EEB3456

The US Surgeon General recently stated that “mental health is the defining public health crisis of our time.” While the fields of physiology, mental health, and social science have given increasing attention to mental health issues, the fields of ecology, evolution, and behavior have less directly considered anxiety, depression, and mental well-being in their studies. And yet, these fields have much to say about the environmental and evolutionary context for the emergence of emotions related to mental health, whether that is the origins of fear responses or drivers of motivation and contentedness. WHY do we feel happy sometimes and sad other times? How can we look at the environments at which these emotions are elicited in other animals to understand the triggers of such emotions in humans and how modern scenarios may represent a maladaptive “trap” where emotions such as fear responses go wild? How can we use an understanding of the evolution of emotions to design our worlds to promote mental well-being rather than constant stress and anxiety? This class will use fundamental concepts from ecology and evolutionary biology to explore the evolution of emotions across the tree of life. Students will consider how such perspectives inform our understanding of mental health in humans and what interventions they can take in their own lives to address this. We will explore everything from grief in magpies and the “landscape of fear” for deer, to social competition and natal habitat imprinting, and what, if anything, this all means for human happiness in a world of traffic, screens, social media, and fast food.

A-F - A-F Grade Basis

001744

No

Every Spring