One of the great joys of attending conferences – in this case, the American Psychological Association convention – is the conversations with both new and old friends. This morning I had breakfast with Linda Woolf (Webster University; an old friend). She posed an interesting question, and before my first full cup of coffee, it was a little unfair. She noted that in our professional circles we frequently talk about psychology books we think psychology majors should read. She wondered what non-psychology books I’d recommend. That’s both an easy and a difficult question. It’s easy to find book that contain psychology, but difficult in deciding of all the books out there, what books I’d recommend. The two that came pretty quickly to mind were: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown. About the University of Washington men’s crew who rowed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the book gives us a healthy does of prejudice and perseverance. The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede. On 9/11/2001 when the U.S. airspace closed, planes flying west across the Atlantic had to land in Canada. Thirty-eight of them landed in Gander, Newfoundland. Almost 7,000 visitors literally dropped into a town of 9,000 for five days. DeFede restores our faith in humanity with story after story of altruism. The musical Come From Away expands on those stories including coverage of prejudice, stress and coping, and ingroups/outgroups. (Honestly, the book may do the same, but it’s been years since I’ve read it.) After having had my full dose of coffee and a few more hours to reflect – and a chance to review my Goodreads books, here are some more non-psychology books recommended for psychology majors. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Noah grew up in South African as “colored,” the South African term for half white/half black. His experience gets wrapped up in ingroups/outgroups, both sorting out what that means for him and being on the receiving end of other people’s assumptions about his group membership. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Starting with World War I, African Americans started in earnest to move out of the south to points west and north. Spotlighting three people who left different places at different times for different locales, Wilkerson helps her readers understand the prejudice and discrimination that drove African Americans from the south to the different-looking prejudice and discrimination of their new homes. Sally Ride by Lynn Sherr Becoming the first U.S. woman in space had its challenges. More prejudice, discrimination, and perseverance in this book. When asked at a crew press conference in 1982 “Dr. Ride, apart from the obvious differences, how do you assess the differences in men and women astronauts?” Dr. Ride replied, “Aside from the obvious differences, I don’t think there are any.” Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery Emma Gatewood in 1955 and at the age of 67 decided to hike the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. Alone. This one will make students rethink their assumptions about gender and age. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman Paul Erdös (pronounced air-dish) was a mathematical genius. But his biography is less about intelligence than it is about… well, it’s tough to describe. Being comfortable in your own skin, may be a good descriptor. Erdös was unapologetically Erdös. He couch-surfed from the home of one mathematician to another. His hosts didn’t know when he was coming until he appeared on their doorsteps, and they didn’t know when he was leaving until he left. He would ask strangers to tie his shoes. He offered cash to grad students to solve mathematical problems. The more difficult the problem, the greater the cash award. And Erdös published prolifically. Mathematicians have an Erdös number. If you published a paper with Erdös, your number is one. If you published with someone who published a paper with Erdös, your number is two. And so on. Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll [This book may not technically meet the requirements of the category given the amount of psychology in it.] This book contains everything you wanted to know about slot machines and then some. If you’re teaching that pushing buttons on a slot machine is an example of positive reinforcement, you’re wrong for a healthy chunk of slot machine users. Negative reinforcement would be a better characterization. Regular users of slot machines play not to win but play to enter the zone where they don’t have to think about problems at work, with their spouse, or with their kids. Winning just means being able to not think even longer. I managed to give you a list that is all nonfiction. Please share your recommendations in the comments – and I’d love to see some fiction in the list! ... 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 April 5, 2014. Each year, the American government spends billions of dollars to help students who struggle to meet their potential. These students languish in traditional school programs. They struggle socially. And they ultimately have less impact on society than they might if they had received educational opportunities that maximized their abilities. New research suggests that students who occupy this group are the ones we often worry about the least: super smart kids. The study followed several hundred students from age 13 to 38. At age 13, all of the students showed testing ability that placed them in the top 0.01 percent of students their age. Put another way, the study participants outscored students in the top 1 percent by a factor of ten. That’s pretty smart! The super smart kids flourished. Their rate of earned doctorates dwarfed the average American rate: 44 percent compared to 2 percent. They held jobs that gave them influence over millions of dollars and, in some cases, millions of lives. It’s easy to shut the book there. Super smart kids succeed. Big deal. But these super smart kids often experience challenges that also plague so-called “at-risk” students. They don’t have class material that pushes them intellectually. Before their first day of class, they know the course material. What happens next? What do they do for the next six to eight hours while their peers struggle to understand the material they’ve already mastered? The super smart kids might also struggle to connect socially. If academics are such a breeze, might it be difficult to relate to your peers? Might you experience stress when your peers have to study at night while you look for other opportunities to pique your intellectual interests? Might you act less intelligent to fit in? ... View more

