General
Psychology Fall 2005
Monday/Wednesday
PSY 80272 section 03; 3 credits
Alice Andrews
Email: andrewsa@newpaltz.edu
Office hrs: Tuesdays
Website:
www.newpaltz.edu/~andrewsa
E-journal: www.entelechyjournal.com
Voicemail: 257-3602
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved [in your heart] and try to
love the questions themselves." -Rilke
"Mental
health results from the fulfillment of archetypal goals."- Anthony Stevens
and John Price, Evolutionary Psychiatry (2000)
"Like
the T cells of the body, the healthy psyche fights off infection, rejecting
false voice and false relationships." - Carol Gilligan, The Birth of
Pleasure (2002)
Typically,
the introductory statement of a General Psychology syllabus might include the
topics and areas that will be covered (see calendar/schedule further down in
syllabus for that). However, although the topics we will cover this semester
are important, I nevertheless would like to emphasize some things that
sometimes get paid lip service, but seldom are treated with any seriousness or
are truly valued.
In some ways,
we are all psychologists—natural born psychologists. That is, trying to figure
out and understand human behavior and the human mind is, I would argue, an
innate tendency. We come from a long line of ancestors who tried to figure out
human behavior and the mind. Those who weren’t interested in such things, those
who didn’t try to figure out human behavior and ‘other minds’ (and eventually
‘the mind’), were probably not as successful and did not survive. This is a
rather speculative and crude evolutionary explanation, but clearly,
knowledge-seeking, making sense of the world, having schemas, and understanding
causal relationships benefited our ancestors’ survival and reproduction. This
is where we come from, and this is who we are. Being a knowledge-seeker
(a philosopher, say) aids one in gaining status, power and resources (survival)
which helps in gaining access to potential ‘high quality’ mates (reproduction).
But also, when we engage in the pursuit of gaining any kind of knowledge
(e.g., knowledge regarding whether one’s partner is having an affair, what
teacher is the best in the school, which political candidate is less likely to
pollute our air, what is the best, healthiest diet), it is often about one’s
survival (and one’s offspring’s survival) and reproduction in the here and now.
But in
another sense, knowledge-seeking is
just simply pleasurable. It feels good to try to figure out causal
relationships even if there is no immediate benefit in the here and now,
because it is driven by an ancient program. It is because this program
is related to survival and reproduction that when we engage in any epistemic
pursuit, it lights up our reward centers—it simply feels good. And that’s my
primary goal for the class: to activate the intrinsic knowledge-seeking
tendency in you—the part of you that feels good engaged in the quest “to know”;
to inspire a little epistemic passion; to further your way toward critical
thinking and individuation—to get you to become evaluativists; to ignite your
interest in the human mind; to instill (if not already present) a passion for
writing, to facilitate opening your minds a little; to challenge you, to
provide opportunities and an environment for you to feel safe to stretch your
mind and to question and re-think some of your assumptions and beliefs; to help
to expand, deepen, and enrich your mind —to make your
synapses grow and connect. (You can
actually help toward this effort: by taking your reading seriously, by keeping
an open mind in class discussions, by being engaged in your writing.) Finally, it’s my
hope to turn you onto another way of seeing things— a new perspective and a new
lens on life and people. The lens that I’ve been using for the past 14 years is
the evolutionary one— which I’ve already touched on a bit. By the end of the
semester, though, you will undoubtedly know quite a good deal about what many
people are just starting to talk about: the “new science of the mind,”
Evolutionary Psychology. I am not looking to turn you all into evolutionary
psychologists, but I do hope that this new way of seeing things will enrich you
and add to you considerably; that you will gain a better understanding of
yourself and others.
Goals
for myself: To be open, to learn and grow from my students, to concretize and
crystallize my knowledge more, to see things in new ways, to continue to become
a better teacher and learner.
Texts for the course:
1) Psychological Science: Mind, Brain, and Behavior (2003) Michael S.
Gazzaniga & Todd F. Heatherton ISBN:
0-393-97587-8; $105.50 at the SUNY/NP bookstore or Amazon, etc.
