Principles of Psychology
Fall 2015
1
Course information
Class schedule
Instructor
Office hours
Textbook
2
Section 01: M/T/Th/F 5th period (11:45 am–12:35 pm)
Section 02: M/T/Th/F 6th period (12:40 pm–1:30 pm)
Room B106
Alan Jern
Office: B103B
Email: jern@rose-hulman.edu
Thursdays 7th–9th periods, and by appointment
Peter Gray, Psychology, 7th edition
(E-book acceptable)
Overview
Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. This course will provide you with a broad overview
of the science of psychology. Some of the questions we will consider are:
• How do interpret sensory information?
• What motivates us?
• What makes us happy?
• How accurate are our memories?
• How do children learn language?
• How much do other people influence our behavior?
• Why do some people get depressed and others don’t?
You can probably formulate some answers to these questions just by reflecting on your own experience. As you will learn, however, we often have far less insight into the nature of our behavior
than it seems. In this course, we will focus on answering questions like these by treating people
as scientific subjects. We will consider psychological theories, experiments, and case studies that
address each of these questions, and many others.
1
3
Assessment
Component
Exam 1
Exam 2
Exam 3
Paper
Homeworks (6)
Reading responses (3)
Quizzes (12)
Participation
Total
3.1
Weight
15%
15%
15%
25%
15%
2%
10%
3%
100%
Exams (45%)
There will be three exams. There will be no final exam. Each exam will cover only material since
the previous exam. All exams are closed-book and closed-notes.
3.2
Paper (25%)
Assignment
Paper topics
Paper outline
Presentation
Final paper
Total
Weight
1%
4%
5%
15%
25%
You will submit a literature review paper on 11/9. The purpose of this paper is to summarize
the current research on a psychological topic of your choice. In addition to the paper itself, you
will give a brief presentation in week 10 summarizing what you learned.
A list of potential paper topics is due on 9/22. This will allow me to help you choose an
appropriate topic. A detailed outline for your paper is due on 10/20. The purpose of the outline is
to encourage you to begin thinking about your paper well in advance of the deadline and to receive
feedback from me.
More details about the final paper assignment are posted on Moodle.
3.3
Homeworks (15%)
There will be seven homework assignments. These assignments consist of short answer questions
related to the course material from the preceding week.
3.3.1
Homework grading
I will only grade approximately half of the homework questions. The graded questions will not be
announced in advance. The remaining questions will be marked only for completeness. Although
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only half of the homework questions will be graded, I will always post complete solutions on Moodle
shortly after the homework deadline.
3.4
Reading responses (2%)
On two days in week 1, we will discuss some research articles in class. In order to encourage you
come to class prepared to discuss each article, I will post a question or prompt about the article
on Moodle that you must respond to before class that day. Your reading responses should not be
longer than two paragraphs.
3.5
Quizzes (10%)
There will be 12 online quizzes. These quizzes will consist of questions related to the assigned
textbook readings up to and including that day. Your two lowest quiz grades will be dropped at
the end of the quarter.
Quizzes must be submitted by 11:30 am on the day in the schedule in order to receive credit.
3.6
Participation (3%)
This class would be boring for all of us without any interaction. Accordingly, I expect you to be
an active participant. In addition to asking and answering questions in class, there will be many
opportunities for you to participate, including in-class experiments, activities, and discussions.
As long as you show good attendance and make a reasonable effort to contribute to the class
when appropriate, you will receive full participation credit. I will warn you in advance by email if
I feel your behavior is deficient in either of these respects. That means that if you don’t hear from
me, you can assume you are on track to receive full credit. If you continue to make an inadequate
participation effort after a warning, you will receive a 0 for the participation component of your
grade.
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3.7
Final grade
Grades will be assigned as follows.
Percentage
≥ 90%
87–89%
80–86%
77–79%
70–76%
67–69%
60–66%
< 60%
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4.1
Grade
A
B+
B
C+
C
D+
D
F
Course policies
Late assignments
For the entire course, you will have two free late days that can be used for homework assignments ONLY. Homeworks will be considered one day late if they are submitted any time after
the start of class on the due date up to 24 hours later. Homeworks will be considered two days
late if they are submitted any time between 24 and 48 hours after the the start of class on the due
date. You don’t need to notify me in advance if you plan to use one of your late days—I will keep
track of your late days and notify you by email when you have no late days remaining.
Any assignments submitted after your late days are exhausted will not be accepted. The purpose
for this policy is to ensure that I can grade your homework and post keys in a timely fashion.
4.2
Academic integrity
Academic misconduct will be addressed according to the policies described in the Rose-Hulman
student handbook. Academic misconduct includes: (1) submitting work that is not your own; (2)
copying ideas, words, or graphics from any source without appropriate citation; (3) misrepresenting
your work or yourself (i.e., deliberately submitting the wrong assignment or lying to explain a late
assignment); (4) collaborating with other students when this is not permitted; and (5) submitting
the same work for credit in two courses without prior consent of both instructors. If you are unsure
whether something qualifies as academic misconduct, please check with me before engaging in the
behavior.
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5
Course schedule
The following schedule lists topics, readings, and due dates for the whole term. The page numbers
refer to the 7th edition of the Gray textbook. The days marked with a Q are days
with online quizzes.
I don’t anticipate any major deviations from this schedule, but it is subject to change. Schedule
changes will be announced in class and will be posted online. I will give you plenty of notice when
such changes are made.
Week
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Date
9/3
9/4
9/7
9/8
9/10
9/11
9/14
9/15
9/17
9/18
9/21
9/22
9/24
9/25
9/28
9/29
10/1
10/2
10/5
10/6
10/8
10/9
10/12
10/13
10/15
10/16
10/19
10/20
10/22
10/23
10/26
10/27
10/29
10/30
11/2
11/3
Topic
Introduction
Foundations
Applications
Methods
Methods
Learning
Sleep
Perception
Perception
Motivation
Emotion
Review
Exam 1
Memory
Memory
Thinking
Research paper
Thinking
Development
Development
Development
Development
Review
Exam 2
Social behavior
Social behavior
Social behavior
Social behavior
Personality
Disorders
Disorders
Disorders
TBD
Review
Q
Q
Q
Q
Reading
pp. 12–21
pp. 1–12
Roediger & Pyc
Penneback; pp. 29–41, 159–164
pp. 45-52
pp. 101–126
pp. 220–230
pp. 281–285, 293–300
pp. 300–313, 326–333
pp. 195–205
pp. 231–241
Due
Reading response
Reading response
HW 1
HW 2
Paper topics
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q
pp. 321–326, 334–340, 352–353
pp. 340–351, 353–360
pp. 369–379
Final paper assignment
pp. 380–388
pp. 413–414, 420–438
pp. 442–452, 471–473
Fall break
Fall break
pp. 461–466, 479–483
pp. 494–500
pp. 503–507,
pp. 522–536
pp. 544–552,
pp. 553–561
pp. 573–590
pp. 617–629,
pp. 631–637,
pp. 667–670,
TBD
5
HW 3
HW 4
511–518
Paper outline
561–570
HW 5
638–643
645–653
673–692
HW 6
Reading response
Week
10
Date
11/5
11/6
11/9
11/10
11/12
11/13
Topic
Exam 3
Paper time
Presentations
Presentations
Presentations
Conclusion
Reading
Due
Final paper
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