Imagine that you’re about to buy a $5000 used car. To pay for it, you’ll need to sell some of your stocks. Which of the following would you rather sell? $5000 of Stock X shares, which you originally purchased for $2500. $5000 of Stock Y shares, which you originally purchased for $10,000.   If you’d rather sell Stock X and reap your $2500 profit now, you’re not alone. One analysis of 10,000 investor accounts revealed that most people strongly prefer to lock in a profit rather than absorb a loss. Investors’ loss aversion is curious: What matters is each stock’s future value, not whether it has made or lost money in the past. (If anything, tax considerations favor selling the loser for a tax loss and avoiding the capital gains tax on the winner.)   Loss aversion is ubiquitous, and not just in big financial decisions. Participants in experiments, where rewards are small, will choose a sure gain over flipping a coin for double or nothing—but they will readily flip a coin on a double-or-nothing chance to avert a loss. As Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky reported, we feel the pain from a loss twice as keenly as we feel the pleasure from a similar-sized gain. Losing $20 feels worse than finding $20 feels good. No surprise, then, that we so vigorously avoid losing in so many situations.   The phenomenon extends to the endowment effect—our attachment to what we own and our aversion to losing it, as when those given a coffee mug demand more money to sell it than those not given the mug are willing to pay for it. Small wonder our homes are cluttered with things we wouldn’t today buy, yet won’t part with.   Loss aversion is but one example of a larger bad-is-stronger-than-good phenomenon, note Roy Baumeister and his colleagues. Bad events evoke more misery than good events evoke joy. Cruel words hurt us more than compliments please us. A bad reputation is easier to acquire—with a single lie or heartless act—than is a good reputation. “In everyday life, bad events have stronger and more lasting consequences than comparable good events.” Psychologically, loss is larger than gain. Emotionally, bad is stronger than good.               Coaches and players are aware of the pain of losses, so it’s no surprise that loss aversion plays out in sports. Consider this example from basketball: Say your team is behind by 2 points, with time only for one last shot. Would you prefer a 2-point or a 3-point attempt?   Most coaches, wanting to avoid a loss, will seek to put the game into overtime with a 2-point shot. After all, an average 3-point shot will produce a win only one-third of the time. But if the team averages 50 percent of its 2-point attempts, and has about a 50 percent chance of overtime in this toss-up game, the loss-aversion strategy will yield but a 25 percent chance of both (a) sending the game to overtime, followed by (b) an overtime victory. Thus, by averting an immediate loss, these coaches reduce the chance of an ultimate win—rather like investors who place their money in loss-avoiding bonds and thus forego the likelihood, over extended time, of a much greater stock index win.   And now comes news (kindly shared by a mathematician friend) of loss aversion in baseball and softball base-running. Statistician Peter MacDonald, mathematician Dan McQuillan, and computer scientist Ian McQuillan invite us to imagine “a tie game in the bottom of the ninth inning, and there is one out—a single run will win the game. You are on first base, hoping the next batter gets a hit.”   As the batter hits a fly to shallow right, you hesitate between first and second to see if the sprinting outfielder will make the catch. When the outfielder traps rather than catches the ball, you zoom to second. The next batter hits a fly to center field and, alas, the last batter strikes out.   You probably didn’t question this cautious base-running scenario, because it’s what players do and what coaches commend. But consider an alternative strategy, say MacDonald and his colleagues. If you had risked running to third on that first fly ball, you would have scored the winning run on the ensuing fly ball. Using data from 32 years of Major League Baseball, the researchers calculate that any time the fly ball is at least 38 percent likely to fall for a hit, the runner should abandon caution and streak for third. Yet, when in doubt, that rational aggressive running strategy “is never attempted.”   You may object that players cannot compute probabilities. But, says the MacDonald team, “players and their third-base coaches make these sorts of calculations all the time. They gamble on sacrifice flies and stolen base attempts using probabilities of success.” Nevertheless, when it comes to running from first, their first goal is to avert loss—and to avoid, even at the cost of a possible run, the risk of looking like a fool. We implicitly think “What if I fail?” before “How can I succeed?”   Often in life, it seems, our excessive fear of losing subverts our opportunities to win. Caution thwarts triumph. Little ventured, little gained.   My late friend Gerry Haworth understood the risk-reward relationship. A shop teacher at our local high school, he began making wood products in his garage shop. Then, in 1948, he ventured the business equivalent of running to third base—quitting his job and launching a business, supported by his dad’s life savings. Today, family-owned Haworth Inc., America’s third-largest furniture manufacturer, has more than 6000 employees and nearly $2 billion in annual sales. Something ventured, something gained. ... View more

