Psychology W3680

Psychology W3680. Social Cognitive Neuroscience

SPRING 2004

Kevin Ochsner

current email address: ochsner@psych.stanford.edu

II. A full description of the content of the course

III. The rationale for giving the course

IV. The reading list and weekly syllabus

I. Bulletin description

Social Cognitive Neuroscience (seminar)

3 points. K. Ochsner. W 2:10 - 4. Room 200B Schermerhorn Hall

Prerequisite: at least two of the following courses (1001, 1010, 2630, 3410, 3480, 3485) and the instructor's permission.

An introduction to the emerging interdisciplinary field of social cognitive neuroscience, which examines topics traditionally of interest to social psychologists (including control and automaticity, emotion regulation, person perception, social cooperation) using methods traditionally employed by cognitive neuroscientists (functional neuroimaging, neuropsychological assessment).

II. A full description of the content of the course

Social cognitive neuroscience seeks to integrate the theories and methods of its parent disciplines, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. As such, it seeks to explain social and emotional behavior at three levels of analysis: The social level, which includes descriptions of experience, behavior, and context; the cognitive level, which specifies information processing mechanisms; and the neural level, which specifies neural systems that instantiate these processes.

The course begins with foundational concepts (multilevel analyses of behavior, converging evidence , the interaction of controlled and automatic processes) which students use to analyze findings in a number of core content domains (including emotional appraisal, emotion regulation, person perception, stereotyping, attitudes and beliefs, social decision making and cooperation). Prior to each meeting, students will prepare a 2 page seed paper which critically analyzes and integrates course readings. These papers will be used to launch discussions, which will be supplemented by occasional faculty lectures on specific topics. Final papers will be experiment proposals written in the form of a journal article.

III. The rationale for giving the course

As a field, psychology is increasingly moving towards interdisciplinary analyses of topics at multiple levels of analysis. This course may therefore provide students with a timely introduction to one such interdisciplinary approach, social cognitive neuroscience, which provides students with conceptual and analytic tools useful for understanding the multiple causes and consequences of human emotion and social behavior.

PSYC W3680 is an advanced seminar, designed particularly for undergraduates who are majoring in Psychology or in Neuroscience and Behavior, and for students participating in the Postbac Psychology Program. It fulfills the following degree requirements:

For the Psychology major or concentration, and for the Postbac Psychology certificate, W3680 meets the Group III (Social, Personality, and Abnormal) distribution requirement.
For the Neuroscience and Behavior joint major, W3680 will fulfill the 5th Psychology requirement: "one advanced psychology seminar from a list approved by the Psychology Department advisor to the program".
W3680 will meet the social science requirement of GS, provided that students obtain the necessary permissions and have taken the prerequisite psychology courses. For instance, a student who has completed PSYC 1001 (The Science of Psychology) and PSYC 1010 (Mind, Brain, and Behavior), would be able to use W3680 for GS social science requirement. However, students who are majoring in Psychology or in Neuroscience and Behavior will have priority over students who are taking the course for the social science requirement.

IV. The reading list and weekly syllabus (subject to revision)

V. Course requirements

Each week, students will attend a two hour seminar. No later than 5:00 p.m. of the proceeding evening, students will submit a 2 page seed paper to the course instructor. Seed papers analyze and integrate the hypotheses, conceptual premises, methods and findings of assigned research articles, and will be used to launch discussion during each meeting. For the first course meeting, and for selected topics throughout the duration of the course, the instructor will use one-half to one hour of meeting time for lectures that will provide historical context, background, and conceptual explication. With the exception of the final two meetings, the rest of each meeting will be devoted to discussion.

During the final two course meetings students will present a proposal for an original experiment that employs the social cognitive neuroscience approach. Final course papers will present this proposal in written form using the format of a journal article.

Grading is allocated as follows:

Seed papers	35%
Participation in discussion	20%
Experiment presentation	15%
Final paper	30%

Last modified by MDK, on November 14, 2003