GB, 3 credits
GenEd Human Behavior courses address the relationships between individuals and communities. Courses may focus on the relationship between individuals and communities in general or may engage those relationships from specific perspectives (such as art, music, education, religion, economics, politics or education), or look at them within specific themes (such as food & eating, crime, crisis, sexuality, adolescence).
Human Behavior courses are intended to teach students how to:
. Identify and explain social phenomena;
. Identify and explain different analytical models;
. Compare and contrast similar social phenomena across individuals or communities.
SELECT ONE COURSE
Criminal Behavior
Although we like to think differently, committing crime is an extremely common human behavior. From the extremes of armed robbery or serial murder to the ordinary failure to declare
income on tax returns or the tendency to speed on the highway, nearly everyone has broken the law and committed a crime at some point. Considering physiological, psychological and
pharmacological factors, we explore the influences of family, peers and the effects of alcohol and drugs on the incidence of criminal behavior. And we examine how the urban and social
environment encourages (or inhibits) opportunities to commit crime.
Workings of the Mind: The Devil Made Me Do It
A Caucasian is heckled during his night-club act and goes into a rant against African-Americans. A celebrity is pulled over for DUI and goes into a rant against Jews. Both then claim that those behaviors are “not the real me.” They claim that they are not racist or bigoted. If they do indeed believe their denials, then we are left with a question: Why did they behave as they did? Perhaps we are not always in conscious control over what we do. Drawing on disciplines within psychology, including neuroscience and cognitive science, as well as clinical, developmental, evolutionary, and cultural psychology, we explore the possibility that we can process information and behave in response to information in ways that are out of our conscious control.
Youth Cultures
Do you listen to hip hop, spend all your time in Second Life, dress up like a cartoon character and go to anime fairs, or go skateboarding every day with your friends? Then you’re part of the phenomenon called youth culture. Often related to gender, race, class and socio-economic circumstances, youth cultures enable young people to try on identities as they work their way to a clearer sense of self. Empowered by new technology tools and with the luxury of infinite virtual space, young people today can explore identities in ways not available to previous generations. Students in this class will investigate several youth cultures, looking closely at what it means to belong. They will also come to appreciate how the media and marketing construct youth identities and define youth cultures around the world.
Language in Society
How did language come about? How many languages are there in the world? How do people co-exist in countries where there are two or more languages? How do babies develop language? Should all immigrants take a language test when applying for citizenship? Should English become an official language of the United States? In this course we will address these and many other questions, taking linguistic facts as a point of departure and considering their implications for our society. Through discussions and hands-on projects, students will learn how to collect, analyze, and interpret language data and how to make informed decisions about language and education policies as voters and community members.
Human Ecology
Human hunters may have contributed to animal extinctions as early as 10,000 years ago; civilizations in the ancient Near East developed complex irrigation networks that led to some of
the area’s permanent deserts. Since pre-history, humans had an impact on the environment, but changes in technology have magnified the scale of human influence. Today, attempts at sustainable land use are often at odds with struggles for indigenous population rights, with population migration and increases in population size, or with desires to preserve areas for national parks or tourism, let alone attempts to exploit natural resources. Study the ecological principles underlying the relationship of humans with the environment and the explosion of conflicts surrounding modern environmental use.
Disability Identity
Odds are that each of us will encounter disability at some point in our lives, either directly or indirectly through family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. What is it like to live with a disability, and how does disability intersect with other aspects of personal identity, like gender, race and culture? Is disability socially and culturally defined? Join us as we examine historical perspectives of disability marked by fear and discrimination and fueled by media portrayals. We will then explore most recent indicators of personal, social, and environmental change that support disability identity and result in a more accommodating environment for us all.
Asian Behavior and Thought
We incessantly engage ourselves in doing things. We are beings-at-doing. We define ourselves by the kind of actions we perform. How we act or conduct ourselves is shaped by the kind of self we construct for ourselves. And that self is shaped by the society into which we happen to be born. Self-identity, which is socially and culturally constructed by our experiences and interactions with others, carries a personal as well as an interpersonal meaning. Learn the four Asian paradigmatic cases of self-identity and examine your self in light of them.
Human Sexuality
Our sexuality is a core part of being human. We often think about sexuality in terms of the physical and reproductive aspects of sex. But our sexuality is complex and dynamic. We will address this dynamic complexity as we explore the physical, psychological, relational, and cultural aspects of sexuality. The goal of this course is to broaden your perspective of human sexuality, and deepen your understanding and awareness of your own sexuality and the many influences on this essential part of yourself.
Eating Cultures
You are what you eat, they say, but what, precisely, determines our eating habits and what, exactly, do they say about us? How do these habits influence our relations with others in our communities and beyond? Eating is an activity common to all human beings, but how do the particularities and meanings attributed to this activity vary across different times and places? Using literature, visual media, cookbooks, food-based art, and advertisements as our starting point, we will examine how food perception, production, preparation, consumption, exchange, and representation structure individual and communal identities, as well as relations among individuals and communities around the globe. Our focus on this most basic of needs will allow us to analyze how food conveys and limits self-expression and creates relationships as well as delimits boundaries between individuals and groups. Materials will be drawn from a wide range of disciplines including, but not limited to, literary and gender studies, psychology, anthropology, history, sociology, and economics
Identity and Crisis
As we go through life there will be natural changes that we must deal with. For college students this involves for many being on your own for the first time, picking a major, trying to figure a possible work career, dealing with a roommate. There will also be unplanned changes or crises that each of us will face at different times, such as the sickness/death of loved ones; broken relationships; work problems, as well as our own mortality. One goal is to face each crisis in as healthy a way as possible, without physically or emotionally hurting others or ourselves. The Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech tragedies are an extreme example of how someone can lash out violently. The more prepared we are to deal with a crisis and conflict, the better we can come through it, helping ourselves and perhaps others too. Part of this preparation can involve examining our belief systems--including religious/spiritual—and the ways we perceive and think.
