Why are people superstitious? Why do people blush when they are embarrassed? What is intelligence (and are IQ tests a good way to measure it)? Why don't psychopaths feel guilty when they harm others? How reliable are childhood memories? Why do we laugh? Do violent video games make people act violently? Why do some people seem instantly trustworthy and others seem creepy? How do we choose whom to sleep with, date, or marry? How does stress affect our body? While questions like these have been asked for centuries, psychology has begun to provide answers to these - and other questions about the human mind - by applying the tools of scientific investigation. In this course you will receive a broad introduction to the science of psychology: from the history of the field and its major advances, to the latest research on topics such as perception, memory, intelligence, morality, sexuality, mental illness, religion, language, and creativity. You will also learn about the tools and methods psychologists use to investigate the mind, such as observing how the mind of a child changes and develops over time, looking at people across cultures, measuring brain activity, and experimentally manipulating everything from the shape of a figure presented on a computer screen, to the smell of a room, or the attractiveness of the experimenter.

Full details for PSYCH 1101 - Introduction to Psychology

Personality and Social Psychology area are interested in understanding how people think, feel, and act in real-world social situations. There is a particular interest in how people make sense of the social world around them, as represented by research programs on judgment and decision making, attribution, self-knowledge, affect and emotion, and stereotyping/prejudice. Frequent topics of inquiry include whether people reach accurate or erroneous judgments about themselves and others, how people arrive at their decisions, and how those decisions can be influenced by emotions or factors outside of awareness and more.

Full details for PSYCH 1120 - FWS:Personality & Social Psychology

Behavioral & Evolutionary Neuroscience Psychology seeks to understand behavior and cognition through investigations of the integrated roles of evolution, development, and mechanisms. The emphasis is on naturalistic behaviors of animals and ecologically relevant behaviors of humans. Comparative perspectives are well represented, the full range of development, including aging, is investigated, and both social and non-social behaviors are explained. Core questions are, what are the mechanisms (brain, sensory, endocrine, and behavioral) that enable animals (including humans) to behave appropriately? How do these mechanisms work? How do they develop? How did they evolve?

Full details for PSYCH 1130 - FWS: Behavioral Evolutionary Psychology

How do we perceive, learn about, and store information about the environments around us? How does what we have learned affect how we perceive and understand? PCD researchers in the graduate field of psychology at Cornell study human perception, language, and memory, as well as the development of various cognitive functions in infants. The methods they use are diverse, and range from human behavioral experiments in development, perception, and psycholinguistics, through computational modeling and simulation of auditory, visual, and language processes, to human electrophysiology by means of event-related potential (ERP) analysis.

Full details for PSYCH 1140 - FWS: Perception, Cognition, and Development

Basic perceptual concepts and phenomena are discussed with emphasis on stimulus variables and sensory mechanisms. All sensory modalities are considered, vision is discussed in detail.

Full details for PSYCH 2050 - Perception

A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches topics from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.

Full details for PSYCH 2090 - Developmental Psychology

This section is highly recommended for students who are interested in learning about the topics covered in the main course through writing and discussion.

Full details for PSYCH 2091 - WIM: Developmental Psychology

Since its inception the US legal system has been a system of social cognition and judgment: Humans perceiving and judging other humans to determine their fate. There are things about the system to admire, but major problems persist. Innocent people get convicted; guilty people go free. Why? Historically, that system built on social cognition has been ignorant about how human judgment actually works—producing errors as a result. This course explores the science of how we think about other people—our perceptions, memories, and judgments—can shape decisions and outcomes in the legal system, sometimes with devastating consequences. Grounded in psychological science and research on social cognition, we’ll examine how mental shortcuts, impression formation, moral judgment and group dynamics influence everything from eyewitness testimony to police investigations, from jury deliberations to sentencing. We will apply classic and cutting-edge research to identify what went wrong in real-world cases and how we could do better. Students will learn how understanding the psychology of social thinking can help explain—and ultimately improve—the legal system.

Full details for PSYCH 2120 - Social Cognition & the Legal System

Provides an introduction to the psychology of language. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the scientific study of psycholinguistic phenomena. Covers a broad range of topics from psycholinguistics, including the origin of language, the different components of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), processes involved in reading, computational modeling of language processes, the acquisition of language (both under normal and special circumstances), and the brain bases of language.

Full details for PSYCH 2150 - Psychology of Language

There is no getting away from the brain. Everything a person does, creates, thinks, feels, believes, and experiences (including making sense of course descriptions!) depends on it. But, how? How could a three pound mass of cells and the body in which it exists see, decide, or remember, let alone navigate a busy city, play soccer, or write poetry? This course will provide students with the foundational concepts and tools they will need to begin to address these questions, providing insight into how modern cognitive neuroscientists understand the brain, how it works, and how the mind emerges from all of this. Students will learn core principles of modern human cognitive neuroscience (e.g., brain structure versus function, connectivity, reuse) and their application to cognition (e.g., action, perception, attention, memory, emotion, language, cognitive control, and consciousness). Topics in neuroanatomy, human neuroscience methods, and neurological conditions will also be covered.