Originally posted on February 5, 2015. Even though the smartphone has only been around for the past seven or eight years, it’s sometimes difficult to remember what life was like before we had so much information at our fingertips. You could argue with a friend about what year “Back to the Future, Part 2” came out, or in what year the “future” was set. (It was released in 1989. The future, filled with flying cars and floating skateboards, was set in 2015.) Back then, you couldn’t resolve discussions by swiping a screen and touching a button. Siri wasn’t even a twinkle in Steve Jobs’s eye. If you got lost, you had to consult a map or stop and ask for directions, and if you got bored while waiting in line, you couldn’t pass the time by playing Candy Crush or perusing Instagram. Luddites argue that life was better before the smart phone, whereas others tout the benefits of instant communication and information. But one thing is certain: The smartphone has changed our lives. And our thumbs. Yes, when we spend time on smartphones using a touchscreen, it changes the way our thumbs and brains work together, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Our obsession with smartphones presented the perfect opportunity to explore the everyday plasticity of our brains. With smartphones, we are using our fingertips—especially our thumbs—in a new way, and we do it a lot. And because our phones keep track of how we use them, they carry a wealth of information that can be studied. In the study, the research team used electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain response to the touch of the thumb, index finger, and middle fingerprints of touchscreen phone users compared to people who still use flip phones or other old-school devices. They found that the electrical activity in the brains of smartphone users was enhanced when all three fingertips were touched. The amount of activity in the brain’s cortex associated with the thumb and index fingertips was directly proportional to the amount of phone use. Repetitive movements over the touchscreen surface might reshape sensory processing from the hand. Cortical sensory processing in our brains is constantly shaped by personal digital technology. So, the next time you use your thumbs to tweet, answer email, or jot yourself a note, remember that you’re training your brain. Keep in mind, too, that excessive phone usage is linked with motor dysfunction and pain. Remember the so-called “BlackBerry thumb”? ... View more

Originally posted on August 26, 2014. In a recent New York Times essay (here), Henry Roediger explains the insights gleaned from his research on “the testing effect”— the enhanced memory that follows actively retrieving information, rather than simply rereading it. Psychologists sometimes also refer to this phenomenon as “test-enhanced learning,” or as the “retrieval practice effect” (because the benefits derive from the greater rehearsal of information when self-testing rather than rereading). As Roediger explains, “used properly, testing as part of an educational routine provides an important tool not just to measure learning, but to promote it.” For students and teachers, I offer a 5-minute animated explanation of the testing effect and how to apply it in one’s own study.  (I intend this for a class presentation or viewing assignment in the first week of a course.) See Make Things Memorable!  How to Study and Learn More Effectively. ... View more

Originally posted on February 2, 2016. You’ve likely heard the NPR ads for brain fitness games offered by Lumosity. “70 Million brain trainers in 182 countries challenge their brains with Lumosity,” declares its website. The hoped-for results range from enhanced cognitive powers to increased school and work performance to decreased late-life cognitive decline or dementia. But do brain-training games really makes us smarter or enlarge our memory capacity? In our just-released Exploring Psychology, 10th Edition, Nathan DeWall and I suggest “that brain training can produce short-term gains, but mostly on the trained tasks and not for cognitive ability in general.” As an earlier TalkPsych blog essay reported, Zachary Hambrick and Randall Engle have “published studies and research reviews that question the popular idea that brain-training games enhance older adults’ intelligence and memory. Despite the claims of companies marketing brain exercises, brain training appears to produce gains only on the trained tasks (without generalizing to other tasks).” And that is also the recently announced conclusion of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), when fining Lumosity’s maker, Lumos Labs, $2 million for false advertising. As FTC spokesperson Michelle Rusk reported to Science​, “The most that they have shown is that with enough practice you get better on these games, or on similar cognitive tasks...There’s no evidence that training transfers to any real-world setting.” Although this leaves open the possibility that certain other brain-training programs might have cognitive benefits, the settlement affirms skeptics who doubt that brain games have broad cognitive benefits. ... View more

