Welcome to PSYC100 at Queen’s University

Welcome to PSYC100 at Queen’s University!

We are thrilled to be moving to an Open Access textbook for this course. This means that students do not have to pay for this textbook (saving students an estimated $272,000 CAD each year in textbook fees for this class!), and that students have multiple options for the medium of access to best suit their needs (e.g., you can read this textbook from the website, you can download it as a PDF, you can use an e-reader, and more!). Importantly, Open Access also means that we’ve been able to adapt chapters written by leading experts across the world, customizing them for use in PSYC100 here at Queen’s.

This shift towards Open Access in PSYC100 has been a large project, with many collaborators. This course was updated with the support of the Queen’s University Department of Psychology, Queen’s University Arts and Science Online, Student Academic Success Services, faculty and staff from across campus, and our graduate and undergraduate student communities. We are excited to share this content with you, and are proud to be a part of your foundational learning in psychological science!

There is an important collaborative culture inherent in Open Access. Authors initially dedicated time and effort to write these chapters with the intention of them being freely shared and adapted by users to teach about evidence-based psychological science. We want to continue to grow this collaborative culture, including you in the process. Here is how we hope to do this:

• As you go through the content, if you notice substantive (not grammatical) errors such as broken links, etc., please report it to the technical forum in OnQ. If you give us your permission, we will add your name to this chapter as an undergraduate student at Queen’s who contributed to this shared resource.
• If you have “I wish I knew more about…” comments, or comments related to the content in PSYC100, please email PSYC100.coord@queensu.ca from your QueensU email account. Though we can’t address everything in this course, we will do our best to connect you with helpful information and will consider content edits in future iterations of this book.

A special thanks to two student contributors list: Megan Herrewynen and Stephanie Manuel. These two students were the undergraduate Departmental Student Council (DSC) co-presidents in the 2018-2019 academic year who provided student input on the move towards an Open Access textbook. The Psychology Department is fortunate to have an active DSC, and we thank you all for taking the time and effort to provide helpful feedback!

Psychology can be considered as the scientific study of brains and behaviours. This is an admittedly broad definition: in this course, you will have the opportunity to learn about just some of many ways that psychological science plays a role in our lives. Thank you for being with us as we begin to lay the foundation for further exploration into this discipline.

With best wishes,

Meghan Norris, PhD

Undergraduate Chair in Psychology

Thank You to our Queen’s University Student Contributors!

Shereen Anis

Suchnoor Dhillon

Shannon Gagnon

Melody Garas

Jason Herrington

Megan Herrewynen

Jessica Hewko

Pascale Leclerc

David Lu

Stephany Magee

Don Maguire

Stephanie Manuel

Cristiane Marques

Liam Murdock

Nasser Nayed

Amy Norris

Chloe Taunton

Bryn Thompson

Michelle VandenBerg

Yuyang Wang

Kelly Watson

Tianyi Zhao