I haven’t given much thought to how check cashing stores and payday lending stores are designed, probably because I have not had occasion to go in one. I’m reading the book The 99% Invisible City, a collection of essays based on the popular podcast 99% Invisible. In one essay—"Reality Checks”—we learn that check cashing stores and payday lending stores have purposely designed their interiors to be similar to, say, a corner grocery or convenience store—think linoleum and displayed product prices—and employees in branded polo shirts. If you have experience with corner grocery/convenience stores, you have a schema for what corner grocery/convenience stores look like and how they work. When you walk into a check cashing store or payday lending store for the first time, your corner grocery/convenience store schema helps you feel less out of place. The essay goes on to tell us that banks, in contrast, have interiors that are designed very differently—think plush carpeting and ferns and tellers in suits. If you have experience with banks—perhaps as a child you tagged along with a parent or guardian who had business to conduct there—you have a schema for banks. Now, as an adult, you can walk into a bank with your bank schema and feel at ease. You know what a bank looks like and how it works. For someone who has never had experience with banks, walking into a bank with no bank schema can be a very scary experience. It can feel like you don’t belong. But with corner grocery/convenience store experience—thus a corner grocery/convenience store schema—check cashing stores and payday lending stores feel much more comfortable. Unfortunately, with high fees, there is a monetary charge for that feeling of comfort. Some banks are taking a page out of the check cashing/payday lending store interior design playbook, the essay reports, and are redesigning their interiors to, well, look less like the traditional bank. Some have even added coffee shops. In preparation for this class discussion on schemas, ask your students to listen to the 5-minute, March 4, 2011 episode of 99% Invisible—Check Cashing Stores—on which this essay was based. (The first 90 seconds of the episode is advertising.) Next, ask your students to visit a check cashing store or a payday lending store and to visit a bank (but only post-pandemic). As a cover story, students could ask for pamphlets that provide information on lending services. During their visits, students should note how each space is designed. Is there carpeting, tile, or linoleum? Are there plants? Are there other decorative elements? What are the employees wearing? What kind of information is on the signs? Next, ask your students to visit a corner grocery/convenience store.  Again, during their visits, students should note how the space is designed. Is there carpeting, tile, or linoleum? Are there plants? Are there other decorative elements? What are the employees wearing? What kind of information is on the signs? During their group discussion, ask students to compare what they saw in the check cashing store or a payday lending store with what they saw in the bank with what they saw in the corner grocery/convenience store. Would having a schema for a corner grocery/convenience be of help when first visiting a check cashing/payday lending store? Would having a schema for corner grocery/convenience help when first visiting a bank? You may also want to take this opportunity to introduce paradox of choice. In the 99% Invisible episode, the host, Roman Mars, and his guest, Douglas McGray, note that check cashing/payday lending stores provide a limited number of options. Banks, on the other hand, lead us to feel “paralyzed by the vast number of options available to” us. “And I [Roman Mars] for one always seem to leave with the feeling that I picked the wrong one.”   ... View more

In the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group, Maria Lechtreck shared a 15-minute Graham Shaw video that teaches us how to draw. After learning—in mere minutes—how to draw cartoon faces, I have been wondering how to work this into my Intro Psych course—the video, not the cartoon faces. The Intro Psych textbook I use (Myers and DeWall, Psychology in Everyday Life) opens with a short chapter titled “Student Success,” and the chapter contains all kinds of useful information on how to be, well, a successful student. I ask my students to reflect on what they read in this chapter, identify three suggestions they found most useful and why, and then identify their biggest challenges and what strategies they have in place to cope with those challenges. As a companion to that question, I’m considering adding this set of questions. *********** How confident are you in your ability to draw? Very? Somewhat? Not at all? Now, watch this 15-minute video. Participate along with the audience, drawing the characters as the presenter Graham Shaw draws them: Spike, Thelma, Jeff, Pam, and Albert Einstein. Draw a character of your own imagination. Take a photo of your collection of 6 drawings, and paste the photo here as part of your assignment. After watching the video and participating along with the audience, are you more confident in your ability to draw? Explain. At the end of the recording, Shaw asks us to consider what other beliefs we carry around about ourselves that may be causing us to limit what we can do. If someone believed that they are “not good at math,” for example, how could that belief limit the career paths they might take? Lastly, read “How praise came to be a consolation prize” in The Atlantic. What is meant by “fixed mindset?” What is meant by “growth mindset?” When someone says, “I can’t draw” or “I can’t do math” or “I can’t write,” are they exhibiting a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? Explain. Lastly, what is meant by “false growth mindset?” According to growth mindset, what’s the best way to react to a failure? ... View more

"Dissonance is most painful when evidence strikes at the heart of how we see ourselves—when it threatens our belief that we are kind, ethical, competent, or smart." Check out the great piece on cognitive dissonance from The Atlantic, by Worth author of the The Social Animal,  Elliot Aronson, plus Carol Tavris.  #psychstudentrss ... View more