As each new year dawns, hundreds of people gear up to unlock new habits. Whether it is improved fitness or relationships, these resolutions all have one thing in common - the end goal is increased happiness - and 2025 has proven to be no exception. But is there more to happiness than a new gym routine or updated social calendar? Renowned psychologist and Macmillan author, June Gruber, breaks it down for us with these helpful tips in a light, brief interview. https://www.kunc.org/in-the-noco/2025-01-09/find-your-happiness-in-2025-with-these-tips-from-a-professor-of-psychology-and-neuroscience   ... View more

If I were a manager or business owner needing to hire someone, the number one characteristic I would want in a new employee is conscientiousness. That Big Five trait predicts job performance in, well, just about every job (Wilmot & Ones, 2021). I was reminded of this after reading a recent Ars Technica article about spreadsheet errors (Thorne, 2024). More accurately, the article is about humor errors in spreadsheets that led to, well, bad things. While the article cited several examples, the one that made me choke on my coffee happened at Crypto.com in 2021 (Taylor, 2023). Thevamanogari Manivel moved from Malaysia to Australia in 2015 to escape “controlling relationship with her husband.” By 2018, she had saved up enough money to bring her oldest of three children to Australia. In 2020, she met Jatinder Singh who became her boyfriend. He was interested in cryptocurrency. He signed up for a Crypto.com account, but used Manivel’s bank account information to transfer $100 (AUD) into his Crypto.com account. Crypto.com said—and rightfully so—because the name on the bank account does not match the name on the Crypto.com account, we can’t accept this payment. So far so good. A Crypto.com employee was tasked with issuing the refund. Before I continue, please put down your coffee or other beverage. You should also swallow that bite of biscotti. Ready? In the Excel spreadsheet, instead of entering “100” in the refund box, the employee entered Manivel’s bank account number. Now, let’s all take a minute to look at our bank account number. Starting from the right and working left, count in two numbers and enter a period. Count in three numbers, and enter a comma. Repeat. Read that number out loud.  Manivel woke up one day to find approximately $10,470,000.00 AUD in her account. This discovery triggered a number of events. When Manivel asked her Singh some version of WTH, he said he won the money in a Crypto.com contest. Singh then said let’s move this money out of this account into an account with a different bank. (Perhaps the other bank had a better interest rate?) And then they begin spending it. Well, sure. Seven months later, during a routine audit, Crypto.com discovers the error. This probably says more about how much money is flowing through Crypto.com than anything else. Over 10 million dollars goes missing, and no one notices. For. Seven. Months. So, what does Crypto.com do? They contact Manivel’s bank asking for the money back. The money’s not in that account anymore. (No, I don’t know why Manivel’s bank didn’t ask questions earlier, like when the $10 million suddenly appeared in an account that likely had no more than maybe a few thousand in it at any given time.) Manivel said she thought scammers were trying to get their mitts on the dough. (Not her wording. But maybe she enjoys a good 1940s noir detective novel like I do. Or maybe not. The sexism can make for a challenging read.) Long story short, Manivel and Singh were arrested and the money was recovered. Manivel was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for her “opportunistic crime” plus time served (209 days). She had been held in custody awaiting trial because she was deemed a flight risk. Given that she was arrested at the Melbourne airport carrying $10,000 cash and a one-way ticket to Malaysia, that wasn’t a difficult call (Beatty, 2023a). Singh, the now-former boyfriend, pled guilty to the theft charge and as of early February, 2024 is awaiting sentencing (Beatty, 2023b). There is no word, however, on what happened to the Crypto.com employee who made the $10 million error. I bet they are no longer employed by Crypto.com. Maybe they are a highly conscientiousness employee who made this error while temporarily distracted. Mistakes happen. And there should certainly be processes in place to catch errors of this magnitude. I cannot even quit MS Word without being prompted to ask if I’d like to save my file before closing it. Having a little pop-up that says, “You’re about to refund $10 million dollars. Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” wouldn’t be hard to program. It also seems that for refunds of any size, a second person should have to approve it. Unless Crypto.com is continually shuffling millions of dollars around accounts. And they may very well be. In any case, all of this* could have been avoided if an employee with a high degree of conscientiousness had—after entering the account number in the refund amount box—reviewed their work before submitting it. Only if they had reviewed their work before submitting it—just as we ask our students to do. There is some evidence that we can up our conscientiousness game. In one study, Nathan Hudson (2021) gave participants a list of 50 challenges and asked the participants to choose up to four challenges for the week, such as “organize and clean up