If you are looking to freshen up your examples of experiments, here’s a pretty readable one from an open access journal. Pendry, P., Carr, A. M., Vandagriff, J. L., & Gee, N. R. (2021). Incorporating human–animal interaction into academic stress management programs: Effects on typical and at-risk college students’ executive function. AERA Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211011612 Here is a summary. Petting therapy dogs can help college students cope with stress. (2021). The Optimist Daily. Retrieved May 28, 2021, from https://www.optimistdaily.com/2021/05/petting-therapy-dogs-can-help-college-students-cope-with-stress While you can use this as your own lecture example, if you want to make this an assignment or a discussion, here are some questions. Use whatever best matches your coverage of experiments. Ask students to read both the summary and the original research article, then answer these questions. What is the independent variable? What are the levels of the independent variable? What is the dependent variable? How many different times was the dependent variable measured? Were participants randomly assigned to conditions? Why is random assignment important? In the research article, the authors identify three limitations to the study. What are they? Which of the three do you believe is the biggest limitation? Why? Identify at least two more pieces of evidence you would like to have before recommending that your college or university spend money on therapy dogs. ... View more

After covering correlations and experiments, share the February 17, 2021 edition of the PC and Pixel comic strip with your students. In the first panel, one of the characters reads a research finding: “It’s reported here that unhappy people watch more TV than happy folks.” Ask your students if they think this is correlational research or experimental research, and ask them to explain why. In the next two panels of the comic strip, the characters wonder if it’s that unhappiness leads to more TV watching or if more TV watching leads to unhappiness. Point out that since this is correlational research, we don’t know which is true. Either or both could be true. We just don’t know. Ask your students to generate some possible third variables that could influence both happiness and TV watching separately. For example, feelings of loneliness could lead to both feelings of unhappiness and greater TV watching (as a source of company, say). Explain that researchers may take correlational research, and use it to generate hypotheses that could be tested by conducting an experiment. If people are made to feel unhappier, they will watch more TV. If people are made to watch more TV, they will be unhappier. If people are made to feel lonely, they will be both unhappier and watch more TV. Working in small groups, ask your students to design experiments that would test each of these hypotheses. “Be sure to identify the independent variable and its levels and the dependent variable. Be sure to describe how they would operationalize the variables.” Bring the class back together, and ask one group to share their design for testing the first hypotheses. Invite other groups to share how they operationalized the independent variable and dependent variable. Take a minute to walk students through what the different results from each test of the hypothesis would tell us. Point out that there is no right or wrong way to operationalize a variable. In fact, if the hypothesis is supported across experiments that operationalized the variables different, the more confident we are in the findings. Next, ask your students if they have any concerns about intentionally trying to make people feel unhappier, either as the independent variable or as the dependent variable. Invite students to share their concerns. If you haven’t already, introduce students to the APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The first of the five general principles is beneficence and nonmaleficence. This principle reads, in part: Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm. In their professional actions, psychologists seek to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally and other affected persons, and the welfare of animal subjects of research. The third of the principles—integrity—is also relevant here. This principle reads in its entirety: Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology. In these activities psychologists do not steal, cheat or engage in fraud, subterfuge, or intentional misrepresentation of fact. Psychologists strive to keep their promises and to avoid unwise or unclear commitments. In situations in which deception may be ethically justifiable to maximize benefits and minimize harm, psychologists have a serious obligation to consider the need for, the possible consequences of, and their responsibility to correct any resulting mistrust or other harmful effects that arise from the use of such techniques. Given these ethical principles, are students more comfortable with some of the experimental designs they created than others? For example, are experiments that bring about temporary and mild unhappiness better than designs that are, say, more intense? Does the knowledge that these experiments would bring—and the good it would mean for humanity—outweigh the harm they may cause in the short-term? Be sure to describe the purpose of a debriefing. Conclude this discussion by emphasizing that these are the ethics questions every researcher and every member of an Institutional Review Board struggle with. No one takes these questions lightly. If you’d like to give your students some library database practice, ask your students to find three to five peer-reviewed research articles on the connection between happiness and TV watching. For each article, students should identify if the research reported was correlational or experimental (and how they know) and provide a paragraph summarizing the results. ... View more

