I’ve been thinking a lot about identity and how our identity—whether it’s an accurate reflection reality—influences our behavior. Most recently I’ve been thinking about this after reading Jeff Holmes’ article in the Teaching of Psychology journal on students who have identified themselves as bad test-takers (Holmes, 2021). Holmes opens the article with this statement: “One of the best ways to be bad at something is to tell yourself you are bad at it” (p. 291). In Holmes’s study of 311 college students, a whopping 91% believed that students who otherwise know the course material can be bad test-takers with 56% of the students identifying themselves as bad test-takers. A third of the students said that someone else told them that they were bad test-takers. Importantly, those who identified as a bad test-taker were more likely to disagree with “I know how to study effectively.” Additionally, “Students who see themselves as bad test-takers…tend to—relative to students who do not possess such an identity—have lower confidence in their broader academic abilities, expend less effort on cognitive activities, and feel entitled to positive academic outcomes regardless of performance” (p. 296). And, yes, those who identify as bad test-takers were also more likely to report test anxiety, even when other variables—such as overall academic performance and study skills confidence—were controlled for. I could retire early if I had a dollar for every time I had this conversation with a student: Student: “I studied hard for this test, and I still failed! I’m just a bad test-taker.” Me: “Tell me how you studied.” Student: “What do you mean?” Me: “When you sat down to study, tell me what you did.” Student: “I read the chapter, then I read it again, and again. Oh! And I highlighted stuff.” Me: “Tell me what you know about <concept covered on exam>.” Student: <awkward silence> “I don’t remember.” <More awkward silence> Since I’m a bad test-taker, can I do something for extra credit?” In Intro Psych, wherever you discuss attributions (e.g., social psych, abnormal, psychotherapy), consider using the bad test-taker attribution as an example. If a student does poorly on an exam and they say, “I’m a bad test-taker,” they are making an internal, stable, and global attribution. Internal: It’s a trait I have. Stable: It’s a trait that’s not going to change. Global: My bad test-taking applies regardless of the test. It is unlikely that a student who makes this attribution will do anything differently on the next test.   Now ask students to imagine a different attribution. After doing poorly on a test, the student says, “I didn’t know that material well enough.” This is an internal, unstable, specific attribution. Internal: The grade was because of something I did. Unstable: If I do things differently, I can get a different result. Specific: This is what happened on this specific test; that doesn’t say anything about the next test. This student has agency. “I’m going to try out some of the known-to-be-effective study strategies my instructor told me about.” Reiterate to students that in both examples, the result of the first test was the same; both students failed. But who is most likely to fail the second test, too? To make that second attribution—“I didn’t know the material well enough”—students have to have enough insight into their own knowledge or have to accept that their test score is a reasonably accurate reflection of their knowledge. When students read and reread chapters over and over and over again, the material begins to feel familiar. That familiarity can feel like knowledge. It’s not. It’s the illusion of knowledge. One of the many benefits of self-testing is that it keeps students from deluding themselves while they study. Unless they attribute their poor self-testing to being a bad test-taker. [Side note: If the student sees test-taking as a skill that can be learned (unstable attribution), then they may choose to work on upping their test-taking skills. A quick Google search of “test taking skills” produced a number of websites with a bullet-point list of strategies. The sites I saw all included some version of “be prepared.” What’s the best way to be prepared? Use solid study strategies to learn the material.]     References Holmes, J. D. (2021). The bad test-taker identity. Teaching of Psychology, 48(4), 293–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320979884 ... View more

