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

People volunteer their time. I can’t find any research that tells me how many people donate their time or how much time people donate. (If you know of data, please email me at sfrantz@highline.edu or sfrantz@nmsu.edu.) I am going to go out on a limb and say that almost everyone volunteers at least a few minutes of their time in some way at least once a month. When we think of volunteering, we may think of committing a few hours a month to a particular cause. For example, people donate their time to make audio recordings of written material in the public domain (Librivox). Our local arthouse theater is run entirely by volunteers who do everything from selling tickets to selling popcorn (Fountain Theater, Mesilla, NM). As a college student, I volunteered a few hours a week at a domestic violence shelter and rape crisis center (Alice Paul House, Indiana, PA). While all of these activities require some level of training and commitment, there are plenty of less formal ways we can donate our time. For example, during this summer’s heat wave I visited a friend. I saw that he had a cooler on his porch with a sign that read “Cold water. Help yourself.” He puts it out for any delivery or service personnel who come through his neighborhood. It’s a small time (and financial) commitment, but it’s certainly a volunteer activity. I imagine that there are plenty of organizations that would be happy to have people volunteer for just a bit of time with no major time commitment required. Perhaps they would love to have a few people spend one hour—not one hour a week, just one single hour—pulling weeds or picking up trash on their organization’s property. Unfortunately, there isn’t a clearinghouse for these kind of volunteer activities. But what if there were? In the summer of 2022, a one-day pop-up shop appeared in Carlisle, UK. The shop was filled with donations from local businesses, but the prices weren’t in British pounds. They were in volunteer time for local charities. As a member of the initiative said, “It seems people have really responded to this idea because it broke down some of the barriers to volunteering. People do want to make a difference and help charities in their community, but it is not always clear how to do that or who to speak to – the Kinder Shop really connected people with those opportunities” (Gillespie-Wright, 2023). Martha Winn “picked up some impressive wooden chopping boards, vases and a bottle of gin and will be volunteering to help at Eden Valley Hospice’s torchlit procession in October” (Cumbria Crack, 2022). There is plenty of research that shows the value of giving to others. Recreating a pop-up Kinder Shop in your community could be a valuable project for your psych club or your Psi Beta or Psi Chi chapter. Students could share with patrons how giving increases our own happiness (think infographic handouts or posters) while connecting community members and students to volunteer opportunities.   References Cumbria Crack. (2022, June 22). Unique Carlisle shop where you just pay with kindness. https://cumbriacrack.com/2022/06/22/unique-carlisle-shop-where-you-just-pay-with-kindness/ Gillespie-Wright, K. (2023, May 16). The shop where the currency is kindness. Positive News. https://www.positive.news/society/kinder-shop-where-the-currency-is-kindness/   ... View more

Sometimes we just need a little good news. In the Intro Psych social psych chapter, let’s give students some practice thinking through the Latané and Darley model of helping  (Latane & Darley, 1968). The next time students find themselves in a situation where they can help, maybe they will.   Let’s start with the model of helping. In the event of an emergency, we (1) have to notice that something is happening. Next, we (2) have to interpret that event as an emergency. Once we do, we (3) have to assume some responsibility for helping. Lastly, we (4) need to know how we can be of assistance. If there is failure at any of those steps along the way, we are less likely to help. Let’s start with truck driver Gary Wilburn. On October 4, 2022, Wilburn was driving through Arkansas when he encountered slow moving traffic. After an hour of this traffic, Wilburn spotted the cause. A state trooper’s car had crashed. He saw that the trooper was still in the car and was badly hurt. Wilburn called 911 and stayed with the trooper until help arrived (Good News Network, 2022). Using Wilburn’s decision to help, walk your students through the model. With traffic moving at a crawl, Wilburn had no choice but to notice something was going on. Once he saw the trooper’s car, he interpreted that something as an emergency. Wilburn accepted responsibility for helping. (Wilburn said, “I’m that idiot that runs into burning buildings and pulls out pets. When I see something like that, I can’t keep going on about my day” (Good News Network, 2022).) Lastly, Wilburn knew what to do: call 911. Now consider why all of the other drivers did not help. Is it possible that some drivers did not notice that (1) something was happening? For drivers who were just passing through and weren’t familiar with the local traffic patterns, they may not have thought that anything peculiar was happening. For the local drivers, though, this heavy traffic was certainly unusual. But (2) was it an emergency? Even if they spotted the crashed police car, they may not have noticed that the injured trooper