your desk” and “show up 5 min early for a class, appointment, or other activity” (p. 5). (For the complete list of challenges, see the appendix in Hudson et al., 2019). At the end of 16 weeks, those who completed more challenges had a greater increase in conscientiousness. Could such an intervention work with our students? Create a list of, say, 20 course-based challenges that target conscientiousness, such as “show up 5 min early for a class,” “submit a class assignment 24 hours early,” “complete the assigned reading before class,” “attend every class session this week,” “do not look at your phone during any class session this week.” If you’d like to involve your students in creating the list, give them Nathan Hudson’s list of 50, and invite students to work in small groups to choose items off his list (verbatim or revised) and create one or more of their own. Each week, ask students to choose two challenges and report those to you. At the end of the week, ask students to report if they successfully completed one or both of their challenges. Repeat each week. As a dependent measure, you could do a pre-test/post-test conscientiousness score from the Big Five Inventory. Or if you want to go for behavioral impact, choose an assignment from early in the course—before you implemented the challenges—and record when each student submitted the assignment as it relates to the assignment deadline. For example, if an assignment was due at 5pm, assignments that were submitted an hour would get a +60 (minute) score. Assignments that were submitted a half hour late would get a -30 (minute) score. For the week that your last assignment is due, do not run any challenges and calculate the “deadline score” for each of our students. Next, calculate a “deadline progress score” by subtracting the first assignment’s deadline score from the last assignment’s deadline score. A student who submitted their last assignment two hours early (+120) but submitted their first assignment 10 minutes early (+10), would have a difference score of +110, meaning they picked up 110 minutes worth of conscientiousness from the start of the challenges to the end. Similarly, a student who submitted their first assignment 15 minutes late (-15) and submitted their last assignment 15 minutes early (+15) picked up 30 min worth of conscientiousness. If you decide to do this research in your class, follow your institution’s IRB guidelines and report your findings in the Teaching of Psychology, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, or at conference, such as the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Annual Conference on Teaching.     References Beatty, L. (2023a, September 8). Thevamanogari Manivel: $10m landed in mum’s bank after Crypto.com bungle. News.Com.Au. https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/thevamanogari-manivel-10m-landed-in-mums-bank-after-cryptocom-bungle/news-story/e5900a5b0a2d89f0f2c6d2b2bad0a19d Beatty, L. (2023b, December 18). Jatinder Singh: Crypto enthusiast ‘knew’ $10m windfall was a mistake, court told. News.Com.Au. https://www.news.com.au/finance/jatinder-singh-crypto-enthusiast-knew-10m-windfall-was-a-mistake-court-told/news-story/8cc90e827e75a9119259d4ea3a7d79d3 Hudson, N. W. (2021). Does successfully changing personality traits via intervention require that participants be autonomously motivated to change? Journal of Research in Personality, 95, 104160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104160 Hudson, N. W., Briley, D. A., Chopik, W. J., & Derringer, J. (2019). You have to follow through: Attaining behavioral change goals predicts volitional personality change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(4), 839–857. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000221 Taylor, J. (2023, September 24). A crypto firm sent a disability worker $10m by mistake. Months later she was arrested at an Australian airport. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/24/a-crypto-firm-sent-a-disability-worker-10m-by-mistake-months-later-she-was-arrested-at-an-australian-airport Thorne, S. (2024, January 28). We keep making the same mistakes with spreadsheets, despite bad consequences. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/we-keep-making-the-same-mistakes-with-spreadsheets-despite-bad-consequences/ Wilmot, M. P., & Ones, D. S. (2021). Occupational characteristics moderate personality–performance relations in major occupational groups. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 131, 103655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2021.103655   *”All of this” includes—but is not limited to—the hours spent by employees at Crypto.com and Manivel’s bank trying to recover the money, the hours spent by the police tracking down Manivel and Singh, the resources spent to keep them in jail while awaiting their time before the judge, the hours spent by the employees of the court system.   ... 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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