At some point in college or grad school, I was given a short article that explained the different sections of a typical psychology journal article. I have a vague memory of being told to always read the abstract first, but beyond that, I don’t remember be given any guidance on how to actually read the article. Eventually I figured out that journal articles that are sharing new research are not meant to be read from beginning to end. True confession: I started doing this pretty early in my journal-article-reading career, but I felt guilty about it. I had no reason to feel guilty. Wish I would have known that then. The Learning Scientists blog has a nice collection of articles on how to read a research journal article. Take a look at that list to see if there is anything there you want to share with your students that particularly meets your goals. For example, the library at Teesside University has brief descriptions of each article section. If you’d like your students to hear from academics themselves on how they approach research journal articles, the Science article is a good choice. Alternatively, you may choose to give your students a few easy-to-read articles and ask your students to sort out the different elements of a research article. Ask your students to look at (not necessarily “read”), say, three of the following articles, all of which have 12 or fewer pages of text. Work with your librarians to get permalinks to this articles from your library’s databases. Barry, C. T., McDougall, K. H., Anderson, A. C., Perkins, M. D., Lee-Rowland, L. M., Bender, I., & Charles, N. E. (2019). ‘Check your selfie before you wreck your selfie’: Personality ratings of Instagram users as a function of self-image posts. Journal of Research in Personality, 82, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.07.001 Gosnell, C. L. (2019). Receiving quality positive event support from peers may enhance student connection and the learning environment. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000178 Howe, L. C., Goyer, J. P., & Crum, A. J. (2017). Harnessing the placebo effect: Exploring the influence of physician characteristics on placebo response. Health Psychology, 36(11), 1074–1082. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000499.supp Hyman, I. E., Boss, S. M., Wise, B. M., McKenzie, K. E., & Caggiano, J. M. (2010). Did you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 597–607. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1638 Reed, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2017). Learning on hold: Cell phones sidetrack parent-child interactions. Developmental Psychology, 53(8), 1428–1436. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000292 Rhodes, M., Leslie, S. J., Yee, K. M., & Saunders, K. (2019). Subtle linguistic cues increase girls’ engagement in science. Psychological Science, 30(3), 455–466. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618823670 Soicher, R. N., & Gurung, R. A. R. (2017). Do exam wrappers increase metacognition and performance? A single course intervention. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 16(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475725716661872 Wirth, J. H., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2009). The role of gender in mental-illness stigma: A national experiment. Psychological Science, 20(2), 169–173. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02282.x Give your students the following instructions and questions. Amend them to your liking. Skim each of these three articles: Barry, C. T., McDougall, K. H., Anderson, A. C., Perkins, M. D., Lee-Rowland, L. M., Bender, I., & Charles, N. E. (2019). ‘Check your selfie before you wreck your selfie’: Personality ratings of Instagram users as a function of self-image posts. Journal of Research in Personality, 82, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.07.001 Gosnell, C. L. (2019). Receiving quality positive event support from peers may enhance student connection and the learning environment. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000178 Howe, L. C., Goyer, J. P., & Crum, A. J. (2017). Harnessing the placebo effect: Exploring the influence of physician characteristics on placebo response. Health Psychology, 36(11), 1074–1082. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000499.supp Research articles published in journals follow some basic conventions that are designed to make them easy for researchers and students to read. Almost all research articles have these six main components, and always in this order. Using the three articles you skimmed, your goal is to identify the basic structure of research articles. For each component, answer the questions given. Abstract In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the abstract. Introduction (usually not labeled, but it always comes after the abstract) In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the introduction. The research hypotheses can almost always be found near the end of the introduction. Identify at least one hypothesis from each article. Method In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the methods section. In the methods section, you will see that all of the articles contain similar information. Identify three different types of information that is common across all three articles. Results In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the results section. If you don’t understand much of what is written in this section, that’s okay. This section is written for fellow researchers, not Intro Psych students. Copy/paste (use quotation marks!) one sentence from the results section of each article that made little or no sense to you. Discussion In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the discussion section. References In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the references section. Choose