Universität Wien

200005 PS Proseminar zu Biologischer Psychologie und zu Kognitiv-Affektiven Neurowissenschaften (2023S)

Social Neuroscience of Morality and Politics

6.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 20 - Psychologie
Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung

An/Abmeldung

Hinweis: Ihr Anmeldezeitpunkt innerhalb der Frist hat keine Auswirkungen auf die Platzvergabe (kein "first come, first served").

Details

max. 40 Teilnehmer*innen
Sprache: Englisch

Lehrende

Termine (iCal) - nächster Termin ist mit N markiert

  • Dienstag 07.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 14.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 21.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 28.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 18.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 25.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 02.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 09.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 16.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 23.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 06.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 13.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 20.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606
  • Dienstag 27.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal A Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0606

Information

Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

This course will give an overview into the history and dynamics of political systems. We will begin by examining how political systems form and evolve, how they transmit information, and how they build knowledge. With insights from cognitive- and neuro- sciences, we will also see how they create ‘moral communities’, broad social agreements on what is right and wrong, as well as a ‘common sense’, i.e. broad social agreements on what is true. The course will consist on lectures and student presentations.

Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

- 20 % class attendance
- 40% student group presentation
- 40% multiple choice test

Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

Students must have a grade higher than 50% on both student group presentation and multiple choice test. Attendance must be superior to 2/3s of the classes.

Prüfungsstoff

Module 1: Where do political systems come from? Introduction to political philosophy, and the debate on the political nature of humans.

Module 2: What is power and how is it generated? The path from equalitarian to hierarchical societies.

Module 3 : What is morality and how does it interface with politics? How group psychology and dynamics creates moral tribes and political polarization.

Module 4: How political systems transmit information. The cognitive neuroscience of information processing and how it affects political psychology.

Module 5: What makes a political system stable? Determinants of political instability in pre-modern and modern states: the role of demographics, intra-elite competition, immiseration of the masses, and trust in institutions.

Module 6: What makes a political system democratic? The environmental and cognitive determinants of support for democracy.

Module 7: How political systems create ‘common sense’? The psychology of propaganda and fake news.

Literatur

- Fukuyama (2011) The Origins of Political Order: From prehuman times to the French Revolution
- Jonathan Haidt (2013) Moral psychology for the twenty-first century, Journal of Moral Education, 42:3, 281-297
- ‘Power of us’. Jay van Bavel
- Ferguson, Niall (2018). “The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
- Golstone (2016).  Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World: Population Change and State Breakdown in England, France, Turkey, and China,1600-1850; 25th Anniversary Edition
- Turchin (2016) Ages of Discord
- B. Geddes, “What causes democratization” in Oxford Handbook Political Science, R. E. Goodin, Ed. (Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 2011). DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.013.0029
- D. J. Ruck, L. J. Matthews, T. Kyritsis, Q. D. Atkinson, R. A. Bentley, The cultural foundations of modern democracies. Nat. Hum. Behav. 4, 265–269 (2020)
- D. Acemoglu, J. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Crown Business, ed. 1, 2012).
- Chomsky & Waterstone (2021). Chapter 1 “COMMON SENSE, THE TAKEN-FOR-GRANTED, AND POWER” in “Consequences of Capitalism”.
- Harambam (2020) “Contemporary Conspiracy Culture: Truth and Knowledge in an Era of Epistemic Instability

Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

70231

Letzte Änderung: Fr 17.02.2023 13:08