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

What a great discussion-starter for Sensation & Perception. What if we had these abilities too? Five Animals That Can Sense Things You Can't ... View more

What are the consequences of being surrounded by light 24/7? Check out this new @scifri video to find out! https://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/dark-skies/ ... View more

Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation is promoting intentional acts of kindness this September (#BeKind21) with a goal toward better mental health for everyone. Every day, from September 1 to September 21, let’s engage in purposeful acts of kindness to others and ourselves. I encourage you and your students to sign up.   Zara Abrams (2021) provides a nice summary of the research on kindness, emphasizing its benefits to both our physical and mental health. Even small acts, such as bringing a colleague coffee, counts. Buying me a beer also counts. Without too much difficulty, we can tie acts of kindness into what students are learning in their Intro Psych course. Here are a few examples. Biopsych chapter: Which neurotransmitters are most likely to be released in our brains when we do good deeds for others? Explain Development chapter: What are developmentally-appropriate good deeds we could perform for each group: toddlers, middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, middle-aged adults, older adults? Explain. Learning chapter: Identify at least three acts of kindness you have engaged in. Was your act positively reinforced? Explain. Memory chapter: We tend to have stronger memories for events that are emotional. Based on the emotional reaction of those who were on the receiving end of your kindness, will any of your acts of kindness be remembered years from now by one of your recipients? After September 21st, give your students an opportunity to reflect on their experience. What was especially good about engaging in intentional acts of kindness? Were there any surprises? Will they continue to be intentionally kind?   References Abrams, Z. (2021, August). The case for kindness. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/apa/kindness-mental-health ... View more

Interested in the history of psychology? Check out this series of 5-minute history videos! Today's video features James McConnell, who found a chemical basis for memory by studying worms. ... View more

I have used some of my free time this summer learning more about some areas where, well, I could learn more. Hormones would be one of those areas. To give me some current information and a bit of historical background, I turned to Randi Hutter Epstein’s book, Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything. For an overview, it is an informative and entertaining read. This for example: Beginning in the 1920s, and for nearly twenty years, [Vienna physiologist, Eugen] Steinach pioneered one of the most popular and controversial rejuvenation treatments. He claimed that vasectomies boosted sex drive, intellect, energy, and just about anything else that withered with age. Steinach believed that blocking the exit of manly juices (which is what a vasectomy does) prompted a congestion of them, much the way a traffic jam causes a pile-up of cars. If you rate success by the quantity and quality of scientific evidence, vasectomies for rejuvenation don’t rank high. If, on the other hand, you rate success by testimonials plus the number of paying customers, the practice was a global sensation. It was so popular, in fact, that Steinach’s name became a verb: to Steinach meant to do a rejuvenating vasectomy. Sigmund Freud was Steinached. William Butler Yeats, the poet, was Steinached. (pp. 72-73) Raise your hand if you were familiar with that bit of Freudian trivia. You will want to remember this, because I would not be surprised if this is the topic of a Stephen Chew trivia question at the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology (NITOP). ["At what age was Freud Steinached?" Answer: 67.]  If nothing else, you can give "Steinached" as your answer to any trivia question you don't know. It would give you the opportunity to talk about Freud's vasectomy, which you certainly must be itching to do.  As for Freud, if you live by speculation in lieu of data... Steinach did not perform vasectomies, however, he did guarantee that your vasectomy would be rejuvenating if he was present to supervise. No word on whether Steinach supervised Freud’s vasectomy (he probably did since they were friends) or if Freud found his vasectomy rejuvenating (he probably did since he provided a testimonial).   One last comment before we can all stop thinking about Freud and his testicles. There is something strangely beautiful about testimonials driving that vasectomy-for-rejuvenation craze. The words testimonial and testis share the same etymological root, a root that means “witness.” Not all witnesses are created equal, however. I prefer my witnesses to have data derived from established research methods. Or at least that would be my standard before I allowed anyone near my testicles. If I had testicles. ... View more

"US scientists found that quantity, rather than quality, of speaking determined who was perceived as a leader in small groups...regardless of the intelligence or personality traits of members within the group" https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/leaders-talk-more-babble-hypothesis/ ... View more