was still in the car. They may have assumed that the driver had already been taken to the hospital. For anyone who saw the injured trooper, (3) they may not have accepted that they had a responsibility to help. They may have thought, “Look at all of these other drivers. Surely someone else has already called 911.” (Bystander effect!) Lastly, even if they decided that they had a responsibility to help, (4) they may have thought, “I don’t know first aid. I’m sure that someone not far behind me knows what to do.” When under pressure, it may not occur to us that, at minimum, we can call 911. Ask your students to read this article about Emily Raines (a nurse) and her boyfriend who saved a man’s life on plane (Corbley, 2023b). In small groups (or as an assignment), ask your students to walk through the decisions made by Raines in each step of the Latané and Darley model of helping (Latane & Darley, 1968). One more example! Ask your student to read this article about Michael Armus, Sr. who stopped a bank robbery in progress by asking the robber, “What’s wrong?” (Corbley, 2023a). Again, in small groups (or as an assignment), ask your students to walk through the decisions made by Armus, Sr. in each step of the Latané and Darley model of helping (Corbley, 2023a). To close out this discussion (or assignment), invite students to share an example of when they helped or did not help. Ask them to walk through their decisions at each step of the helping model.   References Corbley, A. (2023a, May 29). The incredible moment 69-year-old stops a bank robbery with words and a hug. Good News Network. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/the-incredible-moment-69-year-old-stops-a-bank-robbery-with-words-and-a-hug/ Corbley, A. (2023b, June 6). A nurse and her boyfriend saved a man’s life on flight home from Bahamas vacation. Good News Network. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/a-nurse-and-her-boyfriend-saved-a-mans-life-on-flight-home-from-bahamas-vacation/ Good News Network. (2022, October 15). Texas trucker is named ‘highway angel’ for stopping to rescue a police officer pinned in vehicle. Good News Network. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/gary-wilburn-named-trucker-highway-angel/ 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     ... 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

Here is another opportunity to give students practice in experimental design. While this discussion (synchronous or asynchronous) or assignment would work well after covering research methods, using it in the Intro Psych social psych chapter as a research methods refresher would work, too. By way of introduction, explain to your students how double-blind peer review works and why that’s our preferred approach in psychology. Next, ask students to read the freely-available, less-than-one-page article in the September 16, 2022 issue of Science titled “Reviewers Award Higher Marks When a Paper’s Author Is Famous.” While I have a lot of love for research designs that involves an entire research team brainstorming for months, I have a special place in my heart for research designs that must have occurred to someone in the middle of the night. This study has to be the latter. If you know it is not, please do not burst my bubble. A Nobel Prize winner (Vernon Smith) and his much lesser-known former student (Sabiou Inoua) wrote a paper and submitted it for publication in a finance journal. The journal editor and colleagues thought, “Hey, you know what would be interesting? Let’s find out if this paper would fly if the Nobel Prize winner’s name wasn’t on it. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” The study is comprised of two experiments (available in pre-print). In the first experiment, the experimenters contacted 3,300 researchers asking if they would be willing to review an economics paper based on a short description of the paper. Those contacted were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Of the one-third who were told that the author was Smith, the Nobel laureate, 38.5% agreed to review the paper. Of the one-third who were told that the author was Inoua, the former student, 28.5% agreed to review. Lastly, of the one-third who were given no author names, 30.7% agreed to review. Even though there was no statistical difference between these latter two conditions as reported in the pre-print, the emotional difference must be there. If I’m Inoua, I can accept that many more people are interested in reviewing a Nobel laureate’s paper than are interested in reviewing mine. What’s harder to accept is that my paper appears even less interesting when my name is on it than when my name is not on it. I know. I know. Statistically, there is no difference. But, dang, if I were in Inoua’s shoes, it would be hard to get my heart to accept that. Questions for students: In the first experiment, what was the independent variable? Identify the independent variable’s experimental conditions and control condition. What was the dependent variable? Now let’s take a look at the second experiment. For their participants, the researchers limited themselves to those who had volunteered to review the paper when they had not been given the names of either of the authors. They randomly divided this group of reviewers into the same conditions as in the first experiment: author identified as Vernon Smith, author identified as Sabiou Inoua, and no author name