Learning how to learn assignment My father used to get so frustrated with one of my brothers. My father would say, with great exasperation, “I talk to you until I’m blue in the face…” Even though my father’s “talk” was—apparently—not very effective, it didn’t keep him from talking. Over and over again. Until he was blue in the face. How many of us instructors are like my father? We tell our students about the best study strategies until we are blue in the face, and it feels like most of our students continue to use less effective methods. Maybe we should take a different approach. Carolyn R. Brown-Kramer (2021) asked her Intro Psych students to read one of four research articles where each article investigated the effectiveness of a study strategy. Two articles were about more effective study strategies: distributed practice (Seabrook et al., 2005) and practice testing (McDaniel et al., 2011). Two articles were about less effective study strategies: rereading (Rawson & Kintsch, 2005) and forming mental images (Schmeck et al., 2014). Students were instructed to “write a three- to four-page paper summarizing and analyzing [their assigned article] critically” and then “drawing specific connections to how they study, how they could use the article’s results to improve their studying behavior, and their plans to adopt (or not to adopt) the strategy about which they had read.” (Contact Brown-Kramer for assignment instructions and scoring rubric.) What impact did this assignment have on students? Over the course of the term, students reported using more of the more effective strategies and fewer of the less effective strategies. Students who read the practice testing article (McDaniel et al., 2011) did much better on the exams following this assignment than students who read the other three articles. Students who were given this assignment did better on the exams following this assignment and in the course overall than students from an earlier term who were not given this assignment. Students who reported using the more effective study strategies and using them more frequently did better on the exams and in the course overall. Brown-Kramer (2021) has provided us with some pretty compelling evidence that there is something we can do as instructors that will help students change their study strategies. I wonder what component of this assignment is key. For example, would the application piece be enough, or is the analytic section crucial? Or perhaps the analytic section ensures that students are reading the article carefully. In that case, would some other assignment instructions that would also ensure careful reading—such as answering a few targeted questions about different sections of the article—be just as effective? Brown-Kramer’s assignment would fit as part of your coverage of research methods or memory. If you use it as part of your memory coverage, the research methods review would be a terrific application of distributive practice.   References Brown-Kramer, C. R. (2021). Improving students’ study habits and course performance with a “learning how to learn” assignment. Teaching of Psychology, 48(1), 48–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320959926 McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K., Huelser, B. J., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and placement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 399–414. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021782 Rawson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (2005). Rereading effects depend on time of test. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(1), 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.97.1.70 Schmeck, A., Mayer, R. E., Opfermann, M., Pfeiffer, V., & Leutner, D. (2014). Drawing pictures during learning from scientific text: Testing the generative drawing effect and the prognostic drawing effect. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 39(4), 275–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.07.003 Seabrook, R., Brown, G. D. A., & Solity, J. E. (2005). Distributed and massed practice: From laboratory to classroom. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19(1), 107–122. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1066   ... View more

Dr. Kelly Goedert and Dr. Susan Nolan will describe how the use of statistics in psychological science is changing as the field undergoes an open-science revolution. They will highlight ways to update your undergraduate statistics course that center on an ethical approach to analyzing, interpreting, and reporting data, and will offer engaging examples and activities you can use in your classroom. WATCH THE RECORDING ... View more

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

With COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out, discussion is now happening about how to convince the general public to get the vaccine once it’s available. As of mid-November, 2020, a Gallup poll found that “58% of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine,” a notable increase from 34% in July (Reinhart, 2020). What can we do to help convince the hold-outs to get the vaccine? Just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Volpp et al., 2020), three medical professionals—in 2-page opinion piece—suggest five “behaviorally informed strategies” that may increase willingness to be vaccinated. This assignment asks students to connect those strategies to Robert Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion. Assignment Read “Behaviorally informed strategies for a national COVID-19 vaccine promotion program.” Identify the five suggested strategies and briefly summarize each. Next, read “Principles of persuasion.” For each principle of persuasion, identify—if any—the suggested strategy that best matches it. For example, for the persuasion principle of “authority,” which of the five suggested vaccine promotion strategies seems to be appealing to this strategy? Explain. If there is not a suggested strategy for a particular principle of persuasion, propose a strategy. You may want to extend this assignment into a discussion. Discussion initial post As you learned through the persuasion/vaccine assignment, not all of the principles of persuasion are addressed in the suggested vaccine promotion strategies. Choose one of the persuasion principles not addressed, and propose a vaccine promotion strategy based on that principle. Discussion replies Reply to two initial posts. In each reply, include 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..."    References Reinhart, R. J. (2020, November 17). More Americans now willing to get COVID-19 vaccine. https://news.gallup.com/poll/325208/americans-willing-covid-vaccine.aspx Volpp, K. G., Loewenstein, G., & Buttenheim, A. M. (2020). Behaviorally informed strategies for a national COVID-19 vaccine promotion program. Journal of the American Medical Association. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.24036   ... View more

In a recent New York Times article(Katz, 2020), the author, Suzy Katz (2020), reflects on how the loss of the sense of smell courtesy of Covid-19 has affected her experience of the world. Most people who have a positive test for Covid-19 will lose their sense of smell or experience “smell distortions,” almost 90% of those infected will regain it within four weeks. That means that 10% don’t (Feuer, 2020). The author of the New York Times article is a member of that 10%--it’s been nine months since she tested positive for Covid-19, and her sense of smell is still AWOL (Katz, 2020). Interestingly, Covid-19 appears to not attack the olfactory neurons themselves, but the cells that support those neurons (Feuer, 2020). Although, that’s small consolation to those, like Katz, who miss their sense of smell. I remember the first student I had who reported not having a sense of smell. Her loss was the result of a head injury. Anosmia—lacking a sense of smell—is a not uncommon effect of head injury. In fact, 13% to 25% of people with head injuries have anosmia. The greater the injury, the greater the likelihood of anosmia. Additionally, 25% to 33% of those with head injuries experience “abnormal odor sensations”—parosmia (Howell et al., 2018). People with parosmia “no longer wake up and can’t smell the coffee; because of parosmia, their coffee smells like burning rubber or sewage. Parosmia is most often an unpleasant smell, a distortion of an actual odor, making many foods smell and taste revolting.” (Feuer, 2020). “Olfactory loss is often discounted as an annoyance, rather than a major health concern by both patients and many healthcare providers. Patients with olfactory impairment have diminished quality of life, decreased satisfaction with life, and increased risk for personal injury” (Howell et al., 2018). For my student, her loss of the sense of smell did not seem to greatly affect her quality of life or her satisfaction with life. My student reported not being particularly bothered by not being able to smell. The biggest change she noted was that she does more laundry than she used to since she can’t sniff her clothes to see if they can make it one more day.  The “increased risk for personal injury,” though, is an interesting point. Katz writes that “I accidentally left a burner on in my apartment and nearly started a fire” (Katz, 2020). How many of us take our sense of smell for granted? Suggested discussion topic Writing prompt for initial post Take an hour and make a note of everything that you smell, e.g., baking cookies, a partner’s perfume/cologne, a pet’s flatulence. If you lack the sense of smell, ask a friend or family member to send you a list of odors that they detected over the course of an hour. Read this article: “Covid stole my sense of smell. The city’s not the same.” [Instructors: provide a library database link to this New York Times article. Your librarians can help you with that.] Quote something from the article that you found particularly interesting. In 150+ words of reflection, explain why. Be sure to use quotation marks for your quote. The quotation is not part of the 150+ word count. Of the odors on your list, which one would you miss the most? Why? If you asked a friend or family member to provide a list for you, which odor would you most like to smell? Why? Writing prompt for responses Please respond to the initial posts of two of your classmates. 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..."    References Feuer, S. (2020, September 21). How does Covid-19 affect smell? Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-covid-19-patients-are-suffering-distorted-and-phantom-smells-180975826/ Howell, J., Costanzo, R. M., & Reiter, E. R. (2018). Head trauma and olfactory function. World Journal of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, 4(1), 39–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wjorl.2018.02.001 Katz, S. (2020, December 15). Covid stole my sense of smell. The city’s not the same. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/well/live/covid-sense-of-smell.html ... View more

