In Intro Psych, the sense of smell typically takes a distant backseat to vision and hearing. Part of that short shrift is due to the comparatively sparse research into our sense of smell and smell’s close relative, taste. With temporary loss of smell being one of the common symptoms of Covid-19, thousands of people have gained a new appreciation for this often-taken-for-granted sense. (See this blog post for more information--Covid-19 and a loss of smell: Discussion topic.) During your coverage of the memory chapter, ask your students to consider common odors associated with food: freshly baked cookies or bread, curry, fish, kimchi, etc. Or the smell of the cologne or perfume worn by a loved one. Or the smell of cigarette smoke. Do any of these odors invoke strong memories?  In a small-group—synchronous or asynchronous—discussion, ask your students to share the odor and any associated memories they are comfortable sharing. When you bring students back together as a class, ask the following question using your favorite polling tool: How strong was your memory? Very strong Somewhat strong Neither strong nor weak Somewhat weak Very weak I didn’t have a memory This tendency for odors or tastes to act as retrieval cues for strong autobiographical memories is known as the Proust phenomenon or Proust effect, named for Marcel Proust. In the first book of his 7-book tour-de-force, In Search of Lost Time (also sometimes titled, Remembrance of Things Past), Proust writes of how a madeleine—a buttery cookie—dipped in tea evoked a powerful childhood memory. A recent fMRI study (Zhou et al., 2021) found a strong connection between our sense of smell and our hippocampus—a connection that is much stronger than that for touch, hearing, or vision. The researchers posit that while the pathways for touch, hearing, and vision were all rerouted—over the course of our evolution—to the cerebral cortex before heading back to the hippocampus, that did not happen for smell. Our sense of smell has maintained its direct connection to the hippocampus—the brain structure most associated with the creation of new memories.   Reference Zhou, G., Olofsson, J. K., Koubeissi, M. Z., Menelaou, G., Rosenow, J., Schuele, S. U., Xu, P., Voss, J. L., Lane, G., & Zelano, C. (2021). Human hippocampal connectivity is stronger in olfaction than other sensory systems. Progress in Neurobiology, February. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2021.102027     ... View more

In the 2021 Netflix three-episode documentary, Murder Among the Mormons, we learn about the exploits of forger and murderer Mark Hofmann. Hofmann had a lot people snookered; people believed that the documents about the origin of the Church of Latter Day Saints he had in his possession were real. And once so decided, it was hard for them to change their minds and see Hofmann and his documents for what they were. After three bombings that took place on Oct 15 and 16, 1985 that killed two people and injured two—including Hofmann—police immediately began an investigation of Hofmann. News outlets interviewed a number of people regarding the case. One such interview was with historian Brent Metcalfe, a colleague of Hofmann’s. Metcalfe said at the time, “I have a great deal of doubt that Mark [Hofmann] is involved in any way at this point…I just have no reason to believe, despite the assertions that have been made, that Mark was involved in any kind of forgery of this kind.” In episode 3 of Murder Among the Mormons at the 14:05 mark, in addition to clips from that 1985 interview, a much older Brent Metcalfe talks with the producers of this documentary about what he said in that interview, and, more generally, what he thought at the time and why. After covering cognitive dissonance, share with your students a little background about Mark Hofmann and his forgeries. (Watch Murder Among the Mormons or read the Wikipedia entry for more information). Ask your students to put themselves into Brent Metcalfe’s shoes. “You are a colleague of Mark Hofmann’s. You believe him—you believe that the documents he had in his possession and collected over the previous five years were genuine. And now there were these bombings that killed and injured people connected to Hofmann. The third bomb injured Hofmann himself. The police are investigating Hofmann. As Hofmann’s colleague, would you continue to believe him as you have for the last five years? How easily would you be able to say, ‘Boy, was I ever wrong about him!’” Divide students into groups, and ask them to identify which two of Metcalfe’s thoughts were in conflict. How might Metcalfe reduce this dissonance? Would Metcalfe immediately say, “Well, I sure was wrong about him!” or would Metcalfe be more likely to hold onto his belief? Explain. Bring students back together, and ask groups to report their predictions. Brent Metcalfe, in an interview 36 years after the 1985 bombings, said, Part of the reason I maintained my belief in Mark Hofmann’s innocence is because, again, I felt like, what does that mean for me as a person?... I could not accept that I had no suspicion whatsoever. That was almost unacceptable to me, because it went right to the heart of who I am. And that frightened me, that I could be that deceived by someone.   Sum up your discussion of cognitive dissonance with an explanation of how Metcalfe’s comments exemplify this concept. A small, but important, concluding note: Showing this clip to your students in a real or virtual classroom setting is a violation of Netflix’s terms of use. You can describe, you can quote, you can encourage your students to watch it on their own time using their own Netflix account, but you cannot show them the clip yourself. ... View more

