David S Yeager

This lecture course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the process of braindevelopment from embryogenesis through adulthood with emphasis on the role of the environment in directing this process. Initial lectures will focus on the origins of the central nervous system, including topics such as the organization of the brain, neurogenesis, cellular differentiation, migration and targeting of neurons, synapse formation and refinement of the nervous system. In the second half of the course, lectures will focus on the infant brain and the role of experiences during infancy in modifying brain function. Topics will also include recent advances in our understanding of the role of gene-environment interactions and epigenetic programming and shaping brain development. Finally, the adaptive vs. maladaptive outcomes of environmental modifications to the nervous system will be discussed. Throughout the course, students will be guided through examples of how changes in the developing nervous system lead to behavioral patterns both in infancy and adulthood.

Course Number: S S 302D 

Course Title: Using Behavioral Science to Change the World  

Semester/Year: Spring 2022 

Instructor Name: David Yeager 

Description 

The 20th century was defined by humanity’s ability to invent a pill, vaccine, or device to overcome our biggest challenges. As the current COVID pandemic makes clear, those days are not over entirely. But, in this century, the most serious threats to human health and well-being are largely driven by individual and collective behavior choices we all make every day—whether we persist in school, maintain healthy diets, wear face masks, save for retirement, put our phones away while driving, use energy and other resources responsibly, and adhere to basic ethical standards. Consequently, behavioral science has emerged as a major new frontier in the policy sphere. Behavioral interventions are policies or programs that are designed to influence individual behavior choices in ways that benefit individuals, the organizations they are part of, and/or the broader society without the use of any significant economic incentives (e.g., fines, subsidies). Instead, to shape behavior, behavioral interventions rely on a sophisticated understanding of the psychology that drives people’s decisions—usually by tapping into underappreciated and powerful internal sources of motivation, by alleviating hidden psychological barriers to the desired behavior, or a combination of these.In the past decade, large numbers of governments at every level (e.g., US, UK, City of Chicago), social entrepreneurship ventures (e.g., the One Acre Fund, Innovations for Poverty Action), major corporations (e.g., Bank of America, Pepsico, Google, Facebook, Uber, Morningstar Financial), and non-governmental organizations (e.g., the World Bank, the World Health Organization) have launched their own in-house behavioral science teams to conduct research to inform the design of new policies and programs. And countless other organizations are making use of outside behavioral insights consultants (Ideas 42, Behavioral Insights Team, BEworks, Behavioral Sight) to inform key decisions in a wide range of domains. 

Diversity and Inclusion 

This course will be challenging and we all need to feel safe and included if we are to embrace that challenge. As such, it is essential that we create a positive learning environment where diverse perspectives are recognized and valued as a source of strength. I ask that you join me and your fellow students in creating a classroom culture based on open communication, mutual respect, and inclusion. Disagreements and debates are fine and can even be good. But I ask that you focus on the arguments, not the person, and that you seek to understand, not characterize.  

Goals 

The goal of this course is to provide you with the basic knowledge and experience necessary to competently design and evaluate new behavioral interventions as a working professional in a social entrepreneurship venture, traditional for-profit firm, government agency, or NGO. This course is also appropriate for any student who plans to work in a more traditional policy-making or management role and simply wants to have a solid grounding in relevant behavioral principles. This course is intended to prepare you to actually design your own interventions to influence the behaviors you care about in contexts you are interested in. This course is appropriate for students with interests in a wide range of social, policy, or business goals. In the table below, I list some common professional interests, the sectors they are most commonly associated with, and example behaviors or related outcomes that a behavioral intervention might target. This is meant to illustrate the broad applicability of the skills you will develop in this course and the wide range of substantive domains you can choose to focus on in developing your own actual intervention designs, which you will be doing in this course. 

Required Texts 

A series of articles, books, and book excerpts will be assigned. Purchase the required books and as many (or as few) of the optional books as you choose. Used copies are fine and it doesn’t matter which edition you get. All additional reading materials will be posted on Canvas. The readings for each week should be completed before the class meeting noted in the syllabus.   

Required books: 

Handbook of Wise Interventions, Gregory M. Walton and Alia J. Crum (Eds.), Guilford Press. New York. *Note: Available for free through UT libraries.  

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Penguin Books. New York *Note: Used copies are available online. 

Optional books (relevant readings will be posted as PDFs on Canvas):  

Influence: The Science of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, Harper Business. New York 

 The person and the situation: Perspectives of social psychology by Lee Ross & Richard Nisbett, McGraw-Hill series in social psychology. London 

Course Requirements 

Participation: 35% of final grade 

• 10% - Discussion questions 
• 10% - Conceptual toolkit journal entries 
• 10% - Feedback on other students’ work 
• 5% - Active participation in class, collaboration with peers, etc. In order to gain full credit, you must share your thoughts in class (either live or in the chat) and in groups.  