I have been—and continue to be—a proponent of re-envisioning the Intro Psych course. While psych majors take the course, the vast majority of students who take Intro Psych are not psychology majors. What do the non-psych majors need to know about psychology? The good people from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) make a solid argument for why we should be covering industrial/organization (I-O) psych topics in Intro Psych: “If you're like most people, you'll spend more of your waking hours working than doing anything else.” It’s not a long argument, but it is a solid one. I will take that argument one step further. Not only is the psychology of work personally useful to our students—regardless of their career field—but in their workplaces, we want our former Intro Psych students to recognize when it may be appropriate to bring in an I-O psychologist. SIOP formed a Getting I-O into Intro Textbooks (GIT SIOP) Task Force that produced an I-O chapter for the Intro Psych course under a Creative Commons license: “The Creative Commons license means you can use it as-is, use parts of it, or even adapt it, as long as you give credit and link to the license.”   You have your choice of formats. There is the very pretty pdf with images (23 pages), a pdf without images (26 pages), and an easily-editable Word document (25 pages) where you can take what you want (with proper attribution) and leave the rest.    Chapter outline Overview Industrial psychology Job analysis Recruitment, retention, and placement Evaluating and managing worker performance Training and development Organizational psychology Employee attitudes Worker health and safety Motivation Teamwork and leadership Conclusion If using the chapter doesn’t work for you—or you’re not quite ready to find a spot for it in your Intro Psych course—SIOP has also created an Introduction to Industrial-Organization Psychology Mini-Course. Students read content and answer multiple choice questions. At the end of the course, there is a 10-question quiz. With a 70% on the quiz, students earn a certificate. Ask students to send you their certificate to earn credit. SIOP estimates that it will take students 30 minutes to complete this mini-course. And if that all is not enough, SIOP has created a webpage to help instructors. Resources here include “incorporating I-O into Intro,” “I-O resources for teachers,” and “teaching tools by topic.” SIOP deserves high praise from the Intro Psych teaching community for this work. With SIOP setting the bar, I encourage the Society for Personality and Social Psychology to undertake a similar project that would bring the Intro Psych personality chapter into the 21st century. ... View more

Observational learning may be psychology’s easiest concept for students to understand, although students may not appreciate the range of areas where observational learning takes place. Here are some examples to help your students see the ubiquity of observational learning. Example 1: Utah’s 2020 governor’s race video Chris Peterson (Democrat) and Spencer Cox (Republican) were both running for Utah governor. They created a video that models how two people can disagree politically but still have civil discourse. Their goal was to model civility. The candidates were interviewed on Today about their video. Example 2: Learning fear from parents In this experimental research, children learned fear by watching their parents show fear. Example 3: Otters learn from each other Researchers “gave select otters clear containers filled with meatballs and found that when one otter learned how to open the container, its friends subsequently learned how to open it more quickly.” Example 4: Crows learn from each other In a now-famous experiment on crow learning, crows who were captured and banded by researchers wearing a caveman mask were very unhappy with anyone wearing a caveman mask. “Even after going for a year without seeing the threatening human, the crows would scold the person on sight, cackling, swooping and dive-bombing in mobs of 30 or more.” But researchers didn’t capture and band all of those birds. The birds learned by watching others. Example 5: Dogs learn from each other The story of Saint Bernards as rescue dogs alone is worth reading this article written by psychologist Stanley Coren. Anyone who has added a second (or third, or…) dog to their family has watched as the new dog learned the ropes (both good and bad behaviors) from the resident dog(s). I’ve been relying on my current dog(s) to teach the newcomers how to be dogs since 1995. I can’t imagine doing house training from scratch any more. The resident dog urinates and defecates outside, so the newcomer quickly learns to do the same. If you’d like to use this a basis for discussion ask your students for their own examples of observational learning—or ask students to cull the Internet for other non-human animal examples. Examples will likely be most prevalent in animal species that are more social. ... View more