2) The
Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of
Human Nature
(2001) by
Geoffrey Miller.
3) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2004) by Mark Haddon
ISBN: 1400032717. $12 at the SUNY/NP bookstore or Amazon, etc.
Optional/Extra
Credit
4) Trine Erotic. (2002) by Alice Andrews.
Your Final Grade is determined by the
following:
- Bb (Blackboard) Posts: 38 points total
Portfolio with up to 14 posts (including your 2
best) due on the last day of class: December
12.
14 posts; 1
point each – 14 points
In addition, 2 of your best posts will be graded.
The first “best of what you’ve got” is due on October 24. The second is due
on the last day of class, December
12.
Each is worth
12 points – for a total of 24 points.
- In-class ‘short essays or short answer’ –
12 points
(3 in-class
‘essays’ each worth 4 points.)
These will be
very short, unannounced, and will occur at the beginning of the class.
They will absolutely not require any rote memorizing on your part. If you have
been doing the reading and coming to class you should be able to do well.
- Paper – 30 points
3-page paper on
A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark
Haddon. (Due October 26.)
I hope we will
participate in some of the events during One
Book, One New Paltz the week of Oct 31-Nov 7. Here’s the website for OB/ONP:
http://www.newpaltz.edu/onebook/Eventsonebook.html
- Take-home Final (Easy) – 20 points
Due in class
(not by e-mail) December 19. Late finals will not be accepted.
- Extra-credit – 7 points (Up to 7 points.)
2-page paper on Trine Erotic (my novel which deals with Evolutionary Psychology and
other behavioral science themes.) (Due November 30.)
Communication with me:
Please,
please, check your New Paltz-email often! Your New Paltz-email account is the
one I will use to communicate with the class as a whole. My email address is: andrewsa@newpaltz.edu.
My office hours are Tuesdays 4:00-5:30; if this time conflicts with your
schedule, I’m happy to coordinate another time to meet with you – just see me after class or email me about it.
Missing classes:
Although
I don’t exactly penalize for absences, missing
class could affect your grade:
assignments are sometimes given out and changes are made in the
schedule/syllabus; there are three,
short in-class ‘essays’; lectures/class discussion will be valuable for your Bb
posts (more on that later), your in-class ‘essays/short answers’, your paper,
and final, etc.
Being late to class:
Please make every effort to
be on time. The unannounced ‘short essay’/’short answer’ will begin at the
beginning of the class, and if you’re late, you will have less (or even no)
time to take it. This encourages (and rewards) punctuality.
Cell phones:
Please
turn your cell to silence mode. If you’re a caregiver and you need to be in
touch with a child or parent, etc., please turn to vibrate mode and answer
phone outside of class.
Academic Integrity:
From
the SUNY New Paltz statement on academic integrity: “Students are expected to
maintain the highest standards of honesty in their college work. Cheating,
forgery, and plagiarism are serious offenses, and students found guilty of any
form of academic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary action.”
For more
information regarding the policy of academic integrity here at the college, you
can go to: http://www.newpaltz.edu/studentaffairs/regulations/campus_rules.html#academic.
Also, please
see me if you are unsure as to what violates this policy.
Bb (Blackboard) Posts: 28 points
14 posts; 1 point each – 14 points
Posts will be based on your reactions to
the readings: Psychological Science; The Mating Mind; or whatever else has
been assigned. Print out your best post of the week and include it in your
portfolio. (You need only comment on one of the readings if there are more than
one. And it can be specific or broad; it’s up to you.)
In addition, 2
of your best posts will be graded. At least 1 of the 2 should be on TMM. The
first “best of what you’ve got” is due on October
24. The second is due on the last
day of class (December 12) and
should be placed atop all of the other posts, with some indication you wish it
to be graded— perhaps with a star, check-mark, “please grade,” etc.). Each is
worth 7 points – for a total of 14
points.
Late “best-of-what you’ve-got” posts
due October 24 will lose 4 points off for every day late. (Two points off if
handed in after class (the eve of the
24th.)