I read this CBC article on life coaches (Cowley et al., 2022) and felt great alarm. My alarm was not caused by the fact that anyone can call themselves a life coach, nor was it caused by these particular life coaches offering mental health advice. While I found this information disappointing, I cannot say that I was surprised. Instead, my alarm was caused by the fact that discussion of life coaches has not been included in our collective Intro Psych curriculum. We could do a much better job at arming the millions of students who take Intro Psych with the information they need to be informed consumers of mental health services. The therapy chapter would be a good place to use a jigsaw classroom. Divide your students (synchronous or asynchronous) into five groups. Assign each group one of the following professions. If you have a large class, divide the class into, say, ten groups, so that two groups will be working on each profession. Life coach Counseling psychologist Clinical psychologist Prescribing psychologist Psychiatrist Next, give each group the following set of questions to answer. Ask students to cite the sources they used to answer each question. What education is required for this profession? Does this profession require a license? If so, what is required to get licensure? What kinds of issues are typically treated by people in this profession? What kind of treatments can people in this profession provide? Once each group has the answers to these questions, assign students to new groups so that each new group has at least one member from the original groups. The new groups will be comprised of “experts” from each profession group. Give the new groups these instructions. In the following order, each group member will share what they learned about each profession: life coach, counseling psychologist, clinical psychologist, prescribing psychologist, psychiatrist. Once everyone has shared and all group members feel like they understand each profession, for each of the following issues, identify which profession or professions would be best and why. Lack of motivation for keeping a clean home Stress at work or school Relationship issues Severe anxiety Suicidal thoughts Heavy drinking Grief following the loss of a loved one Uncertainty in how to make a career change Once each group has finished its work, ask a spokesperson for each group to share what they generated. Start with “lack of motivation for keeping a clean home.” Once each group has shared, move on to the next topic.     Reference Cowley, J., Sampson, A., Szeto, E., & News ·, A. T. · C. (2022, February 26). Almost anyone can become a life coach. A hidden camera investigation reveals why that’s a problem. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-life-coach-1.6364745   ... View more

Psychiatry and psychology are not averse to renaming our constructs. For example, with DSM-III, manic-depression became bipolar disorder. Since then, mental retardation became the more descriptive intellectual disability, and the controversial multiple personality disorder became the no less controversial dissociative identity disorder. Schizophrenia started life as dementia praecox. Is it time to change the name again? There are two arguments for a name change. First, there is much stigma associated with the term schizophrenia. As a class discussion item, ask students what immediately comes to mind when they hear “schizophrenia.” Be ready for students to say things describing people diagnosed with schizophrenia as being violent and having poor hygiene. What your students say is probably a pretty good representation of the public’s perception of schizophrenia. The more stigmatizing the label, the harder it is for clinicians to give the diagnosis to clients. And for those who have the diagnosis, the experience is all the more stressful when they have to manage the knee-jerk reactions of others. As if living with the symptoms of schizophrenia doesn’t make life much more difficult already. The second argument for a name change is that the word “schizophrenia” is not descriptive of the symptoms, and the name implies that schizophrenia is a single entity. Our modern understanding of schizophrenia is much more nuanced. For example, we now understand schizophrenia to encompass a wide and varying spectrum of symptoms. The disorder has already undergone a name change in Japan (to integration disorder), South Korea (to attunement disorder) and Hong Kong and Taiwan (disordered thought and perception) (Mesholam-Gately et al., 2021). Ask your students if they think schizophrenia should be renamed. A U.S. survey that included participants with mental illness, family members of those with mental illness, mental health providers, and others found much support for a name change; two-thirds supported a name change before seeing some possible names, and three-quarters supported a name change after seeing possible names and their descriptions. The names that received the most support were: Altered perception syndrome: “Indicates that people with this illness experience sensory information differently in a way that changes their day to day experiences.” Psychosis spectrum syndrome: “This term refers to a spectrum of common psychosis symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions and thought difficulties.” and neuro-emotional integration disorder: “A biopsychosocial (biological, psychological, and social) term describing difficulty integrating cognition, emotion, and behavior” (Mesholam-Gately et al., 2021). (Download the pdf of the survey questions). Having seen these proposed terms and their descriptions, ask your students again if they think schizophrenia should be renamed. Personally, I find psychosis spectrum syndrome to be the most descriptive, but I doubt that being psychotic carries any less stigma than schizophrenia does. I can see why altered perception syndrome had the most support as it is probably the most innocuous of the group, but the name makes me think of synesthesia or ESP. I could work with neuro-emotional integration disorder. If you would like to extend the discussion, give your students a few minutes to consider alternate names. Give them these criteria: “Mental health professionals suggest that a successful name change should be clearly defined, neutral, easily understood, and illustrate the core symptoms of the disorder in order to increase accessibility and communicability by healthcare providers” (Mesholam-Gately et al., 2021). After students have a few minutes to brainstorm some names on their own, ask students to share their ideas in small groups. Ask each group to share their top one to three names. Invite the class to vote on the names.   Reference Mesholam-Gately, R. I., Varca, N., Spitzer, C., Parrish, E. M., Hogan, V., Behnke, S. H., Larson, L., Rosa-Baez, C., Schwirian, N., Stromeyer, C., Williams, M. J., Saks, E. R., & Keshavan, M. S. (2021). Are we ready for a name change for schizophrenia? A survey of multiple stakeholders. Schizophrenia Research, 238, 152–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2021.08.034    ... View more