I hadn’t been teaching very long when I had decided that I didn’t want to be in the business of identifying good student excuses from poor student excuses for the purpose of determining who should—and who should not—get a deadline extension. I wasn’t comfortable passing judgment on what was a significant level of stress for a student. Was this student close enough to their aunt to warrant a deadline extension upon reporting her death? Can I believe that their aunt actually died? I know other faculty ask for some kind of proof. Am I comfortable asking for some kind of proof? Or that car crash that my student was in. How bad was it? And does it even matter how objectively bad the crash was given what we know about how differently people respond to various stressors? A fender bender that is no big deal to one student may send another student into stress overload. Rather than evaluate individual excuses, I decided to structure my course for flexibility. (For those of you familiar with the “4 Connections for Faculty-Student Engagement,” you’ll recognize this as part of “practice paradox.”) At that early point in my career, students had four 50-question unit exams and a 100-question comprehensive final. The first 25 questions on the final corresponded to the first unit exam (different questions, same content), the second 25 questions on the final corresponded to the second unit exam, and so on. If a student missed the first exam—for whatever reason—I would double the points earned on those first 25 questions, and those points would be entered as their exam one score. A student could miss all four unit exams and just take the final. No one ever did, but they could. Additionally, I would compare the total score for the four unit exams (200 points) to the final exam (100 points x 2 for a total of 200 points). I excluded the lower score and used the higher score to calculate final grades. If a student, for example, decided to try to power through and take a unit exam even if they weren’t in the right space to take it, and they ended up doing poorly on it. No worries. The final exam, if higher, would replace all four unit exams. I would say, “It doesn’t matter to me if you show me that you know the course material as we go through the course or at the end of the course. Just show me that you know it.” Later in my career, I did away with in-class exams in favor of what amounts to weekly take-home exams (I call them write-to-learn assignments; read more here). In my online courses, there are weekly discussions. With multiple assignments in each of these categories that are worth the same number of points, doing poorly on one, two, or three will not greatly harm a student’s course grade. Additionally, I drop the lowest take-home exam score and the lowest discussion score. Stuff happens in students’ lives. I don’t need to know what that stuff is. We’ll just drop the lowest scores. In my courses, all assignments are available from the beginning of the course. Students can choose to work ahead if they’d like, and several of my students do. The only place where that doesn’t work is in writing responses to other students’ discussion posts. In comparison to other work in the course, writing responses is not generally a labor-intensive activity. I know many faculty who are philosophically opposed to extra credit. For myself, I’m fine offering extra credit. While I’m comfortable with my assignments and scoring rubrics, they are not perfect. They can’t be. In a nod to this inherent measurement error, offering students some extra credit feels fair. I offer extra credit under two conditions. First, the extra credit has to be available to everyone. All of the extra credit in my courses is published as part of the course at the beginning of the term, so everyone knows what the extra credit is and when it’s due. Second, the extra credit has to advance my agenda. In my online discussion boards, I ask students to share their good news for the week. (Read more about this.) In their replies, I ask students to respond to the initial post’s good news with a reaction and a question. For one point extra credit, students can answer the question asked in the reply (maximum two points, one each if the student answers two replies). In an online course, students miss the opportunities to build community by chatting with each other before class starts or during breaks. Structured discussions can push the sense of community a bit, and a little extra credit for advancing the discussion can push it even further. The other place I offer extra credit is within the take-home exams. In some of these assignments, I will include extra credit questions that ask students to reflect back on earlier material in the course, particularly correlations and experimental design. We know that spaced