"Wes, 21, an Eagle Scout and college student from Michigan, played video games 80 hours a week, only stopping to eat every two to three days. He lost 25 pounds and failed his classes" (Irvine, 2018). The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced the addition of “gaming disorder” to the next edition of the International Classification of Diseases. Gaming disorder is defined in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences (World Health Organization, 2018). For your reference, internet gaming disorder appeared in DSM-V in the section identifying areas in need of research. While it’s called internet gaming disorder, the internet part is not required. As it’s currently written, a person would need five of these symptoms to be diagnosed: Preoccupation with gaming Withdrawal symptoms when gaming is taken away or not possible (sadness, anxiety, irritability) Tolerance, the need to spend more time gaming to satisfy the urge Inability to reduce playing, unsuccessful attempts to quit gaming Giving up other activities, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities due to gaming Continuing to game despite problems Deceiving family members or others about the amount of time spent on gaming The use of gaming to relieve negative moods, such as guilt or hopelessness Risk, having jeopardized or lost a job or relationship due to gaming (“Internet gaming,” 2018) The symptoms, as it true for (almost?) all DSM-V diagnoses, must cause “significant impairment or distress” (“Internet gaming,” 2018). Following WHO’s announcement, 25 researchers co-authored a short and freely-available paper published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions (Aarseth et al., 2017) outlining their concerns with the inclusion of gaming disorder in ICD-11. Their six concerns are: “The quality of the research base is low.” “The current operationalization of the construct leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria.” “There is no consensus on the symptomatology and assessment of problematic gaming.” “Moral panics around the harm of video gaming might result in premature application of a clinical diagnosis and the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially among children and adolescents.” “Research will be locked into a confirmatory approach rather than an exploration of the boundaries of normal versus pathological.” “The healthy majority of gamers will be affected by stigma and perhaps even changes in policy.” In the same journal volume, also freely-available, a couple researchers (Király & Demetrovics, 2017) address each of those concerns. Discussion After your coverage of psychological disorders, divide your students into six groups – or if you have a large class, divide students into groups that are multiples of six. Give each group a copy of both articles.  Assign one of the six concerns to each group. The group is to: Summarize the concern as it was raised in the Aarseth article. Summarize the response to that concern given by Király and Demetrovics. Decide, as a group, which of the two arguments is more persuasive. In other words, based on that concern alone, should ICD-11 include gaming disorder? Explain the group’s reasoning. Ask three different group members to take on the responsibility of being prepared to speak to the class about one of those three tasks. In other words, one student would address #1, another would address #2, and another would address #3. Following discussion, ask the group that was assigned the first concern to offer their responses to the three questions. If you have more than one group looking at the first concern, ask the other groups for their response to the third question. Repeat with the remaining five concerns. Conclude this activity with a summary of how difficult it is to determine if a set of behaviors rises to the point of a diagnosable disorder and that there are real consequences for creating a diagnosis. Expansion If you would like to expand this exploration, the journal volume, September 2017 issue of the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, these two articles came from has another 10 articles on the topic, all freely available. Create 11 groups. Give each group the Aarseth article that opens the volume, plus one additional article from the remaining 11 commentaries. To start the discussion, you can summarize the Aarseth article. This will ensure everyone starts on the same page, and this will model what their summaries should look like. After the groups have had time to discuss the commentary article they’ve been given, ask each group to report out. After all the groups have reported, by a show of hands (or through an audience response system), ask students to decide if gaming disorder should be included in ICD-11. Ask volunteers to share their reasoning.   References Aarseth, E., Bean, A. M., Boonen, H., Colder Carras, M., Coulson, M., Das, D., … Van Rooij, A. J. (2017). Scholars’ open debate paper on the World Health Organization ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6(3), 267–270. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.5.2016.088 Internet gaming. (2018, June). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2018.12a20 Irvine, M. (2018). ‘Hi, my name is ___, and I’m addicted to tech’. Retrieved December 27, 2018, from https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/hes-a-tech-addict-who-works-in-the-tech-industry/ Király, O., & Demetrovics, Z. (2017). Inclusion of Gaming Disorder in ICD has more advantages than disadvantages. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6(3), 280–284. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.6.2017.046 World Health Organization. (2018). WHO | Gaming disorder. Retrieved December 25, 2018, from https://www.who.int/features/qa/gaming-disorder/en/ ... View more

