Psychology in Practice (PS1202)
Module Leader: Dr C Squire
Main aims:
To complement the grounding in psychology provided in PS1201 by offering students an introduction to the applied domains of social psychology, developmental psychology and postfreudian psychoanalysis, examining the contrasting theoretical and methodological approaches studied in PS1201, and some others, in relation to these topics.
Main Topics
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
This block looks at how people behave in a range of social situations and we evaluate the different social-psychological explanations that have been developed, largely from research involving experiment, observations and questionnaires. The lectures and workshops focus on people in groups, altruism or helping, attitudes-in particular, prejudice, and affect - in particular, liking and love.
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
This block offers a taste of past and contemporary theory and research on infancy, and on cognitive and social development. It looks at contested evidence for babies' innate cognitive and interpersonal skills, at Piaget's account of how children's thinking develops through a series of stages, and at more socially-oriented theories of how children develop and learn. Departing from psychoanalytic criteria for good theories and evidence, it examines the scientific tradition of formulating and testing hypotheses that governs this kind of work.
POSTFREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS
This block addresses a number of critical questions that have been asked about Freud's work, from the perspective of Jungian psychoanalysis, or 'analytic psychology,' and from the perspective of Kleinian and object relations psychoanalysis. This work offers alternative theories of child development, personality, and the social world to those of Freud, although the theories are founded on his work