In my psychology texts, and in other writings (such as here for the faith community), I have explained the growing evidence that sexual orientation is a natural, enduring disposition (most clearly so for males). The evidence has included twin and family studies indicating that sexual orientation is influenced by genes—many genes having small effects. One recent genomic study, led by psychiatrist and behavior geneticist Alan Sanders, analyzed the genes of 409 pairs of gay brothers, and identified sexual orientation links with parts of two chromosomes.   Today, Nature will be releasing (through its Scientific Reports) a follow-up genome-wide association study by the Sanders team that compares 1,077 homosexual and 1,231 heterosexual men. They report genetic variants associated with sexual orientation on chromosomes 13 and 14, with the former implicating a “neurodevelopmental gene” mostly expressed in a brain region that has previously been associated with sexual orientation. On chromosome 14 they identified a gene variant known to influence thyroid functioning, which also has been associated with sexual orientation.   Although other factors, including prenatal hormonal influences, also help shape sexual orientation, Sanders et al. conclude that “The continued genetic study of male sexual orientation should help open a gateway to other studies focusing on genetic and environmental mechanisms of sexual orientation and development.” The science of sexual orientation (for females as well) marches on. ... View more

Louis is 13 years old and gay; Percy is 78 years old and gay. They sit down for a conversation in this 11-minute video. Video Link : 2042 [Note: The recording is closed captioned, but the captions were automatically generated and have not been cleaned up.] During your coverage of sexuality, show this recording in class or ask students to watch it outside of class. Following the viewing ask students to discuss in small groups (or in an online discussion forum, or as a written assignment) the following questions: What was similar between Louis’ and Percy’s experiences? What was different? What questions would you like to ask Louis? What questions would you like to ask Percy? If discussing during class, ask volunteers to share their responses. While it may not be possible to ask Louis and Percy these questions, consider contacting your local PFLAG chapter. They may be able to put you in contact with some people who would be willing to respond. ... View more

On the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook page, Cait Alice was asking for advice on how to handle a student’s misconception of how gender works. Allison Matthews recommended the gender unicorn created by the Trans Student Educational Resources group*.  If you’d like to turn this into a class activity, identify how many groups of 3 you will have in your class. Let’s say 16. Print out 16 copies, and then mark different spots on each continuum for each group.   Show students one as an example of what you are asking them to do. Using the graphic above, explain to students that the person identifies primarily as a woman who dresses and acts more masculine than feminine, whose assigned sex was female, and who is not physically attracted to anyone but is emotionally attracted to men and women with a slight preference for the former. Distribute the marked up gender unicorn handouts to your student groups, asking each group to describe their person. Walk around to each of the groups answering any questions they have. After discussion dies down, ask groups to pair up to share their descriptions. If time allows, invite a few volunteers to display their gender unicorn on the classroom’s document camera and describe their person. As a wrap-up to the activity, encourage students to think about where they fall on each of the gender unicorn dimensions – although your students probably already did this as soon as you showed them the infographic. Give each student an unmarked copy of the infographic to share with friends and family. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * This is an edited post. The original post featured the Genderbread Person ostensibly created by Sam Killermann. A few people, including Allison Matthews, reported a concern with accusations of plagiarism by Killermann. A friend and colleague shared with me this analysis of the plagiarism accusation. Because of the potential issues with plagiarism, I've decided to use an image created by "the only national organization entirely led by trans youth." ... View more

Originally posted on September 23, 2016. As the current U.S. presidential campaign richly illustrates, “motivated reasoning” powerfully sways how we view reality. Researchers have long known that people’s gut-level liking or disliking of a candidate channels their perceptions and beliefs. When a Democrat is President, Democrats have said presidents can’t do anything about high gas prices. Republicans have said the same when a Republican is president. But when the president is from the opposing party, both believe presidents can affect gas prices. In the late 1980s, most Democrats believed inflation had risen under Republican president Ronald Reagan (it had dropped). In 2016, reports Public Policy Polling “Republicans claim by a 64/27 spread that [under Obama] unemployment has increased and by a 57/27 spread that the stock market has gone down.” Actually, the stock market has nearly tripled and unemployment (shown below) has plummeted. Alas, politics trumps facts. Big time. As an old Chinese proverb says, “Two-thirds of what we see is behind our eyes.” ... View more