Anxious about time passing you by? You might have chronophobia. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/cant-stand-time-passing-you-by-you-may-have-chronophobia/ ... View more

According to the CDC, as of December 8, 2021, 83.5% of U.S. adults have had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. When the unvaccinated are interviewed by journalists, they report a number of reasons for choosing not to get the vaccine, such as being too healthy to need it and not trusting that the vaccine is not harmful (Bosman et al., 2021). What I have not heard in person-on-the-street interviews, however, is someone saying they are not getting vaccinated because they are afraid of needles. In a pre-COVID meta-analysis, researchers found “[a]voidance of influenza vaccination because of needle fear occurred in 16% of adult patients, 27% of hospital employees, 18% of workers at long-term care facilities, and 8% of healthcare workers at hospitals” (McLenon & Rogers, 2019, p. 30), and the younger the people, the more common the fear. For young and young-ish adults (ages 20 to 40), approximately 20% to 30% have a needle fear (McLenon & Rogers, 2019). I wonder how many of the unvaccinated have a fear of needles but are citing other reasons for avoiding the vaccine. All of the photos of healthcare workers jabbing people with needles cannot be helping. For someone who is needle-phobic—or merely needle-averse—seeing a jabbing photo would likely result in them immediately turning away. Not only are they not getting the vaccine, they are not getting good information about the vaccine. In our Intro Psych courses, we can assume that 20% to 30% of our students have a fear of needles. For our students who do not have a fear, they certainly know someone who does, whether they know it or not. When we cover phobias and treatment for phobias, let’s include needles (but no photos!) as an example. Where does the fear of needles and shots come from? It is easy to see how a needle fear would develop. Classical conditioning offers a pretty likely scenario. A young child is approached by a gloved healthcare worker carrying a needle, gets a shot, and the shot hurts! Things that hurt are scary. The hurting is the unconditioned/unconditional stimulus, and the fear is the unconditioned/unconditional response. The needle (and all things associated with it) is the conditioned/conditional stimulus, and the fear of it is the conditioned/conditional response. Observational learning may have been the source of the fear for some, such as seeing a sibling screaming after they got a shot. As we know, the key to overcoming fear is exposure. For most of us, as we got older and we received more and more shots, the fear began to dissipate. Yes, the shot may still hurt, but by the time we are well into adulthood, we have been hurt in many worse ways. The sting from the jab is a pain that we know is both temporary and manageable. For some, though, that is not the case. The fear has not dissipated, perhaps because they have spent most of their life avoiding needles. Strategies and Treatment for Fear of Needles There are several strategies a person with a fear of needles can use (Huff, 2021). Techniques useful for relaxation can help, such as taking deep breaths and picturing serene environments. For some, knowing exactly what is going on as the shot is being prepared is helpful. For others, knowing absolutely nothing and, with headphones on, being completely absorbed in a game or video is preferred. In either case, the person should communicate their preferences with the healthcare provider. A little self-talk doesn’t hurt, either: “I have so got this!”   For those with more severe fears, working with a mental health provider trained in systematic desensitization would be best (Huff, 2021). Identifying the cause of the fear is first. Is it the needle? The pain? Blood? Next, the mental health provider would work with the client to create a fear hierarchy. If the fear is the needle, then they may start with viewing a drawing of a needle. With the help of say, progressive muscle relaxation, the client relaxes. Once again, the drawing is presented, and the client relaxes. Once the client can look at the drawing without tensing up, they move on to the next item in the fear hierarchy, such as a photo of needle, then perhaps a plastic toy needle, and so on up to a real needle. Helping our students see that a fear of needles is conquerable may help save their lives or the lives of their loved ones. References Bosman, J., Hoffman, J., Sanger-Katz, M., & Arango, T. (2021, July 31). Who are the unvaccinated in America? There’s no one answer. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/virus-unvaccinated-americans.html Huff, C. (2021). How psychologists can help patients with injection fear. Monitor on Psychology, 52(4). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/06/injection-fear McLenon, J., & Rogers, M. A. M. (2019). The fear of needles: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 75(1), 30–42. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13818   ... View more

