Psychological research helps us scientifically investigate questions about psychological issues. Biological mechanisms underlie our behavior.

1.1  Introduction to Psychology: Psychology is the scientific study of mental functions and
behaviors, such as behavior, cognition and brain function, emotion, personality, and cultural norms. There are many different branches of psychology, such as social, cognitive, biological, and psychodynamic psychology.
Psychologists fill a variety of roles, including therapists, researchers, and teachers.
Learning Activities
 Critical Thinking: Why Learn about Psychology?
 Personal Application: Psychology
 Why Learn about Psychology?
 Video: Psychology as its Own Discipline
 Exercise: Influential Psychologists
 Multicultural Psychology
 Critical Thinking: History of Psychology
 Personal Application: Freud in History of Psychology
 Check Your Understanding: Psychology
 Contemporary Psychology: Overview
 Exercise: Contemporary Psychology
 Critical Thinking: Contemporary Psychology
 Psychology Career Options Outside of Academic Settings
 Critical Thinking: Careers in Psychology
 Personal Application: Careers in Psychology
 Check Your Understanding: Careers in Psychology

1.2  Psychological Research: Have you ever wondered whether the violence you see on television affects your behavior? Are you more likely to behave aggressively in real life after watching people behave violently in
dramatic situations on the screen? Or, could seeing fictional violence actually get aggression out of your system, causing you to be more peaceful? How can we go about finding answers that are supported not by
mere opinion, but by evidence that we can all agree on? The findings of psychological research can help us navigate issues like this.
Learning Activities
 Video: Psychological Research
 Critical Thinking: Importance of Research
 Personal Application: Importance of Research
 Check Your Understanding: Importance of Research
 Approaches to Research: Overview
 Critical Thinking: Approaches to Research
 Personal Application: Approaches to Research
 Check Your Understanding: Approaches to Research
 Analyzing and Reporting Research Findings
 Critical Thinking: Analyzing and Reporting Research Findings
 Personal Application: Analyzing and Reporting Research Findings
 Check Your Understanding: Analyzing and Reporting Research Findings
 Statistical Thinking
 Ethics: Research Involving Human Participants
 Critical Thinking: Ethics
 Personal Application: Ethics
 Check Your Understanding: Ethics

1.3  Biopsychology: Have you ever taken a device apart to find out how it works? The inner workings of the human body are often distinct from the external expression of those workings. It is the job of psychologists
to find the connection between these—for example, to figure out how the firings of millions of neurons become a thought.
This topic strives to explain the biological mechanisms that underlie behavior. How genetics influence both physiological and psychological traits. It covers the structure and function of the
nervous system. And how the nervous system interacts with the endocrine system.
Learning Activities
 Gene-Environment Interactions
 Critical Thinking: Human Genetics
 Personal Application: Human Genetics
 Check Your Understanding: Genetics
 Video: The Chemical Mind
 Neurotransmitters and Drugs
 Critical Thinking: Cells of the Nervous System
 Personal Application: Cells of the Nervous System
 Peripheral Nervous System
 Critical Thinking: Parts of the Nervous System
 Personal Application: Parts of the Nervous System
 Check Your Understanding: Cells of the Nervous System
 Video: Meet Your Master – Getting to Know Your Brain
 Video: The Divided Brain: The Two Hemispheres – by Iain McGilchrist
 Case: Clive Wearing – Losing the Ability to Form New Memories
 Case: Brain Dead and on Life Support
 Critical Thinking: The Brain and Spinal Cord
 Personal Application: The Brain and Spinal Cord
 The Endocrine System: Major Glands
 Critical Thinking: The Endocrine System
 Personal Application: The Endocrine System
 Personal Application: Athletes and Anabolic Steroids
 Check Your Understanding: The Brain and Spinal Cord
 Video: The Neurons that Shaped Civilization – TED Talk by VS Ramachandran

This topic provides an overview of how sensory information is received and processed by the nervous system and how that affects our conscious experience of the world.

