The Science of Prosocial Behavior: How Humans Cooperate
PSYC 364
Spring 2027
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01
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Why do humans help others, often even when it harms their own interests? This course will focus on how prosocial and moral behavior develops from infancy to adulthood. Drawing from developmental and moral psychology and behavioral economics, students will explore research on helping, sharing, cooperation, fairness, and responses to inequality. Students will engage with classic and contemporary behavioral experiments (including dictator, ultimatum, trust, and inequity games), adapt and demonstrate experimental paradigms, and critically evaluate and discuss how beliefs about fairness and prosocial behavior are measured in the lab and observed in everyday life. The course will connect empirical research to broader questions about human morality, including: What makes a distribution fair? When is inequality justified? Why do people enforce social norms? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS PSYC |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (Psychology) |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Sample selection of readings include:
Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science, 314(5805), 1560¿1563.
Malti, T., & Speidel, R. (2024). Development of prosociality and the effects of adversity. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3(8), 524-535.
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46(1), 35¿57.
de Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 279¿300.
McAuliffe, K., Blake, P. R., Steinbeis, N., & Warneken, F. (2017). The developmental foundations of human fairness. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 1¿7.
Surian, L., Parise, E., & Geraci, A. (2025). Core moral concepts and the sense of fairness in human infants. Human Nature, 36(1), 121-142.
Cushman, F. (2013). Action, outcome, and value: A dual-system framework for moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(4), 273¿292.
Bogdan, P. C., Dolcos, F., Moore, M., Kuznietsov, I., Culpepper, S. A., & Dolcos, S. (2023). Social expectations are primarily rooted in reciprocity: an investigation of fairness, cooperation, and trustworthiness. Cognitive Science, 47(8), e13326.
Camerer, C. F., & Fehr, E. (2004). Measuring social norms and preferences using experimental games: A guide for social scientists. Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies, 97, 55-95.
O'Connor, C. (2019). The origins of unfairness: Social categories and cultural evolution. Oxford University Press (UK). (selected readings)
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Examinations and Assignments:
Reading Reflections, Experiment Engagement, Final project/paper
Participating in class discussion, In-class writing exercises, Assigned note-taking |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course is intended for students with prior experience with experimental psychology. Interested students must submit a POI request electronically AND contact the instructor directly expressing their interest in the course. Students who do not email the instructor will not be considered. PSYC 105 is required. Ideally, students will have taken a research methods course or ECON 211 prior to taking this course. This seminar course will allow students to fulfill requirements for either a specialized area course or an elective course for the Psychology major. |
| Instructor(s): Sohail,Sifana Times: ..T.R.. 01:20PM-02:40PM; Location: TBA |
Permission of Instructor Required
Enrollment capacity: 15 | Permission of instructor approval will be granted by the instructor during pre-registration through the Electronic Portfolio. Click "Add to My Courses" and "To request a POI electronically, click here" to submit your request. |
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