Dates
| weekly | Tuesday | 14:15 - 15:45 | 12.10.2026 - 29.01.2027 | C 11.307 Seminarraum |
Curriculum context
Short Essay / Reading Assignments (50%)
Resit date: No resit date will be offered to this assessment, because it is didactically inseparably connected with one of the associated courses. A resit will only be possible, if the module is available again.
Organizational information
Registration
Registration ends on 12.10.2026 at 23:59.
Persons
Content
This seminar will focus on ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
The ecological approach to perception, action, and cognition was pioneered by James and Eleanor Gibson in the second half of the 20th century and has established itself as an alternative to computational approaches in cognitive psychology and the cognitive sciences more broadly. The key assumption of the ecological approach is to take the organism-environment system as the relevant unit of analysis to study the continuity of perception, action, and cognition.
This seminar will introduce the theoretical foundations of ecological psychology, cover some of its research methods, and engage with seminal empirical papers. Students are expected to present one research article and to write a critical review on another article.
Please note that ecological psychology is different from environmental psychology. This course adopts an ecological lens on topics from cognitive / general psychology.
Textbooks:
- Blau, J. J. C., & Wagman, J. B. (2023). Introduction to Ecological Psychology. A Lawful Approach to Perceiving, Acting, and Cognizing. Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003145691
- Nonaka, T., Segundo-Ortin, M., Romero, V., & Wagman, J. B. (Eds.). (2026). The Routledge International Handbook of Ecological Psychology. Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003529453
- Segundo-Ortin, M., & Raja, V. (2024). Ecological Psychology. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009451413
Evaluation
Further information on teaching evaluation: https://www.leuphana.de/en/teaching/quality-management/evaluation/course-evaluation.html