SOCIAL SCIENCES 141
FALL 2014
SOCIAL SCIENCES 141
MIND: DIMENSIONS OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
Course Requirements
1. You are required to attend and actively participate in both lectures and weekly discussions. In
order to get the most out of the readings and discussion it is essential that you attend lectures.
The readings come from a wide variety of primary source materials; there is no textbook for this
course. Thus, lectures are necessary to provide a coherent framework in which to understand the
readings and situate them within the broader context of issues we address.
2. Weekly Discussion Paper. Each week students should submit a short discussion paper based on
the lecture and readings. Papers should raise issues or questions that are central to the material
presented that week and that can serve as the basis for our weekly discussions. Your paper
could take any number of different approaches to the material—you may contrast various
readings’ perspectives on an issue, question an author’s basic assumptions, extend a theoretical
argument to a different set of issues, raise questions about the implications of an empirical
finding for a particular theory, etc. Although this allows you to focus on a broad range of
potential topics, your paper must represent a well-reasoned and coherent presentation of your
argument.
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3. A short, final paper (5-pg.) addressing a topic proposed by the instructors .
4. Course grades will be based on weekly discussion papers (40%), participation in lecture and
discussion section (30%), and the final paper (30%).
Please hand in all work as specified by your section leader.
Due to the nature of this team taught course, all work must be turned in on time. In exceptional
circumstances, you must contact your section instructor at least 24 hours before the work is due
to make alternative arrangements.
COURSE OUTLINE
Date
Topic
I. Four Explanatory Dimensions of Behavior
Lecture 1:
Disc 1:
Lecture 2:
Disc 2:
Lecture 3:
Disc 3:
Lecture 4:
Disc 4:
Overview of the Four Dimensions and
Causes: Mechanisms and Functions
Levels of Analysis
Perspective: Objective and Subjective
Time Spans
and a Summary of the Four Dimensions
II. Applying the Dimensional Framework
Lecture 5:
Disc:
Lecture 6:
Disc 6:
Lecture 7:
Disc 7:
Lecture 8:
Disc 8:
Lecture 9:
Disc 9:
Situating Language Learning within the Nature-Nurture
Debate
Understanding Language
Animal Minds
Perceiving and Explaining People’s Behavior
Evolution of Human Cognitive Biases
Final paper due
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READINGS
All readings for the course are listed below by lecture topic and the week of the quarter by which
time they are to be read. We have listed Required Readings under each lecture topic.
I. Four Explanatory Dimensions
Lecture 1: Overview of Dimensions & Causes: Mechanism and Function
Goldin-Meadow, S., McClintock, M.K., and Wimsatt, W.C. Solving Psychological
Problems in Four Dimensions: Heuristics for Integrating the Social and Biological
Sciences
Aristotle. Physics. Book 2.
Darwin, C. Chapter 14, “Recapitulation and Conclusion,” of On the Origin of Species.
New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Simon, H. A. Understanding the natural and the artificial worlds. The Sciences of the
Artificial, 3rd Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press.
Lecture 2: Levels of Analysis
Goldin-Meadow, S., McClintock, M.K., and Wimsatt, W.C. Solving Psychological
Problems in Four Dimensions: Heuristics for Integrating the Social and Biological
Sciences
Pinker, S. How the Mind Works, Chapter 1: Standard Equipment
Clayton, N. S., & Dickinson, A. Episodic-like memory during cache recovery by scrub
jays. Nature, 395.
Lecture 3: Perspective: Objective and Subjective
Goldin-Meadow, S., McClintock, M.K., and Wimsatt, W.C. Solving Psychological
Problems in Four Dimensions: Heuristics for Integrating the Social and Biological
Sciences.
vonUexküll, H, J. A stroll through the worlds of animals and men. In C. H. Schiller
(Ed.) Instinctive Behavior. New York: International University Press.
Geertz, C. On the nature of anthropological understanding. American Scientist.
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Lecture 4: Time Spans & Summary of Four Dimensions
Goldin-Meadow, S., McClintock, M.K., and Wimsatt, W.C. Solving Psychological
Problems in Four Dimensions: Heuristics for Integrating the Social and Biological
Sciences.
Mayr, E. Behavior programs and evolutionary strategies. American Scientist 62: 650–
659. Reprinted in I. L. Janis (Ed.) Current trends in psychology: Readings from
American Scientist. Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann
Tinbergen, N. On war and peace in animals and man. Science, 160.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The Architecture of Complexity: Hierarchic Systems. The Sciences
of the Artificial, 3rd Edition, Cambridge, Mass: MIT University Press.
II.
Applying the Four Dimensional Framework
Lecture 5: Situating Language Learning within the Nature-Nurture Debate
Chomsky, N. Recent contributions to the theory of innate ideas, Chapter 7 in S. P. Stich
(Ed.), Innate Ideas, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Marler, P. Birdsong and speech development: Could there be parallels?
American Scientist, 58.
Lecture 6: Understanding Language
Bates, E. Modularity, domain specificity, and the development of language.
Discussions in Neuroscience, 10 (1&2).
Altmann, G. Ambiguity in sentence processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Lecture 7: Animal Minds
Griffin, D. R. Animal consciousness. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 9.
MacLean, E. L. & Hare, B. Bonobos and chimpanzees infer the target of another’s
attention. Animal Behaviour, 83.
Lecture 8: Perceiving and Explaining People’s Behavior
Gilbert, D. T. Inferential correction. Chapter 9 in Gilovich, Griffin & Kahneman (eds.)
Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. Cambridge University
Press.
Jones, E. E. Interpreting interpersonal behavior: the effect of expectancies.
Science, 234.
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Lecture 9: Evolution of Human Cognitive Biases
Haselton, M. G., & Nettle, D. The paranoid optimist: an integrative evolutionary model
of cognitive biases. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10.
Li, Y. J., Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., & Neuberg, S. L. Economic decision biases
and fundamental motivations: how mating and self-protection alter loss aversion.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102.
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