Unit Guide

General Information

Unit convenor and teaching staff	Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit convenor Gabriele Marranci gabriele.marranci@mq.edu.au Contact via gabriele.marranci@mq.edu.au +61-2-9850-8040 TBA on iLearn
Credit points	Credit points 3
Prerequisites	Prerequisites ANTH150 or ANTH151 or 12cp or admission to GDipArts
Corequisites	Corequisites
Co-badged status	Co-badged status
Unit description	Unit description This unit introduces psychological anthropology, including emotional, cognitive, developmental, and perceptual dynamics across cultures. Psychological anthropology studies the relation between individual psychology and sociocultural diversity, for example, between psychopathology and social structure, between personality differences and childrearing practices, or between perceptual experience and a society's ideologies about the senses. We will explore a wide range of perspectives, from evolutionary psychology to neuroanthropology, and address such topics as consciousness including spirit possession, and cultural variation in insanity and impairment.

Important Academic Dates

Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Investigate in greater depth one area of special interest in the study of human diversity through class projects.
Improve presentation and oral expression skills through tutorial discussion of critical issues in psychological anthropology.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Assessment Tasks

Name	Weighting	Due
Tutorials	20%	Weekly starting 2nd week
Fortnight open questions	20%	Fornight starting 4th week
Online quizz 1 (readings)	10%	Week 6
Quiz 2 (reading)	10%	Week 12
Final Exam	40%	According to Exam Timetable

Tutorials

Due: Weekly starting 2nd week
Weighting: 20%

Students may miss up to two tutorials without needing an excuse. Students are expected to have done the reading for the week prior to the tutorial. Students whom will miss 60% of the tutorials without an approved Disruption of Studies will not be admitted to the final exam

On successful completion you will be able to:

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Investigate in greater depth one area of special interest in the study of human diversity through class projects.
Improve presentation and oral expression skills through tutorial discussion of critical issues in psychological anthropology.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Fortnight open questions

Due: Fornight starting 4th week
Weighting: 20%

Fortnight students will be asked on iLearn to provide short answers to questions related to the previous two weeks of teaching.

On successful completion you will be able to:

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Investigate in greater depth one area of special interest in the study of human diversity through class projects.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Online quizz 1 (readings)

Due: Week 6
Weighting: 10%

Students will take the quizzes online in iLearn

Quizzes will consist of approximately 10 multiple choice or true/false questions focusing on the readings.

Students will have a 48-hour window in which to complete the work. The quiz will be timed, however, once the student opens the assignment online through iLearn. The Quiz will not be repeated for any reason.

On successful completion you will be able to:

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Quiz 2 (reading)

Due: Week 12
Weighting: 10%

Students will take the quiz online in iLearn

On successful completion you will be able to:

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Final Exam

Due: According to Exam Timetable
Weighting: 40%

Final Exam

Students whom have missed 60% or more of the tutorials without an approved Disruption of Studies will not be admitted to the exam

Held during the examination period from 17th Nov- 7 DicN. Precise date
will be posted by the university eight weeks before the exam in draft form, and in final
form approximately four weeks before the examinations commence.
http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au/exam.
Please do not schedule any out of town engagements during this entire period, as per the university’s overall policy. As soon as
the convenor receives notice of the date, time, and location of the final exam, he will announce and post the information on iLearn. Also information can be found here http://students.mq.edu.au/student_admin/exams/

On successful completion you will be able to:

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Delivery and Resources

Technology used and required

Students will need to have access to iLearn in order to complete assignments and take part in the activities and discussion which are integral part of 'Participation '. Especially in the case of the quizzes, we suggest to students that they find a high-speed, secure internet connection. At times, iLearn can be slow to reload, so students will find that, especially if their connection is weak, they may be under unnecessary stress. All lectures are recorded, and many of the materials made use of in class are available through iLearn.

Lecture and Tutorial times.

Please check the University Timetable for class and tutorial times .

Teaching and Learning Strategy

Around the world and across time, human cultural variation has extended into the depths of the human psyche, shaping profoundly different ways of being human. Are we all the same ‘deep down’ or do the ways we treat emotion, conflict, social interaction, cognition, and other dimensions of life leave irreducible differences among people?

Anthropologists have to confront firsthand the possibility that we are all not the same: some people die from syndromes that we do not recognize, or routinely recover from psychiatric conditions that we find virtually irreversible. We find societies with emotions that are unfamiliar, who describe ‘selves’ that seem alien to us, who seem to defy what we think of as ‘human nature.’

And yet, we are all one species, shaped by evolution and our biology to possess distinctive human brains as well as forms of consciousness, cognitive ability, empathy, memory and imagination. How do we reconcile the variation with our shared humanity? In this unit, we seek to understand human psychological variability by exploring the extremes: religious conversion in prison, the sensory abilities of athletes, the ‘selves’ of people who routinely become possessed, the respect hunting peoples have for the animals they kill, the cognitive abilities of those people without language, or the way that culture affects even the trajectory into madness.

