In the October 1, 2021 issue of Science, Jennifer S. Chen shares with readers her experience switching from one research direction to another mid-graduate career. The four big lessons she learned from this experience apply to, well, life. But since this is a blog about teaching, let’s talk teaching. “It’s OK to fail.” In the context of doing research, failure is part of the game. Although, if a study didn’t go as I expected I don’t know that I thought of it as failure. In any case, I certainly don’t think that way now. Regardless of the results, we always know more after the completion of a study than we did before. Even if I managed to screw up the procedure in some way, I now know to be more careful next time. That’s progress. In teaching, how often have I tried something new—assignment, discussion, activity—only to have it completely bomb? Raise your hand if you have ever passed out a test only to discover that the answers were copied onto the last page. Those instructors who are so fearful of failure are too paralyzed to try anything new. Anyone else thinking of growth mindset? If we are going to get better—at teaching, at science, at life—we have to see failure as a learning opportunity, not as a comment on who we are as a teacher, a scientist, or a human being. I have worked with faculty going through the tenure process, and I have served on the committee that recommends faculty for tenure. I was not looking for perfect teaching. I was looking for instructors who were willing to take risks. If that risk didn’t work out, what did the instructor learn from it? What are they going to try next? “Value your transferable skills.” All of the time Chen spent working within her first research area was not wasted time. Instead, she learned skills, such as how to quickly read a research paper, that will serve her well, no matter her research area. The two biggest skills that I have learned through teaching that come immediately to mind are public speaking and translating science for a general audience. I am not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that I am perfect at those, but I am sure a whole lot better than I was 30 years ago! While teaching a new course for the first time can be intimidating and we don’t feel like we know everything to be covered in the course, we have the basic skills: public speaking and science translation. I see these in all of you, too. When I attend conference sessions, those who spend a lot of their time teaching are, on the whole, much better speakers than those who don’t. And because we have to communicate (sometimes complex) psychological findings to novices, we get pretty good at translating psychological science to the general public. I would love to see more psychology instructors writing blogs, writing editorials, or hosting podcasts geared toward a general audience. Have you noticed that a lot of psychology instructors lead college and university teaching and learning centers? (See for example, Claudia Stanny at the University of West Florida, Elizabeth Yost Hammer at Xavier University of Louisiana, and Regan A. R. Gurung at Oregon State University.)  Given our knowledge of psychological science and our ability to communicate those scientific findings, instructors of psychology are easy choices for departments that help others become better instructors. “Ask for help.” In Chen’s new research area, there was one component of her research that she didn’t know how to do. Rather than take weeks to learn how to do it on her own, she solicited the help of another lab who had the experience and the expertise to do it for her.   Teaching Intro Psych is hard. The word Intro is deceptive. “Introductions” to things should be easy. The Intro Psych course is not so much an “introduction” as it is “a tidal wave of information from every corner of the field.” But we don’t call it that because it exceeds the number of characters allowed by the course title field in our college catalogs. If you have a colleague who is an expert in sensation and perception, then ask them to present that content to your Intro Psych students. Take notes! Now you can lecture on it for the next year or two. Then invite your colleague to do it again. Take notes on what’s changed, and you’re good to go for another year or two. If you are having a tough time with a particular concept, ask. If you don’t work with someone who knows, put it out to the teaching of psychology community. At the time of this writing, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group has over 16,000 members. Someone will know the answer to your question. “Share your story.” When Chen started talking about her experiences with failed research studies and switching research areas, she discovered others who had had the same experiences. Talking with our teaching colleagues about our teaching failures helps us normalize the experience. This is especially important for our colleagues who are relatively new to teaching. Trying and failing are all part of the profession.   Reference Chen, J. S. (2021). Embracing a change. Science, 374(6563), 114 ... View more

As false information permeates our society, scientists keep their focus on the facts. The Covid-19 vaccine is not in any way associated with decreased fertility -- but the Covid virus itself is. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-vaccine-infertility-pregnancy-false-information ... View more