one reference from each article that, based on the title alone, you might be interested in reading. How would you go about getting that article? Researchers almost always read the abstract first. After that, what they read next depends on why they are looking at the article at all. For each of the following scenarios, match the researcher with the section of the article they are likely to read first after the abstract: Introduction, method, results, discussion, references. A. Dr. Akiya Yagi wanted to read more about the conclusions the researchers drew from having done this study. B. Dr. Selva Hernandez-Lopez is doing research on these same psychological concepts, and she’s looking for useful research articles that she may have missed. C. Dr. DeAndre Thomas is looking for different ways to measure a particular psychological concept. D. Dr. Kaitlyn Kronvalds read some information in the abstract that made her wonder about the statistics that were used to analyze the data. E. Dr. Bahiya Cham is about start doing research on a different set of psychological concepts and wants to learn more about the different theories behind those concepts and how those theories are being used to generate hypotheses.   ... View more

It used to be that money only made us happier up to a certain point. New research shows that this relationship is changing and getting stronger over time. Why is this happening? http://ow.ly/Hgyt50D2QjZ ... View more

Learning how to learn assignment My father used to get so frustrated with one of my brothers. My father would say, with great exasperation, “I talk to you until I’m blue in the face…” Even though my father’s “talk” was—apparently—not very effective, it didn’t keep him from talking. Over and over again. Until he was blue in the face. How many of us instructors are like my father? We tell our students about the best study strategies until we are blue in the face, and it feels like most of our students continue to use less effective methods. Maybe we should take a different approach. Carolyn R. Brown-Kramer (2021) asked her Intro Psych students to read one of four research articles where each article investigated the effectiveness of a study strategy. Two articles were about more effective study strategies: distributed practice (Seabrook et al., 2005) and practice testing (McDaniel et al., 2011). Two articles were about less effective study strategies: rereading (Rawson & Kintsch, 2005) and forming mental images (Schmeck et al., 2014). Students were instructed to “write a three- to four-page paper summarizing and analyzing [their assigned article] critically” and then “drawing specific connections to how they study, how they could use the article’s results to improve their studying behavior, and their plans to adopt (or not to adopt) the strategy about which they had read.” (Contact Brown-Kramer for assignment instructions and scoring rubric.) What impact did this assignment have on students? Over the course of the term, students reported using more of the more effective strategies and fewer of the less effective strategies. Students who read the practice testing article (McDaniel et al., 2011) did much better on the exams following this assignment than students who read the other three articles. Students who were given this assignment did better on the exams following this assignment and in the course overall than students from an earlier term who were not given this assignment. Students who reported using the more effective study strategies and using them more frequently did better on the exams and in the course overall. Brown-Kramer (2021) has provided us with some pretty compelling evidence that there is something we can do as instructors that will help students change their study strategies. I wonder what component of this assignment is key. For example, would the application piece be enough, or is the analytic section crucial? Or perhaps the analytic section ensures that students are reading the article carefully. In that case, would some other assignment instructions that would also ensure careful reading—such as answering a few targeted questions about different sections of the article—be just as effective? Brown-Kramer’s assignment would fit as part of your coverage of research methods or memory. If you use it as part of your memory coverage, the research methods review would be a terrific application of distributive practice.   References Brown-Kramer, C. R. (2021). Improving students’ study habits and course performance with a “learning how to learn” assignment. Teaching of Psychology, 48(1), 48–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320959926 McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K., Huelser, B. J., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and placement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 399–414. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021782 Rawson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (2005). Rereading effects depend on time of test. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(1), 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.97.1.70 Schmeck, A., Mayer, R. E., Opfermann, M., Pfeiffer, V., & Leutner, D. (2014). Drawing pictures during learning from scientific text: Testing the generative drawing effect and the prognostic drawing effect. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 39(4), 275–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.07.003 Seabrook, R., Brown, G. D. A., & Solity, J. E. (2005). Distributed and massed practice: From laboratory to classroom. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19(1), 107–122. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1066   ... View more