given. How many reviewers recommended that the editor reject the paper? With Smith’s name on the paper, 22.6% said reject it. With Inoua’s name on the paper, 65.4% said reject. With no name on the paper, 48.2% said reject. All differences are statistically significant. Now standing in Inoua’s shoes, the statistical difference matches my emotional reaction. Thin comfort. Questions for students: In the second experiment, what was the independent variable? Identify the independent variable’s experimental conditions and control condition. What was the dependent variable? The researchers argue that their data reveal a status bias. If you put a high status name on a paper, more colleagues will be interested in reviewing it, and of those who do review it, more will advocate for its publication. Double-blind reviews really are fairer, although the researchers note that in some cases—especially with pre-prints or conference presentations—reviewers may know who the paper belongs to even if the editor conceals that information. With this pair of experiments, the paper sent out for review was not available as a pre-print nor had it been presented at a conference. The stickier question is how to interpret the high reject recommendations for Inoua as compared to when no author was given. While the experimenters intended to contrast Smith’s status with Inoua’s, there is a confounding variable. Reviewers who are not familiar with Sabiou Inoua will not know Inoua’s race or ethnicity for certain, but they might guess that Inouan is a person of color. A quick Google search finds Inoua’s photo and CV on Chapman University’s Economic Science Institute faculty and staff page. He is indeed a person of color from Niger. Is the higher rejection rate for when Inoua’s name was on the paper due to his lower status? Or due to his race or ethnicity? Or was it due to an interaction between the two? Questions for students: Design an experiment that would test whether Inoua’s higher rejection rate was more likely due to status or more likely due to race/ethnicity. Identify your independent variable(s), including the experimental and control conditions. Identify your dependent variable. If time allows, give students an opportunity to share other contexts where double-blind reviews are or would be better.     ... 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

I just finished reading—and rereading—Freedman and Fraser’s famous 1966 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology paper, “Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique” (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). This is the safe-driving sign study. The paper doesn’t say what I expected it to say. First, a heads up. Because this paper was published in 1966, there is some disorienting time travel involved. Freedman and Fraser’s first experiment involved making requests of “156 Palo Alto, California housewives” (p. 197) who were randomly chosen from the telephone directory. For those who aren’t familiar with the terms housewives and telephone directory, Google can help with that. The second experiment—and the more famous of the two—included in their final analysis the results from 105 women (no word on whether they were housewives) and 7 men (househusbands, presumably). In the paper’s discussion, Freedman and Fraser used the universal masculine. I did the math; 97.4% of the two experiments’ participants were women. Their writing about “his” reasoning in the discussion threw me a bit. None of that is a knock against Freedman or Fraser—nor was it unexpected. It’s just a little commentary on the year 1966. Now let’s get to the unexpected part. The second experiment they report in their paper is the safe-driving sign study. Every third or fourth home along blocks in different neighborhoods in Palo Alto, California were selected as the participants. Each block was randomly assigned to one of the five conditions of the independent variable. Residents were asked to either (1) put a 3-inch square safe-driving sign in a home or car window, (2) put a 3-inch square “Keep California Beautiful” sign in a home or car window, (3) sign a petition to encourage California’s U.S. Senators to pass legislation that would promote safe driving, (4) sign a petition to the same Senators to pass legislation that would “keep California beautiful,” and (5) a control group who did not receive any of these initial requests.  Two weeks later, a different set of researchers who were blind to conditions asked the residents if they would agree to have a large (massive, really), poorly-lettered, safe-driving sign placed in their front yard that would apparently obscure most of the front of their house for seven to ten days. So far so good. Now let’s turn to the results. They write, First, it should be noted that there were no large differences among the experimental conditions in the percentages of subjects agreeing to the first request. Although somewhat more subjects agreed to post the “Keep California Beautiful” sign and somewhat fewer to sign the beauty petition, none of these differences approach significance. The important figures are the number of subjects in each group who agreed to the large request… The figures for the four experimental groups include all subjects who were approached the first time, regardless of whether or not they agreed to the small request (p. 200). Wait. “[R]egardless of whether or not they agreed to the small request.” This is the experiment that is held up as the classic example of foot-in-the-door. In foot-in-the-door, it’s agreement to that initial request that is so important. Some secondary sources report that nearly everyone in the study agreed to the small request. I don’t see that reported in this paper. All I see is that agreement across the groups was pretty much the same. Same large? Same small? Same in between? They don’t tell us. If anyone knows where the secondary sources got that there was large agreement to the initial requests, please let me know.   