Psychology MA without Thesis

Application Requirements​

Applicants are expected to be graduated from an undergraduate program. Students, who are still studying and are expected to graduate before the Fall Term, can also apply.

  •  Official Transcripts: Minimum GPA of 3,30/4,00 
  • Applicant should have taken at least one course from each group listed below with a “B” or equivalent grade.

Group 1: Introduction to Psychology, Recent Topics in Psychology
Group 2: Statistics, Research Methods
Group 3: Social, Developmental, Cognitive, Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

  • English Proficiency: TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language): IBT min.80, YÖKDİL (min. 80) or YDS (min. 80) 
  • ALES (Akademik Personel ve Lisansüstü Eğitimi Giriş Sınavı): Min. 70 (Equally Weighted)
  • GRE (Graduate Record Examination; For International Applicants): Min.153 from Quantitative
  •  2 letters of recommendation.

After application, all applications are evaluated by the committee and ranked within their ALES/GRE scores, recommendation letters etc. If needed, interviews are held by the committee.

MA in Psychology Non-Thesis Program is a one-year program consisting of 10 courses (30 credits) and a Project. Project Course is non-credit and evaluated as Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory.

Students should take at least 3 courses from 2 course-groups and for to complete the course load, they should take courses from other groups of elective course list.

Psyc 590 and PSYC 594 are non-credit, required courses. 

Required Courses:

PSYC 590 (Research Seminar – non-credit)
PSYC 594 – Project (non-credit)

At least 3 courses from 2 of the groups of courses listed below. 

Group 1

PSYC 501 Research Methods I
Review of descriptive statistics and basic research methodology. Experimental methods and research design including one-way analyses,factorial designs, repeated measures, analysis of covariance, and the analyses of main effects, simple effects and interaction comparisons.

PSYC 630 Research Practicum
Students are familiarized with problems that are frequently encountered during different phases of empirical research. Subsequently, students are guided through problem solving in an ongoing research project. Students gain experience in documentation, resolution, and the implementation of the solutions of problems in empirical research. Prerequisite: PSYC 501

PSYC 552 Selected Topics in Psychology
Detailed examination current topics in psychology.

PSYC 580 (Selected Topics in Psychology II)
Detailed examination current topics in psychology.

PSYC 504 Testing and Measurement
A review of basics of psychological measurement; all steps of the process of assessment development; different methods of psychological assessment such as observational, self-administered, and interview techniques; and, ways of integrating information from multiple assessment methods are discussed. Students work with applications and discuss greater cultural, ethical, and societal context of psychological measurement.

PSYC 552 Philosophy of Science 
Introduces philosophy of science covering the essential works on central topics, such as the demarcation of science from non-science, the nature of scientific evidence, inference, and confirmation, theory change, and the growth of scientific knowledge. Requires reading and discussing works by Karl Popper, Pierre Duhem, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos. Focuses on philosophy of social sciences and the relationships between philosophy of science and social science. Emphasis is on the philosophy of the theoretical and methodological practices of these disciplines. 

PSYC 608 Readings and Research in Autobiographical Memory
The history of autobiographical memory theoretical approaches, examination of literature, and participation in laboratory research.

PSYC 600 Advanced Research Seminar

Group 2

PSYC 505 Culture and Self
This is a required course for both Social Psychology and Developmental Psychology doctoral programs. The formation of the self and its interaction with social-psychological-cognitive processes are studied in socio-cultural context and from developmental, cultural, and cross-cultural perspectives.  The main topic of this course is the self, which has its antecedents in the beginnings of American psychology on the one hand, and in social psychological and sociological symbolic interactionism on the other hand. It is emphasized that self is the key to individual-society interface and is important for the theoretical advancement of both universal psychology and also for psychological applications directed at human well-being.

PSYC 524 Social Development
This course will examine the social aspects of development. Topics include parenting, peer relationships and friendship, attachment, empathy, aggression, emotional development, gender socialization, and adult social development.

PSYC 517 Advanced Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Theories, Methodologies and Practices. The course will focus on state-of-the-art theoretical and methodological approaches in IO Psychology. Most recent research and theories on some of the most important subjects of the field like “criteria definition”, scientific bases of personnel decisions and industrial development will be discussed. Also in order to encourage students to have research experience in these areas, they will be asked to conduct a research project.

PSYC 542 Advanced Social Psychology
This is in an entry level course that involves discussion of some of the central theories and models and examination of most recent approaches and research in the field of social psychology.  Another goal of this course is to provide the students with an overview of the methods and paradigms used by social psychologists.

PSYC 664 Social Cognition
This course involves an in-depth analysis of socio cognitive theories regarding how people make sense of other people, themselves, and social situations. Social cognition is an approach to studying. The course will cover selected topics including factors that affect information processing, the role of emotions and memory, errors and biases, and the development of self-concept. 

PSYC 565 Selected Current Topics in Social Psychology
The goal of this course is to survey some of the current topics that engage social psychologists nowadays. Social psychological approaches to issues regarding education, health, politics and consumption will be examined at different time periods. Students will develop projects on topics of interest. Prerequisite: Advanced Social Psychology

PSYC 520 Attitudes, Persuasion and Social Influence
This course will provide an overview of classic and recent research on attitudes and persuasion. Content will include broad coverage of the issues of major importance to attitude theory, but will focus on more recent issues and controversies that have captured the interest of researchers in the field. The class will cover topics such as structure and functions of attitudes, measurement, the role of memory, models of attitude change and persuasion, resistance, message design and evaluation. Students who take this course will become familiar with research methods and major issues in attitudes research and will have a better understanding of how individuals form, use, and maintain their evaluations. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to critique existing research and formulate new research ideas. Applications in the context of health, consumption, politics, and advertising will be covered throughout.

