Hello and welcome to my Psychology Department website! Let me tell you a little about myself. I
graduated in 2000 with a PhD in Social Psychology from Memorial University. For the next five years, I worked as a behaviour therapist, supporting individuals with a developmental delay. In August of 2004, I joined the Department of Psychology at St. Thomas where I am now teaching Introduction to Statistics and Research Methods, as well as Introductory Psychology, Advanced Research, and Health Psychology. While at St. Thomas, I have also taught Social Thinking, Group Processes, Principles of Learning, as well as the Seminar in Behaviour Psychology, and will be teaching Behaviour Modification in the 2007 Winter term. I have also supervised a number of students in the Honours Program. My research passions are in the areas of stress, personality, health behaviours, health, and behavioural assessement. Feel free to drop me a line should you have any questions about St. Thomas, psychology, or feedback about anything on this page; simply click on any of the e-mail links. DK
Educational Background:
• 2004: Teaching and Training of Adults Certificate, Georgian College, Barrie, ON
• 2004: Ontario Management Development Program, Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities, ON
• 2000: PhD (Experimental Social Psychology), Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NF
• 1998: Behaviour Science Technology Diploma (Behaviour Modification), St. Lawrence College, Kingston, ON
• 1991: MSc (Experimental Social Psychology), Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NF
• 1988: BA (Honours: Psychology), Brock University, St. Catharines, ON
• 1984: Law and Security Administration Diploma, Georgian College, Barrie, ON
Teaching Interests:
• Social Psychology
• Health Psychology
• Community Psychology
• Environmental Psychology
• Behaviour Modification / Principles of Learning
• Seminar in Behavioural Psychology
• Statistics
• Research Methods
Research Interests:
• Stress, Personality, and Health
• Health Behaviours
• Health Practitioner - Patient Relationship
• Complementary / Alternative Health Care Services
• Behaviour Modification and Consultation
• Structural Equation Modelling
• Teaching
• Attribution Theory
Publication Highlights:
• Korotkov, D. (1993). An assessment of the (short-form) sense of coherence personality measure:
Issues of validity and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 14(4), 575-583.
• Korotkov, D., & Hannah, T.E. (1994). Extraversion and emotionality as proposed superordinate
stress moderators: A prospective analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 16(5), 787-792.
• Korotkov, D. (1998). The sense of coherence: Making sense out of chaos. In P.T.P. Wong & P.S. Fry (Eds.),
The human quest for meaning: A handbook of psychological research and clinical applications. Hillsdale,
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
• Korotkov, D., & Hannah, T.E. (2004). The five-factor model of personality: Strengths and limitations in
predicting health status, sick-role behaviour, and illness behaviour. Personality and Individual Differences,
36, 187-199.
Conference Highlights:
• Korotkov, D., & Moore, R. (2005, October). Qualitative data analytic software as a technology for evaluating
and comparing statements of teaching philosophy and other pedagogically related documents.
Poster presented at the Annual Association for Atlantic Universities (AAU) Teaching Showcase,
Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada.
• Korotkov, D., & Baker, K.A. (1996, August). The teaching of structural equation modelling: A metacognitive
approach. Poster presented at the XXVI International Congress of Psychology, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
• Korotkov, D., & Belicki, K. (1989, July). The relationship between humour, nightmare distrubance, and other
dream phenomena. Poster presented at the Sixth Annual International Conference of the Association for the
Study of Dreams, London, England.
• Korotkov, D., & Douglas, J. (2003, November). Social psychology and behaviour consultation: Consultation
as persuasion. Poster presented at the 11th Annual Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis Conference,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Korotkov, D., Hannah, T.E., & Baker, K.A. (1995, June). Modelling the causal processes among personality,
stress, health, and physician utilization. Poster presented at the Annual Convention of the Canadian
Psychological Association, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
• Korotkov, D., & Kosmopoulos, J. (1999, November). Complexity in our data: Chaos theory and applications
to behaviour management. Poster presented at the 7th Annual Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Korotkov, D., Kozma, A., Lester, R., Murphy, C., & Baker, K.A. (1996, October). Reducing the burden:
Implementation of the Senior's Resource Centre's Caregiver Support Group. Poster presented at the Annual
Association on Gerontology, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
Webmaster and Correspondence: Dave Korotkov, PhD, BST, LASA, Department of Psychology, St. Thomas University,
Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada E3B 5G3
Last Website Update: April 17, 2006
Courses Taught:
• Introduction to Psychology (1013): This course will introduce a variety of topics within psychology.
