Syllabus



Introduction to Psychology

Psychology 1000 • Section 010 • TR 11:00 – 12:15

|Instructor: Dr. Amy Lyndon |Blackboard: |

|Office: 316 Rawl |Research Experience: |

|Office Hours: M: 1:00-3:00, TTh: 8:30-9:30, Th: 1:30-2:30, and|Sona Systems website to do research: |

|by appointment | |

|E-mail: lyndona@ecu.edu | |

|Phone #: 328-2589 | |

|Classroom: Rawl 130 | |

Course Goals:

This course is designed to familiarize you with the principal theories, concepts, and methods of psychology. The material covers major topics in psychology, including research methods, as well as biological, developmental, social, cognitive, personality, health, and clinical psychology. You will be exposed to a sampling of research for each topic and will learn fundamentals necessary for more advanced courses in psychology. The class is designed to acquaint you with both classic and current research trends in these subject areas.

Text: Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy, & Wolf (2009). Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding.

Attendance:

Attendance will be taken randomly. Excellent attendance (No absences) will earn 3 percentage points toward your final grade. One absence will result in 2 points, while two absences will result in 1 point. If you must miss class, find a buddy and get their notes. I do not send notes or go over what was covered in class by e-mail. Missed material is your responsibility.

Exams:

Questions will be multiple-choice. Bring a pencil and a blue bubble answer sheet on exam days. The final exam will not be cumulative. All exams will focus on both material covered in class and in the textbook. Exams will be given on days indicated on the syllabus – the dates will not change. However, exams will only consist of the information we have had time to cover. Anyone who misses an exam will take a comprehensive makeup exam at the final exam time. If you have a university-approved excuse, you may talk with me ahead of time and I may make alternate arrangements with you – but only if you do so ahead of time. If you have not missed any of the exams but you think you could have done better, you can elect to take the make-up exam. If you get a better score on the make-up exam, it will replace your lowest score on another exam. If you make a worse grade, it won’t count against you. If you want to take advantage of this option, you must fill out the Makeup Request Form available on Blackboard under “Course Documents” by November 21st. Everyone must take all regular exams – there are no dropped grades. If you miss an exam, you are automatically on the list to take the final makeup exam.

Research Requirement: (More on separate sheet)

All students enrolled in PSYC 1000 are required to complete 5 credits of research activities by December 4th. This requirement can be fulfilled by: (1) participating in research studies conducted by faculty and students in the Psychology Department (1 credit for every 30 minutes); (2) reading reports of research findings (1 credit per research article); or (3) any combination of the two. In all cases, you will take a quiz assessing your understanding of each research activity. This requirement counts as 5% of your final grade in PSYC 1000. Students will not be given extensions or allowed to take an incomplete in the course in order to finish this requirement. If the requirement is not completed by the deadline, then your grade in PSYC 1000 will drop according to how many points you did not earn; this may be as high as 5% or one-half a letter grade.

Extra credit – A total of 15 points allowed.

1. I will have extra credit “pop” questions throughout the semester. Only correct answers will be counted. There’s no penalty for incorrect answers.

2. You may watch a video(s) on reserve at the Teaching Resources Center on the second floor of the Joyner Library. This is the “Discovering Psychology” video series. You may watch these videos at the library and write a short description of what the video was about (a paragraph or so) and turn that in to me at certain scheduled times during the semester. The topics are all approximately 30 minutes, so they are worth 1 point each.

Grading:

|To calculate your grade, divide how many points you have earned by how many points |

|you could have earned. |

| | | |

| 23 pts Research Experience | 90% - 100% | A |

| 50 pts Quiz | 80% - 89% | B |

|100 pts Exam #1 | 70% - 79% | C |

|100 pts Exam #2 | 60% - 69% | D |

|100 pts Exam #3 | < 60% | F |

|100 pts Exam #4 | | |

|473 pts Total | | |

Blackboard:

Blackboard is an online system that enhances classroom instruction. Log onto Blackboard with your ECU username & password and click on this class. You will be able to, among other things:

• Read any class announcements on the homepage for the class

• Print out the (slightly revised) PowerPoint slides of class material under “Course Documents” before coming to class. Instructions on how to print are on Blackboard

• See the syllabus, PowerPoint slides, study guides, pre-tests, flashcards, e-book, glossary, and interesting websites, under “Course Documents” for each chapter

• Check your grade under “Student Tools” then “Check Grade”

• Email other students and me under “Communication”, then “Send Email”

• Check out interesting news webpages relevant to class sites under each “Course Documents” folder.

A reminder:

Your grades in this class are earned by you, not given by the instructor. You have a number of opportunities to learn the material and demonstrate what you have learned. I will do whatever I can to help you learn and do well on tests and assignments. You have the opportunity for extra credit points which will help you in your final grade. Please do not embarrass yourself or the instructor by asking or expecting the instructor to "give you points" toward your final grade, or by suggesting that your grade was somehow the responsibility (or fault) of the instructor. I also reserve the right to ignore any e-mail in the last week or so of class that basically says, “I’ve screwed up all semester and want to know what I can do to improve my grade.” Follow instructions, pay attention to due dates, do the extra credit, and talk to me if you’re having difficulty – before it’s too late to do anything. I want you to succeed.

