Any time researchers are gathering data from people or non-human animals, they must be cognizant of and address a number of ethical considerations. Here’s a naturalistic observation study whose ethics could be discussed in the research methods chapter or as a research methods booster in the development chapter or in the social psych chapter (helping). It addresses two of Intro Psych’s integrative themes: “Ethical principles guide psychology research and practice” and “Applying psychological principles can change our lives, organizations, and communities in positive ways” (APA, 2022). Researchers wanted to observe how caregivers—both family members and paid providers—interacted with people with advanced dementia “to understand how care may be improved and inform the development of caregiver educational resources” (Backhouse et al., 2024, p. 2). The article is freely available. To do their study, the researchers needed to observe (and video record) caregivers providing care to people with advanced dementia. While caregivers could be presumed to be able to give consent to participate in the study, ask students if a person with advanced dementia would be able to understand enough to be able to give consent. If not, could someone give consent on their behalf much like parents and guardians are able to give consent for children? After discussion, direct students to page 3 of the research article, in the section titled “Ethical Considerations and Consenting Processes.” Next, ask students to consider the kinds of personal care a caregiver may give to a person with advanced dementia. After listing several, such as teeth cleaning, eating, shaving, and bathing, ask students if some kinds of personal care should be excluded from observation. (Would observing some types of behaviors be potentially harmful?) The researchers determined what behaviors were okay to video record by asking the caregivers which “ones they thought the person, and themselves, would not mind having observed and recorded” (Backhouse et al., 2024, p. 3). By that standard, ask students which behaviors they identified they think would be safe to include. After discussion, direct students to the “Data Collection” section on page 3, and ask them to read the first paragraph under “Video recordings.” Next, ask students how they would record the interactions between caregiver and person with advanced dementia. Would they hide the camera (deception), or would they have a person in the room video recording openly? Which is more ethically problematic? After discussion, direct students to page 3 to read the second paragraph under “Video recordings” for the decision the researchers made.   It is expected that the researchers would maintain participant confidentiality. Direct students to the “Data Availability” section on page 11 to read how confidentiality is maintained. Lastly, institutional review. This study was conducted in the UK, so researchers were ethically bound by the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research. We see in the “Ethical Considerations and Consenting Processes” section on page 3 that the researchers received ethics approval from the Queen’s Square Research Ethics Committee, London. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has dozens of Research Ethics Committees (REC) that are sprinkled throughout the UK. Each REC tries to have at least 15 members. In 2022-2023, half of the REC members were considered lay members—people who are not “currently registered health care professionals, individuals with professional qualifications or experience in clinical research or a previously registered doctor or dentist” (Annual Report for Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in England 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, 2023). Ask students to read the 15 “Principles that apply to all health and social care research” and align them with APA’s five general principles. Are there some that don’t fit? If so, should they be included in APA’s ethics code?   There is no mention in the article of a debriefing. In my reading of the UK’s NHS 15 principles, a debriefing is not required. The closest thing to it I see is Principle 11: Accessible Findings where participants must be given access to the research results. While we’re here, let’s take a look at the results. In this study, researchers found that nurturing attentiveness was a key contributor to positive personal care interactions. Ask students to find the researchers’ operational definition of nurturing attentiveness. Hint #1: it’s on page 5. Hint #2: It’s in the “Qualitative Content Analysis” section. To conclude this discussion, ask students to identify other populations who receive care from caregivers where those interactions could also be investigated using this type of naturalistic observation.   References Annual Report for Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in England 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. (2023). https://www.hra.nhs.uk/about-us/committees-and-services/res-and-recs/research-ethics-committees-annual-reports/annual-report-research-ethics-committees-recs-england-1-april-2022-31-march-2023/ APA. (2022). Psychology’s Integrative Themes. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/introductory-psychology-initiative/student-learning-outcomes-poster.pdf Backhouse, T., Jeon, Y.-H., Killett, A., Green, J., Khondoker, M., & Mioshi, E. (2024). Nurturing attentiveness: A naturalistic observation study of personal care interactions between people with advanced dementia and their caregivers. The Gerontologist, 64(6), gnae004. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnae004   ... View more

Here’s some experimental design practice for your Intro Psych students. This would work right after covering experiments in the research methods chapter or as an experimental design booster in the social psych chapter. Ask students to read this Science Daily summary of an experiment on grocery purchases (Shin et al., 2024), and then work in small groups to answer the following questions. The article does not explicitly say what the research hypothesis was. However, based on the information given, what do you believe their primary research hypothesis was? What was the independent variable? Identify each level of the independent variable. (The experiment used a within-participants design, meaning each participant experienced each level of the independent variable.) What was the primary dependent variable? Briefly summarize the results. This study was conducted in a virtual grocery store using virtual money. Can we assume researchers would see similar results in a real grocery store where consumers were using their own money? Why or why not? Using the same independent variable and dependent variable, describe how this study could be conducted in the field under real-life conditions. The original research article (Shin et al., 2024) includes photos of the online store, how the nutritional score was displayed for each item, and how the individual’s nutritional score was displayed. If time allows, share with your students that the participants were recruited from Facebook and Instagram, were all in Singapore, were 21 years of age and older, and were the primary shopper in their household. How might each of these factors influence the results? One last note about the within-participants design. The researchers noted this design as a study limitation in their research article (Shin et al., 2024). They acknowledged that there seemed to be carryover when participants saw nutritional labeling first followed by the control condition. Since the conditions were counterbalanced, the researchers also compared participants just based on the first store they saw. They still saw the effect of peer influence.     