Originally posted on April 29, 2014. Becoming a psychologist makes it hard to name drop. We rarely know celebrities. We read more than we schmooze. We seldom inform national or international politics. But we do drop the names of famous psychological studies. Few studies get more name dropping than Walter Mischel’s delay of gratification studies, the so-called marshmallow studies.   Some think the marshmallow study recently took a slight beating. Much of the criticism has radiated from the findings of a cool new study. In the study, some children learned not to trust an adult experimenter, whereas others learned to trust the same adult experimenter. Next, they were brought through the classic delay of gratification study procedure. Kids were left alone in a room to stare at a treat with the promise of a larger reward if they resisted eating that treat. The result: Compared to those exposed to a non-trustworthy experimenter, children exposed to a trustworthy experimenter waited longer in order to receive a larger reward. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, Michael Bourne argues that these results question the depth of Mischel’s classic delay of gratification findings. Yes, the new findings identify a crucial factor – whether or not you can trust an adult experimenter – that can change a child’s delay of gratification. But these findings do little to negate the meaning of the original findings. If anything, they strengthen them. Let’s start by focusing on the kids who learned to trust the adult experimenter. About 64 percent of them delayed gratification as long as possible. That’s quite a few, but far from 100 percent. Some kids gave up, some tried a little, and some were stalwarts. It’s normal to find variation in behavior. But you can relate variation in delay of gratification to other factors that also differ between children, such as their school performance, drug history, and brain functioning. These factors affected the kids in the new study similar to the way they’d affected the kids in the original delay of gratification studies. When kids learn not to trust an adult experimenter, they give up sooner. That finding, while interesting, says nothing about the importance of delay of gratification. It merely shows that kids are smart not to use their limited mental energy to delay gratification when they may not reap the rewards. Their behavior supports the saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” The marshmallow studies never sought to identify the Holy Grail of psychological strength. Delay of gratification is one of many factors that contribute to individual, relationship, and societal well-being. Rather than throwing the marshmallows out with the bath water, we should recognize that this new scientific finding has helped identify the nuances of delay of gratification and therefore may help us learn more about living happier, healthier, and more productive lives. ... View more

Originally posted on May 1, 2014. Julian grew up an active child, but those days are long gone. Now he struggles to walk up the stairs. When he walks two city blocks, he takes a break, clenches a light post, and tries to catch his breath. As he looks at passersby, Julian knows what they’re thinking: Obese people are lazy. But according to recent research, those onlookers have it backwards. In a recent UCLA study, researchers wanted to see which comes first, obesity or lack of motivation. They took 32 rats and separated them into two groups. The first group ate a diet designed to make them obese. It mimicked the standard Western diet. The second group ate food that maintained their weight. After six months, the rats completed a fun little motivation task. What happened? A lack of motivation did not cause obesity. It wasn’t until the rats became overweight that their motivation started waning. These findings debunk the myth people become obese because they lack discipline and motivation. Low energy and motivation follow, but do not cause, obesity. ... View more

Originally posted on October 16, 2014. One of my earliest memories is my dad giving me a high five. He was training for a marathon and agreed to take me, his talkative four year-old, on a run. I ran an entire mile. When I finished, red-faced and smiling, he said, “Give me five, son.” It was my first high five. According to a new study, high fives go a long way in motivating children. Five and six year-old children completed a task in which they imagined experiencing success. Next, the children received different types of praise. Some children received verbal praise that would highlight an individual trait (“You are a good drawer”), whereas other children received a high five. What motivated the children more, clear praise for being good at something or a high five? The high five won handedly. When the children bumped into a setback, those who received a high five persisted more than the other kids did. We might reconsider how we praise children’s behavior. If we tell children they’re geniuses, we’ve told them that they have a stable trait that isn’t under their control. If they fail a test, the responsibility can’t be theirs because they have a trait that should guarantee success on all intelligence test. Blame the teacher. Criticize the test. Give up and find something else to do. Don’t find a better way to study. By giving a high five, children know they have done something well. They also know that their success is under their control. I have run many miles since my first high five, but that first one with my dad will always hold a special place in my heart. It motivated me, either consciously or unconsciously, to continue to push my limits. For that high five, I’m grateful. ... View more

