan Nolen-Hoeksema)Clinical psychology’s criteria for mental disorders, including mood disorders, diagnostic subjectivity, social norms, gender roles, context, and distress, dysfunction, and deviance.
  37. 19-What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part IIExam procedures and review sessions, followed by an overview of schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, phobias, OCD, and dissociative disorders.
  38. 19-What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part IIIntroduces clinical psychology, the scope and boundaries of mental illness, and debates over whether diagnoses reflect medical conditions or social and political judgments.
  39. 20-The Good Life: HappinessReviews therapy effectiveness and explores happiness, including set points, adaptation, social comparison, and how endings shape memories of pleasure and pain.
  40. 20-The Good Life: HappinessExplains how to evaluate whether therapy works, why outcomes vary across disorders and therapists, and how support and hope contribute to improvement.