Reference Shin, S., Gandhi, M., Puri, J., & Finkelstein, E. (2024). Influencing the nutritional quality of grocery purchases: A randomized trial to evaluate the impact of a social norm-based behavioral intervention with and without a loss-framed financial incentive. Food Policy, 125, 102646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102646   ... View more

Macmillan Learning is honored to sponsor the PsychSessions podcast, a platform dedicated to insightful conversations about teaching and psychology. Today, we celebrate a monumental milestone—the 200th episode of the flagship series, PsychSessions: Conversations About Teaching N' Stuff. This episode features special guest host Chris Cardone as she joins Garth Neufeld to interview the esteemed social psychologist and author, Elliot Aronson.   Click here to receive a free PsychSessions discussion guide for this episode! PsychSessions is giving away 20 copies of Aronson's autobiography Not By Chance Alone. Register here for your chance to win.   ... View more

As telehealth visits skyrocketed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers wondered if the physician’s background mattered to their patients (Houchens et al., 2024). (The article is freely available.) The researchers asked volunteers to look at seven photos of the same physician with different backgrounds: bedroom, kitchen, bookcase, exam room, physician office (counter with office-type things on it), a wall of diplomas, and a solid color (control condition).  The researchers also asked about the type of physician (primary care or specialty care) and whether the patient’s length of relationship with the physician (new or established). This experiment is a 7 (type of background) x 2 (type of physician) x 2 (length of relationship) within-participants design, although they analyzed it as a 7 x 4 (lumping type of physician and length of relationship into one variable). In the results, neither type of physician nor length of relationship mattered. The only statistical difference was for type of background. There were two dependent variables. First, researchers asked volunteers which of the seven backgrounds they preferred. As compared to the solid color background, volunteers preferred the wall of diplomas followed by the physician office. The least preferred—again as compared to the solid color background—were the bedroom and the kitchen. There were no statistical differences between the solid color and the bookcase or the exam room. For the second dependent variable, researchers calculated a composite score after asking volunteers to rate the physicians with each background on six factors on a scale of one to ten: “how knowledgeable, trustworthy, caring, approachable, and professional the physician appeared, and how comfortable the physician made the respondent feel.” As compared to the solid background (7.7), the only two backgrounds where the physician was rated statistically lower were the bedroom (7.2) and the kitchen (7.0). Because this was a within-participant design and volunteers saw the same physician against every background, I could imagine that once volunteers rated one, it may have been more difficult to rate the others much differently.   After sharing this study with your students, give small groups this hypothesis: If students see an instructor in a virtual classroom with a professional background, they will rate the instructor as being more knowledgeable and trustworthy. Ask students to design an experiment to test this hypothesis. Students should be sure to identify the independent variable and its levels and the two dependent variables, providing operational definitions for all variables. Invite a spokesperson for each group to share their experimental design.   Reference Houchens, N., Saint, S., Kuhn, L., Ratz, D., Engle, J. M., & Meddings, J. (2024). Patient preferences for telemedicine video backgrounds. JAMA Network Open, 7(5), e2411512. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.11512   ... View more

This is the most horrifying thing I have read in some time: Nearly two-thirds of women in [Indiana University’s Debby Herbenick’s] most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four [from four years ago] (Orenstein, 2024). Nearly two-thirds of the women at this “major Midwestern university.” Let’s say that your students are no different than these “major Midwestern university” students. Let’s say you have 500 students a year. About 60% of college students are women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023a). During the 2020-2021 academic year, 80% of bachelor’s degrees went to women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023b). If you teach mostly Intro Psych, the number of women in your classes may be closer to 60%. If you teach mostly upper division courses for the psych major, the number of women in your classes may be closer to 80%. For illustration purposes, let’s split the difference and say that 70% of your 500 students are women. That means that you teach 350 women each year. If “nearly two-thirds” of those women have been choked during sex, that comes out to 231 of your students. “Nearly” half of your students. Are being choked. Actually, the number is likely higher than that. “[W]hile undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences” (Orenstein, 2024). Men, too, have been choked, just not in the same numbers. “[W]hile the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them” (Orenstein, 2024). I had just gotten accustomed to a world where apps like Tinder make it easy for complete strangers to have sex—and that many young people were, indeed, using those apps to do just that. But 25% of the women in those same-day sexual encounters are being choked?! “No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, reporting that it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive” (Orenstein, 2024). No wonder, indeed. Also, oxygen deprivation is bad for the brain. According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. [Keisuke] Kawata [an early researcher on NFL concussions and CTE] and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy (Orenstein, 2024). And while we’re here, despite what students might have seen on TikTok, “There is no safe way to strangle