Full details for PSYCH 2300 - How the Brain Makes the Mind

Effective judgments and decisions are critical to success in every avenue of life. This course will explore research on the principles of sound judgment and decision making, and on the ways in which people's judgments and decisions are prone to bias and error. The course aims to improve students' critical thinking skills and to enable them to make better judgments and decisions in an increasingly complicated world. The course is taught by a team of psychologists and economists who draw on recent research in psychology and behavioral economics that can benefit the lives of students.

Full details for PSYCH 2940 - Better Decisions for Life, Love and Money

This course will expose students to a wide range of commonly used methods in neuroscience research (theory behind the method, common applications of the method, how data are collected and analyzed using the method, strengths and weaknesses of the method, etc.). The goal for students is that by the end of the course, they will be able to read and critically evaluate primary literature from many areas of neuroscience and to understand how the methods used in the study helped the researchers come to their conclusions. This course will explore methods including (but not necessarily limited to): microscopy, methods to visualize neuronal structure and function, electrophysiology, methods to measure neural activity, methods to measure and manipulate expression of genes/mRNA/protein, machine learning methods for behavioral analysis, and whole brain imaging methods in humans and non-human animals.

Full details for PSYCH 3020 - Methods in Neuroscience

In this course, we will explore how language interacts with power: how does language reflect, shape, threaten and reinforce power relations in human society? From childhood through old age, language is an ever-present source of symbolic power. We use it to develop and express our identities, to position ourselves in hierarchies, and to establish group membership and exclusion throughout life. Language shapes ourselves, our families, our social lives, and our institutions. Understanding how people use language can provide a window into hidden aspects of both individuals and the social world.

Full details for PSYCH 3130 - Language and Power

This course states and motivates the observation that cognition is fundamentally a computational process and explores the implications of this idea. Students are introduced to a variety of conceptual tools for thinking about cognitive information processing, including statistical learning from experience and the use of patterns distilled from past experience in guiding future actions. They learn to apply these tools to gain understanding of perception, memory, motor control, language, action planning, problem solving, decision making, reasoning, intelligence, and creativity.Applications of the newly acquired computational cognitive science concepts and tools to ecological issues - in particular, the accelerating climate catastrophe - are discussed in this course on a regular basis.

Full details for PSYCH 3140 - Computational Psychology

Multidisciplinary discussion of the causes, effects, and treatments of human obesity. Topics include the biopsychology of eating behavior, the genetics of obesity, the role of activity and energy metabolism, the psychosocial determinants of obesity, anorexia nervosa, therapy and its effectiveness, and social discrimination.Multidisciplinary discussion of the causes, effects, and treatments of human obesity. Topics include the biopsychology of eating behavior, the genetics of obesity, the role of activity and energy metabolism, the psychosocial determinants of obesity, anorexia nervosa, therapy and its effectiveness, and social discrimination.

Full details for PSYCH 3150 - Obesity and the Regulation of Body Weight

Why do some children grow up well-adjusted and others do not? This course applies a developmental framework to understanding psychological disorders. We will consider the common disorders of childhood and adolescence; the individual contexts which promote risk versus resiliency; trends and trajectories in disorders over time; and the complex ethical issues associated with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders early in life.

Full details for PSYCH 3310 - Developmental Psychopathology

This course examines infant development from conception through toddler hood, emphasizing the interconnected growth of the whole child—biological, cognitive, emotional, and social. Drawing on contemporary research and inclusive perspectives, students explore how culture, care giving, and individual differences shape early development.

Full details for PSYCH 3440 - The Development of Infants

Humans are said to be social animals. This seminar provides an in-depth exploration of what it means to be social. Examples of topics to be covered include the fundamental need to belong and the affiliative system underlying cooperation; attachment and the proclivity to form strong affective ties throughout the life span; the biological bases of attraction and relationship formation; and the various consequences of thwarted relational needs, including the end of relationships through break-up, divorce, or death, and social alienation and chronic loneliness. We will focus on people's most intimate relationships - with partners, parents, and close friends - but will explore how our social nature is expressed in diverse ways - with unknown others, in social networks, and with political leaders, celebrities, and objects. These topics will be considered from diverse theoretical perspectives including work from social neuroscience, social, personality, developmental, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology, as well as drawing from work in communications, information science, sociology, and political science. Articles will be a combination of theoretical, review, or perspective pieces as well as empirical papers.

Full details for PSYCH 3450 - On Being Social

In STEM, including biology and psychology disciplines, so much of what you do is writing. Be it writing personal statements, grant and fellowship applications, theses or manuscripts… we spend a lot of time and are predominately evaluated on writing. Despite this, disciplinary specific training in writing is limited. Most people learn as they go: from practice and working directly mentors. This course is designed to give you specialized disciplinary specific writing support.

