This course provides a fairly in-depth introduction to academic psychology. We will look at theories and practical research in the areas of developmental psychology (cognitive and moral development), cognition (memory and forgetting) and social psychology (obedience, conformity, interpersonal attraction). It would be useful for further study eg. Access to Higher Education, for people working in care, education or counselling, or for general interest.

Course content:

The course is an introduction to the academic study of psychology. It will start by introducing four approaches to psychology: behavioural, psychoanalytic, cognitive and biological. In each case, we shall look at how the approach is applied to a specific psychological topic such as learning, perception and stress. We shall then look at how research is conducted in psychology using experiments, observation and interview techniques. Finally, we shall explore three fields of psychology: developmental, cognitive and social and a series of topics associated with each:

· Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

· Learning Theory – classical and operant conditioning; social learning theory

· Memory and forgetting

· Obedience

· Interpersonal attraction.

In addition to psychology, the course will provide a good grounding in study skills which could be useful for further study.