Yesterday, a few dear friends (all psychology professors) and I were having a nice chat via text. I said I wanted a theme park, perhaps it could be called SueFlags, SueLand, or SueWorld. Susan Nolan suggested SueZoo. That brief exchange was enough to generate this assignment prompt: Create a theme park based on your Big Five scores. Explain how the elements of your theme park match each trait. To flesh this out a little more, I would add this to the instructions: Take the Big Five test on the fivethirtyeight.com website. When you receive your results, you’ll see a chart that depicts your traits. Take a screenshot of the chart and include it as part of your response. If you are uncomfortable revealing your Big Five scores, asked a willing friend or family member to take the Big Five test. Create a theme park based on their scores. Name your theme park <your or their name>Wood. For example, if your name were Dolly, your theme park would be called DollyWood. A version of this would work well for an in-class discussion. For a discussion, divide your class into small groups. Again, with the task of creating theme park elements, give each group a different low or high trait score. (If you have a small class, give each group both the high and low versions of a trait.) For example, one group would receive high neuroticism (or high emotionality or low emotional stability—use whatever term you use). Susan Nolan came up with this theme park attraction: “A haunted house that makes you anxious, although nothing actually bad ever happens.” Another group would receive openness to experience. Danae Hudson came up with this: “All new rides you've never seen! And a design your ride attraction.” Ask each group to create three theme park elements. Once discussion has subsided, invite a volunteer from each group to share with the class the trait they were assigned, their favorite theme park element their group created, and a brief explanation of how that element illustrates their assigned trait. In our text exchange, Susan Nolan suggested other settings besides theme parks, such as “vacation destinations, shopping mall stores, restaurant dinner orders, type of transportation, pet species.” If time allows, assign a different trait to each group, then give the class a new setting. What ChatGPT did with this assignment If you are planning on going the assignment route rather than discussion, I have a ChatGPT alert. With this prompt, “Create a theme park based on your Big Five scores. Explain how the elements of your theme park match each trait,” ChatGPT generated this: Welcome to "MindScape: The Big Five Adventure Park"! Step into a thrilling world where every corner of the park is designed to match the unique elements of my Big Five scores, providing an unforgettable experience for all visitors. Openness to Experience: The park's entrance, known as "The Gateway of Imagination," sets the stage for an extraordinary journey. It features vibrant colors, whimsical sculptures, and interactive art installations. Each attraction within the park caters to various facets of human curiosity, encouraging visitors to explore and discover new perspectives. Conscientiousness: "The Path of Achievement" is a meticulously organized area that appeals to visitors who appreciate structure and order. It houses intellectually stimulating attractions like puzzle-solving challenges, strategy games, and a "Life Skills Academy" offering workshops on personal growth, time management, and effective goal setting. Extraversion: "The Plaza of Energy" is a bustling hub of social interaction, entertainment, and high-energy activities. It features lively shows, live music performances, and interactive games where visitors can compete with each other. The area also includes a "Hall of Laughter" with comedy clubs and improv shows to keep the atmosphere lively. Agreeableness: "The Garden of Harmony" provides a tranquil and serene environment where visitors can connect with nature. This area hosts peaceful rides, such as gentle boat cruises through beautiful landscapes, and offers meditation sessions, yoga classes, and mindfulness workshops. Visitors can also engage in cooperative games and team-building activities to foster a sense of unity and cooperation. Neuroticism: "The Realm of Thrills" is an adrenaline-pumping zone designed to satisfy the thrill-seeking nature of visitors. It features exhilarating roller coasters, daring skydiving simulations, and bungee jumping adventures. For those seeking a milder experience, there are virtual reality experiences that simulate extreme sports and adventure activities. Additional features: a) "The Mind's Observatory" is a centerpiece of the park, offering a panoramic view of the entire landscape. Visitors can reflect upon their experiences, engage in self-reflection, and journal their thoughts. b) "The Harmony Gardens" offer beautifully landscaped areas where visitors can relax, rejuvenate, and appreciate the park's natural surroundings. c) "The Knowledge Arcade" is an interactive educational space, blending technology and learning. Visitors can engage in hands-on exhibits, science demonstrations, and virtual reality simulations to expand their knowledge. "MindScape: The Big Five Adventure Park" celebrates the diversity of human personality and offers something for everyone, catering to each person's unique preferences and interests. So come, embark on this extraordinary journey of self-discovery and adventure! Aside from whiffing on neuroticism, it’s not bad, but it didn’t address the question. The original question asked about a person’s specific scores. As a student, I could modify the question to include Big Five scores. For example, a student could prompt ChatGPT with this, “Create a theme park based on high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, moderate openness, and low extraversion. Explain how the