Foundations of Psychological Science

We will set the stage for understanding modern psychology by going through the history of the study of humans from Malthus to Darwin to James, Freud, Wundt, Skinner, and the Cognitive Revolution.

Aims

• To make students aware of the roots of psychology in Western culture and other societies

• To discuss some of key figures and historic events and historic context relevant to psychology and the broader study of humans and

human evolution

• To introduce some of the major approaches taken to studying humans and human psychology

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

1. Recognize the relationship between key figures and key approaches, their historic order and the broader context of their development pre-20th century.

2. Recall the key figures and key approaches to the psychological sciences in the 20th century, including introspection and psychoanalysis, behaviourism, and the cognitive revolution.

Core Readings

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 15, pp. 594-602, Chapter 4, pp. 101-126, 136-145).

2. Henrich, J (2016) Secret of our Success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species and making us smarter PUP, Oxford. (Chapter 17)

Further Readings

1. Laland & Brown (2011), Sense and nonsense: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour OUP, New York (Chapter 2: A history of evolution and human behaviour)

2. If you are interested in the roots of homo economicus or "economic man", Joseph Perksy has a short intro:

   Persky, J. (1995) Retrospectives: the ethology of homo economicus. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(2), 221–231.

3. Asch, S.E. (1987) Social Psychology. OUP, Oxford. (Chapter 8)

We will focus on genetics and the fundamentals of evolutionary theory. Towards the end, we'll briefly touch on cultural evolution, but we'll dive into this in more detail in the following week when we introduce social learning.

Aim

• To introduce students to some basics of genetics and evolutionary biology

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

1. Define key concepts in genetics

2. Recall necessary conditions for an evolutionary system

3. Recall key forces and evidence for evolution

4. Define key concepts in evolutionary biology

Essential Readings

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 3)

2. Henrich, J (2016) Secret of our Success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species and making us smarter PUP, Oxford. (Chapter 4)

3. Mesoudi, A. (2015). Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies. Evolutionary Biology

Further Readings

1. Kim, H. S., Sherman, D. K., Sasaki, J. Y., Xu, J., Chu, T. Q., Ryu, C., et al. (2010). Culture, distress, and oxytocin receptor polymorphism (OXTR) interact to influence emotional support seeking. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(36), 15717–15721.

2. Matthews, L. J., & Butler, P. M. (2011). Novelty‐seeking DRD4 polymorphisms are associated with human migration distance out‐of‐Africa after controlling for neutral population gene structure. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 145(3), 382-389.

We will build on previous topic to introduce cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution. At the core of cultural evolution is social learning - acquiring information from your peers and the generations before you - so we'll naturally also be discussing the psychology of social learning.

Aim

• To introduce the psychology of social learning, including its evolutionary history and relationship to culture.

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and. coursework, you should be able to:

1. Identify differences between types of social learning.

2. Describe examples of social learning in everyday life.

3. Explain the relationship between different cues of social learning with examples.

Essential Readings

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 10)

2. Henrich, J (2016) Secret of our Success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species and making us smarter PUP, Oxford. (Chapter 5-7)

3. Mesoudi, Alex. (2009). How cultural evolutionary theory can inform social psychology and vice versa. Psychological Review, (4)

This topic will introduce basic perception and neuroanatomy. There’s way too much to cover in one lecture, so you must make sure you read the details in your textbook. The goal of the lecture is to give you a theoretical framework for thinking about how the brain is laid out and how perception operates with a focus on what's most relevant to the social world (and the social sciences). If you look at the course layout from Lecture 1, you'll see that last week we finished laying the theoretical, historical, and philosophical foundation to this course and this week we begin the "Inside the brain: Individual Cognition" part of the course. We gradually expand outward until we get to the next section on "The person with people: Individual in Society".

Aim

• To introduce the basics of perception and related neuroanatomy, as well as ontogenetic brain development.

Learning objectives

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

1. Identify the major anatomical and functional areas of the brain

2. Recall some of the main neuroscience techniques for studying the brain

3. Describe examples of brain plasticity

4. Describe the process of brain development over the lifespan.

Essential Readings

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 5; 6 pp. 220-223.; 7; pp. 269-279; 8 pp. 281-296)

2. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010) The Weirdest people in the world, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, including Discussions (Read up the comments (pp 61-83).