Full details for PSYCH 4110 - Writing, Inquiry, and Communicating in STEM

The course covers basic concepts and recent findings on the psychology of misinformation. In this class, we will ask questions such as: Why do people fall for fake news? What leads people to share misinformation online? What can be done to undermine the spread and influence of misinformation? The course will draw on concepts from across psychology, including social, cognitive, developmental, neuroscience, and clinical. Furthermore, although our focus will be on the underlying psychological processes, the course materials will intersect with other disciplines, including journalism, communication, computer science, political science, and others.

Full details for PSYCH 4220 - The Psychology of Misinformation

Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are rapidly becoming an important part of the mental healthcare landscape. Their growth represents a unique opportunity to provide scalable evidence-based care and address inequities in access to high-quality mental healthcare. This seminar will survey the current DMHI landscape (including use of AI, VR, online programs, smartphone apps, telehealth, and hybrid-DMHI models) with a particular focus on the current strengths and limitations of DMHIs and how they might best be utilized in the future. Students will harness knowledge gained during the course to propose their own novel DMHI as part of a semester-long project. This course is designed to be highly interactive. Students will engage in discussions and oral presentations as well as providing constructive feedback to help classmates improve their proposed programs.

Full details for PSYCH 4260 - Digital Mental Health Interventions

A seminar series examining current and classical ideas in human sciences and the humanities. Themes vary from semester to semester.Topic: Changes by semester. For the recent and upcoming topics, see the instructor's web page: https://shimon-edelman.github.io

Full details for PSYCH 4320 - Topics in Cognitive Science

This seminar focuses on research findings and methods for understanding the relational mind, exploring questions such as: how do we perceive and evaluate others, make sense of social situations, and navigate the social world? Students will read and discuss papers on the relational mind and generate and present research ideas. The seminar will highlight best practices in contemporary psychological research and the use of a variety of methodologies.

Full details for PSYCH 4510 - Research Seminar on the Relational Mind

This course will cover the psychology of wisdom. Among the topics to be covered are the definition of wisdom, theories and models of wisdom, development of wisdom, measurement of wisdom, relations of wisdom to other characteristics, state versus trait characteristics of wisdom, teaching for wisdom, wisdom and leadership, wisdom and society.

Full details for PSYCH 4550 - The Psychology of Wisdom

How has history shaped our notion of Black girlhood? What is our collective understanding of Black girlhood? How do we see and understand Black girls? Black Girlhood Studies is a multidisciplinary field that draws on education, literature, psychological, and sociological perspectives as tools to see and honor Black girls' lived experiences. In this seminar course, we will use a mixture of lectures and facilitated discussions to provide an overview of Black girlhood as it relates to historical and current-day social, political, and cultural constructions of Black girlhood within and beyond the United States. We will also interrogate how Black girls deconstruct and interrupt these social constructions by engaging in scholarly works, popular press articles, poetry, music, film, and novels. Throughout the course, we will make space to imagine a world where Black girls' ways of knowing, being, and experiencing the world are honored.

Full details for PSYCH 4560 - Black Girlhood Studies: Rememory, Representation, and Re-Imagination

Practice in planning, conducting, and reporting independent laboratory, field, and/or library research.

Full details for PSYCH 4700 - Undergraduate Research in Psychology

Advanced experience in planning, conducting, and reporting independent laboratory, field, and/or library research. One, and preferably two, semesters of PSYCH 4700 is required. The research should be more independent and/or involve more demanding technical skills than that carried out in PSYCH 4700.

Full details for PSYCH 4710 - Advanced Undergraduate Research in Psychology

Any moral and religious systems tell us to keep a “pure heart,” and that immoral acts “pollute” our souls. We dislike dirty plays and dirty players in sports, and we keep our children away from dirty movies. We are also motivated to maintain purity in the less metaphorical sense—most cultures have norms about keeping bodies and living spaces clean. We even have an emotion—disgust—that seems especially attuned to certain kinds of dirtiness (such as bodily fluids and rotten food). The concept of purity, then, appears to be a deep aspect of human psychology—from the basic motivation to maintain physical purity, to the metaphors of purity and cleanliness that feature heavily in morality and religion across cultures. In this course we will look at the psychology of purity by reading widely on the topic, including historical, religious, anthropological, and psychological topics that center on purity in both the physical and moral/spiritual sense. Our aim will be to understand how this basic notion of pure/impure or clean/dirty has come to shape our psychology and our culture.

Full details for PSYCH 4790 - Psychology of Purity

Moral Psychology in Action is an applied psychology course for students who want to make a difference in the world through ethical leadership and positive contributions in organizations, and who are drawn to scholarly work on psychology, ethics, and morality. The course is experiential and takes place mostly outside the classroom through students' individualized partnerships in community organizations, businesses, and institutions. Learning outcomes include enhanced critical reflection, intercultural competence, ethical practice, and the practice of applied moral psychology research methods.

