Last month (August 2023) I wrote a blog post with suggestions on how we can embed financial literacy education into the Intro Psych course (Frantz, 2023). If I had not been behind on my science periodicals reading, I would have seen the excellent interview piece with financial psychologist Wendy De La Rosa in the Monitor on Psychology (Fairbank, 2023). De La Rosa and her colleague Stephanie Tully have been researching subjective wealth perceptions. “A person’s perception of their financial situation is often more important than their objective financial status” (p.33) (Fairbank, 2023). If you believe that you’re in dire financial straits—whether you actually are or not—the stress of that belief will interfere with your sleep, your concentration, and your health. One study found a statistically significant .32 correlation between household income and subjective financial situation (Gasiorowska, 2014). In other words, yes, the higher one’s household income, the higher one tends to rate their subjective financial situation—defined as “perceived financial situation, ability to make ends meet and adequacy of income to fulfill needs and wants” (Gasiorowska, 2014, p. 72). But a correlation of .32 is well below a perfect 1.0 correlation. After covering correlations, ask students what other variables they think may affect how one evaluates their own financial situation such that there would be a mismatch between how much money one actually has and their perception of how much money they have. The biggest mediator the researchers found was financial control (Gasiorowska, 2014). The more control a person has over their finances, the better able they are to align their actual income with their perceptions of that income. This reminds me of a couple I knew. He handled all of the finances, because she didn’t want to. However, she had high anxiety around how much money they had. She was certain they were going to be destitute any minute. He would assure her that they had plenty of money to make ends meet and then some. He would show her the bank statements and the bills. It would allay her fears for a bit, and then the anxiety would come roaring right back. While this study was not done with children or adolescents, I have to wonder how much of a disconnect there might be between their family’s actual household income and their subjective wealth perception. I wonder how many caregivers bring their children and adolescents into financial discussions. For example, “This is how much money we have coming in every month. Here is how much everything costs: utilities, cell phones, Internet, groceries, entertainment. This is how much we’re able to save.” In the Monitor article, we learn that Wendy De La Rosa’s mother did not speak English, so as a child De La Rosa translated financial documents for her mother, such as bank notices and credit card statements. De La Rosa had a front row seat to her family’s financial situation. With such early training on the inner workings of household finances, I imagine De La Rosa entered adolescence with an understanding of household money-management that many children don’t have. De La Rosa and Tully appear to have found another variable that helps create a mismatch between actual income and subjective wealth perceptions: pay frequency. “[G]etting paid more frequently increases subjective wealth perceptions and as a result, we tend to spend more than if we got paid less frequently” (Fairbank, 2023, p. 34). This really underlines the importance of creating a household budget and sticking to it. It will be hard to pay rent if the money is going out as fast as it’s coming in.   De La Rosa has a TED series called “Your Money and Your Mind.” There are eight videos, all less than five minutes long. This could make for an interesting online discussion prompt: Watch the eight videos created by financial psychologist Wendy De La Rosa. Which video is the most important one for your friends to watch? Why? Lastly, what was the most interesting thing you learned from that video? Explain. Lastly, I wonder how many students would enroll in a Financial Psychology course. It would be a fun one to teach!   References Fairbank, R. (2023, June). 5 questions for Wendy De La Rosa. Monitor on Psychology, 54(4), 33–34. Frantz, S. (2023, August 10). Increasing financial literacy through Intro Psych: Anchoring & operant conditioning. Macmillan and BFW Teaching Community. https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/psychology-blog/increasing-financial-literacy-through-intro-psych-anchoring-amp/ba-p/19235 Gasiorowska, A. (2014). The relationship between objective and subjective wealth is moderated by financial control and mediated by money anxiety. Journal of Economic Psychology, 43, 64–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2014.04.007     ... View more

As of June 2023, recreational cannabis use is legal Canada (Department of Justice, Canada, 2021) and in 23 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands (Reuters, 2023). Not that it has to be legal for people to use it. In a 2022 national survey, researchers asked people about their marijuana use. Of full-time college students between the ages of 19 and 22, 22.1% reported that they used marijuana at least once in the last 30 days, whereas only 4.7% reported that they used it daily. Both numbers were lower than for age-matched non-college students (28.2% monthly and 14.5% daily). That 30-day percentage of 22.1% for college students is about where the numbers have been since 2013. To see these kind of numbers for marijuana use, we have to go back to the early 1980s. In 1980, a whopping one-third (34.8%) of college students reported using marijuana in the previous 30 days (Patrick et al., 2023). Why do college students use marijuana? In one qualitative study, one reason participants gave was that they used it for a boost in creativity (Kilwein et al., 2022). But does marijuana actually make users more creative? Or do they just think they are more creative? After covering experimental design, give your students this hypothesis: Cannabis use increases creativity. Ask students for the independent variable (including an experimental group and a control group) and the dependent variable(s). For all variables, ask for operational definitions. After students have had a couple minutes to consider this on their own, ask students to work in small groups to create their experimental design. If time allows, ask students how or where they would find volunteers for their study. What are the ethical concerns that they need to take into consideration? After group discussion dies down, ask a volunteer from each group to share their design. Now share with students how researchers investigated this same question (Heng et al., 2023). To recruit participants, researchers posted flyers in recreational cannabis dispensaries in Washington (a state where such use is legal) and on Craigslist. Users who smoked one joint no more than a few times a week were selected to participate. Anyone who reported being pregnant was excluded. Participants were mailed cannabis test kits and emailed the study information. Participants who successfully completed the study received a $25 gift card. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: high during the creativity test or not high during the creativity test. “High” was operationally defined as having used marijuana in the last 15 minutes. The researchers note that the participants had to supply their own cannabis. “Instead of stipulating a specific time to complete the study, participants were asked to begin the study within 15-min of their volitional cannabis use. This addressed the IRB restriction of not instructing cannabis use” (Heng et al., 2023, p. 637). Now we need an operational definition for creativity. “Participants were asked to generate as many creative uses as they could for a brick in 4 min” (Heng et al., 2023, p. 637). They also rated their brick ideas based on how creative, original, and novel they thought they were on a 5-point scale.  