When about to give birth, I would like my healthcare provider to make a recommendation for cesarean or vaginal delivery based on my particular set of circumstances and indicators, and mine alone. I would also like a pony. Both may be equally likely. Using 21 years-worth of data (2000 to 2020), Manasvini Singh* reviewed reports of “86,345 deliveries by 231 physicians” that occurred at two hospitals, one urban and one suburban (Singh, 2021). She discovered that if a particular physician delivered a baby say, via cesarean at 1pm and the birth had complications, then the next delivery overseen by that physician later that day would be more likely to be vaginal. Conversely, a vaginal birth with complications was more likely to be followed by a cesarean birth. Interestingly, the more experienced the physician, the more likely the physician was to make the switch. Similar results were found among physicians regarding colonoscopies. If a physician referred a patient for a colonoscopy, and the patient experienced serious complications, the rates of colonoscopy referrals from that physician decreased during the next quarter of the year (Keating et al., 2017). The same is true for prescribing drugs. Physicians who had a patient who had a bad reaction to a drug were less likely to prescribe that drug again (Choudhry et al., 2006). Now, the million-dollar question: why? The data, unfortunately, are silent on the matter. One possibility identified by Singh, Keating et al., and Choudhry is the availability heuristic. When it comes to making decisions about whether to recommend a vaginal or cesarean birth, whether to recommend a colonoscopy, and whether to recommend a particular drug, the physician may mentally flip through how things have gone in the past. Events that stand out—such as events with bad outcomes—will most easily come to mind. For the purposes of teaching Intro Psych, the availability heuristic is a perfectly fine explanation. For those who would like to split cognitive hairs, there are some other possibilities, such as the recency effect, the frequency illusion, or the affect heuristic. In my mind, those are all subtypes of the availability heuristic. I will concede that if this were my area of research, I might have a better appreciation for the nuance. If you would like to challenge your students while introducing them to even more cognitive biases, ask students to review the biases in one section of the Cognitive Bias Codex. Are there any other biases in that section that could possibly explain the physician decision-making described above? Explain.   * Singh’s website includes this tidbit: “My secret talent: If you send me your study, I’ll summarize the results in a limerick for you.” References Choudhry, N. K., Anderson, G. M., Laupacis, A., Ross-Degnan, D., Normand, S. L., & Soumerai, S. B. (2006). Impact of adverse events on prescribing warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation: matched pair analysis. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 332(7534), 141–145. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38698.709572.55 Keating, N. L., James O'Malley, A., Onnela, J. P., & Landon, B. E. (2017). Assessing the impact of colonoscopy complications on use of colonoscopy among primary care physicians and other connected physicians: an observational study of older Americans. BMJ open, 7(6), e014239. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014239 Singh, M. (2021). Heuristics in the delivery room. Science, 374(6565), 324–329. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc9818   ... View more

In the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) Facebook group, Bridgette Martin Hard wondered why conditioning (as in classical and operant conditioning) is called conditioning (members of the STP Facebook group can read the discussion). While I had heard that this was due to a mistranslation of Pavlov’s work, it was Olga Lazareva who provided the details. Lazareva explains that Pavlov wrote условный in his papers. When you pop that into your favorite Russian translation website, you’ll see that the most common English translations are “conditional” and “contingent.” Lazareva goes on to say, “Pavlov called the whole thing условный рефлекс, or conditional reflex, to be distinguished from безусловный рефлекс, or unconditional reflex, because he viewed CR as automatic as UR, once acquisition was completed. We now know that's not entirely correct, and the word ‘reflex’ never stuck in English, but is still used in Russian literature instead of ‘conditioning’.” Conditional, frankly, does make a whole lot more sense than conditioned. As Ruth Frickle noted in that same Facebook thread, “Now I can stop being vaguely annoyed when my students say conditional.” Instead, we can say, “You know, you’re closer to being right than you know.” In a 2012 Scientific American article, science journalist Jason G. Goldman took a crack at reversing 100 years of bad translation usage and explained classical conditioning using the terms conditional and unconditional. He footnoted why he used conditional and not conditioned. Note that most English-language textbooks use the terms "unconditioned stimulus," "unconditioned response," and so on. This is due to a translation error from Pavlov's Russian to English. The better translation would be "conditional." You go, Jason! In all seriousness, Jason is onto something. We can all decide—right here, right now—to dump our use of conditioned and use conditional instead. Let’s talk about the unconditional stimulus, the unconditional response, the conditional stimulus, and the conditional response. We can footnote just as well as Jason can. We don’t need to continue to perpetuate a bad translation. Let’s honor Pavlov’s legacy by using his (properly translated) terminology. Who’s in? ... View more