Full details for PSYCH 4940 - Moral Psychology in Action

This course will expose students to a wide range of commonly used methods in neuroscience research (theory behind the method, common applications of the method, how data are collected and analyzed using the method, strengths and weaknesses of the method, etc.). The goal for students is that by the end of the course, they will be able to read and critically evaluate primary literature from many areas of neuroscience and to understand how the methods used in the study helped the researchers come to their conclusions. This course will explore methods including (but not necessarily limited to): microscopy, methods to visualize neuronal structure and function, electrophysiology, methods to neural activity, methods to measure and manipulate expression of genes/mRNA/protein, machine learning methods for behavioral analysis, and whole brain imaging methods in humans and non-human animals.

Full details for PSYCH 6020 - Methods in Neuroscience

Full details for PSYCH 6110 - Writing, Inquiry, and communicating in STEM

This course states and motivates the observation that cognition is fundamentally a computational process and explores the implications of this idea. Students are introduced to a variety of conceptual tools for thinking about cognitive information processing, including statistical learning from experience and the use of patterns distilled from past experience in guiding future actions. They learn to apply these tools to gain understanding of perception, memory, motor control, language, action planning, problem solving, decision making, reasoning, intelligence, and creativity.Applications of the newly acquired computational cognitive science concepts and tools to ecological issues - in particular, the accelerating climate catastrophe - are discussed in this course on a regular basis.

Full details for PSYCH 6140 - Computational Psychology

This course will cover special topics related to belief, metacognition, and reasoning.

Full details for PSYCH 6225 - Special Topics in Social Psychology

We will focus on foundational concepts that guide the disciplines of psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Each semester we will select readings from the most innovative thinkers in the field.

Full details for PSYCH 6240 - The Big Ideas Seminar

Course explores current issues in Psychology. Topics vary by section.

Full details for PSYCH 6271 - Topics in Biopsychology

Full details for PSYCH 6450 - On Being Social

Humans and machine learning information processing systems create internal representations that enable them to perceive additional information, categorize it, make decisions, and plan actions. How can we measure the extent to which these representations align? Are machine learning representations that resemble human ones more effective? What insights about human representations can we gain from machine learning models? How can we make human and machine representations more similar? In what ways can we address ethical and safety concerns? With recent advancements in machine learning and cognitive science, these questions have become focal points of research. This course will explore this dynamic area, involving a close examination of foundational and recent papers in the emerging field of representational alignment, alongside cutting-edge research.

Full details for PSYCH 6460 - Human and Machine Alignment

Full details for PSYCH 6510 - Research Seminar on the Relational Mind

In this journal-club-style class we will read and discuss papers exploring a content-area in Cognition. For Spring 2026, readings will focus on relationships between language and thought (i.e., Linguistic Relativity). Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? If so, do people who speak different languages think differently? These seemingly innocent questions were considered taboo by scientists and philosophers throughout much of the 20th century. Today, however, these questions are the subject of productive scientific inquiry, and ongoing experiments are producing answers that rewrite the story of language, culture, and the human mind.

Full details for PSYCH 6655 - Topics in Cognition

Any moral and religious systems tell us to keep a “pure heart,” and that immoral acts “pollute” our souls. We dislike dirty plays and dirty players in sports, and we keep our children away from dirty movies. We are also motivated to maintain purity in the less metaphorical sense—most cultures have norms about keeping bodies and living spaces clean. We even have an emotion—disgust—that seems especially attuned to certain kinds of dirtiness (such as bodily fluids and rotten food). The concept of purity, then, appears to be a deep aspect of human psychology—from the basic motivation to maintain physical purity, to the metaphors of purity and cleanliness that feature heavily in morality and religion across cultures. In this course we will look at the psychology of purity by reading widely on the topic, including historical, religious, anthropological, and psychological topics that center on purity in both the physical and moral/spiritual sense. Our aim will be to understand how this basic notion of pure/impure or clean/dirty has come to shape our psychology and our culture.

Full details for PSYCH 6790 - Psychology of Purity

A graduate research seminar in biopsychology.

Full details for PSYCH 7000 - Research in Biopsychology

One of four introductory courses in cognition and perception. A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches problems from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.

Full details for PSYCH 7090 - Developmental Psychology

A graduate research seminar in human experimental psychology.

Full details for PSYCH 7100 - Research in Human Experimental Psychology

A graduate research seminar in social psychology and personality.

Full details for PSYCH 7200 - Research in Social Psychology and Personality

A graduate seminar on doctoral thesis research in biopsychology.

Full details for PSYCH 9000 - Doctoral Thesis Research in Biopsychology

A graduate seminar on doctoral thesis research in human experimental psychology.

Full details for PSYCH 9100 - Doctoral Thesis Research in Human Experimental Psychology

A graduate seminar on doctoral thesis research in social psychology and personality.

Full details for PSYCH 9200 - Doctoral Thesis Research in Social Psychology and Personality

This is a topics course for Human Development First-Year Writing Seminars.

Full details for HD 1125 - FWS: Topics in Human Development

Basic perceptual concepts and phenomena are discussed with emphasis on stimulus variables and sensory mechanisms. All sensory modalities are considered, vision is discussed in detail.

