Social and Developmental Psychology - PSYC2061

Two strands: 1. Social - The basic principles of research and theory in social psychology, with a special emphasis on understanding how people relate to each other. Issues such as the nature of human sociability, the perception and interpretation of social behaviour, ambiguities of interpretation of interpersonal behaviour, verbal and nonverbal communication processes, impression formation and impression management and related topics will be covered. 2. Developmental - The age at which certain abilities or dispositions develop or are learned, and the processes by which developmental changes occur. Issues such as nature and nurture, continuity vs discontinuity, nomothetic vs ideographic approaches and the methods and ethics of developmental research will be covered from various perspectives - psychodynamic, biological/ethological, environmental/learning, and cognitive - developmental.