Originally posted on April 5, 2014. Each year, the American government spends billions of dollars to help students who struggle to meet their potential. These students languish in traditional school programs. They struggle socially. And they ultimately have less impact on society than they might if they had received educational opportunities that maximized their abilities. New research suggests that students who occupy this group are the ones we often worry about the least: super smart kids. The study followed several hundred students from age 13 to 38. At age 13, all of the students showed testing ability that placed them in the top 0.01 percent of students their age. Put another way, the study participants outscored students in the top 1 percent by a factor of ten. That’s pretty smart! The super smart kids flourished. Their rate of earned doctorates dwarfed the average American rate: 44 percent compared to 2 percent. They held jobs that gave them influence over millions of dollars and, in some cases, millions of lives. It’s easy to shut the book there. Super smart kids succeed. Big deal. But these super smart kids often experience challenges that also plague so-called “at-risk” students. They don’t have class material that pushes them intellectually. Before their first day of class, they know the course material. What happens next? What do they do for the next six to eight hours while their peers struggle to understand the material they’ve already mastered? The super smart kids might also struggle to connect socially. If academics are such a breeze, might it be difficult to relate to your peers? Might you experience stress when your peers have to study at night while you look for other opportunities to pique your intellectual interests? Might you act less intelligent to fit in? ... View more

Originally posted on April 11, 2014. While attending this year’s Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting, I chaired a data blitz session. The session fell on February 14. Valentine’s Day. Hundreds of people attended, all eager to hear exciting talks that lasted no more than 5 minutes. All of the talks delivered on expectations. One of them caused all heads to perk up and pay attention. The talk, given by Amy Moors of the University of Michigan (and co-authored by Terri Conley, Robin Edelstein, and William Chopik), dealt with consensual non-monogamy. This is a psychological term researchers use to describe people who engage in more than one romantic relationships simultaneously, and whose relationship partners know and approve. The talk had two main points. Consensual non-monogamy is more common than you might think. Moors reported she and her colleagues consistently find that approximately 4-5% of peoplereport being consensually non-monogamous. To put that in perspective, consider a university of 20,000 students. According to these estimates, roughly 800 to 1000 of these students identify as consensually non-monogamous. Who are these students? The authors argue that people who engage in consensual non-monogamy might not feel comfortable getting emotionally close to others and may instead prefer to keep their sense of autonomy. As a result, they might keep others at a distance. People with this relationship style have what is called avoidant attachment. The more people identified as avoidantly attached, the more positively they evaluated consensually non-monogamous relationships. Avoidantly attached people were also more likely to report being in a consensually non-monogamous relationship. When I spoke to others about the talk, they were most surprised about the higher-than-expected rates of consensual non-monogamy. This reaction begs the question of why people assume what they do about romantic relationships. Just as Tom Gilovich has shown many ways that people think they “know what isn't so,” what we think we know about relationships doesn't always match reality. ... View more

Originally posted on April 17, 2014. Ask many people what their signature says about them and they’ll give you a pat answer: “My name.” Does your signature say more than that? A cottage industry exists, in which “graphoanalysts” will tell us how our penmanship illustrates our ambitions, insecurities, and intuitive abilities. (See here, for an example). But if we don’t want to turn to a graphoanalyst, can psychological science offer a substitute? It can—and the best place to start is how big you write your name. The bigger you write your name, the more likely you hold a powerful position. For example, tenured, compared to nontenured, American Professors have bigger signatures. Ask people to imagine being the U.S. president, compared to a lower status person, and the chances of their signature size increasing go up. These effects aren’t unique to Americans. They have been replicated in Irani samples, too. A recent suite of studies caught my attention. They showed that subliminally linking positive words to a person’s identity increased the person’s signature size. In one study, Oxford University students viewed either positive words (happy, smart) or neutral words (bench, paper). To link the words to participant’s sense of identity, the researchers presented the word ‘I’ quickly before each word. Next, they had participants sign their names. Imagine being part of the study. You sign your name at the beginning, complete a computer task, and then sign your name again. You don’t know it, but you may have had your self-esteem raised. And if you did, your signature size likely grew without you knowing it. We sign our names often, which might help explain why we come to like the letters in our name more than other letters. The next time someone asks for your signature, take a good look at how much paper real estate it uses. It might say more about you than you think.   ... View more