Whatever words researchers have chosen to use to refer to people with intellectual disability have been turned into pop culture insults, such as idiot, imbecile, and moron. In more recent decades when researchers favored the term mentally retarded, “retard” became the preferred insult. In fact I heard a student utter this in my class just a couple weeks ago. The student, I am sure, did not intend to offend an entire group of people. Instead, she was using a word she learned to be a good stand-in for asinine. Personally, I’d like to see asinine make a comeback. It’s a good word. It nicely calls out asinine behavior without denigrating a group of people. In the fall of 2012, after a presidential debate, Ann Coulter tweeted “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard” (https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/260581147493412865). On the Special Olympics website the next day John Franklin Stephens responded. “I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.” His time was well-spent; he wrote a beautiful, well-crafted response. He closed with this, “Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor. No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much. Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.” He signed it, “A friend you haven’t made yet.” More recently, a New York Times article (May 7, 2016) reflected on the use of the term intellectual disability, the favored term for the last decade. The article provides a nice historical summary of both the language used and how people with intellectual disabilities were treated. Michael Wehmeyer (director of the University of Kansas Beach Center on Disability) notes that intellectual disability is “the first term that doesn’t refer to the condition as a defective mental process – slow, weak, feeble… Intellectual disability conveys that it is not a problem within a person, but a lack of fit between that person’s capacities and the demands of the environment in which the person is functioning.” Although he personally prefers cognitive disability (and so do I, not that I really get to have an opinion on the matter). It is difficult to imagine how “intellectual disability” could be twisted into an insult. While those who think of such things work on that, the rest of us can work on helping our students understand how offensive it is to casually toss around the word retarded as an insult. This is an easy topic to tackle when covering development, intelligence, or perhaps even better, stereotyping and prejudice. We seem to have largely moved past “that’s so gay” as an insult. We can do the same with “that’s so retarded.” Signed, The niece of a woman with an intellectual disability ... View more

As a psychology instructor it is clear to you the myriad ways in which psychology can be used to both understand social issues and speak to solutions. In fact, the APA Guidelines for the Major (2013; see below) encourages us to help our students see the same. Debra Mashek (2016) suggests a few assignments that provide our students opportunities to connect psychology with today’s social issues. Integrative essay The instructor chooses three articles (interesting, nifty methodology, and not too difficult for students to understand – but on the surface may not have anything obviously to do with each other), and assigns one of those articles to each student, i.e. 1/3 of the class gets article A, 1/3 gets article B, and 1/3 gets article C. Each student writes a one-page summary of their assigned article and brings that with them to class. The class breaks up into groups of three, where the groups are composed of students who have all read different articles. In a jigsaw classroom format, the students tell the others in their three-person group about their article. Students then “articulate an applied question that invites application of ideas from all the articles.” Each 3-person group then co-authors a short paper (two to three pages) that identifies their applied question and how each of the three articles speak to that question. Persuasion research activity Right after Hurricane Katrina, Mashek decided she wanted her Intro Psych students to experience psychological research firsthand while also contributing to the relief effort. Mashek gave a brief lecture on foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and reciprocity. She randomly assigned ¼ of students to foot-in-the-door, ¼ to door-in-the-face, ¼ reciprocity (she gave these students lollipops to hand to people before asking for a donation), and ¼ to a command condition (“give money”). During that same class period students were sent out in pairs to different areas of campus to return an hour later. Thirty-five students collected $600. Students reported a greater connection to the victims of Katrina after they returned than they reported before they left. Mashek used this experience as a leaping off point for discussing research methodology in the next class session. Current headline classroom discussion Pick a current headline. Break students into small groups, perhaps as an end of class activity, and give them one or two discussion questions based on the current chapter you are covering that are relevant to the headline. For example, if you are covering the social psychology chapter in Intro Psych, give students this headline from the January 9, 2016 New York Times: “Gov. Paul LePage of Maine Says Racial Comment Was a ‘Slip-Up’.” This is a short article, so you could ask students to read the article itself. Sample discussion questions: (1) What evidence is there of ingroup bias? (2) Do Gov. LePage’s comments illustrate stereotyping, prejudice, and/or discrimination? Explain. If time allows, student groups can report out in class. Alternatively, this could be a group writing assignment or a scribe for the group could post a summary of the group’s responses to a class discussion board. Students will gain an appreciation of the scope of psychology and how it is relevant to today’s social issues. This activity throughout the course should help students, after the course, to continue to see psychology at play. The APA Guidelines for the Major (2013) include these indicators related to social issues: 1.3A Articulate how psychological principles can be used to explain social issues, address pressing societal needs, and inform public policy 3.3c Explain how psychology can promote civic, social, and global outcomes that benefit others 3.3C Pursue personal opportunities to promote civic, social, and global outcomes that benefit the community. 3.3d Describe psychology-related issues of global concern (e.g., poverty, health, migration, human rights, rights of children, international conflict, sustainability) 3.3D Consider the potential effects of psychology-based interventions on issues of global concern American Psychological Association. (2013). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major: Version 2.0. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/index.aspx Mashek, D. (2016, January 4). Bringing the psychology of social issues to life. Lecture presented at National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology in Tradewinds Island Grand Resort, St. Petersburg Beach. Seelye, K. Q. (2016, January 9). Gov. Paul LePage of Maine Says Racial Comment Was a 'Slip-up'. The New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/08/gov-paul-lepage-of-maine-denies-making-racist-remarks ... View more