Courses tagged with "Udemy" (83)

What do your dreams mean? Can apes learn sign language? Why cant we tickle ourselves? Paul Bloom answers these and more.

Professor Lynn Hunt lectures in this course which covers a broad, historical study of major elements in Western heritage

This is an introductory course in Greek history tracing the development of Greek civilization as manifested in political

Taking--or preparing to take--a social psychology course? These videos are for you!

Introduction to the principal areas, problems, and concepts of psychology.

German 59: Holocaust in Film and Literature is a course that provides insight into the History of Holocaust and its pres

Psychology 102 takes a look at why we behave the way we do , and applies that information to the classroom setting. This is valuable to students of psychology and education alike.

Dr. Wind Goodfriend and Dr. Melissa Hurst combine classic psychological theories and experiments with practical applications for classroom teachers. These bite-sized video lessons are accompanied by free, self-grading quizzes for self-assessment. Watch the videos, test your knowledge, and then let us know what you think using the thumbs up/thumbs down buttons on the top right-hand corner of each video.

This class introduces students to the methods and perspectives of cultural anthropology. Readings emphasize case studies in very different settings (a nuclear weapons laboratory, a cattle-herding society of the Sudan, and a Jewish elder center in Los Angeles). Although some of the results and conclusions of anthropology will be discussed, emphasis will be on appreciating cultural difference and its implications, studying cultures and societies through long-term fieldwork, and most of all, learning to think analytically about other people's lives and our own.

This course is the second in a trilogy of short courses. In this part, we apply some of the concepts we covered in Part I to study the development of science and technology in Chinese society, particularly in light of the influence the Industrial Revolution in the West has had on China’s technological development.

This course is a workshop for students with some experience in writing essays, nonfiction prose. Our focus will be negotiating and representing identities grounded in gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality, and other categories of identity, either our own or others', in prose that is expository, exploratory, investigative, persuasive, lyrical, or incantatory. We will read nonfiction prose works by a wide array of writers who have used language to negotiate and represent aspects of identity and the ways the different determinants of identity intersect, compete, and cooperate.

Sociology is the scientific study of society. As such, it closely examines human interactions and cultural phenomena, including topics like inequality and urbanization and the effects of these on groups and individuals. To do their work, sociologists rely on a philosophy of science called positivism, which you will study in Unit 1. The philosophy of positivism asserts that authentic knowledge, or truth, can only be gained through empirical observations. In other words, we need to be able to experience our observations or use scientific measurement with a form of sensory experience, as opposed to using faith-based or emotional experiences. Another central concept to sociology is that of the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination allows sociologists to make connections between personal experiences and larger social issues. For example, did you know the U.S. has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world? In order to understand this trend, sociologists use scientific methods…

A report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that employers want job candidates with strong communication skills. Similarly, educational success also requires the ability to articulate your thoughts clearly. In this class, we will study the principles of public speaking; critically examine our own and others’ speeches through interactive practice.

This course will introduce you to the major concepts of and debates surrounding industrial and organizational psychology. Industrial and organizational psychology is the application of psychological research and theory to human interaction (both with other humans and with human factors, or machines and computers) in the workplace. The phrase “industrial and organizational psychology” (sometimes referred to as “I/O”) may be somewhat misleading, as the field deals less with actual organizations and/or industries and more with the people in these areas. As mentioned above, “I/O” is an applied psychological science, which means that it takes research findings and theories that may have originally been used to explain a general phenomenon of human behavior and applies them to human behavior in a specific setting (here, the workplace). Consider, for example, the fact that many jobs require applicants to take a personality test. Psychologists originally developed this test to detect and diagnose abnorm…

