We know that using a cell phone while driving is dangerous, and that the risk of crashing is even greater among teenage drivers (Gershon et al., 2019). I’ve heard people say, “Let them crash. They’ll learn.” While punishment delivered as an environmental consequence can be effective, we’re not talking about a child not watching where they are walking and bumping into a pole. We’re talking about people piloting 2,000-pound missiles filled with flammable liquids traveling over 60 mph. Not only might a crash caused by inattention kill the driver, but it might kill their passengers, pedestrians, and the occupants of other vehicles. In addition to the cost in lives, there are the medical costs of the people who survive and the financial payouts related to the vehicles. The more people that crash vehicles, the greater the cost of medical and car insurance for everyone. In sum, we are all better off when people do not crash. After covering operant conditioning, invite your students to work in small groups (in person or in a class discussion forum) to answer this question: What can we do to encourage drivers to use their cell phones less while driving? If you’d like to add in some experimental design practice, ask students how they could test their ideas. They should include the levels of the independent variable with operational definitions and the dependent variable with operational definition. Invite volunteers from each group to share their ideas and their experimental designs. Lastly, share with students this freely available journal article that describes how one research team addressed this issue (Delgado et al., 2024). Ask students to answer the following questions: The researchers didn’t have a hypothesis because they didn’t have a prediction of the results. Instead, they had a question and an objective. What were these? When was the study conducted? How many volunteers participated in the study? How long were data collected from each volunteer? There were six levels of the independent variable which the researchers called “trial arms.” Identify all six, and describe how each was operationally defined. What was the primary dependent variable which the researchers call “measure”? How many seconds per hour on average were the control group volunteers on their phones while driving? The researchers report that their statistical analyses showed that the only interventions that had an effect compared to the control group were “standard incentive plus feedback,” “reframed incentive plus feedback,” and “double reframed incentive plus feedback.” How many seconds per hour less compared to the control group on average were the volunteers in these three groups on their phones while driving? What was the average cost per person for the most successful intervention? In the “discussion” section of the article, the researchers note that the heaviest phone users while driving showed no impact from the interventions. What do you think the heaviest phone-use-while-driving drivers are doing on their phones while driving? Identify an incentive that you think would help such drivers reduce phone use while driving. I recently had a conversation with a person who said that she knows that being on her phone while driving is dangerous. When she finds herself picking up her phone when she is driving, she immediately tosses it into the backseat.   References Delgado, M. K., Ebert, J. P., Xiong, R. A., Winston, F. K., McDonald, C. C., Rosin, R. M., Volpp, K. G., Barnett, I. J., Small, D. S., Wiebe, D. J., Abdel-Rahman, D., Hemmons, J. E., Finegold, R., Kotrc, B., Radford, E., Fisher, W. J., Gaba, K. L., Everett, W. C., & Halpern, S. D. (2024). Feedback and financial incentives for reducing cell phone use while driving: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 7(7), e2420218. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.20218 Gershon, P., Sita, K. R., Zhu, C., Ehsani, J. P., Klauer, S. G., Dingus, T. A., & Simons-Morton, B. G. (2019). Distracted driving, visual inattention, and crash risk among teenage drivers. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 56(4), 494–500. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2018.11.024   ... View more

It’s easy for us to talk about schedules of reinforcement in terms of bar-pressing rats. And it’s just as easy for us to talk about vending machines and slot machines. The behavior for both rats and humans is largely the same: pressing a button or lever. The reinforcement in these cases is something concrete: food or money. But reinforcement can be other things, too. For example, the praise we get from others, such as our caregivers, friends, and teachers, can be a very powerful reinforcement. After covering reinforcement in Intro Psych, ask students to work in small groups to identify three to five behaviors that are reinforced by the words or emotional responses of other people. For example, if we tell a joke and people laugh, we are more likely to tell more jokes. If people laugh at dad jokes but not knock-knock jokes, we are more likely to tell more dad jokes. Or if people groan at our dad jokes and we enjoy that response, we are more likely to tell more dad jokes. I’m convinced that people who frequently make puns enjoy the groans, speaking as one who groans at puns. Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax was asked by a reader, “When I make big life decisions and even some small ones, I wonder, will [my parents] be impressed or disappointed? And I often feel hurt when they don’t offer praise when I’m expecting it. They are extremely judgmental” (Hax, 2024). In Hax’s reply, she writes, “If you were a lab rat, you’d be mashing the reward button all day for two? zero? random cubes of cheese” (Hax, 2024). While lab rats don’t work for cheese, the point holds. Ask students to read the (gifted to you) Hax column, and answer the following questions: What behavior of the letter-writer is (occasionally) reinforced by their parents? What is the reinforcement? Is the reinforcement given on a fixed or a variable schedule? Explain. If the letter-writer was on a ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would that mean? If the letter-writer was on an interval schedule of reinforcement, what would that mean? If you have covered intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, ask your students these additional questions. 6. Based on the letter, was the letter-writer getting a tattoo intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated? Explain. 7. Based on the letter, is the desire to hide the tattoo from their parents intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated? Explain.     Reference Hax, C. (2024, June 10). She’s in her 40s and thriving, yet craves her parents’ approval. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/06/14/carolyn-hax-daughter-craves-parent-approval/       ... View more

I have written previously about the fear of needles in the context of COVID vaccine hesitancy. This NPR story got me thinking about this again (Dembosky, 2024). First, we have children who are traumatized by getting shots that their conditioning continues into adulthood with the end result of less likely to volunteer to get important medical care, including vaccines. Second, we have caregivers who are traumatized by their traumatized children. It cannot be easy to know that you are the one who okayed the shot that has resulted into your child screaming. I can’t help but wonder how many people stand behind an anti-vax principle because they don’t want to admit that they are terrified of needles or can’t bear to watch their child be terrified of needles. And third, it’s traumatic for the healthcare professionals, too. In the article, one physician said doing this to children made her decide against going into pediatrics. The major point of the article is that it doesn’t have to be this way. One physician argues that there are a number of things healthcare professionals can do to make getting shots less traumatic. Use a topical numbing cream. Dentists figured that one out a long time ago (thank God!). We’re beyond time for other healthcare professionals to do the same. Numbing cream should be used routinely for children and offered to adults. For babies, while getting a shot, let them breastfeed or give them a sugar-dipped pacifier. Anything that will comfort them will help. For toddlers and older children—and I’d add adults even, distraction, distraction, distraction. The NPR story suggests “teddy bears, pinwheels or bubbles.” They missed an obvious one, though: digital distractions. These include movies, games, and music. I had a dentist who had a ceiling-mounted monitor and headphones. Patients would pick a movie to watch during a dental cleaning or other procedure. After the appointment, the dental staff would write in the patient’s chart where they were in the movie so they could pick up there on their next visit. As another example, I once had to see a dental specialist. The dentist and assistant played classic rock music during my visit—and they both sang along to the music. They were pretty good! The best I could do was sort of hum along—you try humming with your mouth hanging open! They appreciated my participation nonetheless. I never had a reason to see them again, but I would have gone back in a heartbeat. “No more pinning kids down on an exam table.” Their caregiver should hold them. In retrospect, that seems obvious.   Following coverage of classical conditioning or during coverage of phobias would both be fine places to discuss this topic with students. Here are a couple possible discussion questions. Have you (or your child) ever been offered a topical numbing cream before getting a shot? If so, what was your experience like? If not, would you consider asking for a topical numbing cream next time? We discussed a few different distractions that could be useful with children and adults. What other distractions can you think of that may be helpful for children, yourself, or other adults? The NPR story ends with suggesting that these techniques could also work with people with dementia who, like children, have no idea why someone is hurting them. There is reason to believe that the same anti-pain techniques would work with this population, too: “Numbing cream, distraction, something sweet in the mouth and perhaps music from the patient's youth that they remember and can sing along to.”  