In their discussion, Freedman and Fraser write at length about how receiving a small request can lead to later agreement to a larger request. For example, “It is immediately apparent that the first request tended to increase the degree of compliance with the second request” (p. 200), and “regardless of whether or not the two requests are similar in either issue or task, simply having the first request tends to increase the likelihood that the subject with comply with a subsequent, larger request” (p. 201). Nowhere do they say that agreement to that first request is important. Now the results. Of those who were asked to display the small safe-driving sign (regardless of how many actually agreed), 76% said yes to displaying the large safe-driving sign. For the other three experimental conditions (display small “Keep California Beautiful” sign or signing either of the petitions), 47% said yes to the large safe-driving sign. How many in the control group said yes to the big sign? “[F]ewer than 20%” (p. 200). While the safe-driving sign is the more famous experiment, the first experiment Freedman and Fraser report in their 1966 paper does indeed illustrate foot-in-the-door, although they don’t quite report the data that I want. In this experiment, researchers called 156 randomly-selected phone numbers from the “telephone directory.” The “housewives” who answered the phone were told that the person calling was from the “California Consumers’ Group.” The women were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) the caller asked if they would answer some survey questions, then if they agreed proceeded to ask the questions (performance condition), (2) the caller asked if they would answer some survey questions, then if they agreed said that he “was just lining up respondents for the survey and would contact her if needed” (p. 197) (agree-only condition), and (3) the caller described his organization and described the survey, but did not make any request (familiarization condition). (I imagine that the women in this last group must have been more confused than anything.) Three days later, all of the participants were called again and a control group was called for the first time. The request was to allow “five or six men from our staff” into their homes to spend two hours to count and classify their household products. In the results section, Freedman and Fraser write, Apparently even the small request was not considered trivial by some of the subjects. Only about two thirds of the subjects in the Performance and Agree-Only conditions agreed to answer the questions about household soaps. It might be noted that none of those who refused the first request later agreed to the large request, although…all subjects who were contacted for the small request are included in the data for those groups. In the performance condition (answered the survey questions), 52.8% agreed to allow a group of strange men into their homes for two hours to dig through their household products. In the agree-only condition (agreed to answer questions but weren’t actually asked any), 33.3% agreed to the large request. In the familiarization condition (heard about the organization—for no apparent reason), 27.8% agreed to the large request. In the control condition, 22% agreed to the large request. Since Freedman and Fraser included everyone in their reported data, we don’t know what percentage of those who agreed to the small request also agreed to the large request. However, since they tell us that the participants who said no to the initial request also said no to the larger request, we know that those who said yes to the initial request were the only ones who said yes to the larger request. (Whew!) In other words, the actual percentages Freedman and Fraser give us underreport the degree of compliance to a large request after agreeing to a smaller request, but the relative differences in percentages are meaningful. I encourage you to read Freedman and Fraser’s 1966 paper. For those interested in replication, take a look at an attempt to replicate the household products study in Poland and Ukraine (Gamian-Wilk & Dolinski, 2020). This could be a fun class discussion on how 1960s California differs from 2003 Poland and 2013 Ukraine—some of which the authors of this paper discuss. For that matter, discussing how 1960s California differs from 2022 anywhere would be worthwhile. This can help students better understand why some studies may not replicate when done exactly the same way. What woman in the world today would agree to allow five or six strange men into her home for two hours to count household products?! Let alone based solely on a phone call from a stranger?!?! Conceptual replications, in this case, may be more illuminating.   References Freedman, J. L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(2), 195–202. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0023552 Gamian-Wilk, M., & Dolinski, D. (2020). The foot-in-the-door phenomenon 40 and 50 years later: A direct replication of the original Freedman and Fraser study in Poland and in Ukraine. Psychological Reports, 123(6), 2582–2596. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294119872208     ... View more