Academic integrity is a fundamental value of higher education and East Carolina University; therefore, I will not tolerate acts of cheating, plagiarism, falsification or attempts to cheat, plagiarize, or falsify. Should I determine that an academic integrity violation has taken place, I reserve the right either to assign a grade penalty or to refer the case to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities for an Academic Integrity Board hearing. The minimum grade penalty that I will assign is an F for the assignment/course. Should it come to my attention that you have had a prior academic integrity violation, or if there are other aggravating circumstances, I will refer the case directly to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities. Should the Academic Integrity Board determine that you committed an academic integrity violation, you may be assigned a grade penalty and/or any other sanction allowed in the student Code of Conduct, up to and including suspension from the University.

General Information:

In the event of a weather emergency, information about ECU can be accessed through the following sources:

ECU emergency notices

ECU emergency information hotline: (252) 328-0062

East Carolina University seeks to comply fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodations based on a disability must be registered with the Department for Disability Support Services located in Slay 138 (252) 737-1016 (Voice/TTY).

Extra Credit Film option:

If you want to do some of these video segments, they must be turned in on these dates.

|DUE: 9/2: Vol 1/2. |DUE:10/16: Vol. 15/16. |DUE: 11/4: Vol. 17/18. |

|Past, present, and promise. |The self. |Sex and gender. |

|Understanding research. |Testing and intelligence. |Maturing and aging. |

|DUE: 9/16: Vol 3/4. |DUE: 10/24: Vol. 9/10. |DUE: 11/6: 23/24. |

|The behaving brain. |Remembering and forgetting. |Health, mind and behavior. |

|The responsive brain. |Cognitive processes. |In space, toward peace. |

|DUE: 9/18: Vol. 13/14. |DUE: 11/4: Vol. 11/12. |DUE: 12/2: Vol. 21/22. |

|The mind awake and asleep |Judgment and decision making. |Psychopathology. |

|The mind hidden and divided |Motivation and emotion |Psychotherapy. |

|DUE: 9/25: Vol. 5/6. |DUE: 11/4: Vol. 19/20. |DUE: 12/2: Vol. 24/25/26. |

|The developing child. |The power of the situation. |Applying Psychology in life |

|Language development. |Constructing social reality. |Cognitive Neuroscience |

| | |Cultural Psychology |

Course Outline

Dates Topic Reading

Aug 21 Introduction & Theory Chapter 1

Aug 26, 28 Research Methods Chapter 2

Sept 2 Quiz on Chapters 1 & 2

____________________________________________________________________________

Sept 4, 9 Biological Psychology Chapter 3

Sept 11, 16 Consciousness Chapter 5

Sept 18, 23 Human Development Chapter 10

Sept 25 Exam on Chapters 3, 5, & 10

____________________________________________________________________________

Sept 30, Oct 2 Learning Chapter 6

Oct 7, 9 Intelligence and IQ Testing Chapter 9

Oct 11-14 Fall Break

Oct 16 Memory Chapter 10

Oct 21 Exam on Chapters 6, 9, & 10

____________________________________________________________________________

Oct 23, 28 Social Psychology Chapter 13

Oct 30 Emotion and Motivation Chapter 11

Nov 4 Stress, Coping, & Health Chapter 12

Nov 6 Exam on Chapters 13, 11, & 12

Nov 11, 13 Theories of Personality Chapter 14

Nov 18, 20 Psychological Disorders Chapter 15 *

Nov 25 Treatment Chapter 16

Nov 26-30 Thanksgiving Break

Dec 2 Final Exam on Chapters 14, 15, & 16

Dec 4 Reading Day

Dec 11 11:00-1:30 Optional Cumulative Makeup Exam

➢ This is the intended schedule, although we might sometimes get ahead or behind. Exam dates are firm.

* All 5 research experience credits must be completed by November 21st.

PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH ACTIVITY REQUIREMENT – 5% of Final Grade

• For details, see Blackboard or Psychology Dept Website at

• For assistance, contact the graduate student supervisor at experimentrak@ecu.edu

All students enrolled in PSYC 1000 are required to complete 5 credits of research activities. This requirement can be fulfilled by: (1) participating in research studies conducted by faculty and students in the Psychology Department (1 credit for every 30 minutes); (2) reading reports of research findings (1 credit per research article); or (3) any combination of the two. In all cases, you will take a quiz assessing your understanding of each research activity. This requirement counts as 5% of your final grade in PSYC 1000 and must be completed at least two weeks before the end of classes. Students will not be given extensions or allowed to take an incomplete in the course in order to finish this requirement. If the requirement is not completed by the deadline, then your grade in PSYC 1000 will drop by 5%. Instructors may sometimes give extra credit for additional research activities above the 5-credit requirement, but don’t count on it. Ask your instructors what their rules are about extra credit.