The teen years are, for many, a time of rewarding friendships, noble idealism (think Parkland), and an expanding vision for life’s possibilities. But for others, especially those who vary from teen norms, life can be a challenge. Nonheterosexual teens, for example, sometimes face contempt, harassment, or family rejection. And that may explain their having scored higher than other teens on measures of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts and attempts (see here, here, here, and here).   But many of these findings are based on older data and don’t reflect the increasing support of gay partnerships among North Americans and Western Europeans. In U.S. Gallup polls, for example, support for “marriages between same-sex couples” soared from 27 percent in 1996 to 64 percent in 2017. So, have the emotional challenges of being teen and gay persisted? If so, to what extent?   I’ve wondered, and recently discovered, an answer in the 2015 data from the annual UCLA/Higher Education Research Institute American Freshman survey (of 141,189 entering full-time students at a cross-section of U.S. colleges and universities). The news is mixed: Most gay/lesbian/bisexual frosh report not having struggled with depression. Being gay or lesbian in a predominantly heterosexual world remains, for a significant minority of older teens, an emotional challenge.   Can we hope that, if attitudes continue to change, this depression gap will shrink? In the meantime, the American Psychological Association offers youth, parents, and educators these helpful resources for understanding sexual orientation and gender identity, including suggestions for how “to be supportive” of youth whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from most others. ... View more

One of my goals in teaching the abnormal psychology chapter in the General Psychology course is to focus less on symptoms and etiology and more on what it is like to live with a psychological disorder. In 2016 I wrote about an assignment tied to the Stigma Fighters website. In the February 2018 Monitor on Psychology I learned about the Schizophrenia Oral History Project. This website “is an archive of life stories of persons with schizophrenia.  Our narrators are women and men with schizophrenia who are sharing their lives in an effort to increase understanding and reduce stigma related to mental illness.  Their stories reveal not only their struggles, but their remarkable courage and resilience, their hopes, dreams and talents, and their concern for others.  In addition to documenting their histories, we are sharing their stories in presentations for professionals and the general public.” At the time of this writing, 38 people have shared their stories. As an assignment, ask students to read three stories and identify the similarities they find amongst the stories and the biggest differences. At the end of the assignment, ask students to reflect on what they learned from reading the stories. In class, give students an opportunity to speak with each other in small groups to share what they learned. Invite groups to report out to the class. Pro-tip from my Highline College colleague Ruth Frickle: for the first time out with this assignment, go through the stories yourself to identify ten or so your students can choose from. That will make the number you need to be familiar with manageable. As you use this assignment from term to term, expand the number of stories as you feel comfortable. ... View more

I recently finished Sam Kean’s (2012),  The Violinist’s Thumb the history, the present, and the future of DNA research. Kean writes, “Genes don’t deal in certainties; they deal in probabilities.” I love that – and I’m using it the first day of Intro Psych next term: “Psychology doesn’t deal in certainties; it deals in probabilities.” I already talk about correlations as probabilities. The stronger the correlation, the higher the probability that if you know one variable, you can predict the other variable. In the learning chapter, it’s not unusual for a student to say, “I was spanked, and I turned out okay.” Now I can repeat, “psychology doesn’t deal in certainties; it deals in probabilities.” When children are spanked, it increases the probability of future behavioral problems (Gershoff, Sattler, & Ansari, 2017). It is not a certainty. Whenever aggression comes up as a topic, a student will say, “I play first-person-shooter games, and I’ve never killed anybody.” Again, “psychology doesn’t deal in certainties; it deals in probabilities.” Playing violent video games increases the chances of being aggressive. Watching violent movies increases the chances of being aggressive. Listening to violent-themed music increases the chances of being aggressive. (List is not exhaustive.) The more of those factors that are present, the greater the probability of behaving aggressively (Anderson, C, Berkowitz, L, Donnerstein, E, Huesmann, L, Johnson, J, Linz, D, Malamuth, N, & Wartella, 2003). It is not a certainty. A student says, “I was deprived of oxygen when I was being born, and I haven’t developed schizophrenia” (McNeil, Cantor-Graae, & Ismail, 2000). (Okay, I have never had a student say this, but I wanted one more example.) Being deprived of oxygen at birth increases the probability of developing schizophrenia. It is not a certainty. Any time a student reports an experience that does not match what most in a research study experienced, I can say “Like genetics, psychology doesn’t deal in certainties; it deals in probabilities.”   References Anderson, C, Berkowitz, L, Donnerstein, E, Huesmann, L, Johnson, J, Linz, D, Malamuth, N, & Wartella, E. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth: . Psychological Science In The Public Interest (Wiley-Blackwell), 4(3), 81–110. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x Gershoff, E. T., Sattler, K. M. P., & Ansari, A. (2017). Strengthening Causal Estimates for Links Between Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behavior Problems. Psychological Science, 95679761772981. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617729816 Kean, S. (2012). The Violinist’s Thumb. New York City: Little, Brown, and Company. McNeil, T. F., Cantor-Graae, E., & Ismail, B. (2000). Obstetric complications and congenital malformation in schizophrenia. In Brain Research Reviews (Vol. 31, pp. 166–178). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0173(99)00034-X ... View more

