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Semester 2

History and Theory of Psychology (PSYL10163)

Subject

Psychology

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must be studying Psychology as their degree major, and have completed at least 3 Psychology courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course will cover key conceptual and historical issues in Psychology. It will provide a historical and theoretical perspective that will encourage greater critical thinking about the nature of psychological knowledge.

Course Description

This course will cover key conceptual and historical issues in Psychology, and explain why a historical and theoretical perspective is needed to understand the nature of psychological knowledge. It will consider what it means to define Psychology as scientific, describe the various forms that scientific Psychology has taken in practice, and explain how these have related to other kinds of psychological knowledge claims (such as pseudoscience and popular psychology). It will consider why we have asked particular psychological questions, and why we have chosen to answer them in particular ways. It will examine how we have defined psychological objects (emotions, attitudes, personality, etc.), and what, when we have made claims about these things, we have meant. In doing so, it will consider various controversies in the history of Psychology (such as those relating to phrenology, psychical research and psychoanalysis), which reveal some of the hidden aims and assumptions behind psychological knowledge claims, and discuss their implications for understanding more conventional claims. In doing so, it will encourage greater critical thinking about the nature of psychological knowledge.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 70%, Coursework 30%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a Psychology exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year Psychology course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the extremely limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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