elements of your theme park match each trait.” This is what ChatGPT did with that: Welcome to Harmony Haven, a theme park designed to cater to individuals with high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, moderate openness, and low extraversion. Our park is designed to provide a serene and organized environment, with attractions and activities that align with the specific traits of our visitors. Let's explore how each trait is reflected in the elements of Harmony Haven: High Agreeableness: Harmony Haven emphasizes a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere, encouraging cooperation, empathy, and kindness. The park is adorned with beautiful gardens, tranquil water features, and soothing music, creating a serene ambiance. The staff members are trained to provide exceptional customer service, ensuring that guests feel welcomed, valued, and their needs are met. High Conscientiousness: Harmony Haven is meticulously designed and maintained to cater to guests who appreciate order, organization, and attention to detail. The park features clearly marked pathways, clean and well-maintained facilities, and reliable operational schedules. Our park's rides and attractions undergo thorough safety inspections and regular maintenance to ensure a worry-free experience. Low Neuroticism: Harmony Haven aims to create a stress-free environment, avoiding intense stimuli or situations that may cause anxiety or distress. The park offers gentle and family-friendly attractions such as gentle rides, scenic walks, and educational exhibits. Quiet areas are available for guests to relax, meditate, or simply enjoy a moment of tranquility away from the crowds. Moderate Openness: While not overly avant-garde, Harmony Haven still offers moderate levels of novelty and exploration for visitors who appreciate new experiences within their comfort zone. The park features diverse themed areas, each with its own unique atmosphere and attractions. These areas provide a range of experiences, including art exhibitions, cultural displays, and interactive workshops that encourage creativity and learning. Low Extraversion: Harmony Haven understands the preference for a more peaceful and introspective experience. The park provides secluded areas, including quiet gardens, reading nooks, and peaceful walkways, where guests can enjoy moments of solitude. The entertainment options cater to smaller groups, and there are opportunities for personal reflection and self-discovery throughout the park. Overall, Harmony Haven is a place where individuals with specific personality traits can find comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment. By aligning the elements of the park with high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, moderate openness, and low extraversion, we create an environment that caters to the unique preferences and needs of our visitors, ensuring they have a memorable and fulfilling experience at our theme park. In an attempt to thwart ChatGPT, I amended the assignment instructions so that the Big Five score graph is included and naming the park <name>Wood. This is how ChatGPT handled these new instructions. As an AI language model, I don't have personal traits or the ability to take tests. However, I can still create a theme park based on the Big Five traits for you. Let's imagine a theme park called "AdventureLand" based on a fictional person's Big Five scores. AdventureLand is designed to cater to the traits of our visitor, John, who has taken the Big Five test and scored as follows: Openness: High Conscientiousness: Moderate Extraversion: Low Agreeableness: High Neuroticism: Low AdventureLand is a theme park that embraces creativity, curiosity, and exploration. It offers a variety of immersive and educational experiences that align with John's traits. Here's how the different elements of the theme park match each trait: Openness: AdventureLand stimulates John's openness with innovative and unconventional attractions. It features interactive art installations, virtual reality experiences, and science exhibitions. There are also workshops and classes where visitors can learn about different cultures, cuisines, and artistic techniques. Conscientiousness: While AdventureLand encourages exploration and spontaneity, it also caters to John's need for structure and organization. The park provides detailed maps and schedules, allowing visitors to plan their day efficiently. There are also "challenge zones" where visitors can test their problem-solving skills and engage in team-building activities. Extraversion: Although John scored low on extraversion, AdventureLand acknowledges that everyone needs social interaction in varying degrees. The park includes cozy cafes and quiet corners for introspective moments, as well as social areas where visitors can engage in group activities, such as interactive shows, musical performances, and community games. Agreeableness: AdventureLand fosters a sense of harmony and cooperation. It features attractions that promote teamwork, such as escape rooms, collaborative challenges, and group adventures. The park encourages empathy and understanding through themed areas that showcase different cultures, histories, and ecological awareness. Neuroticism: To cater to John's preference for a calm and relaxed environment, AdventureLand incorporates tranquil gardens, meditation spaces, and wellness centers. The park also offers nature trails, soothing music performances, and mindfulness workshops to promote emotional well-being and stress reduction. By considering John's Big Five scores, AdventureLandWood creates an immersive experience that aligns with his traits, providing a diverse range of attractions and activities to cater to his preferences and promote personal growth. Please note that this is a fictional example, and the actual Big Five scores and preferences may vary for different individuals. Alternatively, instead of trying to thwart ChatGPT, you could use it. Ask students to give ChatGPT any of the above prompts, and then ask your students to critique the response. “Did ChatGPT characterize each Big Five trait correctly? Did its theme park elements accurately match each trait? Explain your rationale for each decision.”   ... View more