Further Readings

1. Greenfield, P. M., Maynard, A. E., & Childs, C. P. (2003). Historical change, cultural learning, and cognitive representation in Zinacantec Maya children. Cognitive Development, 18(4), 455–487.

2. Majid, A., & Kruspe, N. (2018). Hunter-gatherer olfaction is special. Current Biology, 28(3), 409-413.

3. Majid, A., & Burenhult, N. (2014). Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language. Cognition, 130(2), 266-270.

4. (For those interested in the difference between human and chimp brains) Herculano-Houzel, S. (2009). The human brain in numbers: A linearly scaled-up primate brain Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9 November 2009, Volume 3.

We will continue our brief introduction to neuroscience, focusing on cognitive processes. As in last week, there's way too much to cover in one lecture, so you must make sure you read the details in your textbook. And once again, the goal of the lecture is to give you a theoretical framework for thinking about cognition with a focus on what's most relevant to the social world (and the social sciences).

Aim

• To introduce the basics of cognitive processes and related neuroanatomy

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

1. Describe how memory and attention take input and are stored

2. Recall examples that illustrate different aspects of memory, attention, and other cognitive processes

3. Describe how the psychology of cognitive processes might inform your learning and study processes

Essential Reading

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapters 9 and 7)

2. Henrich, J (2016) Secret of our Success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species and making us smarter PUP, Oxford. (Chapter 16)

3. Henrich, J., Heine, S.J. and Norenzayan, A. (2010) Beyond WEIRD: Towards a broad-based behavioural science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010, Vol.33(2-3)

Further Reading

1. Inoue, S. & Matsuzawa, T. (2007) Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees, Current Biology 17 (23).

2. Nyberg, L., Sandblom, J., Jones, S., Stigsdotter Neely, A., Magnus Petersson, K., Ingvar, M. and Bäckman, L. (2003) Neural Correlates of Training-Related Memory Improvement in Adulthood and Aging, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100 (23)

3. Fontanari, L., Gonzalez, M., Vallortigara, G., & Girotto, V. (2014). Probabilistic cognition in two indigenous Mayan groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(48), 17075-17080.

4. Gordon, P. (2004). Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science, 306(5695), 496-499.

5. Dehaene, S., Izard, V., Spelke, E., & Pica, P. (2008). Log or linear? Distinct intuitions of the number scale in Western and Amazonian indigene cultures. Science, 320(5880), 1217-1220.

6. Beller, S., & Bender, A. (2008). The limits of counting: Numerical cognition between evolution and culture. Science, 319(5860), 213-215.

This lecture will introduce language. We'll discuss the evolution of the capacity for language, language acquisition, and variation in languages across the globe (and the evolution of languages themselves). We'll also discuss how languages shape our thinking.

Aims

• To introduce the evolution of language, comparative psychology of language, and introductory neuroscience of language processing

• To introduce the history and theories of language acquisition and the stages of language acquisition of ontogeny

• To introduce the evolution of language over history and its relationship to cognitive processes

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

• Recall theories for the evolution of language and differences between language in humans and other primates

• Recall key brain areas associated with language processing

• Discuss the differences between theories of language acquisition

• Discuss ontogeny of language acquisition, with key evidence

• Recall changes in language over history and their relationship to cognitive processes with evidence

Essential Reading

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 11)

2. Henrich, J (2016) Secret of our Success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species and making us smarter PUP, Oxford. (Chapter 13)

Further Reading

For those interested in the relationship between language and climate, a good starting point is:

1. Everett, C., Blasi, D. E., & Roberts, S. G. (2015). Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Pages 1–6.

2. Amici, F., Sánchez-Amaro, A., Sebastián-Enesco, C., Cacchione, T., Allritz, M., Salazar-Bonet, J., & Rossano, F. (2019). The word order of languages predicts native speakers' working memory. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1124.

3. Goldin-Meadow, S., So, W. C., Özyürek, A., & Mylander, C. (2008). The natural order of events: How speakers of different languages represent events nonverbally. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(27), 9163-9168.

4. Majid, A., Bowerman, M., Kita, S., Haun, D. B., & Levinson, S. C. (2004). Can language restructure cognition? The case for space. Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(3), 108-114

We'll discuss the history of intelligence testing, what IQ tests predict, differences over time and populations, and different contributors to intelligence.