Originally posted on January 22, 2015. At the beginning of each year, millions of people reflect on the previous year and find things they could have done better. Exercised more, eaten healthier, watched less television, drank less alcohol. They vow—most knowing they won’t keep their promise—to make more of the new year, to become their best selves. Ah, the New Year’s resolution. I’ve made many myself. Many of my resolutions have been health related; when I look back at the previous year, I see where I could have been much healthier. I compare myself to friends who ran more miles, enjoy a slightly leaner physique, and seem to never worry about whether their clothes getting snug. (Last year, for example, a close friend ran over 5,200 miles. That dwarfs my measly 2,525 miles.) Looking at their accomplishments makes me feel sluggish. So I vow to change, and the start of a new year seems like the perfect time to do so. Unlike many resolution makers, I have had some success with New Year’s resolutions. Here’s why: I really wanted to change and was ready to do so. And that readiness to change is the key ingredient in committing to these self-improvement plans, according to Meg Baker, a wellness expert from the University of Alabama. Many Americans make resolutions but don’t put a plan in place to successfully carry them out, she says. To increase your likelihood of success, Baker offers three suggestions: Develop small, short-term, realistic goals that will fit into your schedule Consider the benefits and reasons for the change Share your plan with someone with whom you can be accountable She also suggests that you consider modifying the plan as your needs change. For example, if your new exercise routine has gotten stale, mix it up. During the winter months, I sometimes get stuck running on the treadmill. To keep things interesting, I might spend a day cycling or trying to do a single pull-up. When you’re struggling to stick to it, Baker suggests reflecting on the reasons you made the resolution. This year, I’m once again vowing to be healthier than I was last year. That means if I really want to see progress, I have to be willing to take the action to bring about change. To kick things off, I spent January 1st running the Hangover Classic 10 mile run in Louisville, KY and, a couple hours later, running the Resolution Run 5 mile run in Lexington, KY. So here’s to a healthy, happy 2015. What’s your resolution? ... View more

Originally posted on September 24, 2015. This past weekend, I gave myself an odd birthday present. I entered an ultramarathon. If you’ve read my posts, you know I like to run. For my birthday, I wanted to run 100 miles as fast as I could. Luckily, I had a perfect opportunity. There was a 24 hour running race within driving distance of my house. There was a bigger purpose in my run. I could determine whether a recent test of my speed and endurance would replicate. Two weeks ago, I ran 100 miles in 22 hours and 10 minutes. Replication is important. It tells whether repeating the essence of an experiment will produce the same result. The more the same sequence of events produces a similar outcome, the more we can depend on it.  Psychology is embroiled in a current debate about replicability. All psychologists agree that replication is important. That is a requirement before you get your card when you join the psychologist club. The debate centers on the meaning of non-replication. A recent report found that 64 percent of the tested psychological effects did not replicate. Some have declared a war on current scientific practices, hoping to inch the non-replication rate down to a less newsworthy percentage. Others, such as Lisa Feldman Barrett, argue that non-replication is a part of science. It tells us just as much about why things do happen as to why they don’t. My birthday run had everything I needed to make a replication attempt. Nearly everything was identical to the last time I ran 100 miles. The course consisted of a flat, concrete loop that was nearly one mile long. I ate the same foods, drank the same amount of water, and got the same amount of sleep the night before. All signs pointed to an exact replication. Then the race started. The first 50 miles breezed by. I was over an hour faster than my previous run, but I felt pretty good. By mile 65, I was mentally fatigued. By mile 70, my body was exhausted. By the time I hit mile 75, I was done. Less than 16 hours had passed, but I was mentally and physically checked out. No replication. There are at least two ways I can deal with this non-replication. The first is to panic. Either the people who counted my laps at the previous race did something wrong, I reported something wrong, or something else is wrong. It is as if it never happened. The next time someone asks me my personal record, I can tell them. But I must tell them that I don’t trust it. “Probably just a one-off,” I might say. “Tried to replicate it two weeks later and came up short.” A second approach is to try to understand what contributed to the non-replication. Most things were the same. But some things were different, among them the wear and tear that long running has on the body and mind. Maybe I wasn’t fully recovered from the previous race. Maybe I ran too fast too soon. Or maybe I’m just not that fast. Either way, it tells us a different story about replication. Replication science is possible, but we will always have non-replications. And those non-replications aren’t badges of shame. They tell us as much about the complexity of human psychology as the truth about how certain situations make us think, feel, and act. It would be great if psychology’s non-replication rate dwindled to less than 5 percent. I doubt that will ever happen. Humans are squirrely animals. No matter how much we want to do the same thing twice, sometimes it doesn’t happen. ... View more

