HSL780 1 Semester 2020-2021
Course Coordinator: Dr. Yashpal Jogdand
Email – yaj@iitd.ac.in
This course will introduce theory and research on emotions, with a focus on the social and cultural underpinnings of mental processes that guide emotion appraisal, regulation and expression. You will be directly exposed to major theoretical debates and empirical developments in the study of emotions. Lectures and discussion will range across multiple levels of analysis, from individual, interpersonal to the social and the cultural. You will learn about the general aspects of emotions as well as the role of specific emotions that play an important role in intergroup relations such as anger, contempt, guilt, shame, humiliation, and disgust. Overall, this course brings together insights on emotions from the intersections of social, political and cultural/cross-cultural psychology.
This is a seminar format and reading heavy course. There will be weekly readings, assignments and activities. You are welcome to sign up and continue with this course if you are willing to dedicate at least four hours each week reading dense prose of psychology papers/chapters and are ready to submit weekly written assignments. Completing all readings and assignments before each class is one of the most important ingredients to success in this course.
Lectures/Meeting: via Microsoft Teams
Office hours: Send an email to set up a meeting
The pass criterion for the course would be 40%
The audit criterion for the course would be 40%
Each student is expected to read the assigned articles each week and participate in discussion of those readings during the class meeting. Students are graded on the ability to understand and integrate the material. I am especially interested in your ability to add to the dialogue in a constructive way, either by respectfully challenging your peers or building on a discussion and connecting to relevant areas of research that were not present in the weekly readings. I am looking for your critical perspectives and your ability to understand the historical and contemporary relevance of a contribution.
It is important that you come to class prepared and contribute to the class discussion in an active manner. You are also required to email the discussion leader one question you had about each of the required readings at least 24 hours before class each week. Effective questions are those that draw connections between the different readings and topics covered in class, generate new research ideas, and make connections between the readings and events in the larger world. The discussion leaders should use these questions/critiques to help guide class discussion. You do not need to submit questions/critiques during the weeks you lead the class discussion.
Each student will be assigned to lead discussion each week. Discussion leaders will be responsible for facilitating discussion of the assigned readings. Discussion leaders will read the questions submitted from the other students and use them to prepare and distribute a list of ~10 questions and talking points designed to provoke discussion. This will be sent to the entire class at least 24 hours before the class meeting. The questions can focus on specific articles or on themes that connect the articles and you can draw from the most popular or (in your opinion) best questions submitted from the other students. Discussion leader assignments will be determined during the first class.
You will need to submit a response paper before every class on the assigned readings.
Students will need to submit a book review.
You will need to submit a research proposal on a critical issue in Indian society. The proposal should be no more than 4000 words length. Submissions should be in the format of a word document and required to be uploaded to the Moodle/emailed by the deadline. Please note that there is zero tolerance policy towards plagiarism. If you are unsure what constitutes plagiarism, please contact the course coordinator.
The Proposal will be evaluated for 40 marks using following rubric -
Research question/Hypothesis: Excellent proposal/paper will develop a reasonable hypothesis/research question about the topic chosen for the assignment, and show reasonable grasp of a particular theory and its application while reflecting sensitivity towards critical/interdisciplinary viewpoints (10 marks).
Review of Literature: Excellent proposal/paper will display a good coverage of the issue in the available literature and also reflect good grasp of strengths and limitations of various contributions (10 marks)
Organization/Structure: Excellent proposal/paper will have strong organization, each point following logically and sequentially, organized around a central thesis statement, question, or argument following the underlying sequence of thought involved in the scientific process (10 marks)
Professional style & writing quality: Excellent proposal/paper will have professional writing throughout, free of casual, conversational language, esoteric colloquialisms, etc. The proposal/paper presents information in a way that reflects the standards of a working professional academic environment, in APA style (10 marks).