The Introduction to Psychology course is the hardest course to teach because we do not have expertise in the vast majority of the material. When you teach Intro Psych for the very first time, you get used to saying, “I don’t know.” As the years have rolled by, I’ve accepted that “I don’t know” is just part of my Intro Psych teaching lexicon. For me, however, it’s not the not knowing that’s problematic. It’s all of the information that I thought I knew, but, alas, did not. Finding out that I’ve gotten something wrong makes me wish I could contact all of my previous students and say, “Hey! Remember that thing I told you about? No, you don’t remember? Well, anyway, it turns out I was wrong. Here’s the right information. Or at least here’s the right information as we know it today.” Okay, maybe it’s best that I can’t contact my previous students. In some cases, the scientific research has given us updated information. For example, research published a week ago in Nature reveals that the motor cortex is not all about motor control (Gordon et al., 2023). There are pockets of neurons in between the motor control sections of the motor cortex that connect with other parts of the body. “As a result, the act of, say, reaching for a cup of coffee can directly influence blood pressure and heart rate. And the movement is seamlessly integrated into brain systems involved in planning, goals and emotion” (Hamilton, 2023). This is a beautiful example of the first of APA’s overarching themes for Intro Psych: “Psychological science relies on empirical evidence and adapts as new data develop” (Halonen et al., 2022) In some cases what I got wrong was me just not understanding. For example, if you used to teach that the cat running to the sound of the can opener was classical conditioning, you can identify with what I’m saying. (See this 2016 blog post for the explanation as to why this is not classical conditioning, but operant conditioning.) While I don’t have any suggestions on how we can speed up science, I do have some suggestions on how we can mitigate how much stuff we don’t understand, and, thus, mis-teach to our students. Here are some excellent books that will expand your Intro Psych knowledge. Most are written by experts in the field. Others were written by people who got deeply interested in the topic. If you have books that you have found useful for expanding your Intro Psych knowledge, please add them to the comments. Thanks! Neuroscience The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons: The history of the human brain as revealed by true stories of trauma, madness, and recovery written by Sam Kean Incognito: The secret lives of the brain by David Eagleman Livewired: The inside story of the ever-changing brain by David Eagleman Sensation and Perception An immense world: How animal senses reveal the hidden realms us by Ed Yong Perception: How our bodies shape our minds by Dennis Proffitt and Drake Baer Consciousness Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams by Matthew Walker Buzzed: The straight facts about the most used and abused drugs from alcohol to ecstasy, 3e by, Cynthia Kuhn, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson Development Breaking the age code: How your beliefs about aging determine how long and well you live by Becca Levy The gardener and the carpenter: What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children by Alison Gopnik Memory The memory illusion: Remembering, forgetting, and the science of false memory by Julia Shaw Moonwalking with Einstein: The art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer Cognition Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman The undoing project: A friendship that changed our minds by Michael Lewis Emotion Aroused: The history of hormones and how they control just about everything by Randi Hutter Epstein Why zebras don’t get ulcers: the acclaimed guide to stress, stress-related diseases, and coping, 3e by Robert M. Sapolsky Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert Social Aggression and violence: A social psychological perspective by Brad J. Bushman Kitty Genovese: The murder, the bystanders, and the crime that changed America by Kevin Cook Personality Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain   References Gordon, E. M., Chauvin, R. J., Van, A. N., Rajesh, A., Nielsen, A., Newbold, D. J., Lynch, C. J., Seider, N. A., Krimmel, S. R., Scheidter, K. M., Monk, J., Miller, R. L., Metoki, A., Montez, D. F., Zheng, A., Elbau, I., Madison, T., Nishino, T., Myers, M. J., … Dosenbach, N. U. F. (2023). A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05964-2 Halonen, J., Thompson, J. L. W., Whitlock, K. H., Landrum, R. E., & Frantz, S. (2022). Measuring meaningful learning in Introductory Psychology: The IPI student learning outcomes. In R. A. R. Gurung & G. Neufeld (Eds.), Transforming Introductory Psychology: Expert advice on teacher training, course design, and student success (pp. 57–80). American Psychological Association. Hamilton, J. (2023, April 20). An overlooked brain system helps you grab a coffee—And plan your next cup. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/20/1171004199/an-overlooked-brain-system-helps-you-grab-a-coffee-and-plan-your-next-cup         ... View more

