Syllabus
Human Emotions Graduate Seminar
Psychology 650, section 2
Instructor: Geoffrey Miller, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Where: Logan Hall 156
When: Wednesdays 10:00 am to 12:30 pm
Overview
This graduate seminar will examine recent theoretical and empirical advances in
the study of human emotions viewed functionally as adaptations. The focus will be
largely on social emotions that may function to (1) mentally represent key ‘fitness
affordances’ in the social environment (i.e. threats and opportunities relevant to survival
and reproduction), and (2) guide adaptive decision-making and motivate action with
respect to those fitness affordances. In contrast to the traditional view that emotions are
opposed to rationality, we will investigate which human emotions may contain a hidden
adaptive logic that solves certain social problems (e.g. making social commitments and
credible threats and promises) more effectively than conscious rational deliberation.
Emotions to be considered in detail will include: romantic love, sexual jealousy, parental
love, aggressive anger, empathy concerning the distress of others, fear of dangerous
animals, and disgust concerning signs of communicable disease and pathogens. A
wide range of empirical methods for investigating emotions will be considered.
The course readings will be mostly from the textbook Handbook of Emotions (2nd
Ed.), plus some recent journal papers and book chapters. The readings will emphasize
the work of key emotions theorists such as Darwin, Ekman, Rolls, Gray, LeDoux,
Cosmides, Tooby, Buss, Daly, Wilson, Thornhill, Gilbert, Nesse, Fridja, Zajonc, Forgas,
Hirshleifer, and Frank.
This course may hold particular interest for clinical students, insofar as human
social emotions are at the core of both psychological well-being and psychological
distress. It should also fulfill the APA clinical breadth-of-training requirement concerning
“affective aspects of behavior”. We will consider the role of social emotions especially in
relation to mood disorders (depression, bipolar disorder), anxiety disorders, and
psychosis.
Course mechanics
We will meet once a week for two and a half hours. I expect punctuality. There
will be a 10-15 minute break about half way through each meeting. If you have to miss a
class for any reason, please let me know by email as soon as you know you’ll be absent.
Instructor:
Dr. Geoffrey Miller, Assistant Professor
Psychology, Logan Hall 160
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA
(505) 277-1967 (office)
gfmiller@unm.edu
http://www.unm.edu/~psych/faculty/gmiller.html
Office hours: Wednesdays 2-3 pm, Logan Hall 160
If you can’t make office hours and you have a question, please call or email.
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How this course complements other graduate seminars
This course’s content is designed to complement, with minimal overlap, my other
650-level graduate seminars on mate choice, social interaction, behavior genetics,
evolutionary psychopathology, and consumer behavior. It is also designed to overlap
minimally with Steve Gangestad’s new evolutionary psychology core graduate course,
and with other anthropology and biology courses in the Human Evolutionary Behavioral
Sciences (HEBS) interdisciplinary program (see www.unm.edu/~hebs).
Background knowledge:
This course assumes that you have taken a fair number of psychology classes
and perhaps a bit of evolutionary psychology. If you’d like a little more background in
evolutionary psychology, animal behavior, genetics, or the biological basis of behavior,
I’d recommend any of the following:
Geoffrey Miller (2000). The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the
evolution of human nature. New York: Doubleday.
Robin Dunbar, Louise Barrett, & John Lycett (2005). Evolutionary psychology: A
beginner’s guide. New York: Oneworld Publications.
David Buss (2003). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of mind (2nd Ed.).
New York: Allyn & Bacon.
David Buss (Ed.). (2005). The handbook of evolutionary psychology. New York:
Wiley.
Dylan Evans & Pierre Cruse (2004). Emotion, evolution, and rationality. Oxford,
UK: Oxford U. Press.
Steven Pinker (2004). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature.
New York: Viking.
Mark Ridley (2003). Evolution (3rd Ed.). London: Blackwell.
