Yale / Psychology

Psychology, Sex, and Evolution

By Paul Bloom | Introduction to Psychology Lecture 14 of 20

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Lecture Description

This lecture reviews what evolutionary theories and recent studies in psychology can tell us about sex and gender differences. Students will hear how psychology can help explain many of the differences that exist in whom we find attractive, what we desire in a mate, and sexual orientation.

Course Description

What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why can't we tickle ourselves? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, religion, persuasion, love, lust, hunger, art, fiction, and dreams. We will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury.

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Lecture Transcript and Reading Assignment

Course Index

  1. Introduction to Psychology
  2. Foundations: This is Your Brain
  3. Sigmund Freud
  4. Foundations: Skinner
  5. What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought
  6. How Do We Communicate?: Language in the Brain, Mouth and the Hands
  7. Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Language (cont.); Vision and Memory
  8. Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Vision and Memory (cont.)
  9. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Professor Peter Salovey)
  10. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Evolution and Rationality
  11. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part I
  12. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part II
  13. Why Are People Different?: Differences
  14. Psychology, Sex, and Evolution
  15. A Person in the World of People: Morality
  16. A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part I
  17. A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part II
  18. What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part I
  19. What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part II
  20. The Good Life: Happiness
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