PSYC 139. Seminar in Cognitive Development

How could babies born all over the world, with roughly the same basic capacities, grow up into adults who think about the world so differently? In this seminar, we will explore how children come to understand and reason about the world and themselves in it. For example, how do children learn and think about different categories of things-from natural kinds like plants and animals, to social groups like race and gender, to human-made artifacts like robots and iPads? We will focus on the role of children’s own direct experiences in shaping how they think, as well as the inferences they make about the social interactions they have with people around them in their daily lives.

This course may not be taken as pass/fail.
Prerequisite: PSYC 001 and PSYC 039. Developmental Psychology or permission of the instructor.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Eligible for COGS, ESCH.
Spring 2025. Foster-Hanson.
Spring 2026. Foster-Hanson.
Catalog chapter: Psychology
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/psychology

Access the class schedule to search for sections.