The spring cycle of training courses from the ILSCR
The spring cycle of professional development courses organized by the International Laboratory for socio-cultural research completed. A course of lectures "Intercultural and Acculturation Psychology" read by John Berry, the author of the theory of acculturation, professor emeritus at Queen's University, Canada, continued from April 16 to 20. A series of seminars "The Psychology of Economics” led by researchers of the department of social psychology of Tilburg University, the Netherlands, Marcel Zeelenberg and Seger Breugelmans, continued from April 23 to 26.
A course "Intercultural and acculturation psychology" was devoted to the theory of acculturation and its applications. During the first three days, participants learned about the main issues of the cross-cultural and intercultural psychology and the theory of acculturation. There were covered such issues as the relationship between culture and human behavior, the methodology of comparative psychological research, the difference between cross-cultural and intercultural psychology, intercultural strategies, acculturation and multiculturalism. The last two meetings were devoted to empirical studies of acculturation, conducted by J. Berry et al. Also, students of master program "Applied Social Psychology" and other participants of the course were encouraged to make presentations on a variety of topics within the cross-cultural and intercultural psychology chosen according to their interests. Some of them presented the results of their own research.
The course “The Psychology of Economics” was taught on four consecutive days in three-hour meetings. In the meetings the core publications on the psychology of economics were discussed. Students were expected to have read the publications on beforehand and to actively participate in the meetings. The course consisted of four thematic blocks: 1. Economics and psychology; 2. Problems of choice; 3. Strategic interactions and fairness; 4. Methods and applications. The first meeting covered an introduction to relationship between psychology and economics, followed by a discussion of the most well-known example of a psychological alternative to utility models in economics, namely prospect theory by Nobel prize winners Kahneman and Tversky. The second meeting was devoted to discussion the first of the main domains where psychology and economics meet, namely in problems of choice, more specifically in problems of having too much choice. The third meeting was about the second of domains where psychology and economics meet, namely in problems of interdependent choice. The final meeting was devoted to discussion of the methodological issues involved in imputing psychological insights into economic reasoning and into solving practical and societal problems.
These training courses have aroused great interest not only among staff of the ILSCR and students of the Master program “Applied social psychology”, but also among colleagues from the department of psychology and from other departments of HSE.
Olga Pavlenko