The article ends with this quote from one of the doctor’s interviewed for the story: “It’s worthy of study, and it’s worthy of serious attention.” If you’d like to give your students a little experimental design practice, divide students into small groups. Give each group a specific intervention: numbing cream, distraction, something sweet in the mouth, music from a patient’s youth. The population they are looking at are people with dementia. Students should keep in mind that dementia is not inevitable with aging (Fishman, 2017), so as they think about their sample and their intervention, they should focus on dementia, not age. Groups should identify and operationally define their dependent variable as well as identify and operationally define their independent variable. Students also need to consider the ethical challenges in conducting research with participants who are unable to give their consent to participate. Ask students to review section 3.10 of the APA ethics code and be sure to include in their study description how they would handle informed consent (American Psychological Association, 2017). After discussion, invite volunteers from each group to share their designs.   References American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. https://www.apa.org/ethics/code Dembosky, A. (2024, February 13). Shots can be scary and painful for kids. One doctor has a plan to end needle phobia. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/13/1230448059/shots-needles-phobia-vaccines-pain-fear-kids Fishman, E. (2017). Risk of developing dementia at older ages in the united states. Demography, 54(5), 1897–1919. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-017-0598-7   ... View more

Let’s keep things light and look at some more psychology-related comic strips this week. Whether you use these in lecture, on an exam, or as discussion or assignment prompts, be sure to follow the classroom usage policy set by the comic strip’s licensing agency. If you have any doubts, link to the comic strips instead of using the image. Conformity: Close to Home by John McPherson: December 16, 2023 Identify the factors discussed in class and in your readings that contribute to conformity. In this comic strip, which of those factors are illustrated? Explain.   Operant conditioning: Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich: December 20, 2023 Which of the father’s behaviors is being reinforced? What is the reinforcement? If the father is on a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen? If the father is on a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen?   Operant conditioning: Dog Eat Doub by Brian Anderson: December 29, 2023 Which of the dog’s behaviors is being reinforced? What is the reinforcement? If the dog is on a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen? If the dog is on a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen?   Sleep: Strange Brew by John Deering: December 21, 2023 Research how much caffeine is in a Starbucks venti americano. Site your source. Next, research how much caffeine is considered safe for daily consumption. Site your source. Lastly, explain how caffeine use during the day can affect sleep quality at night. ... View more

Let’s lighten things up this week and look at some psychology-related comic strips. Whether you use these in lecture, on an exam, or as discussion or assignment prompts, be sure to follow the classroom usage policy set by the comic strip’s licensing agency. If you have any doubts, link to the comic strips instead of using the image. Operant conditioning: Drabble by Kevin F@gan: November 28, 2023 (Note: The comic strip artist's name was auto-bleeped by this platform, so I replaced the first 'a' in his last name with @.) Which of dad’s behaviors is being reinforced? What is the reinforcement? What schedule of reinforcement does this best illustrate? Explain.   Operant conditioning: Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson: December 2, 2023 Which of the boy’s (Calvin’s) behaviors is being reinforced? What is the reinforcement?   Classical conditioning: Lio by Mark Tatulli: November 28, 2023 If your students are unfamiliar with the roadrunner cartoons, they’ll need to watch at least one to understand this comic strip. Fortunately, Warner Bros has made them available on YouTube. While you could choose any of these videos, you should exercise due diligence and watch several—right now, even—to ensure that you are choosing the best video or videos for your students’ educational experience. Through many interactions with the roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote has been classically conditioned. In this comic strip, identify the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response.   Personality: Speed Bump by Dave Coverly: November 29, 2023 While this comic strip asks us to imagine escaping a room full of extroverts, let’s imagine a little different scenario. Escape rooms feature a set of puzzles that must be solved in order to successfully finish the game and escape the room. Let’s imagine that a team of four people who all scored low on openness were trying to complete the puzzles. First, describe this trait. Next, based on your understanding of this trait, describe the challenges this group may have in solving the puzzles. Now, repeat this exercise for low conscientiousness. Again, for high agreeableness. And, lastly, for low emotional stability.     ... View more