Aims

• To introduce the history of intelligence testing

• To introduce different models of IQ and IQ testing, evidence, and puzzles

• To introduce psychology of human rationality and key economic games used to test rational assumptions

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

• Recall key developments in intelligence testing and differences between IQ tests

• Recall key facts about IQ and describe IQ

• Describe differences between economic tests of rational behaviour, including cross-cultural and comparative psychological evidence on these

Essential Reading

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 10)

2. Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Intelligence: New findings and theoretical developments. American Psychologist, 67(2), 130–159.

3. Henrich, J., Muthukrishna, M. (2016) Innovation in the collective brain. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 19 March 2016, Vol.371(1690)

Further Reading

1. Ritchie, S. J., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? A meta-analysis. Psychological science, 29(8), 1358-1369.

2. Plomin, R., & von Stumm, S. (2018). The new genetics of intelligence. Nature Reviews Genetics, 19(3), 148.

3. Hatano, G., Miyake, Y., & Binks, M. G. (1977). Performance of expert abacus operators. Cognition, 5(1), 47-55.

4. Hatano, G., & Osawa, K. (1983). Digit memory of grand experts in abacus-derived mental calculation. Cognition, 15(1-3), 95-110

We'll begin by discussing the evolution of the brain and the specific capacities of our species. I'll introduce the “Cultural Brain Hypothesis” as a way to introduce some of the key ideas. Then I'll discuss the differences we find within the species, in terms of personality and mental disorders.

Aim

• To introduce the psychology of emotions, their comparative homologues, major theories, and cross-cultural variation.

Learning outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and reading the appropriate references from the reading list, students should be able to:

• Define key concepts in personality, including state vs trait, and dimensions of personality

• Recall other key individual differences

• Define common psychopathologies and their cross-cultural differences

Essential Reading

Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16: pp. 625-639; 642-655).

Further Reading

1. Luhrmann, T. M., Padmavati, R., Tharoor, H., & Osei, A. (2015). Differences in voice-hearing experiences of people with psychosis in the USA, India and Ghana: interview-based study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 206(1), 41–44.

2. Muthukrishna, M., Doebeli, M., Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2018) “The Cultural Brain Hypothesis”. PLOS Computational Biology.

3. Smaldino PE ; Lukaszewski A ; von Rueden C ; Gurven M (2019) Niche diversity can explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure. Nature Human Behaviour

4. Swann, W.B., & Seyle, C. (2005) Personality Psychology's Comeback and Its Emerging Symbiosis With Social Psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(2), 155–165.

5. Schwartz, S (2012) An Overview of the Schwarz Theory of Basic Values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1)

6. Hahn, A. & Gawronski, B (2015) Implicit Social Cognition in Wright, J.D. (Ed.) International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition) pp 714 - 720

What are emotions? How universal are they? We’ll look at proximate and ultimate theories of emotion, emotions in various contexts (including attraction) and attraction. Before the lecture, please complete the following survey to guess your political attitudes: http://chartsme.com

Aim

• To introduce the psychology of emotions, their comparative homologues, major theories, and cross-cultural variation.

Learning Outcomes

After attending this lecture, participating in the associated class, and completing the relevant reading and coursework, you should be able to:

• Define emotions and recall basic emotions, including homologues in other animals

• Explain differences between theories of emotions, and implications for emotions in everyday life

• Discuss drivers of cross-cultural differences in emotional expression and understanding

• Recall cues of attractiveness

Essential Reading

1. Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed.): New York: Worth Publishers (Chapter 3, pp. pp.79-86; Chapter 8, pp. 300-307; Chapter 5, pp. 151-165; 177-186 Chapter 13, pp. 527-531).

2. Rand, D.G., Greene, J.D., and Nowak, M.A. (2012). Spontaneous giving and calculated greed. Nature 489, 427–430 (skip the Supplementary Information)

Further Reading

1. Gendron, M., Roberson, D., van der Vyver, J. M., & Barrett, L. F. (2014). Perceptions of emotion from facial expressions are not culturally universal: Evidence from a remote culture. Emotion, 14(2), 251-262

2. Gendron, M., Roberson, D., van der Vyver, J. M., & Barrett, L. F. (2014). Cultural relativity in perceiving emotion from vocalizations. Psychological science, 25(4), 911-920.

3. Tsai, J. L. (2007). Ideal affect: Cultural causes and behavioral consequences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(3), 242-259.

4. Park, B., Genevsky, A., Knutson, B., & Tsai, J. (2019). Culturally valued facial expressions enhance loan request success. Emotion.