Behavioural Regulation II: Thought and Cognition

This course addresses the basic principles related to the cognitive processes involved in behavioural regulation, focusing particularly on the way people regulate their thoughts, and how cognition contributes to the regulation of behaviour. For this purpose, core aspects of the cognitive system will be discussed, such as the relation between mental representations, language and behaviour, the way people form predictions, expectancies, judgments and goals, controlled and automatic processes in cognition and behaviour. The primary goal of this course is to offer students an advanced understanding of how human beings shape and rely on their cognitive system to control their thoughts and behaviours. Such understanding is pivotal to examine how people regulate their health and interpersonal behaviour, and the way their behaviour is influenced and maintained by the social and physical environment. This course is intertwined with SHP1 (Affect and Motivation), with which it shares the opening and closure lecture.