On the first day of class, I give my students a few get-to-know-each-other questions to discuss in small groups. While they discuss, I visit the groups and invite them to ask any questions they may have about me. This semester during one such small group visit I had a student ask me for my zodiac sign. I said, “Scorpio. But you know that doesn’t mean anything, right?” She looked at me as if I were the naïve one. In retrospect, I could have handled that better. “Why do you ask?” “Do you believe that the time of year we’re born is the sole determinant of personality? Our genes and experiences don’t matter at all?” In any case, I didn’t think any more about it. And then two days ago (April 4, 2023), Google announced that their Waze app is adding a zodiac mode (Waze, 2023). And this month, Waze is tapping into the all-knowing cosmos to find out if you navigate like a Saggitarius or a Scorpio, thanks to the latest driving experience: Zodiac. Drive with a vehicle and Mood outfitted for your sign and embody your true colors on the road. Our navigation guide is well-versed in astrology and knows how to get all types of personalities to their final destination — whether you're a fiery Aries, a balanced Libra, an independent Aquarius, an ambitious Taurus, a spontaneous Gemini, an intuitive Cancer, a detail-oriented Virgo, an intense Capricorn, a whimsical Pisces, a dramatic Leo, a free-spirited Sagitttarius or a loyal Scorpio. She does it with love, life advice and a little teasing. The first thing I did was roll my eyes. The second thing I did was uninstall Waze. You would think that as a Scorpio I’d be more loyal than that. When we lived in the Seattle area, Waze was my go-to navigation app. Now that we live where there is much less traffic, I don’t need help getting around traffic jams so I haven’t used Waze in two years. I admit that haven’t kept up with Waze’s fun features. I just reinstalled Waze to see how zodiac mode works. Unfortunately—and to my great disappointment—zodiac mode has not rolled out to my phone, yet. There are, however, several other ways for me to “customize my drive.” If I select zombie mode, the driving directions are delivered in a zombie voice—or rather, what someone imagines a zombie voice would sound like, the car icon I see is decaying green, and the icon that appears to other drivers is a stitched up gray blob. That helps me envision a bit what zodiac mode might look like. Just like the 70s/80s/90s mode or the cat/dog mode, I suppose zodiac mode is meant to be a new, fun, quirky way to get to and from wherever you need to be. While there probably aren’t many people who believe in zombies, a Pew Research Center survey found that 29% of U.S. adults believe in astrology (Gecewicz, 2018). You can assume that about a third of your students hold such a belief. Among college graduates however, the survey found that the number that believed in astrology dropped to 22% (Gecewicz, 2018). I credit the personality chapter in the Intro Psych course for that decrease. Ok. I don’t know that. It’s an empirical question, though, for someone looking for a research project. If you’d like to give your students some research practice in the personality chapter, point out that about a third of people in the U.S. believe that zodiac signs affect personality. Zodiac signs, however, were not included in our textbook’s personality chapter as a contributing factor. How could we find out if one’s zodiac sign affects personality? Give students a couple of minutes to think about this question on their own, and then ask them to discuss in small groups. The research designs will likely include some measuring of personality traits. The biggest challenge here may be finding two astrological experts who agree on the characteristics each sign is supposed to have. As another variable, students may suggest asking study participants for their sign. It’s possible that asking outright for a zodiac sign may prime the potentially one-third of participants who believe in the zodiac to skew their personality answers. There are at least two ways around this: ask for birthday and determine zodiac sign yourself or ask for the zodiac sign at the very end after all of the personality questions have been answered. Asking for birthday is probably safest as some volunteers may not know their zodiac sign. Also point out that birthdays don’t have meaning in some cultures, so members of those cultural groups don’t know the date of their birth. When a birthday is needed, they may use January 1. A good question for students to consider is how they could ask if a participant knows their birth date. If time allows, consider asking this question about ethics that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Do we each have a responsibility to share and only share factually correct information? If we know what we’re sharing is false or suspect that it might be, do we have a responsibility to say so? As a professor of psychology, I certainly have an ethical responsibility to share evidence-based information about psychology. If the evidence is lacking, then I need to make it clear that the evidence is lacking. Does a producer or film company have a responsibility to depict accurately how drugs work, how memory works, how psychological disorders work? Especially given how many people learn about these topics through media? When a tech company uses the zodiac to make commuting more fun, are they promoting—whether intentionally or unintentionally—belief in the stars having an impact on personality?   