MBiP-Introduction to psychology - lecture

obligatory courses

This is the introducing course of general psychology designed for university students other than psychology. Its primary aim is to help students gain a basic knowledge about some fundamental concepts and theories of human personality, including individual differences, mental processes, and states. This course will allow students to identify regulative mechanisms that underlie human behavior. The topics in this course range from two important currents in psychology (behaviorism and psychoanalysis), cognitive processes, learning, emotions and motivation, intelligence, and stress.

The issue of the lecture covers the following specific questions:

Overview of Psychology

[psychology as a science; basic concepts: environment, situations, behavior, activity; behavior regulation and analysis; human acts and its neural mechanisms]

Psychoanalysis

[conscious and unconscious parts of the mind; Freud’s concept of the personality: ‘id’, ‘ego’, and ‘superego’; sexual drive and its role; theory of psychosexual development; ego defense]

Behaviorism

[general principles; stimulus – response psychology; consequences of an act and their role; classical conditioning; instrumental conditioning; behavior modification; behavioral therapy; strengths and criticisms of behaviorism]

Cognitive processes

[sensation; sensory thresholds; sensory adaptation; perception; perception principles; thinking; problem solving; attention; memory; models of memory]

Learning

[learning theory; principles of learning; changing by experience; trial – and – error learning; observational learning; verbal learning; different kinds of transfer; interference]

Emotions

[the nature of emotions; neurophysiology of emotions; emotional strain; emotional expression; emotions and behavior]

Motivation

[motive and motivation; needs hierarchy; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; motivation and behavior; Yerkes – Dodson law]

Personality

[psychoanalitic approach; learning approaches to personality; trait theories; regulative theory of personality]

Individual Differences

[genetic and environmental sources of individual differences; nature – nurture controversy; behavior genetic approach; measurement of individual difference]

Temperament

[the concept of temperament; biological basis of temperament; temperament and personality; contemporary theories of temperament – short review; the role of temperament]

Intelligence

[general, social and emotional intelligence; practical intelligence; Cattell’s theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence; Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence; measurement of intelligence; IQ and its meaning]

Stress

[major causes, effects, and control; basic nature of stress; stress and stressors; chronic stress and acute stress; biological foundations of stress; Selye theory of stress; psychological stress; Lazarus – Folkman theory of stress; personality and stress; temperamental risk factor]

References required

Gerrig, R.J., Zimbardo, P.G. (2012). Psychologia i życie. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Knowledge. Student

- Knows the basic concepts of psychology

- Knows the basic characteristics of human mental processes

Skills. Student

- Shows the differences between the psychological concepts of human

- Knows how to characterize the regulatory mechanisms of behavior

- Knows how to explain the simple human behavior

Attitude. Student

- Recognizes the link between mental processes and the environment and human behavior

- Keeps criticism of the psychological data