Short-form intervention proposals: 30% of final grade 

• 5% - Initial Week-4 concept proposal 
• 10% - First short-form proposal draft of final project 
• 15% - Second short-form proposal draft of final project 

Final Proposal: 35% of final grade 

A top-notch final proposal will include: 

• A thoughtful and realistic conceptual analysis of the problem and how your proposed intervention is expected to ameliorate it 
• An innovative proposed intervention approach (described clearly) with the potential to be effective 
• A clearly-defined, measurable outcome and a realistic plan to measure it 
• Carefully crafted intervention materials that bring your intervention concept “to life” for the participant. (It can be helpful to ask people you know to review your draft materials and give you feedback.) 

Instructor Bio 

Dr. Yeager is interested in understanding the processes shaping adolescent development, especially how social cognitive factors interact with structural and physiological factors to create positive or negative trajectories for youth.  He is also interested in learning how to influence these psychological processes, so as to improve developmental and educational outcomes for youth.   

Behavioral Science and Social Change

Our society is beset by major problems that are primarily behavioral, not technical, in nature, ranging from political divisiveness, to inadequate attention to climate change, to failure to comply with public health advice, to massive student disengagement and academic underperformance that threatens the future of the global economy. Over the last two decades, the social and behavioral sciences--e.g. psychology, economics, sociology--have transformed the way that policymakers and practitioners think about how to solve the most pressing challenges facing society. This class will involve a hands-on and deep dive into two major traditions of research--the "wise intervention" research, coming out of social psychology, and the "nudge" tradition, coming out of behavioral economics. Students will read and discuss authoritative reviews and original empirical articles and will discuss the practical, philosophical, and ethical questions that arise from the application of behavioral science in the real world. Students will create intervention materials in teams, supported by TAs, and will present their intervention ideas as final projects. 

Required Texts: 

Nudge, Thaler & Sunstein, https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X

Handbook of Wise Interventions, https://www.guilford.com/books/Handbook-of-Wise-Interventions/Walton-Crum/9781462543830/editors

Adolescence is a unique time in a person's life. This class will examine scientific research, laws and pubic policies, and media representations in order to understand the contemporary American teenager. Topics include the biological changes of puberty; how the adolescent brain is different from the adult brain; relationships with parents, friends, and romantic partners; the emergence of mental health problems; laws regarding when teenagers are granted privileges and responsibilities (e.g., being tried as an adult, being able to buy alcohol legally); and how U.S. society understands and treats adolescents in comparison to other cultures, past and present.

Description:

Adolescence is a unique time in a person’s life. In addition to rapid biological changes, teenagers also experience new challenges in their personal relationships with friends, family, and romantic/sexual partners, and begin to occupy new roles in society. This class will integrate research and scholarship from medicine, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, literature, and law in order to understand adolescent development. Topics include the biological changes of puberty; how the adolescent brain is different from the adult brain; how relationships with parents, friends, and romantic partners change during the teenage years; the emergence of mental health problems; laws regarding when teenagers are granted privileges and responsibilities (e.g., being tried as an adult, being able to buy alcohol legally); and how contemporary American society understands and treats adolescents in comparison to other cultures, past and present. In addition to reading non-fiction and fiction books, students will learn to locate and read articles published in scientific journals. Students will also respond critically to television and film representations of adolescence.

Texts (may be excerpted):

• Columbine by Dave Cullen (Grand Central Publishing)

• Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex by Amy T. Schalet (University of Chicago Press)

• Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Marriage before Motherhood by Kathryn Edin (University of California Press)

• Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead (William Morrow)

• Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation by Neil Howe and William Strauss (Vintage Books)

• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic)

Additional texts, including scientific journal articles, are to be determined.

• Example: Steinberg, L. (2013). The influence of neuroscience on U.S. Supreme Court decisions about adolescents’ criminal culpability. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 513-518.

Assignments:

Writing

• Posts to Discussion Board: Students will be required to post a brief (300-500 words) reading response to the Canvas discussion board at least once per week. These are informal, blog-like posts intended to stimulate active thinking about readings before the beginning of seminar discussions. Responses will be graded as good, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory/incomplete. [10% of final grade]

• Film Responses: Students will write two 2-page response papers that respond to television shows or films that represent teenage life (e.g., Boyhood, The Hunger Games, My So-Called Life). [10% of final grade]

• Short Papers: Students will write two 3-4 page papers. One paper will be on adolescent experiences in armed conflict, and may draw on the novel, Fallen Angels, and materials from the Vietnam exhibit of the Lyndon B. Johnson library. (See “Gems of the University” below.) The second will be on pubertal and sexual development in adolescence, and may draw on Coming of Age in Samoa, Not Under My Roof, and/or Promises I Can Keep. Each paper will be submitted twice (first draft and revision after comments from peers and instructor) for a total of four graded assignments. [20% of final grade]

• Final Paper: Students will be required to choose one controversy regarding law or public policy (e.g., parental notification for elective abortion, life without parole for teenage offenders, graduated drivers’ licenses) and write an 8-page paper describing the controversy, their policy recommendation, and evidence from research in neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and/or sociology that supports this recommendation. There will be a number of smaller assignments throughout the semester to scaffold completing this assignment, including completing an annotated bibliography and structured outline. Students will be required to circulate first drafts of their papers for peer review. [25% of final grade]

This course meets the requirements of the Writing Flag.