As y’all know, females and males are mostly alike—in overall intelligence, in physiology, and in how we perceive, learn, and remember. All but one of our chromosomes is unisex. Yet gender differences in mating, relating, and suffering are what grab our attention. And none more than the amazingly widespread and reliably observed gender difference in vulnerability to depression.   In this new Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis, Rachel Salk, Janet Hyde, and Lyn Abramson digest studies of gender and depression involving nearly 2 million people in 90 countries. The overall finding—that women are nearly twice as likely as men to be depressed—is what textbooks have reported. What’s more noteworthy and newsworthy, in addition to the universality of women’s greater risk of depression, is the even larger risk for girls during adolescence. As their figure, below, shows, the gender difference in major depression begins early—by puberty—and peaks in early adolescence. The take-home lesson: For many girls, being 13- to 15-years-old can be a tough time of life. ... View more

On rare occasion, I have reported startling findings that challenge current wisdom: Brain training games do NOT boost intelligence. Traumatic experiences are NOT often repressed. Seasonal affective disorder (wintertime blues) is NOT widespread.   The just-arrived lectures from the 2016 Bial Symposium on Placebo Effects, Healing and Meditation, offers another shocker: In an update on his meta-analyses, Irving Kirsch concludes that antidepressant drug effects are close to nil.   Here’s Kirsch’s gist: Many, many studies, including unpublished drug trials made available by the FDA, consistently show that Antidepressants work. They produce clinically significant benefits (using a standard depression scale). Placebos work, too. In two large meta-analyses, placebos produced 82 percent of the antidepressant effect. Moreover, “the difference between drug and placebo is . . . so small that clinicians cannot detect it.” Side effects can “unblind” a drug. The statistically (but not clinically) detectable drug effect may be attributable to antidepressants’ detectable side effects. The FDA only counts “successful trials.” Kirsch reports that despite meager evidence of antidepressant efficacy, the drugs gain approval because of a stunning FDA policy—which ignores trials that find no drug effect and reports only successful trials. “All antidepressant drugs seem to be equally effective.” As one would expect from a placebo effect, the benefits of various antidepressant drugs are “exactly the same regardless of type of drug.” Various serotonin-increasing drugs relieve depression, but so does a drug that decreases serotonin! “What do you call pills, the effects of which are independent of their chemical composition?,” asks Kirsch. “I call them ‘placebos.’”   Given that antidepressants work, even if they are hardly more than active placebos, what’s a clinician to recommend? Kirsch notes three considerations: Antidepressants have side effects, which can include sexual dysfunction, weight gain, insomnia, and diarrhea. Antidepressant use increases the risk of relapse after recovery. Cognitive behavioral therapy, acupuncture, and physical exercise also effectively treat depression. Ergo, “When different treatments are equally effective, choice should be based on risk and harm, and of all of these treatments, antidepressant drugs are the riskiest and most harmful. If they are to be used at all, it should be as a last resort.” But surely this is not the last word. Stay tuned for more findings and debate. ... View more