The American Heart Association (AHA) developed a list of the seven top predictors of cardiovascular health, dubbed “Life’s Simple 7” (American Heart Association, n.d.). A longitudinal study of 11,568 volunteers spanning a median of 28 years found that when volunteers had high “Life’s Simple 7” scores, their risk of stroke decreased, even when they had a higher genetic risk (Thomas et al., 2022). All of the “Life’s Simple 7” factors have behavioral components. Don’t smoke. Quitting counts. Former smokers who have not smoked in over a year earn a green checkmark. Body mass index (BMI) between 18.5 and 25 is optimal. For someone who is 5’6”, AHA’s ideal weight is between 115 and 154. A reverse BMI calculator, such as this one, makes it easier to identify a target weight. Moderate exercise (e.g., brisk walk) for at least 150 minutes each week. Healthy diet. The AHA defines this as 4.5 cups of fruits and vegetables per day, 3 servings of whole grains per day, and 2 servings of fish per week. Additionally, we should consume less than 36 ounces of sugary beverages (e.g., sweet tea, sugar-sweetened coffee and soda) per week and less than 1,500 mg of sodium per day. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) eating plan has more specifics. Total cholesterol under 200. Blood pressure lower than 120 over 80. Fasting blood glucose lower than 100. As a concluding activity for the Intro Psych course, ask students—either as a solo or group project—to choose one of AHA’s seven factors. Some factors will overlap. For example, blood pressure is related to high BMI, low exercise, and too much dietary sodium. For their chosen factor, students are to identify at least one concept from at least three different chapters that are relevant to their factor. Operant conditioning, stress, and conformity, for instance, may all arguably play a role in each of the seven factors. To end this section, students are to suggest one concrete behavioral change plan that an individual can implement. Point out to students that their suggested plan needs to be more than “exercise more” or “eat better.” Pretty much everyone already knows that. Explain that there is often a difference between knowing what we should do and actually doing it. Most students know that they should start working on research papers early in the term, yet how many students actually do? Telling students to get to work on their research papers as soon as the papers are assigned is unlikely to change behavior. What, then, might actually change behavior? Encourage students to use what they learned in the course to inform their suggestion. Our health is not just an issue for individuals. It is also a social justice issue. If we do not have access to quality healthcare, we don’t know what our blood pressure, cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose numbers are, let alone have someone who can help us move those numbers into heart healthy territory. If we live in a community with only a corner store and no grocery store, our ability to purchase fruits, vegetables, and whole grains may be limited or too expensive for us to purchase, whereas processed foods that tend to be high in sodium may be easier to get. For an overview of issues in health equity, invite students to read Jennifer Kelly’s presidential paper in the American Psychologist (Kelly, 2022). For their project, ask students to describe racial, ethnic, socio-economic, or other societal disparities for their chosen factor and provide possible explanations for those differences. As an example, people who have less money are more likely to live in neighborhoods where they feel unsafe. If it feels unsafe to be outside our home, we are unlikely to walk 150 minutes each week. We could use a treadmill indoors, however if we had the money to buy a treadmill and the space to set it up—or the money for a gym membership, we probably would not be living in a neighborhood that feels unsafe. Students are to suggest one concrete plan that can be enacted at the community level that would help reduce health disparities for their chosen factor. For example, are there things community leaders can do to make communities safer or ways they can create safe exercise spaces? Through doing this project, students will have more of an appreciation for the role that psychology and communities can play in improving the health of everyone.   References American Heart Association. (n.d.). Life’s simple 7. Retrieved July 26, 2022, from https://playbook.heart.org/lifes-simple-7/ Kelly, J. F. (2022). Building a more equitable society: Psychology’s role in achieving health equity. American Psychologist, 77(5), 633–645. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001019 Thomas, E. A., Enduru, N., Tin, A., Boerwinkle, E., Griswold, M. E., Mosley, T. H., Gottesman, R. F., & Fornage, M. (2022). Polygenic risk, midlife life’s simple 7, and lifetime risk of stroke. Journal of the American Heart Association, e025703. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.122.025703   ... View more