Originally posted on May 5, 2014. From an early age, I wanted to be an astronaut. I memorized Mercury astronaut missions. I dreamt of using a manned maneurvering unit to glide through space. I cried when the Challenger exploded. I still dream of going to space, but I know it’s a long shot. Still, space exploration captivates me. What will be the biggest obstacle to a successful Mars mission? It won’t be inadequate fuel, faulty aerodynamics, or clunky helmets. Social isolation is the greatest barrier to interplanetary travel. Don’t believe me? Think about the past 520 days of your life (about a year and five months). That’s how long it takes to travel to Mars and return. How many people did you see during that time? How many conversations did you have? Did you attend a sporting event? A play? A worship service? Maybe a loved one was born or passed away. Now wipe those experiences away. Instead, imagine that during this period of your life you lived in cramped quarters with only five other people, no fresh air, and no sunlight. This is not a mere thought experiment. The experiment happened, with funds from the Russian Academy of Sciences. What happened? Quite a bit. In research recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the six volunteer marsonauts completed lots of tasks to keep their minds fresh. They also slept like babies without the daily rigmarole of daily work commutes, grocery shopping, or other daily drivel. Then the guys started sleeping like polar bears in hibernation. Then they started doing less, becoming even more sedentary amidst almost endless boredom. Space is only cool for so long. The good news? They all made it. There weren’t any major scuffles, and the guys probably formed lifelong friendships. They even showed signs of cognitive improvement. But the marsonaut volunteers each handled the prolonged social isolation differently. One of them shifted to a 25-hr sleep-wake schedule, which meant that he was alone (awake or asleep) 20% of the 520 day mock mission. As the researchers sift through their massive data set (to put it in perspective, they measured 4.396 million minutes of sleep!), I’m sure we’ll learn more about the psychological consequences of prolonged social isolation. For now, we can still look into the night sky, find the Red Planet, and dream of people visiting sometime in our generation. We know they’ll sleep well—and a lot. ... View more

Originally posted May 13, 2014. We might not realize it, but our names hold the key to how much people trust us. Our actual name might not matter. It is how easily you can pronounce a person’s name that counts. Imagine the following scenario. You walk into an auto repair shop to get your car fixed. A smiling man greets you at the door, shakes your hand, and says, “How are you?” You look at his uniform, which has his name printed in an oval patch. It says, “Yvgeny.” Having spent no time in Russia, you struggle to pronounce his name. Would your botched pronunciation affect how much you trusted your would-be mechanic? It would. In a recent investigation, people with easily pronounceable names, versus hard to pronounce names, were rated as less dangerous, more positive, and more trustworthy. The next time you struggle to pronounce someone’s name, give that person a break. We don’t pick the names our parents give us. Should we also give more credit to those who have triumphed despite having hard to pronounce names? Did Quvenzhané Wallis need to do more to earn her Oscar nomination than Naomi Watts did? We’ll never know. Until we do, think of the people you choose to include in your life. We have limited energy and only include a few people in our social networks. Of the ones you chose, did their easy to pronounce names give them an edge? ... View more

