The following would fit well with a discussion research methods, but would also work as a research methods booster in the social or emotion chapters. In a series of studies conducted under different field and lab conditions, researchers gave participants opportunities to engage in random act of kindness to evaluate the impact that kindness had on both the giver and the recipient (Kumar & Epley, 2022) (freely available). For the purpose of this blog post, I want to focus on study 2a: hot chocolate at the skating rink. After reading several of Kumar and Epley’s studies in this article, it makes me want to do random acts of kindness research. I want to spend a chunk of my day brainstorming random acts of kindness that I could encourage participants to do. I’m picturing Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley sitting around on a cold day, and one of them saying, “You know what makes me happy? A hot beverage on a cold day.” And the other saying, “Especially if I’m really cold and the hot beverage is extra tasty.” It’s a short leap from there to an outdoor skating rink and hot chocolate. With the permission of the skating rink operators, researchers approached people, told them that they were conducting a study, and gave them a choice. Here’s a cup of hot chocolate. You can keep it for yourself or you can point out anyone here, and we’ll deliver it to the person. The researchers made deliberate use of demand characteristics to encourage giving away the hot chocolate. I’m picturing something like this spiel, “The entire reason we’re out here, bub, is to investigate the effects of random acts of kindness, so we’d really love it if you’d give this hot chocolate away. But, hey, if you want to keep it, you selfish lout, there’s nothing we can do about it.” Okay, they probably didn’t call them selfish louts, although that would have upped the demand characteristics ante. While 75 people agreed to give the hot chocolate away, nine (very cold people with low blood sugar perhaps) opted to keep it. The givers each identified one person at the outdoor skating rink to receive a hot chocolate delivery. For the dependent variables, each hot chocolate donor was asked three questions: how big do they think this act of kindness is (scale of 0 to 10), what’s your mood now having made the decision to give away the hot chocolate compared to normal (-5 to +5, where 0 is normal), and what they thought the mood of the recipient would be upon receiving the hot chocolate (same scale, -5 to +5 where 0 is normal).   Next, the researchers approached the identified recipients, explained that they were conducting a study, and that they gave people the choice to keep or give away a cup of hot chocolate. They further explained that a person chose to give away their cup of hot chocolate to them. At this point, I’m a little sorry that this was not a study of facial expressions. I would imagine that looks of confusion would dominate, at least at first. Imagine standing at an outdoor ice skating rink when a complete stranger comes up to you, says they’re conducting a study, and, here, have a cup of hot chocolate. After confusion, perhaps surprise or joy. Or perhaps skepticism. The researchers did not report how many hot chocolate recipients actually drank their beverage. Also no word on how happy the researchers were since they were the ones who were actually giving away hot chocolate. After being handed the cup of hot chocolate, each recipient was asked to rate how big this act of kindness was (0 to 10 scale) and to report their mood (scale of -5 to +5, where 0 is normal). The design of this study makes the data analysis interesting. The mood of the givers and the mood of the recipients was each treated as a within participants comparison. The reported mood (-5 to +5) was compared against 0 (normal mood). The givers, on average, reported a net positive mood of +2.4 (with +5 being the maximum). The recipients, on average, reported a net positive mood boost to +3.52. In a between participants comparison, givers and recipients were compared on the mood of recipients. When the givers were asked what the mood would be of the participants, they underestimated. They guessed an average of +2.73 as compared the actual rating the recipients gave their own mood of +3.52. As another between participants comparison, the ratings of how big the givers thought their act of kindness was (3.76 on an 11-point scale) were compared to how big the recipients thought the act of kindness was (7.0 on an 11-point scale).   Studies reported later in this article provide evidence that suggests that the difference in perspective between the givers of a random act of kindness and their recipients is that the givers attend to the act itself—such as the value of the hot chocolate—and not on the additional value of being singled out for kindness, no matter what that kindness is. To give students some practice at generating operational definitions, point out that Kumar and Epley operationally defined a random act of kindness as giving away hot chocolate. Ask students to consider some other operational definitions—some other ways Kumar and Epley could have created a random act of kindness situation but using the same basic study design. Point out that researchers could use these other operational definitions to do a conceptual replication of this study—same concepts, but different definitions. Maybe some of your students will even choose to engage in some of those random acts of kindness.   Reference Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2022). A little good goes an unexpectedly long way: Underestimating the positive impact of kindness on recipients. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001271   ... View more