FEBRUARY 10th | 2:00 PM ET Dr. Kelly Goedert and Dr. Susan Nolan will describe how the use of statistics in psychological science is changing as the field undergoes an open-science revolution. They will highlight ways to update your undergraduate statistics course that center on an ethical approach to analyzing, interpreting, and reporting data, and will offer engaging examples and activities you can use in your classroom. WATCH THE RECORDING ... View more

There must be a cognitive bias that explains why it is so hard for us to learn that correlation does not mean causation. Okay, we can learn it fine. Applying it consistently is the hard part. Last week here in the Pacific Northwest we had a few days of our typical late fall weather: highs in the low 60s (upper teens Celsius) and rainy. And that’s when I discovered that I’m not ready for late fall. Fortunately for me, it’s early fall, and we’re now looking at a 10-day stretch of mid-70s (low 20s Celsius) and sunny. This morning, I opened my news feed to see this article: “Thinking like a Norwegian may help you cope with a winter lockdown.” Oslo's average temperature in January is 32 degrees (0 Celsius), and they get about 6 hours of daylight, so I thought, “Perfect! Let’s see what the experimental evidence says. I could use some tips!” Researchers gave a sample of Norwegians a questionnaire asking about their attitudes about winter, their mental health, and their life satisfaction. Those who had better mental health and higher ratings of life satisfaction had better attitudes about winter. Those who had poorer mental health and higher ratings of life satisfaction had poorer attitudes about winter. This correlational—not experimental—research doesn’t help me at all. After covering correlations and experiments in Intro Psych, in a synchronous or asynchronous discussion, provide students with this discussion prompt: Read “Thinking like a Norwegian may help you cope with a winter lockdown.” Is this article describing a correlational study or an experimental study? How do you know? The article suggests that if you change how you think about winter, you will feel better. In other words, they’re saying that how you think about winter will cause you to feel better. Based on this research study alone, is that conclusion warranted? Why or why not? Monitor the group discussions. If they’re falling into the trap of thinking “it makes sense that how one thinks about winter would affect one’s attitude toward winter,” prompt students with this: This was a correlational study. They measured attitudes toward winter and measured levels of mental health and levels of life satisfaction. They found positive correlations. When attitudes toward winter were high, mental health was better (and vice versa). When attitudes toward winter were high, life satisfaction was high (and vice versa). It is possible that those who have better mental health and higher life satisfaction already would see winter more positively. It may not be that attitudes toward winter cause life satisfaction/mental health. It may be that life satisfaction/mental health cause attitudes toward winter. Or maybe there are third factors. Can you think of any third factors that could cause people to have positive attitudes toward winter and have better mental health and higher life satisfaction? Given that this research was correlational, what would have been a better article title? If you’d like to extend this discussion or spin it off into an assignment, give students this prompt. While correlations cannot tell us which variable is the cause and which is the effect, experimental research can. Here are two hypotheses. Design an experiment that would test each of these hypotheses. Hypothesis 1: Seeing winter in a more positive way can cause people to feel more satisfied about their lives. Design an experiment that would test this hypothesis. Be sure to identify the independent variable and dependent variable. Hypothesis 2: Feeling more positive about our lives can cause us to see winter in a more positive light. Design an experiment that would test this hypothesis. Be sure to identify the independent variable and dependent variable. ... 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

It’s not very often we get to watch the birth of a social norm. Or at least not on this scale, nor at this speed. Mask-wearing was practically non-existent in the U.S. in March 2020. In late July, while certainly not universal, mask-wearing has become more common. As I’ve watched the norm shift in my community over these last few months, I’ve wondered about how other norms came into being. For example, seat belt use. In 1968, the U.S. law went into effect requiring all vehicles to have seat belts—except buses, such as the ones that carry children to and from school. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that many states enacted seatbelt laws—wear a seatbelt or get fined. Now 90% of people in the U.S. wear seatbelts, with just about every state showing increased percentages since 2004, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (data for 2004 to 2011; data for 2012-2019). In looking at the data, my first thought was, how did they get these data? Self-report surveys? Nope. The data come from observational studies conducted by each state using a uniform set of observational criteria, called “Uniform Criteria for State Observational Surveys of Seat Belt Use.” I kid you not. After covering observational research, present this scenario to your students (in a synchronous or asynchronous discussion): Congratulations! You received a federal grant to conduct research on seat belt use in our state/territory. Your task is to estimate seat belt use. How would you select where you are going to do your observations? Are there particular places you would exclude? Explain your rationale. What time of day would you do your observations? Are there particular times you would exclude? Explain your rationale. Who would you observe? Just the driver or also passengers? Explain your rationale. If you’re observing at an intersection, would you observe all cars at the intersection? Or just