Soc and Aff Neuroscience

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course will be aimed at understanding the nature of emotional and social experiences and behaviors in humans and non-human animals. We will begin by learning about the brain processes that underlie basic emotional processes. This will provide a foundation for considering what emotion is—how do we define it? How do we measure it? We will next move into considering individual emotions, including basic emotions like rage, fear, joy, and disgust. We will then move into considering social emotions, like affiliation, love, and empathy, and the social processes that arise from emotional responses, including stereotyping and prejudice. Throughout, the course will emphasize the neural substrates of emotions, evolutionary homologies of emotion across species, and psychological disorders that may result when dysfunction emerges in social and emotional processes.