I have been reading with interest about how national chain pharmacies have started to offer mental health services: Therapy on Aisle 7 (NY Times, 5/7/21), CVS to Offer In-Store Mental Health Counseling (NPR, 4/29/21). While some pharmacies, such as CVS, are offering in-store or virtual mental health counseling, other pharmacies, such as Walgreens, connect customers to third-party therapy providers. These recent developments could be fodder for some very interesting class discussions or a stand-alone assignment following your coverage of psychotherapy. Here are some possible questions. What are some reasons that pharmacies, like CVS, may be interested in offering mental health services? Identify at least 3 positive things about pharmacies offering mental health services. Identify at least 3 concerns you may have about pharmacies offering mental health services. As one should when hiring anyone to provide any kind of service, what questions should you ask in your first meeting? This New York Times article, Therapy on Aisle 7 (5/7/21), offers some suggestions. For more questions you may want to ask, visit the How to Choose a Psychologist page on the American Psychological Association website. Once you have your list of questions to ask, for each question identify at least one answer you would want to hear and at least one answer you would not want to hear. Would you, personally, go to a pharmacy for mental health services? Why or why not? What other kinds of places might people quickly and easily access mental health services if they were available? ... View more

We know that sugar doesn't make kids hyper, but can it make us anxious? This study found a link between sugary, processed foods and anxiety disorders, but remember that correlation does not equal causation! https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/anxiety-diet?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1615566168 ... View more

Fascinated by serial killers? Check out this article on the research looking at brain differences in psychopathy https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/what-is-a-psychopath?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1615204146 ... View more

Recently the American Psychological Association published a Speaking of Psychology podcast (and transcript) about the One Mind PsyberGuide—a mental health app rating service. While I wasn’t paying attention, mental health apps have proliferated. Visiting the About One Mind PsyberGuide page, we learn “One Mind PsyberGuide now operates out of the University of California, Irvine and Northwestern University where our team consists of experts in mental health, technology, and technology delivered care. One Mind PsyberGuide is not an industry website; its goal is to provide accurate and reliable information free of preference, bias, or endorsement.” Their mental health app rating system—applied by professional reviewers—includes three main criteria: credibility, user experience, and transparency. Not all of the 196 apps in their database have complete reviews as of this writing. The following is a suggested assignment for the Intro Psych therapy chapter. ********* One challenge for consumers when looking at mental health services is determining what has good scientific evidence backing it and what is closer to quackery. The One Mind PsyberGuide is a website that provides reviews of mental health apps. Apply the CRAAP test to the One Mind PsyberGuide website. Be sure to address each bullet point under Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. In one paragraph, state whether you would recommend this website to friend who was interested in using a mental health app? Explain why or why not. Now, download one of the free apps reviewed by the site to your phone. (If you don’t have a phone, please contact your instructor for an alternative to this section of this assignment.) Apply the CRAAP test to the app. Again, be sure to address each bullet point under Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Does your evaluation of the app match the review provided by the PsyberGuide? Explain. In one paragraph, state whether you would recommend this mental health app to a friend? Explain why or why not.           ... View more