We know that sugar doesn't make kids hyper, but can it make us anxious? This study found a link between sugary, processed foods and anxiety disorders, but remember that correlation does not equal causation! https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/anxiety-diet?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1615566168 ... View more

Fascinated by serial killers? Check out this article on the research looking at brain differences in psychopathy https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/what-is-a-psychopath?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1615204146 ... View more

Research in social psychology reveals a myriad of ways that implicit biases contribute to group disparities, but teaching students about these biases can be challenging. Professor Schmader will discuss a variety of class exercises that can be used, not just to teach students about the science of implicit bias, but also to help them apply this knowledge in a way that will help them foster greater inclusion in their social world. WATCH THE RECORDING ... View more

After covering correlations and experiments, share the February 17, 2021 edition of the PC and Pixel comic strip with your students. In the first panel, one of the characters reads a research finding: “It’s reported here that unhappy people watch more TV than happy folks.” Ask your students if they think this is correlational research or experimental research, and ask them to explain why. In the next two panels of the comic strip, the characters wonder if it’s that unhappiness leads to more TV watching or if more TV watching leads to unhappiness. Point out that since this is correlational research, we don’t know which is true. Either or both could be true. We just don’t know. Ask your students to generate some possible third variables that could influence both happiness and TV watching separately. For example, feelings of loneliness could lead to both feelings of unhappiness and greater TV watching (as a source of company, say). Explain that researchers may take correlational research, and use it to generate hypotheses that could be tested by conducting an experiment. If people are made to feel unhappier, they will watch more TV. If people are made to watch more TV, they will be unhappier. If people are made to feel lonely, they will be both unhappier and watch more TV. Working in small groups, ask your students to design experiments that would test each of these hypotheses. “Be sure to identify the independent variable and its levels and the dependent variable. Be sure to describe how they would operationalize the variables.” Bring the class back together, and ask one group to share their design for testing the first hypotheses. Invite other groups to share how they operationalized the independent variable and dependent variable. Take a minute to walk students through what the different results from each test of the hypothesis would tell us. Point out that there is no right or wrong way to operationalize a variable. In fact, if the hypothesis is supported across experiments that operationalized the variables different, the more confident we are in the findings. Next, ask your students if they have any concerns about intentionally trying to make people feel unhappier, either as the independent variable or as the dependent variable. Invite students to share their concerns. If you haven’t already, introduce students to the APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The first of the five general principles is beneficence and nonmaleficence. This principle reads, in part: Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm. In their professional actions, psychologists seek to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally and other affected persons, and the welfare of animal subjects of research. The third of the principles—integrity—is also relevant here. This principle reads in its entirety: Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology. In these activities psychologists do not steal, cheat or engage in fraud, subterfuge, or intentional misrepresentation of fact. Psychologists strive to keep their promises and to avoid unwise or unclear commitments. In situations in which deception may be ethically justifiable to maximize benefits and minimize harm, psychologists have a serious obligation to consider the need for, the possible consequences of, and their responsibility to correct any resulting mistrust or other harmful effects that arise from the use of such techniques. Given these ethical principles, are students more comfortable with some of the experimental designs they created than others? For example, are experiments that bring about temporary and mild unhappiness better than designs that are, say, more intense? Does the knowledge that these experiments would bring—and the good it would mean for humanity—outweigh the harm they may cause in the short-term? Be sure to describe the purpose of a debriefing. Conclude this discussion by emphasizing that these are the ethics questions every researcher and every member of an Institutional Review Board struggle with. No one takes these questions lightly. If you’d like to give your students some library database practice, ask your students to find three to five peer-reviewed research articles on the connection between happiness and TV watching. For each article, students should identify if the research reported was correlational or experimental (and how they know) and provide a paragraph summarizing the results. ... View more