Portfolio with up to 14 posts
(including your 2 best) due on the last day of class: December 12.
Absolutely no late portfolios accepted.
For the portfolio:
Staple posts together (with a cover
page), remembering to put the post you want graded on the top. Please number
your posts—there are a maximum of 14 posts.
Cover page:
Your name
Your email
Your phone #
The purpose of the Bb
posts are many; here are some:
- I want to provide
you with a place where you can communicate and share ideas, especially
nuanced ideas that we may not get a chance to cover in class; where you
can grow as a thinker and participate in an epistemic arena.
- Communicating
your ideas with others in the class is a nice way to extend the classroom
experience and your private reading experience—it’s also a different way
of doing it than talking in class or writing a more formal essay.
- To give me
another way to assess you. (It’s worth about 1/3 of your grade).
I’m
not looking for you to become an expert on the theories and language of
Geoffrey Miller. I’ve chosen The Mating
Mind as an auxiliary reading because it’s beautifully written in a fun,
sexy, accessible way and because the theories are fascinating, possibly
life-perspective-altering, and provide a great backdrop to our general study of
psychology. The Subtitle of TMM is “How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of
Human Nature.” TMM is Miller’s synthesis: it’s his answer to everything you
wanted to know about the human mind and behavior (and more!)—i.e., Psychology.
He’s an evolutionary psychologist and his answer is from an evolutionary
perspective. I would recommend you not getting too bogged down in theory, but
just experience it in a relaxed way. I want you to get the gist of Miller’s
theories—but you don’t need to “know” or memorize any of it—just take in whatever
you take in. Some of it is difficult, but much of it is very accessible and fun
to read. To wit:
“From a sexual selection viewpoint,
clitorises should respond only to men who demonstrate high fitness, including
the physical fitness necessary for long, energetic sex, and the mental fitness necessary
to understand what women want and how to deliver it. The choosy clitoris should
produce orgasm only when the woman feels genuinely attracted to a man's body,
mind, and personality, and when
the man proves his attentiveness
and fitness through the right stimulation.” (p. 239)
What should you post?
I’d
like you to take a look at a dialogue I had some years back with a woman on a
“big” list I belong to (EP/Yahoo!). The list is “big” because it has about 4,000
members and it is populated by pretty much all of the big names in Evolutionary
Psychology—which is unusual for a Yahoo! Group, apparently.
If you go to
my e-journal, Entelechy—www.entelechyjournal.com (there’s a link to
it on Bb), and go to Editor’s Musings, you will find it; it’s called: Meta Study:
Reactions to a Study on Female Sexuality. (If
you’re reading this online, you should be able to click on in it and go
directly to the piece.)
Here’s the piece: Meta Review: Reactions to
a Review of The Blank Slate
What
a decent post on TMM might look like:
Subject:
Courtship in Pleistocene: Poor, poor Freud
On page 217,
Miller makes an important evolutionary, anti-Freudian point that makes plenty
of sense. He basically argues that it’s possible that children evolved fitness
indicators to extract care and attention and investment from their parents, not
because children want to mate with their parents (a la Oedipus). I agree—however, what about psychological
love-maps and templates (see J. Money)? The idea that young children ‘fall in
love’ with their (usually opposite-sex) parents (which is different than
wanting to have sex with them, I think) is not unheard of, and in fact, the
phenomenon is quite common. (My daughter used to tell me often that she wanted
to marry her daddy.) We learn a great deal about the world and environment and
about what to value, etc. from our parents. They are, of course, our models for
life. Mommy chose daddy, and I am like mommy, therefore I should choose
daddy—and later I will choose someone
like daddy. Though, yes, children do direct their fitness indicators at their
parents: “energetic play, humorous storytelling, flirtatious conversation” to
(in part) elicit parental support, no question, they also engage in it, I
think, because they are rehearsing with their “first love” and learning what to
like and what not to like. Eventually they will have to choose a mate and even
the child’s use of fitness indicators with his/her parent will come up again.