someone” (Orenstein, 2024). Believing that there is a safe way to choke would be an Internet fact, not an actual fact (Frantz, 2024). “Among girls and women [Orenstein had] spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled” (Orenstein, 2024). I guess that’s the good news. But why is it so dang common—and becoming more popular? Here’s where I suggest we turn this article into a class or small group discussion (in person or online) as part of the social psych chapter in Intro Psych. Instructions: Read this New York Times opinion piece of April 12, 2024 titled “The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex” by Peggy Orenstein, and then answer the following questions. From the article, quote a sentence that illustrates the social pressure women feel to allow choking during sex. Have you seen this social pressure within your own friend group? If so, give an example. From the article, quote a sentence that illustrates the social pressure men feel to engage in choking during sex. Have you seen this social pressure within your own friend group? If so, give an example. From the article, describe how choking during sex became popularized through observational learning, starting with its beginning in porn. The article describes how oxygen deprivation can negatively impact the brain. Identify at least five of those effects. Which one do you find the most concerning? Why? The article suggests language that sexual partners can use to make clear what is okay and what is not okay during sex. What is that language? Consider a friend of yours. Do you believe they would be comfortable saying that to a sexual partner? Why or why not? In BDSM, consent—and the ability to withdraw consent (commonly with a safe word)—is paramount. Is choking someone because you think they want to be choked enough to establish consent? Why or why not? If someone gives their consent to be choked but then decides to withdraw their consent, can they do that if they cannot breathe and are losing consciousness? Why or why not? If someone has not given their consent to be choked, can the person doing the choking be charged with assault? Why or why not? If the person being choked experiences permanent damage to their brain or dies, can the person doing the choking be held liable? Why or why not? What was the most surprising thing you learned from this article? Explain.     References Frantz, S. (2024, March 22). “Internet fact or actual fact?” Macmillan and BFW Teaching Community. https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/psychology-blog/internet-fact-or-actual-fact/ba-p/19976 National Center for Education Statistics. (2023a). Postbaccalaureate enrollment. Condition of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/chb National Center for Education Statistics. (2023b). Undergraduate degree fields. Condition of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cta/undergrad-degree-fields Orenstein, P. (2024, April 12). The troubling trend in teenage sex. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/choking-teen-sex-brain-damage.html   ... View more

I saw a post about “hanging coffee” come across my social media news feed this morning, and I thought this could be a great activity for our students. It would fit wherever you cover social norms. What’s a “hanging coffee” (also called a “suspended coffee”)? Coffee shops (or other eating establishments) who do this allow patrons to gift coffee (or bagels, or meals, or whatever) to others. While I’ve experienced coffee shop patrons who have paid for the coffee for the next person in line, I haven’t seen this. How it works is simple. I walk up to the counter and order my coffee, but I pay for three coffees. The barista hands me my coffee and then “hangs” the extra two coffees I bought on the wall in the form of receipts or laminated cards. A patron who needs a free beverage takes down the receipt or the laminated card and hands it to the barista. The barista hands them their order. There was an article in the Portsmouth, NH newspaper four years ago describing the practice there (Barndollar, 2020). The norm of social responsibility tells us that we should help others. In fact, helping others makes us feel good about ourselves. Those are two good reasons alone to buy a “hanging coffee.” But what if “hanging coffees” aren’t (yet!) a norm in your community? After covering social norms, invite your students to try to establish “hanging coffee” as a new social norm in your community. Of course, students don’t have to limit themselves to coffee. Is there a staffed laundromat in your community? “Hanging laundry” could become a thing. If your students don’t like the term “hanging”—I know I don’t—or “suspended”—another loaded term, especially for students!—encourage your students to think of another name. Working in pairs or small groups, students are to identify a business establishment where patrons might like to buy something for someone else. (You might want to exclude alcoholic drinks at bars as an option.) If several pairs or small groups identify coffee shops, ask those students to divvy up your local coffee shops. Next, students—again working in those same pairs or small groups—are to speak with the manager about their idea. Students should be prepared to buy the first “hanging <whatever>.” If they don’t have the money, encourage them to bring their friends. Everyone in the group could chip in, say, a quarter to buy a “hanging <whatever>.” To make it easier for the manager to say yes, students should do some reconnaissance first to identify a place where the receipts could be placed and create a sign that could go in that location. If the establishment doesn’t have an empty billboard, students could consider donating one. Creating the board and posting a receipt one time may not be enough to establish a norm. How frequently do students think they will have to “seed” the board before the norm becomes established—perhaps students could encourage faculty to purchased “hanging <whatevers>”? Invite students to report back on their experience. Based on social media responses, some students, managers, and others will be concerned that people would take advantage of the “hanging <whatever>” board. It’s an interesting idea to explore. Plenty of us donate money or food to food banks, and the food banks I’m familiar with don’t ask for proof of need. Might someone who is quite wealthy get free food? Sure. Do I care? Not especially. For all I know, they’re donating thousands of dollars each year to that food bank. As for the “hanging coffee,” I would imagine that social norms would drive not only who donates but who uses it. Having said that, I can imagine a person who is having an absolutely rotten day wanting to accept a coffee bought by someone else as a mood booster. I can just easily imagine that same person coming in a week later and buying ten “hanging coffees” in order to boost the mood of others. If creating a new social norm in the form of “hanging coffees” doesn’t work for you as a class activity, consider suggesting it to the psychology club, psychology honor society chapter, Greek chapters, or other clubs.   Reference Barndollar, H. (2020, January 13). “Hanging coffee” aims to pay it forward. Foster’s Daily Democrat. https://www.fosters.com/story/news/2020/01/13/hanging-coffee-aims-to-pay-it-forward/1909907007/   ... View more

