Calendar

Date

Topic

Readings

Video Lectures

Week 1
Lecture 1

Introduction
Question: What is an emotion?

Required

» Chapter 1 (textbook)

» Ekman (1992). An argument for basic emotions.

Optional

» Barrett (2012). Emotions are real.

» James (1884). What is an emotion?

» Gross (2010). The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

1.1
1.2

Week 1
Lecture 2

Manipulating & measuring emotions
Question: How do you trigger emotions?

Required

» Mauss & Robinson. (2005). Measures of emotion: A review.

Optional

» Rottenberg, Ray, & Gross (2007). Emotion elicitation using films.

» Coan & Allen (2007). Organizing the tools and methods of affective science.

» Levenson (2007). Emotion elicitation with neurological patients.

2.1
2.2
2.3

Week 1
Lecture 3

Emotions in man and animals
Question: Do monkeys and dogs have feelings like us?

Required

Chapter 2 (textbook)

Optional

Parr (2003). Discrimination of faces and their emotional content by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Darwin (1872). Emotional Expression in Man and Animals

Panksepp (2005). Beyond a joke: From animal laughter to human joy?

3.1
3.2
3.3

Week 1
Lecture 4

Evolution and emotion
Question: Are emotions evolutionarily evolved?

Required

Chapter 3 (textbook)

Optional

Ekman (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions.

Nesse (2004). Natural selection and the elusiveness of happiness.

4.1
4.2
4.3

Week 2
Lecture 5

Culture, gender, and sex
Question: Let’s talk about sex (and culture)?

Required

» Chapter 9 (textbook)

» Kring & Gordon (1998). Sex differences in emotion

Optional

» Tsai. (2007). Ideal affect: Cultural causes and behavioral consequences.

» Wong, Y. & Tsai, J. L. (2007). Cultural models of shame and guilt.

» Chivers et al. (2004). A sex difference in the specificity of sexual arousal.

5.1
5.2
5.3

Week 2
Lecture 6

Emotional behavior
Question: Why do we laugh, cry, and touch?
 

Required

» Chapter 4 (textbook)

» Rottenberg, J. et al. (2008). Is crying beneficial?

Optional

» Bachorowksi & Owren M. (2001). Not all laughs are alike.

» Keltner, D. (2009). "Laughter" from Born to Be Good

» Hertenstein et al. (2006). Touch communicates distinct emotions.

6.1
6.2
6.3

Week 2
Lecture 7

Bodily Changes and Emotion
Question: Blood and sweat = tears and fears?

Required

» Chapter 5 (textbook)

» Zajonc & McIntosh (1992). Emotions research: Some promising questions and some questionable promises.

Optional

» Levenson (2003). Blood, sweat, and fears: The autonomic architecture of emotion.

» Levenson et al. (1990). Voluntary facial activity generates emotion-specific autonomic nervous system activity.

7.1
7.2
7.3

Week 2
Lecture 8

Emotions and the Brain
Question: Is our brain really emotional?

Required

» Dagleish (2004). The emotional brain

Optional

» LeDoux, J. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain.

» Davidson et al. (1990). Emotional expression and brain physiology: approach/withdrawal and cerebral asymmetry

» Lieberman et al. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli.

» Rolls, E. T. (2000). Precis of the brain and emotion.

8.1
8.2
8.3

Week 3
Lecture 9

Emotions and the self
Question: What are self-conscious emotions?

Required

»Tangney (1996). Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions?

Optional

» Tracy & Robins. (2007). The self in self-conscious emotions: A cognitive appraisal approach.

» Keltner & Anderson. (2000). Saving face for Darwin: The function and uses of embarrassment.

» Tracy, J. L. & Robins, R. W. (2007). Emerging insights into the nature and function of pride.

9.1
9.2
9.3

Week 3
Lecture 10

Emotions and the social world
Question: Living in a social world?

Required

» Chapter 9 (textbook)

Optional

» Lieberman & Eisenberger (2009). Pains and pleasures of social life.

» Graham et al. (2004). Willingness to express negative emotions promotes relationships.

» Levenson & Gottman. (1983). Marital interaction: Physiological linkage and affective exchange.

