- Hormones and Behavior

Catalog description

An introduction to behavioral endocrinology, the study of how hormal activity within the nervous endocrine system affects psychology and behavior. In this class, we will adopt a comparative approach, where we will analyze how hormonal effects are both similar and different between species, such as humans, monkeys, songbirds, and rats. The first third of the course will cover fundamentals of endocrine organization and function. We will then shift our focus to sex differences, exploring: sexual differentiation, sexually-dimorphic behaviors, gender differences in cognition, and sexual orientation. Several lectures will be dedicated towards discussing the hormonal regulation of sexual behavior and reproductive potential in both males and females. Finally, we will discuss the role of hormones in mediating affiliative, prosocial, and aggressive behaviors.