2.1  Sensation and Perception: We rely on our sensory systems to provide important information
about our surroundings. We use this information to successfully navigate and interact with our environment so that we can find nourishment, seek shelter, maintain social relationships, and avoid potentially dangerous situations. This module provides an overview of how sensory information is received and processed by the nervous system and how that
affects our conscious experience of the world. It looks at the physical properties of light and sound stimuli, along with an
overview of the basic structure and function of the major sensory systems.
Learning Activities
 Video: Sensation and Perception
 Critical Thinking: Sensation vs. Perception
 Personal Application: Sensation vs. Perception
 Light Waves and Wavelengths
 Sound Waves and Wavelengths
 Exercise: Frequency
 Critical Thinking: Waves and Wavelengths
 Personal Application: Waves and Wavelengths
 Check Your Understanding: Waves and Wavelengths
 Color and Depth Perception
 Critical Thinking: Vision
 Video: Homunculus
 Hearing Loss, Deaf Culture, and Implant Surgery
 Critical Thinking: Hearing
 Personal Application: Hearing
 The Other Senses: Taste, Smell, Touch, and the Vestibular Sense
 Critical Thinking: The Other Senses
 Personal Application: The Other Senses
 Check Your Understanding: Vision, Hearing and the Other Senses
 Video: Why Things Hurt – By Lorimer Moseley
 Video: Perceiving is Believing
 Critical Thinking: Gestalt Principles of Perception
 Personal Application: Gestalt Principles of Perception
 Check Your Understanding: Gestalt Principles of Perception

2.2  State of Consciousness: Our lives involve regular, dramatic changes in the degree to which we are aware of our surroundings and our internal states. While awake, we feel alert and aware of the many important things
going on around us. Our experiences change dramatically while we are in deep sleep and once again when we are dreaming. The module will discuss states of consciousness with a particular emphasis on sleep. The different stages of sleep will be identified, and sleep disorders will be described. The module will close with discussions of altered states of consciousness produced by psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and meditation.
Learning Activities
 Video: Consciousness
 Problems with Circadian Rhythms
 Critical Thinking: Consciousness
 Personal Application: Consciousness
 Video: Sleep Deprivation Among College Students
 Critical Thinking: What is Sleep
 Personal Application: What is Sleep
 Check Your Understanding: Consciousness and What is Sleep
 Video: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
 Critical Thinking: Stages of Sleep
 Personal Application: Stages of Sleep
 Sleep Problems and Disorders
 Critical Thinking: Sleep Problems and Disorders
 Personal Application: Sleep Problems and Disorders: Insomnia
 Check Your Understanding: Sleep Problems and Disorders
 Substance Use and Abuse
 Critical Thinking: Substance Use and Abuse
 Personal Application: Substance Use and Abuse
 Video: Everything You Think You Know about Addiction is Wrong – by Johann Hari
 Video: Altered States: Hypnosis, Hallucinations and Psychoactive Depressants
 Other States of Consciousness: Meditation
 Critical Thinking: Other States of Consciousness
 Personal Application: Other States of Consciousness
 Check Your Understanding: Other States of Consciousness, Substance Abuse

2.3  Memory: We may be top-notch learners, but if we don’t have a way to store what we’ve learned, what good is the knowledge we’ve gained? Take a few minutes to imagine what your day might be like if you could not remember anything you had learned. You would have to figure out how to get dressed. What clothing should you wear, and
how do buttons and zippers work? How to brush your teeth and tie your shoes. You wouldn’t recognize the faces of people in your house. Or whether this is even your house. We have an amazing capacity for memory, but how, exactly, do we process and store information? Are there different kinds of memory, and if so, what characterizes the different types? How, exactly, do we retrieve our memories? And why do we forget?
Learning Activities
 How Memory Functions
 Critical Thinking: How Memory Functions
 Personal Application: How Memory Functions
 Video: How We Make Memories
 Critical Thinking: Parts of the Brain Involved with Memory
 Personal Application: Parts of the Brain Involved with Memory
 Check Your Understanding: How Memory Functions
 Video: Remembering and Forgetting
 Exercise: Memory Errors
 Critical Thinking: Problems with Memory
 Personal Application: Problems with Memory
 Exercise: Study Techniques
 Critical Thinking: Ways to Enhance Memory
 Personal Application: Ways to Enhance Memory
 Video: Feats of Memory Anyone Can Do – by Joshua Foer
 Check Your Understanding: Problems with and Ways to Enhance Memory

This topic explores physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development throughout the lifespan. Then, it looks at the process of learning, intelligence, and creativity.