Early in my Intro Psych teaching career, I didn’t cover sleep or stress probably because I thought that these more applied topics were less important than the core theories. When I finally noticed how sleep-deprived and stressed my students were, I had a DOH! moment. That was the beginning of what became a years-long shift in how I thought about Intro Psych. These days, I choose the content of my Intro Psych course based on what I think my neighbors need to know about psychology (more on that thinking here). Emotion regulation is a topic that my neighbors need to know about, so I’m adding it to my Intro Psych course. Examples abound—in the news, on Reddit, on Failblog—of people acting on emotion without seemingly to have made an attempt at moderating their emotions. They lash out at whoever happens to be in their line of fire. In some cases, the fire is literal. By naming the emotion regulation strategies and giving students some practice at thinking through how the strategies can be employed in different situations, students may be better able to moderate their emotions when needed. (There’s an empirical question for anyone interested in studying the long-term effects of taking Intro Psych.) While it makes sense to cover emotion regulation in the emotion chapter, it would fit fine in the stress and coping chapter. For an excellent overview of emotion regulation, take a look at McRae and Gross’s (2020) open access article “Emotion regulation.” For your students, start by describing and giving examples of the five emotion regulation strategies. Note that the strategies are sequential. Which strategy is employed depends on how deep into the emotional event we are. With situation selection, we choose our situations to elicit or not elicit certain emotions. For example, if we find particular family members aggravating, we may choose not to be around them thereby decreasing the likelihood of us feeling aggravated. Or if we have a friend whose company tends to generate positive emotions, we may ask them to meet us for coffee thereby increasing the likelihood of us feeling happy. When we cannot avoid a particular situation, we may be able to alter it. In situation modification, we attempt to change the situation. For example, if we are stuck sharing a holiday dinner with family members who we find aggravating, we can ask other family members to run interference so that our time interacting with the aggravators is minimized. At the holiday dinner, despite our best efforts, we find ourselves seated next to one of our aggravating family members. Using attentional deployment, we shift our attention to other things. Rather than listen to the ranting of this family member, we stop paying attention to what they are saying. Instead, we focus on the words spoken by the family member on the other side of us, we silently sing to ourselves, we mentally review all of the concepts we learned in our Intro Psych course, or we count backward from 10,000 by threes. It's now a month after the holiday dinner, and memories of those aggravating comments keep popping up. It’s now time to try cognitive change. Is it possible to think of the comments and the people who made them in a different way? Television producer Norman Lear—who turned 100 in July 2022—titled his memoir Even This I Get to Experience. It is an apt title, because it really does seem to be how he approaches life. He views negative events not so much as negative, but as opportunities to experience something new. That dinner with aggravating relatives? Even that we got to experience. And we got some good stories out of it! The last emotion regulation strategy is response modulation. When all of the other strategies fail us, and we experience the emotion in all of its unmitigated glory, we can reduce the strength of the emotion by doing something else, such as lifting weights, playing pickleball, or eating an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies. Now is a good time to note that some response modulation strategies are better for us than others. Now it is your students’ turn. Give students a minute to think about an event that could generate strong negative emotions. It could be an event that has occurred or an event that is anticipated. It could be an event from their own lives or from the lives of family or friends. In a face-to-face or virtual class, ask students to gather in groups of three or four. In an online course, a discussion board works fine. Ask students to share their events with each other. For each event, ask students to consider how each emotion regulation strategy could be or could have been used. Invite groups to share from their discussion their favorite event and emotion regulation strategy.   Reference McRae, K., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Emotion regulation. Emotion, 20(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000703   ... View more

