The moral psychology of Holocaust perpetrators . We will review similar documented episodes and analyze them to evaluate the different social scientific theories attempting to explain Nazi killing both from a scientific and a moral perspective. We will start with a consideration of various personality theories, move on to sociological theories and finally spend most of our time evaluating social psychological theories. We will also study the various attempt to approximate the mass killings, such as Milgram's obedience experiments, Zimbardo's prison experiment, and the vast literature on men in combat as well as relevant group behavior. Finally, we will try to assess the implication of preference falsification for group behavior in a totalitarian environment and high pressure situation.
Class also meets weekly to consider progress in the laboratory and to discuss assigned readings.
Research topics come from current issues in the neurology and pharmacology of food and nutrient intake. But other topics might be considered as well. This class will focus on observational methods of studying children, with attention to the entire scope of the research process. Readings and class discussion will be aimed at supporting the research projects which each student will do. Working individually or in groups, students will define a research question relevant to some issue in Developmental Psychology, develop an appropriate observational measure, use the measure to observe young children in a naturalistic setting, and analyze and interpret the findings.