Students and faculty in the Psychology Department are engaged in the pursuit of new knowledge about the nature of cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior. Our curriculum is designed to provide the information and skills needed to enable students to understand and join in on this quest for new knowledge. An extensive program of laboratory research provides the means for students and faculty to work together to explore interesting phenomena in cognition, culture, development, emotion, motivation, neuroscience, perception, personality, psychopathology, and social psychology. The concentration in neuroscience allows students to explore an interdisciplinary field combining the study of psychology and biology. More information on research in the various laboratories may be found on the department’s website, www.colby.edu/psychology.

  Students who major in psychology will graduate knowing how to ask good questions and how to find and communicate the answers to those questions. These skills are useful in any field of endeavor, especially for graduate study in psychology or other professional programs such as law or medicine and as general preparation for entry into business, educational, nonprofit, or governmental work settings.

Because Psychology 214 and 215 impart skills that are crucial for the required advanced work in collaborative research, students must maintain minimum grades of C in these courses in order to continue in the major. These courses should be taken in the sophomore year. All requirements for the major must be met in conventionally graded courses.

Faculty