| We’ve all been mad, sad, happy, and disgusted. Some of us get nostalgic us are easily embarrassed. We’ve been feeling these emotions nearly our whole lives, and this makes us all emotion experts of a sort. Nonetheless, these feelings can be mysterious. Where do they come from? Do people across all cultures experience similar emotions? How can we regulate our emotions? Do emotions make us less rational? Do they make us smarter? What triggers certain emotions? Are there gender differences in emotions?
The science of emotion is fairly young, but there has been an enormous amount of progress in understanding emotional phenomena in the last few decades. In this course, we will tackle the aforementioned questions and more. By the end of the course you should be familiar with the most influential theories of emotion--from the evolutionary explanations of emotion to the developmental and social factors involved in making us emotional creatures. So while we are all intuitive experts on emotion, by the end of the course you will have a different kind of expertise--one grounded in the most recent scientific discoveries in this exciting field. |
| Take Home Word Count - December 7th, 2007 11:15am |
| We've been getting a lot of questions about the word limit on the take-home exam. Part of showing your mastery of a subject is being able to express the ideas economically, knowing what is important and what is not.
As such, the 600 word limit per essay will be strictly enforced. For every 50 words over 600 you go, you will be docked 5% of the grade for that essay. So if your essay is 700 words, the best grade you could get on that essay is 90%. Rounding up will be at our discretion, so 612 words might earn the same penalty as 650 - so don't push it |
| citing lectures on the take-home exam - December 6th, 2007 2:00pm |
| Some of you have asked about how to cite lectures--you shouldn't worry about referencing the lectures. If you see a citation for a study I spoke about, cite that. If not, no need to explicitly credit the lecture for the idea |
| Take Home Final Instructions - December 5th, 2007 2:25pm |
| Instructions for how to upload your take home final assignments (via blackboard) can be found here |
| Prelim #3 and Take-Home Final - December 5th, 2007 1:30pm |
| Hi all,
A few points I wanted to clarify about Prelim # 3 and the take-home final. Prelim. There are a few questions we've been reliably. Here's some clarification. Question #3--Mortality Salience. The answer was "A". Giving the answer "leaders with foreign policy experience" is not correct, as foreign policy experience per se does not have a relation to terror management. If the answer had been "leaders with a firm conservative stance" this would have been plausible, but "experience" can mean liberal, conservative, or anything in between. Question # 9--Anxiety disorders pg. 357 of the book presents a table that makes it clear that women and the poor are the worst-off here. It -is- true that children of affluent parents are prone to disorders, but this is not true of the rich in general as you can see from the table. Question #20-subjective well-being and national wealth While it is true that some of the top countries in subjective well-being are not rich (in terms of national wealth), there is a general trend for rich countries to report higher levels of subjective well-being. This is made clear on pg. 410 of the book, first paragraph. Remember, this is national wealth, not individual wealth. Question # 45 I made a simple error on the key I uploaded--the correct answer is "D", not "A". We will make sure to double-check that this was actually graded correctly. Final Exam: Aside from a bit of clarification, we are not going to talk in detail about how you should answer these questions. The nature of the assignment is such that we want it to be more like an exam, less like a term paper in which you would get feedback from us about what you should write about. Question #3 on the final exam--the definition of emotion. I do not explicitly state that empirical evidence is required to defend your definition, but you should speak intelligently and informed about why you choose your definition. You could offer conceptual arguments or empirical arguments--just make it smart :) |
| 3 Things! - December 2nd, 2007 3:39pm |
| 1. I'm posting the key to exam 3 now. Sorry for the delay.
2. Extra credit: If you do all 7 possible points, you get 5% added to your final grade. Yes, that's a lot. If you do fewer, you'll get whatever fraction of 5% that works out to be. 3. For the final take home exam, that's 500 words per essay, not total. We'll post up a link soon for uploading your exam on blackboard |
| Take Home Exam - November 29th, 2007 12:16am |
| Hi guys-
The questions for the take-home exam (along with instructions) are now posted in the "course docs" section. Please read them carefully. Instructions for uploading the final exam will be posted sometime in the next few days. Thanks! -dap |
| Social Psychology Open House - November 27th, 2007 5:07pm |
| The Open House gives you a last chance to get extra credits for your psychology classes.
Come to the Social Psych Lab (Uris G77) between 7 and 9pm Tuesday and Wednesday night (Nov 27-28), and participate in experiments without appointment for up to 3 credits (in any participating Psych or HD class) each night. Remember, the credit deadline for many classes is very soon! Social Psych Open House 7-9pm November 27th and 28th G77 Uris Hall Up to 3 Susan Credits Thanks! Travis |
| Exam 3 Stuff - November 13th, 2007 2:50pm |
| Hi guys-
Both morality lectures are finally up. One quick note--I apologize that they are all black and this is causing lots of ink to be wasted. I haven't found an easy way to reverse the colors without messing up the formatting, but if somebody figures this out let me know! The exam will be on the following: Lectures: Emotion and Politics/Music and Emotion Emotion and Culture I Emotion and Culture II Happiness Evil: The Emotional Roots of Hate, Violence, and Other Bad Things Good: Emotions as the Foundation of Human Morality Laughter, Humor, and a little bit of Crying Book Readings: OK&J Chapters 3, 13, & 14. Additional Readings: Gilbert paper on Happiness Haidt & Wheatley paper on Disgust & Morality Panksepp paper on Laughter (These readings are available on the "course docs" section of the website) |
| TA Office hours this week - November 13th, 2007 11:05am |
| Kat will not be holding office hours this week, as she will be presenting some of her amazing research at a conference.
Travis will be holding his office hours from 1-2:30 on Thursday rather than Tuesday, due to a doctor's appointment. Thanks for your understanding! |
| Test on WEDNESDAY - October 12th, 2007 3:48pm |
| Hi all,
In case you missed class, the exam has been postponed until Wednesday, October 17. I will post a review sheet by Sunday night... -dap |
| More points on MC for you guys... - October 2nd, 2007 2:37pm |
| Hi all,
In total I am making three changes to the MC grading--one I have told you about already. on #5, if you answered "D", you will get credit on #13, if you answered "A", you will get credit and on #19 you will get credit for any response. Best, dap |
| Answer Key for MC Exam 1 has been posted - September 30th, 2007 8:28pm |
| Is up in the course docs section of the site.
The TA's each created one page of the Short Answer section (their initials are at the bottom of their sheet). They have guidelines for how and why they graded as they did. Please see them during their office hours if you'd like to discuss this portion of the exam. Also note that for one question, I'm giving everybody one point because I don't like the way I phrased the question. -dap |
| New Website - September 18th, 2007 6:06pm |
| Thanks to Travis' work, we have a shiny new and (most importantly) elegant interface for providing course information. |