In 2017, I wrote a blog post about an activity designed to help students see how the number of drug overdose deaths have changed since 1968 using this interactive article from the New York Times. Carolyn Brown Kramer, via the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group, asked for updated drug overdose statistics. After having your students complete the activity from that initial blog post, provide students with the most current drug overdose death data presented below. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a “Drug Overdose Deaths” statistics dashboard that is updated monthly based on the best available data. Keep in mind that the best available data are several months old. As I write this in March 2021, the latest data are for July 2020. Line graph Each data point in the line graph is a 12-month rolling total. For example, the number of drug overdose deaths reported for July 2020 are the number of drug overdose deaths that occurred between August 1, 2019 and July 31, 2020. The number of such deaths reported for June 2020 occurred between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. Mouse over a data point to see the numbers. In the line graph you will see both “predicted” data (circles) and “reported” data (solid line). As they explain on the dashboard page, “Drug overdose deaths often require lengthy investigations, and death certificates may be initially filed with a manner of death ‘pending investigation’ and/or with a preliminary or unknown cause of death.” For “reported” data, the investigation is complete. The “predicted” data include deaths that are “pending investigation.” Both reported and predicted data will change as those investigations are completed. Ask your students to predict how the number of drug overdose deaths have changed in your state or District of Columbia, then change the jurisdiction to your location to show students the data. Map For easy visual comparisons between states/District of Columbia, the map displays data by location based on the number of drug overdose deaths for the most recent month for which data are available compared to the data from a year earlier. At the time of this writing, the comparison is between July 2019 and July 2020. The colors depict percentage change between those two months. North Dakota and North Carolina were the only two states with a decrease in the number of reported drug overdose deaths, down 2.3% and 1.7%, respectively. Alaska reported no change. All other states reported an increase. The District of Columbia had the biggest change during that time period with an increase of 56.8% in number of reported drug overdose deaths (308 to 483). Data Tables Sortable data tables of the line graph data and the map data are available directly below the map. Whatever you have selected as the jurisdiction for the line graph, those are the data that will be displayed in the first data table. A word of caution As you cover this very important topic with your students, remember that some—perhaps many—of your students has had someone they know die from a drug overdose. Or perhaps some of your students themselves came close to dying from a drug overdose. Always remembering that I’m talking about experiences my students have had helps me use language that is sensitive to the people behind the statistics. ... View more

This is a whole new level of walking in someone else's shoes! Virtual Body Swapping With Friend Can Alter Your Sense of Self https://psychcentral.com/news/2020/08/31/virtual-body-swapping-with-friend-can-alter-your-sense-of-self?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=owned&utm_content=2021-02-24#1 ... View more

Have a few minutes? Listen to this APA podcast episode discussing why human infants have such long periods of growth and what this means for the development of our society! https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/childrens-amazing-brains ... View more

Can privacy coexist with technology that reads and changes brain activity? https://www.sciencenews.org/article/technology-brain-activity-read-change-thoughts-privacy-ethics ... View more