Originally posted on September 5, 2014. Feeling stressed by multiple demands for your time and attention?  Daniel Levitin, director of McGill University’s Laboratory for Music, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University and author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, has some suggestions.  In a recent New York Times essay, he advises structuring our day to give space both for undistracted task-focused work and for relaxed mind-wandering: If you want to be more productive and creative, and to have more energy, the science dictates that you should partition your day into project periods. Your social networking should be done during a designated time, not as constant interruptions to your day. Email, too, should be done at designated times. An email that you know is sitting there, unread, may sap attentional resources as your brain keeps thinking about it, distracting you from what you’re doing. What might be in it? Who’s it from? Is it good news or bad news? It’s better to leave your email program off than to hear that constant ping and know that you’re ignoring messages. Increasing creativity will happen naturally as we tame the multitasking and immerse ourselves in a single task for sustained periods of, say, 30 to 50 minutes. Several studies have shown that a walk in nature or listening to music can trigger the mind-wandering mode. This acts as a neural reset button, and provides much needed perspective on what you’re doing. As one who is distracted by a constant stream of e-mails and the temptations of favorite web sites, this is advice I should take to heart.  But I have benefitted from an e-mail system that diverts e-mails that come to my public e-mail address (including political fund-raising appeals and list mail) from those that come to a private e-mail address known to family and colleagues.  The public e-mails are sent my mail only at the day’s end. I also find it helpful to take work out to coffee shops, including one that doesn’t have Internet access.  “They should charge your extra for that,” observed one friend. In our upcoming Psychology, 11th Edition, Nathan DeWall and I offer some further advice: In today’s world, each of us is challenged to maintain a healthy balance between our real-world and online time. Experts offer some practical suggestions for balancing online connecting and real-world responsibilities. • Monitor your time. Keep a log of how you use your time. Then ask yourself, “Does my time use reflect my priorities? Am I spending more or less time online than I in­tended? Is my time online interfering with school or work performance? Have family or friends commented on this?” • Monitor your feelings. Ask yourself, “Am I emotionally distracted by my online inter­ests? When I disconnect and move to another activity, how do I feel?” • “Hide” your more distracting online friends. And in your own postings, practice the golden rule. Before you post, ask yourself, “Is this something I’d care about reading if someone else posted it?” • Try turning off your mobile devices or leaving them elsewhere. Selective attention—the flashlight of your mind—can be in only one place at a time. When we try to do two things at once, we don’t do either one of them very well (Willingham, 2010). If you want to study or work productively, resist the temptation to check for updates. Disable sound alerts and pop-ups, which can hijack your attention just when you’ve managed to get focused. (I am proofing and editing this chapter in a coffee shop, where I es­cape the distractions of the office.) • Try a social networking fast (give it up for an hour, a day, or a week) or a time-con­trolled social media diet (check in only after homework is done, or only during a lunch break). Take notes on what you’re losing and gaining on your new “diet.” • Refocus by taking a nature walk. People learn better after a peaceful walk in the woods, which—unlike a walk on a busy street—refreshes our capacity for focused attention (Berman et al., 2008). Connecting with nature boosts our spirits and sharpens our minds (Zelenski & Nisbet, 2014). ... 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

I enjoyed reading this piece out of the Harvard Business Review (just showing up also in Psychology Today), especially as it relates to trying to help students think through issues about motivation, especially with school work and job. Given how much technology and the expectation one will "respond right away" often competes with slow, deliberate and thoughtful processes, it is good to be prepared not to get pulled in. Planning, especially starting list words with a verb, can be a nice way to make goals specific and action-oriented. http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-spend-the-first-10-minutes-of-your-day/ ... View more