One variable that consistently arises as important to student success in college or graduate school is perseverance (Hwang et al., 2018; Ramey et al., 2019; Tynan et al., 2020), a component of grit (Duckworth et al., 2021). Anecdotally, when I ask colleagues who have earned graduate degrees the key to their success, their narratives frequently include stories of perseverance. I want to pause here to be crystal clear. While perseverance is important, it is not the only important factor. For example, it does not matter how much I persevere, my 54-year-old self will not become an Olympic athlete. (I might have a shot at the Senior Olympics, though—if I were so inclined. I’m not, but I could be.) We can help students find their own inner drive to persevere, but we have to be careful to not blame a student’s lack of success on their unwillingness or inability to persevere. In other words, when you don’t see me competing in the Super G at the next Winter Olympics, don’t put my failure to be there solely on my lack of perseverance. For starters, I could use some financial support to help me live near a resort with world class ski runs. Oh. And to take ski lessons.  In college, I was accustomed to earning good grades. And then I ran into a Theories of Sociology course that gave me fits. On the first essay exam, I earned a D. I thought I had included all of the necessary information on which theorist said what, but evidently not. The second exam replicated the results of the first. I talked to my professor. My answers were bullet points, which was the style preferred by a previous professor. This one wanted sentences assembled into paragraphs. A fair request. And, in retrospect, that style of writing should have been my default. However, as a first-generation college student creating college-student schemas by the tried and true methods of trial/error and observation, I had created a schema for college essay writing. “Professors want bullet points.” I had to make some significant changes to that schema if I were going to recover my grade in Theories of Sociology. I studied my butt off for the final. During the final, I filled my blue book and was the last one to finish. My score on the final was enough to bring my overall course grade up to at least B. To get through Theories of Sociology, I needed perseverance. I could have given up, taken an F, and sacrificed my minor in sociology. In the greater scheme of things, that wouldn’t have been a tragedy. But, no, I persevered. But I also brought other resources to the table. I had strong study skills (thanks largely to a challenging high school chemistry class that forced me to up my study game), I had decent enough writing skills (thanks to some excellent K-12 teachers and a love of reading modeled by my mother and older sister), and I had solid social support in the form of college friends who were there to encourage and study with me. Perseverance wasn’t the only thing I needed to succeed in that course, but it was necessary. In Science, each issue ends with a feature called “Working Life.” Readers of Science are encouraged to submit essays about their careers. Here are three very different stories that, at their root, are about perseverance. Students may find inspiration in reading these freely-accessible essays. For each, I suggest a few discussion questions. (Each article appeared in print under different titles and different dates. I’ve provided the online references rather than the print references.) A horribly embarrassing interview landed me a Ph.D. position—and taught me a valuable lesson (Holzer, 2022) Senka Holzer had several opportunities to give up, yet she persevered. Which challenge—either when interviewing for the Ph.D. program or in her life—do you think was the most difficult for her? Why? Identify at least two other skills or resources Holzer may have beyond perseverance that contributed to her success. Explain. Describe an academic challenge you have experienced that required perseverance to overcome. Identify at least two other skills or resources you drew upon to overcome that challenge. Doing research abroad felt lonely. Here’s how I made friends (Bonnesen, 2022) Kasper Bonnesen had reason to believe that his six months abroad would not go well, yet he chose to go anyway. In his time in Atlanta, he persevered. Why do you think it was important to him to succeed in staying this time? Identify at least two other skills or resources Bonnesen may have beyond perseverance that contributed to his successful stay in Atlanta. Explain. Describe a social challenge you have experienced that required perseverance to overcome. Identify at least two other skills or resources you drew upon to overcome that challenge. I worried my cerebral palsy would halt my progress in science—but I found a path forward (Smolensky, 2022) Ilya Smolensky had several opportunities to give up having a science career, yet she persevered. Which challenge do you think was the most difficult for her? Why? Identify as least two other skills or resources Smolensky may have beyond perseverance that contributed to her success in a science field. Explain. Describe a physical challenge you have experienced that required perseverance to overcome. Identify at least two other skills or resources you drew upon to overcome that challenge.   