|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
First, recent research in Cognitive and Social Psychology has made clear that in order to understand what determines individuals’ feeling, thinking, and behaviour, one must first examine the fundamental processes underlying them and second investigate their contextual determinants. Thus, most of these fundamental psychological processes are based on cognition and perception in a social context. Whereas Cognitive Psychology investigates basic principles of perception, memory, learning, decision making, and problem solving, Social Psychology, and especially the discipline of social cognition, investigates how these principles can explain more complex behaviours such as interactions between people, person perception, social influence, prejudice and discrimination, and pro and antisocial behaviour. Furthermore, in order to understand how people behave, it is important to develop and understand theories of human functioning whose predictions can then be tested in the laboratory or the field. Thus, two major cornerstones of our education are classic and recent theory development and methods in experimental research. Moreover, the usefulness of wider integration between different levels of organization of behaviour has been underlined. Thus, courses dealing with the core elements of Social and Cognitive Psychology are complemented by others that outline how culture, and processes such as emotion and motivation determine cognitive processes in their social context.
Second, since Social and Cognitive Psychology examine the psychological functioning of the individual, a more transdisciplinary approach is valuable in order to predict behaviour of bigger entities, such as groups, the work place, nations, and cultures. Examination of ethnic conflicts, educational issues, or welfare - to give just some examples for societal variables that directly affect people’s behaviour and well being - clearly enriches our understanding of how the individual behaves. Thus, human behaviour can not clearly be understood without drawing intellectual resources of various disciplines such as Political Science, Sociology, Mass Communication and History. Jacobs University offers such courses as electives in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Third, Psychology is the science of the mind and new developments in Neurophysiology and Neurobiology let hope that we can eventually reach a state at which we may relate the understanding of the mind to the physiological organ it is based on, namely the brain. While the goal of understanding how the nervous system relates to behaviour is most advanced in research on sensation psychological science is not yet in a position to provide a physiological explanation of more complex behaviour, yet, it seems possible that one can deduce what some of the relevant principles might be. Indeed, Cognitive Psychology has become an interface between the behavioural sciences and the neurosciences. The obvious advantage for Jacobs University students is that these fields are represented in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Science and Engineering. Professors from both fields work in close cooperation both on the level of course content and on research topics allowing students to focus more on the behavioural or on the neuroscience aspects.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