What can cab drivers tell us about Alzheimer's Disease? Quite a lot, it turns out. London Cabbies' Brains Analyzed for Alzheimer's Research https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/11/01/london-taxi-driver-alzheimers-research/ ... View more

What if you ran a company where your employees are spending their days in their cubicles staring at computer screens in silence? What if you wanted your employees to interact face-to-face a little more? Would you be willing to give your employees free drinks to talk to each other? Here’s another creative example for the next time you cover operant conditioning. (Read more here.) Kokuyo, Co., a manufacturer of office supplies, installed a Suntory Beverage & Food company vending machine in one of their offices. While the vending machine behaves like other vending machines, it has one additional feature. If an employee grabs a buddy and they both allow the vending machine to scan their employee ID cards at the same time, the vending machine dispenses a free beverage to both employees. While there is no guarantee that those employees, with free beverage in hand, will have a conversation, it certainly provides the opportunity. The behavior: inviting a fellow employee to go to the vending machine with you. If you continue to make buddy trips to the vending machine, the positive reinforcement is a free beverage. If the behavior is occurring too frequently, the vending machine can be programmed to limit the hours when free beverages would be available, or it can be programmed to limit how many free beverages a particular ID can get in a specific time period. Maybe it can also be programmed so that a pair of IDs can only be used a certain number of times, and after that, you have to invite someone else? If you’d like, challenge your students to think about how the Kokuyo management would know if the vending machine was working to increase employee face-to-face interactions. What variables would students measure? And if the vending machine was not working as well as they would like, what else could the company do? Maybe put the vending machine in a space with a living room-type atmosphere, complete with comfy chairs? Do some beverages lend themselves better to conversation than others? For example, might a vending machine that dispensed coffee or tea be more effective at encouraging conversation than, say, one that dispensed energy drinks? Having taught many classes in two- to three-hour blocks for almost 30 years, I witnessed the short class breaks only occasionally leading to students talking to each other. Would such a vending machine outside the classroom increase interactions? What if the machine required, say, three student IDs to dispense a free beverage or snack? The cynical side of me wonders if that would lead to student ID theft? But then I suppose that wouldn’t last long because if Student A reported their ID missing, a quick scan of the vending machine’s data would show which other student used Student A’s ID at the machine.   In what other contexts can your students see value in having such a system? What else might be dispensed from a machine that students might find reinforcing? (Having reread that question, I’m not sure this is the best question to ask students. They’re your students; use your best judgment.) ... View more

I have previously written about distracted parenting as a discussion topic for the development chapter in Intro Psych (see Is Distracted Parenting a New Parenting Style?). The concern is that we, as adults, are not engaging with young children to the extent that is needed to help children develop and thrive. Seven-year-old Molly Wright delivers this message in a powerful 7-minute TED talk. Classroom Exercise to Accompany the TED Talk After watching the video, ask students to generate a list of research questions. For example, “Caregivers cannot interact with young children 24/7. How much ‘serve and return’ interaction should young children have?” “Are ‘serve and return’ interactions with more people better than just one caregiver?” Invite students to think about the quantity and quality of “serve and return” interactions when choosing a daycare provider. As a parent making such decisions, what questions would they ask of the provider? What observations would the parents like to make? The Canberra Times reports that “Molly's TED Talk will be played in 1400 doctor waiting rooms across Australia, targeting their primary audience; parents. Molly's TED Talk has already been shown in maternity wards in Australia and Afghanistan, and Unicef will support global distribution of the film.” Ask students to think about everywhere that they go that has a TV on. Would any of those places be good candidates for showing Molly Wright’s TED talk? Ask students to explain why. Another avenue for discussion could be how a child delivering this message may be more influential than a parent or a researcher delivering this same message. Ask students what other topics in the childhood section of your Intro Psych text’s development chapter might also be better delivered by a child than an adult. Again, ask students to explain why. [Special thank you to Erin Graham for sending me a link to Molly Wright’s TED talk!] ... View more

