Philosophy and Psychology - BA (Hons)

University of Stirling

The aim of this 2nd year course is to explorethe biological underpinnings of neurological, neuropsychological and psychological disorders. The course will begin by reviewing the structure and function of the nervous system, and then introduce the biological bases for several common and important clinical disorders of behaviour, cognition, and affect. Classes for this course will include lectures and laboratory practical sessions.

Aims and learning outcomes of the course: To introduce students to a range of important texts in the history of philosophy. To equip students with an understanding of how to read and study historical texts. To help students think critically about the set texts and to communicate their thoughts clearly and accurately in writing and in group discussion.

On successful completion of the module students will: have an understanding of the basic concepts of logical appraisal: validity and consistency; be familiar with the two formal notations of elementary logic, those of propositional and predicate (or first-order) logic; be familiar with the truth-table and truth-tree tree methods for evaluating validity and consistency; be familiar with models for predicate logic; understand some of the philosophical issues relating to logic.

On successful completion of the module students will be able to: use a range of philosophical techniques to analyze and evaluate the logic of arguments; present and defend a judgment orally in a group setting. critical reading; critical thinking; oral communication skills.

PSYU914 Research Methods will develop your understanding and application of research methods and data analysis in Psychology. Actually, the module aims to make statistics pleasant and easy for everyone. Statistics is easy. Even advanced statistics is easy (and advanced).

In this module we will look at human social behaviour from a psychological perspective. Humans are a highly social speciesand our interactions are extremely complex. In this module we will consider how and why this complex sociality evolved, and we will look at the cognitive and physiological mechanisms underlying these behaviours. Taking a comparative perspective, we will consider which aspects of human sociality and communication are unique, and which are shared with other species. In doing this we will look at behaviours including nonverbal communication (such as facial expressions), linguistic communication, and social cognition (such as theory of mind and imitation).

This module focuses on understanding the psychology of physical and mental health. It considers two distinct, but related, areas: clinical and health psychology. Throughout the module, topics are considered and applied in the context of practice by clinical and health psychologists.

The Cognition module provides an overview of what we currently understand about the processes of perception; object, word and face recognition; attention; memory; language; judgement, and consciousness. Students will also have the opportunity to design, conduct and report upon their own group research project. The module therefore aims to teach the subject of human cognition, with particular emphasis on methodological issues, reinforced by experience of original project work.

The module will provide an introduction to what we currently understand about typical child development, in particular cognitive development, social development, language acquisition, emotional and moral development. Historic and current knowledge is covered in the lectures. Theoretical learning is complemented by workshops in which students learn how to read and interpret developmental literature critically. Students will have the opportunity to design, conduct and report as study with children in our on-site Kindergarten. This module draws together, theory, research and practical abilities in the field of child development, with particular emphasis on developing practical and research skills for working with typically developed children.

Individual differences are what most people probably consider psychology to be about: what are people like and what makes them that way? Much of it comes under the heading of personality, though there are other important differences between individuals ? in intelligence, in memory ability, in perception etc. It's important to know how to assess such differences reliably, so the practical component of the module is through workshopswhere you will engage with qualitative and quantitative research methods relevant to the developmentand use ofquestionnaire measures.

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of mind, covering a variety of central topics. You will consider such questions as: How does having a mind relate to having a brain? How can I know what is going on in someone else?s mind? How do mental goings on cause physical goings on? How should we understand consciousness? Do (non-human) animals have mental states?

This module will allow you to investigate central issues in metaphysics and epistemology through a study of selected major works in the early modern (17th and 18th century) history of philosophy. The chosen texts are Descartes; Meditations on First Philosophy and Hume?s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Many of the problems systematically explored in these works (reason the module provides essential background to advanced work in philosophy.

This module concerns social behaviour and its social and biological underpinnings. The module addresses the complexities of real-world social phenomena (attitudes and behaviour, social influence, emotion, prejudice, helping behaviour, intergroup conflict) and how these phenomena can be studied scientifically (experiments, self-report questionnaires, and naturalistic research). The aim of the module is to use science to understand important aspects of the social world.

In this module, studentswill have the opportunity to provide research assistance (as RAs) in laboratories of members of research staff, provide teaching assistance (tutoring) in other Psychology modules, become a member of the final-year Psychology conference committee, or deliver student-led electives to theirpeers. Throughout these activities, studentswill have the opportunity to develop key transferable employability skills, including teamwork, leadership, communicating, planning, organising, and teaching, as well as experimental design, data collection, and statistical analysis. Upon successful completion of an experiential learning activity, studentswill also be able to reflect on theircollaboration with your peers, the challenges theyencountered and how theyaddressed those, as well as the skills theyacquired. These experiential learning activities are unique, and available to single-honours final-year Psychology students.

By the end of the writing period you will have acquired a wide range of skills. These include independent research skills, the ability to reflect critically on relevant literature, the ability to utilise appropriate analytical frameworks and methodologies, the ability to organise time and resources effectively, the expansion of interpretative and analytical skills, the ability to manage learning through independent study, and the ability to produce a longer (8,000-10,000 words) piece of work on a single topic.

This module offers a number of practical electives that studentscan choose to attend. These electives are intended primarily to give studentsthe opportunity to acquire and practice highly transferrable skills rather than simply acquire knowledge. For example, students will be able to develop skills involved in Psychology research and teaching, such as programming and conducting statistical analysis in R, or designing and preparing to teach theirown student-led elective on a topic of theirinterest, or interviewing researchers on a specific topic and generating a podcast. Class sizes are kept small (< 20students) to facilitate group discussion and cohesiveness.

This module seeks to offer opportunities for the development of key transferable skills, personal attributes and reflective practice, thereby enabling students to become more employable. These skills will be of use in any future career, irrespective of whether or not this is within the field of psychology.

This modulegives students the opportunity to undertake a piece of original research under the supervision of an experienced researcher.Students willcontribute to the design of the research and be expected to execute the study and analyse the data. The final outcome of the process will be a dissertation in the style of a journal article describing the background to the research, the procedure, analysis and conclusions.

This module provides our final year students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned throughout their psychology degree in a work context and to explore potential career paths. The core of this module is a 50 hour work placement with a business, charity, or organisation. The placement is completed between October and April and during this time, students also attend supporting workshops designed to help them develop transferrable skills, confidence, and knowledge of the job market for psychology graduates.

This module hosts a broad range of electives that studentscan choose to attend. Each elective covers a particular research topic in Psychology at an advanced level. Topics pertain (but are not limited) to Comparative, Developmental, Health, Cognitive Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Neuroscience, and Neuropsychology. Taught electives are short courses that typically comprise 6 class meetings. The classes are small seminar discussion groups. In these electives, studentswill be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of the topic area, of the processes involved in generating new research in that topic area and a critical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of that research. Studentswill also develop key transferable skills, including literature research, critical thinking, oral and written communication.

This module hosts a broad range of electives that studentscan choose to attend. Each elective covers a particular research topic in Psychology at an advanced level. Topics pertain (but are not limited) to Comparative, Developmental, Health, Cognitive Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Neuroscience, and Neuropsychology. Traditional electives are short courses that typically comprise 6 class meetings. The classes are small seminar discussion groups. In these electives, studentswill be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of the topic area, of the processes involved in generating new research in that topic area and a critical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of that research. Studentswill develop key transferable skills, including literature research, critical thinking, oral and written communication.