Let’s keep things light and look at some more psychology-related comic strips this week. Whether you use these in lecture, on an exam, or as discussion or assignment prompts, be sure to follow the classroom usage policy set by the comic strip’s licensing agency. If you have any doubts, link to the comic strips instead of using the image. Conformity: Close to Home by John McPherson: December 16, 2023 Identify the factors discussed in class and in your readings that contribute to conformity. In this comic strip, which of those factors are illustrated? Explain.   Operant conditioning: Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich: December 20, 2023 Which of the father’s behaviors is being reinforced? What is the reinforcement? If the father is on a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen? If the father is on a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen?   Operant conditioning: Dog Eat Doub by Brian Anderson: December 29, 2023 Which of the dog’s behaviors is being reinforced? What is the reinforcement? If the dog is on a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen? If the dog is on a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, what would need to happen?   Sleep: Strange Brew by John Deering: December 21, 2023 Research how much caffeine is in a Starbucks venti americano. Site your source. Next, research how much caffeine is considered safe for daily consumption. Site your source. Lastly, explain how caffeine use during the day can affect sleep quality at night. ... View more

The New York Times has noted new data showing a rise in pedestrian deaths (Leonhardt, 2023). The article offers several possibilities for this increase. One reason may be that drivers are paying more attention to their phones than to the road and what’s going on around them. I’ll add built-in car displays in that category. With a physical knob or dial, adjusting music/audiobook volume or in-cabin temperature could easily be done by touch. With screens, drivers have to look away from the road to make these adjustments. The article also suggests that the greater availability of marijuana and opioids has more people driving under the influence of something. Additionally, more people are living in areas where sidewalks and crosswalks are less common. When people walk on the road, it stands to reason that their chances of being hit by a driver increase. Lastly, the article notes that with more people living on the streets, there are more opportunities for people and cars to collide. I’d add one more possibility. It seems like cars are quieter than they used to be—electric vehicles certainly are. If pedestrians rely on sight and sound to help with vehicle awareness, quiet cars reduce those sensory modalities by half. The New York Times article makes excellent points. What is missing from this discussion, however, is pedestrian behavior. In my informal observations of pedestrians—both as a driver and as a fellow pedestrian, some pedestrians seem pretty cavalier about occupying the same space as cars. Here are a few examples I’ve experienced in the last two weeks. There is a fairly busy rural road near my home that has a few rolling hills. There is no sidewalk. It’s possible to walk on the side of the road, but with the rocks, it looks like it would be tough trekking. I’ve seen one person on two different occasions walking on the road, walking with traffic, and wearing over-the-ear headphones. It’s not difficult for me to imagine a car cresting one of those hills and not seeing this person in time to avoid them—especially if there is oncoming traffic. The person would have no chance since they can neither see nor hear oncoming traffic. Just yesterday I was leaving our local post office when a person crossed the street in front of me. They did not look either direction before crossing. They were wearing a big hood that functioned just like blinders. If I had been any closer, they would have walked into the side of my car. Actually, a couple weeks ago, I was the passenger in a car when a person who had not looked for oncoming cars, stepped off the curb and came very close to walking into the side of our car. The car was a red Camaro. It was not easy to miss. Not paying attention to surroundings is as much of a problem for pedestrians as it is for drivers. While a pedestrian who steps into a crosswalk when the lighted guy turns green is in the right and the inattentive driver who hits them is in the wrong, being right does not make the pedestrian any less dead. Have pedestrians become less attentive? I don’t know. If we are, I can imagine several reasons why. Just like drivers, phones have pedestrians’ attention. I also wonder if today’s pedestrians have less experience being pedestrians than pedestrians of the past. For example, stranger danger pushed kids indoors, giving them less experience on streets. Furthermore, more of my students today do not know how to drive as compared to my students in the past. Does less experience behind the wheel make it harder for pedestrians to see the world through a driver’s eyes? This could be the basis of an interesting observational study for your students. Can your students devise measurements that would quantify pedestrian or driver attentiveness? For example, does a randomly selected pedestrian look both ways before stepping into the street? Or does a randomly selected driver stopped in an intersection, look both directions before proceeding into the crosswalk? How would your students select the intersections to conduct their observations? Does your city have data on the busiest intersections? Does your local police department have data on where the car/pedestrian crashes occur? What days or times of day would your students choose? As a way to expand student engagement with psychology or as alternative activity, consider asking students to use the persuasive strategies they learned about in their Intro Psych social chapter to design a public ad campaign While the primary goal of the observational study activity is to give students practice designing and conducting an observational study and the primary goal of the public ad campaign is to give students practice putting their knowledge of social psychology to work, the secondary goal for both activities is to increase student traffic safety awareness—both as drivers and as pedestrians.   Reference Leonhardt, D. (2023, December 11). The rise in U.S. traffic deaths. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/briefing/us-traffic-deaths.html   ... View more