The September 2021 issue of the APA Monitor featured an article suggesting strategies bystanders can use when they observe the use of microaggressions against others (“How bystanders can shut down microaggressions”). In Intro Psych, we often talk about bystander intervention in the context of witnessing, say, a potential medical emergency, so it is refreshing to think about bystander intervention in terms of something we may more commonly witness. After covering bystander intervention in your course, consider providing your students with these discussion instructions and questions. **** Read How Bystanders Can Shut Down Microaggressions. Give an example of a microaggression you witnessed, you experienced, or you heard of happening to a friend or family member. (See this document for some examples of microaggressions.) Briefly explain what made it a microaggression. As bystanders, we are more likely to intervene if we recognize what we’re seeing as a problem, assume responsibility for doing something to help, have some ideas about what to do to help, and then actually do something. Let’s assume that you recognize a microaggression happening to a friend, and, as an ally, you want to do something. You will need to have some ideas of what to do. What six suggestions does the article suggest for “how to effectively intervene as a bystander.” For each suggestion, describe what a bystander could have done to intervene in the example you gave. Respond to two classmate's initial posts with at least two of the following types of comments. A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also read that...," "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."  **** During this discussion, students may discover that they have engaged in microaggressions and may be struggling with that knowledge. The following may be a helpful additional discussion. **** Most of us do not want to offend anyone else. In reading the examples of microaggressions in the earlier discussion, you may have been surprised to learn that you have said one or more of those things yourself. That does not make you a bad person. It means that you’ve done an excellent job learning from others. But now that you know, it is time to work on reducing those microaggressions. We are human, though. While we may try very hard, old lessons die hard. We will make mistakes. Imagine that you have uttered a statement that caused a good friend to say, “I’m uncomfortable with what you just said.” Read You’ve Committed a Microaggression—Now What? Use what you learned in this article to respond to your friend. Respond to two classmate's initial posts with at least two of the following types of comments. A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also read that...," "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."  ... View more

These days, it seems we all need advice on how to keep moving toward our goals! What to Do When You Want to Give Up https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/make-it-make-sense/202110/what-do-when-you-want-give ... View more

Short and sweet guide written in easy-to-understand language! How To Tell Science From Pseudoscience: https://www.popsci.com/diy/spot-fake-science/?taid=6169b3ba0fbc4500016aa03e&utm_campaign=trueanthem_trending-content&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter ... View more

Do you remember the "class clown?" Were YOU the funny one in school? New research suggests that the class clowns may actually be the smartest kids in class! https://www.iflscience.com/brain/the-class-clown-may-be-the-smartest-kid-in-school-suggests-new-study/ ... View more

How has learning been impacted by our always-available "google it" culture? This blog outlines some of the ramifications and offers suggestions for moving the discussion into the classroom: https://theeffortfuleducator.com/2021/09/13/hgiil/ ... View more

