Evolutionary Psychology
PSYC 358, Section
001
(2011-2012 Academic Year, Term 2)
When: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00 – 3:20
Where: Buchanan A 103
Course Website: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/psyc358.htm
Instructor: Dr. Mark Schaller
Office: Kenny 2035
Telephone: 604.822.2613
Email: schaller@psych.ubc.ca
Office hours: Thursdays 3:30 - 4:30, and by appointment
Teaching Assistant: Jack
Eurich
Office: 1111
Email: eurich@psych.ubc.ca
Office hours: Mondays
2:00 - 3:00, and by appointment
Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish
gene. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
(A "30th anniversary edition" of this book should be available
for purchase in the UBC bookstore. There was also an edition published in
1989. For this course, it doesn't
matter which edition you read; we will cover material common to all editions.)
Pinker, S. (2002). The blank
slate. New York: Penguin.
(This book should be available for purchase in the UBC bookstore.)
Kenrick, D. T. (2011). Sex,
murder, and the meaning of life.
New York: Basic Books.
(This book should be available for purchase in the UBC bookstore.)
Cosmides,
L., & Tooby, J. (1997). Evolutionary
psychology: a primer.
(This short reading is available on-line from the Center for
Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California - Santa Barbara. Just follow the link.)
Course Objectives and Overview:
Evolutionary psychology is a broad approach to scientific inquiry, in
which the knowledge and principles from evolutionary biology are applied to the
study of human psychological processes and their implications for human
behavior. This course is designed to
provide you with a good overview of the basic themes of inquiry within
evolutionary psychology, and an overview of important programs of research
within evolutionary psychology. By the
end of the course, you should understand how evolutionary thinking can be
productively applied within the psychological sciences, you should be familiar
with the conceptual and methodological issues that arise when evolutionary
principles are applied to the study contemporary human behavior, and you should
know a wide variety of psychological theories and psychological phenomena that
have emerged within the framework of evolutionary psychology.
This is a big class, and I will present a lot of material in a lecture
format. But please don't let that keep
you from thinking: I'll try as best as
I can to keep you alert and mentally active in class. Please feel free to ask questions and/or make cogent comments
during class.
The
material that appears in the readings and the material that I present in class
are designed to be complementary. There
will be some overlap, of course. But
there is lots of material in the readings that we won't have time to talk about
in class; and I will present lots of material in class that doesn't appear in
the readings. If you want to do well in
this class, be sure to keep up with the readings, and be sure to come to class.
Exams:
There will
be two exams, a midterm and a final. Your grade on the midterm counts 40%
toward your overall course grade. Your
grade on the final exam counts 60% toward your overall course grade.
Midterm
Exam: The midterm exam will occur in class on
Tuesday, February 14. Part of it will
consist of multiple-choice questions.
Another part of it will consist of a short take-home essay assignment
that will be due on the day of the exam.
Final
Exam: The final exam will be sometime in April, on
a date to be announced later. Part of
it will consist of multiple-choice questions.
Another part of the exam will require you to do some speedy
writing. You will have 90 minutes to do
it. It will be partially cumulative,
covering all of the material presented throughout the course, but primarily emphasizing
material presented after the midterm.
Exams
won't be handed back to you. Students
at UBC have the right to view their marked examinations with their instructor,
providing they apply to do so within a month of receiving their final grades.
This review is for pedagogic purposes.
The examination remains the property of the university.
Students
who miss an exam will receive a mark of “0” for that exam. You will not
be allowed to take a make-up an exam unless you have written documentation from
a health professional attesting to a valid health-related reason for missing
the scheduled exam.
Scaling
of Grades:
Grades
will be scaled in order to maintain equity among classes and to conform to
University, Faculty, or Department grading norms. In accordance with the policy of the Psychology Department, the expectation
is that the grades in this course (as in all 300-level courses) will be
normally distributed around an average grade of approximately 68 (i.e., right
around a C+ or B-).
Let
me explain what this is all about. The
primary function of grades is to inform you (and other people) as to your
performance relative to other students taking the course. In order for grades to serve this function,
it's important that average performance is reflected in an average grade, that
better-than-average-but-not-great performance is reflected in a
better-than-average-but-not-great grade, and so forth. The Faculty of Arts is very concerned about
"grade inflation" and has set guidelines for appropriate
distributions of grades in courses at all levels. This is something we really
pay attention to in the Psychology Department.
Let
me make this point in a slightly different way. Don't be fooled by the fact that UBC records numerical grades on
a 100-point scale. Numerical grades aren't
percentages. They are simply a numerical
translation of letter grades.
Again: The purpose of your final
course grade is to reflect your performance in this course relative to
the other students taking the course.
If your performance is right in the middle of the overall grade distribution,
then you'll get an average grade (a C+ or B-).