Full details for HD 2050 - Perception

A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches topics from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.

Full details for HD 2090 - Developmental Psychology

Since its inception the US legal system has been a system of social cognition and judgment: Humans perceiving and judging other humans to determine their fate. There are things about the system to admire, but major problems persist. Innocent people get convicted; guilty people go free. Why? Historically, that system built on social cognition has been ignorant about how human judgment actually works—producing errors as a result. This course explores the science of how we think about other people—our perceptions, memories, and judgments—can shape decisions and outcomes in the legal system, sometimes with devastating consequences. Grounded in psychological science and research on social cognition, we’ll examine how mental shortcuts, impression formation, moral judgment and group dynamics influence everything from eyewitness testimony to police investigations, from jury deliberations to sentencing. We will apply classic and cutting-edge research to identify what went wrong in real-world cases and how we could do better. Students will learn how understanding the psychology of social thinking can help explain—and ultimately improve—the legal system.

Full details for HD 2120 - Social Cognition and the Legal System

HD 2170 introduces students to the major theoretical perspectives, research findings, research methods, applications, and controversies in the study of human development during the period of adolescence and the transition to emerging adulthood. The main focus is on individual development, but we view this development from an interdisciplinary perspective. The emphasis in the course is on psychological development, but we also will draw on related fields, such as sociology, anthropology, biology, neuroscience, and education. Within psychology, we will be looking at adolescence and emerging adulthood from the standpoints of developmental, cognitive, social, personality, clinical, and biological psychology. There will be some use of statistics in the course, but sophisticated knowledge of statistics is not required. This is a second-level course, so the emphasis is on creative, analytical, practical, and wise understanding and application of concepts of development.

Full details for HD 2170 - Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

There is no getting away from the brain. Everything a person does, creates, thinks, feels, believes, and experiences (including making sense of course descriptions!) depends on it. But, how? How could a three pound mass of cells and the body in which it exists see, decide, or remember, let alone navigate a busy city, play soccer, or write poetry? This course will provide students with the foundational concepts and tools they will need to begin to address these questions, providing insight into how modern cognitive neuroscientists understand the brain, how it works, and how the mind emerges from all of this. Students will learn core principles of modern human cognitive neuroscience (e.g., brain structure versus function, connectivity, reuse) and their application to cognition (e.g., action, perception, attention, memory, emotion, language, cognitive control, and consciousness). Topics in neuroanatomy, human neuroscience methods, and neurological conditions will also be covered.

Full details for HD 2310 - How the Brain Makes the Mind

Analyzes the social aspects of aging in contemporary American society from a life course perspective. Topics include (1) an introduction to the field of gerontology, its history, theories, and research methods; (2) a brief overview of the physiological and psychological changes that accompany aging; (3) an analysis of the contexts (e.g., family, friends, social support, employment, volunteer work) in which individual aging occurs, including differences of gender, ethnicity, and social class; and (4) the influences of society on the aging individual.

Full details for HD 2510 - Social Gerontology: Aging and the Life Course

In this course, we will explore how language interacts with power: how does language reflect, shape, threaten and reinforce power relations in human society? From childhood through old age, language is an ever-present source of symbolic power. We use it to develop and express our identities, to position ourselves in hierarchies, and to establish group membership and exclusion throughout life. Language shapes ourselves, our families, our social lives, and our institutions. Understanding how people use language can provide a window into hidden aspects of both individuals and the social world.

Full details for HD 3150 - Language and Power

This course will focus on the complex interactions between neurochemicals and their receptors (pharmacodynamics) that drive human behavior. It will provide an overview of the principles of neurotransmission of chemicals as well as how alterations in their normal function can manifest in pathological behavior/mind processes.

Full details for HD 3250 - Neurochemical Basis of Human Behavior

Covers the science of self-regulation and its development over the human life span. After providing an overview of historical perspectives, the class will focus on contemporary research including homeostasis in bodily systems, self-control and regulation, goal setting, economic perspectives, as well as the role of emotions and personality.

Full details for HD 3290 - Self-regulation Across the Life Span

Why do some children grow up well-adjusted and others do not? This course applies a developmental framework to understanding psychological disorders. We will consider the common disorders of childhood and adolescence; the individual contexts which promote risk versus resiliency; trends and trajectories in disorders over time; and the complex ethical issues associated with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders early in life.

Full details for HD 3300 - Developmental Psychopathology

This course will examine the ways in which sex and gender impact the expression of severe psychopathology. We will try to understand these relationships using different levels of analysis. This will involve an exploration of biological, psychological, cognitive, and social factors associated with sex and gender as they influence the epidemiology, phenomenology, etiology, diagnosis, and course of illness in major forms of psychopathology: specifically, schizophrenia, major affective illness, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and personality disorders. We will examine these topics through the frameworks of psychological science, feminism, and intersectionality, and attempt to integrate the offerings of each, to generate a nuanced understanding of mental illness.