I never used to cover sleep, but once it became clear that so many students weren’t getting enough sleep, I started talking about it – at length. I had the same experience with stress. The stress and coping chapter was one I typically skipped in Intro, until I opened my eyes to the stress my students were feeling combined with the lack of good coping skills. And now I’m back in that very same boat but this time it’s the number of drug overdoses. Invite your students to visit The New York Times article “You Draw It: Just How Bad Is the Drug Overdose Epidemic [in the United States]?”[Shout out to Ruth Frickle for sending me this article!] and complete each of the graphs to illustrate their best guesses on how, in the US, the number of deaths due to car accidents, deaths from guns, deaths from HIV, and deaths from drug overdoses has changed since 1990. After students draw on each graph, ask them to click the “Show me how I did” button. Next, ask students to calculate how far off they were. For each graph, write down your guess. If you underestimated, subtract your guess from the actual number, write down how much you were off, and note that you underestimated. If you overestimated, subtract the actual number of deaths from your guess, write down how much you were off, and note that you overestimated. After pressing each “Show me how I did” button, text appears explaining the hypothesized causes for the change in the number of deaths. Ask students to read the text following the drug abuse graph, and identify the possible reasons for the steep climb in overdose deaths and identify the ways that have been suggested to reduce the number of deaths. In class, by a show of hands (or using a clicker system), ask students if they were the farthest off on death by car accident? Death from guns? Death by HIV? Or death by drug overdose? (If you’ve covered the availability heuristic, now is a nice time to revisit that concept? “What type of deaths do you hear the most about? Did those deaths receive your highest guesses?” Or if you’re not ready to tackle drug abuse as a topic, use this as an availability heuristic example to help students be more aware of the issue.) If time allows, invite students to discuss in pairs or small groups how researchers could investigate the effectiveness of each drug overdose prevention proposal. If you’d like to use this as a research methods booster, give each group one of the five prevention proposals given near the end of the article. Ask each group to write the proposal as an hypothesis, e.g., If there were “tighter regulation of prescription opioids,” then the number of drug overdose deaths would decrease (or the rate of increase in drug overdose deaths would be slowed). Each group should then identify the independent variable (including experimental and control conditions) and the dependent variable, including operational definitions, and identify any ethical concerns in doing this research. In whatever context you choose to discuss this topic be aware that some of your students may have experience with drug overdoses. They, themselves, may have had an overdose, or they may have a friend or family who overdosed and who may have died as a result. ... View more

Federico Babina is a graphic designer and architect. He has created a series of 16 images, collectively called Archiatric, that are a depiction of different psychological disorders. Visit Babina’s Archiatric page and click through each image. [Shout out to Lisa Thompson Potgieter for sharing these prints on the AP Psych Teachers Facebook page!] After covering disorders, show students this compilation of all 16 images (you can buy the print) and give students an alphabetized list of the disorders depicted. Alzheimer’s Anxiety Autism Bipolar Disorder Dementia Depression Dissociative Disorders Dyslexia Eating Disorder Gender Disorder Insomnia Narcolepsy Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Paranoia Phobias Schizophrenia Ask students to work in pairs or small groups to match each disorder to Babina’s depiction and provide a short justification for why they matched each disorder with that particular image. Once group discussion abates, starting with the top left corner, ask student groups to volunteer their guesses and why. Then reveal the disorder Babina matched with that image. The danger in using images like these to depict complex experiences is that they, by their very nature, oversimplify the experience. For example, the image used to depict obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) captures the need for order sometimes seen in OCD, but it doesn’t capture other common symptoms such as cleaning, checking, and counting. As you identify the disorder that matches the image, ask students how the images depict the disorder. And, more importantly, ask students what symptoms of the disorder are NOT depicted in the image. [Thank you to Susan Nolan, special consultant on this post!] ... View more

Help students understand the symptoms of dementia by experiencing some of those                     symptoms themselves through the free “A Walk Through Dementia” Android app created by Alzheimer’s Research UK in cooperation with Google UK volunteers. There are four videos: a short introduction to dementia, visiting the supermarket, walking home, and making tea. The videos illustrate a number of dementia symptoms which are presented as a bulleted list at the end of each video. While the videos can be experienced in both the Android app and (3 out of 4 videos) on YouTube (see below), the more powerful experience is the interactive virtual reality (VR) version. For the VR experience, students will need an Android phone, the free “A Walk Through Dementia” app available through Google Play, headphones (which students likely already have), and VR goggles. Affordable VR goggles can be purchased here. And by affordable, I mean KnoxLabs is running a fall 2016 sale where their cardboard goggles are $5 each. There are several other goggles available for around $15 each.  A quick note of caution. Running any VR app on my Galaxy S6 phone heats it up pretty quickly. I can watch just a few minutes of VR before my app is shut down for overheating. My phone cools down rapidly, and in short order I can watch another video. Your mileage may vary. As an in-class VR activity, divide students into groups of three to six. The number of groups you have will depend on how many VR googles you have. Make sure there is at least one Android phone owner in each group. Ask the Android phone owners to search for and download from Google Play the “A Walk Through Dementia” app. Groups are to plug in the headphones, run the app, and put the phone in the goggles. Have each group member go through a different scenario, i.e. one group member experiences the grocery store, another experiences the walk home, and another experiences making tea. (If there are six students per group, each video is watched by two students.) While experiencing VR, students can sit or stand, but they absolutely should not walk. It’s too disorienting – falling would be expected. At the end of each video, the student who watched it notes the symptoms depicted. Once everyone has watched a video, each student explains to the others in the group what they experienced, being sure to outline the symptoms. Give students an opportunity to share their experience in the VR world with the class. Ask what was most surprising about what they learned. Introduction Video Link : 1780   Walking home Video Link : 1781 Making tea Video Link : 1782 ... View more