Originally posted on April 9, 2015. Many people call laughter the best medicine, but did you know that it can also help you make new friends? It doesn’t surprise me at all. Some of my best friendships have had their roots in belly laughs. Sharing a laugh makes people more likely to open up to each other, according to a recent study. Laughter increases our willingness to share something personal, without even realizing that’s why we’re doing it. Allowing someone to truly know us—perhaps sharing our most embarrassing moment, or talking about a personal goal or fear—is crucial in building and growing relationships. To test their theories about laughter and self-disclosure, researchers gathered 112 students who did not know each other. They split them into groups and then showed each group a 10-minute “mood induction” video, one of which featured a standup comedian. (The other two were a golf instruction video and an excerpt from a nature show.) Researchers measured how much the students laughed and their other emotional states. The students also wrote a message to another participant to help them get acquainted. The results: Group members who laughed together while watching the comedian shared much more intimate information than those who did not watch the comedy routine. That’s probably because laughter triggers the release of endorphins, which play a role in forming social bonds. Try it out next time you’re in a social situation with strangers or mere acquaintances. If they’re a bit aloof, get them laughing. You’ll be surprised at how a little laughter can defrost even the toughest audience. Kevin Kozcicki/Getty Images ... View more

Originally posted on May 8, 2014. Knowing that people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, psychologists have longed for a "pipeline to the heart."  One strategy, developed nearly a half century ago by Edward Jones and Harold Sigall, created a “bogus pipeline.” Researchers would convince people that a machine could use their physiological responses to measure their private attitudes.  Then they would ask them to predict the machine's reading, thus revealing attitudes which often were less socially desirable than their verbalized attitudes.  More recently, psychologists have devised clever strategies for revealing “implicit attitudes,” by using reaction times to assess automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. (In contrast to consciously held “explicit attitudes,” implicit attitudes are like unconscious habits.) A new working paper (abstract; PDF) by Katherine Coffman and fellow economists demonstrates a third strategy for getting people to reveal sensitive information—the “Item Count Technique” (ICT). One group was given four simple statements, such as “I spent a lot of time playing video games as a kid,” and then was asked how many of the four statements “apply to you.”  A second group was given the same four statements plus a fifth:  “I consider myself to be heterosexual,” and then was asked how many of the five statements “apply to you.” Although no individual is asked to reveal which specific statements are true of them, a comparison of the two groups’ answers reveals—for the sampled population—the percent agreeing with the fifth statement. Thus, without revealing anyone’s sexual orientation, the ICT aggregate data showed a 65 percent higher rate of non-heterosexual identity than was self-reported among people who were asked straight-out: “Do you consider yourself to be heterosexual?”   But then let’s not discount public surveys.  Nate Silver’s digest of presidential polling data correctly predicted not only the 2012 U.S. national presidential outcome, but also the outcome in all 50 U.S. states.  Specific, explicit attitudes can predict behavior. ... View more

Originally posted on August 12, 2014. One of social psychology’s intriguing and oft-replicated findings is variously known as the “own-race bias,” the “other-race effect,” and the “cross-race effect”—all of which describe the human tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races. “They”—the members of some other group—seem to look more alike than those in our own group.  With greater exposure to other-race faces, as when residing among those of a different race, people improve at recognizing individual faces.  Still, the phenomenon is robust enough that social psychologists have wondered what underlies it.  In the July Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a research team led by Kerry Kawakami at York University offers a possible contributing factor:  When viewing faces during several experiments, White participants attended more to the eyes of White people, and to the nose and mouth of Black people.  Eye gaze, they reason, is “individuating”—it helps us discern facial differences.  Thus the ingroup eye-gaze difference may help explain the own-race bias. ... View more