Then they used the saliva test kit and mailed it back to the researchers. What did the researchers find? Participants who used cannabis before doing the creativity task thought they were more creative than did those in the control group. But were they really more creative” The researchers asked a couple research assistants who were blind to conditions to evaluate the creativity of the answers, and they also asked participants on Prolific to do the same. Neither the research assistants nor the Prolific participants saw any difference in creativity between the groups. There was a bit more to the research design if you’d like to share this with your students as a way to conclude this activity. The researchers also asked the participants how happy and joyful they were. The researchers found that it was this mood state that mediated creativity evaluations. Cannabis use was more likely to result in higher creativity ratings if the person was happy while high.     References Department of Justice, Canada. (2021, July 7). Cannabis legalization and regulation. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cannabis/ Heng, Y. T., Barnes, C. M., & Yam, K. C. (2023). Cannabis use does not increase actual creativity but biases evaluations of creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(4), 635–646. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000599 Kilwein, T. M., Wedell, E., Herchenroeder, L., Bravo, A. J., & Looby, A. (2022). A qualitative examination of college students’ perceptions of cannabis: Insights into the normalization of cannabis use on a college campus. Journal of American College Health, 70(3), 733–741. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1762612 Patrick, M. E., Miech, R. A., Johnston, L. D., & O’Malley, P. M. (2023). Monitoring the Future Panel Study annual report: National data on substance use among adults ages 19 to 60, 1976-2022 (Monitoring the Future Monograph Series). Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. https://monitoringthefuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/mtfpanel2023.pdf Reuters. (2023, June 1). U.S. states where recreational marijuana is legal. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-states-where-recreational-marijuana-is-legal-2023-05-31/     ... View more

To begin this online or face-to-face discussion, ask your students to read this brief introduction to Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) on the American Psychological Association website (APA, 2023). Next, ask students to read the section on the “criteria for IRB approval of research” in the U.S Code of Federal Regulations. (If you are outside the United States, refer to the regulations in your country.) Students are to imagine that they are the community representative serving on their institution’s IRB. Give students this information: A research proposal from a group of researchers at your institution is now up for review. Imagine that the IRB has received the following proposal. (The text comes from the introduction section of a recently published study. The bracketed text has been added to change the verb tense.) Study 1 [will test] whether couples’ financial arrangements can mitigate the corrosive effect of time on relationship quality. Using a longitudinal field experiment, we [will] randomly [assign] couples to merge their money in a joint bank account, to keep their money in separate bank accounts, or to a condition where they [will receive] no instructions about how to structure their finances. We [will recruit] only engaged or newlywed couples for this experiment, since those couples’ relationship dynamics are not yet set in stone and are presumably responsive to intervention (Huston et al. 2001; Joel and Eastwick 2018). We [will follow] these couples for 2 years, conducting six waves of data collection across the connubial crucible [the newlywed years]. We [will measure] changes in relationship quality and financial harmony (i.e., the extent to which partners are satisfied with how they handle and discuss money). We [expect to] find that couples who transition to a joint bank account [will be] buffered against the normative decline in relationship quality observed within longitudinal research on marriage, an effect due in part to positive changes in financial harmony (Olson et al., 2023, p. 3). One challenge for IRBs is how to weigh potential risks to participants against potential benefits to participants and the value of the knowledge gained from the research. What risks to participants can you envision? What benefits to participants? What is the value of the knowledge that may be gained from this study? Would you say that the potential risks are worth the potential reward? Explain. What questions do you have for the researchers about the ethics of this study? (Refer to the section on the “criteria for IRB approval of research” in the U.S Code of Federal Regulations to frame your response.) What answers to your questions would you need to see in order to give your okay for this study? Explain. If there are risks to participants, IRBs may allow a study to be conducted if the participants in the study are made aware of the risks. What information would you need to see in the informed consent form in order to allow this study to move forward? Explain. This study did indeed receive IRB approval and was conducted—as you undoubtedly guessed since it was published. Students may wonder about the results. The researchers found that their no-intervention control group and separate-money condition both experienced a similar decline in relationship quality over the 2-year period. The researchers noted, however, that 72% of the couples in the control group maintained separate accounts throughout the entire time period. Of those in the control group who did opt to merge their money did so in the second year. In other words, the no-intervention group, in practice, looked very similar to the separate-account group. In contrast, the participants in the joint-money condition experienced a boost in their relationship quality (Olson et al., 2023). If time allows, give students the opportunity to generate their own research questions regarding the connection between finances and relationship quality.   References APA. (2023, August). Frequently asked questions about institutional review boards. https://www.apa.org/advocacy/research/defending-research/review-boards Olson, J. G., Rick, S. I., Small, D. A., & Finkel, E. J. (2023). Common cents: Bank account structure and couples’ relationship dynamics. Journal of Consumer Research, ucad020. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad020   ... View more

The ‘R’ in the PERMA model of happiness is relationships (Madeson, 2021). In this New York Times article Maura Kelly tells us that following a break-up, she was feeling lonely. A friend advised her to become a regular somewhere (Kelly, 2023). [Cue the theme song from the sitcom Cheers.] Her friend’s advice was solid. All relationships matter, even the casual ones. During the COVID lockdown, I wrote about the importance of weak ties (Frantz, 2021).  