Anth 207 introduces students to the wide variety of emotional, cognitive, developmental, and perceptual dynamics across cultures. Psychological anthropology studies the relation between individual psychology and sociocultural diversity, for example, between pathology and status hierarchy, between personality and childrearing practices, or between perceptual ability and a society’s ideologies about the senses or forms of training.

We will explore a wide range of perspectives, from evolutionary psychology to neuroanthropology, and address such topics as human cognitive variation, the effect of language on thought, emotional variation in experiences like grief, love and anger, altered states of consciousness including spirit possession, and cultural variation in insanity and impairment.

Anth 207 is designed for students who want to explore the variety of human experience, including profoundly alien ways of experiencing the self or being human. The co-convenor is a leaders in the emerging field of neuroanthropology bringing new research about the brain with field based studies of human life in a wide variety of cultures. The point is not simply to catalogue the odd and curious, but to use the variation we find to better understand how our human nervous system and social worlds combine to produce a wide variety of ‘normal.’

Information

The co-convenor of the unit makes extensive use of iLearn to post relevant stories, links to resources, and answer questions.

Outline of the Course

Readings and weekly topics (all readings will be available on iLearn)

Introduction:

In this lecture the course and assessment will be presented (notice no tutorials for Week 1 and no readings)

Evolutionary legacy of the human brain

Downey, Greg, and Daniel Lende. 2012. Evolution and the Brain. In D. Lende and G. Downey, eds. The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Pp. 103-137.

Sexual variety and reproduction

Voand, E. (1998). Evolutionary Ecology of Human Reproduction. Annual Review of Anthropology. 27, 347-374.

Sensory variety, including senses you don’t have

(Guest Lecturer Prof. Greg Downey)

Geurts, Kathryn Linn. 2002. Is there a sixth sense? In Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 3-19.

Emotions and feelings

Svasek, Maruska. 2005. “Introduction: Emotions in Anthropology,” in K. Milton and M. Svasek (eds.) Mixed Emotions: Anthropological studies of feeling, Oxford: Berg. pp. 2-23

What makes memories

Damasio, A. R. (2010). ‘An Architecture for Memory” in A. R. Damasio, Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain, New York: Pantheon Books. Pp. 130-143.

From ‘Self’ to Identity?

Damasio, A. (2012). Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain. Random House LLC. Chapter 9.

Childhood across cultures

(Guest Lecturer Prof. Greg Downey)

Ochs, Elinor, and Carolina Izquierdo. 2009. Responsibility in Childhood: Three Developmental Trajectories. Ethos 37(4): 391–413.

Do mirror neurons explain culture?

Losin, E. A. R., Dapretto, M., & Iacoboni, M. (2009). Culture in the mind's mirror: how anthropology and neuroscience can inform a model of the neural substrate for cultural imitative learning. Progress in Brain Research, 178, 175-190.

Cognitive Dissonance: explaining contradictory behaviors

Stone, J., & Cooper, J. 2001. A Self-Standards Model of Cognitive Dissonance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 37(3): 228-243.

Cognitive Anthropology of Religion: Modes of religiosity and piousness

Whitehouse, H. (September 01, 2002). Modes of Religiosity: Towards a Cognitive Explanation of the Sociopolitical Dynamics of Religion. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 14: 293-315.

From Lombroso to Neurocriminology

Gatti, U., & Verde, A. (2012). Cesare Lombroso: Methodological ambiguities and brilliant intuitions. International journal of law and psychiatry, 35(1), 19-26.

Glenn, A. L., & Raine, A. (2013). Neurocriminology: implications for the punishment, prediction and prevention of criminal behaviour. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Summary of the course and revision (No tutorials!)

Unit Schedule

Please check the University Timetable for class and tutorial times .

Policies and Procedures

Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central. Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:

Academic Honesty Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html

Assessment Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy.html

Grading Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grading/policy.html

Grade Appeal Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html

Grievance Management Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grievance_management/policy.html

Disruption to Studies Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html The Disruption to Studies Policy is effective from March 3 2014 and replaces the Special Consideration Policy.

In addition, a number of other policies can be found in the Learning and Teaching Category of Policy Central.

Student Code of Conduct

Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct: https://students.mq.edu.au/support/student_conduct/

Student Support

Macquarie University provides a range of support services for students. For details, visit http://students.mq.edu.au/support/

Learning Skills

Learning Skills (mq.edu.au/learningskills) provides academic writing resources and study strategies to improve your marks and take control of your study.

Student Services and Support

Students with a disability are encouraged to contact the Disability Service who can provide appropriate help with any issues that arise during their studies.