Full details for HD 3320 - Gender and Psychopathology

This course examines infant development from conception through toddler hood, emphasizing the interconnected growth of the whole child—biological, cognitive, emotional, and social. Drawing on contemporary research and inclusive perspectives, students explore how culture, care giving, and individual differences shape early development.

Full details for HD 3440 - The Development of Infants

Humans are said to be social animals. This seminar provides an in-depth exploration of what it means to be social. Examples of topics to be covered include the fundamental need to belong and the affiliative system underlying cooperation; attachment and the proclivity to form strong affective ties throughout the life span; the biological bases of attraction and relationship formation; and the various consequences of thwarted relational needs, including the end of relationships through break-up, divorce, or death, and social alienation and chronic loneliness. We will focus on people's most intimate relationships - with partners, parents, and close friends - but will explore how our social nature is expressed in diverse ways - with unknown others, in social networks, and with political leaders, celebrities, and objects. These topics will be considered from diverse theoretical perspectives including work from social neuroscience, social, personality, developmental, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology, as well as drawing from work in communications, information science, sociology, and political science. Articles will be a combination of theoretical, review, or perspective pieces as well as empirical papers.

Full details for HD 3455 - On Being Social

This advanced active-learning class will focus on theories and empirical findings concerning risky decision making in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The material will be scholarly and intellectually challenging. We will engage active-learning strategies such as problem-based learning, case studies, group projects, and extended discussions. The course draws on multiple disciplines, such as psychology, economics, neuroscience, and information sciences (e.g., AI). If your main interest is in positive psychology, youth development applications, or social factors such as poverty, there are other excellent courses in Human Development focusing on those topics. Class sessions will consist of lectures covering the theoretical background, key topics and discussion designed to deepen understanding and explore possible real-life applications in law, medicine, and public health.

Full details for HD 3530 - Risk and Opportunity Factors in Childhood and Adolescence

Covers the science of interpersonal relationships. Examines the basic nature of human affectional bonds, including their functions and dynamics. Covers such topics as interpersonal attraction and mate selection, intimacy and commitment, love and sex, jealousy and loneliness, the neurobiology of affiliation and attachment, and the role of relationships in physical and psychological health.

Full details for HD 3620 - Human Bonding

For study that predominantly involves library research and independent study.

Full details for HD 4000 - Directed Readings

For study that predominantly involves data collection and analysis or laboratory or studio projects.

Full details for HD 4010 - Empirical Research

For study that involves both responsible participation in a community setting and reflection on that experience through discussion, reading, and writing. Academic credit is awarded for this integration of theory and practice.

Full details for HD 4020 - Supervised Fieldwork

For study that includes assisting faculty with instruction.

Full details for HD 4030 - Course Assistant Experience

This course provides an overview to the theory, concepts, and controversies underlying common psychological disorders, as well as an introduction to transdiagnostic perspectives on mental health.

Full details for HD 4110 - Advanced Seminar in Psychopathology

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of legal psychology, with a focus on cognitive, developmental, and social science contributions to legally-relevant questions. The seminar blends reading, discussion, active learning, and applied exercises to help students develop and evaluate research proposals in any aspect of psychology that is broadly relevant to the law. Among the themes that will be discussed are suggestibility, memory reliability, forensic interviewing, facial processing, and decision-making in legal contexts. Students will read foundational and contemporary research, engage in weekly discussions, and design their own hypothetical research project that relates to one or more course themes. An emphasis will be placed on students developing their own hypotheses and methods for testing them. These are not limited to themes that are researched by the instructor, hence this is an opportunity to think outside the box, uninhibited by the research conducted by the instructor. This last sentence deserves amplification: Students are not expected to develop studies that are related to those of Professor Ceci; the idea is to come up with a study of your own and defend it against criticisms by the class. In the past members of 4230 have developed many interesting hypotheses unrelated to the instructor’s own program of research.

Full details for HD 4230 - Seminar in Legal and Psychological Science

Offered to students who are currently conducting research or planning to do research in the near future on one of the three topics-memory, self, or emotion. The course examines current data and theories concerning the topics from a variety of perspectives and at multiple levels of analysis, particularly focusing on the interconnections among these fields of inquiry. The scale of observation is viewed as occurring within the person (brain mechanisms, including genetics), at the level of the person (content-goals, beliefs, desires, etc.), and between persons (relationships and group interaction-including culture).

Full details for HD 4310 - Mind, Self, and Emotion

Full details for HD 4440 - The Nature of Human Intelligence

This seminar provides a selective overview of the scientific study of emotion. Topics include: theoretical foundations and history; functions of emotion; behavioral expression of emotion; biological and sociocultural approaches; and applications (e.g., personality, psychopathology, physical health, judgments and decisions, and happiness). Within each topic, we will critically examine methods, measures, and theoretical conclusions.

Full details for HD 4530 - Affective Science

This course will cover the psychology of wisdom. Among the topics to be covered are the definition of wisdom, theories and models of wisdom, development of wisdom, measurement of wisdom, relations of wisdom to other characteristics, state versus trait characteristics of wisdom, teaching for wisdom, wisdom and leadership, wisdom and society.