For students who are starting college this fall away from home, they may be away from their family and high school friends for the first time in their lives. Their weak ties are gone, and their strong ties may be more challenging to maintain. Loneliness is to be expected. In Intro Psych, we can use the research methods chapter to normalize loneliness and provide students some strategies for reducing it. After covering surveys in the research methods chapter, ask students to read this article on a survey about loneliness done with older adults (Lam et al., 2023), and then answer these questions: Explain the difference between strong and weak ties. Give examples of each. [Background section] Where did the researchers find their survey participants? [Study section] What was the response rate for this survey? [Study section] Explain what is meant by the term response rate. How many participants were included in the researchers’ subsample? What was the purpose of the subsample? [Study section] According to the results of this study, which is more important: strong ties, weak ties, or a mix of both? [Conclusion section] The researchers argue that there are three reasons weak ties are important. What are they? [Conclusion section] While this study was about older adults, would you expect similar findings for first-year college students? Why or why not? Give an example of at least one weak tie that you have. How do you know this person? How often do you see them? Identify at least one thing you can do to increase the likelihood of developing more weak ties. A couple of years ago, we moved across the country. In our new community, we’ve been building our network of weak ties. From that network we’ve created some strong ties, too. For example, we visit our favorite local coffee shop once or twice a week. Over time, we have gotten to know the owners, the baristas, and many of the regular patrons. At our favorite restaurant, the servers now greet us with hugs. Weak ties, yes, but powerful weak ties. It is difficult to not feel a sense of community when you’re hugged just for going out to dinner. Assure your students that to develop weak ties, they do not need to be an extravert. Encourage your students to find a place where they like the atmosphere—a coffee shop, a comfy spot in the student union, a corner of the public library. Tell them to visit their chosen spot frequently. Assure them that the mere exposure effect will work in their favor. As your students begin to see faces that are now familiar, encourage your students to nod or smile in recognition of these others who are also regulars, and, over time, chat about something innocuous, like the weather. Face-to-face classes can be another source of weak ties, but since time in the classroom is limited, students may need to work a little faster to develop those ties. However, weak ties may be easier to develop with other students who are in the same major because they may see the same students in multiple courses. Loneliness is very real. Using this survey example in the Intro Psych research methods chapter is one way to encourage students to expand their network of weak ties.   References Frantz, S. (2021, February 2). Watercooler conversations: Weak-ties matter. Macmillan and BFW Teaching Community. https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/psychology-blog/watercooler-conversations-weak-ties-matter/ba-p/13702 Kelly, M. (2023, August 11). Where everybody knows your name. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/well/become-a-regular-loneliness.html Lam, J., Broccatelli, C., & Baxter, J. (2023). Diversity of strong and weak ties and loneliness in older adults. Journal of Aging Studies, 64, 101097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101097 Madeson, M. (2021, June 12). Seligman’s PERMA+ model explained: A theory of wellbeing. https://positivepsychology.com/perma-model/       ... View more

Omega-3 fatty acids are important for brain health (Barnes et al., 2021; Lange, 2020; Thomas et al., 2021). Nuts—particularly walnuts—are high in omega-3 fatty acids (The Nutrition Source, n.d.). After covering experimental design or as a experimental design booster in the lifespan chapter, give students this hypothesis, and then ask them to work in small groups to design an experiment that would test it. Hypothesis: Eating walnuts will enhance the neuropsychological and behavioral development of adolescents. Ask the groups to identify the independent variable—both experimental and control conditions—and the dependent variables. Students should also provide operational definitions of all variables. Before deciding on operational definitions, encourage students to consider what information they may be lacking. For example, has previous research revealed how many grams of walnuts a day may be needed? How many days or weeks may the walnuts need to be eaten to see any effects? What kinds of dependent measures might reveal effects? This is a good opportunity to explain the importance of a lit review. Knowing what other researchers have done and have discovered can inform how we design our study. After groups have had an opportunity to design their studies, invite a representative from each group to share their design. As an out-of-class assignment, ask students to read this freely available Lancet article on an experiment conducted in a dozen high schools in Barcelona (Pinar-Martí et al., 2023) and to answer these questions: What was the independent variable? Identify both the experimental and control conditions. What was the operational definition used for the experimental condition? What were the dependent variables? Hint: there were four neuropsychological variables and two behavioral variables. When the researchers removed from their data analysis those in the experimental group who did not eat the amount of walnuts as requested, what results did they find?   References Barnes, S., Chowdhury, S., Gatto, N. M., Fraser, G. E., & Lee, G. J. (2021). Omega‐3 fatty acids are associated with blood–brain barrier integrity in a healthy aging population. Brain and Behavior, 11(8), e2273. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2273 Lange, K. W. (2020). Omega-3 fatty acids and mental health. Global Health Journal, 4(1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glohj.2020.01.004 Pinar-Martí, A., Gignac, F., Fernández-Barrés, S., Romaguera, D., Sala-Vila, A., Lázaro, I., Ranzani, O. T., Persavento, C., Delgado, A., Carol, A., Torrent, J., Gonzalez, J., Roso, E., Barrera-Gómez, J., López-Vicente, M., Boucher, O., Nieuwenhuijsen, M., Turner, M. C., Burgaleta, M., … Julvez, J. (2023). Effect of walnut consumption on neuropsychological development in healthy adolescents: A multi-school randomised controlled trial. EClinicalMedicine, 59, 101954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.101954 The Nutrition Source. (n.d.). Omega-3 fatty acids: An essential contribution. Harvard School of Public Health. Retrieved August 10, 2023, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/types-of-fat/omega-3-fats/ Thomas, A., Baillet, M., Proust‐Lima, C., Féart, C., Foubert‐Samier, A., Helmer, C., Catheline, G., & Samieri, C. (2021). Blood polyunsaturated omega‐3 fatty acids, brain atrophy, cognitive decline, and dementia risk. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 17(3), 407–416. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.12195   ... View more

Eating fruits and vegetables is good for all of us, including growing children. Researchers wondered what caregivers could do to increase fruit and veggie intake among the younger set. Explain to your Intro Psych students that the first thing researchers do is a literature review where we dive into the research databases to find peer-reviewed journal articles on our topic of interest. If you’d like your students to get practice using your library’s databases, contact your favorite reference librarian for database instructions you can provide your students. Ask students what search terms might yield the best results for this topic. I had success using just ‘vegetables’ and ‘children.’ Explain that researchers first read the article title. If the title sounds relevant to their topic, they’ll read the abstract. If the abstract sounds promising, they’ll read the article—or, rather, they’ll read the parts of the article of greatest interest and not necessarily in order. For example, after the abstract, they may read the discussion, and then go back to the beginning to skim the introduction paying closer attention to the last paragraphs since that’s where the hypotheses are most likely to be, and then carefully read the methods section to learn how the study was done, and, then, finally, read the results. Give students a few minutes to pop into your library’s databases to search for peer-reviewed articles that identify variables that are associated with children eating more vegetables. The studies may be correlational or experimental. When they find a strategy, ask them to share it. If you’d like to skip this lit review part, instead share with your students these variables that are associated with children eating more fruits or vegetables: repeatedly giving children a taste of a vegetable (Lakkakula et al., 2010; Wardle et al., 2003), caregivers eating more vegetables (Rasmussen et al., 2006), more shared family meals (Rasmussen et al., 2006), decreased amount of television watching (Rasmussen et al., 2006), decreased incidence of eating fast food (Rasmussen et al., 2006), increased variety of fruits and vegetables available at meals (Just et al., 2012; Roe et al., 2013). Give students this hypothesis posited by one group of researchers: “children eat more fruits and more vegetables when the regular family mealtime duration is extended” (Dallacker et al., 2023). Ask students to work in small groups to design a study that would test this hypothesis. Students should identify their independent variable—including its conditions and operational definitions for those conditions—and their dependent variable(s)—including operational definition(s). Invite groups to share their experimental designs. Highlight the strengths of each group’s design while also discussing possible shortcomings. Emphasize that there is no one right way to design an experiment. The more ways a hypothesis is studied, the more support we have for the hypothesis. As a follow-up assignment, ask your students to read the freely available journal article published by a group of researchers in Germany who tested this same hypothesis (Dallacker et al., 2023). Ask students to address these questions: The primary hypothesis was “children eat more fruits and more vegetables when the regular family mealtime duration is extended.” What was their secondary hypothesis? What committee provided ethics approval? Was consent to participate in the study given by the caregiver, the child, or both? How many parent-child pairs participated in this experiment? How did researchers figure out how long the regular meal and the intervention meal should be? What was the experiment’s independent variable? What were the two conditions of the independent variable? How were these operationally defined? What were the experiment’s dependent variables? How were these operationally defined? Were the researchers’ primary and secondary hypotheses supported by their data? Explain.   References Dallacker, M., Knobl, V., Hertwig, R., & Mata, J. (2023). Effect of longer family meals on children’s fruit and vegetable intake: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 6(4), e236331. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.6331 Just, D. R., Lund, J., & Price, J. (2012). The role of variety in increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables among children. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 41(1), 72–81. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1068280500004196 Lakkakula, A., Geaghan, J., Zanovec, M., Pierce, S., & Tuuri, G. (2010). Repeated taste exposure increases liking for vegetables by low-income elementary school children. Appetite, 55(2), 226–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2010.06.003 Rasmussen, M., Krølner, R., Klepp, K.-I., Lytle, L., Brug, J., Bere, E., & Due, P. (2006). Determinants of fruit and vegetable consumption among children and adolescents: A review of the literature. Part I: quantitative studies. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 3(1), 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-3-22 Roe, L. S., Meengs, J. S., Birch, L. L., & Rolls, B. J. (2013). Serving a variety of vegetables and fruit as a snack increased intake in preschool children,,. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 98(3), 693–699. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.062901 Wardle, J., Cooke, L. J., Gibson, E. L., Sapochnik, M., Sheiham, A., & Lawson, M. (2003). Increasing children’s acceptance of vegetables; a randomized trial of parent-led exposure. Appetite, 40(2), 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0195-6663(02)00135-6       ... View more

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

It is not often that the New York Times publishes an article on operational definitions. Okay, they don’t call them operational definitions, but that’s what they are. Introduce this assignment by describing how so much of our health is influenced by our behaviors. If behavior is involved, psychology is there. How do researchers—or ourselves, for that matter—know if changes in our behavior, e.g., exercise, more nutritious eating, is positively affecting our level of fitness? The easy answer is that we randomly assign volunteers to, say, an exercise program of some sort or to a control group—maybe even a waitlist control group—and then after a predetermined amount of time, we measure their fitness. Great! Now, how do we measure fitness? Probably the most common way the average person on the street measures their fitness is by hopping on the scale. The more fat we carry, the greater the potential impact on our health. Since both fat and muscle have weight, the average scale does not differentiate. It is possible that the more we exercise, the more fat we lose but the more muscle mass we gain. Even though our fitness is increasing, our scales may tell us that we weigh the same or are actually gaining weight. Then there’s the body mass index (BMI). This is another measurement that does not differentiate between fat and muscle. The BMI is not lacking for critics. As one observer pointed out, the current BMI categories are not useful. Several longitudinal studies, they report, have found being BMI overweight (BMI 25-29.9) or in the first level of BMI obese (30-34.9) had little or no impact on mortality rates (Nuttall, 2015). What if we could just measure the amount of fat that we carry? There are scales that purport to do that. Such scales send an electrical current through your body. Water is an excellent conductor of electricity. Muscle contains more water than fat. The less resistance the electrical current encounters, the more muscle mass the scale concludes we have. The scales that have only two points of measurement—two feet—are less accurate than scales that have four points of measurement—two feet and two hands, but the two-point scales are considerably less expensive. The two-point scales tend to be reliable, but not accurate, underestimating or overestimating fat content significantly. However, if one is using such a scale to track changes, then they do fine. One more important point about these scales. If you’re dehydrated, the scale’s electrical current will meet more resistance, and the scale will say that we have more body fat than we have (McCallum, 2022). None of these measurements—overall weight, BMI, or fat composition—identify where our fat is concentrated. Abdominal fat is associated with poorer health outcomes than, say, fat stored in the lower body. The latter may actually have protective effects (de Lemos, 2020). If these measurements are not the best way to operationally define fitness, what are some alternatives? If you’d like to make this an out of class assignment, ask your students to read this New York Times article (Smith, 2023). The article identifies three different approaches to measuring fitness: heart metrics, physical performance metrics, and daily living metrics. Ask students to identify at least three operational definitions of fitness provided in the article for each approach.   References de Lemos, J. (2020, December 16). Why belly fat is dangerous and how to control it. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. http://utswmed.org/medblog/belly-fat/ McCallum, K. (2022, April 26). How accurate are scales that measure body fat? Houston Medicine: On Health. https://www.houstonmethodist.org/blog/articles/2022/apr/are-body-composition-scales-accurate/ Nuttall, F. Q. (2015). Body mass index: Obesity, BMI, and health a critical review. Nutrition Today, 50(3), 117–128. https://doi.org/10.1097/NT.0000000000000092 Smith, D. G. (2023, March 27). 3 ways to measure how fit you are, without focusing on weight. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/well/move/fitness-test.html   ... View more

