9.00
Introduction to Psychology
Fall
2001
MIT
Instructor:
Steven Pinker
Peter de Florez Professor
MacVicar Faculty Fellow
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
NE20-413 (Three Cambridge Center,
above the Tech Coop in Kendall Square)
x3-8946
www.mit.edu/~pinker
Office Hours: I am always available to meet with 9.00 students,
and will schedule appointments on short notice.
Administrative Assistant:
Mario Corsetti
NE20-411, x3-5763, mario@psyche.mit.edu
Lectures:
Tuesday & Thursday 2:00-3:30, in 10-250.
Lecture attendance is mandatory. Lecture material will be covered
in the midterm and final exams.
Texts:
Psychology,
Third Edition. By Peter Gray. Available at the Tech Coop. Required.
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Much of the
lecture material that is not in Psychology may be found in this book. It is
therefore recommended. Available at the Tech Coop and at local bookstores.
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Recommended as
backup for the lectures on language. Selected chapters will be put on reserve.
Available at the Tech Coop and at local bookstores.
Web Page:
http://web.mit.edu/9.00/www/
The home page will contain the class handouts, lecture
transparencies, assignments, information about sections and exams, links to
relevant sites, etc.
It is maintained by Daniel Grodner (dgrodner@psyche.mit.edu)
Head Teaching Assistant:
Daniel Grodner
Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, NE20-437D
3-5774
dgrodner@psyche.mit.edu
Library Systems Consultants:
Sarah Wenzel, Reference Coordinator for Humanities,
swenzel@mit.edu
Angie Locknar, Reference Librarian, Science Library,
locknar@mit.edu
There will be one or more special sessions on how to use the
library. They are highly recommended.
There is a library web page for 9.00:
http://libraries.mit.edu/9.00
It can be accessed from the 9.00 web page.
Sections:
Section attendance is mandatory. Sections are one hour, between
the Tuesday and Thursday lectures.
During the first class, we will ask you to send us email listing
your top six choices of meeting times. You will hear back from us shortly about
which section you have been assigned to.
Requirements and Grading:
15% Midterm exam, based on Gray textbook and lectures.
25% Final exam, covering whole course, based on Gray textbook and
lectures.
10% Section participation (5% for an oral presentation; 5% for
attendance, participation, or short assignments, to be determined by the
section leader).
50% Papers (10% first paper, 10% revision and expansion of first
paper, 20% second paper, 10% paper previews and short assignments).
In past years, almost 25% of the students have earned an
"A," 45-50% have earned a "B," 20-25% have earned a
"C," and 7-10% have earned a "D" or an "F." Note that it is MIT policy not to
grade on a curve, so these percentages may change.
MIT Requirements fulfilled by the subject:
HASS-D subject.
Requirement of Course 9 major (Brain and Cognitive Sciences).
Prerequisite to several Course 9 subjects.
9.00 is not
a Communication-Intensive subject, and may not be used to satisfy the
new Communications Requirement. An application is pending for it to have that
designation next year
About the Subject:
Catalogue
Description: 9.00
is a first course in psychology: how we think, see, feel, learn, talk, act,
grow, fear, love, hate, lust, and find meaning. It raises many of the great
controversies of intellectual life:
nature and nurture, free will, consciousness, human differences, self
and society. It largely covers laboratory and field studies of behavior, with
relevant ideas from evolutionary biology, genetics, brain science, philosophy,
economics, sociology, and the arts.
Psychology
is the science of the mind. It is a science because it aims to explain the
greatest number of facts with the fewest number of assumptions, its hypotheses
are supposed to be falsifiable by empirical tests, and its theories are
lawfully connected to other sciences, particularly biology. But psychology is
also intimately connected to the social sciences, because social phenomena
arise when individual people perceive and react to one another. And it is
connected to the arts and humanities, because works of art and scholarship are
products of the human mind.
Psychology
is a vast discipline. It ranges from the gill-withdrawal reflex of the sea slug
to the thought processes that make people fight wars. Its methods range from
molecular biology to literary criticism. Students at other universities often
complain that an introductory course in psychology is a bewildering hodgepodge
of unconnected facts and theories. They are right, but it is unavoidable,
because that's what psychology is. I deal with this dilemma by giving you two
sources of information. The Gray textbook introduces you to the entire field of
psychology in all its wondrous variety (though with more of a biological slant
than most textbooks). My lectures, and the recommended reading from my books How the Mind Works (1997) and The
Language Instinct (1994) try to weave a coherent story about the mind. Of
course, it is my story, and it does not represent the view of all
psychologists. The plan is that the two information streams should give you the
best of both worlds. In addition, you will have the opportunity to pursue
topics of your choice in the term papers.
The Parts of
the Subject:
Lectures. You must attend all the lectures.
Anything mentioned in a lecture may be on the exams, including material that is not in any of the readings. If you
miss a lecture, it is your responsibility to find out what was covered. All the
lectures have handouts. They are intended to spare you from having to write
down every diagram and term mentioned in the lecture; they are not a substitute
for attending the lecture and taking notes.
