Topic guide · Development across life / Emotion, motivation and sleep / Social and cultural behaviour
What changes during adolescence?
Connect biological change, relationships and research design while retaining individual variation.
Topic guide · Reasoning and decisions / Social and cultural behaviour
What changes when decisions depend on other people?
Make a small strategic model explicit, then separate best responses, equilibrium and desirable outcomes.
Topic guide · Social and cultural behaviour / Emotion, motivation and sleep
How does culture shape what people want to feel?
Distinguish felt emotion from desired emotion, then examine how researchers define contexts, compare groups and limit generalisations.
Topic guide · Emotion, motivation and sleep / Social and cultural behaviour
What are competing explanations of emotion?
Distinguish feeling, bodily change, action and social function, then ask what evidence links them.
Topic guide · Social and cultural behaviour / Evolution and other minds / Methods, evidence and reproducibility
How do group identities shape collective behaviour?
Compare identity, norms, incentives and authority as possible explanations, then examine the move from research findings to policy proposals.
Topic guide · Emotion, motivation and sleep / Social and cultural behaviour
How do hunger and reward interact?
Connect internal regulation, rewarding cues, learning and food environments without offering diet advice.
Topic guide · Evolution and other minds / Social and cultural behaviour / Emotion, motivation and sleep
How does social attachment work across species?
Distinguish kinds of relationship and connect behavioural, physiological, developmental and ecological questions.
Topic guide · Evolution and other minds / Social and cultural behaviour / Methods, evidence and reproducibility
How can evolutionary explanations of human behaviour be tested?
Separate mechanism, development, ancestry and possible function, then ask which comparative observations could distinguish rival accounts.
Lectures and explanations
Selections below prioritise source-checked annotations. Inclusion does not assess scientific correctness.
CARTA · Source-checked annotation
CARTA: The Biology of Grandmaternal Love
James Rilling explores evolutionary and biological hypotheses about grandmaternal caregiving.
CARTA · Source-checked annotation
Love, monogamy, and fatherhood in Latin American monkeys
Eduardo Fernandez-Duque uses long-term field studies of titi and owl monkeys to examine monogamy, pair bonds and paternal care.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 20 - The Prisoner's Dilemma
Examines the prisoners’ dilemma and the commons as cases where individually attractive choices can produce a collectively worse result.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 16 - Everyone but Me: The Pervasive Reach and Powerful Influence of Food Marketing on Food Choices
Examines food advertising, character licensing, product placement and marketing within schools, with particular concern for children.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 7 - Hunger in the World of Plenty
Discusses measuring hunger, consequences of starvation and the geopolitical circumstances that affect access to food.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 5 - Nash Equilibrium: Bad Fashion and Bank Runs
Defines Nash equilibrium and uses an investment game to examine coordination, multiple equilibria and undesirable collective outcomes.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 6 - Culture and the Remarkable Plasticity of Eating (Presentation by Ashley Gearhardt)
Combines Ashley Gearhardt's presentation of an addiction model of eating with Kelly Brownell's discussion of cultural food practices.
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre · Source-checked annotation
SWC Lecture 2023 - Professor Stephen Reicher
Stephen Reicher examines the pandemic through social relationships and behavioural science.
CARTA · Source-checked annotation
CARTA: The Healing Power of Love: The Oxytocin Hypothesis
Sue Carter examines oxytocin and social bonding, including gaps and myths surrounding the idea of a love hormone.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 12 - Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part II
Continues an evolutionary interpretation of social emotions, discussing parental love, gratitude, responses to cheating and cultural differences in revenge.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 16 - A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part I
Introduces social psychology through connectedness and biases in thinking about oneself and other people.
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre · Source-checked annotation
SWC Lecture 2022 - Professor Emily Murphy
Emily Murphy proposes evaluating public policy partly through its effects on cognitive and emotional functioning.
CARTA · Source-checked annotation
Social complexity: Why modern humans are more like certain ants than chimpanzees
Mark Moffett uses comparisons between ant societies and human groups to examine identity, coordination and social organisation.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 22 - Repeated Games: Cheating, Punishment, and Outsourcing
Continues repeated-game analysis with credible rewards and punishments, contrasting severe and milder punishment strategies as relationships endure.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 1 - Introduction: Five First Lessons
Introduces strategic interaction by separating players, available actions and payoffs, then comparing a prisoners’ dilemma with a coordination problem.
MIT OpenCourseWare · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 20: Mentalizing and Theory of Mind
Kanwisher presents a specialised-brain-region account of thinking about other people’s mental states.