The New York Times published a freely-available 5-minute opinion piece on credit cards that offer rewards. They argue that the money rewards cards give back has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is from the transaction fees the credit card companies—most notably Visa and Mastercard—charge business owners. They believe that using rewards cards ultimately hurts those in the lower economic strata who are less likely to use rewards cards and so don’t reap their benefits while still paying the higher prices the businesses have to charge to cover the transaction fees. The economists and public policy experts at the International Center for Law and Economics have a different opinion. I am not an economist, but I understand enough to know that this is all more complicated than it may first appear. I am also not so naïve as to believe that if we all stopped using cash-back credit cards, Visa and Mastercard would reduce these transaction fees. As a consumer, however, I have been encountering the reinforcement and punishment of credit card use. I have a credit card that gives me 5% back on gas purchases. Our local gas stations will give me 10 cents off per gallon if I pay with cash. With gas at $3.00 a gallon, when I use this credit card, I get 15 cents off per gallon. I am reinforced with money for using the credit card. The price of gas would need to drop to $2.00 per gallon for the 10 cents for cash equals the 5% back on my credit card. Now let’s imagine a fantasy world where gas is less than $2.00 per gallon. Even if it would cost me less to pay cash, the hassle of walking into the gas station, standing in line, and waiting for the cashier to make change would make using the credit card at the pump or using the app on my phone a more desirable option. And that’s not even calculating the cost of the snacks I’m more likely to purchase if I walk in. In short, the use of this particular credit card at gas stations is reinforced. I also have a credit card that give me 3% back on restaurant purchases. Because of the credit card transaction fees, our favorite local restaurant started adding a 3.5% credit card use fee to all credit card transactions. On a $30 bill (including tip), that’s $1.5, but we would only get 90 cents back from our credit card. Sixty cents isn’t much, but it doesn’t require any extra effort on our part to pay cash—it takes just as long to wait to for server to return with change as it does to wait for them to return with a credit card receipt to sign—so we pay cash and save the 60 cents, thank you very much. In other words, at this restaurant, our credit card use is punished with an extra cost, so we don’t use it. I wonder, though, if customers at this restaurant would be even more likely to pay cash if what we were charged initially included the 3.5% credit card use fee and they framed it as a 3.5% discount for using cash. It’s an empirical question! If you’d like to give your students some experimental design practice, ask them how they would go about testing that hypothesis. Last example. We have a rewards card that gives us 1.5% back on all purchases. We had to have the thermostat replaced on our car. Our mechanic recently started passing the 3.5% cost of the credit card transaction fee onto their clients. On a bill of a few hundred dollars, I would be punished in the form of having to pay many dollars for using my credit card. This was an easy decision. I kept the credit card in my wallet and paid by check. And, no, I don’t remember the last time I wrote a check. As more businesses adopt this strategy, I look forward to the development of the handheld printer that will print checks. It’ll connect via Bluetooth to an app on my phone. I enter the business name and amount, and it prints out the check for me to sign. Ask students if they have a cashback rewards card and if they decide when to use it based on whether businesses explicitly pass the transaction fees solely onto credit card users. My examples may be specific to me—what I find reinforcing and punishing. I can see where some people choose to use the credit card regardless—either because they’ve decided that the convenience of using a card (or app) always outweighs the dollar cost or because they don’t have the cash available so need to put the purchase on credit. ... View more