Sections. Also mandatory. The main purpose of the
section is discussion. They give you the opportunity to ask questions and argue
the issues--many are controversial, and you will no doubt have opinions on
them--and to talk about material in the textbook. Ten percent of your grade
will come from section participation, half of which will come from an oral
presentation in which you present one side of a controversial issue in a debate
with your fellow students. In addition, your TA will get to know you in the
sections, will be your main contact with the subject, and will influence your
final grade and other decisions.
Textbook. Any material in the assigned passages
from the Gray textbook may be quizzed in the mid-term or final. Read the
assigned chapters every week, preferably before your section; don't save them
all for the night before the exam. It's more fun that way, and you'll remember
more.
Other
readings. The
recommended readings from How the
Mind Works and The Language Instinct are a backup to the
lectures, and will overlap with them, though not perfectly. They are not a
substitute for the lectures. Many sections of the recommended chapters will not
be covered in the lectures (or exams), and you won't know what they are if you
haven't been to the lectures. And many parts of the lectures will not be in any
of the readings. The readings will clarify major parts of the lectures; you are
not responsible for any material in them that was not mentioned in the
lectures.
Papers. Half your grade will be determined by the
writing assignments.
The first
paper will require you to research some topic in psychology that is directly
relevant to the humanities, arts, or
social sciences. Your topic must meet two requirements: there must be a
substantial body of empirical research on the topic (conforming to the
methodological standards of psychology, as outlined in Chapter 2 of Gray), and
it must be relevant to some issue in law, society, politics, the arts,
religion, philosophy, education, or related fields. Papers that
speculate or debate some issue without
discussing relevant research from scientific psychology, and papers that are
just reviews of the scientific literature, without discussing their larger
implications, are not suitable for this assignment.
You can flip
through the textbook, come up with a
topic that interests you, or talk to me
or your TA to find a suitable topic. The paper is due about four weeks into the
semester and should be about six to eight pages (1800-2400 words) long.
Possible topics include:
7
perception
and the reliability of eyewitness testimony in court
7
memory and
the reliability of recovered memories of sexual abuse
7
genetic
influences on behavior and their possible abuses in eugenics
7
the
effectiveness of psychotherapy, how it compares to drug treatments, and whether
it should be covered by health insurance
7
the source
of dreams and how their relevance to psychotherapy, religion, and/or literature
7
the
treatment of schizophrenia and its relevance, if any, to homelessness
7
the nature
of human rationality and its implications for social and political
decision-making (e.g., should nuclear power plants be built becaufears of their dangers are
exaggerated?);
7
the
psychology of language and its implications for the teaching of reading
7
language and
thought and its implications for reforming the language (e.g., eliminating
sexist terms)
7
brain
chemistry and its implications for drug policy (or for future drugs that might
improve mental functioning); the sources of homosexuality and its implications
for gay rights
7
the source
of male-female differences in some psychological ability and its implications
for gender-based affirmative action
7
the nature
of child development and its implications for programs directed at children
There are
countless other possibilities.
The second
assignment will require you to revise your first paper in light of comments
from the teaching assistant. Out in the world, the work spent revising a
product is more important to its final quality than the work spent on the first
version, and that is especially true of writing. It is due about a week after
you get feedback on the first paper and should be about eight to ten pages
(2400-3000 words). The grades for the two assignments are independent: you can
get a high grade for the first version and a low grade for the second, or vice
versa.
The third
assignment will ask you to explore a major controversy about some aspect of the
mind and try to resolve it. It is due the second to last week of class and
should be about twelve to fifteen pages (3600-4500 words).
In addition,
you will be asked to submit two or three short (one-page) assignments during
the semester. They may include requests for you to think about some issue, and
previews of what you plan to write for your major papers.
You will
receive detailed guidelines about the writing assignments, beginning next week.
It's not too early to examine the list of topics mentioned in the paragraph before
this one, or to start leafing through the textbook and readings, or to give
some thought to questions about the mind you find interesting, so that you can
choose a topic to pursue in your first paper.
Late paper
policy. Papers are
due at the beginning of section in the weeks listed below.
Mini-assignments
that are late will get a grade of zero. Papers that are late will be subject to
a late penalty of two points (about one letter grade) per day. A little
arithmetic will show that gettting a zero for a mini-assignment, or losing
points for a paper, will have a good chance of lowering your letter grade for
the course as a whole.
The late
penalty will be waived only in cases of sickness, conflicts, or other
emergencies, and only with a letter from the Office of the Dean of Students.
Arnold Henderson, Associate Dean of Students and Section Head of Counseling and
Support Services (5-106, 3-4861, hndrson@mit.edu)
ordinarily handles these requests.
Assistance
in Writing. 9.00
involves a lot of writing, and many students benefit from instruction in
writing skills. The Writing Center at MIT has engaged a tutor, Dr. Janice
Melvold, who is dedicated to helping students with their 9.00 papers. You are
encouraged to consult with her or with other experts at the Writing Center; the
quality of writing and organization in your papers can make a big difference to
your grade.
Exams. Both exams are closed-book. The mid-term
will cover the first half of the subject. It will be given during a class
period and will last about an hour and a quarter.
The final
exam will cover the entire subject. It will be given during the exam period and
will last three hours. The questions will be a mixture of multiple-choice,
short answer, and short essays, to be announced before the exam.