References Gecewicz, C. (2018, October 1). ‘New Age’ beliefs common among both religious and nonreligious Americans. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/ Waze. (2023, April 4). Customize your next drive and tap into the zodiac with Waze. Google. https://blog.google/waze/customize-your-next-drive-and-tap-into-the-zodiac-with-waze/       ... 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

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

Ever since I decided to pare down the personality section of my Intro Psych course to modern day theories of personality and their accompanying research, I have been on the lookout for interesting content to add. The journal Psychological Science recently published a fascinating – to me anyway – article on the relationship between one’s own personality and the ideal personality characteristics of particular jobs and the impact that relationship has on income (Denissen et al., 2017). Jaap Denissen and his colleagues used Big Five trait data from 8,458 individuals who all had full-time work for the previous year. For each job held by the participants, occupation experts identified the ideal Big Five traits a person in that job should have. Take a look at the ratings for each job, available through the Open Science Framework (OSF). Before sharing these data with your students now would be a good time to remind them that “psychology doesn’t deal in certainties; it deals in probabilities.” Your students’ personality traits will not definitively determine their future income, but if we know their personality traits and the job that they may have, we can figure the probability of them having a certain level of income. After covering the Big Five, can your students assign the same traits to jobs as this study's experts?  Which job goes with which level of the trait, one is high and the other is low? Answers at the bottom of the post. Extraversion: Actor Bookkeeper Agreeableness: Prison guard Religious professional Conscientiousness: Financial manager Decorator Emotional stability Firefighter Embroiderer Openness Farm hand Actor Curious to know the ratings the experts assigned for professors in higher education? All ratings are on a 7-point scale; higher numbers mean more of the trait is expected by the job. Extraversion: 5.7 Agreeableness: 4.5 Conscientiousness: 5.7 Emotional stability: 5.8 Openness: 4.7 Now, that’s all really interesting, right? But here’s where it gets downright fascinating. Looking just at the extraversion response surface analysis (RSA) below, people who were high in extraversion (“actual personality”) and were in a high extraversion job (“demanded personality”) had the highest income (vertical axis; green is higher income and orange is lower). Those who were in mismatched jobs (low extraversion person in a high extraversion job or vice versa) had lower income. And those low in extraversion in a low extraversion job also had lower incomes. In other words, those who are lowest in extraversion will have the lowest incomes as compared to their fellow moderate and high extraverts, regardless of the amount of extraversion demanded by the job. (For more on this topic, see Susan Cain’s book Quiet.) [Figure reprinted with permission of the author. For this and the RSA figures for emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, see the supplemental materials in OSF. For the RSA figure for openness, please see the original article, also available in OSF.] Emotional stability shows essentially the same pattern. High emotional stability people earned the most money in high emotional stability jobs, e.g., firefighter. Low emotional stability people earned less money in high emotional stability jobs. Ask students to consider why this might be; invite students to share their thinking. For conscientiousness, same thing, except that jobs that require high conscientiousness generally provide higher incomes. High conscientiousness people in high conscientiousness jobs made the most money. Low conscientiousness people in high conscientiousness jobs still made money, just not as much as their high conscientiousness counterparts. Who made the least money in the conscientiousness arena? High conscientiousness people in low conscientiousness jobs. Again, give your students a couple minutes to think about why that may be. For those high conscientiousness employees, perhaps “perfection is the enemy of the good.” In all fairness, though, there are no low conscientiousness jobs, just lower conscientiousness jobs. The lowest jobs came in at 5.17 (again, max score is 7).   