One of my students contacted me recently to ask if I knew of any volunteer opportunities that would be a good match for her, a psychology major. As an undergraduate, I volunteered at a domestic violence shelter/rape crisis center. The hours of training plus my two years of time there was invaluable. While its obvious how this experience would be a solid base for a psychotherapist-to-be, it provided lesson after lesson for this future social psychologist. In addition to experience, there is plenty of evidence that connects volunteering with happiness. For example, a study based on UK survey data that controlled for happiness levels prior to volunteering found that volunteering did indeed create a boost in happiness (Lawton et al., 2021). I put my student in contact with a colleague who I felt would know more about local volunteering options than I did. When that didn’t pan out, I directed my student to VolunteerMatch.org. Enter your location (virtual only is an option), pick your favorite causes, and select your skills. Under “More Filters,” select whether you’re looking for opportunities for kids, those who are 55+, teens, or groups—a psych club, perhaps? If you would like to introduce your students to the VolunteerMatch.org website, during your coverage of happiness would be a good place. Here is a suggestion for an assignment or an online discussion. Visit VolunteerMatch.org. Enter your location. (At the top of the page, click virtual opportunities if you would prefer something remote). In the “Find the Best Volunteer Opportunities” section, click the “More” button to see all of the topic. Choose your favorite topic or topics. Briefly explain why you chose the topic or topics you did. Identify at least three volunteer opportunities that appeal to you. Briefly explain why you chose each one. How likely is it that you will volunteer with one of these in the next 12 months? Why or why not.   Reference Lawton, R. N., Gramatki, I., Watt, W., & Fujiwara, D. (2021). Does volunteering make us happier, or are happier people more likely to volunteer? Addressing the problem of reverse causality when estimating the wellbeing impacts of volunteering. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22(2), 599–624. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00242-8 ... View more

These days, it seems we all need advice on how to keep moving toward our goals! What to Do When You Want to Give Up https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/make-it-make-sense/202110/what-do-when-you-want-give ... View more

Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation is promoting intentional acts of kindness this September (#BeKind21) with a goal toward better mental health for everyone. Every day, from September 1 to September 21, let’s engage in purposeful acts of kindness to others and ourselves. I encourage you and your students to sign up.   Zara Abrams (2021) provides a nice summary of the research on kindness, emphasizing its benefits to both our physical and mental health. Even small acts, such as bringing a colleague coffee, counts. Buying me a beer also counts. Without too much difficulty, we can tie acts of kindness into what students are learning in their Intro Psych course. Here are a few examples. Biopsych chapter: Which neurotransmitters are most likely to be released in our brains when we do good deeds for others? Explain Development chapter: What are developmentally-appropriate good deeds we could perform for each group: toddlers, middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, middle-aged adults, older adults? Explain. Learning chapter: Identify at least three acts of kindness you have engaged in. Was your act positively reinforced? Explain. Memory chapter: We tend to have stronger memories for events that are emotional. Based on the emotional reaction of those who were on the receiving end of your kindness, will any of your acts of kindness be remembered years from now by one of your recipients? After September 21st, give your students an opportunity to reflect on their experience. What was especially good about engaging in intentional acts of kindness? Were there any surprises? Will they continue to be intentionally kind?   References Abrams, Z. (2021, August). The case for kindness. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/apa/kindness-mental-health ... View more

Do your students know what makes them happy? They probably think they do, and much what they think is probably wrong. Professor Gilbert will discuss the science of happiness, and tell you about some findings that will surprise your students – and maybe you as well!      WATCH RECORDING ... View more

Five conditions that cause people to abandon happiness: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/when-kids-call-the-shots/202106/why-you-don-t-believe-in-happiness-anymore ... View more

Have you spend time reading or binge-watching your favorite shows this year? Research suggests that those beloved characters mean as much to us as our friends, at least if we are immersed in the fictional environment: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/time-travelling-apollo/202104/mind-melding-our-favorite-fictional-characters ... View more

The Neural Basis of Empathy via Knowing Neurons (and check out some of their other easy-to-digest articles for students while you're there!): https://knowingneurons.com/2021/03/29/neural-basis-of-empathy/ ... View more

Humor is a vital part of our lives (even more so now). So, what's the secret recipe that makes something funny? https://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/warren-barsky-mcgraw-humor-theory ... View more

Is pandemic fatigue affecting your motivation as we face the start of a new semester? Learn why and read advice here: https://www.psichi.org/blogpost/987366/363184/Has-COVID-19-Affected-Your-Motivation#.YAcg4MXYrzc ... View more

It used to be that money only made us happier up to a certain point. New research shows that this relationship is changing and getting stronger over time. Why is this happening? http://ow.ly/Hgyt50D2QjZ ... View more