Group 3 

PSYC 524 Social Development
Social development in childhood; prosocial behavior, aggression, empathy, emotional and behavioral regulatory skills, examining how these skills and behaviors, individual and environmental factors affect development.

PSYC 521 Cognitive development
Theoretical and measurement approaches to children’s understanding of the physical and the mental world; assessment of intellectual development, language competence and communicative skills.

PSYC 525 Applied Developmental Psychology
This course will help develop the students’ understanding of how the science of human development may contribute to address individual, familial, social, political, and economic problems. It will address how human potential can be realized at an individual level and how societal resources can be created, mobilized, and utilized to facilitate the realization of human potential.

PSYC 509 Developmental Psychopathology
The field of developmental psychopathology seeks to describe and explain the etiological role of developmental processes in the formation of adaptive and maladaptive behavioral patterns in adulthood. To that end, the course readings emphasize the nature of cognitive, emotional, and motivational deficits that characterize disorders in adulthood and empirical research into their developmental roots in childhood and adolescence. In addition, an individual difference perspective is adopted to examine the risk and protective factors that predict the emergence of adaptive and maladaptive behavior patterns.

Group 4

PSYC 526 Cognitive Models and Theories
History of cognitive psychology, models and theories about basic cognitive processes and the relationship of these theoretical approaches to attention, memory, knowledge representation, information processing, and problem solving, different approaches and methods to conceptualization of human mind.

PSYC 508 Human Memory
Theories of memory, methods of studying memory processes, the relationship between memory and other processes and contemporary research in memory.

PSYC 527 Conditioning and Learning
This course involves a detailed study of major theories in the area of conditioning and learning. Topics covered include habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, stimulus control, aversive control, extinction, and motivation. In addition, the neural basis of these behavioral processes and the experimental paradigms are described in detail.

PSYC 561 / PSYC 461: Physiological Psychology  
Introduction to physiological psychology; overview of the physiological mechanisms that underlie psychological processes of sensation, motivation, learning, memory, and emotion. Other topics include neurological disorders, schizophrenia, affective disorders, anxiety disorders, and psychopharmacology.

PSYC 515 / PSYC 415 Neural Bases of Memory
An overview of the neural basis of memory. Covers topics in cutting edge research related to the cognitive neuroscience of human memory, including neural correlates of working memory, cognitive control of memory, long-term memory encoding, long-term memory retrieval, and the impact of aging on various memory processes.

PSYC 511 / PSYC 411 Cognitive Neuroscience 
An overview of the neural bases of cognition. Covers basic neuroanatomy, a description of the neuroscience methods, and a survey of fundamental topics such as neural basis of vision, executive function, learning and memory, attention, emotion, thinking and problem solving, and social cognition.

Elective Courses

PSYC 450 Selected Topics in Psychology
Detailed examination current topics in psychology.

SOCI 402 Sociology of Communication and Information
Examination of the sociology of the communicator, audience, content, effects, flow and diffusion research, and communication as a social process. The role of communication and information technology, relations between economics, technology, power and culture.

MKTG 661 Behavioral Seminar in Marketing I
This is a seminar course focusing on consumer behavior. The objective of this course is to provide an overview of research in consumer behavior, particularly in the areas of consumer information processing, memory, attitudes, affect, and motivation. The goal of this course is not only to introduce a body of literature but also to give a strong foundation in critical thinking in the behavioral area and to help students develop their own research interests.

MKTG 662 Behavioral Seminar in Marketing I
This is a seminar course focusing on consumer behavior and marketing strategy. Depending on student interests, the course will cover one or several of the following topics: marketing strategy, international marketing, and behavioral decision theory

CSHS 533: Science, Technology, and Society
Introduces students to the fundamental concepts and issues in the study of science and technology. The course employs a multidisciplinary point of view in the social sciences and humanities and focuses on the reciprocal ways in which science and technology shape society and the ways in which society shapes science and technology. The main questions we will ask will be philosophical (how to define science and technology?), sociological (how does science and technology interact with social categories, such as gender and race), historical (how does the historical development of science and technology inform them today? How do past debates matter?), and political (how does power matter in the practice of science and technology? How should science and technology be controlled democratically?).

CSHS 570 Gender Inequalities
Provides students with a background in the historical roots of gender inequalities in the society, the economic and ideological factors that contributed to the emergence of contemporary forms of gender inequalities. Establishes the micro and macro processes that contribute to the perpetuation of gender inequalities.  Surveys, evaluates and compares macro level policies and micro level interventions that have targeted remediation of gender inequalities.

CSHS 574 Crime and Deviance
Introduces students to social deviance, explores some of the most prominent and important sociological theories of deviance, and reviews the current research on deviance in contemporary society. Offers a comparative perspective on crime and deviance, distribution of power and structures of inequality in the conceptualizations of deviance, and cultural definitions of morality and deviant behavior.