High openness people in high openness jobs, e.g., actor, had higher incomes than low openness people in high openness jobs. Again, ask students to consider why this may be. That leaves agreeableness. Who made the least money in this trait? High agreeableness people in low agreeableness jobs, e.g., prison guard. Who made the most money in this trait? Low agreeableness people in moderately low agreeableness jobs, e.g., taxi driver. One last time, ask students to consider why this may be. Alternatively, if you want to give students some practice in reading graphs, divide the class into small groups of 3 to 4 students each. Give each group a different trait RSA. Ask each group to briefly describe the graph, perhaps prompt with something like, “What is the relationship between a person’s personality trait and the trait demanded by the job in terms of the impact that relationship has on income?” Walk through the RSA for one trait first, and then distribute the other four traits to the groups.   References Denissen, J. J. A., Bleidorn, W., Hennecke, M., Luhmann, M., Orth, U., Specht, J., & Zimmermann, J. (2017). Uncovering the Power of Personality to Shape Income. Psychological Science, 95679761772443. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617724435   Extraversion: Actor (high) Bookkeeper (low) Agreeableness: Prison guard (low) Religious professional (high) Conscientiousness: Financial manager (high) Decorator (low) Emotional stability Firefighter (high) Embroiderer (low) Openness Farm hand (low) Actor (high) ... View more

After covering the Big Five personality traits, ask students to get into small groups and pose these questions. Thinking about your ideal instructor, rank order the Big Five traits according to the instructor’s traits that are most important to you. For each of those traits, what behavior would you expect to see from that instructor? Once discussion dies down, start with one of the Big Five traits, say extraversion, and ask volunteers to report where they scored their ideal instructor on that trait, why they chose that score, and what behavior did they expect to see from an instructor with that trait score. After you have gone through all of the traits, share with students a few peer-reviewed studies. A study reported in Inside Higher Ed (Elmes, 2017) using a British sample found that students rank ordered the traits they like to see in an instructor this way: conscientiousness, agreeableness, extroversion, openness, and neuroticism. Chamorro-Premuzic, et.al. (2008) found students had a preference for instructors who were low in neuroticism and high in conscientiousness. Interestingly, students preferred instructors who matched themselves on openness and conscientiousness. High openness-scoring students preferred high openness-scoring instructors, for example. A 2005 study, also by Adrian Furnham and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic found that “students tended to prefer conscientious, open, and stable lecturers, though correlations revealed that these preferences were largely a function of students' own [emphasis in original] personality traits.” Again, this was true for openness, but this time instead of conscientiousness, it was agreeableness. Students preferred an instructor who scored similarly to them on agreeableness. Do student perceptions of instructor personality affect student evaluations of teaching? Yep. When students perceived their instructor as high on conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and extraversion, students rated the course and the instructor’s ability to teach as high. When students perceived their instructor as high on neuroticism, students rated the course and the instructor’s ability to teach as low. What about student personality traits? Students high in agreeableness were more likely to rate their instructor’s ability to teach as high (Patrick, 2011). No surprise; they’re agreeable! While students may have preferences for instructor personality, is there any evidence that instructor personality affects student performance in the course? I haven’t found any, but if someone knows of some, please let me know. To conclude your class discussion, ask students which of the Big Five traits is most strongly correlated with both high school and college GPA. The answer? Conscientiousness (Noftle and Robins, 2007).   References Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Furnham, A., Christopher, A. N., Garwood, J., & Martin, G. N. (2008). Birds of a feather: Students’ preferences for lecturers’ personalities as predicted by their own personality and learning approaches. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(4), 965-976. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.10.032   Elmes, J. (2017, May 18). Who wants a neurotic professor? Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/18/british-study-examines-traits-students-want-and-dont-want-professors Furnham, A., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2005). Individual differences in students' preferences for lecturers' personalities. Journal of Individual Differences, 26(4), 176-184. doi:10.1027/1614-0001.26.4.176 Noftle, E. E., & Robins, R. W. (n.d.). Personality predictors of academic outcomes: Big Five correlates of GPA and SAT scores. PsycEXTRA Dataset. doi:10.1037/e514412014-495 Patrick, C. L. (2011). Student evaluations of teaching: Effects of the Big Five personality traits, grades and the validity hypothesis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 36(2), 239-249. doi:10.1080/02602930903308258 ... 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