Every discipline has their zombie ideas, even library science. This could be a good discussion to have with students in the Intro Psych research methods chapter regarding the pitfalls of common sense. Ask students via clicker, Plickers, or by a show of hands this question: When touching the pages of old, valuable books, you should wear white gloves. Yes, no, or I don’t know? Most of your students will likely say yes. Now ask how do they know? This will be a harder question for them to answer. They may not remember how they learned this. They may even say that it’s common sense. Common sense may be common in that a whole lot of people think it is true, but that doesn’t make it true. And that’s the case with wearing white gloves when touching the pages of old, valuable books. In this New York Times article, librarians describe this belief of needing to wear white gloves when handling the pages of old, valuable books as an idea that will not die (Schuessler, 2023)—a zombie idea, if you will. The rationale for why wearing white gloves is a bad idea is good: “Gloves reduce your sense of touch, increasing the likelihood that you might accidentally tear a page, smear pigments, dislodge loose fragments — or worse, drop the book” (Schuessler, 2023). Gloves also tend to gather dirt and cause hands to sweat (Schuessler, 2023). Dirt and moisture are bad for books. The librarians remind us that the books have been handled with bare hands for as long as they have been around. There are a few exceptions to the no-glove rule, however. Nitrile gloves are recommended for photographic pages and certain book covers (e.g., book covers that contain metal, ivory, velvet, and certain other types of cloth). Also, wearing gloves is a good idea for handling book covers that may contain arsenic, but that’s for protecting the reader, not the book. Although one librarian added, “The moral of the story is, don’t lick the books and you will be fine” (Schuessler, 2023). Don’t lick the books. Got it. If the white glove thing isn’t actually a thing, why did Sotheby’s take a photograph of Brontë family manuscripts with white-gloved hands (Schuessler, 2021)? They are likely taking advantage of our ‘common sense’ for their monetary gain. If white gloves signal ‘valuable book,’ then we may be likely to pay more money for it (Schuessler, 2023). No white gloves? Then perhaps the book is no different than the paperback we picked up last week from our local bookseller. If you’d like to expand this discussion into one of ethics, ask your students if some of their ‘common sense’ knowledge comes from what they’ve seen in movies or television shows. Do producers and writers have an ethical obligation to present accurate information or to note when they are not? What about the creators of YouTube or TikTok videos? If the content creators do not have such an ethical obligation, does the responsibility then lie with the viewer to sort out what is fact and what is fiction? If so—and if we choose not to expend the time and energy to do so—then are we at risk for spreading misinformation? This could be a good opportunity to launch a discussion on the importance of information literacy.   References Schuessler, J. (2021, May 25). A lost Brontë library surfaces. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/arts/bronte-library-sothebys-auction.html Schuessler, J. (2023, March 9). For rare book librarians, it’s gloves off. Seriously. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/arts/rare-books-white-gloves.html     ... View more

The following would fit well with a discussion research methods, but would also work as a research methods booster in the social or emotion chapters. In a series of studies conducted under different field and lab conditions, researchers gave participants opportunities to engage in random act of kindness to evaluate the impact that kindness had on both the giver and the recipient (Kumar & Epley, 2022) (freely available). For the purpose of this blog post, I want to focus on study 2a: hot chocolate at the skating rink. After reading several of Kumar and Epley’s studies in this article, it makes me want to do random acts of kindness research. I want to spend a chunk of my day brainstorming random acts of kindness that I could encourage participants to do. I’m picturing Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley sitting around on a cold day, and one of them saying, “You know what makes me happy? A hot beverage on a cold day.” And the other saying, “Especially if I’m really cold and the hot beverage is extra tasty.” It’s a short leap from there to an outdoor skating rink and hot chocolate. With the permission of the skating rink operators, researchers approached people, told them that they were conducting a study, and gave them a choice. Here’s a cup of hot chocolate. You can keep it for yourself or you can point out anyone here, and we’ll deliver it to the person. The researchers made deliberate use of demand characteristics to encourage giving away the hot chocolate. I’m picturing something like this spiel, “The entire reason we’re out here, bub, is to investigate the effects of random acts of kindness, so we’d really love it if you’d give this hot chocolate away. But, hey, if you want to keep it, you selfish lout, there’s nothing we can do about it.” Okay, they probably didn’t call them selfish louts, although that would have upped the demand characteristics ante. While 75 people agreed to give the hot chocolate away, nine (very cold people with low blood sugar perhaps) opted to keep it. The givers each identified one person at the outdoor skating rink to receive a hot chocolate delivery. For the dependent variables, each hot chocolate donor was asked three questions: how big do they think this act of kindness is (scale of 0 to 10), what’s your mood now having made the decision to give away the hot chocolate compared to normal (-5 to +5, where 0 is normal), and what they thought the mood of the recipient would be upon receiving the hot chocolate (same scale, -5 to +5 where 0 is normal).   Next, the researchers approached the identified recipients, explained that they were conducting a study, and that they gave people the choice to keep or give away a cup of hot chocolate. They further explained that a person chose to give away their cup of hot chocolate to them. At this point, I’m a little sorry that this was not a study of facial expressions. I would imagine that looks of confusion would dominate, at least at first. Imagine standing at an outdoor ice skating rink when a complete stranger comes up to you, says they’re conducting a study, and, here, have a cup of hot chocolate. After confusion, perhaps surprise or joy. Or perhaps skepticism. The researchers did not report how many hot chocolate recipients actually drank their beverage. Also no word on how happy the researchers were since they were the ones who were actually giving away hot chocolate. After being handed the cup of hot chocolate, each recipient was asked to rate how big this act of kindness was (0 to 10 scale) and to report their mood (scale of -5 to +5, where 0 is normal). The design of this study makes the data analysis interesting. The mood of the givers and the mood of the recipients was each treated as a within participants comparison. The reported mood (-5 to +5) was compared against 0 (normal mood). The givers, on average, reported a net positive mood of +2.4 (with +5 being the maximum). The recipients, on average, reported a net positive mood boost to +3.52. In a between participants comparison, givers and recipients were compared on the mood of recipients. When the givers were asked what the mood would be of the participants, they underestimated. They guessed an average of +2.73 as compared the actual rating the recipients gave their own mood of +3.52. As another between participants comparison, the ratings of how big the givers thought their act of kindness was (3.76 on an 11-point scale) were compared to how big the recipients thought the act of kindness was (7.0 on an 11-point scale).   