those traveling, say, north/south or east/west? How would you decide? Explain your rationale. If you’re observing a two-lane road, would you observe cars traveling in both directions, or just one direction? How would you decide? Explain your rationale. Because of the scope of this study, you will need to hire and train people to do the observations. How would you ensure that the observations they make are accurate? Explain your rationale. After students have made their responses to these questions: Visit the Uniform Criteria for State Observational Surveys of Seat Belt Use. These are the criteria the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives to states to conduct their annual seat belt studies. The reports are then compiled and sent to the NHTSA. You can see the compiled data for 2012-2019. For A through F, compare your criteria with those of the NHTSA, particularly sections 1340.5 through 1340.8. Would you be in compliance? If not, what would you need to change? In reflecting on everyone’s initial observations plans, who came closest to the NHTSA criteria? Explain your choice. If you’d like to expand this discussion, consider asking students to take what they learned from the NHTSA criteria and use it to answer these questions about the prevalence of mask-wearing in your state/territory. How would you select where you are going to do your observations? Are there particular places you would exclude? Explain your rationale. What time of day would you do your observations? Are there particular times you would exclude? Explain your rationale. Who would you observe? Adults only or children, too? Explain your rationale. Where would you do your observations? How would you decide? Explain your rationale. Because of the scope of this study, you will need to hire and train people to do the observations. How would you ensure that the observations they make are accurate? Explain your rationale. How would define “mask-wearing”? Would any facial covering count? Does it need to be covering the nose? Explain your rationale. ... View more

Students appreciate examples that are meaningful to them. How about a little selfie research? After covering experiments in the Intro Psych research methods chapter, ask students to think about how they would do an experiment to find out if people perceived those who post a lot of selfies to Instagram differently than those who post a lot of “posies”—photos of themselves taken by other people. Emphasize that the question is not how the people actually are, but how others think they are. Give students the independent variable: the last 30 Instagram photos—mostly selfies or mostly posies. Next, ask students to jot down some dependent variables. What might those different perceptions be? For example, would your students expect those with lots of selfies to be perceived as being more self-absorbed? After students have had a couple minutes to think about these, ask students to work in pairs or small groups to come up with their list of dependent variables. Once discussion has died down, ask each group to volunteer one dependent variable that has not already been identified by a previous group. Write the dependent variables where the class can see them. After each group has given one, ask students for any other dependent variables they came up with that haven’t already been named. Explain that in an experimental study, researchers could create fake Instagram accounts and manipulate how many selfies and how many posies to show participants who would then rate the owners of those fake accounts on each of the dependent variables.  In a recent correlational study, researchers wanted to know exactly that. Do people perceived Instagram users differently depending on how many selfies or posies the users posted (Barry et al., 2019)? Participants in this study rated 30 individuals based on the last 30 photos posted to their Instagram accounts. Researchers measured 13 dependent variables. Remember, these are all perceptions people had of the Instagram users based on their last 30 photos: self-esteem, liking adventure, loneliness, extraversion, trying new things, success, likeability, dependability, would be a good friend, self-absorption, worried about being left out, emotionality, and considerate of others. Those who had more selfies were perceived to: Have low self-esteem Not like adventure Be lonely Not be outgoing Not like trying new things Not be successful Not be likeable Those who had more posies were perceived to: Have high self-esteem Like adventure Not be lonely Be outgoing Be dependable Like trying new things Be successful Be likeable Be a good friend There were no significant correlations between number of selfies or number of posies and perceptions of being self-absorbed, worried about being left out, being emotional, or being considerate of others. After sharing these results, ask students what follow-up research questions should be addressed next. Or, if students were to replicate this study, what changes would they make?   Reference Barry, C. T., McDougall, K. H., Anderson, A. C., Perkins, M. D., Lee-Rowland, L. M., Bender, I., & Charles, N. E. (2019). ‘Check your selfie before you wreck your selfie’: Personality ratings of Instagram users as a function of self-image posts. Journal of Research in Personality, 82, 103843. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.07.001 ... View more

