English

This course provides an overview of key debates within moral psychology, such as the definition of morality, rationalism, emotionism, and nativism. Students consider multiple theories and research which provides insight about how moral judgements are related to cognitions, emotions, and social identities. The consequences of the moral emotions will be discussed, considering implications for mental health, interpersonal relationships, and social equalities.

The course examines statics of deformable solids; deformation, stress and strain analysis; mechanical properties of materials (stress-strain-temperature relationship); failure modes of materials; one-dimensional components; axial force/torsion on rods and shafts; beam bending; and column buckling. Topics include: tension, compression and shear, axially loaded members, torsion, shear forces and bending moments, stresses in beams (shear and moment diagrams), analysis of stress and strain, applications of plane stress, deflections of beams, columns.

Stress is a major determinant of global public health. Stress has been called a “health epidemic of the twenty-first century” by the World Health Organization and is associated with massive humanitarian, medical, and economic costs. This course introduces the basic principles of how our body's health is threatened by psychosocial stressors as diverse as daily worries, work stress, low social economic status, discrimination, and natural disasters. A major role is played by psychological factors such as perceived control, and conscious and unconscious thoughts, and emotions. The lectures cover the many ways in which the mind influences the body during stress, including the cardiovascular, hormonal and immune systems, metabolism, sleep, growth, ageing, reproduction, and sex. The course discusses stress management and recent contributions from the field of emotion regulation. Stress is not a “luxury problem” of the industrialized countries; it is also, and perhaps even more so, a leading health risk in less developed countries. Therefore, the course also explores the global relevance of stress and health. There is hardly a concept that is so ill defined in and outside science and at the same time so important for our health as stress. Not surprisingly the media are teeming with erroneous information about its effect on health. Students learn how to systematically gather information about stress and health thereby training the essential academic skill of distinguishing scientific knowledge from omnipresent unsupported claims in the rapidly accumulating information volume in the media (especially internet), and evaluating this knowledge in terms of its meaning for public health. This course requires students to have completed an introduction to psychology course as a prerequisite.

This course examines the main areas, processes, actors and structures involved in contemporary international relations. It covers three main areas: international security, international organizations, and international political economy.