For example: How did the mother react to her son’s storytelling? Was she
distant and cold— or warm and responsive? This dynamic surely sets up a
template for later choosing.
How I will grade your
2 best posts?
You
may wish to turn in your primary post or a subsequent post that was a response
to someone else’s post—it’s up to you…whichever you think is better. (You might
want to print the other person’s comment to provide context; again that’s your
call.)
Each
graded post is worth 7 points.
You
will receive more points if your posts are:
Original,
creative, passionate, synthetic, show a demonstration of your knowledge of
psychology, EP, and the points you’re talking about, and connect ideas we’ve
been talking and reading about. In terms of TMM,
if you do ALL of this AND demonstrate a real understanding of Miller’s
theories, you will no doubt get a 7.
When should you post?
You
should try to post during the week as you’re reading or when you’re done,
depending. Please post on but preferably before Friday. Again, you need only
post a response to one of the readings for the week. Even if you post as
late as Friday eve, that will still give you the whole weekend to respond to
someone if they responded to your post, or to respond to some other post, etc.
How to get to Bb:
Go
to SUNY/NP’s main page: www.newpaltz.edu
Go
to the section “On campus” and click on Blackboard. On Bb page, enter your
username and password and then find this class—General Psychology
N.B.
All
“further” readings/assignments are optional.
This
schedule is subject to change.
ERes
password: “genpsy”
|
Monday August 29 |
1st day of classes intro |
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Wednesday August 31 |
Intro/ RD.
PS CH. 1 (Further: “Being
Brave” – Entelechy) |
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Monday September 5 |
No class : LABOR DAY |
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Wednesday September 7 |
Psych intro/ RD. “The Evolution of Despair” and “Human Nature: Born or Bred” on ERes; PS 62-68 |
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Monday September 12 |
EP/ RD. “Evolutionary Perspectives on Personality” on ERes |
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Wednesday September 14 |
EP/RD. TMM 351-386 (Further: PINKER v.SPELKE http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html) |
|
Monday September 19 |
The Science of the
Sexes /RD. TMM 1-8; 99-119 |
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Wednesday September 21 |
Mating Mind/RD. PS 69-93 |
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Monday September 26 |
BRAIN (Prof.
Giordana Grossi, guest lecturer)/ RD. PS CH.4 (Further: “Balance Your Brain Hemispheres” on my webpage, under General Psychology) |
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Wednesday September 28 |
BRAIN/RD. PS P.390-395; 475-482 |
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Monday October 3 |
No class: ROSH HASHANA |
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Wednesday October 5 |
ATTACHMENT/LOVE |
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Monday October 10 |
LOVE RD. (to be announced) |
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Wednesday October 12 |
LOVE/ Read TMM 146-152 |
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Monday October 17 |
HADDON RD PS CH. 10 |
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Wednesday October 19 |
Trine Erotic RD “Evolutionary Explanations of Emotions” on ERes |
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Monday October 24 |
Post #1 due EMOTIONS RD PS 362-33; 549-552 **(This is on autism, so you might want to read it sooner for your paper!) |
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Wednesday October 26 |
AUTISM Paper due. RD. PS 401-406 |
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Monday October 31 |
MORAL SENSE RD. TMM 292-312; 321-340 (*further: “Sexual Selection
for Moral Virtues” on Bb.)