References Bonnesen, K. (2022, June 30). Doing research abroad felt lonely. Here’s how I made friends. Science, 377(6601). https://www.science.org/content/article/doing-research-abroad-felt-lonely-heres-how-i-made-friends Duckworth, A. L., Quinn, P. D., & Tsukayama, E. (2021). Revisiting the factor structure of grit: A commentary on Duckworth and Quinn (2009). Journal of Personality Assessment, 103(5), 573–575. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2021.1942022 Holzer, S. (2022, May 19). A horribly embarrassing interview landed me a Ph.D. position—And taught me a valuable lesson. Science, 376(6595). https://www.science.org/content/article/horribly-embarrassing-interview-landed-me-ph-d-position-and-taught-me-valuable-lesson Hwang, M. H., Lim, H. J., & Ha, H. S. (2018). Effects of grit on the academic success of adult female students at Korean Open University. Psychological Reports, 121(4), 705–725. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294117734834 Ramey, H. L., Lawford, H. L., Chalmers, H., & Lakman, Y. (2019). Predictors of student success in Canadian polytechnics and CEGEPs. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 48(2), 74–91. https://doi.org/10.7202/1057104ar Smolensky, I. (2022, June 16). I worried my cerebral palsy would halt my progress in science—But I found a path forward. Science, 376(6599). https://www.science.org/content/article/worried-my-cerebral-palsy-would-halt-my-progress-science-found-path-forward Tynan, M. C., Credé, M., & Harms, P. D. (2020). Are individual characteristics and behaviors necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions for academic success?: A demonstration of Dul’s (2016) necessary condition analysis. Learning and Individual Differences, 77, 101815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2019.101815   ... View more

Thurgood Marshall in his argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education cited the research of Drs. Mamie and Kenneth Clark. Those were the now-famous doll studies demonstrating that segregation affects how Black children feel about themselves. That 1954 ruling started a cascade of changes. While racism is still prevalent almost 70 years later, some of the state-sponsored systemic barriers have come done. Some of them. Step into the shoes of a Black man charged with a crime. Your case goes to a jury trial. The jury is comprised of all white people. And the jury room, maintained by a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, prominently features a Confederate flag. Would you feel that your jury was impartial? Tim Gilbert and his attorneys did not. For a summary of this case, read the freely available APA Div 9: Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues column in the June 2022 issue of the Monitor on Psychology, “Legacies of racism in our halls of justice” (Anderson & Najdowski, 2022). Gilbert’s trial was held in 2020 at the Giles County courthouse in Pulaski, TN. “[T]he jury retired to the jury room during every recess, for every meal, and for its deliberations” (p. 29 of appeals court ruling.) While there were other Confederacy memorabilia in the jury room—including a portrait of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, the defense team took primary issue with the Confederate flag. (See a photo.) “In its amicus brief, the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (‘TACDL’), noting that ‘[m]ultiple courts have recognized the racially hostile and disruptive nature of the Confederate flag,’ argues that ‘a jury’s exposure to Confederate Icons denies the defendant a fair trial free of extraneous prejudicial information and improper outside influence’” (p. 19 of appeals court ruling). In the TACDL amicus brief, they cited a 2011 Political Psychology article (Ehrlinger et al., 2011). The article features two experiments conducted in 2008. In the first, volunteers who were subliminally shown images of a Confederate flag were less likely to express interest in voting for Obama. In the second experiment—the one that I found more compelling—volunteers who were exposed to a folder with a Confederate flag sticker ostensibly left by someone else who had been in the room were more likely to evaluate a description of a Black man more negatively. (Read this section of the amicus brief.) Quoted in the amicus brief was the researchers’ conclusion: “Our studies show that, whether or not the Confederate flag includes other nonracist meanings, exposure to this flag evokes responses that are prejudicial. Thus, displays of the Confederate flag may do more than inspire heated debate, they may actually provoke discrimination.” Excluded from that quote was the end of the researchers’ sentence: “even among those who are low in prejudice.” In August 2021, the appeals court ruled that Gilbert was deserving of a new trial. In Intro Psych, we can discuss this case in the first few days of class, when we discuss the importance of psychological research. It would also work to discuss the Ehringer et al. second study as an example of experimental design—and then add how that experiment was used to support a new trial for Gilbert.   References Anderson, M., & Najdowski, C. J. (2022, June). Legacies of racism in our halls of justice. Monitor on Psychology, 53(4), 39. Ehrlinger, J., Plant, E. A., Eibach, R. P., Columb, C. J., Goplen, J. L., Kunstman, J. W., & Butz, D. A. (2011). How exposure to the Confederate flag affects willingness to vote for Barack Obama. Political Psychology, 32(1), 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00797.x             ... View more

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