GENERAL INFORMATION

The Department of Psychology has three main functions: (a) to offer undergraduate and graduate programs in psychology; (b) to carry out research in psychology; (c) to offer courses to students of other departments to broaden their understanding of psychological phenomena.
The department offers a minor's program in psychology in addition to programs that lead to the degrees of B.S. in psychology, M.S. in developmental, clinical, industrial/organizational, and social psychology, and Ph.D. in Social, and Clinical Psychology. The undergraduate program is designed to acquaint students with a broad knowledge and basic skills in the main fields of psychology. For graduation, in addition to the required courses , the students need to take a minimum of 11 elective courses. Three of these electives must be from other departments.

The graduate program is designed to provide the students with advanced theoretical, emprical and methodological knowledge in specific fields of psychology and to give them opportunities to apply this knowledge into their specialization areas. Students equipped with the advanced knowledge and skills of their fields of specialization would be expected to either proceed for an academic career or to work in the field as practitioners or researchers.

Some of our students continue work towards a Ph.D. with the goal of becoming an academician. A number of them work in hospitals, counseling centers (e.g., health centers of universities), nursery schools and higher level schools, research institutions, or assume administrative and research positions at certain ministries (e.g., mental health section of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice) and TRT. They can also work at various advertisement firms, and other public and private organizations to develop assessment techniques for selection, placement and to coordinate human relationships public relations and human resources. Naturally, the level at which they will be employed and the nature of their responsibilities will tend to vary depending on their post-graduate qualifications and the requirements of the related institutions.

RESEARCH INTERESTS AND FACILITIES

Clinical Psychology: The role of social and cultural factors in the development; manifestation, diagnosis, and treatment of mental disorders; the social support provided to patients; the causal attributional dimensions for illness and other life events and their relationship with affective responses; subjective and objective burdens of the caretakers of schizophrenic patients and expressed emotion; psychological distress following natural disasters; the means by which emotions and cognitions are related; cognitive and eclectic approaches to psychotherapy; applied relaxation; mental retardation; information processing approaches in clinical psychology; cognitive restructuring; alleviating depressed mood among university students; family and marriage functioning evaluation and therapy as systems; divorce and remarriage dynamics and processes.

Cognitive Psychology: Depth and motion perception with special emphasis on the interrelationships between the two classes of phenomena; interest in imagery and activational processes; music perception and cognition.

Developmental Psychology: The role of cognitive factors in the causation of autism and genetics; diagnostic measures of autism and abnormal development; cognitive development in children and adolescents; language development; interpersonal relationships across the life span, problem behaviors in developmental perspective, methodology of ability tests and statistical techniques.

Industrial & Organizational Psychology: Work motivation and performance; attitudes toward productivity; job satisfaction; stress producing conditions at work; quantiative aspects of Industrial Organizational psychology.

Social Psychology: Interpersonal relationships; marriage and family; friendship; adult attachment; developmental social cognition; groups; psychology of gender; development of a psychological model of balanced differentiation-integration; social representations; values, attitudes and beliefs; social psychology of the elderly; assessment of home environments; person-environment transactions; assessment of traffic and driving related behaviors and attitudes; human response to uncontrollable events (hazards).
There are two research laboratories in the Department. One of these consist of rooms with one-way mirrors for conducting experiments and observations in various fields of psychology. Specific equipment available include, a video recorder with a T.V. set and a video camera, slide projectors, some well-known intelligence test kits and personality assessment equipment. In addition, various facilities of other institutions, such as hospitals, can be utilized upon permission. There is also communication sciences and perception laboratory in the department. The mission of this laboratory is to conduct research and clinical applications related to hearing, speech and communication problems at the level of the hearing and speech organs and the central nervous system, and perceptual and cognitive processes of hearing. The laboratory is equipped with sound proof booths, audiometer, immittancemeter, sound recording and signal processing apparatus.

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