Did you ever wish you had access to a searchable database of twin correlations and trait heritability statistics? If not, once you see this, you will wonder why you hadn’t been looking for this kind of resource. Shout out to David Myers (Hope College) for pointing me toward MaTCH. Let’s take height as an example. From the first drop-down menu, select “ICF/ICD10 Subch” and then from the second drop-down menu, select “Height (297). The number in parentheses refers to the number of studies included in the displayed data. This is the first chart that is generated. If one identical (mz = monozygotic) twin is tall, there is a very good chance the other will be as well. If one is short, there is a very good chance the other will be as well. The correlation between being a twin and height is .91. The chart also gives correlations for just male identical twins (mzm = monozygotic male) and female identical twins (mzf = monozygotic female). If one fraternal (dz = dizygotic) twin is tall, there is a smaller chance the other will be as well – correlation of .54. Correlations are also given for all same-sex fraternal twins (dzss), just male fraternal twins (dzm), just female fraternal twins (dzf), and all other-sex fraternal twins (dos). Below the chart is this table. “Est.” is the estimated correlation based on the data from all of the studies included in the dataset. These are the correlations reported in the bar chart. “SE” is the standard error – the smaller the number, the more confident we are that the data reflect what’s true in the population. “Ntraits” are the number of studies in the dataset. “Npairs” are how many pairs of twins were included. While the correlations are interesting – and can certainly provide you with some interesting correlations when covering research methods – the real interesting stuff in this website comes from the last chart. This is where we get the “Reported ACE” – the heritability data. ACE is a model used among heritability researchers. A is additive genetics (the contribution of genes), C is common environment (the contribution of experiencing a shared environment), and E is [unique] environment (the contribution of our own, individual experiences). Before we get into the data, let’s a do a quick refresher of what heritability – and the ACE model – is. Within a population, people vary, say, in height. In the United States, the average height for adult females is about 5’ 4” (Onion, 2016). Some women are taller than that average, while others are shorter. It’s that difference between the shortest and the tallest – the variance – that ACE addresses. Let’s look at the “Reported ACE” chart for height. Picture this. Let’s say that we got all of the women in the United States together in one space. We measured each of their heights. A few would be less than 3 feet tall and a few would be more than 8 feet tall. Most would probably fall between 4’ 6” and 6’ 3 inches. The ACE model addresses where those differences in height come from. We are all going to be of some height just by virtue of being born. But what explains the differences in height among us? This article provides a nice explanation of heritability (Adam, 2012). “h2_all” is the heritability estimate for everybody based on the twin data. This means that 63% of the difference (the variability) in the height among all of us is due to genetics. “c2_all” is the estimate of the role played by a shared, common environment. This means that 30% of the difference in the height among all of us is due to a shared environment. Those two variables, genetics and common environment, together account for 93% (63% plus 30%) of the differences in our heights. The remaining 7%? That’s due to our unique environmental experiences. Please note that this says nothing about our own individual height. As a 5’ 4” female from the United States, this does NOT mean that 63% of my height is due to genetics. These numbers are only meaningful in explaining the differences in our heights across a population. To emphasize how population-driven heritability estimates are, on MaTCH’s left navigation menu, click on “Country.” Here you will see the data for height (if you were looking at the height variable) broken down by country. The ‘r’s are the correlations. Scroll to the right to see the heritability and common environment numbers. Canada, for example, shows 34% heritability for height and 60% for common environment, leaving 6% for unique environment. These numbers are very different from, say, the data for the United States. The U.S. shows 85% for heritability and 8% for common environment, leaving 7% for unique environment. Why might this be? Maybe Canadians are more genetically alike than are people in the U.S., thus differences amongst Canadians in their height must be more due to environment. Or maybe there just isn’t enough Canadian data. In the second column of that table, we see that three studies were used to calculate the Canadian estimates whereas 29 studies were used to calculate the U.S. data. There is much data here to explore. Before you dive too deeply into this website, watch this 15-minute tutorial video. Video Link : 1731 If you want to tackle this with your Intro Psych students, perhaps wherever you cover genetics, send your students to the MaTCH website to choose a psychologically relevant trait. Give your students a template like this to complete. The correlation for identical twins (mzall) on ______________ (enter trait name) is ________ (first line in the blue chart). The correlation for fraternal twins (dzall) on ______________ (enter trait name) is ________ (fourth line in the blue chart). The differences in  ______________ (enter trait name) within a population are _____% (h2_all) due to genetics, _____% (c2_all) due to a shared environment, and _____% (100 minus h2_all minus c2_all) due to a unique environment.   If students can’t find the trait they are interested in from the drop-down menu, they can click on “Find my Trait” in the top navigation bar. Searching on “intelligence” for example, tells us that that trait is lumped under “Higher-Level Cognitive Functions”. References Adam, G. (2012, September 6). What is heritability? Retrieved from Science 2.0: Join the Revolution: http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/what_heritability-93424   Onion, A. (2016, July 3). Why have Americans stopped growing taller? Retrieved from ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98438&page=1  ... View more

