Courses tagged with "Nursing+research" (14)

Behavioral economics couples scientific research on the psychology of decision making with economic theory to better understand what motivates financial decisions. In A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior, you will learn about some of the many ways in which we behave in less than rational ways, and how we might overcome our shortcomings. You’ll also learn about cases where our irrationalities work in our favor, and how we can harness these human tendencies to make better decisions.

What do your dreams mean? Can apes learn sign language? Why cant we tickle ourselves? Paul Bloom answers these and more.

Introduction to the principal areas, problems, and concepts of psychology.

This course will introduce you to the major concepts of and debates surrounding industrial and organizational psychology. Industrial and organizational psychology is the application of psychological research and theory to human interaction (both with other humans and with human factors, or machines and computers) in the workplace. The phrase “industrial and organizational psychology” (sometimes referred to as “I/O”) may be somewhat misleading, as the field deals less with actual organizations and/or industries and more with the people in these areas. As mentioned above, “I/O” is an applied psychological science, which means that it takes research findings and theories that may have originally been used to explain a general phenomenon of human behavior and applies them to human behavior in a specific setting (here, the workplace). Consider, for example, the fact that many jobs require applicants to take a personality test. Psychologists originally developed this test to detect and diagnose abnorm…

Cultural Psychology reviews the cultural, community, and ecological factors that play a role in how people perceive their environment.  It is the integration of the nature and nurture phenomenas, whereby an individual’s psyche is determined, or at least influenced, by both that individual’s culture and those other cultures to which the individual is exposed.  This may include many layers and levels, such as those discussed by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, including the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. For example: On a small scale, it is easy to see how an individual living in New York City would encounter different psychosocial stressors than a person living on a farm in Iowa might.  On a much larger scale, a person living in the United States may differ greatly, in cultural terms, from an individual living in China.  It may be easy to tell that two cultures are different from one another, but identifying exactly what we meanand all that is encompas…

This course introduces learners to the principles of learning and behavior by surveying relevant theoretical and empirical approaches within psychology.  The overall emphasis is on the theoretical foundations of psychology as they relate to human learning and behavior.   The following topics will be reviewed: historical perspectives of early learning theories, prevailing theories of human development, classical and operant conditioning, effects stimuli have on learning and behavior, social learning, motivation, cognitive developmental theory in the context of learning stages and processes, memory and human information processing models, and problem-solving methods.  Understanding these human processes is an integral part of psychology and other domains of human behavior, such as marketing, sports, health, education and relationships. Learning theories are an outgrowth from philosophies of thought.  The philosophical approaches of rationalism and empiricism, and the works of Plato and Descarte form the…

This course will introduce you to the psychology behind gender and sexuality, or the study of the different ways our gender roles and sexual identities impact our lives. Although the terms “gender” and “sex” are often used synonymously in everyday speech, this course will assign the terms two different meanings. “Sex” refers to biological differencei.e. whether you are a female or male from a biological standpoint. “Gender” refers to the social and psychological attributes that come along with one’s sex. Though these terms are similar and relate to one another, there is a distinct difference between the two that you should recognize for the purposes of this course. In this course, we will take a look at how our understanding of our own gender and sex can affect different aspects of our functioning, while also identifying the factors in our lives that can impact our gender and sex. While we often assume we know a lot about how gender affects our lives and the lives of the opposite gender, t…

This course will introduce you to the fundamental principles of psychology and to the major subjects of psychological inquiry. It has been designed to not only provide you with the tools necessary for the study of psychology but to present you with a sampling of the major areas of psychology research. The course begins with a short overview of how psychology developed as an academic discipline and an introduction to a number of the principle methodologies most commonly deployed in its study. The subsequent units are arranged around broad areas of research, including emotion, development, memory, and psychopathology. We will focus on well-substantiated research and current trends within each of these categories.

In this course, we will look at the properties behind the basic concepts of probability and statistics and focus on applications of statistical knowledge.  We will learn how statistics and probability work together.  The subject of statistics involves the study of methods for collecting, summarizing, and interpreting data.  Statistics formalizes the process of making decisionsand this course is designed to help you cultivate statistic literacy so that you can use this knowledge to make better decisions.  Note that this course has applications in sciences, economics, computer science, finance, psychology, sociology, criminology, and many other fields. Every day, we read articles and reports in print or online.  After finishing this course, you should be comfortable asking yourself whether the articles make sense.  You will be able to extract information from the articles and display that information effectively.  You will also be able to understand the basics of how to draw statistical conclusions.

This course will introduce you to the fundamental principles of psychology and to the major subjects of psychological inquiry. It has been designed to not only provide you with the tools necessary for the study of psychology but to present you with a sampling of the major areas of psychology research. The course begins with a short overview of how psychology developed as an academic discipline and an introduction to a number of the principle methodologies most commonly deployed in its study. The subsequent units are arranged around broad areas of research, including emotion, development, memory, and psychopathology. We will focus on well-substantiated research and current trends within each of these categories. This course is designed to align with Excelsior College’s UExcel Psychology examination. Visit the Excelsior website [1] to download the content guide for the PSYX-101 exam.  For more information about this partnership, and earning credit through Excelsior College, go here [2].    [1] http:/…

This course introduces the learner to issues around the use of public space to express identity.

How a psychological understanding of our emotions and behaviour can give us new ways to improve mental health and well-being.

Make better personal and professional decisions and consider the psychological dimension to key ethical and political choices.

This course is ideal for students who would like to build their foundational knowledge of the field of psychology. It also provides an introduction for anyone who is interested in the enduring understanding of the field of psychology such as:
-Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
-Intuition and introspection are helpful to understanding psychology, but often fail us.
-The evolution of Psychology as a discipline is one which moves from intuition and introspection towards a more scientific approach.
-Different schools of Psychology investigate different aspects of the effects of environment and biology on behavior; there is no one "right" approach.
Learning objectives for this course are: 1. To identify theoretical underpinnings of the major areas of psychology, including cognition (thought, memory, perception), learning, personality, social and environmental influences, development, and physiology of behavior. 2. To explain different models of human behavior based on science versus intuition or general ways of knowing. 3. To recognize ways of pursuing questions in Psychology via discussion of theory and empirical research 4. To describe connections between knowledge gained in Psychology to everyday life.