Social and biological underpinnings of emotion

Course description

The central topic of this course is emotion. Students will learn that emotions are responses to social and biological challenges and how people adapt to these challenges so that emotions can facilitate successful interactions between the individual and her/his environment. Individuals differ widely in how they respond emotionally to social stimuli, such as rejection or other social stressors. Whereas some people respond aggressively to environmental challenges, others become withdrawn, and some may experience little or no emotions at all. Moreover, individual differences exist in the development of emotion regulation and expression. In this course, students will learn about individual differences in the social and biological factors associated with emotions. Moreover, students will become familiar with the development of emotions across the lifespan and how emotions and emotion regulation are important for further development (e.g., in terms of psychopathology). Finally, students will learn how individuals process and recover emotionally from negative events and how people productively engage in behaviors that lead to positive emotions.

During this course, we will focus on several topics that increase understanding of emotions in human life, including (1) the psychophysiology behind emotion and emotion perception, (2) the role of emotions and emotion regulation in the development of psychopathology, (3) hormonal underpinnings of emotions (e.g., cortisol, oxytocin), (4) micro-expressions of emotions and facial recognition, (5) the development of emotions and emotional dispositions throughout the lifespan, (6) social stressors and emotional responses, and (7) emotions and social groups (e.g., selection patterns based on emotional dispositions, role of social support).

Learning objectives

The main learning goal of this course is to understand the social and biological underpinnings of emotions and emotional development. The specific objectives are:

1. Understand and explain the role of emotions in responses to (social) stressors.
2. Be able to integrate stress physiology with emotional responses.
3. Evaluate scientific literature on the bi-directional relationships between emotions with interpersonal relations and psychopathology.
4. Develop skills to induce and record emotional responding in laboratory settings (i.e., in the GO-Lab and Lifespan Lab).
5. Be able to discuss (verbally and in scholarly academic writing) novel techniques to assess emotions, and how these assessments are influenced by social and biological processes.

Skills

During this course, student will practice the following skills:

• Mastering the literature and recent insights on social and biological aspects of emotion and critically reflecting on this literature.
• Learning the first basics in conducting psychophysiological and emotion experiments.
• Academic writing.

Examples of key questions that students will be able to discuss after completion of this course include:

• How and why do individuals differ in their emotional responses?
• How do emotions develop across the lifespan?
• Interpretation of emotions from a social perspective (e.g., social support and selection patterns)
• The contribution of hormonal and psychophysiological factors as underpinnings of emotions.