Originally September 7, 2014. My wife loves me, despite smirking that I am “boringly predictable.”  Every day, I go to bed at pretty much the same time, rise at the same time, pull on my khaki pants and brown shoes, frequent the same coffee shops, ride the same old bicycle, and exercise every weekday noon hour.  As I walk into my Monday-Wednesday-Friday breakfast spot, the staff order up my oatmeal and tea.  I’ll admit to boring. But there is an upside to mindless predictability.  As my colleagues-friends Roy Baumeister, Julia Exline, Nathan DeWall and others have documented, self-controlled decision-making is like a muscle.  It temporarily weakens after an exertion (a phenomenon called “ego depletion”) and replenishes with rest. Exercising willpower temporarily depletes the mental energy needed for self-control on other tasks.  It even depletes the blood sugar and neural activity associated with mental focus. In one experiment, hungry people who had resisted the temptation to eat chocolate chip cookies gave up sooner on a tedious task (compared with those who had not expended mental energy on resisting the cookies). President Obama, who appreciates social science research, understands this.  As he explained to Vanity Fair writer Michael Lewis, “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”  Lewis reports that Obama mentioned “research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions,” noting that Obama added, “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” So, amid today’s applause for “mindfulness,” let’s put in a word for mindlessness.  Mindless, habitual living frees our minds to work on more important things than which pants to wear or what breakfast to order.  As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead argued, “Civilization advances by extending the number of operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” ... View more

Originally posted on December 16, 2014. The December APS Observer is out with an essay by Nathan on “The Neural Greenhouse:  Teaching Students How to Grow Neurons and Keep Them Alive.” Our brains are like greenhouses, he notes, with new neurons sprouting daily, “while others wither and die.” To take this neuroscience into the classroom, he offers three activities. In the same issue, I say, “Let’s Hear a Good Word for Self-Esteem.” Mindful of recent research on the perils of excessive self-regard—of illusory optimism, self-serving bias, and the like—I offer a quick synopsis of work on the benefits of a sense of one’s self-worth. I also offer Google ngram figures showing sharply increased occurrences of “self-esteem” in printed English over the last century, and of decreasing occurrences of “self-control.” ... View more

Originally posted on March 4, 2016. Would you agree or disagree with these statements from the Narcissistic Personality Inventory? 1.    I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so. 2.    People love me. And you know what, I have been very successful. 3.    I really like to be the center of attention. 4.    Some people would say I’m very, very, very intelligent. Excuse my fibbing. The even-numbered sentences are actually the words of Donald Trump—a “remarkably narcissistic” person, surmises developmental psychologist Howard Gardner. Trump’s narcissism even extends to his self-perceived superior humility (which brings to mind the wisdom of C. S. Lewis: “If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.”): So how do self-important, self-focused, self-promoting narcissists fare over time? Does their self-assurance, charm, and humor make a generally favorable impression, especially in leadership roles? Or is their egotism, arrogance, and hostility off-putting? In a recent Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article, Marius Leckelt and colleagues, report that narcissists make good first impressions, but over time, their arrogance, bragging, and aggressiveness gets old. Their findings replicate what Delroy Paulhus long ago observed in a seven-session study of small teams: People’s initially positive impressions of narcissists turned negative by the end. So, will this phenomenon hold true for Trump and eventually deflate his popularity during this U.S. presidential campaign season? What do you think? ... View more

Originally posted on March 29, 2016. Some psychological science findings are just plain fun. Few are more so than the studies of what Brett Pelham and his colleagues call “implicit egotism”—our tendency to like what’s associated with us. We tend to like letters that appear in our name, numbers that resemble our birthdate, politicians whose faces are morphed to include features of our own, and even—here comes the weird part— places and careers with names resembling our own name. Believe it or not, Philadelphia has a disproportionate number of residents named Phil. Virginia Beach has a disproportionate number of people named Virginia, as does St. Louis  with men named Louis. And California and Toronto have an excess number of people whose names begin, respectively, with Cali (as in Califano) and Tor. Pelham and his colleagues surmise that “People are attracted to places that resemble their names” . . . and to name-related careers, with American dentists being twice as likely to be named “Dennis” as the equally popular names “Jerry” or “Walter.” As I mentioned in a previous blog essay, Pelham’s work has been criticized. Pelham replied, and now, with Mauricio Carvallo, offers Census data showing that people named Baker, Butcher, Carpenter, Mason, Farmer, and so forth disproportionately gravitate toward occupations that bear their names (despite the separation of countless generations from the original “Baker” who was a baker). And “men named Cal and Tex disproportionately moved to states resembling their names.” Moreover, in unpublished work, Pelham and his colleagues found that a century and more ago, when most people were born at home and birth certificates were completed later, people tended to declare birth dates associated with a positive identity. Assuming that births (before induced labor and C-sections) were randomly distributed, people between 1890 and 1910 over-claimed Christmas Day birthdays by 66 percent and New Year’s Day birthdays by 62 percent. Parents also over-claimed birthdays associated with famous people’s birthdays, such as George Washington’s—though only U.S. immigrants from Ireland strongly over-claimed St. Patrick’s Day birthdays (at more than three times the expected rate). The birth registration process once allowed wiggle room, and “where there is wiggle room, there is often wiggling,” report Pelham and his team. “And a potent motivation for wiggling might be the desire to claim a positive social identity.” Implicit egotism rides again. ... View more