Alexandria Cowheard, a 22-year-old Wendy’s employee and Bluegrass Community and Technical College certified nursing assistant student (Newspath/WKYT, 2023), was working the afternoon of October 16, 2023. Shortly before 2:30pm, Cowheard’s coworker saw that a man was on the ground in the parking lot and alerted Cowheard. She called 911 then went to the parking lot (Crenshaw, 2023). She saw the man turning purple. A woman who was with him was doing chest compressions. Cowheard, who learned CPR in her senior year of high school (Crenshaw, 2023), said, “She wasn’t doing her compressions for long enough. She'd do it a few times and then she'd try to do mouth-to-mouth” (Martin, 2023). It wasn’t working. Cowheard said, “I didn’t panic visibly, but in the back of my mind, I was like, what do I do… I kind of short-circuited a little bit before I was like, ‘Girl, you know how to do CPR; get over here and do these chest compressions’”(Crenshaw, 2023). After a few minutes of CPR, the man gasped for air. An ambulance crew arrived and transported him to the hospital (Newspath/WKYT, 2023). In the Bibb Latané (1937-) and John Darley (1938-2018) model of helping, four things need to happen in order for us to help (Latane & Darley, 1968). First, we have to notice the event. Second, we have to interpret the event as an emergency. Third, we need to assume responsibility for helping. And fourth, we need to know how to help. In the Wendy’s incident, Alexandria Cowheard noticed the event; her coworker told her that a man was down in the parking lot. Second, she interpreted the event as an emergency—initially because of her coworker’s report (Cowheard called 911 based on this alone) and then again when she saw that the man in the parking lot was turning purple. Third, she assumed responsibility for helping. Rather than standing by watching the man’s companion struggle to render aid while waiting for someone else to help, Cowheard decided she had a responsibility to help. Lastly, Cowheard knew how to help; she had learned CPR in high school. If you choose to share this example with your students, ask how many of them were trained to do CPR. Since knowing CPR was a key component in Cowheard’s decision to help, do your students think that all high school or college students should be required to learn CPR? Are there other helping skills that we all should be required to learn, such as using an automated external defibrillator (AED)? For example, researchers are exploring the effectiveness of delivering AEDs via drone while the EMTs are on their way (Schierbeck et al., 2022). Would having a public trained in AED use make AED drone deliveries more effective?   References Crenshaw, D. (2023, October 27). Employee at Lexington Wendy’s saves customer’s life using CPR. Https://Www.Wkyt.Com. https://www.wkyt.com/2023/10/27/employee-lexington-wendys-saves-customers-life-parking-lot/ Latane, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3), 215–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026570 Martin, S. (2023, November 3). Employee at Wendy’s in Kentucky saves customer’s life, credits CPR for life-saving action. USA TODAY. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/03/wendys-employee-saves-customer-life-cpr-kentucky/71438264007/ Newspath/WKYT, C. B. S. (2023, November 25). Kentucky Wendy’s employee saves man’s life after medical emergency in parking lot. WKRC. https://local12.com/news/nation-world/kentucky-wendys-employee-saves-mans-life-medical-emergency-parking-lot-risk-hospital-police-rescue-quick-thinking-richmond-road-medical-ems-alexandria-cowheard-911-cpr-school-learning-nurse-nursing-assistant-fast-food Schierbeck, S., Svensson, L., & Claesson, A. (2022). Use of a drone-delivered automated external defibrillator in an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. New England Journal of Medicine, 386(20), 1953–1954. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2200833 ... View more

In a May 2023 Scientific American article, I was introduced to the concept of recreational fear (Martinez-Conde & Macknik, 2023). Of course, we’re all familiar with it. It was the term that was news to me. People who are into recreational fear do things that are scary—for fun: roller coasters, bungee jumping, haunted houses, horror movies. You get the idea. I’ve been on a bobsled (twice) and have been zip lining over some pretty impressive gorges (twice), but horror movies and haunted houses are not my bag. Researchers wondered if being with friends would lessen the intensity of the fear in these recreational settings (Tashjian et al., 2022). Sometimes when we are with others in fear-inducing situations, social buffering occurs. The presence of others reduces our fear. But sometimes we experience social contagion. The presence of others increases our fear. In instances of recreational fear, which is it? Here’s a little experimental design practice for the social psych chapter in Intro Psych. Ask students to work in small groups to design an exploratory study. Since we don’t know (or at least your students don’t know yet) whether the presence of others increases or decreases fear—and we can make a good case for either one, we won’t have an hypothesis. The question is “Does the presence of others in a recreational fear situation increase or decrease fear?” Your students will have a few problems to solve in designing this study. First, the independent variable. Will they focus on the effect of the presence of friends, strangers, or both? Will they investigate the impact of group size? Does the presence of five others have more of an impact than, say, one other person? There is also the challenge of the recreational fear situation itself. Even though your students are not actually going to conduct this study, potential IRB ethical concerns should be considered. I doubt that your IRB would approve of you scaring the bejesus out of your participants. Is there someplace in your community or nearby environs where people pay to be scared? Ask your students to design a study where they would solicit volunteers from those paying customers. And now the dependent variable. How would your students operationally define fear? Invite groups to share their designs with the class. To close this activity, tell students about the Tashjian et.al study (Tashjian et al., 2022). The researchers elicited the help of the good folks at The 17th Door, a haunted house experience now located in Buena Vista, CA. The research article includes a summary of what happens in each of the 17 scenes. I read through them. Here is the researchers’ concise summary. “Each of the 17 contiguous rooms involved distinct threats, including the inability to escape an oncoming car, mimicked suffocation, actual electric shocks, and being shot with pellets by a firing squad while blindfolded” (Tashjian et al., 2022, p. 238). In an understatement for the win, they write, “[T]his type of immersive threat manipulation is not replicable in the lab” (Tashjian et al., 2022, p. 238). The “immersive threat manipulation” lasted 30 minutes. I’ve been on a bobsled and been ziplining over deep gorges. As far as recreational fear goes, I’m pretty sure The 17th Door is not for