A friend and I recently stayed at a bed and breakfast in northern England. The proprietor’s dog—a black terrier named Branston—was an excellent host. There were eight of us at breakfast—four Brits and four Americans. Branston spent some time lying on the floor and some time rotating amongst us. For a few guests, he didn’t limit himself to just looking at us with his puppy dog eyes. He upped it by putting his head in our laps. While Branston’s owner would prefer that guests not give him food, she said that some do. And she said that those who do are most often Americans. She swears that Branston spends more time with Americans, identifying us by our accents. I wasn’t even halfway into my full English breakfast before I was deep into thinking about operant conditioning. Branston is on both a variable interval and variable ratio schedule of reinforcement. Variable interval. At breakfast, people drop stuff. Branston’s behavior of circulating amongst the guests is occasionally rewarded with finding food on the floor. Variable ratio. At breakfast, when Branston looks at a guest, his looking behavior is sometimes rewarded by being given a tasty morsel. If that doesn’t work, his head-in-the-lap behavior, he has learned, sometimes results in the same reward. Discriminative stimulus—anything that signals that a behavior is more likely to be reinforced. Branston has learned that some people are more likely to reward his behavior with food than others. Is there a way he can increase his odds? It sure sounds like Branston is using accents as a discriminative stimulus. If Americans really are more likely to give him food, then it makes sense that he would learn that American accents sound different than, say, British, Danish, or Italian accents. When he hears someone who sounds American, he spends more time looking at them—and putting his head is their lap—because he has learned that we’re more likely to reward this behavior. Consider using this example to explain discriminative stimulus. If time allows, give students a few minutes to share in small groups other examples of a discriminative stimulus that they have experienced or witnessed. ... View more

In the June 2022 edition of the APA Monitor on Psychology is an excellent article on the psychology of traffic safety. The article features David Strayer’s “four horsemen of death”: speed, impairment, fatigue, and distraction. Given the number and breadth of psychological concepts covered, this article provides fodder for a good end-of-term assignment. It may also save the lives of your students. Note that the journalist uses the term “crash” rather than “accident.” “Crash” is the preferred term by U.S. government agencies, such as the CDC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The word “accident” implies an incident that could not be avoided. The word “crash” does not carry that connotation. Giving the causes of traffic fatalities are due to driver decision-making, whether it be the driver of the vehicle or the driver of another vehicle, “crash” is a better descriptor than “accident.”   Ask students to read the article “Improving Traffic Safety” (Pappas, 2022), and then answer the following questions. How many people died on U.S. roadways in 2020? Speed. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by excessive speed? The article describes three ways that our environment can contribute to unsafe driving. Take a photo of a road in your area that illustrates one or more of these environmental hazards. Explain. The article also describes three ways that our environment can contribute to safe driving. Take a photo of a road in your area that illustrates one or more of these environmental benefits. Explain. In a survey of drivers at the beginning of the pandemic, researchers “saw an increase in respondents saying they were more likely to break the law because they knew they were less likely to be caught.” Explain this finding in terms of operant conditioning. With fewer people on the roads during the pandemic shut-down, researchers speculate that street racing may have increased. What Ontario law led to a reduction in street racing? Explain this effect in terms of operant conditioning. If you are primarily a driver, what can you do to reduce your chances of dying in a car crash due to speed? If you primarily a passenger, what can you do to reduce your chances of dying in a car crash due to speed? Impairment. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by impaired driving? Based on your reading of the article, describe the relationship between stress, alcohol, and driving while impaired. What Big Five personality trait is associated with a history of driving while impaired and reckless driving? Given your knowledge of this trait, why might that association exist? Fatigue. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by fatigue? Why might this number be an underestimation? Summarize what you learned in this course about the effects of sleep deprivation. Choose five effects, and for each, briefly explain how it could negatively effect driving.   