If most students in class perform better than you, you'll get a low
grade (in the low C's, or D's or – if you're way at the bottom of the grade
distribution – an F). If you perform
better than average, then you'll get a better-than-average grade (e.g., a B
perhaps). And if you perform way better
than average (e.g., if your performance is among the top 15% of students in the
entire class) then you may get an A.
So,
please remember that the average final grade in this course will be around a C+
or B-, and that grades will be normally distributed around that mean. I will scale the grades to ensure that the
distribution of final grades in this class meets these guidelines.
Special
Accommodations:
UBC accommodates students
with disabilities who have registered with UBC's office of Access and Diversity. If
you have a disability that may affect your performance in this class, please
make sure you have contacted the Access and Diversity office to arrange
for accommodations. Please let me know of these accommodations as soon as
possible.
UBC
also accommodates students whose religious obligations conflict with
attendance, assignments, or examinations. Please let me know as soon as
possible – and well in advance of any assignment or examination – if you will
require any accommodation on these grounds.
The university does not
have any formal policy on accommodating students who plan to be absent for
varsity athletics, family obligations, or other similar commitments. So, please do not assume that you will get
special accommodations for these sorts of absences. It is your responsibility to ensure that you meet the course
requirements as scheduled. If you do
plan to be absent during any time an assignment or examination is scheduled,
please discuss this with me as soon as possible (and make sure you do so before
the drop date.)
Class
conduct:
Please show
respect for everyone else in class. Show up on time and please
don't leave early, because comings and goings during class are very
disruptive. Make sure cellphones and
other distracting electronic stuff are turned off before you come to class. And please don't chatter when I'm lecturing
or if someone else is talking. I do
want you to actively participate in the class – to ask questions and make
comments – but please do so in respectful way.
Academic Dishonesty:
Cheating, plagiarism, and other
forms of academic misconduct are very serious concerns of the University, and
the Department of Psychology has taken steps to alleviate them. The Department has implemented software that
can reliably detect cheating on multiple-choice exams by analyzing the patterns
of students’ responses. The Department
also subscribes to TurnItIn – a
service designed to detect and deter plagiarism. All materials that students submit for grading will be scanned
and compared to over 4.5 billion pages of content located on the Internet or in
TurnItIn’s own proprietary databases.
The results of these comparisons are compiled into customized
“Originality Reports” containing several, sensitive measures of plagiarism;
instructors receive copies of these reports for every student in their class. In all cases of suspected academic
misconduct, the parties involved will be pursued to the fullest extent dictated
by the guidelines of the University.
Strong evidence of cheating or plagiarism may result in a zero credit
for the work in question. According to
the University Act (section 61), the President of UBC has the right to impose
harsher penalties including (but not limited to) a failing grade for the
course, suspension from the University, cancellation of scholarships, or a
notation added to a student’s transcript.
All graded
work in this course, unless otherwise specified, is to be original work done
independently by individuals. If you
have any questions as to whether or not what you are doing is even a borderline
case of academic misconduct, please consult your instructor. For details on
pertinent University policies and procedures pertaining to academic dishonesty,
please see the UBC Calendar, and
visit the Academic
Integrity page on UBC Faculty of Arts website.
Other Stuff:
This syllabus is our roadmap for the course, but it is possible that
some revisions (in scheduling, in policy, etc.) may have to be made as we work our
way through the material. Any announcements made in class “count” just as
much as policies outlined in this written syllabus.
Further information about academic regulations, course withdrawal dates
and credits can be found in the University Calendar.
If you run into trouble and need information about studying, preparing for
exams, note-taking or time-management, free workshops and advice are available
from the Student Resources Center.
Calendar of Events:
Following
is a list of the dates on which we will have classes. Alongside each date, I've indicated exactly what material you
should have completed reading by that date.
January
5: [No readings required]
January 10:
Cosmides & Tooby; Pinker, chapters 1, 2, and 3
January 12:
Dawkins, chapters 1 and 2
January 17:
Dawkins, chapter 3
January 19:
Dawkins, chapter 4
January 24:
Dawkins, chapter 5
January 26
[Class is cancelled]
January 31:
Dawkins, chapter 6
February 2:
Dawkins, chapter 8
February 7:
Dawkins, chapter 9
February 9:
Dawkins, chapter 10
February
14: MIDTERM EXAM
February
16: [No readings required]
February
28: Pinker, chapters 12 and 13
March 1:
Pinker, chapter 14
March 6:
Pinker, chapter 15
March 8: Pinker,
chapter 16
March 13:
Pinker, chapter 17
March 15:
Kenrick, chapters 1 and 2
March 20:
Kenrick, chapters 3 and 4
March 22:
Kenrick, chapters 5 and 6
March 27:
Kenrick, chapters 7 and 8
March 29:
Kenrick, chapter 9
April 3:
Pinker, chapters 8, 9, and 10
April 5:
Kenrick, conclusion (pp. 195-205)
April date
& time to be announced later: FINAL
EXAM