Last week I wrote about how it is I came to wear psychology-related t-shirts to my Intro Psych classes. That post included nine t-shirts. [Read that post.] This week I have ten to share. Vision – Childish Side of the Moon This is a pretty straight-forward illustration of how white is the presence of all wavelengths of light. And the Pink Floyd fans in your class will enjoy the reference. Sleep – Big Fan I hammer pretty hard the importance of sleep. Too many students think that staying up all night studying is a good idea, and I present the landslide of evidence that says it’s not. In case they miss my message, perhaps due to sleep deprivation, this t-shirt drives home the point. Sleep – Counting Sheep If I’m feeling more whimsical, I will go with this shirt depicting counting sheep – on a calculator, on “fingers,” on an abacus. Psychoanalysis – Devil and angel bunnies If you talk about the id, ego, and superego, this shirt is a must. Wear a shirt over top, like a denim shirt or a light fleece. As you describe the conflict between the id and the superego, if you’re lucky, a student will say something like, “Oh! Like the devil and angel on your shoulders!” That’s your cue to remove your outer layer, revealing the devil and angel bunnies on your shoulders. Research methods – Science of the Lambs When introducing research methods in Intro, I sometimes talk about how people think that what determines what is a science and what is not are the apparatuses that are used. “If there are flasks and Bunsen burners, then it is science.” If class time allows, I ask students to consider that question: What makes a science a science? This makes for a nice think (on your own for a minute or two), pair (talk with the person next to you for a minute or two), share (ask for volunteers to share their responses) activity. Personality – Introverting When covering the Big Five personality traits, I use this shirt to come out as an introvert. The best metaphor I have heard for introversion and extraversion says that which way you lean is determined by what recharges your batteries most of the time. If your batteries recharge when you are with people, you are more extraverted. If your batteries recharge when you are alone, you are more introverted (see this blog post for example). The message in this shirt is “back off; I’m recharging.” Sensation — Hello? Can anybody hear me? I use this shirt to introduce the idea that sound and color only exist in our brains. Sound waves and light waves exist outside of us, but what we describe as sound and what we describe as color don’t. They are sensations created by our brains, a conversion of those waves into something we can experience. Development – Donkey Kong and Mario  This shirt’s a nod to the gamers in your class. If you’d like to use this shirt for discussion, ask students questions like: Given that Mario is walking, how old would you guess he is? [2-ish] What reflex is Donkey Kong exhibiting with the baby bottle? [grasping] Years later, do you expect them to remember this event? Why? [nope, infantile amnesia] You can also reprise this shirt for the social psych chapter. What are some ways in which Donkey Kong and Mario could work to resolve their conflict? [e.g., superordinate goals].            Optimism/pessimism – Which glass are you? When covering optimists and pessimists, this shirt provides an opportunity to introduce students to some other -ists, such as utopists and surrealists. Be prepared to explain some of these; students will ask. Final exam day – Pencils Since students are required to bring a Number 2 pencil to take the final exam, this handy shirt depicts pencil numbers 1 through 12. ... 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