This course will introduce you to the concepts and ideas in the area of social psychology. Social Psychology aims to discover the different ways in which people interact with other individuals, groups, and the larger society as a whole, as well as why people act in certain ways. As with an anthropology or sociology course, social psychology looks at the inner workings of groups of people. However, it differs from these courses in terms of its focus; social psychology focuses primarily on the single individual’s psychology as part of the group or society, rather than the culture or group interaction (though both of these areas have some relevance in social psychology). This may seem to be quite a broad subject area and it is. Humans are social creatures (in other words, they have evolved to be able to interact and communicate at high levels with individuals of their own species) and almost invariably exist in a social context (even a situation in which society is absent could be studied by social psychologi…

Cultural Psychology reviews the cultural, community, and ecological factors that play a role in how people perceive their environment.  It is the integration of the nature and nurture phenomenas, whereby an individual’s psyche is determined, or at least influenced, by both that individual’s culture and those other cultures to which the individual is exposed.  This may include many layers and levels, such as those discussed by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, including the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. For example: On a small scale, it is easy to see how an individual living in New York City would encounter different psychosocial stressors than a person living on a farm in Iowa might.  On a much larger scale, a person living in the United States may differ greatly, in cultural terms, from an individual living in China.  It may be easy to tell that two cultures are different from one another, but identifying exactly what we meanand all that is encompas…

This course introduces learners to the principles of learning and behavior by surveying relevant theoretical and empirical approaches within psychology.  The overall emphasis is on the theoretical foundations of psychology as they relate to human learning and behavior.   The following topics will be reviewed: historical perspectives of early learning theories, prevailing theories of human development, classical and operant conditioning, effects stimuli have on learning and behavior, social learning, motivation, cognitive developmental theory in the context of learning stages and processes, memory and human information processing models, and problem-solving methods.  Understanding these human processes is an integral part of psychology and other domains of human behavior, such as marketing, sports, health, education and relationships. Learning theories are an outgrowth from philosophies of thought.  The philosophical approaches of rationalism and empiricism, and the works of Plato and Descarte form the…

This course will introduce you to the psychology behind gender and sexuality, or the study of the different ways our gender roles and sexual identities impact our lives. Although the terms “gender” and “sex” are often used synonymously in everyday speech, this course will assign the terms two different meanings. “Sex” refers to biological differencei.e. whether you are a female or male from a biological standpoint. “Gender” refers to the social and psychological attributes that come along with one’s sex. Though these terms are similar and relate to one another, there is a distinct difference between the two that you should recognize for the purposes of this course. In this course, we will take a look at how our understanding of our own gender and sex can affect different aspects of our functioning, while also identifying the factors in our lives that can impact our gender and sex. While we often assume we know a lot about how gender affects our lives and the lives of the opposite gender, t…

This course is the third in a trilogy of short courses. In this final part, we integrate what we have learned in the previous two parts to investigate the evolution and implications of Chinese government policies designed to promote scientific and technological progress. Based on this, we will attempt to sketch a picture of the future of science and technology in China.

This course will introduce you to the fundamental principles of psychology and to the major subjects of psychological inquiry. It has been designed to not only provide you with the tools necessary for the study of psychology but to present you with a sampling of the major areas of psychology research. The course begins with a short overview of how psychology developed as an academic discipline and an introduction to a number of the principle methodologies most commonly deployed in its study. The subsequent units are arranged around broad areas of research, including emotion, development, memory, and psychopathology. We will focus on well-substantiated research and current trends within each of these categories.

In this course, we will look at the properties behind the basic concepts of probability and statistics and focus on applications of statistical knowledge.  We will learn how statistics and probability work together.  The subject of statistics involves the study of methods for collecting, summarizing, and interpreting data.  Statistics formalizes the process of making decisionsand this course is designed to help you cultivate statistic literacy so that you can use this knowledge to make better decisions.  Note that this course has applications in sciences, economics, computer science, finance, psychology, sociology, criminology, and many other fields. Every day, we read articles and reports in print or online.  After finishing this course, you should be comfortable asking yourself whether the articles make sense.  You will be able to extract information from the articles and display that information effectively.  You will also be able to understand the basics of how to draw statistical conclusions.