Week | Class |
28 Sept – 4 Oct | Week 1. Understanding Emotions in Social and Cultural Context Leach, C. W., & L. Z. Tiedens (2004). “A world of emotion.” In L. Z. Tiedens & C.W. Leach (Eds.). The social life of emotions (pp. 1-16). New York: Cambridge University Press. Parkinson, B., Fischer, A., & Manstead, A. S. (2005). Emotion in social relations: Cultural, group, and interpersonal processes. Psychology Press. (Chapter 1; Emotion’s Place in the Social World) Supplemental: Manstead, T. (2005). The social dimension of emotion. The Psychologist. |
5 Oct -11 Oct | Week 2. Theory- Nature of Emotion Abu-Lughod, L, & Lutz, C. A. (1990). Introduction: Emotion, discourse, and the politics of everyday life. In L Abu-Lughod & C. A. Lutz (Eds), Language and the politics of emotion (pp. 1–23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feldman Barrett, L. (2006). Are emotions natural kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 28–58 Supplemental: Dixon T. (2012) “Emotion”: The History of a Keyword in Crisis. Emotion Review.4(4), 338-344. |
12 Oct-18 Oct | Week 3. Theory-2 Leach, C.W. (2020). The Unifying Potential of an Appraisal Approach to the Experience of Group Victimization. In J. Vollhardt (Ed.) The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood. New York: Oxford University Press. Cottrell, C. A., & Neuberg, S. L. (2005). Different Emotional Reactions to Different Groups: A Sociofunctional Threat-Based Approach to "Prejudice". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(5), 770–789 Mackie, D. M., Smith, E. R., & Ray, D. G. (2008). Intergroup emotions and intergroup relations. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(5), 1866-1880. Supplemental: Reicher, S., Spears, R., & Haslam, S. A. (2010). The social identity approach in social psychology. In M. S. Wetherell & C. T. Mohanty (Eds.), Sage handbook of identities (pp. 45–62). London: Sage. |
19 Oct – 25 Oct | Week 4. Methodological Issues Brian Parkinson & A. S. R. Manstead (1993) Making sense of emotion in stories and social life, Cognition and Emotion, 7:3-4, 295-323 Parkinson B, Manstead ASR (2015). Current Emotion Research in Social Psychology: Thinking About Emotions and Other People. Emotion Review. 7(4), 371-380. |
26 Oct- 1 Nov | Week 5. Culture Mesquita, B. (2001). Emotions in collectivist and individualist contexts. Journal of personality and social psychology, 80(1), 68. Patricia M. Rodriguez Mosquera (2018) Cultural concerns: How valuing social-image shapes social emotion, European Review of Social Psychology, 29:1, 1-37 Ayse K. Uskul & Susan E. Cross (2019) The social and cultural psychology of honour: What have we learned from researching honour in Turkey?, European Review of Social Psychology, 30:1, 39-73 Supplemental: Parkinson, B., Fischer, A., & Manstead, A. S. (2005). Emotion in social relations: Cultural, group, and interpersonal processes. Psychology Press. (Chapter 3; Cultural Variation in Emotion) |
2 Nov- 8 Nov | Week 6. Contempt & Insult Fischer, A. H., & Roseman, I. J. (2007). Beat them or ban them: The characteristics and social functions of anger and contempt. Journal of personality and social psychology, 93(1), 103. Tausch, N., Becker, J. C., Spears, R., Christ, O., Saab, R., Singh, P., & Siddiqui, R. N. (2011). Explaining radical group behavior: Developing emotion and efficacy routes to normative and nonnormative collective action. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(1), 129. Cohen, D., Nisbett, R. E., Bowdle, B. F., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: An" experimental ethnography". Journal of personality and social psychology, 70(5), 945. Maitner, A. T., Mackie, D. M., Pauketat, J. V., & Smith, E. R. (2017). The impact of culture and identity on emotional reactions to insults. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 48(6), 892-913. Supplemental: Rodriguez Mosquera, P. M. (2016). On the importance of family, morality, masculine, and feminine honor for theory and research. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(8), 431-442. Fischer, A., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2016). Contempt: Derogating others while keeping calm. Emotion Review, 8(4), 346-357. Rodriguez Mosquera, P. M., Manstead, A. S. R., & Fischer, A. H. (2002). The role of honour concerns in emotional reactions to offences. Cognition & Emotion, 16, 143-163. Rodriguez Mosquera, P. M., Fischer, A. H., Manstead, A. S. R., & Zaalberg, R. (2008). Attach, disapproval, or withdrawal? The role of honour in anger and shame responses to being insulted. Cognition and Emotion, 22, 1471-1498. |
9 Nov -15 Nov Minor week | Week 7. Guilt & Shame Lickel, B., Steele, R. R., & Schmader, T. (2011). Group‐based shame and guilt: Emerging directions in research. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(3), 153-163. Leach, C. W., & Cidam, A. (2015). When is shame linked to constructive approach orientation? A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(6), 983. Schmader, T., & Lickel, B. (2006). Stigma and shame: Emotional responses to the stereotypic actions of one’s ethnic ingroup. In S. Levin & C. van Laar (Eds.), Stigma and group inequality: Social psychological perspectives, 261-285. Supplemental: Leach, C. W. (2017). Understanding shame and guilt. In Handbook of the psychology of self-forgiveness (pp. 17-28). Springer, Cham.
