Introduction Psychology

This course is designed to be an Engaged Inquiry into psychology, focusing not just on only helping students to get to know what psychology is, but also helping students develop important critical and scientific thinking skills as they engage in collaborative and reflective learning. Through this course, students will be introduced to many of the major topics, concepts, and theories of psychology. Both historical perspectives and current research are included. This course will emphasize ways students can apply psychology to various aspects of everyday life, investigate the impact of culture on psychological processes, and think critically about how psychological research and theory inform contemporary issues. Major topics in this course include biological and developmental processes; consciousness and perceptions; learning, remembering, and thinking; motivation and emotion; personality and individuality; social behavior; normal stress and coping; psychological disorders and treatment methods. This course encourages students to engage in conversations around psychology in the context of Vietnam and Vietnamese culture in order to start to compare and contrast it with the contemporary understandings and research of various psychological theories elsewhere. In addition, this course is designed to be the prerequisite for higher level psychology courses. It also serves all students (major and non-major) for whom this knowledge is a general contribution to a liberal arts education.