According to the article, what have Australian highway authorities done to combat boredom on empty stretches of highway? Distraction. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by distracted driving? Explain how stress may contribute to distracted driving. Explain how the design of cars may contribute to distracted driving. Give at least one example. Conclusion. What was the most surprising thing you learned in this article? Explain. Identify at least one concept you learned in this course that could apply to speed, impairment, fatigue, or distraction but was not discussed in the article. Briefly describe the concept, and then explain how it could be a contributor to car crashes.   Reference Pappas, S. (2022, June). Improving traffic safety. Monitor on Psychology, 53(4), 46–55.       ... View more

In a 2008 10-minute TED Talk, Joshua Klein described how he created a vending machine for crows, and how he trained crows to use it using basic operant conditioning principles. Once trained, crows deposited coins in exchange for peanuts, a tasty snack for crows. (See? You’re not the only one working for peanuts.) While the coin vending machine is fun, it’s not very practical. Maybe, say, in the 1970s coins were commonly dropped on the street, because, well, there were more coins being carried around. But now? I doubt that our local crow population be able to come up with enough coins to cover the cost of the peanuts. Coins, though, are not the only thing that could be deposited in a vending machine. Södertälje, Sweden (home to the Tom **bleep** Experiment Science Museum*) evidently has a problem with people tossing their cigarette butts on the ground. A company called Corvid Cleaning has created a crow vending machine where, once trained, crows will be able to deposit cigarette butts in exchange for peanuts. After covering operant conditioning, share the above information with students, then open it up for discussion. Here are a few discussion questions to get things started. What responsibility does Corvid Cleaning have to ensure that the crows are not harmed by the litter they are picking up? [They report that they will be monitoring the health of the crows.] Is it ethical to pay wild crows to pick up human litter? Would it be more ethical to train humans to not toss their cigarette butts on the ground? Using what we know about operant conditioning, how could we train humans to not litter?   *I visited the museum’s website to learn the story behind the name. Because my knowledge of Swedish is limited to what I learned from the Muppets Swedish chef, I was very thankful that they offer an English translation. From the museum’s About page: “The slightly quirky name Tom **bleep** originates from a an imaginary figure who carried out scientific experiments in the French magazine L'Illustration at the end of the 19th century. Tom **bleep** demonstrated experiments and encouraged the readers to try out various fun activities with a scientific theme. Which is pretty much what we do here at Tom **bleep** Experiment!” ... View more

In the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) Facebook group, Bridgette Martin Hard wondered why conditioning (as in classical and operant conditioning) is called conditioning (members of the STP Facebook group can read the discussion). While I had heard that this was due to a mistranslation of Pavlov’s work, it was Olga Lazareva who provided the details. Lazareva explains that Pavlov wrote условный in his papers. When you pop that into your favorite Russian translation website, you’ll see that the most common English translations are “conditional” and “contingent.” Lazareva goes on to say, “Pavlov called the whole thing условный рефлекс, or conditional reflex, to be distinguished from безусловный рефлекс, or unconditional reflex, because he viewed CR as automatic as UR, once acquisition was completed. We now know that's not entirely correct, and the word ‘reflex’ never stuck in English, but is still used in Russian literature instead of ‘conditioning’.” Conditional, frankly, does make a whole lot more sense than conditioned. As Ruth Frickle noted in that same Facebook thread, “Now I can stop being vaguely annoyed when my students say conditional.” Instead, we can say, “You know, you’re closer to being right than you know.” In a 2012 Scientific American article, science journalist Jason G. Goldman took a crack at reversing 100 years of bad translation usage and explained classical conditioning using the terms conditional and unconditional. He footnoted why he used conditional and not conditioned. Note that most English-language textbooks use the terms "unconditioned stimulus," "unconditioned response," and so on. This is due to a translation error from Pavlov's Russian to English. The better translation would be "conditional." You go, Jason! In all seriousness, Jason is onto something. We can all decide—right here, right now—to dump our use of conditioned and use conditional instead. Let’s talk about the unconditional stimulus, the unconditional response, the conditional stimulus, and the conditional response. We can footnote just as well as Jason can. We don’t need to continue to perpetuate a bad translation. Let’s honor Pavlov’s legacy by using his (properly translated) terminology. Who’s in? ... View more

