Program Overview

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Psychology, BSLAS

The Psychology major is a broad-based curriculum within a research-focused department. The program is designed both for students interested in a liberal arts education with psychology as a focal area and for students who plan to attend graduate or professional school either in psychology or in a different field such as medicine, law, social work, business administration, counseling, labor relations, and many others.

Program Overview

The Psychology major provides both depth and breadth of knowledge in Psychology. The major consists of an introductory course, a statistics course, a breadth of knowledge or foundation in the different areas of psychology that comes from a set of core courses, a research methods course, and elective courses that give students a depth of knowledge. Each concentration, except for intradisciplinary psychology, has a core course specific to that area of psychology with a research methods course designed for that concentration.

Concentrations

Students choose from the following concentrations:

• Behavioral Neuroscience
• Clinical/Community Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Diversity Science
• Intradisciplinary Psychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Personality Psychology
• Social Psychology

Academic Advising

The Psychology Undergraduate Advising Office is open to help students choose patterns of courses relevant to their interests, as well as to help students explore graduate school, professional school, and career options. Advising is done by an award-winning staff of academic professionals along with mentoring by faculty for students with research interests.

Areas of Interest

Psychology is the scientific investigation of human and animal behavior. Psychologists study behavior in systems ranging from single cells to the individual person, from small groups of people to communities. Psychologists strive to describe behavior and to understand its underlying biological and social mechanisms. This enterprise, designed to better understand the human condition, accumulates knowledge that can help solve problems faced by individuals and by communities.

Specific Areas of Interest

• Behavioral Neuroscience: the study of the biological mechanisms underlying behavior.
• Clinical psychology: the study of problems encountered by individuals, groups, and families — especially problems involving psychopathology.
• Community psychology: the study of the social processes and problems of groups, organizations, and neighborhoods, and the development and evaluation of progress for social change and social policy based on psychological understanding.
• Cognitive neuroscience: concerned with understanding the neuroscientific bases of cognition.
• Cognitive psychology: the study of basic behavioral and cognitive processes, including learning, memory, problem-solving, motivation, and language.
• Developmental psychology: the study of intellectual development, emerging personality, and the acquisition of language, as well as psychophysiological and social development processes as individuals develop from birth through old age.
• Organizational psychology: the application of techniques of assessment, prediction, and intervention to areas of human resources in organizations.
• Personality psychology: focuses on individual behavior, studying ways to understand and describe an individual's behavior and to predict an individual's future behavior.
• Social psychology: the study of attitudes, social perception and cognition, interpersonal relations, interpersonal interactions, and social and cultural factors affecting human behavior.

Prescribing Psychologists

The states of Illinois, New Mexico, and Louisiana now allow appropriately qualified psychologists to write prescriptions for psychotropic medications, if they have the necessary training. One component of becoming a prescribing psychologist is completion of specific undergraduate courses, including chemistry or biochemistry, microbiology, general biology, physiology, human anatomy, and medical terminology.

Student Learning Outcomes

The student learning outcomes are adapted from the American Psychological Association’s (APA) “Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major” (2013). These guidelines consist of general learning outcomes along with specific indicators that can be assessed. The four learning outcomes that are evaluated are:

1. Students will demonstrate fundamental knowledge and comprehension of the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, historical trends, and empirical findings to discuss how psychological principles apply to behavioral phenomena.
2. Students will develop scientific reasoning and problem-solving skills, including effective research methods.
3. Students will develop ethically and socially responsible behaviors for professional and personal settings in a landscape that involves increasing diversity.
4. Students will be prepared to apply psychology-specific content and skills, effective self-reflection, project-management skills, teamwork skills, and career preparation to optimize their competitiveness for securing places in a graduate school, professional school, or in the workforce.