Between 2001 and 2003, the Program for Research on Black Americans—founded and led by the late James S. Jackson—conducted “the most comprehensive and detailed study of mental disorders and the mental health of Americans of African descent ever completed.” The discussion below would be appropriate when covering surveys in the Intro Psych research methods chapter, when covering the psychological disorders chapter, or when covering stress and coping. While the instructions are written for an asynchronous (online) discussion, these instructions may be adapted for a synchronous (face-to-face/virtual) discussion. Initial post Dr. James S. Jackson, University of Michigan social psychologist, passed away on September 1, 2020. Read his New York Times obituary. [Instructors, find his obituary in your library database and link to it there as the New York Times limits the number of free articles non-subscribers may access each month.] Part A. Quote Find a quote from the obituary that you found interesting and in 100+ words of reflection, explain why. Be sure to use quotation marks for your quote; the quotation is not part of the 100+ word count. Part B. Research Dr. Jackson founded the Program for Research on Black Americans. Visit the Program’s website. Review their five research themes found under the Research tab. After reading about each theme, which theme would you say is most important right now? In 100+ words of reflection, explain why. Part C. Publications On the Program for Research on Black Americans website, visit the Publications page. Much of the Program’s recent research is at least partly based on the National Survey of American Life. Please read through the journal article titles (either adolescent or adult). Based on the article titles, identify at least one article you would be interested in reading. In 100+ words of reflection, explain why. Responses Please respond to the initial discussion posts written by at least two of your classmates. Part A. In 50+ words, respond to the quote chosen with at least two of the following: A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."  Part B. In 50+ words, respond to the research chosen with at least two of the following: A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."  Part C. In 50+ words, respond to the publication chosen with at least two of the following: A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."    ... View more

"Together, the results from these studies suggest that individuals with social anxiety show an irregular attentional pattern when they are viewing emotional faces." Eye Tracking Evidence Shows that Social Anxiety Changes the Picture http://ow.ly/CfaM30r1XvU #psychstudentrss  ... View more

Johns Hopkins University is offering a free online course through Coursera titled Psychological First Aid. They estimate that the course takes six hours to finish. Course description: Learn to provide psychological first aid to people in an emergency by employing the RAPID model: Reflective listening, Assessment of needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition. Utilizing the RAPID model (Reflective listening, Assessment of needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition), this specialized course provides perspectives on injuries and trauma that are beyond those physical in nature. The RAPID model is readily applicable to public health settings, the workplace, the military, faith-based organizations, mass disaster venues, and even the demands of more commonplace critical events, e.g., dealing with the psychological aftermath of accidents, robberies, suicide, homicide, or community violence. In addition, the RAPID model has been found effective in promoting personal and community resilience. Upon completion of the course, participants receive a certificate. If you choose to offer this course for extra credit or as part of a slate of required assignments students can select from, students can submit the certificate as proof of completion. If you’d like to expand this into a larger assignment, ask students to reflect on the three most important things they learned: “What were the three most important things you learned from this psychological first aid course? Why was each important?” Alternatively, if you don’t want students to necessarily complete the course, you can ask students to share an experience from their own life, an experience from a friend or family member’s life, or even an experience from a TV show or movie where having someone present who was knowledgeable about psychological first aid would have been beneficial and why. ... View more

In an earlier blog post , I reported on an analysis of 34,000+ Americans’ health interviews with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To my astonishment, Megan Traffanstedt, Sheila Mehta, and Steven LoBello found no evidence that depression rises in wintertime, or that wintertime depression is greater in higher latitudes, in cloudy rather than sunny communities, or on cloudy days. Moreover, they reported, even the wintertime “dark period” in northern Norway and Iceland is unaccompanied by increased depression. Given the effectiveness of light therapy and the acceptance of major depressive disorder “with seasonal pattern” (DSM-5), I suspected that we have not heard the last word on this. Indeed, criticism (here and here) and rebuttals (here and here) have already appeared. Reading Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s wonderful new book on big data mining inspired me to wonder if Google depression-related searches increase during wintertime. (To replicate the CDC result, I focused on the United States, though further replications with Canada and the UK yielded the same results.) First, I needed to confirm that Google Trends does reveal seasonally-related interests. Would searches for “basketball” surge in winter and peak during March Madness? Indeed, they do: We know that Google searches also reveal seasonal trends in physical illnesses. And sure enough, “flu” searches increase during the winter months. So, do searches for “depression” (mood-related) and “sad” similarly surge during wintertime? Nope, after a summer dip, they remain steady from mid-September through May: Ditto for Google entries for “I am depressed” and “I am sad.” My surprise at the disconfirmation of what I have taught—that wintertime depression is widespread—is like that experienced by my favorite detective, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple : “It wasn’t what I expected. But facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again.”   [Note to teachers: you can generate these data in class, in real time, via Trends.Google.com.] ... View more