Preliminary Outline of term paper Due |
16 Nov – 22 Nov | Week 8. Humiliation Leidner, B., Sheikh, H., & Ginges, J. (2012). Affective dimensions of intergroup humiliation. PLoS One, 7(9), e46375. Fernández, S., Saguy, T., & Halperin, E. (2015). The paradox of humiliation: The acceptance of an unjust devaluation of the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(7), 976-988. Jogdand, Y., Khan, S., & Reicher, S. (2020). The context, content, and claims of humiliation in response to collective victimhood. The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood, 77. Supplemental: Klein, D. C. (1991). The humiliation dynamic: An overview. Journal of Primary Prevention, 12(2), 93–121 Elison, J., & Harter, S. (2007). Humiliation: causes, correlates, and consequences. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 310-329). New York: Guilford Press. Fernández, S., Halperin, E., Gaviria, E., Agudo, R., & Saguy, T. (2018). Understanding the role of the perpetrator in triggering humiliation: The effects of hostility and status. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 1-11. Atran, S., & Ginges, J. (2008). Humiliation and the inertia effect: Implications for understanding violence and compromise in intractable intergroup conflicts. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 8(3–4), 281–294 |
23 Nov – 28 Nov | Week 9. Disgust Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G. L., & Jordan, A. H. (2008). Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 34(8), 1096-1109. Hodson, G., Choma, B. L., Boisvert, J., Hafer, C. L., MacInnis, C. C., & Costello, K. (2013). The role of intergroup disgust in predicting negative outgroup evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(2), 195-205. Reicher, S. D., Templeton, A., Neville, F., Ferrari, L., & Drury, J. (2016). Core disgust is attenuated by ingroup relations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(10), 2631-2635. Hult Khazaie, D., & Khan, S. S. (2019). Shared social identification in mass gatherings lowers health risk perceptions via lowered disgust. British Journal of Social Psychology. Supplemental: Simone Schnall (2017) Disgust as embodied loss aversion, European Review of Social Psychology, 28:1, 50-94. |
Mid Sem break 29 Nov-13 Dec | No Classes Book Review Due |
14 Dec-20 Dec | Week 10. Emotions in Intergroup Relations Sabina Čehajić-Clancy, Amit Goldenberg, James J. Gross & Eran Halperin (2016) Social-Psychological Interventions for Intergroup Reconciliation: An Emotion Regulation Perspective, Psychological Inquiry, 27:2, 73-88, Yechiel Klar & Nyla R. Branscombe (2016) Intergroup Reconciliation: Emotions Are Not Enough, Psychological Inquiry, 27:2, 106-112 Colin Wayne Leach (2016) The Meta-Theory of Examining Emotion in Social Relationships, Psychological Inquiry, 27:2, 113-116 Johanna Ray Vollhardt & Michelle Sinayobye Twali (2016) Emotion-Based Reconciliation Requires Attention to Power Differences, Critical Consciousness, and Structural Change, Psychological Inquiry, 27:2, 136-143. Supplemental: Iyer, A., & Leach, C. W. (2008). Emotion in inter-group relations. European review of social psychology, 19(1), 86-125. Porat, R., Tamir, M., & Halperin, E. (2020). Group-based emotion regulation: A motivated approach. Emotion, 20(1), 16–20. Goldenberg, A., Garcia, D., Halperin, E., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Collective emotions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(2), 154-160. |
21 Dec- 27 Dec | Week 11. Emotions in Indian Context Lynch, O. M. (1990). The social construction of emotion in India. Divine passions: The social construction of emotion in India, 3-34. Jain, U. (1994). Socio-cultural construction of emotions. Psychology and Developing Societies, 6(2), 151-168. Tayob, S. (2019). Disgust as Embodied Critique: Being Middle Class and Muslim in Mumbai. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(6), 1192-1209. |
28 Dec- 3 Jan | Week 12. Taking Stock and Moving Forward |
6 Jan-13 Jan Major Week | Term Paper Due |