This module explains the biological mechanisms that underlie behavior. These physiological and anatomical foundations are the basis for many areas of psychology. In this module, you will learn how genetics influence both physiological and psychological traits. You will become familiar with the structure and function of the nervous system. And, finally, you will learn how the nervous system interacts with the endocrine system.

3.1  Lifespan Development: Welcome to the story of your life. In this module we explore the
fascinating tale of how you have grown and developed into the person you are today. We also look at some ideas about who you will grow into tomorrow. Yours is a story of lifespan development, from the start of life to the end. The process of human growth and development is more obvious in infancy and childhood, yet your development is happening this
moment and will continue for the rest of your life. Who you are today and who you will be in the future depends on a blend of genetics, environment, culture, relationships, and more, as you continue through each phase of life.
Learning Activities
 Video: Twin Studies and Its Importance for Nature–Nurture Research
 Issues in Developmental Psychology
 Critical Thinking: Lifespan Development
 Personal Application: Lifespan Development
 Video: Monkeys and Morality
 Exercise: Theories of Development
 Critical Thinking: Lifespan Theories
 Personal Application: Lifespan Theories
 Check Your Understanding: Lifespan Development
 Stages of Development: Prenatal
 Exercise: Stages of Development: Infancy Through Childhood
 Stages of Development: Adolescence
 Stages of Development: Adulthood
 Critical Thinking: Stages of Development
 Personal Application: Stages of Development
 Stages of Development: Death and Dying
 Critical Thinking: Death and Dying
 Personal Application: Death and Dying
 Check Your Understanding: Stages of Development

3.2  Learning: The summer sun shines brightly on a deserted stretch of beach. Suddenly, a tiny grey head emerges from the sand, then another and another. Soon the beach is teeming with loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. Although only minutes old, the hatchlings know exactly what to do. Their flippers are not very efficient for moving across
the hot sand, yet they continue onward, instinctively. Unlike baby sea turtles, who know how to find the ocean and swim with no help from their parents, we are not born knowing how to swim (or surf). Yet we humans pride ourselves on our
ability to learn. In fact, over thousands of years and across cultures, we have created institutions devoted entirely to learning. But have you ever asked yourself how exactly it is that we learn? What processes are at work as we come to know what we know?
Learning Activities
 Personal Application: What Is Learning?
 Critical Thinking: What Is Learning?
 Check Your Understanding: What Is Learning?
 Video: How to Train a Brain – Conditioning
 General Processes in Classical Conditioning: Acquisition, Extinction, Spontaneous Recovery, Generalization, and Discrimination
 Critical Thinking: Classical Conditioning
 Personal Application: Classical Conditioning
 Advertising and Associative Learning – Example of Conditioning
 Check Your Understanding: Classical Conditioning
 Primary and Secondary Reinforcers: Behavior Modification in Children
 Video: Schedules of Reinforcement
 Cognition and Latent Learning
 Critical Thinking: Operant Conditioning
 Personal Application: Operant Conditioning
 Check Your Understanding: Operant Conditioning
 Video: The Bobo Beatdown – Learning Occurs through Observing and Imitating
 Critical Thinking: Observational Learning
 Personal Application: Observational Learning
 Check Your Understanding: Observational Learning