|
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Wednesday November 2 |
Good Breeding RD. |
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Monday November 7 |
RD. CH. 15/ PERSONALITY/ Black Solidarity Day |
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Wednesday November 9 |
PERSONALITY/ |
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Monday November 14 |
PERSONALITY/ |
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Wednesday November 16 |
PERSONALITY/ RD |
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Monday November 21 |
DISORDERS |
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Wednesday November 23 |
No class: THANKSGIVING |
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Monday November 28 |
DISORDERS |
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Wednesday November 30 |
DISORDERS/ RD |
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Monday December 5 |
TREATMENT |
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Wednesday December 7 |
TREATMENT |
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Monday December 12 |
Last day. Wrap up. Portfolio due. |
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Monday December 19 |
Final due: |
Some books
which have informed me along the way:
Ways of
Seeing; John
Berger
Women in
Love,
D.H. Lawrence
Two
Essays on Analytical Psychology, C.G. Jung
The Will
to Live;
Arthur Schopenhauer
The Will
to Power;
Friedrich Nietzsche
The
Birth of Tragedy;
Friedrich Nietzsche
Studies on Hysteria; Josef Breuer/Sigmund Freud
The Language of the Body; Alexander Lowen
The Dragons of
The Holographic Paradigm; Ken Wilbur
The Meme Machine; Susan
Blackmore
The Ecstasy of Communication; Jean Baudrillard
The Pleasure of the Text; Roland Barthes
On Human Nature; E.O. Wilson
Women’s Way of Knowing; Mary Field Belenky, et al.
Plain and Simple; Sue Bender
Much
Sexual Personae: Art & Decadence from Nefertiti
to Emily Dickinson; Camille Paglia
Vamps & Tramps: New Essays; Camille Paglia
Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays; Camille Paglia
The Descent of Woman; Elaine
Morgan
A Natural History of
the Senses; Diane Ackerman
A Natural History of Love; Diane Ackerman
Woman; Natalie Angier
Beauty of the Beastly; Natalie Angier
Sexing the Cherry; Jeanette Winterson
Sexing
the Body, Anne
Fausto-Sterling
The New
Science of Intimate Relationships; Garth Fletcher
Woman’s
Inhumanity to Woman;
Phyliss Chesler
Anatomy
of Love;
Helen Fisher
Why We
Love;
Helen Fisher
A
General Theory of Love; Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon
The
Blank Slate;
Steven Pinker
The Selfish Gene; Richard Dawkins
Evolutionary
Psychiatry;
Anthony Stevens and John Price
The
Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture; Jerome
H. Barkow (Ed.)
Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of
the Mind; David
M. Buss
The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human
Mating;
David M. Buss
The Evolution of Allure; George L. Hersey
The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the
Evolution of Human Nature; Geoffrey Miller
Digit Ratio: A Pointer
to Fertility, Behavior and Health; John T. Manning
Sex and Cognition; Doreen Kimura
Against Love: A Polemic; Laura
Kipnis
The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Paper
Due: Wednesday, October 26th
Times-New Roman, 12-point.
Double-space.
Exactly 3 pages.
Write a paper in the style of
Christopher Boone.
What would it
be like to live without your social-attribution abilities—without a theory of
mind (TOM)? Read “Curious Incident” to get a good idea…
Now, imagine
you’re Christopher Boone (something, perhaps, Christopher Boone is unable to
do!—one needs a good TOM to do this), and you have just finished writing your
book “Curious Incident.” Siobhan has asked you to write a paper on autism…She
says to you (Christopher):
“I think it
would be very interesting if you could do some research on autism. Why don’t
you do that and write a paper on some of the various theories. You could look
at the biological/genetic, environmental, and/or social constructionist
models…Here are some links, also, to get you started.
Did you know that
Simon Baron-Cohen’s brother is a famous actor? He’s Sacha Baron Cohen—who plays a hip-hop journalist on Da Ali G Show. www.hbo.com/alig/ “
Here are some links on Autism that you might want to check out:
Simon Baron-Cohen links:
Article about Baron-Cohen:
http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20040107-000005.html
Article by Baron-Cohen:
http://jnnp.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/75/7/945
Baron-Cohen’s research center, with tests for
autistic spectrum disorders, such as: “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test:
http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/arc/default.asp
Tons of autism links:
http://www.futurehorizons-autism.com/links.asp
Things I’ll be looking for in assessing
you paper:
Did you get
Boone’s style/voice right?
Did you
incorporate aspects of his life so I’m convinced it’s Christopher and that you
read the book?
Is the
information you present accurate? Is it convincing?
Is it well-written? (including sense, organization, grammar, spelling, etc.)