Psychology of Human Cooperation

Course Description

Cooperation is necessary to solve many of our pressing challenges – including depletion of natural resources, managing the COVID-19 pandemic, and effective policy making. By studying the psychological processes underlying cooperation we gain knowledge that can help us create environments and institutions which will be more successful in tackling the societal challenges. The main goal of the course is to introduce students to the psychological processes of human cooperation. This course draws on theories and empirical findings from social, cognitive and developmental psychology, and behavioral economics.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students will gain knowledge and various skills and will be able to:

Knowledge:
 
– Demonstrate understanding of basic terminology, concepts and principles of humanof the human cooperation. 

– Recognize that human cooperation has multiple layers.

– Understand how scientists accumulate scientific knowledge about human cooperation through discovery, confirmation, and correction.

– Understand how psychology is applied to improving various areas including prosocial behavior and inter- and intra-group cooperation.

Information literacy skills:

– Use Google Scholar to identify the relevant scientific articles for their questions about human cooperation. 

– Evaluate popular and scholarly sources and their contents for answering questions about human cooperation.

Collaboration and Communication skills: 

– To communicate and collaborate with their classmates in a group research project.

Competence:

– Apply a basic understanding of human cooperation in practice.