While the prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of the commons are our Intro Psych go-to social dilemmas, Covid-19 has us all mixing in a soup of social dilemmas. Stewing, even. At root, social dilemmas are about weighing our own self-interest against the good of the group. Zhijun Wu (Wu, 2021) suggests we look at social distancing as a social dilemma played between individuals and the population at large. To keep things simple, Wu suggests that there are two kinds of activities: (1) staying home (and going out only for essential errands, like getting groceries) and (2) having a free-for-all social life (including going to a workplace or school, restaurants, and bars). Now, which should we do? That depends on the risk. If most everyone is out and about, then if we go out and about, our chances of contracting Covid are higher. In that case, staying home would be the safer bet. Restaurants are packed; let’s order a pizza. However, if most everyone else is staying home, then being out and about would be less risky. Restaurants are empty; let’s go to Chachi’s for dinner. Of course, everyone else is making these same calculations. Restaurants are empty, let’s go! And now restaurants are packed. Restaurants are packed, let’s stay home! And now restaurants are empty. Repeat. In Wu’s mathematical model, everyone’s best option is to split our time. Sometimes we eat in, and sometimes we eat out. If everyone made that same decision, we would balance out our risk. For example, at any give time then, restaurants would be half full. Wu’s model takes many more events into consideration and assigns a value to each depending on the amount of social contact. For example, the amount of contact you have with others at a grocery store may be minimal, but the amount of contact in a dance club would be much higher. To make things more complicated, we can think about subpopulations. People who live in one neighborhood would frequent a particular grocery store. If the grocery store borders two neighborhoods, then two subpopulations would mix at that grocery store. However, there is a bar at the distant end of the first neighborhood that those in the second neighborhood rarely go to. To illustrate how complicated things can get, Wu identified in Ames, Iowa, six subpopulations and 85 activities, where each activity has its own social contact value. I’ll add that when making decisions about whether we are going to go someplace, we also take into consideration our own vaccination status, our own underlying health conditions, the vaccinations status and health conditions of others we live with or are in close contact with, the number of people testing positive in our area, and our own risk tolerance. What used to be a set of simple decisions (e.g., “Let’s go out to dinner,” “Let’s get coffee,”) now requires complex calculations best handled by a computer model to spit out the best decision. No wonder so many of us feel exhausted much more than we did before 2020. And we haven’t talked about the social dilemmas presented by mask-wearing and vaccines.   Reference Wu, Z. (2021). Social distancing is a social dilemma game played by every individual against his/her population. PLOS ONE, 16(8), e0255543. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255543 ... View more

Poor people are perceived as being less sensitive to pain. Why? Great discussion for stereotyping and prejudice: https://www.psypost.org/2021/09/new-psychology-research-finds-that-poor-people-are-perceived-as-being-less-susceptible-to-pain-61883?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter ... View more

In many areas, people are giving serious consideration to how the language we use influences how we see ourselves and how we see others. As a bit of background, Peanut—a social networking site for mothers and those hoping to become mothers—launched in 2017. The goal was to foster friendships among those who felt isolated and in need of social support. And then something remarkable happened. “After thousands of women on Peanut came forward to share the hurtful terms they’ve experienced throughout fertility and motherhood, it was clear to us that something needed to change. The #RenamingRevolution glossary, created with linguists and medical professionals, aims to redefine the negative terms that are too often used during the most vulnerable times in women’s lives.” Visit the #RenamingRevolution: The Motherhood and Fertility Glossary. The glossary is divided into five sections: fertility, loss, pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. I confess that before reading the glossary, I thought, “I am happy to use whatever language you would like, but how bad can the existing language be?” I was not too far into the glossary when I started feeling pretty beat up, and I’m pretty disconnected from motherhood and all things motherhood-related. How would you like to be told that you are barren or that you have a hostile uterus, an incompetent cervix, or a lazy ovary? Or that you are a habitual aborter? Or that at the age of 35, you are looking at a geriatric pregnancy? Or that when you have been in labor for so many hours that exhaustion has set in and the healthcare providers note your “poor maternal effort”? When covering the development chapter in Intro or teaching the developmental psych course, it may be valuable to use this glossary not only to help us revamp our own terminology, but also as a way to encourage students to think about the impact the language we use can have. In this case, it is an especially important lesson for all of our students who are preparing for careers in healthcare. If you would like a print copy of the glossary, fill out their form. If you would like to include the glossary in a page in your learning management system, this embed code should work for you. <p><iframe style="border: none; width: 750px; height: 750px;" src="https://issuu.com/teampeanut/docs/210317_ma_chrissy_teigen_glossary_of_terms_final/1?ff" sandbox="allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation allow-downloads allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allowfullscreen="></iframe></p> ... View more