Studies reported later in this article provide evidence that suggests that the difference in perspective between the givers of a random act of kindness and their recipients is that the givers attend to the act itself—such as the value of the hot chocolate—and not on the additional value of being singled out for kindness, no matter what that kindness is. To give students some practice at generating operational definitions, point out that Kumar and Epley operationally defined a random act of kindness as giving away hot chocolate. Ask students to consider some other operational definitions—some other ways Kumar and Epley could have created a random act of kindness situation but using the same basic study design. Point out that researchers could use these other operational definitions to do a conceptual replication of this study—same concepts, but different definitions. Maybe some of your students will even choose to engage in some of those random acts of kindness.   Reference Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2022). A little good goes an unexpectedly long way: Underestimating the positive impact of kindness on recipients. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001271   ... View more

When I discuss experimental design in Intro Psych, I usually focus on the independent variable and dependent variable and how they are operationally defined as well as design considerations such as the experimenters and participants being blind to conditions. (I’ve read some articles where the authors say that the experimenters and participants were blinded. It brings me up short every time.) It wouldn’t hurt me to spend a little time talking about external validity, especially how we may sacrifice external validity in a lab study as a sort of proof of concept, and then follow up with a study that has more external validity. A recent JAMA article provides a nice illustration of how this can work—and gives students some experimental design practice. After covering experimental design, describe this freely available study on fast food menu choices (Wolfson et al., 2022). The researchers hypothesized that the study “participants would be more likely to select sustainable options when viewing menus with positive or negative framing compared with control labels.” In an online questionnaire, 5,049 “[p]articipants were shown a fast food menu and prompted to select 1 item they would like to order for dinner.” The independent variable was menu labeling. “Participants were randomized to view menus with 1 of 3 label conditions: a quick response code label on all items (control group); green low–climate impact label on chicken, fish, or vegetarian items (positive framing); or red high–climate impact label on red meat items (negative framing).” The primary dependent variable was the number of participants who selected a menu item that was not red meat. In the control condition, 49.5% of participants selected something other than red meat. In the positive framing condition (green labels on non-red meat items), 54.4% selected something other than red meat. In the negative framing condition (red labels on red meat items), 61.1% selected something other than red meat. All differences were statistically significant. In the limitations section of the article, the researchers acknowledge that this study assessed hypothetical food purchases rather than actual food purchases. As such, the study lacks external validity. They also acknowledge that social desirability may have also influenced the results, but they think that the anonymity of the online study may have mitigated the effects. I’m less convinced. Participants may have been more likely to select non-red meat options partly to look like better people to themselves and partly because they guessed the hypothesis and wanted to help out the researchers. In any case, this study found positive results that may be worth investigating further. The challenge for your students is to design a study that has greater external validity. How could the same research hypothesis be tested in real world conditions? Give students a couple minutes to think about this on their own and then ask students to discuss in small groups. What problems can students envision in conducting such a study? For example, would a local fast food restaurant be okay with putting red or green labels on their menu boards? One last comment about social desirability. In a real fast food restaurant, if someone chose to order a green-labeled item, for the purpose of the hypothesis, does it matter if they ordered it because they wanted to have a positive impact (or less negative impact) on the planet, because they wanted to think of themselves as a good person, or because they wanted to look good to others?   References Wolfson, J. A., Musicus, A. A., Leung, C. W., Gearhardt, A. N., & Falbe, J. (2022). Effect of climate change impact menu labels on fast food ordering choices among US adults: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 5(12), e2248320. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.48320     ... View more

“Older adults report surprisingly positive affective experience. The idea that older adults are better at emotion regulation has emerged as an intuitively appealing explanation for why they report such high levels of affective well-being despite other age-related declines” (Isaacowitz, 2022). Our schemas and the assumptions that come with them influence how we see the world and, in turn, influence how we talk about the world. As instructors and researchers we need to consider how our assumptions can weasel their way into what we say and what we write. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about ageism. Certainly, how we think about aging varies by culture. In some cultures, for example, elders are revered for their knowledge and wisdom. In others, aging is viewed as a gradual decline into an inevitable physical and cognitive wasteland. Unfortunately for me, my dominant culture is the latter. This schema that has been drilled into my head, however, has amassed so many exceptions that I’m not sure that I still have the schema. I have many friends who are in their 70s and 80s. They are all physically active and intellectual powerhouses. Every one of them. When I read the opening two sentences of Isaacowitz’s aging and emotion regulation article in Perspectives on Psychological Science quoted at the beginning of this blog post, I was first puzzled. “Older adults report surprisingly positive affective experience.” Surprisingly? You’re surprised that older adults are happy? Why is this surprising? “The idea that older adults are better at emotion regulation has emerged as an intuitively appealing explanation for why they report such high levels of affective well-being despite other age-related declines.” Oh. You’re surprised because you believe that older adults live in a physical and cognitive wasteland, so how could they possibly be happy. This needs an explanation! It even has a name: the paradox of aging. “There is an extensive, robust literature suggesting that older adults self-report quite positive emotional lives; sometimes they even report being more emotionally positive than their younger counterparts” (Isaacowitz, 2022). [Gasp!] The question is not why younger people aren’t happier. The question is why older adults