Professor Bloom provides an introduction to psychological theories of morality. Students will learn how research in psychology has helped answer some of the most central questions about human morality. For instance, which emotions are “moral” and why did these moral feelings evolve? What factors guide our moral judgments? And what factors predict when good people will do bad things?
This lecture covers the reasons people eat what they do, the benefits and disadvantages of modern food and agriculture approaches, and what might be done to improve diet in the U.S. and around the world. Several areas of emphasis are economic factors that drive food choices, how biology intersects with food marketing practices, and how the food industry figures in this picture. Novel approaches to changing nutrition through legislation and legal approaches is a key area of focus.
This lecture reviews what evolutionary theories and recent studies in psychology can tell us about sex and gender differences. Students will hear how psychology can help explain many of the differences that exist in whom we find attractive, what we desire in a mate, and sexual orientation.
Why are people different from one another? This lecture addresses this question by reviewing the latest theories and research in psychology on two traits in particular: personality and intelligence. Students will hear about how these traits are measured, why they may differ across individuals and groups, and whether they are influenced at all by one’s genes, parents or environment.
This lecture provided an overview of brain function, using the specific example of how people recognize and discriminate faces. In addition to a basic summary of neuronal function and brain organization, we discussed the different methods that scientists use to elucidate brain function. These methods include psychophysics, single-cell electrophysiology, functional brain imaging, and neuropsychology. Using these methods, scientists have discovered that the brain contains special mechanisms dedicated to face processing. Damage to these brain regions causes face blindness.
The midterm was administered in class.
Professor Bloom continues the discussion of emotions as useful evolutionary adaptations for dealing with our social environment. In particular, this lecture describes evolutionary explanations for several important emotional responses, such as the love between parents and their offspring, the gratitude we feel towards cooperative behaviors, the spite we feel for cheaters, and the cultural differences in feelings of revenge.
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.
This lecture introduces students to the study of psychology from an evolutionary perspective, the idea that like the body, natural selection has shaped the development of the human mind. Prominent arguments for and against the theory of natural selection and its relationship to human psychology are reviewed. Students will hear several examples of how studying mental phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective can help constrain theories in psychology as well as explain many prevalent human instincts that underlie many of our most basic behaviors and decisions.
Guest lecturer Peter Salovey, Professor of Psychology and Provost of Yale University, introduces students to the dominant psychological theories of love and attraction. Specific topics include the different types of love, the circumstances that predict attraction, and the situations where people mistakenly attribute arousal for love.
