This course provides a deep dive into the science of emotion. We will engage with primary readings on dominant theories, historical perspectives, ongoing debates, methods of study, recent innovations, and translational applications in this field. We will assess the strengths and weaknesses of different methods for generating both basic scientific understanding of emotions and translational impact. Students will play a substantial role in co-creating course discussions through in-class presentations, and the final will be a high-level research paper that aims to move the field forward through either a theoretical synthesis or study proposal.

Attitudes matter. Throughout the history of the world, people have taken extraordinary steps to support a set of attitudes and beliefs that helped to bring about a better world. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King led societies to new views of human dignity by their written words and their behaviors. Every day, people advocate for their ideals. They persuade and organize in the service of bringing about a better world. This seminar will explore the science of persuasion. We will examine empirical research and theory that lead us to understand how attitudes are formed, maintained, and changed.

Computational psychiatry is an emerging field of research that strives to leverage recent discoveries in the computational basis of high-level cognitive functions in order to understand, diagnose, and treat mental illness. Psychiatry is the only field of medicine where there are currently no laboratory tests, due in part to a lack of understanding what is the biological basis of symptoms. Computational theories of the brain's mechanisms for evaluation and decision may provide a foundation for such an understanding, and tasks measuring their function can offer objective measures. This seminar will discuss recent findings in this field.

Babies, who look like helpless blobs, are capable of impressive feats of learning. 3-year-olds, who can't cross the street alone, know an astounding amount of information about their environments. We will focus on landmark studies that elucidate how children's biology, cognition, language, and social experiences interact to set the stage for what we do and who we are. Is the baby's world a 'blooming, buzzing confusion', or do babies enter the world prepared to make sense of their environments? How can we understand the collaboration between nature and nurture during development?

Principles of psychology relevant to the theory and practice of education. Through readings, discussion, and classroom observations, students study theories of development, learning, cognition (including literacy), and motivation, as well as relevant individual and group differences; assessment; and the social psychology of the classroom. The course focuses on two main topics: 1) how learning at multiple school levels is influenced by one's own characteristics, experiences, and various learning contexts; and 2) how the practice of teaching is, in fact, a clinical practice and what that means for educators, students, schools and society.