Welcome to Basic Principles of Psychology.  I hope that you will find this course enjoyable and beneficial.  So let me try to spell out what I hope you will gain from this course.  This course has a bit of a multiple personality disorder.  Don't worry we will define that disorder towards the end of the course.  However, this course does seem to have two identities (perhaps more): as a general degree requirement and as the introductory course to the psychology majors.  It also plays a role in the education department for those seeking certification, but that role is pretty similar to that of a GDR.  I want to talk about my objects for each of these roles so you can see where I am trying to head with this course.

First, this course is the first course in the social science sequence of Hanover's general degree requirements (IV.A.).  This is quite possibly the main reason most of you are here.  It is true that after the sequence most of you will not major in psychology.  So many of you will take at most one other psychology course so what should this course be about for you?  How can I make this time bearable, even useful for you?  Well, I think a basic knowledge of psychology and some of its principles is of value to any life.  You interact with people and knowing some of the ways we have tried to figure out what make ourselves and others tick is useful.  However, there is no way in 13 weeks that I can get you to understand in any deep manner the findings that psychology has uncovered.  Most situations that you come across will fall quickly outside of what we will cover in this course.  Thus, to enhance your time here I have some additional goals and I draw them from the purposes statement for Hanover College.  I am going to quote one paragraph (also one sentence):  "We seek to provide our students with training and experience that will enhance their skills in communications, in creative self-expression, in critical-reflection, in research, and in leadership."  It is my belief that every course should work towards as many of these goals as possible.  To understand how this course can contribute to these overall goals of your educations, remember that psychology is not a finished product.  It is an active field of inquiry.  What we think we know today is thought wrong tomorrow.  Science as reported in the press can often seem like we waver back and forth on issues.  That is because there is no such thing as a final statement of truth in science.  Just deeper levels of knowledge.  We seek truth, we do not have it.  Thus, I will work hard in this course to give you exercises and class experiences to help you see how we do inquiry in psychology.  To do inquiry requires research, communication, critical reflection, and even creative self-expression in a way.

Well, that was long winded.  The second identity of this course is as an introduction to the major.  There are several of you who will follow this route.  This course needs to serve as a foundation for your deeper explorations of the field of psychology as you proceed through the major.  Thus, the choice of content covered reflect many of the fundamental topics of the field.  We will also try to grapple with many of the significant and unanswered questions of psychology.  Thus, we will scatter broadly around the field to give some dimension to your appreciation of what psychology is inquiring about.  Fortunately, the goals above also fit for assisting in our investigation into psychology as a foundation for the major.