Imagine that you and a colleague (or spouse) have been at odds. You have argued and fought, each trying to persuade the other. Alas, there has been no meeting of the minds. What might you do next to create an opportunity for conflict resolution? To “put behind” where you have been stuck, to “move on” from your standstill, to “get beyond” your impasse, one simple, practical strategy is literally to take steps forward—to go for a walk. In a new American Psychologist article, Christine Webb, Maya Rossignac-Milon, and E. Tory Higgins argue “that walking together can facilitate both the intra- and interpersonal pathways to conflict resolution.” At the individual level, they report, walking supports creativity. It boosts mood. It embodies notions of forward progress. At the interpersonal level, walking does more. Walkers’ synchronous movements, as they jointly attend to their environment and coordinate their steps, increases mutual rapport and empathy. It softens the boundary between self and other. And it engenders cooperation beyond the shared walking cadence. If, indeed, synchronous walking increases rapport and prosociality, might there be a similar effect of synchronized singing? Does group singing help unify a diverse audience? The question crossed my mind as folk singer Peter Yarrow (of “Peter, Paul and Mary”) rose near the beginning of a recent small group retreat of diverse people and invited us to join him in singing “Music Speaks Louder Than Words.” Yarrow, now age 79, has spent his career—from the civil rights and anti-war movements of the ´60s to today—in engaging audiences in synchronized singing of prosocial poetry. Photo courtesy Byron Buck What do you think? Does music speak louder than words alone? Do synchronized walking and group singing have overlapping psychological effects? Can both lift us beyond where words, in isolation, can take us? ... View more

Speaking to military personnel on February 6 th , President Trump lamented that terrorist attacks are “not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it.” The implication was that opposition to his seven-country immigration ban arises from our being insufficiently aware and fearful of the terrorism threat.   Or, we might ask, are we instead too afraid of terrorism? In 2015 and again in 2016, feared Islamic terrorists (none from the seven countries) shot and killed fewer Americans than did armed toddlers (see here and here). Homicidal, suicidal, and accidental death by guns claim more than 30,000 American deaths each year.   After vivid media portrayals of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, 27 percent of Americans identified terrorism as their biggest worry. In two national surveys (here and here), terrorism topped the list of “most important” issues facing the country.   Ergo, does the evidence not compel us to conclude that we are, thanks to the hijacking of our emotions by vividly available images, too much afraid of terrorism . . . and too little afraid of much greater perils? And might we instead fault the media for leaving us too unafraid of the future’s great weapon of mass destruction—climate change? Are some prominent voices today, as in George Orwell’s 1984, seeking to control us by manipulating our fears? To me, George Gerbner’s cautionary words to a 1981 congressional subcommittee seem prescient: Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. ... View more

Have you expanded the amount of positive psychology you cover in Intro Psych? Here’s an in-class activity to get students to consider their happiness and the happiness of others around the world. Ask students, “What is the happiness country in the world?” Before they answer, ask students to consider how such a thing could be measured. Give students a minute or two to jot down some ideas, then ask students to turn to one or two nearby students to share ideas. After a couple minutes of sharing ask for a few volunteers to share their ideas. Researchers (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2016) looked at Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (World Bank data), “healthy life expectancy” (World Health Organization data), social support, freedom of choice, generosity, perceptions of corruption, and self-report on yesterday’s positive and negative affect (all from Gallup World Poll data). From these data, researchers calculated scores for 157 countries. Ask students to guess which country is the happiest. The answer: Denmark. Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Finland round out the top 5. Canada is number 6. The United States? Number 13. Why is Denmark so happy? The Danes and Dana Dunn (2017) will tell you it is (at least partially) because of the concept of hygge (HOO-gah) -- cozy. “Danes burn 13 pounds of [unscented] candle wax a person a year, doing so even in classrooms and office buildings” (Green, 2016). “How to get hygge? Go home and stay there, preferably in your hyggekrog – a.k.a. ‘cozy nook’ – wrapped in a blanket, drinking a cup of coffee and watching a Danish police procedural about a serial killer with your friends” (Green, 2016). Ask your students to take a couple minutes to think about whether they have hygge in their own lives. If so, what does it look like? If not, what might it look like? Then give students a couple minutes to share their hygge experiences with one or two other students. Following this short discussion, ask for volunteers to share with the class.   References Dunn, D. (2017, January). Quotidian positive psychology: Helping students seek strengths and apply what they learn. Paper presented at the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg Beach, FL. Green, P. (2016, December 24). Move over, Marie Kondo: Make room for the hygge hordes. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/fashion/wintering-the-danish-way-learning-about-hygge.html Helliwell, J., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. (2016). World Happiness Report 2016, Update (Vol. I). New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network. ... View more