At some point in college or grad school, I was given a short article that explained the different sections of a typical psychology journal article. I have a vague memory of being told to always read the abstract first, but beyond that, I don’t remember be given any guidance on how to actually read the article. Eventually I figured out that journal articles that are sharing new research are not meant to be read from beginning to end. True confession: I started doing this pretty early in my journal-article-reading career, but I felt guilty about it. I had no reason to feel guilty. Wish I would have known that then. The Learning Scientists blog has a nice collection of articles on how to read a research journal article. Take a look at that list to see if there is anything there you want to share with your students that particularly meets your goals. For example, the library at Teesside University has brief descriptions of each article section. If you’d like your students to hear from academics themselves on how they approach research journal articles, the Science article is a good choice. Alternatively, you may choose to give your students a few easy-to-read articles and ask your students to sort out the different elements of a research article. Ask your students to look at (not necessarily “read”), say, three of the following articles, all of which have 12 or fewer pages of text. Work with your librarians to get permalinks to this articles from your library’s databases. Barry, C. T., McDougall, K. H., Anderson, A. C., Perkins, M. D., Lee-Rowland, L. M., Bender, I., & Charles, N. E. (2019). ‘Check your selfie before you wreck your selfie’: Personality ratings of Instagram users as a function of self-image posts. Journal of Research in Personality, 82, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.07.001 Gosnell, C. L. (2019). Receiving quality positive event support from peers may enhance student connection and the learning environment. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000178 Howe, L. C., Goyer, J. P., & Crum, A. J. (2017). Harnessing the placebo effect: Exploring the influence of physician characteristics on placebo response. Health Psychology, 36(11), 1074–1082. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000499.supp Hyman, I. E., Boss, S. M., Wise, B. M., McKenzie, K. E., & Caggiano, J. M. (2010). Did you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 597–607. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1638 Reed, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2017). Learning on hold: Cell phones sidetrack parent-child interactions. Developmental Psychology, 53(8), 1428–1436. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000292 Rhodes, M., Leslie, S. J., Yee, K. M., & Saunders, K. (2019). Subtle linguistic cues increase girls’ engagement in science. Psychological Science, 30(3), 455–466. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618823670 Soicher, R. N., & Gurung, R. A. R. (2017). Do exam wrappers increase metacognition and performance? A single course intervention. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 16(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475725716661872 Wirth, J. H., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2009). The role of gender in mental-illness stigma: A national experiment. Psychological Science, 20(2), 169–173. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02282.x Give your students the following instructions and questions. Amend them to your liking. Skim each of these three articles: Barry, C. T., McDougall, K. H., Anderson, A. C., Perkins, M. D., Lee-Rowland, L. M., Bender, I., & Charles, N. E. (2019). ‘Check your selfie before you wreck your selfie’: Personality ratings of Instagram users as a function of self-image posts. Journal of Research in Personality, 82, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.07.001 Gosnell, C. L. (2019). Receiving quality positive event support from peers may enhance student connection and the learning environment. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000178 Howe, L. C., Goyer, J. P., & Crum, A. J. (2017). Harnessing the placebo effect: Exploring the influence of physician characteristics on placebo response. Health Psychology, 36(11), 1074–1082. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000499.supp Research articles published in journals follow some basic conventions that are designed to make them easy for researchers and students to read. Almost all research articles have these six main components, and always in this order. Using the three articles you skimmed, your goal is to identify the basic structure of research articles. For each component, answer the questions given. Abstract In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the abstract. Introduction (usually not labeled, but it always comes after the abstract) In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the introduction. The research hypotheses can almost always be found near the end of the introduction. Identify at least one hypothesis from each article. Method In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the methods section. In the methods section, you will see that all of the articles contain similar information. Identify three different types of information that is common across all three articles. Results In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the results section. If you don’t understand much of what is written in this section, that’s okay. This section is written for fellow researchers, not Intro Psych students. Copy/paste (use quotation marks!) one sentence from the results section of each article that made little or no sense to you. Discussion In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the discussion section. References In less than 50 words, describe the purpose of the references section. Choose one reference from each article that, based on the title alone, you might be interested in reading. How would you go about getting that article? Researchers almost always read the abstract first. After that, what they read next depends on why they are looking at the article at all. For each of the following scenarios, match the researcher with the section of the article they are likely to read first after the abstract: Introduction, method, results, discussion, references. A. Dr. Akiya Yagi wanted to read more about the conclusions the researchers drew from having done this study. B. Dr. Selva Hernandez-Lopez is doing research on these same psychological concepts, and she’s looking for useful research articles that she may have missed. C. Dr. DeAndre Thomas is looking for different ways to measure a particular psychological concept. D. Dr. Kaitlyn Kronvalds read some information in the abstract that made her wonder about the statistics that were used to analyze the data. E. Dr. Bahiya Cham is about start doing research on a different set of psychological concepts and wants to learn more about the different theories behind those concepts and how those theories are being used to generate hypotheses.   ... View more

FEBRUARY 25th | 3:00 PM ET Longtime (and recently retired) New Yorker cartoon editor—and former psychology major—Bob Mankoff will join David Myers for a cartoon-illustrated 25-minute presentation (followed by Q&A) on "Taking Humor Seriously." Mankoff will explain the importance of humor and how it relates to every area of psychology: cognition, emotion, personality, mental health, development, relationships, etc. WATCH THE RECORDING ... View more

While close friendships may never change, this article argues that our casual friendships have been seriously challenged - if not completely erased - by the pandemic. Have your friendships changed as a result of covid? https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/pandemic-goodbye-casual-friends/617839/ ... View more