Benjamin Lewin (2005). Essential Genes. New York: Prentice-Hall.
John Alcock (2005). Animal behavior: An evolutionary approach. (8th Ed.).
Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.
Karen B. Strier (2002). Primate behavioral ecology (2nd Ed.). New York: Allyn &
Bacon.
Grading: depends on three kinds of work for this course
 60% of grade: one term paper, APA format, c. 3,000 words (10-12 pages
double spaced), methodologically oriented, including a critical assessment of a
research literature and an outline of a possible study. Extra credit will be given
for submitting the paper for publication to a reputable journal (e.g. as a
theoretical note, literature review, etc.). The term paper is due in three stages:
o provisional abstract, outline, and bibliography due March 1 (10% of
final course grade)
o revised abstract, detailed outline, and revised bibliography due
March 29 (20%)
o final draft due May 14 (last day of class) (30%)
 40%: class participation and comments on the readings. I expect regular
attendance, knowledge of assigned readings, active participation and intellectual
engagement, and well-prepared presentations concerning the readings.
 no exams
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Details on the term paper
The term paper determines 60% of your course grade. You can choose any
topic related to the course content and course readings. The final paper should be
about 3,000 words, plus references. I care more about clarity, insight, research, and the
flow of argument than about length per se.
Please plan to submit the final draft in standard APA (American Psychological
Association) research paper format. This means computer-printed, double-spaced,
single-sided, in 12 point Arial font, with a proper title page, abstract, references, and
page numbering. Consult the APA Publication Manual for more details.
For graduate students, my goal is for you to produce a paper that you could turn
around and submit to a decent journal as a review or commentary piece to improve your
C.V., and that you would be proud to submit in an application for a post-doc, tenure-track
job, or clinical internship.
You’ll get extra credit if you actually submit the term paper for publication in a
reputable journal. Please provide a copy of your submission cover letter.
To make sure that you are thinking, researching, and writing the paper on a good
schedule throughout the semester, I require the following:
1. March 1: Provisional abstract, outline, and bibliography due (10% of final
course grade).
In a one-paragraph abstract, just let me know what you think you’ll probably write
about. If you change your mind, no problem, just tell me in an email later. But I want
you to have some topic in mind by this date. Pick a topic that you feel passionate about
– you’ll have to live with it for several months!
In a one-page provisional outline, show how you’ll approach your topic and
structure your paper. In a provisional bibliography, list about 10 to 20 references (not all
from the syllabus here!), that you have actually read, with brief notes about their
relevance to your paper.
After you submit this, come to my office hours at least once for my feedback.
This is very important; I will try to make sure your paper looks viable and will try to give
you some useful suggestions and references
2. March 29: Revised abstract, detailed outline, and revised, annotated
bibliography due (20% of course grade).
This should be a revised abstract based on our discussion of your topic’s
viability, plus a much more detailed outline of your term paper, clearly showing the
planned structure of your paper, and a revised, more complete bibliography. The outline
should be several pages long, and each outline entry should be a clear, detailed, specific
statement, not just a short, vague phrase. The flow of your paper’s argument should be
apparent.
In the annotated bibliography, use standard APA reference format, and please
note each reference’s relevance to your topic. A good annotation would be “This
critically reviews 18 recent studies of domain-specific disgust effects, emphasizing the
similarities between social disgust and cheater-detection, and between pathogenavoidance disgust and nausea.” A bad outline entry would be “Reviews disgust
research”.
After I get this outline, I will write comments and suggestions on it and return it to
you as soon as I can. This should allow you to submit a really good final draft, and I
hope it will help you improve your writing generally.
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3. May 14 (last day of class): Final draft due (30% of course grade).
This should be a highly polished document in correct format with no spelling or
grammatical errors. It should represent the culmination of three months of research,
thinking, and writing about a topic that passionately interests you. I will try to grade final
drafts by the last day of exams.