Good cartoonists are excellent observers of people, and that’s why cartoons can be a tremendous resource for teaching psychology. Use these cartoons by visiting their websites as copying/pasting into your slide deck or your learning management system is most likely a violation of copyright. Use these to freshen your operant conditioning examples, or use these as a basis for discussion or as a stand-alone assignment. Edge City, May 3, 2021. We see both Colin’s behavior and his father’s behavior. What behavior has likely been positively reinforced? And what behavior has likely been negatively reinforced? Explain. Deflocked, March 26, 2021. We know both the sheep’s behavior and the sheep’s mother’s behavior. Which behavior has been positively reinforced? And which behavior has been negatively reinforced? Explain. Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog, March 11, 2021. The real dog has learned to turn off the robot vacuum. Has the “turning off” behavior been positively or negatively reinforced? Explain. Stone Soup Classics, February 9, 2021. Max has learned a new word. When he yells this word, he gets a reaction that will likely increase the chances of him saying it again. Has his saying the word been positively or negatively reinforced? Explain. Nest Heads, December, 2020. We know both Taylor’s behavior and her grandfather’s behavior. What behavior has likely been positively reinforced? And what behavior has likely been negatively reinforced? Explain. And now for the hard one. Drabble, February 23, 2021. In operant conditioning, a discriminative stimulus is a signal that a specific behavior is likely to be reinforced. What is the discriminative stimulus in this strip? What behavior has this discriminative stimulus signaled will be reinforced? ... View more

Observational learning may be psychology’s easiest concept for students to understand, although students may not appreciate the range of areas where observational learning takes place. Here are some examples to help your students see the ubiquity of observational learning. Example 1: Utah’s 2020 governor’s race video Chris Peterson (Democrat) and Spencer Cox (Republican) were both running for Utah governor. They created a video that models how two people can disagree politically but still have civil discourse. Their goal was to model civility. The candidates were interviewed on Today about their video. Example 2: Learning fear from parents In this experimental research, children learned fear by watching their parents show fear. Example 3: Otters learn from each other Researchers “gave select otters clear containers filled with meatballs and found that when one otter learned how to open the container, its friends subsequently learned how to open it more quickly.” Example 4: Crows learn from each other In a now-famous experiment on crow learning, crows who were captured and banded by researchers wearing a caveman mask were very unhappy with anyone wearing a caveman mask. “Even after going for a year without seeing the threatening human, the crows would scold the person on sight, cackling, swooping and dive-bombing in mobs of 30 or more.” But researchers didn’t capture and band all of those birds. The birds learned by watching others. Example 5: Dogs learn from each other The story of Saint Bernards as rescue dogs alone is worth reading this article written by psychologist Stanley Coren. Anyone who has added a second (or third, or…) dog to their family has watched as the new dog learned the ropes (both good and bad behaviors) from the resident dog(s). I’ve been relying on my current dog(s) to teach the newcomers how to be dogs since 1995. I can’t imagine doing house training from scratch any more. The resident dog urinates and defecates outside, so the newcomer quickly learns to do the same. If you’d like to use this a basis for discussion ask your students for their own examples of observational learning—or ask students to cull the Internet for other non-human animal examples. Examples will likely be most prevalent in animal species that are more social. ... View more