After covering experiments and correlations in Intro Psych or as a research methods booster in the Stress & Health chapter, ask your students if they have heard that you should walk 10,000 steps a day. Do they know where that recommendation comes from? Did anyone guess that it seems to come from a 1964 Japanese marketing campaign for a pedometer (“Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day to keep fit?,” 2015)? Recent correlational research with almost 17,000 women aged 62-101 (average age 72) found that those who took about 4,400 steps per day were 41% less likely to die during the study (mean study length: 4.3 years) than those who took 2,700 per day. The more steps walked per day, the lower the mortality. Benefits maxed out at 7,500 steps; walking more than that did not reduce mortality rates. Annually, researchers asked participants for “sociodemographic characteristics, health habits, and personal and family medical history,” as well as at the start of the study, “a 131-item food frequency questionnaire.” All things being equal, those who walked more (up to 7,500 steps per day), lived longer (Lee et al., 2019). When you have this many participants who are in that age range, you can use mortality as your primary dependent measure. Experimental research using other dependent measures such as blood pressure (Moreau et al., 2001) and cholesterol (Dasgupta et al., 2017; Sugiura et al., 2002) have found benefits to increasing number of steps walked per day. With students working in small groups, ask students to design an experiment to test the effects of walking on a dependent measure of their choosing. How many levels of the independent variable would they use? How would they ensure the number of steps walked by their participants? What dependent measures would they choose? How long would they run the study? What population would they choose as participants? Visit the groups answering any questions they may have. After the groups have finished their discussion, ask each group to report their independent variable and dependent variables. Complete this activity by explaining to students the importance of understanding the theory behind the research (on what dependent measures can we expect a benefit of exercise?), the importance of reading research articles on what has already been done (what have others found and how may that inform our study?), and the importance of doing research in many different ways (such as using different operational definitions).   References Dasgupta, K., Rosenberg, E., Joseph, L., Cooke, A. B., Trudeau, L., Bacon, S., … Smarter Trial Group. (2017). Physician step prescription and monitoring to improve ARTERial health (SMARTER): A randomized controlled trial in patients with type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, 19(5), 685–704. https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.12874 Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day to keep fit? (2015, June 17). BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33154510 Lee, I.-M., Shiroma, E. J., Kamada, M., Bassett, D. R., Matthews, C. E., & Buring, J. E. (2019). Association of step volume and intensity with all-cause mortality in older women. JAMA Internal Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.0899 Moreau, K. L., Degamo, R., Langley, J., McMahon, C., Howley, E. T., Bassett Jr, D. R., & Thompson, D. L. (2001). Increasing daily walking lowers blood pressure in postmenopausal women. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33(11), 1825–1831. Sugiura, H., Suguira, H., Kajima, K., Mirbod, S. M., Iwata, H., & Matsuoka, T. (2002). Effects of long-term moderate exercise and increase in number of daily steps on serum lipids in women: Randomised controlled trial. BMC Women’s Health, 2(1). ... View more

One of the perennial challenges in teaching Intro Psych is helping students understand that knowing that two variables are, say, positively correlated does not tell us anything about what causes that relationship. Discussion of this study would work during your coverage of correlations or during your coverage of circadian rhythms as an opportunity to revisit correlations. The 6.5-year study of 433,268 British adults (Knutson & von Schantz, 2018) provides us with an illustrative example. The researchers asked each person “Do you consider yourself to be definitely a morning person [27%], more a morning than evening person [35%], more an evening than morning person [28%], definitely an evening person [9%].” “Increased eveningness, particularly definite evening type, was associated with increased prevalence of a wide variety of diseases or disorders, including dia- betes, psychological, neurological, respiratory and gastrointestinal/abdominal disorders.” If your Intro Psych students are like most people, they want to jump to the conclusion that being a night owl will cause a number of health problems that will eventually lead to an early death. The lead author of this study, Kristen Knutson, thinks the root of the problem is really that of a mismatch. Many of our societies are geared toward the morning chronotype. If you have an evening chronotype but are trying to work, say, 9am to 5pm, you’re fighting against your own internal clock (Khan, 2018).   Ask students to work in pairs or small groups to generate a list of factors that are associated with good health. Perhaps their list includes things like exercising, getting good sleep, eating well, and developing and maintaining strong social ties. Now ask students to consider why these things may be more difficult for night owls than morning larks. For example, how many recreational sports teams compete at 11pm? How many spin or yoga classes are offered at midnight? How easy is it to find a restaurant with healthy fare at 10:30pm? How hard is it to get enough sleep when you don’t get sleepy until 2am but have to be up at 7am to be a work by 9am? Maintaining social ties is difficult for night owls who want to hang out at 10pm when most of their friends are headed to bed (Clark, 2019). The cause of the correlation between chronotype and health may be due to this whole host of third factors. What if night owls were allowed to be night owls? Would a night owl yoga instructor, for example, teaching at 11pm have night owl students? Would night owls get more sleep if they worked, say, 2pm to 10pm? If time allows, ask volunteers to share their chronotypes and how they’ve adjusted their schedules to fit that chronotype. Or, if their schedules don’t fit, to share why that’s a struggle. In closing this activity, reiterate that knowing that there is a relationship between two variables tells us nothing about why two variables are related.    