3.3  Thinking and Intelligence: What is intelligence, and how does it vary from person to person?
Are “street smarts” a kind of intelligence, and if so, how do they relate to other types of intelligence? What does an IQ test really measure? This module will focus on high-level cognitive processes, cover thinking, and briefly explore the development and use of language. It will also discuss problem solving and creativity before ending with a discussion of how intelligence is measured and how our biology and environments interact to affect intelligence.
Learning Activities
 Exercise: Forming Thoughts
 Video: The Growth of Knowledge
 Critical Thinking: Cognitive Psychology
 Personal Application: Cognitive Psychology
 Check Your Understanding: Cognitive Psychology
 Language and Thought
 Critical Thinking: Language and Thought
 Check Your Understanding: Language and Thought
 Personal Application: Language and Thought
 Pitfalls to Problem Solving
 Critical Thinking: Solving Puzzles
 Critical Thinking: Problem Solving
 Check Your Understanding: Problem Solving
 Personal Application: Problem Solving
 Video: Controversy of Intelligence
 Exercise: The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
 Critical Thinking: Practical and Cultural Intelligence
 Exercise: Multiple Intelligences Theory
 Personal Application: Emotional Intelligence
 Exercise: Intelligence Theories
 Check Your Understanding: Intelligence
 Video: Cognitive Tests vs. Bias
 Critical Thinking: The Bell Curve in Measuring Intelligence
 Check Your Understanding: Measuring Intelligence
 Personal Application: Why Measure Intelligence?

This topic investigates psychological disorders and various therapeutic techniques used to treat psychological problems.

4.1  Psychological Disorders: Clive Wearing is an accomplished musician who lost his ability to form new memories when he became sick at the age of 46. While he can remember how to play the piano perfectly, he cannot remember what he ate for breakfast just an hour ago. James Wannerton experiences a taste sensation that is associated with the sound of words. His former girlfriend’s name tastes like rhubarb. John Nash was a brilliant mathematician and Nobel Prize winner. However, while he was a professor at MIT, he would tell people that the New York Times contained coded messages from extraterrestrial beings that were intended for him. He also began to hear voices and became suspicious of the people around him. Soon thereafter, Nash was diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a state-run mental institution. Why did these people have these experiences? How does the human brain work and what happens when the brain and behavior go awry?
Learning Activities
 Personal Application: Unusual Behavior
 Video: Psychological Disorders
 Critical Thinking: Thoughts – Not a Psychological Disorder
 Video: OCD and Anxiety Disorders
 Critical Thinking: Obsessive-Compulsive, Body Dysmorphic, and Hoarding Disorders
 Check Your Understanding: Psychological Disorders
 Video: Trauma and Addiction
 Critical Thinking: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Suicide Factors
 Personal Application: Explanations for Negative Life Events
 Video: Depressive and Bipolar Disorders
 Check Your Understanding: PSTD, Depression and Suicide Risk
 Video: Schizophrenia and Dissociative Disorders
 Critical Thinking: Schizophrenia Symptoms
 Critical Thinking: The Prevalence of Psychological Disorders
 Personal Application: Dissociative Identity Disorder and Crime
 Personal Application: Characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder
 Video: Personality Disorders
 Critical Thinking: Antisocial Personality Disorder, ADHD, and Autism
 Causes of Autism Spectrum Disorder
 Causes of ADHD
 Exercise: Characteristics of ADHD and Autism
 Check Your Understanding: Schizofremia, ADHD, BPD, Autism
 Personal Application: Cases in Psychological Disorders

4.2  Therapy and Treatment: What comes to mind when you think about therapy for psychological problems? You might picture someone lying on a couch talking about his childhood while the therapist sits and
takes notes. Or you can envision a therapy session in which someone is wearing virtual reality headgear to conquer a fear of snakes. Approaches to therapy include both psychological and biological interventions, all with the goal of alleviating distress. Because psychological problems can originate from various sources—biology, genetics, childhood experiences, conditioning, and sociocultural influences—psychologists have developed many different therapeutic techniques and approaches.
Learning Activities
 Personal Application: Mental Health Treatment
 Critical Thinking: Mental Health Treatment
 Check Your Understanding: Mental Health Treatment
 Video: Getting Help – Psychotherapy
 Video: Biomedical Treatments
 Critical Thinking: Imagine That You Are a Psychiatrist
 Personal Application: If You Were to Choose a Therapist
 Treatment Modalities: Individual, Group, Couples, or Family Therapy
 Critical Thinking: Individual vs. Group Therapy
 Personal Application: Treatment Modalities
 Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders: A Special Case
 Critical Thinking: An Intake Assessment
 Barriers to Mental Health Treatment
 Critical Thinking: African American Female Struggling with Bulimia
 Check Your Understanding: Forms of Psychotherapy and Treatment
 Personal Application: Attitude Toward Mental Health Treatment