Many cartoonists are excellent observers of the human condition. One of the best is Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame. With 50 years of comic strips, that’s 17,897 individual strips—drawn by him and him alone—Schulz’s characters can be a rich source of psychology examples. In this strip that ran most recently on May 5, 2019, Schulz gifts us with a beautiful example of classical conditioning. Students don’t need to be familiar with the characters to see the classical conditioning. If they are familiar with Charlie Brown and Lucy and the relationship these characters have with each other, they’ll better appreciate the humor. The characters are playing baseball. From the outfield, Lucy yells, “Hey, manager!” Charlie Brown, standing on the pitcher’s mound, looks at us with a queasy expression. He explains that hearing her say “Hey, manager!” is enough to give him a stomachache because every time she yells that, she follows it up with a stupid/dumb/sarcastic remark. In this particular case, she surprises him (and long-time Peanuts readers) by saying something else. In the last panel, though, Lucy reveals that she knows exactly what’s going on. I ask my students these questions about the strip: In this example, identify the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response.  Use this example to explain generalization and discrimination. What would need to happen in order to bring about extinction? What would spontaneous recovery look like? While I do this as part of a larger homework assignment, it also works as an in-class discussion topic or as a lecture example. Through this example, I have learned that many of my students are not familiar with the Peanuts comic strip. I know who is and who is not familiar based on what they call Charlie Brown. Students who know it call him Charlie Brown. Students who don’t know it simply call him Charlie—which is jarring to my 52-year-old, US-born ears. ... View more

Are you getting tired of your classical conditioning examples? Here are some new ones from FailBlog. You won’t be surprised to see that while the FailBlog post is called “29 people share the Pavlovian (reflex) responses they’ve developed,” not all of these are actually examples of classical conditioning. The key is that the response has to be involuntary. In several of these, the behavior is voluntary. For example, #21: “TV commercial, look at phone.” Since looking at phone is a voluntary behavior, this is operant conditioning where the TV commercial is a discriminative stimulus. There is negative reinforcement (removing the commercial) and positive reinforcement (something more interesting than a commercial on the phone). And #23 is a reference to The Office “mouth tastes bad” scene – which is still not an example of classical conditioning. (What’s the involuntary response? Now, if he salivated to the ding…) After covering both classical and operant conditioning, if your students are up for the challenge, ask them to work in pairs or small groups to identify the examples that are classical conditioning and the ones that are not. Read through all 29 of these before giving them to your students. The language and content of some may not be appropriate for your student population. Make sure you are comfortable explaining the classical conditioning behind the classical conditioning examples and explaining why the other are not examples of classical conditioning. Use only the ones you want. After the groups have had time to do their identifications, go through each example in turn. “Number 1: classical conditioning, which groups say yes?” You can do a show of hands, clickers, or some other polling method. Spend time discussing the ones that are not classical conditioning that students thought were. If time allows, or as a take-home assignment, assign each student group one or more of the classical conditioning examples. Their task is to identify the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned response in each of their assigned examples. ... View more

Cartoonists have pretty good insight into the workings of the human mind. How many of them took Intro Psych? These comics will jazz up your next research methods, cognition, personality, learning, and social psych lectures. Dilbert's boss does not have an operational definition of "employee engagement," and, thus, no way to measure it. Also, on the ethics side, no, it's not okay to make up data. Lio, having no trouble with functional fixedness, repurposes an object into a sled. Lio’s friends aren’t typical. His ingroups include monsters, aliens, and death himself. When everyone else sees those creatures as part of a threatening outgroup, to Lio, they are just his friends. Also, you don’t have to read through too many strips to see Lio’s strong internal locus of control. Rat in Pearls Before Swine can be counted on for a solid outgroup homogeneity bias. Jeremy’s mom in Zits provides a nice example of positive punishment. No, I don’t think he’ll forget his textbook at home again. Or, perhaps more likely, if he does forget it at home, he won’t ask his mom to bring it to school. After all, punishment makes us better at avoiding the punishment. Caulfield, the boy in Frazz, wonders if Santa has fallen victim to the just-world phenomenon. Pig in Pearls Before Swine, whose sweetness and innocence may be unparalleled in the comics universe, does not fall for the fundamental attribution error. Looking for more example from the comics? Here are some previous comic-focused blog posts: Spotlight effect Door-in-the-Face, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning Change blindness, priming, and positive reinforcement ... View more