Originally posted on May 7, 2014. The Iran and Afghanistan Wars introduced a new and troubling picture on the relationship between traumatic brain injury and mental health. Multiple deployments exposed soldiers to more frequent risks. New combat gear helped them survive blasts. Suicide, substance use, and strained relationships often followed. But according to an Ontario study, we shouldn’t forget another vulnerable group: adolescents who have experienced at least one traumatic brain injury, defined as a head injury that caused either 5 minutes of unconsciousness or an overnight hospital stay. By comparison, the severity of the soldier injuries probably trumped those of the Toronto teens. Yet the two groups experienced similar consequences. In a study of almost 5000 Canadian students Grades 7-12, those who experienced a traumatic brain injury, compared those who didn’t, were nearly three times more likely to attempt suicide. The brain injured adolescents were also more likely to engage in antisocial behavior and experience anxiety and depression. Here is the most stunning statistic of all: roughly 20% of Ontario adolescents have a lifetime history of traumatic brain injury. Part of this makes sense. Think back to when you were a teenager. Perhaps you skateboarded, played soccer, hockey, football, or roughhoused with your siblings. Learning how to drive, you might have been injured in a car accident. Our teenage years are often filled with risk because the teenage brain is hypersensitive to reward. (To watch some videos of a true genius on the topic of the teenage brain, click here). Yet the drive for reward can come at the greatest cost of all. By risking their bodies, adolescents risk their brains. And when that piece of equipment doesn’t run on all cylinders, life becomes more of a slog than a sweet dream. The next time you think of brain injury, think of those who put themselves in harm’s way. For some of us, risk if part of our job. For others, it’s part of our development. For all of us, it’s time to reconsider who needs help.      ... View more

Originally posted on July 7, 2015. From the daily information stream that flows across my desk or up my computer screen, here is a recent news flash: Global data on mental illness. New global disease data published this week by The Lancet​ indicate the worldwide prevalence of schizophrenia (24 million people), anxiety disorders (266 million), major depressive disorder (253 million), and bipolar disorder (49 million). Major depressive disorder now trails only low back pain as a source of “years lived with disability.” ... View more

