Social Behavior and the Brain: An Introduction to Social Neuroscience

By Prof. Ark Verma | IIT Kanpur

Learners enrolled: 542 | Exam registration: 6

ABOUT THE COURSE:
The course is aimed at familiarizing the students/audience with the neural bases of social behavior in humans. We will cover in detail various aspects of human social behavior and social knowledge, for e.g. knowledge about self and others,perceiving faces, and understanding and interpreting social interactions etc. and understand how the brain achieves these sophisticated processes.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Masters and PhD Students of Psychology, Cognitive Science and Neurosciences.

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences Psychology
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	17 Feb 2025
End Date :	11 Apr 2025
Enrollment Ends :	17 Feb 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	24 Feb 2025
Exam Date :	03 May 2025 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Self and Other Representations in the Human Brain.

Week 2: Neural Basis of Personal Knowledge, Evaluating Faces on Social Dimensions.

Week 3: Social Category Information, Intergroup -Relations

Week 4: Perceiving out-groups and Neural Bases of Race and Stereotyping.

Week 5: Self-regulation and Evaluative Processing, Emotional Decision Making

Week 6: Emotions and Social Behavior, Processing of Specific Emotions and Affect.

Week 7: Theory of Mind and Social Intelligence.

Week 8: Social Pain, Social Brain in Interactive Games.

Books and references

Todorov, Fiske, & Prentice (2011): Social Neuroscience. Oxford University Press.
Cacioppo (2006) Social Neuroscience. Edited Volume. MIT Press.

Instructor bio

Prof. Ark Verma

IIT Kanpur

Prof. Ark Verma have done his Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology & English Literature from the University of Allahabad in 2007. After that I did my Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science at the Centre of Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad in 2009. I joined the PhD program in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Ghent University, Belgium in January 2010 & was awarded my PhD in 2014. I joined IIT Kanpur as an Assistant Professor of Psychology in May 2015.My research lies in the field of Cognitive Psychology (Lateralisation, Symmetry Detection, Attention) & Psycholinguistics (Visual Word Recognition & Bilingualism).

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: May 3, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kanpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team