Dr Satoshi Kanazawa MAR.6.15

This course is available on the BSc in Management, International Exchange (1 Term) and International Exchange (Full Year). This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course is not capped, any student that requests a place will be given one.

The course will introduce Management students to the new science of evolutionary psychology and explore the biological and evolutionary foundations of human behaviour. In the first few weeks, various critiques of and competing perspectives on evolutionary psychology, with regard especially to the relative importance of biological/evolutionary vs. social/cultural determinants of human behaviour and its sex differences will be discussed and debated. In later weeks, an evolutionary perspective will be applied to various topics in management such as organizational behaviour, occupational choice, productivity, and status hierarchy. The study of business and management is currently dominated by economic perspectives, supplemented by sociological and social psychological perspectives, in American business schools. The course will provide a necessary corrective to the dominance of economics perspectives in the study of business and management by providing biological and evolutionary perspectives and thereby throwing a new light on the old problems (and finding potential solutions for them) in organizations and organizational behaviour. The course will provide evolutionary and biological perspectives on management and organizational behaviour. It will introduce the students to the following topics: Principles of evolution; Principles of evolutionary psychology; Sex differences in preferences, values, cognition, emotions, and behaviour; Physical attractiveness; General intelligence; Evolutionary constraints on human behaviour and their relevance to organizational behaviour.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the WT. 1 hour of lectures in the ST.

Teaching hours in the WT will be commensurate with a usual half unit undergraduate course. This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term, in line with departmental policy.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Each student will give a class presentation on the week’s readings and their presentation will be evaluated by the course instructor and the feedback will be given to the student within one week.

Buller, David J. 2005. Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature. Cambridge: MIT Press. [The most comprehensive book-length critique of modern evolutionary psychology to date]

Saad, Gad. (Editor.) 2011. Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences. New York: Springer.

Nicholson, Nigel. 2000. Managing the Human Animal. New York: Thompson Texere.

Miller, Geoffrey. 2009. Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior. New York: Viking.

Miller, Alan S. and Satoshi Kanazawa. 2007. Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. New York: Penguin.

Kanazawa, Satoshi. 2012. The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One. New York: Wiley.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the spring exam period.