Originally posted on March 1, 2016. Amid concerns about the replicability of psychological science findings comes “a cause for celebration,” argue behavior geneticist Robert Plomin and colleagues (here). They identify ten “big” take-home findings that have been “robustly” replicated. Some of these are who-would-have-guessed surprises. 1. “All psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic influence.” From abilities to personality to health, twin and adoption studies consistently reveal hereditary influence. 2. “No traits are 100% heritable.” We are knitted of both nature and nurture. 3. “Heritability [differences among individuals attributable to genes] is caused by many genes of small effect.” There is no single “smart gene,” “gay (or straight) gene,” or “schizophrenia gene.” 4. "Correlations between psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic mediation.” For example, genetic factors largely explain the correlation found among 12-year-olds’ reading, math, and language scores. 5. “The heritability of intelligence increases throughout development.” I would have guessed—you, too?—that as people mature, their diverging life experiences would reduce the heritability of intelligence. Actually, heritability increases, from about 41% among 9-year-olds to 66% among 17-year-olds, and to even more in later adulthood, studies suggest. 6. “Age-to-age stability is mainly due to genetics.” This—perhaps the least surprising finding—indicates that our trait stability over time is genetically disposed. 7. “Most measures of ‘environment’ show significant genetic influence.” Another surprise: many measures of environmental factors—such as parenting behaviors—are genetically influenced. Thus if physically punitive parents have physically aggressive children both may share genes that predispose aggressive responding. 8. “Most associations between environmental measures and psychological traits are significantly mediated genetically.” For example, parenting behaviors and children’s behaviors correlate partly due to genetic influences on both. 9. “Most environmental effects are not shared by children growing up in the same family.” As Nathan DeWall and I report in Psychology, 11th Edition, this is one of psychology’s most stunning findings: “The environment shared by a family’s children has virtually no discernible impact on their personalities.” 10. “Abnormal is normal.” Psychological disorders are not caused by qualitatively distinct genes. Rather, they reflect variations of genetic and environmental influences that affect us all.                     HOMETOWNCD/Getty Images From this “firm foundation of replicable findings,” Plomin and colleagues conclude, science can now build deeper understandings of how nature and nurture together weave the human fabric. ... View more

Want to add a little psychopathy to your neuroscience or emotion lectures? Or add a little emotion and neuroscience to your psychopathy lecture? Kevin Dutton (University of Oxford), in a 5-minute video, presents a couple versions of the trolley problem and explains the role of emotion in responding to the dilemma. He notes that psychopaths respond in a purely utilitarian way, without emotion getting in the way. In the first video below, Dutton describes a scenario in which five people will die if a trolley continues on its path but where flipping a switch will send the trolley down a different track killing one person. Pause this video at the 49-second mark and give students an opportunity to think about their decision. Ask students to decide, but not reveal their response. If you use a student response system, ask students to click in with, say, A once they’ve made their decision. Return to playing the video. Dutton changes the scenario so that now you are faced with a different decision. The trolley, again, on its current course will kill five people. But now there is a “large stranger” in front of you. If you shove this person to their certain death in front of the trolley, the trolley will stop and the five people will be saved.  Pause the video at the 1:38 mark and give students time to mull over their decision. Again, ask students to decide, but not reveal their response. As before, if you use a student response system, ask students to click in with A once they’ve made their decision. Dutton goes on to say that the first decision involves primarily the cerebral cortex. But when it comes to the second decision of whether to physically push someone to their death, for most people the emotion-heavy amygdala becomes involved and the decision is much more difficult. What about psychopaths? The amygdala stays quiet, and psychopaths don’t feel a difference between the two dilemmas. The decision to shove the stranger feels no different than the decision to flip the switch. Video Link : 1665 If you have time and wish to continue the topic, Dutton has another 5-minute video that expands on this one. To introduce it, ask students if there are any benefits to having someone who is willing and able to sacrifice one person, regardless of circumstances, to save many people? If time allows, ask students to discuss in pairs or small groups, and then ask for volunteers to share their responses. Now, play this video. Video Link : 1666 After this, students will have a lot to think about and may not be able to focus on anything else you have to say. It may be best to time this activity so it ends when your class session ends. ... View more

The Washington Post published a wonderful article on the sense of shame that surrounds mental illness and how people are overcoming that shame and stepping out of the shadows. Ask your students to read the article and respond to the following questions in class as a small group discussion, online through a class discussion board, or as an out-of-class written assignment. 1. Those interviewed for the article expressed a fear of coming out as having mental illness. What is the stigma associated with mental illness, and why would those with mental illness fear others knowing? 2. The article identifies several ways in which people with mental illness are coming out publicly. What are those ways? If you were to come out publicly as having mental illness, which of those ways would you choose and why? 3. Visit the blog http://stigmafighters.com. Choose one blog post and answer the following. a. What is the person’s name and what they do in life (short descriptions are typically at the end of each post)? b. What type of mental illness do they have? c. Describe their milestone events, such as their first memory of symptoms, their first diagnosis. d. What’s it like for them to live with mental illness? e. What reactions did you have as you read their story? Itkowitz, C. (2016, June 1). Unashamed and unwell. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/wp/2016/06/01/unwell-and-unashamed ​[Note: Published in the paper on June 2, 2016 if you're looking for it in a library database.] ... View more