This course combines two current topics in Psychology, exploring how the social interactions of humans are processed by the brain and the ways that culture can shape social, as well as cognitive, processes.  Topics include the self, stereotyping, empathy, neuroeconomics, and biculturalism.  In addition to a focus on fMRI research, Dr. Janelle Beadle, a postdoctoral trainee in Neuroscience, will serve as a co-Instructor, lending her expertise in patient research.

Previously taught three years ago as PSYC 180a, this course has been re-listed as a graduate course (although advanced undergraduates are welcome to enroll, pending instructor approval) to allow for more hands-on work, such as the design of cross-cultural research studies.  Prof. Angela Gutchess notes that both social neuroscience and cross-cultural research (and even “cultural neuroscience”, the combination of the two) have grown tremendously in the short time since the course was last offered, and that she is particularly excited to be teaching this course upon return from her semester in Istanbul, Turkey as a Fulbright Scholar.