me. The researchers recruited participants after they paid the admission fee and signed the waiver required by The 17th Door. Participants went through in groups of eight to ten. The researchers asked the volunteers how many friends were in their group. Everyone went through with at least one friend. Some groups were comprised entirely of friends. As a measure of fear intensity, each volunteer wore a wrist sensor that measured skin conductance. The groups of participants are led through the experience by an employee of the The 17th Door on a precisely timed schedule. That allowed the recorded sensor activity to be aligned precisely with the events. Now for the results. Social contagion won out over social buffering. The more friends people had with them, the greater the fear they experienced as measured by skin conductance. The authors acknowledge that because changes in skin conductance are due to sympathetic nervous system arousal, the increase in skin conductance could be caused by factors other than fear, such as excitement or nervousness. To close out this activity, tell students that there is a Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark run by Mathias Clasen and Marc Malmdorf Andersen. If the photo on their “people” page is accurate, their research assistants get lab coats that read on the back “Horror Research Team.” I’m a little jealous. These are the Recreational Fear Lab’s research questions for 2020-2023:     What is recreational fear, and what can it be used for?     What characterizes engagement with recreational fear across the lifespan?     What psychological and physiological characteristics are associated with recreational fear?     When does recreational fear turn into real fear? I’m particularly intrigued by the last question. There is a boundary, but how do we identify it—both as researchers and as a terrified person? In The 17th Door, participants can yell “Mercy” to signal that they want to opt of a scene or opt out of the entire event. What factors contribute to a person making that decision? Is that caused by crossing the line between recreational fear and real fear? Which research question do your students find the most interesting and why?   References Martinez-Conde, S., & Macknik, S. (2023, May). Friends can make things very scary. Scientific American, 328(5), 80. Tashjian, S. M., Fedrigo, V., Molapour, T., Mobbs, D., & Camerer, C. F. (2022). Physiological responses to a haunted-house threat experience: Distinct tonic and phasic effects. Psychological Science, 33(2), 236–248. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211032231   ... View more

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

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

In my online class weekly discussions, I ask students to share good news—no matter how small—from the previous week. In the last couple of years, I have had students reporting being excited because their credit score increased. At least some people—number unknown—have gamified their credit. They are watching in almost real time what happens when they pay down or pay off their credit cards. It’s a great example of operant conditioning. Engaging in this behavior increases my credit score, therefore I’m going to engage in this behavior more often. It was with that in mind that I read this Lifehacker article: “Here’s How to Stop Succumbing to Financial Peer Pressure” (Dietz, 2022). For my students who are trying to reduce their spending because of the impact that spending has on their credit scores, have they become consciously aware of the social pressure to spend money that they don’t necessarily have? I don’t have the answer to that question, but given that it’s a topic explored by Lifehacker, it must be in the consciousness of some. In any case, I propose that we bring this topic to the forefront of the minds of all of our students in our coverage of conformity. After covering conformity, share this scenario with your students. At college, Logan has developed some new friendships. Logan enjoys the company of their new friends, but they have noticed that their new friends prefer to eat at expensive restaurants, to sit in the expensive seats at concerts, plays, and sporting events, and to shop for clothes in pricey stores. Logan doesn’t know if they have a lot of money or if they are poor at managing the money they have. In any case, Logan doesn’t have that kind of money and doesn’t want to damage their credit score by going deeply into debt before they’re even done with their first college term. After reviewing the factors that tend to increase conformity, ask your students to envision how each of those factors could be present in Logan’s relationship with their money-spending friends. For example, conformity tends to increase when the group is unanimous about a decision. Logan would be more likely to go along with the group if one person suggests having dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town and everyone else in the group agreed. After students have had a couple minutes to think about these on their own, ask them to share their examples in small groups. After discussion has died down, invite groups to share their thoughts with the class. Now let’s take it one step further. For each factor, ask students to consider what Logan can do to counter it. For example, if Logan knows that there will be a discussion about where to have dinner, Logan can approach one person from the group in advance, explain their financial situation, and ask if this friend would be supportive when Logan suggests a less expensive dinner option. Knowing that an ally will also dissent from the group rendering the group no longer unanimous may help Logan suggest a different restaurant—or, better yet, a potluck. Again, give students an opportunity to share their ideas in small groups, and then invite groups to share their best ideas with the class. This activity not only gives students practice applying the factors that influence conformity, it also gives students a chance to see how they may be inadvertently pressuring their friends and how they themselves may be being pressured—and give them some strategies for countering the pressure. Given that money is the context for this activity, we may even help our students raise their credit scores.   Reference Dietz, M. (2022, October 25). Here’s how to stop succumbing to financial peer pressure. Lifehacker. https://lifehacker.com/here-s-how-to-stop-succumbing-to-financial-peer-pressur-1849694842   ... View more