I just finished reading Evan Nesterak’s Behavioral Scientist interview with Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant about his new book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Grant discussed an interaction he had with Danny Kahneman that has given me much to think about. After a talk Grant gave, Kahneman, who was in the audience, came up to him afterward and said, “That was wonderful. I was wrong.” Grant found the reaction unexpected. Upon later inquiring what Kahneman meant by that, Kahneman replied (Grant’s paraphrase), “No one enjoys being wrong, but I do enjoy having been wrong, because it means I am now less wrong than I was before.” I was immediately reminded of an email I received from a student from a recent course. After receiving a lower-than-typical score on an assignment, she emailed me to thank me for the explanation of a particular concept in the rubric. She was glad she got that concept wrong because now she understands the concept much better than she did before. Like Kahneman, she “enjoy[ed] having been wrong, because it means [she is] now less wrong than [she] was before.” Since this is not the kind of email I usually receive from students, I wrote her back, and asked how she came to take that view. She said when she first went to college years ago, that was most certainly not her attitude. Instead, her primary reaction to being wrong was to be defensive. It was after she dropped out of school she realized how much her defensiveness kept her from learning. In her job, she started seeing that every time she was wrong, she learned something new, so she started seeing being wrong as a good thing. Being wrong is evidence of learning. And it was with that attitude that she came back to college. You may not be surprised to learn that she earned an A in the course. Again, Adam Grant paraphrasing Danny Kahneman, “Finding out that I was wrong is the only way I’m sure that I’ve learned anything. Otherwise, I’m just going around and living in a world that’s dominated by confirmation bias, or desirability bias. And I’m just affirming the things I already think I know.” What helps is that, as Grant reports, Kahneman separates himself from his ideas. Ideas are just ideas, not who he is. Ideas are easy to ditch; our identity is not. Early in my career, I learned that it was freeing to say, “I don’t know.” I teach a lot of Intro Psych. Students can come up with a lot of questions about people and why we do what we do. While I know more now about psychology than I did then, I still don’t know everything. Heck, our science of psychology does not know everything. My identity as a psychology instructor was not wrapped up in knowing absolutely everything about psychology. As a bonus, saying “I don’t know” made it easier for students to trust me when I did respond to a question with something that I knew. Or was pretty sure I knew.   Next, I learned that it was freeing to say, “I don’t know, but I would guess…” and then provide my guess, while also sharing my thinking about why I was guessing that. I love this kind of thinking on my feet. And, by pulling in content previously covered in the course, previewing content coming up, and content not covered in the course, students get to see how different areas of psychology are connected – or, rather, could be connected if my guess is correct. If a particularly motivated student did some research into the question, and reported back a different answer, I got practice is saying, “Thanks! I was wrong.” In recent years, I’ve gotten more comfortable saying that. I can’t say that I’m to the point of embracing “wrong” like my student and Danny Kahneman are, but I’m closer than I used to be. Psychologist Paul Meehl was renowned for telling his students near the beginning of a course that half of what he was going to tell them was wrong; he just didn’t know which half. That’s science. With every study, we learn where our ideas are wrong, which ideas need to change. For Danny Kahneman, learning where he is wrong is just another data point. Talk about the scientific attitude! Now the million dollar question. While I can work on reframing my own thoughts around being wrong and what it means to be wrong, how can I help my students do that same important reframing? While it’s important for learning, it’s much bigger than that. Kahneman has it exactly right—when we can admit we are wrong, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, <insert just about any bias>, cognitive dissonance all disappear. If those who believed the rhetoric of QAnon could say, “I was wrong,” like Lekka Perron has done, imagine how freeing it would be for them. Perhaps the best way to help our students see being wrong as learning something new is to model it ourselves. “I believed X, but the preponderance of the evidence points to Y. I was wrong, and now I’m less wrong than I was before.” ... View more

Everyone deserves a great relationship. Have you found yours? It can be hard to know, but it’s important to ask. Relationships are important. Time is short. Mistakes are costly. In this talk I’ll discuss some of the mistakes we make in our relationship without ever realizing we’re doing it. Often, these blind spots encourage us to undervalue our relationship. No one wants to settle in order to settle down, but we can also be too harsh and overly critical. Relationship science can help. Better data leads to better decisions. WATCH RECORDING ... View more