Structure of the term paper: The ideal final paper would include the following:
 Title page: a decent, descriptive, memorable title, and all other information
required for APA format
 Abstract page: a concise, punchy abstract that interests the reader in your paper
 Introduction: Start with a bang. Pose the problem that interests you, and how
you’ll approach it. Say where you stand, and why the reader should care. Be
specific and clear; mix the theoretical and methodological level of discourse with
real-life examples and issues; know when to be funny and when to be serious.
 Body of the paper: depending on what you’re writing about, this could include a
literature review, a series of arguments, an overview of relevant ideas and
research from a related area or field, a series of methodological analyses,
criticism, and suggestions, or anything that advances your points. If you include
literature reviews, don’t do generic overviews – review the literature with a
purpose, critically, as it pertains to your topic.
 Research proposal: ideally, towards the end of your paper, you could sketch out
a new empirical way to resolve one or more of the issues you’ve raised in your
paper. This could be a brief outline of an experiment, an observational method, a
meta-analysis or re-analysis of existing data, or any other method you think
would be appropriate. If your proposal is good, we could go ahead and do the
work next semester and publish it!
 Bibliography: Only include things you’ve read. If you haven’t read them and have
only seen them cited by others, then use the format (name, date; as cited in:
name, date). If your bibliography includes good, relevant papers and books that I
haven’t heard of before, I will be impressed.
The assigned readings
Each week there will be three or four assigned readings.
About half of the readings will be from this textbook: Michael Lewis & Jeannette
M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.). Handbook of Emotions (2nd Ed.). (2000). New York:
Guilford Press. The 2004 paperback edition has a retail price of $44, and should be
available in the UNM bookstore. Guilford Press is having a special close-out sale on the
hardback edition for $5 plus shipping; see www.guilford.com for ordering.
The other half of the readings are journal papers or book chapters. They will be
on electronic reserve (ereserves.unm.edu), or will be hardcopied and distributed the
previous week.
The readings have been arranged week by week according to a combination of
theoretical issues addressed, and specific emotional phenomena discussed. Most
weeks, there are about 40 to 50 pages of actual reading to be done (not counting
references sections of the papers.) This should take about three hours. I want you to
get a broad exposure to the state of the art in emotion research. Some of the readings
are harder than others; some weeks require more reading than other weeks.
Please do not take this course if you cannot commit an average of three hours a
week to the readings. The major educational benefits of the course depend on you
doing the readings on time, to benefit maximally from the class discussion. If you don’t
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read them, you won’t learn much; if you do read them attentively, you’ll learn a lot. I
expect all of each week’s required readings to be completed well before class, so you
have time to digest them, think about them, compare and contrast them, and prepare
intelligent comments and questions about them. Last-minute reading will not result in
good comprehension or good in-class discussion.
Preparing notes on the assigned readings for each class
One week before each reading is due to be discussed, I will ask two student
volunteers to each prepare a one-page set of notes, comments, and questions
concerning that reading. I expect each student to volunteer for several such reading
analyses throughout the semester. The quality of these analyses will form a substantial
portion of your class participation grade, which is 40% of your final course grade.
When it is your week to present a reading, please bring enough copies of your
one-page analysis to distribute to everyone else in the class. Assume that the other
students have read the paper thoroughly and attentively, and want to know what you
think of it. These analyses will serve to initiate class discussion of that reading.
The one-page analyses should have your name at the top, the date, and the
APA-format reference for each reading as the header for your comments on that
reading. Use numbered lists to identify your specific notes, comments, and questions
under each reading. Please make at least three or four substantive comments on each
reading – not simply summarizing the reading’s main points, but offering some sort of
critical analysis of the reading’s ideas, or comparison to other readings, etc.
Schedule of topics and readings week by week:
Class 1 (January 18): Course overview
No assigned readings before first class.
Class 2 (January 25): Introduction and history of emotions research
Handbook Ch. 1: Robert C. Solomon (2000). The philosophy of emotions. In M. Lewis
& J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 3-15 . NY:
Guilford Press.