I have had occasion to send out emails with some sort of inquiry. When I don’t get any response, it ticks me off. I don’t do well with being ignored. I’ve learned that about me. Even a short “I’m not the person to help you. Good luck!” would be welcome. I mention that to acknowledge that I brought that particular baggage with me when I read an article in the Journal of Counseling Psychology about counselors ignoring email messages from people seeking a counselor (Hwang & Fujimoto, 2022). As if the bias this study revealed was not anger-inducing enough. The results are not particularly surprising, but that does not make me less angry. I’ve noticed that as I’m writing this, I’m pounding on my keyboard. Wei-Chin Hwang and Ken A. Fujimoto were interested in finding out how counselors would respond to email inquiries from potential clients who varied on probable race, probably gender, psychological disorder, and inquiry about a sliding fee scale. The researchers used an unidentified “popular online directory to identify therapists who were providing psychotherapeutic services in Chicago, Illinois” (Hwang & Fujimoto, 2022, p. 693). From the full list 2,323 providers, they identified 720 to contact. In the first two paragraphs of their methods section, Hwang and Fujimoto explain their selection criteria. The criterion that eliminated the most therapists was that the therapist needed to have an advertised email address. Many of the therapists listed only permitted contact through the database. Because the researchers did not want to violate the database’s terms of service, they opted not to contact therapists this way. They also excluded everyone who said that they only accepted clients within a specialty area, such as sports psychology. They also had to find a solution for group practices where two or more therapists from the same practice were in the database. Hwang and Fujimoto did not want to risk therapists in the same group practice comparing email requests with each other, so they randomly chose one therapist in a group practice to receive their email. This experiment was a 3x3x2x2 (whew!). Inquirer’s race: White, African American, Latinx American (the three most common racial groups in Chicago, where the study was conducted). Researchers used U.S. Census Bureau data to identify last names that were most common for each racial group: Olson (White), Washington (African American), and Rodriguez (Latinx). Inquirer’s diagnosis: Depression, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder (previous research has shown that providers find people with schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder less desirable to work with than, say, depression) Inquirer’s gender: Male, female. (Male first names: Richard, Deshawn, José; female first names: Molly, Precious, and Juana) Inquirer’s ability to pay full fee: Yes, no. In their methods section, Hwang and Fujimoto include the scripts they used. Each script includes this question: “Can you email me back so that I can make an appointment?” The dependent variable was responsiveness. Did the provider email the potential client back within two weeks? If not, that was coded as “no responsiveness.” (In the article’s Table 1, the “no responsiveness” column is labeled as “low responsiveness,” but the text makes it clear that this column is “no responsiveness.”) If the provider replied but stated they could not treat the inquirer, that was coded as “some responsiveness.” If the provided replied with the offer of an appointment or an invitation to discuss further, that was coded as “high responsiveness.” There were main effects for inquirer race, diagnosis, and ability to pay the full fee. The cells refer to the percentage of provider’s email messages in each category. Table 1. Responsiveness by Race of Inquirer Name No responsiveness Some responsiveness High responsiveness Molly or Richard Olson 15.4% 33.2% 51.5% Precious or Deshawn Washington 27.4% 30.3% 42.3% Juana or José Rodriguez 22.3% 34% 43.7%   There was one statistically significant interaction. Male providers were much more likely to respond to Olson than they were to Washington or Rodriguez. Female providers showed no bias in responding by race. If a therapist does not want to work with a client based on their race, then it is probably best for the client if they don’t. But at least have the decency to reply to their email with some lie about how you’re not taking on more clients, and then refer them to a therapist who can help. Table 2. Responsiveness by Diagnosis Diagnosis No responsiveness Some responsiveness High responsiveness Depression 17.9% 20% 62.1% Schizophrenia 25.8% 43.8% 30.4% Borderline Personality Disorder 21.3% 33.8% 45%   Similar thoughts here. I get that working with a client diagnosed with schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder takes a very specific set of skills that not all therapists have, but, again, at least have the decency to reply to the email saying that you don’t have the skills, and then refer them to a therapist who does. Table 3. Responsiveness by Inquirer’s Ability to Pay Full Fee Ability to pay full fee No responsiveness Some responsiveness High responsiveness No 22.4% 39.7% 38% Yes 21% 25.4% 53.6%   While Hwang and Fujimoto interpret these results to mean a bias against members of the working class, I have a different interpretation. The no response rate was the same with about 20% of providers not replying at all. If there were an anti-working-class bias, I would expect the no responsiveness percentage to those asking about a sliding fee scale would be much greater. In both levels of this independent variable, about 80% gave some reply. It could be that the greater percentage of “some responsiveness” in reply to those who inquired about a sliding fee scale was due to the providers being maxed out on the number of clients they had who were paying reduced fees. One place to discuss this study and its findings with Intro Psych students is in the therapy chapter. It would work well as part of your coverage of therapy ethics codes. Within the ethics code for the American Counseling Association, Section C on professional responsibility is especially relevant. It reads in part: Counselors facilitate access to counseling services, and they practice in a nondiscriminatory manner…Counselors are encouraged to contribute to society by devoting a portion of their professional activity to services for which there is little or no financial return (pro bono publico) (American Counseling Association, 2014, p. 😎 Within the ethics code of the American Psychological Association, Principle 😧 Social Justice is particularly relevant. Psychologists recognize that fairness and justice entitle all persons to access to and benefit from the contributions of psychology and to equal quality in the processes, procedures, and services being conducted by psychologists. Psychologists exercise reasonable judgment and take precautions to ensure that their potential biases, the boundaries of their competence, and the limitations of their expertise do not lead to or condone unjust practices (American Psychological Association, 2017). Principle E: Respect for People's Rights and Dignity is also relevant. It reads in part: Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual, and role differences, including those based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socioeconomic status, and consider these factors when working with members of such groups. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone activities of others based upon such prejudices (American Psychological Association, 2017). This study was conducted in February 2018—before the pandemic. Public mental health has not gotten better. Asking for help is not easy. When people muster the courage to ask for help, the absolute least we can do is reply. Even if we are not the best person to provide that help, we can direct them to additional resources, such as one of these crisis help lines. For a trained and licensed therapist who is bound by their profession’s code of ethics to just not reply at all to a request for help, I just don’t have the words. Again, I should acknowledge that I have my own baggage about having my email messages ignored. For anyone who wants to blame their lack of responding on the volume of email you have sort through (I won’t ask if you are selectively not responding based on perceived inquirer personal characteristics), I have an hour-long workshop that will help you get your email under control and keep it that way.   References American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA 2014 code of ethics. https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/2014-code-of-ethics-finaladdress.pdf?sfvrsn=96b532c_8 American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. https://www.apa.org/ethics/code Hwang, W.-C., & Fujimoto, K. A. (2022). Email me back: Examining provider biases through email return and responsiveness. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 69(5), 691–700. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000624       ... View more

In 2013, Thibault Le Texier, a French academic, accidentally tripped over Philip Zimbardo’s 2008 “The Psychology of Evil” TED Talk. Le Texier became so fascinated by Zimbardo’s prison study, he devoured everything he could find about it. Like others, he thought it would make an excellent documentary. A couple film producers received a grant to send Le Texier to Stanford to take a deep dive into the prison study’s archives.(Le Texier, 2018). About what he learned, Le Texier wrote: C'est là, en juillet 2014, que mon enthousiasme a fait place au scepticisme, puis mon scepticisme à l'indignation, à mesure que je découvrais les dessous de l'expérience et l'évidence de sa manipulation. It was there, in July 2014, that my enthusiasm gave way to skepticism, then my skepticism to indignation, as I discovered the underside of the experiment and the evidence of its manipulation. [Google translation, with the translation stamp of approval from this blog post author based on her limited French] Le Texier published what he learned in his well-researched 2018 book, Histoire d’un mensonge: Enquête sur l’expérience de Stanford (available from Amazon). While the book has not yet been published in English, a not-too-bad Google translation is freely available. In 2019, Le Texier provided us with a summary of his findings in an American Psychologist article (Le Texier, 2019). If your library does not carry this journal, you can download a copy of the article from Le Texier’s website. I remember when the 2019 American Psychologist article came out. It was the July/August edition. I made a mental note to read the article, but never made the time to actually read it. I’m currently working on a writing project that gave me the impetus to finally read it. If you cover the prison study in any of your courses, the American Psychologist article is a must-read. The biggest surprise to me was the amount of guidance and direction the guards were given. The popular narrative is that the power of the prison situation created guards who enthusiastically took on the role of who they believed a guard is. Instead, the guards were instructed to engage in particular behaviors, such as the middle-of-the-night counts. In fact, the guards thought of themselves as fellow experimenters who were tasked with creating a stressful psychological environment for the prisoners. During the guards’ orientation, Zimbardo told them that he had a grant to study the conditions which lead to mob behavior, violence, loss of identity, feelings of anonymity. [. . .] [E]ssentially we’re setting up a physical prison here to study what that does and those are some of the variables that we’ve discovered are current in prisons, those are some of the psychological barriers. And we want to recreate in our prison that psychological environment (Le Texier, 2019, p. 827). This was indeed the original purpose of the study—to see how a stressful prison-like situation could impact mock prisoners. Zimbardo wrote in The Lucifer Effect, I should mention again that my initial interest was more in the prisoners and their adjustment to this prisonlike situation than it was in the guards. The guards were merely ensemble players who would help create a mind-set in the prisoners of the feeling of being imprisoned. […] Over time, it became evident to us that the behavior of the guards was as interesting as, or sometimes even more interesting than, that of the prisoners (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 55). What has been lost to time, however, is that the guards did not decide for themselves how to behave. Another big factor that affected what happened during the study is how much the guards and prisoners were paid: $15 per day. In 2022 dollars, that is $110/day (Webster, 2022). Both guards and prisoners said that it was in their best interest to act as Zimbardo expected in order to stretch the experience out as long as they could. The longer they stayed, the more money they would all make. As for my own writing project, I knew I could not delete the prison study wholesale. Too many people know something about it, and it is well past time for us to discuss what the historical record tells us. In the end, I framed my coverage of the study in the context of the study’s demand characteristics. Perhaps in a strange twist of fate, Zimbardo’s point about the prison study holds, but not in the way he describes it. The power of the situation can, indeed, greatly affect our behavior. The power of the situation in the prison study, however, does not come from taking on the role of guard or prisoner in a prison situation, but comes from taking on the role of experimenter (or, at least, experimenter assistant as the guards believed themselves to be) and the role of research participant (as the prisoners knew themselves to be) in a research situation. In the end, the prison study appears to be an excellent object lesson in the power of demand characteristics in a psychological research situation.   References Le Texier, T. (2018). Histoire d’un mensonge: Enquête sur l’expérience de Stanford. Éditions La Découverte. Le Texier, T. (2019). Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment. American Psychologist, 74(7), 823–839. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000401 Webster, I. (2022, September 4). $15 in 1971 is worth $109.73 today. CPI Inflation Calculator. https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1971?amount=15      ... View more