This topic explores social influences on the behaviors and beliefs of individuals, groups, and organizations, as well as how personality is shaped and evolves over time.

5.1  Social Psychology: Humans are diverse, and sometimes our differences make it
challenging for us to get along with one another. This module explores how the presence of other people influences
the behavior of individuals, dyads, and groups. Social factors can determine whether human behavior tends toward conflict or harmony.
Learning Activities
 Personal Application: Your Behavior and the Power of the Situation
 Video: Social Thinking – Situation vs. Personality
 Critical Thinking: What Is Social Psychology?
 Critical Thinking: The Stanford Prison Experiment
 Personal Application: Self-Presentation
 Check Your Understanding: Social Psychology
 Persuasion: Changing Our Attitude Through Communication
 Video: Social Psychology of First Impressions
 Critical Thinking: Attitudes and Persuasion
 Personal Application: Attitudes and Persuasion
 Video: Social Influence and Their Effect on our Decisions
 Critical Thinking: Groupthink, Social Loafing and Social Facilitation
 Personal Application: Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience
 Check Your Understanding: Attitudes and Persuasion
 Video: Prejudice and Discrimination
 Critical Thinking: Prejudice and Discrimination
 Personal Application: Prejudice and Discrimination
 Video: Aggression vs. Altruism
 Critical Thinking: Aggression
 Personal Application: Aggression and The Bystander Effect
 Social Exchange Theory: Ratio of Costs and Benefits in Relationship Forming
 Check Your Understanding: Prejudice, Discrimination, and Aggression
 Critical Thinking: Forming Relationships and Attraction
 Personal Application: Forming Relationships and Social Exchange Theory
 Check Your Understanding: Prosocial Behavior

5.2  Industrial-Organizational Psychology: In July 2013, Yahoo!, one of the oldest web companies, announced that employees would no longer be allowed to telecommute. Telecommuting reflects a belief on the part of companies that
employees are responsible, self-motivating, and perhaps work best when they are left alone. It also has an impact on
work–family balance. The reversal of this policy was motivated by a notion that people are more productive when they’re alone, yet they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together. Will the change make organization more innovative and more productive? How has the change affected employees, particularly working parents and those taking care of elderly relatives? Was the change introduced in the most effective way? These are questions that are commonly studied by a branch of psychology called industrial and organizational psychology.
Learning Activities
 The Historical Development of Industrial and Organizational Psychology
 Critical Thinking: Industrial and Organizational Psychology
 Personal Application: Industrial and Organizational Psychology
 Check Your Understanding: Industrial and Organizational Psychology
 Evaluating Employees: Performance Appraisals
 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
 The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
 Critical Thinking: Job Interview
 Personal Application: KSAs for Your Current Position
 Check Your Understanding: Job Interviews and Psychology
 Organizational Culture: Impact on the Workplace
 Critical Thinking: Assessment of Job Satisfaction and Productivity
 Personal Application: Sexual Harassment
 Check Your Understanding: The Social Dimension of Work
 Human Factors Psychology and Workplace Design
 Critical Thinking: Flight Simulator and a New Aircraft
 Personal Application: Team and Technology Interaction
 Check Your Understanding: Human Factors Psychology and Workplace Design