Tim Dalgleish (2004). The emotional brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5(7), 582589.
Handbook Ch. 5: Nico H. Frijda (2000). The psychologists’ point of view. In M. Lewis &
J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 59-74. NY:
Guilford Press.
Class 3 (February 1): Evolutionary-functional approaches to emotions
Handbook Ch. 7: Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (2000). Evolutionary psychology and
the emotions. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions
(2nd Ed.), pp. 91-115. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 9: Jaak Panksepp (2000). Emotions as natural kinds within the
mammalian brain. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of
emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 137-156. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 16: Carroll E. Izard & Brian P. Ackerman (2000). Motivational,
organizational, and regulatory functions of discrete emotions. In M. Lewis & J.
Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 253-264. NY:
Guilford Press.
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Paul Ekman (1999). Basic emotions. In T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of
Cognition and Emotion, pp. 45-60. NY: Wiley & Sons.
Class 4 (February 8): Fear, anxiety, and disgust
Handbook Ch. 36: Arne Ohman (2000). Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and
clinical perspectives. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of
emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 573-593. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 10: Joseph E. LeDoux & Elizabeth A. Phelps (2000). Emotional networks
in the brain. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd
Ed.), pp. 137-156. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 40: Paul Rozin, Jonathan Haidt, & Clark R. McCauley (2000). Disgust. In
M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 637653. NY: Guilford Press.
Paul Rozin & E. B. Royzman (2001). Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and
contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296-320.
Class 5 (February 15): Social functions of emotions
Dacher Keltner & Jonathan Haidt (2001). Social functions of emotions. In T. J. Mayne &
G. A. Bonanno (Eds.), Emotions, pp. 192-213. NY: Guilford.
Randolph M. Nesse (2000). Natural selection and the capacity for subjective
commitment. In R. M. Nesse (Ed.), Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment,
pp. 1-44. NY: Russell Sage.
Amanda C. Williams (2002). Facial expression of pain: An evolutionary account.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 439-455.
(February 22: No class. Geoffrey away at conference in Adelboden, Switzerland.)
Class 6 (March 1): Love, attachment, and empathy
Provisional abstract, outline, and bibliography due
Handbook Ch. 41: Elaine Hatfield & Richard L. Rapson (2000). Love and attachment
processes. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd
Ed.), pp. 654-662. NY: Guilford Press.
Helen E. Fisher, A. Aron, D. Marshek, H. Li, & L. L. Brown (2002). Defining the brain
systems of lust, romantic attraction, and attachment. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 31(5), 413-419.
Stephanie D. Preston & Frans B. M. de Waal (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and
proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(1), 1-20.
Andreas Bartels & Semir Zeki (2004). The neural correlates of maternal and romantic
love. NeuroImage, 21(3), 1155-1166.
Class 7 (March 8): Social, moral, and self-conscious emotions
Dacher Keltner & Brenda N. Buswell (1997). Embarrassment: Its distinct form and
appeasement functions. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 250-270.
Nancy Eisenberg (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review
of Psychology, 51, 665-697.
Jonathan Haidt (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist
approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814-834.
Jessica L. Tracy & Richard W. Robins (2004). Putting the self into self-conscious
emotions: A theoretical model. Psychological Inquiry, 15(2), 103-125.
(March 15: No class. Spring recess.)
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Class 8 (March 22): Expression of emotions
Handbook Ch. 14: Tom Johnstone & Klaus R. Scherer (2000). Vocal communication of
emotion. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd
Ed.), pp. 220-235. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 15: Dacher Keltner & Paul Ekman (2000). Facial expression of emotion.
In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 236249. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 22: Leslie R. Brody & Patrick T. Vargas (2000). Gender, emotion, and
expression. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd
Ed.), pp. 338-349. NY: Guilford Press.
