Myer's Psychology

Course objectives for each chapter

Chapter 1
Students should:

1. Demonstrate their knowledge of the limits of everyday intuition and common sense.
2. Describe the important characteristics of the scientific approach and show how it promotes
    critical thinking.
3. Show how psychologists use three basic research methods: description, correlation, and
    experimentation.
4. Explain how psychologists use statistics in their research.
5. Be knowledgeable of the answer to some of the commonly asked questions about psychology.

Chapter 2
Students should:

1. Understand the structure of neurons and explain how they communicate.
2. Understand the nature of the nervous system.
3. Identify the structures of the brain and discuss their respective functions.
4. Describe the intimate connection of the nervous and endocrine systems
               

Chapter 3
Students should:

1. Describe how evolutionary psychologists seek to explain our universal behaviors.
2. Explain how behavior geneticists weigh genetic and environmental contributions to our various traits.
3. Explain the role of prenatal environments, early experiences, peer influences, and cultures on     behaviors.
4. Describe both the nature and nurture of gender.

Chapter 4
Students should:

1. Trace the course of prenatal development.
2. Describe the course of physical, cognitive, and social development in infancy, childhood, and     adolescence.
3. Describe physical, cognitive, and social changes in adulthood.
4. Explain the current views regarding continuity or discrete stages and stability or change in personality     across the life span.

Chapter 5
Students should:

1. Describe some of the basic principles of sensation.
2. Explain the visual process.
3. Explain the auditory process.
4. Describe the other senses, including touch, taste, smell, and body position and movement.

Chapter 6
Students should:

1. Show how illusions help us understand perception.
2. Describe the basic principles of perceptual organization.
3. Explain the factors that shape our perceptual interpretations.
4. Explain the status of ESP research.
5. Identify the concerns of human factors psychologists.

Chapter 7
Students should:

1. Identify levels of information processing and the content and functions of daydreams.
2. Describe the nature of biological rhythms, including the sleep cycle, and describe the nature and functions of     dreams.
3. Explain the nature of hypnosis.
4. Identify the effects of various drugs.
5. Describe the near-death experience.

Chapter 8
Students should:


1. Explain the principles and processes involved in classical conditioning.
2. Identify the principles and processes involved in operant conditioning.
3. Describe the nature of observational learning and the impact of both positive and negative
    models.

Chapter 9
Students should:

1. Describe memory as an information-processing system, and to describe how we encode information.
2. Explain the nature of storage and retrieval.
3. Describe forgetting and memory construction.
4. Idenity some strategies for improving memory.

Chapter 10
Students should:

1. Describe how we construct concepts, solve problems, make decisions, and form judgments.
2. Describe language structure and development.
3. Describe the relationship between thought and language.
4. Describe the research on animal thinking and language.

Chapter 11
Students should:

1.Trace the history of intelligence testing, and to introduce contemporary views on the nature of     intelligence.
2. Describe the principles of test construction.
3. Describe the stability of intelligence across the life span and to present extremes of intelligence.
4. Explain genetic and environmental determinants of intelligence.

Chapter 12
Students should:

1. Idenity basic concepts of motivation.
2. Explain the basis of hunger and to describe the major eating disorders.
3. Explain sexual motivation, including the dynamics of sexual orientation.
4. Explain the strong human need to belong.
5. Describe how industrial/organizational psychology applies psychology’s principles to the workplace.

Chapter 13
Students should:

1. Explain the major theories and dimensions of emotion.
2. Describe the physiology of emotion, and to examine the effectiveness of the polygraph.
3. Explain research on emotional expression.
4. Explain our experiences of fear, anger, and happiness.

Chapter 14
Students should:

1. Describe health psychology and identify some of its key concerns.
2. Explain the nature of stress and explain its relationship to illness.
3. Idenity effective health-maintenance strategies.

Chapter 15
Students should:

1. Describe the psychoanalytic perspective on personality, and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of     Freud’s ideas.
2. Idenify and evaluate the humanistic perspective.
3. Explain the trait perspective, and to discuss the consistency of behavior over time and across situations.
4. Describe the social-cognitive perspective, including recent research on personal control, learned     helplessness, and optimism.
5. Explain psychology’s study of the self, and to describe evidence for nonconscious information     processing.

Chapter 16
Students should:

1. Identify the different perspectives on psychological disorders, and to discuss the controversy surrounding the use of diagnostic labels.
2. Describe the most prevalent disorders, and to examine their possible causes.
3. Describe the prevalence of the different psychological disorders.

Chapter 17
Students should:

1. Identify the major psychotherapies and to evaluate their effectiveness.
2. Describe the biomedical therapies.
3. Describe the rationale and strategy of preventative mental health.

Chapter 18
Students should:

1. Decribe the attribution theory and research on the relationship between attitudes and action.
2. Explain the literature on social influence as well as on the power of the person.
3. Describe the major findings on prejudice, aggression, and social conflict.
4. Describe factors that contribute to attraction, altruism, and peacemaking.