PSYC 250D TIP: Addictive Behaviors
This course provides an overview of the addictive behaviors as well as the processes and mechanisms that underlie addiction. Students will be introduced to the epidemiology and developmental course of addiction, risk factors and protective influences that act on the course of addiction, and adverse health consequences. Neuroscientific, genetic, and environmental underpinnings will be discussed. In studying the environmental underpinnings we will study the impact that public policy, laws, and economics have on addictions. We will also consider the present state of treatment: which treatments work, which do not, and those treatments having ambiguous effects. Lastly, we will discuss the emerging class of non-substance addictive behaviors including food, Internet/gaming, sexual compulsions, and pathological gambling.