Full details for HD 4550 - The Psychology of Wisdom

How has history shaped our notion of Black girlhood? What is our collective understanding of Black girlhood? How do we see and understand Black girls? Black Girlhood Studies is a multidisciplinary field that draws on education, literature, psychological, and sociological perspectives as tools to see and honor Black girls' lived experiences. In this seminar course, we will use a mixture of lectures and facilitated discussions to provide an overview of Black girlhood as it relates to historical and current-day social, political, and cultural constructions of Black girlhood within and beyond the United States. We will also interrogate how Black girls deconstruct and interrupt these social constructions by engaging in scholarly works, popular press articles, poetry, music, film, and novels. Throughout the course, we will make space to imagine a world where Black girls' ways of knowing, being, and experiencing the world are honored.

Full details for HD 4560 - Black Girlhood Studies: Rememory, Representation, and Re-Imagination

This course serves as a companion class for students admitted to the Geriatric Palliative Research Immersion Program who are engaged in concurrent research with remote mentors at Weill Cornell Medicine. Students in this course will learn about research methods, techniques, and practices in geriatric and palliative settings and engage with various providers and stakeholders in the field.

Full details for HD 4600 - Professional Development in Geriatric and Palliative Research

To gain knowledge in empirical research and its role within the broader field of cognitive neuroscience, students will attend a weekly seminar, read and critically evaluate primary research articles, and engage in scholarly activities that support the development of research and analytical skills. We will focus on selected readings examining the neural bases of attention, learning, and emotion. An overarching goal of this seminar is to develop students' ability to critically analyze contemporary theories and empirical findings concerning brain function and cognition. Within a single semester, we will examine and critique foundational and contemporary research related to attention, learning, and emotion. Emphasis will be placed on interpreting primary research articles, evaluating methodological approaches, synthesizing findings across studies, and considering future directions for inquiry. Through seminar discussions, written assignments, and independent scholarly work, students will develop the skills necessary to engage with and contribute to research in cognitive neuroscience. Attendance and active participation in seminar discussions are expected.

Full details for HD 4620 - Research Seminar: Brain Activity and Cognition

In this course you will learn the fundamentals of magnetic resonance imaging in a psychiatric context and the proper tools to critically ingest primary research literature of this nature. You will learn the mechanisms behind the methods, know the controversies, understand current debates, and survey current research across behavioral syndromes. A key theme of this class will be understanding to what extent biological correlates reflect mechanisms and their dysfunctions, the dysfunctions of the environment, bio/neurodiversity, or reasonable if unwanted consequences of being humans trying to survive. Context outside of the body will be incorporated into our questions and synthesis. Annotations, study visualization, discussion, and midterm and final projects emphasizing your own interests in the class will work towards creating a rigorous and humanized understanding of neuroimaging in behavioral syndromes. Graduate students will be expected to lead discussion in one class for a topic of their choosing. They will identify further readings, report on further context for the studies and findings, following up on papers done after the readings as well as papers cited.

Full details for HD 4650 - Neuroimaging for Behavioral Syndromes

The course will cover advanced topics in research on the emotions from central neural and peripheral physiological perspectives, with an emphasis with how emotions shape different aspects of cognition and behavior.

Full details for HD 4720 - Current Research in Emotion, Cognition, and Brain

What does it mean to think like a scientist? This course will explore the structure of scientific thinking, from its philosophical foundations through current efforts to make science fair and replicable. The thought processes that underlie the methods used in psychology and neuroscience are rarely made explicit in courses on statistics and research methods - understanding these thought processes can make us better scientists and sharper thinkers.

Full details for HD 4765 - How to Think Like a Scientist

As a supplement to their immersive learning experience working on faculty research projects, students in this course will engage with actors and ideas from across the youth development research and practice communities, learn about research methods and dissemination to various audiences, and begin to see the world from a translational research perspective.

Full details for HD 4850 - Professional Development in Translational Research

As a supplement to their immersive learning experience working on translational research projects led by CHE faculty, and building on their experience in HD4850 (Professional Development in Translational Research), this course will provide opportunities for students to put their learning into practice by proposing and implementing a translational research project in collaboration with community partners.

Full details for HD 4860 - Nearest Neighbor

Moral Psychology in Action is an applied psychology course for students who want to make a difference in the world through ethical leadership and positive contributions in organizations, and who are drawn to scholarly work on psychology, ethics, and morality. The course is experiential and takes place mostly outside the classroom through students' individualized partnerships in community organizations, businesses, and institutions. Learning outcomes include enhanced critical reflection, intercultural competence, ethical practice, and the practice of applied moral psychology research methods.

Full details for HD 4940 - Moral Psychology in Action

This course is for students doing research as part of the Honors Program in Human Development.