are. Some researchers think that older adults are happier because older adults are better at regulating emotions. Isaacowitz’s article provides a nice summary of the research into this explanation and concludes that the evidence is inconclusive. The article ends with this: “the robust finding of older adults’ positive affective experience remains to be well-explained. This is a mystery for future researchers still to unravel” (Isaacowitz, 2022). This article was a nice reminder for me to consider my own schemas and assumptions when I talk with my students about any psychological topic. For example, I knew an instructor who would talk about people who were diagnosed with a psychological disorder as suffering from the disorder. I know people with a variety of diagnoses who manage, live with, and experience psychological disorders. The word suffer brings with it a set of assumptions that I don’t share. I admit that I have my own baggage here. I have a chronic physical condition that if not well-managed could kill me which I manage, live with, and experience. I most certainly do not suffer from it. Maybe we should be also asking how I—a person with such a condition—could possibly be so gosh darn happy. If in the Intro Psych research methods chapter you discuss how a researcher’s values affect the topics they choose to research, discussion of this article may be a good example. It’s a nice illustration of why researchers from a diversity of backgrounds is so important to science. Would, for example, a researcher from a culture that reveres older adults wonder why older adults are happy? If you’d like to explore more about cultural ageism and its impact, I highly recommend Becca Levy’s 2022 book, Breaking the Age Code. It will change how you think about—and talk about—aging.   Reference Isaacowitz, D. M. (2022). What do we know about aging and emotion regulation? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(6), 1541–1555. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211059819   ... View more

I think of the Intro Psych course as an owner’s manual for being human. Throughout the course, we explore the multitude of ways we are influenced to think, feel, or behave a certain way that happens without our conscious awareness. Here’s one such example we can use to give our students some experimental design practice. It’s suitable for the methods chapter or, if you cover drugs, in that chapter after discussing caffeine. Caffeine, as a stimulant, increases arousal. It’s plausible that consumers who are physiologically aroused engage in more impulsive shopping and, thus, spend more money than their uncaffeinated counterparts. Give students this hypothesis: If shoppers consume caffeine immediately before shopping, then they will spend more money. Ask students to take a couple minutes thinking about how they would design this study, and then invite students to share their ideas in pairs or small groups. Ask the groups to identify their independent variable (including experimental and control conditions) and their dependent variable. If you cover operational definitions, ask for those, too. Invite groups to share their designs with the class. Emphasize that there is no one right way to conduct a study. Each design will have its flaws, so using different designs to test the same hypothesis will give us greater confidence in the hypothesis. Share with students the first two of five experiments reported in the Journal of Marketing (Biswas et al., 2022). In study 1, researchers set up a free espresso station just inside the front door of a store. As shoppers entered, they were offered a cup of espresso. The experiment was conducted at different times of day over several days. At certain times, shoppers were offered a caffeinated espresso. At other times, they were offered a decaffeinated espresso. As the espresso drinkers left the store after having completed their shopping, researchers asked if they could see their receipts. Everyone said yes. Researchers recorded the number of items purchased and the total purchase amount. (Ask students to identify the independent and dependent variables.) As hypothesized, the caffeinated shoppers purchased more items (2.16 vs. 1.45) and spent more money (€27.48 vs. €14.82) than the decaffeinated shoppers. Note that participants knew whether they were consuming a caffeinated or decaffeinated beverage, but did not know when they accepted that they were participating in a study. There are a few ethical questions about study 1 worth exploring with your students. First, this study lacked informed consent. Participants were not aware that they were participating in a study when they accepted the free espresso. As participants were leaving, it became clear to them that they were participating in a study. Given the norm of reciprocity, did participants see not handing over their receipts as a viable option? Lastly, the researchers expected that caffeine would increase consumer spending. In fact, it nearly doubled it. Was it ethical for the researchers to put unwitting shoppers in a position to spend more money than they had intended? In study 2, students from a marketing research class “in exchange for course credit” were asked to recruit family or friends to participate. The volunteers, who were told that this was a study about their shopping experience, were randomly assigned to an espresso or water condition which were consumed in a cafeteria next to a department store. After consuming their beverages, the volunteers were escorted to the department store and were asked to spend two hours in the store “shopping or looking around.” As in study 1, caffeinated shoppers spent nearly twice as much money (€69.91 vs. €39.63). Again, we have the ethical question of putting unwitting shoppers in the position to spend more money than they would have. We also have the ethical question of students recruiting friends and family to participate as course requirement. And then from a design perspective, how certain can we be that the students didn’t share the hypothesis with their family and friends? Is it possible that some of the students thought that if the study’s results didn’t support the hypothesis, their grade would be affected? As a final ethics question, what should we do with the knowledge that we are likely to spend (much) more money when shopping when we are caffeinated? As a shopper, it’s easy. I’m not going stop on the coffee shop on my way to the store. For a store manager whose job it is to maximize, it’s also easy. Give away cups of coffee as shoppers enter the store. The amount of money it costs to staff a station and serve coffee will more than pay for itself in shopper spending. Here’s the bigger problem. Is it okay to manipulate shoppers in this way for financial gain? Advertising and other persuasive strategies do this all the time. Is free caffeine any different? Or should coffee cups carry warning labels? To close this discussion, ask students in what other places or situations can impulsive behavior encouraged by being caffeinated be problematic. Casinos come readily to my mind. Are caffeinated people likely to bet more? Would that study be ethical to conduct?   Reference Biswas, D., Hartmann, P., Eisend, M., Szocs, C., Jochims, B., Apaolaza, V., Hermann, E., López, C. M., & Borges, A. (2022). Caffeine’s Effects on Consumer Spending. Journal of Marketing, 002224292211092. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221109247   ... View more