The first step in completing this requirement is to register through Sona Systems, a computerized system for managing research participation and assigning credits. Instructions are posted on Blackboard and at the department website. It’s very important to follow the instructions carefully so that we can accurately record your credits. When registering in Sona Systems, be sure to always include the correct section number for your course (PSYC 1000, Section #10).

(1) Participating In Research Studies

After you have registered through Sona Systems, you can view available studies, sign up to participate, and track your credits. Studies will be worth varying amounts of credit depending on how long they take. Each half hour is worth 1 credit, and you are required to earn at least 5 credits.

When you sign up for a study, be sure to write down the time, place, experimenter’s name and e-mail address. It is very important for you to show up at the scheduled time. However, if you cannot attend a study that you have signed up for, go to Sona Systems and cancel your session as soon as possible so that other students may sign up in your place. If it is less than 24 hours before your scheduled time, send an e-mail message to the experimenter informing him/her that you will not be there for your appointment. Please note that if you miss several appointments you will be prevented from participating in further studies and will then have to complete the requirement with option #2.

After you have finished participating in a study, the researcher will explain the study to you. You may use your notes and any information that experimenters provide to answer the quiz questions.

(2) Reading Research Articles

After you have registered through Sona Systems, go to the Blackboard website (blackboard.ecu.edu) and select the course entitled PSYC 1000 Research Participation to find copies of articles that you may read for credit. Your instructor may have another Blackboard site for Psychology 1000, but this site should be listed separately. If you do not see it on Blackboard, please e-mail experimentrak@ecu.edu with your name, instructor and section number, and a brief statement of the problem. We may have to add you to the course roster.

The research articles will be in PDF format, so you can download them and read them on your computer or you can open the file and print out the article. Each article is worth 1 credit, and you are required to earn at least 5 credits. You may want to take notes to help you understand the article. When you are ready to take the quiz, open the quiz file for that article. The quizzes are open notes, so you may look at the article as you are answering the questions. You must pass the quiz with a score of 60% and you may take each quiz a maximum of three times.

Purpose of Research Activity Requirement

In order to better understand the purpose of this requirement and your rights and responsibilities as a research participant, the following introduction to research participation was written by

Dr. Robert B. Graham, Emeritus Professor of Psychology.

A university not only dispenses knowledge, it generates knowledge. The psychologists who will be your teachers at ECU are also learners-students of human behavior and they learn by means of experiments. It is an interesting twist that in those experiments, you—the participant—becomes the "teacher." Perhaps this semester you can help us answer a few of the many questions we have about human behavior. How do people in groups divide up job responsibilities? Is leadership something an individual carries into any situation or do different people take leadership in different situations? Are there personality traits which determine how a person will function in a situation? How much influence does the group have over an individual? Are there ways for a person to gain more control over his or her own behavior in dieting or in dropping a bad habit?

Those are some of the kinds of experimental questions asked by psychologists, and, you can see, it can often be quite interesting to participate in obtaining the answers. One of the requirements of Psychology 1000 is participation in 5 credits worth of research activities (research participation and/or reading articles describing research). We will make every effort to provide interesting articles but it is our feeling that nothing can equal the impact of direct involvement in the actual construction of new knowledge.

Participants in psychological experiments are treated with respect at all times. All data collected are strictly confidential and it is a violation of professional ethics to intentionally or accidentally reveal sensitive private matters concerning any person participating in an experiment. No research report reveals the identities of participants even when the data collected are not regarded as personal or sensitive. As a participant, you have the right to withdraw at any time during the experiment. If the type of study being done requires that participants not be told the purpose of the research or if any deception is necessary, then you have the right (after all the data have been collected from all participants) to hear the exact nature of the experiment, its purpose and results. The experimenter has an obligation to inform you in advance about any aspect of the study that might affect your decision to participate. For example, if personal questions are to be involved, this fact should be made available to you in advance. Most psychological experiments, however, do NOT deal with pain, discomfort, strong emotions, or highly personal material. Only on rare occasions would knowledge of the true purpose of the experiment bias the participant's behavior. In the majority of cases, your greatest risk would be the possibility of mild boredom.

Obligations between experimenter and participant go both ways. Once you have signed up for an experiment, you have obligated yourself. You have promised to appear at the appointed place and time, and failure to keep that promise can be very disruptive to the experiment. In some experiments, whole groups of students have had to sit and wait for one member who failed to appear and without whom the data could not be collected. Please take your promise seriously. When you sign up, write down the time and place of the experiment. Be sure to write down the experimenter's name e-mail address in case you need to reschedule or cancel your appointment.

Remember that this may be the only opportunity in your life to participate in a psychological experiment and, thereby, make a contribution to our knowledge of what makes people "tick."

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