5.3  Personality: Siblings, raised by the same people, can take radically different paths in their lives. Why did they make the choices they did? What internal forces shaped their decisions? Personality psychology can help us answer these questions and more.
Learning Activities
 Video: Rorschach and Freudians on Personality
 Exercise: Neo-Freudians
 Critical Thinking: Personality
 Critical Thinking: Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective
 Personal Application: Personality
 Personal Application: Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective
 Check Your Understanding: Personality
 Critical Thinking: Neo-Freudians
 Personal Application: Neo-Freudians
 Learning Approaches: Mischel and the Person-Situation Debate
 Learning Approaches: Maslow, Rogers, and Humanistic Approaches
 Learning Approaches: Biological Approaches
 Learning Approaches: Eysencks’ and Trait Theory
 Critical Thinking: Learning Approaches
 Personal Application: Learning Approaches
 Check Your Understanding: Learning Approaches
 Critical Thinking: Trait Theorists
 Personal Application: Trait Theorists
 Video: Measuring Personality
 Critical Thinking: Cultural Understandings of Personality
 Personal Application: Cultural Understandings of Personality
 Critical Thinking: Personality Assessment
 Personal Application: Personality Assessment
 Check Your Understanding: Cultural Understandings of Personality

This topic explores issues related to motivation and emotion, and it examines stress as the phenomenon contributing to health and lifestyle.

6.1  Emotion and Motivation: What makes us behave as we do? What drives us? Is there a
biological basis to explain the feelings we experience? How universal are emotions? This module will begin with a discussion of several theories that have been proposed to explain motivation and why we engage in
a given behavior. It will consider both eating and having sex as examples of motivated behaviors. The module will close with a discussion of emotion, covering several theories that have been proposed to explain how emotion occurs, the biological underpinnings of emotion, and the universality of emotions.
Learning Activities
 Video: The Power of Motivation
 Critical Thinking: Motivation
 Personal Application: Motivation
 Video: Eating and Body Dysmorphic Disorders
 Exercise: Obesity and Eating Disorders
 Critical Thinking: Hunger and Eating
 Personal Application: Hunger and Eating
 Check Your Understanding: Motivation
 Video: Let’s Talk About Sex
 Critical Thinking: Sexual Orientation
 Personal Application: Sexual Orientation
 Video: Feeling All the Feels
 Exercise: Facial Expression and Recognition of Emotions
 Critical Thinking: Emotion
 Personal Application: Emotion
 Check Your Understanding: Emotions, Sexual Behavior
 Video: Catching Liars
 Video: This App Knows How You Feel

6.2  Stress, Lifestyle, and Health: Life is filled with many challenges. We might have concerns with financial security, difficulties with friends or neighbors, family responsibilities, and we may not have enough time to do the things we want to do. Even minor hassles—losing things, traffic jams, and loss of internet service—all involve pressure and demands that can make life seem like a struggle and that can compromise our sense of well-being. This module examines stress and highlights our current understanding of the phenomenon, including its psychological and physiological nature, its causes and consequences, and the steps we can take to master stress rather than become its victim.
Learning Activities
 The Physiological Basis of Stress
 Critical Thinking: Stress
 Personal Application: Stress
 Video: Emotion, Stress, and Health
 Exercise: Stressors Specific to Occupation
 Critical Thinking: Stressors
 Personal Application: Stressors
 Check Your Understanding: Stress and Stressors
 Stress and the Immune System
 Depression and Heart Disease
 Asthma Related to Stress
 Tension Headaches Related to Stress
 Critical Thinking: Stress and Illness
 Personal Application: Stress and Illness
 Video: How to Make Stress Your Friend
 Critical Thinking: Regulation of Stress
 Personal Application: Regulation of Stress
 Check Your Understanding: Regulation of Stress
 Video: The Era of Positive Psychology
 Critical Thinking: The Pursuit of Happiness
 Personal Application: The Pursuit of Happiness
 Check Your Understanding: The Pursuit of Happiness
 Video: Making Social Conditions for Human Happiness

Welcome to the story of your life. In this topic we explore the fascinating tale of how you have grown and developed into the person you are today. We also look at some ideas about who you will grow into tomorrow. Yours is a story of lifespan development, from the start of life to the end.