References Clark, B. (2019, May 23). No, night owls aren’t doomed to die early. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/smarter-living/no-night-owls-arent-doomed-to-die-early.html Khan, A. (2018, April 11). Bad news for night owls. Their risk of early death is 10% higher than for early risers, study finds. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-night-owl-death-20180412-story.html Knutson, K. L., & von Schantz, M. (2018). Associations between chronotype, morbidity and mortality in the UK Biobank cohort. Chronobiology International, 35(8), 1045–1053. https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2018.1454458     ... View more

Last week, I gave five examples of experiments you can use to give students practice at identifying independent and dependent variables. Here are five more. After covering these concepts, ask students to work in pairs or small groups to identify both the independent variable(s) and the dependent variable(s) in each example. Hypothesis: If people use third person pronouns to describe an event that caused anxiety, they will be more likely to report visualizing the scene as a distant observer would. Researchers asked study participants to recall a time when they were “worried about something happening to” them. Participants were then randomly assigned to either the first person condition or the third person condition. In the first person condition, participants reflected on their experience through answering questions with an I/my focus, like “Why did I feel this way?” and “What were the underlying causes and reasons for my feelings?” In third person condition, participants reflected on their experience through answering questions with an outsider’s focus by using their own name in their reflection, like “Why did Jane feel this way?” and “What were the underlying causes and reasons for Jane’s feelings?” When asked, participants in the third-person group reported seeing the imagined event unfold further away from them than reported by participants in the first-person group. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.  Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., … Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035173   Hypothesis: If people hear how many others who stayed in their hotel room chose to reuse their hotel room towels, they will be more likely to reuse their towels, too.   The hotel room attendant supervisor placed one of five signs in the bathrooms of randomly-assigned hotel rooms. Each sign carried a different message: (1) a general “save the environment” message, (2) a “join your fellow guests” message explaining that 75% of guests who stayed at the hotel reused their towels, (3) another “join your fellow guests” message but this one explained that 75% of people who stayed in that very hotel room reused their towels, (4) a “join your fellow citizens” message that shifted the in-group from hotel guests to the broader citizens, and (5) a “join the men and women” message that shifted the in-group to one’s own gender group. Hotel guests who received message 3 about others who stayed in their hotel room were much more likely to reuse their towels (49.3%) as compared to all of the other groups (average re-use 42.8%). In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.  Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). A room with a viewpoint: Using social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(3), 472–482. https://doi.org/10.1086/586910   Hypothesis: If people are given unwrapped pieces of chocolate, they will consume them more quickly than those given wrapped pieces of chocolate. Participants received six pieces of chocolate. Random assignment determined which participants received separately wrapped pieces and which received unwrapped pieces. Participants were asked to record when they ate the chocolate. Those who received the unwrapped pieces ate most of them within two days. Those with wrapped pieces took longer. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.  Cheema, A., & Soman, D. (2008). The effect of partitions on controlling consumption. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 665–675. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.45.6.665Use the "Insert Citation" button to add citations to this document.   Hypothesis: If people receive information about available health services, they will use those services more. Researchers sampled several communities in India on their use of available health services. They randomly assigned half of the communities to receive pamphlets and community meetings that informed them of services. A year later, these residents had more prenatal examinations, more tetanus vaccinations, more prenatal supplements, and more infant vaccinations than people in the communities that did not receive the pamphlets or hold the community meetings. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variables. Pandey, P., Sehgal, A. R., Riboud, M., Levine, D., & Goyal, M. (2007). Informing resource-poor populations and the delivery of entitled health and social services in rural India: A cluster randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 298(16), 1867–1875. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.298.16.1867   Hypothesis: If we invite girls to “do science” as compared to “be a scientist,” they will persist longer in playing a science game. Researchers randomly assigned young girls to hear that “Today we’re going to do science” or hear that “Today we’re going to be scientists” before playing a science game where the children had to make guesses based on observation. After failing at their guesses, the experimenter the child if she wanted to keep playing or do something else. The girls in the “do science” condition were more likely to persist in playing the game than those in the “be a scientist” condition. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable. Rhodes, M., Leslie, S. J., Yee, K. M., & Saunders, K. (2019). Subtle linguistic cues increase girls’ engagement in science. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618823670 ... View more