10.1
10.2
10.3

Week 3
Lecture 11

Morality & Emotion
Question: Do emotions make us moral?

Required

» Haidt (2007). The new synthesis in moral psychology.

Optional

» Pizarro, Inbar & Helion (2011). On disgust and moral judgment.

» Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions.

» Greene et al (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment.

» Wheatley, T. & Haidt, J. (2005). Hypnotic disgust makes moral judgments more severe.

11.1
11.2
11.3

Week 3
Lecture 12

Cognition and Emotion
Question: How does thinking affect feeling?

Required

» Chapter 10 (textbook)

» Clore et al (2000). Cognition in emotion: Always, sometimes, or never.

Optional

» Lazarus (1984). On the primacy of cognition.

» Zajonc (1984). On the primacy of affect.

» Ohman et al (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass.

12.1
12.2
12.3

EXAM #1
[During Professor Gruber’s Office Hours: Thurs, 6/20, 10:00-11:30 AM EST]

Week 4
Lecture 13

Judgment and Decision-Making
Question: Does our wallet reflect our feelings?

Required

» Lerner (2004). Heart strings and purse strings: Carryover effects of emotions on economic decisions:

Optional

» Knutson et al (2007). Neural predictors of purchases.

» Han, S. et al. (2005). Feelings and consumer decision-making: The appraisal-tendency framework.

» Lowenstein & Lerner (2003). The role of affect in decision-making.

13.1
13.2
13.3

Week 4
Lecture 14

Emotion Regulation
Question: Can we change our emotions?

Required

» Chapter 11 (pp. 292-295)

» Gross (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review.

Optional

» Gross & Levenson (1993). Emotional suppression: Physiology, Self-report, and Expressive Behavior.

» Lewis, Zinbarg & Durbin (2010). Advances, problems, and challenges in the study of emotion regulation: A commentary

14.1
14.2
14.3

Week 4
Lecture 15

Emotion Regulation
Question: How do emotions grow?

Required

» Chapter 8 (textbook)

» Scheibe & Carstensen (2010). Emotional aging: Recent findings and future trends.

Optional

» Campos (1989). Emergent themes in the study of emotional development and emotion regulation.

» Kagan & Snidman, (1991). Temperamental factors in human development.

15.1
15.2
15.3

Week 4
Lecture 16

Emotion and Physical Health
Question: Is there a mind-body connection?

Required

» Walker, M. P. & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing.

» Folkman & Moskowitz (2000). Stress, positive emotion, and coping.

Optional

» Stansbury, K. & Gunnar, M. R. (1994). Adrenocortical Activity and Emotion Regulation

16.1
16.2
16.3

Week 5
Lecture 17

Emotional Disorders:
Question: When is emotion too much?

Required

» Gruber & Keltner (2007). Emotional behavior and psychopathology: A survey of methods and concepts.

» Kring (2008). Emotion disturbances as transdiagnostic processes in psychopathology.

Optional

» Rottenberg (2005). Mood and emotion in major depression.

» Kring & Moran (2008). Emotional response deficits in schizophrenia: Insights from affective science.

» Aldao et al. (2010). Emotion regulation strategies across psychopathology: A meta-analytic review.

17.1
17.2
17.3

Week 5
Lecture 18

Emotion and Mental Health
Question: How to cultivate healthy feelings?

Required

» Bonanno (2004). Loss, trauma and human resilience.

» Rottenberg & Gross (2007). Emotion and emotion regulation: A map for psychotherapy researchers.

Optional

» Greenberg & Safran (1989). Emotion in psychotherapy.

18.1
18.2
18.3

Week 5
Lecture 19

Happiness
Question: Don't worry, be happy?

Required

» Fredrickson (1998). What good are positive emotions?

» Gruber, Mauss, & Tamir (2011). A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good.

Optional

» Myers & Diener (1995). Who is happy?

» Dunn et al. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness.

» Pennebaker (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process.

19.1
19.2
19.3

Week 5
Lecture 20

The Future of Emotion
Question: What does the future hold?

Required

» None

Optional

» None

20.1

 EXAM #2
[During Professor Gruber’s Office Hours: Thurs, 7/4, 10:00-11:30 AM EST]