Oral Presentation

Students will give a 10-15 minute presentation summarizing the arguments from their final paper. Students may use visual aids (e.g., Powerpoint slides). The class will be given the opportunity to respond to the speaker’s presentation with comments and questions. [10% of final grade]

Discussion

The majority of class time will be devoted to group discussion. To facilitate discussion, students will be required to post a brief reading response to a Canvas discussion board before class (see “Writing”, above). [25% of final grade]

Information Literacy

In order to prepare students to write their final paper, there will be a number of tutorials on using library databases and search engines (e.g., Google Scholar) to locate and download scientific articles, distinguishing reputable from untrustworthy internet sources, preparing citations and references sections, and avoiding plagiarism. Students will also be required to complete an annotated bibliography as part of the Final Paper assignment.

Gems of the University

During one class period, we will visit the “Vietnam Conflict” exhibit at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum. Insights and impressions from this visit will be used in our discussion of adolescents as soldiers, and students will draw on this experience when writing one of their short papers.

University Lecture Series

One lecture from the University Lecture Series (to be determined) will be required. Students will be asked to comment on the lecture in their weekly post to the Canvas discussion board, and the lecture content will be discussed during the next class period.

Instructor Biography

Dr. Harden is a clinical psychologist who conducts research on puberty, delinquency, alcohol problems, and sexual relationships in adolescence and young adulthood. Before coming to the University of Texas in 2009, she completed a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and then did a clinical internship at Harvard Medical School working with adolescent girls with serious eating disorders. She has published over 50 scientific articles on adolescent development and psychopathology. When not in the lab, Dr. Harden enjoys reading mystery novels, quilting, and going to Zilker Park with her husband and two young children.

In this course we will be studying the attachment relationship. We'll begin with historical foundations for the construct as we understand it today. Then we'll look at some of the correlates of attachment security. Precursors to attachment security comprise characteristics of the infant (nature) as well as the characteristics of the enviroment (nurture). We'll examine evidence for the contributions of each of these possible influences. In order to evaluate predictions from security status and precursors to such security, we'll also look at what attachment looks like beyond childhood. Finally, we'll look at clinical problems that can arise from insecurity.

Topics of contemporary interest that may vary from semester to semester. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: For psychology majors, upper-division standing and Psychology 301 and 418 with a grade of at least C in each; for nonmajors, upper-division standing, Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, and one of the following with a grade of at least C: Biology 318M, Civil Engineering 311S, Economics 329, Educational Psychology 371, Electrical Engineering 351K, Government 350K, Mathematics 316, 362K, Mechanical Engineering 335, Psychology 317, Sociology 317L, Social Work 318, Statistics 309, Statistics and Scientific Computation 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 318.

Seminars in Developmental Psychology. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Seminars in Developmental Psychology. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Seminars in Developmental Psychology. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Seminars in Developmental Psychology. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Physical, social, and cognitive development in humans. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Psychology 304 and 333D may not both be counted. Psychology 333D and Women's and Gender Studies 345 (Topic 6: Introduction to Developmental Psychology) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: For psychology majors, upper-division standing and Psychology 301 and 418 with a grade of at least C in each; for nonmajors, upper-division standing, Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, and one of the following with a grade of at least C: Biology 318M, Civil Engineering 311S, Economics 329, Educational Psychology 371, Electrical Engineering 351K, Government 350K, Mathematics 316, 362K, Mechanical Engineering 335, Psychology 317, Sociology 317L, Social Work 318, Statistics 309, Statistics and Scientific Computation 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 318.

This course is designed to introduce students to thinking like a developmental psychologist. Why do this? Because thinking like a developmental psychologist helps you to (1) understand human nature and (2) solve social problems. By understanding the patterns and systems of influences that shape us from infancy to adulthood, you gain a novel perspective on what it means to be a human. You can also apply these insights to create wise and developmentally appropriate interventions, both in everyday life and in the policies you endorse as a citizen.

Thinking like a developmental psychologist involves: (a) asking big questions about human development; (b) designing and carrying out studies that turn those questions into testable hypotheses; and (c) explaining to others what the specific test they conducted says about the big question they asked. Therefore this introductory course has three objectives:

1. Learn what central questions have been addressed in the field of developmental psychology and what their theoretical, philosophical, and practical implications are.

• They are: (a) nativism vs. empiricism; (b) active vs. passive development; (c) continuous vs. discontinuous development; and (d) stability vs. plasticity.

1. Learn about the design and results from prominent studies that have addressed these central questions.

2. Learn how to interpret the data from developmental psychological studies and clearly explain how they address these central questions.

In the service of these objectives, the course will involve lectures, four writing assignments (~1 page each), three in-class exams, and a final paper (1500 words or less). TA sessions will also be scheduled on Fridays to review for exams, prepare for writing assignments, etc.

The course content will cover the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional growth of infants, children, and adolescents, and the various factors (e.g., genetics, parenting, peer groups, schooling, and the media) that influence development. Prominent theories of child development and research methods used in developmental psychology will be reviewed. Specific topics that will be covered include: aggression, attachment, gender roles, language development, moral development, cognitive development, culture, and school achievement. The implications of course content for child-rearing, education, and social policy will also be discussed.