Men in the United States are four times more likely to die by suicide than are women (Curtin et al., 2022), and men are almost half as likely to receive mental health treatment than are women (Terlizzi & Norris, 2021). This is seriously problematic, as pointed out by a December 2022 New York Times article (Smith, 2022). In the Intro Psych therapy chapter, share the above statistics with students. Ask your students to discuss in small groups why they think men are less likely to receive mental health treatment. (While what is described here is for a face-to-face class, the discussion can be adapted for asynchronous discussions.) To take away some of what could be very personal, ask students to consider why their male friends or male relatives might not be inclined to seek mental health treatment. If your male students choose to share their own thoughts, that’s fine; just don’t pressure them to do so. Invite the groups to share the reasons they generated with the class. Record the reasons in a way that students can view them. Next invite your students to visit the Man Therapy website (mantherapy.org). What are their favorite article titles? I’m partial to “Sometimes a man needs a pork shoulder to cry on” and “Anxiety: When worry grabs you by the [nether parts]” with an honorable mention for “Sleep: When catching z’s is harder than catching a 20lb trout.” Do your students think that the messaging about mental health on this website would resonate with the men in their lives? Why or why not? Do your students think different messaging would work better for different cultural or ethnic groups? If so, what might that look like? If you’d like to extend this discussion, ask students if they were interested in sharing the mantherapy.org link with their male friends and relatives. For your students who are game, ask them to send out texts right now while in class. If texts come back while you are still in class, invite students to share them. Check back in with students during the next class for reactions that students received after class. If time allows and you are so inclined, ask students to work in small groups to design an experiment that would evaluate the effectiveness of a website such as mantherapy.org. What would their hypothesis be? What would be their measure of effectiveness? What would be their control condition? How would they identify and recruit participants. If your class, department, psych club, or psych honor society thinks that mantherapy.org could be effective at increasing men’s access to mental healthcare, you can “become a champion” by visiting this page and completing the form at the bottom. You will receive a “shipment of printed collateral including posters, wallet cards, and stickers to help get the word out and drive traffic to the site.” There is no mention of a cost for these materials.   References Curtin, S. C., Garnett, M. F., & Ahmad, F. B. (2022). Provisional numbers and rates of suicide by month and demographic characteristics: United States, 2021 (No. 24). National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr024.pdf Smith, D. G. (2022, December 9). How to Get More Men to Try Therapy. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/well/mind/men-mental-health-therapy.html Terlizzi, E. P., & Norris, T. (2021). Mental health treatment among adults: United States, 2020 (NCHS Data Brief No. 419). National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db419.pdf       ... View more

The Intro Psych therapy chapter is a good place to reinforce what students have learned about research methods throughout the course. In this freely available 2022 study, researchers wondered about the effectiveness of a particular medication (naltrexone combined with bupropion) and a particular type of psychotherapy (behavioral weight loss therapy) as a treatment for binge-eating disorder (Grilo et al., 2022). First, give students a bit of background about binge-eating disorder. If you don’t have the DSM-V (with or without the TR) handy, this Mayo Clinic webpage may give you what you need (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2018). Next, let students know that naltrexone-bupropion work together on the hypothalamus to both reduce how much we eat and increase the amount of energy we expend (Sherman et al., 2016). It’s a drug combination approved by the FDA for weight loss. Lastly, behavioral weight loss therapy is all about gradual changes to lifestyle. That includes gradual decreases in daily calories consumed, gradual increases in nutritional quality, and gradual increases in exercise.   Invite students to consider how they would design an experiment to find out which treatment is most effective for binge-eating disorder: naltrexone-bupropion, behavioral weight loss (BWL) therapy, or both. In this particular study ("a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial"), researchers used a 2 (drug vs. placebo) x 2 (BWL vs no therapy) between participants design. In their discussion, they note that, in retrospect, a BWL therapy group alone would have been a good thing to have. The study was carried out over a 16-week period. Participants were randomly assigned to condition. Researchers conducting the assessments were blind to conditions. Next ask students what their dependent variables would be. The researchers had two primary dependent variables. They measured binge-eating remission rates, with remission defined as no self-reported instances of binge eating in the last 28 days. They also recorded the number of participants who lost 5% or more of their body weight. Ready for the results? Percentage of participants who had no binge-eating instances in the last 28 days   Placebo Naltrexone-Bupropion No therapy 17.7% 31.3% BWL therapy 37.% 57.1%   Number of participants who lost 5% or more of their body weight   Placebo Naltrexone-Bupropion No therapy 11.8% 18.8% BWL therapy 31.4% 37.1%   As studies that have evaluated treatments for other psychological disorders have found, medication and psychotherapy combined are more effective than either alone. If time allows, you can help students gain a greater appreciation for how difficult getting participants for this kind of research can be. Through advertising, the researchers heard from 3,620 people who were interested. Of those, 972 never responded after the initial contact. That left 2,648 to be screened for whether they would be appropriate for the study. Following the screening, only 289 potential participants were left. Ask students why they think so few participants remained. Here are the top reasons: participants did not meet the criteria for binge-eating disorder (715), participants decided they were not interested after all (463), and participants were taking a medication that could not be mixed with naltrexone-bupropion (437). Other reasons included but not limited to having a medical condition (could impact study’s results), they were already in a treatment program for weight loss or binge-eating disorder (would not be a sole test of these treatments), or they were pregnant or breast-feeding (couldn’t take the drugs). After signing the consent form and doing the initial assessment, another 153 were found to have not met the inclusion criteria. That left 136 to be randomly assigned to conditions. Over the 16 weeks of the study, 20 participants dropped out on their own, and four were removed because of medical reasons. It took 3,620 people who expressed interest to end up with data from 112 participants. There is no information in the article about whether participants who were not in the drug/psychotherapy group were offered—after the study was over—the opportunity to experience the combined treatment that was so effective. Ethically, it would have been the right thing to do.   References Grilo, C. M., Lydecker, J. A., Fineberg, S. K., Moreno, J. O., Ivezaj, V., & Gueorguieva, R. (2022). Naltrexone-bupropion and behavior therapy, alone and combined, for binge-eating disorder: Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220267 Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018, May 5). Binge-eating disorder. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/binge-eating-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353627 Sherman, M. M., Ungureanu, S., & Rey, J. A. (2016). Naltrexone/bupropion ER (Contrave): Newly approved treatment option for chronic weight management in obese adults. Pharmacy & Therapeutics, 41(3), 164–172.       ... View more