Psychology students often struggle with the difference between the independent and dependent variables. After covering these concepts, ask students to work in pairs or small groups to identify both the independent variable(s) and the dependent variable(s) in each example. Hypothesis: Creating concrete examples will improve recall. "Students read a short text that introduced eight concepts. Some students were then prompted to generate concrete examples of each concept followed by definition restudy, whereas others only restudied definitions for the same amount of time. Two days later, students completed final tests involving example generation and definition cued recall." (In the definition cued recall test, the cues were the names of each of the concepts; the "recall" was the student writing down the definition.) Those who created their own examples of each of the concepts did better on the test than students who just restudied the concepts.  In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.  Rawson, K. A., & Dunlosky, J. (2016). How effective is example generation for learning declarative concepts? Educational Psychology Review, 28(3), 649–672. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-016-9377-z   Hypothesis: Attending to a phone will decrease the likelihood of seeing a unicycling clown. People, after walking across a college square, were asked if they saw a clown unicycling around a central sculpture. Only 25% of cell phone users reported seeing the clown as compared to 60% of people who were listening to music, 51% of people who were walking alone with no technological distractions, and 71% of people who were walking with another person. This type of study is called a quasi-experiment because participants weren't randomly assigned to conditions. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.  Hyman, I. E., Boss, S. M., Wise, B. M., McKenzie, K. E., & Caggiano, J. M. (2010). Did you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone.  Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 597–607. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1638   Hypothesis: Being sleep-deprived will increase the desire for high-calorie foods. After either get a full night’s sleep or staying awake all night, participants were asked how desirable each of 80 different foods were.  When participants were sleep-deprived, they found high-calorie foods more desirable than when they had a full night’s sleep. This type study is called a within-subjects design because the same participants got both the full night’s sleep and, on another night, stayed awake all night. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.  Greer, S. M., Goldstein, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2013). The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain. Nature Communications, 4, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3259   Hypothesis: “Inflated praise [will] decrease challenge-seeking in children with low self-esteem but [will] increase challenge-seeking in children with high self-esteem.” Children (ages 8 to 12), after having their self-esteem measured, “drew a famous painting… and were told that that a professional painter, who in reality did not exist, would examine their drawing.”  Each child then received a handwritten note that they were told was written by the painter. The note said either, “You made an incredibly beautiful drawing!,” “You made a beautiful drawing!,” or did not address the drawing. Children then could choose to replicate two easy drawings (“If you choose to draw these easy pictures, you won’t make many mistakes, but you won’t learn much either.”) or two difficult drawings (“If you choose to draw thsese difficult pictures, you might make many mistakes, but you’ll definitely learn a lot, too.”). Children with low self-esteem who received the incredibly beautiful praise were more likely to choose the easy drawings. Children with low self-esteem who received the beautiful praise were likely to choose the difficult drawings. Those results were reversed for children with low self-esteem. In this experiment, identify the two independent variables and the dependent variable. Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Orobio de Castro, B., Overbeek, G., & Bushman, B. J. (2014). “That’s not just beautiful-that’s incredibly beautiful!”: The adverse impact of inflated praise on children with low self-esteem. Psychological Science, 25(3), 728–735. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613514251   Hypothesis: Tasters will rate vinegar-laced beer as better than regular beer if they are not first told that vinegar has been added to the beer. Participants were invited to taste two different beers and express their preference for one over the other. Participants were told that the beer was laced with vinegar either before or after tasting or were told nothing. Participants who weren’t told that the beer was laced with vinegar or were told after they tasted it preferred it over the regular beer. Those who were told it was laced with vinegar before tasting it preferred the regular beer. In this experiment, identify the independent variable and the dependent variable. Lee, L., Frederick, S., & Ariely, D. (2006). Try it, you’ll like it: The influence of expectation, consumption, and revelation on preferences for beer. Psychological Science, 17(12), 1054–1058. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01829.x ... 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