Class 9 (March 29): Individual differences in emotions
Revised abstract, detailed outline, and revised bibliography due
Handbook Ch. 12: Richard Rende (2000). Emotion and behavior genetics. In M. Lewis
& J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 192-202. NY:
Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 25: John E. Bates (2000). Temperament as an emotion construct:
Theoretical and practical issues. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.),
Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 382-396. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 32: Peter Salovey, B. T. Bendell, J. B. Detweiler, & J. D. Mayer (2000).
Current directional in emotional intelligence research. In M. Lewis & J. HavilandJones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 504-520. NY: Guilford Press.
Class 10 (April 5): Historical and cross-cultural differences in emotions
Handbook Ch. 2: Peter N. Stearns (2000). History of emotions: Issues of change and
impact. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.),
pp. 16-29. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 26: Richard A. Shweder & Jonathan Haidt (2000). The cultural
psychology of the emotions: Ancient and new. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones
(Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 397-414. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 38: Carol Barr-Zisowitz (2000). “Sadness” – Is there such a thing? In M.
Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 607-622.
NY: Guilford Press.
Hilary Elfenbein & Nalini Ambady (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of
emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128(2), 203-235.
Class 11 (April 12): Functions of mood
Randolph M. Nesse (2004). Natural selection and the elusiveness of happiness. Phil.
Transactions Royal Society of London B, 359(1449), 1333-1347.
Dacher Keltner, Deborah H. Gruenfeld, & Cameron Anderson (2003). Power, approach,
and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110(2), 265-284.
Ed Hagen (2003). The bargaining model of depression. In P. Hammerstein (Ed.), The
genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation, pp. 95-123. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Barbara L. Fredrickson (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Phil.
Transactions Royal Society of London B, 359(1449), 1367-1377.
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Class 12 (April 19): Mood, emotion, and decision-making
Jennifer S. Lerner & Dacher Keltner (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of
emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice. Cognition & Emotion, 14(4),
473-493.
George F. Loewenstein, C. K. Hsee, E. U. Weber, & N. Welch (2001). Risk as feelings.
Psychological Bulletin, 127, 267-286.
Paul Slovic, M. L. Finucane, E. Peters, & D. G. MacGregor (2004). Risk as analysis and
risk as feelings: Some thoughts about affect, reason, risk, and rationality. Risk
Analysis, 24(2), 311-322.
Christopher J. Anderson (2003). The psychology of doing nothing: Forms of decision
avoidance result from reason and emotion. Psychological Bulletin, 129(1), 139167.
Class 13 (April 26): Mood, psychophysiology, and health
Handbook Ch. 11: John T. Cacioppo, G. G. Berntson, J. T. Larsen, K. M. Poehlmann, &
T. A. Ito (2000). The psychophysiology of emotion. In M. Lewis & J. HavilandJones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 173-191. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 33: Howard Leventhal & Linda Patrick-Miller (2000). Emotions and
physical illness: Causes and indicators of vulnerability. In M. Lewis & J.
Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 523-537. NY:
Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 35: Roger J. Booth & James W. Pennebaker (2000). Emotions and
immunity. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd
Ed.), pp. 558-570. NY: Guilford Press.
Randolph M. Nesse (1998). Emotional disorders in evolutionary perspective. British J. of
Medical Psychology, 71, 397-415.
Class 14 (May 3): Happiness
Final term paper due
Handbook Ch. 21: Ed Diener & Richard E. Lucas (2000). Subjective emotional wellbeing. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.),
pp. 338-349. NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 27: Alice M. Isen (2000). Positive affect and decision-making. In M.
Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 417-435.
NY: Guilford Press.
Handbook Ch. 42: James R. Averill & Thomas A. More (2000). Happiness. In M. Lewis
& J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Ed.), pp. 663-676. NY:
Guilford Press.
Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein (1999). Hedonic adaptation. In D. Kahneman,
E. Diener & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being, pp. 302-329. NY: Russell Sage.
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