Lecture Description

This class is an introduction to the evolutionary analysis of human emotions, how they work, why they exist, and what they communicate. In particular, this lecture discusses three interesting case studies, that of happiness (e.g., smiling), fear and the emotions we feel towards our relatives. Finally, this lecture ends with a brief discussion of babies' emotional responses to their caregivers.

Course Description

What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why can't we tickle ourselves? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, religion, persuasion, love, lust, hunger, art, fiction, and dreams. We will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury.

Lectures

1. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part I
2. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part II
3. What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought
4. A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part II
5. Foundations: Skinner
6. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Evolution and Rationality
7. A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part I
8. Sigmund Freud
9. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Professor Peter Salovey)
10. A Person in the World of People: Morality
11. Foundations: This is Your Brain
12. Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Vision and Memory (cont.)
13. Psychology, Sex, and Evolution
14. The Good Life: Happiness
15. Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Language (cont.); Vision and Memory
16. Why Are People Different?: Differences
17. What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part II
18. How Do We Communicate?: Language in the Brain, Mouth and the Hands
19. Introduction to Psychology