Full details for HD 4990 - Senior Honors Thesis

What is an emotion? Are emotions universally recognizable? Do emotions change throughout life? Where do emotions reside in the brain? Can we control our emotions? How do emotions influence the quality of our close relationships? In this seminar, we will consider such questions from the perspective of contemporary psychological research.

Full details for HD 6110 - Psychology of Emotion

This course explores basic and applied psychological research, with a particular focus on their relevance to the law. Drawing from interdisciplinary sources—ranging from social and cognitive psychological research to law reviews—we will examine how jurors, judges, police witnesses, and legal professionals evaluate evidence, make social judgments, form beliefs, and make decisions in legal contexts. Our ultimate goal is to identify what went wrong in real-world cases and how we can improve the legal system. In addition to engaging with academic research, the course emphasizes the application of psychological science to real-world legal problems. We will consider how psychological expertise can inform actual cases, contribute to expert testimony, and guide the development and advocacy of evidence-based interventions and policy reforms. Students will also have opportunities to workshop their own research ideas and develop a methodological toolkit for investigating questions at the intersection of psychology and law.

Full details for HD 6180 - Special Topics: The Intersection of Law and Psychology

Designed as an orientation to the department and the university. Activities include attendance at research presentations, visits to departmental research laboratories, relevant informational sessions (e.g., Institutional Review Board for Human Participants, proposal writing), and guidance in preparing a public research presentation to be made at the end of spring semester.

Full details for HD 6200 - First-Year Proseminar in Human Development

This graduate seminar is designed to give an overview as well as in-depth analysis of topics related to autobiographical memory and its development. Readings focus heavily on current theories and empirical research on a wide range of topics including childhood amnesia, reminiscence bump, emotion and memory, memory accuracy, development and disruption, neurological perspectives, memory functions, and memory across cultures.

Full details for HD 6210 - Seminar on Autobiographical Memory

Full details for HD 6440 - The Nature of Human Intelligence

Full details for HD 6550 - The Psychology of Wisdom

How has history shaped our notion of Black girlhood? What is our collective understanding of Black girlhood? How do we see and understand Black girls? Black Girlhood Studies is a multidisciplinary field that draws on education, literature, psychological, and sociological perspectives as tools to see and honor Black girls' lived experiences. In this graduate-level seminar course, we will systematically explore historical and contemporary social, political, and cultural constructions of Black girlhood within and beyond the United States. We will also interrogate how Black girls deconstruct and interrupt these social constructions by engaging in scholarly works, popular press articles, poetry, music, film, and novels. Throughout the course, we will make space to imagine a world where Black girls' ways of knowing, being, and experiencing the world are honored.

Full details for HD 6560 - Black Girlhood Studies: Rememory, Representation, and Re-Imagination

How do our ways of knowing shape our research? What methodological tools can support us in working alongside community members in equitable and humanizing ways? How might research be used as a tool for creating spaces and methods for healing, re-imagining, and transforming our communities? In this interdisciplinary graduate-level seminar, we will use readings, facilitated discussions, and workshops to critically examine and interrogate (a) epistemological and theoretical foundations of critical psychological research, (b) qualitative methodological strategies for studying alongside communities, and (c) practical applications for re-imagining psychological science. Throughout the course, we will reflect on our positioning as researchers and consider ethical dilemmas in community-engaged work.

Full details for HD 6570 - Special Topics in Community Psychology: Critical Methodologies and Epistemic Justice

Designed for graduate students and select seniors who are interested in graduate study in scientific disciplines that focus on human behavior and social interaction. The purpose of the seminar is examine the science and politics in an academic career. The seminar has three goals: 1) to promote discussion, debate, and an eventual understanding of sociopolitical aspects of the academy, 2) to provide members with an opportunity to summon, integrate, and apply insights that they have acquired through readings and discussion as they analyze arguments from the standpoint of multiple social sciences, and 3) to integrate scholarship across disciplinary lines.

Full details for HD 6640 - The Science and Politics of Gender in the Academy

Full details for HD 6655 - Neuroimaging for Behavioral Syndromes

The course will cover advanced topics in research on the emotions from central neural and peripheral physiological perspectives, with an emphasis with how emotions shape different aspects of cognition and behavior.

Full details for HD 6720 - Current Research in Emotion, Cognition and Brain

What does it mean to think like a scientist? This course will explore the structure of scientific thinking, from its philosophical foundations through current efforts to make science fair and replicable. The thought processes that underlie the methods used in psychology and neuroscience are rarely made explicit in courses on statistics and research methods - understanding these thought processes can make us better scientists and sharper thinkers.

Full details for HD 6765 - How to Think Like a Scientist

Full details for HD 6820 - Proseminar in Affective and Clinical Science II

For study that predominantly involves library research and independent study.

Full details for HD 7000 - Directed Readings

For study that predominantly involves collection and analysis of research data.

Full details for HD 7010 - Empirical Research

This course is for Master's students doing research for their Master's thesis.

Full details for HD 8990 - Master's Thesis and Research

This course is for Ph.D. students doing research for their doctoral thesis.

Full details for HD 9990 - Doctoral Thesis and Research