Topics to be covered include research methods, history of psycyhology, brain and behaviour,
sensation and perception, learning, memory, and cognition.
• Introduction to Psychology (1023): This course will introcue a variety of topics within psychology.
Topics to be covered include research methods, developmental psychology, intelligence and
creativity, personality, abnormal behaviour and therapy, social psychology, and applied topics.
• Social Thinking (2413): Social psychology is concerned with how our thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other individuals. This
course will review a variety of topics within social psychology that deal with social thinking. Topics to
be covered include social beliefs, explaining behaviour, behaviour and attitudes, prejudice,
culture/language/gender, social cognition, and attraction.
• Group Processes (2423): Social psychology is concerned with how our thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other individuals. This
course will review a variety of topics within social psychology that involve group processes.
Topics to be covered include group influence, conformity, persuasion, aggression, altruism, and
various applied topics.
• Principles of Learning (2213): This course will provide an introduction to the principles of learning
from behavioural, social-cognitive, and cognitive perspectives. In addition to the basic learning
paradigms, various conditioning phenomena such as reinforcement schedules, generalization,
discrimination, stimulus control, positive reinforcement, higher-order conditioning, spontaneous
recovery, and aversive control will be studied with reference to human and animal research.
Reference will also be made to learning in relation to motivation and attribution theory.
• Behaviour Modification (3213): A survey of the application of priniciples of respondent and
operant conditioning derived from laboratory and clinical settings. Behavioural and cognitive-
behavioural research on the use of these principles in various settings (e.g., home, schools,
institutions) will be discussed.
• Seminar in Behaviour Psychology (4243): This course will provide a detailed examination of the
assumptions, theory, and research in behavioural and cognitive-behavioural psychology. Psychology
4243 will examine in detail a variety of topics within behavioural psychology that includes, but is not
limited to, the growth of behavioural psychology, the behavioural model, and the process of
behavioural therapy. It will also explore various behavioural treatments including reinforcement and
behavioural deceleration therapies, token economies, exposure therapies, modelling therapy and
skills training, as well as cognitive restructuring and coping within the framework of cognitive-
behavioural therapy. While the seminar will primarily examine behaviourall psychology from a clinical
perspectdive, students will be encouraged to reflect on applications to their own lives (e.g., work,
sport, teaching), given the broad-based principles upon which behavioural psychology stands.
Student participation will be a critical component of this course.
• Introduction to Statistics (2013): This course focuses on statistics used by psychologists to
describe and analyze research data. Course content will include a comprehensive coverage of
descriptive statistics and an introduction to inferential statistics and hypothesis testing procedures.
• Introduction to Research Methods (2023): This course focuses on methods used by
psychologists to conduct research. Course content will include comprehensive coverage of the
scientific method, the logic of experimental design, ethics, and report writing. In addition, students will
be required to write research papers and may be asked to design and/or conduct their own research
projects.
• Advanced Research (3946): This course is designed to prepare students for writing an honour's
thesis and for overall participation in the honour's programme. The course will also be of benefit to
those planning on attending graduate school. The course will focus primairly on the written and
presentational aspects of a psychological research project, the peer review process, and on various
ethical considerations when conducting a study. Discussion of various experimental and
nonexperimental methods (e.g., surveys, single-case designs, experimental factorial designs) will be
embedded within the primary course content.
• Health Psychology (3233): Health psychology is concerned with health promotion and illness
prevention, assessment and diagnosis, treatment of physical disorders and disease, as well as
rehabilitation. This course will review a variety of topics within health psychology including stress,
coping and health, pain, chronic illness, the physician-patient relationship and health care, as well as
the impact of various health behaviours such as smoking, drinking, and exercise on health status.
• Honours Thesis (4996): The student will conduct an individual research project with guidance from
the Department. Some classes will be held to acquaint Honours candidates with problems in
research design.
