PSY 227: Drugs and Behavior
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Course
Goals

 Since the earliest recorded writings of human beings, there is evidence of psychoactive drug use. Every major culture and every major religion has a history of drug use as part of it. The goal of this course is to introduce you to the topic of psychopharmacology--the study of the effects of drugs on the nervous system and on behavior. This course is intended as an introduction to the study of drug use, abuse, and addiction, with a focus on recreationally used drugs. To accomplish this introduction, we will take a variety of approaches, from the molecular level of reviewing neurochemical methods of drug action, to the more molar level of considering the consequences of drug use for society Specifically, I hope to help you, the student, become an educated consumer of information about psychoactive substances.

Some minimal background in biology or psychobiology is expected in this course. Specifically, prerequisites for the course include some college-level biology and/or PSY 198: Brain, Mind, and Behavior. Critical approaches to published information are encouraged, and class discussion is expected. Lecture, readings, demonstrations, experiments, and media presentations in class will form the basis of the tests. Students are responsible for all assignments, handouts, and lecture/media materials.

The course meets the college Natural Science General Education requirement. A natural science course "develops skills in empirical observation and experimentation, careful theorizing, and inductive and deductive reasoning" (Wheaton College 1992-1993 Catalog, p.25). And those are among the skills that we will work on in this course.

These skills will be achieved through a combination of lectures, videos, readings, and classroom and out-of-the classroom demonstrations and experiments. Specifically, if you make satisfactory progress in this course, you will:

  • have a working understanding of how drugs affect the brain
  • have a better understanding of the history, effects, and method of action of commonly used psychoactive drugs
  • understand how social and cultural factors influence how we think about psychoactive drugs
  • have a better understanding of relationships between biology and behavior

Generic Goals

As a 200-level science course in a liberal arts college, this course also has some generic goals (goals that you should strive to meet as part of your overall education here at Wheaton). Those goals are as follows:
  • IMPROVING YOUR COMPUTER LITERACY. You are now living in the 21st century--the age of technology. That means that you need to be computer-literate: to know how to use a word processor, a spreadsheet, electronic mail. One of my objectives in this course is to help you to become familiar with computer technologies, so that you are ready for the new century! Improving your computer literacy is one of the goals of Morgan's PSY 227. Thus you will be asked to subscribe to a class email list, to check your mail regularly, to use the class Blackboard site as a resource, to post assignments using electronic mail or an in-class data entry system, to collect and analyze data using a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) and to write up the results of your studies using a word processing program (Microsoft Word).

    For this course, you MUST subscribe to the class listserv. The listserv will be used to post announcements, study guides,news, and other information relevant to this course. All information posted to the list is considered valid class material for use in exams and quizzes. You can also use the list to have discussions about topics we cover in class, to ask questions of your classmates, instructor, or to form study groups.

    You can subscribe to the class listserv now by clicking on this link.. Leave the subject heading and the body of your message blank.

    Then send the message. You should get a confirmation message back from the listserv (a listserv is a computer, by the way--not a person!), to which you MUST reply in order to be subscribed to the list. Follow the instructions provided by the listserver in order to be subscribed to the list. Once subscribed, you need to check your email at least once a day, to look for announcements, study guides, or other course information. REMEMBER: Material posted to the list is fair game for testing.

  • IMPROVING YOUR CRITICAL THINKING. As a college graduate, you will be expected to be a good thinker. Yet rarely in any of your college courses will you be explicitly offered some help on how to think. Contrary to what you may believe, good thinking doesn't come naturally! It isn't all in your genes--it has to be learned. Good thinking is essential for you to be an effective citizen of this planet, and especially for you to be an informed consumer of information in the era of hypermedia (and hype!) An understanding of the nature of science is also necessary in our technology-rich society. A second set of goals for this course, then, includes improving your critical reasoning, introducing you to the epistemology* of science, and teaching you to be more objective in your considerations of life around you.

  • IMPROVING YOUR CAREER-RELATED SKILLSETS. I go to LOTS of conferences, all over the country. At them, I often meet people in business who hire graduates with Bachelor's degrees from places like Wheaton. I'm always very interested in talking to these people (from companies like Exxon, GTE, Microsoft, IBM, General Motors, the Educational Testing Service, etc.) because I want to be sure that (in addition to the best liberal arts education money can buy) my students have the best shot at obtaining jobs with these powerful employers. What is most amazing to me is that time after time, no matter WHO I am talking to, or what kind of company they represent, they always ask for the same 4 things. Yep--that is right. They don't seem to care what your major is, or what your GPA might be. But they DO care about these 4 things. Over and over, they tell me that what they want in a potential employee is someone who:

    • Can solve problems

    • Can work effectively and collaboratively with others

    • Can communicate well both in writing and orally

    • Has learned how to learn, in such a way that he or she is not afraid of learning new things, and can do so relatively rapidly.

    The third goal of the course is to improve your job prospects for life after Wheaton, by improving your skills in those areas indicated by potential employers as most desirable.

 
*epistemology is the study of knowledge, or the way in which one knows something                                                                                                          (back)

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