Student Enquiries

For all student enquiries, visit Student Connect at ask.mq.edu.au

IT Help

For help with University computer systems and technology, visit http://informatics.mq.edu.au/help/.

When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.

Graduate Capabilities

Capable of Professional and Personal Judgement and Initiative

We want our graduates to have emotional intelligence and sound interpersonal skills and to demonstrate discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgement. They will exercise initiative as needed. They will be capable of risk assessment, and be able to handle ambiguity and complexity, enabling them to be adaptable in diverse and changing environments.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Assessment task

Fortnight open questions

Commitment to Continuous Learning

Our graduates will have enquiring minds and a literate curiosity which will lead them to pursue knowledge for its own sake. They will continue to pursue learning in their careers and as they participate in the world. They will be capable of reflecting on their experiences and relationships with others and the environment, learning from them, and growing - personally, professionally and socially.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Assessment tasks

Tutorials
Fortnight open questions
Final Exam

Discipline Specific Knowledge and Skills

Our graduates will take with them the intellectual development, depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content in their chosen fields to make them competent and confident in their subject or profession. They will be able to demonstrate, where relevant, professional technical competence and meet professional standards. They will be able to articulate the structure of knowledge of their discipline, be able to adapt discipline-specific knowledge to novel situations, and be able to contribute from their discipline to inter-disciplinary solutions to problems.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Investigate in greater depth one area of special interest in the study of human diversity through class projects.

Assessment tasks

Tutorials
Fortnight open questions
Online quizz 1 (readings)
Quiz 2 (reading)
Final Exam

Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking

We want our graduates to be capable of reasoning, questioning and analysing, and to integrate and synthesise learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments; to be able to critique constraints, assumptions and limitations; to be able to think independently and systemically in relation to scholarly activity, in the workplace, and in the world. We want them to have a level of scientific and information technology literacy.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Assessment tasks

Tutorials
Fortnight open questions
Online quizz 1 (readings)
Quiz 2 (reading)
Final Exam

Problem Solving and Research Capability

Our graduates should be capable of researching; of analysing, and interpreting and assessing data and information in various forms; of drawing connections across fields of knowledge; and they should be able to relate their knowledge to complex situations at work or in the world, in order to diagnose and solve problems. We want them to have the confidence to take the initiative in doing so, within an awareness of their own limitations.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Gain a greater understanding of diverse techniques for investigating individual experience, including especially anthropological techniques such as ethnography, field-based techniques, and comparative approaches.
Investigate in greater depth one area of special interest in the study of human diversity through class projects.
Improve writing and critical reading skills through online question and answer.

Assessment tasks

Tutorials
Final Exam

Creative and Innovative

Our graduates will also be capable of creative thinking and of creating knowledge. They will be imaginative and open to experience and capable of innovation at work and in the community. We want them to be engaged in applying their critical, creative thinking.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).

Assessment tasks

Tutorials
Fortnight open questions

Effective Communication

We want to develop in our students the ability to communicate and convey their views in forms effective with different audiences. We want our graduates to take with them the capability to read, listen, question, gather and evaluate information resources in a variety of formats, assess, write clearly, speak effectively, and to use visual communication and communication technologies as appropriate.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Investigate in greater depth one area of special interest in the study of human diversity through class projects.
Improve presentation and oral expression skills through tutorial discussion of critical issues in psychological anthropology.

Assessment tasks

Tutorials
Fortnight open questions

Engaged and Ethical Local and Global citizens

As local citizens our graduates will be aware of indigenous perspectives and of the nation's historical context. They will be engaged with the challenges of contemporary society and with knowledge and ideas. We want our graduates to have respect for diversity, to be open-minded, sensitive to others and inclusive, and to be open to other cultures and perspectives: they should have a level of cultural literacy. Our graduates should be aware of disadvantage and social justice, and be willing to participate to help create a wiser and better society.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.
Actively participate in discussion and debate about a range of topics in psychological anthropology, some of which have everyday applications (such as gender roles, emotional variation, sex and gender across cultures, and childrearing).
Improve presentation and oral expression skills through tutorial discussion of critical issues in psychological anthropology.

Assessment task

Tutorials

Socially and Environmentally Active and Responsible

We want our graduates to be aware of and have respect for self and others; to be able to work with others as a leader and a team player; to have a sense of connectedness with others and country; and to have a sense of mutual obligation. Our graduates should be informed and active participants in moving society towards sustainability.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

Discover and appreciate the variety of humanity, including the peculiarity of familiar Western personality traits, ways we understand ourselves, and common social roles.
Interrogate the concept of ‘human nature’ to better understand the relationship between our species’ universal traits and the degree of variability found in these traits, including the evolutionary implications.
Explore the role of social setting and norms in shaping human development through comparative research.

Changes since First Published

Date	Description
30/07/2014	Greg was indicated as the Unit convenor, I have changed that so that I am now the only Unit Convenor.