practice and retrieval practice help students remember course content, so I encourage students to revisit these concepts throughout the course. The best thing I’ve done in the last year to build flexibility into my course is to include an automatic 24-hour grace period. Historically, I’ve had the take-home exams and initial discussion posts due on Monday and discussion responses due on Wednesday. If I move the due date back 24 hours—take-home exams and initial discussion posts due on Sunday and responses due on Tuesday—I could then add an automatic 24-hour grace period. Effectively, assignments are really still due on Mondays and Wednesdays, but for students, their target deadline is 24 hours earlier. If they need the extra time—for whatever reason—they have it. Frankly, it’s the easiest way for the most rigid of faculty to add flexibility to their course. Set your deadline, then subtract 24 hours. How does the 24-hour grace period work in practice? Early in the course, about two-thirds of my students make the initial deadline. As the term progresses, that slips to about half. Recently, a student ran into a technical problem with his computer’s Internet connection. Unfortunately, he discovered the problem 23 hours and 45 minutes into the grace period—and he missed the drop-dead deadline. He emailed me to explain what happened. He wasn’t asking for extension. He just wanted to let me know what happened and acknowledge his mistake. He understood that the grace period was for exactly those issues, and that he would return to aiming for the initial deadline. Finally, whatever your policy, stick with it. Do not make exceptions—unless your policy says that you will make exceptions. Otherwise, you reward the students who ask, and the students who follow your rules and who never ask, do not have the benefit of your generosity. There’s nothing fair about that. If all of those structural elements are not enough to help a student who is having a tough term pass the course, they have one more option: students can retake the course. ... View more

Shortly before the start of World War I, as the story goes, two young Serbians—Nada and Relja—fell in love. Soon before Relja departed for war, they stood on a bridge in their hometown of Vrnjačka Banja and declared their love for each other. Unfortunately, while away, Relja fell in love with another woman and never returned. Nada, as the story goes, never recovered from this loss and died young. “A tradition was born of this tragedy: local couples began to etch their names onto padlocks, attach them to the bridge, and throw the key in the water, a symbolic and public act sealing their commitment to each other” (Mars & Kohlstedt, 2020, p. 42). Take a look at some photos of the Vrnjačka Banja bridge. The practice of attaching locks to bridges and other public structures has become a practice in other cities around the world. Most often the locks are keyed padlocks, but sometimes they’re combination locks. (“My love, I will show my unwavering devotion to you by forgetting the combination!”) If just one couple, or a few couples, or even a few dozen couples attach locks to, say, a bridge, there is likely no harm in it. But what happens when thousands and thousands of couples do? It becomes a tragedy of the commons example. In 2015, with “[c]lose to one million locks—weighing 45 tonnes” attached to the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, the bridge was starting to show damage. Venice, Rome, and Melbourne all encountered similar problems to their bridges where couples in love were attaching padlocks. If you’d like, pose this discussion question to your students: If you were a city official presented with this tragedy of the commons problem—everyone doing a small thing (attaching a padlock to a bridge) causing a big problem (bridge is being damaged by the added weight)—how would you solve it? Many cities replaced the bridge railings with acrylic or glass panels, e.g., Pont des Arts bridge. In Russia, they erected metal tree sculptures specifically for couples to attach their padlocks to (Mars & Kohlstedt, 2020).   Another tragedy of the commons example. Susan B. Anthony, a 19th century champion for women’s right to vote is buried in Rochester, New York at the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery. It’s been a tradition on election day for visitors to her gravesite to put their “I voted” stickers on her gravestone. Unfortunately, the shear amount of accumulated glue from the stickers has started damaging the stone. “With this year marking 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the grave has been getting a lot of attention.” When just a few people attached stickers to the gravestone, there was virtually no damage. But many more people did the same thing, damage started to accumulate. The solution? Cemetery officials covered the stone with transparent plastic so that visitors can still place their “I voted” stickers without damaging the stone (Asmelash, 2020).   References Asmelash, L. (2020). People who place their “I Voted” stickers on Susan B. Anthony’s headstone will notice something different there this year. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/us/susan-b-anthony-i-voted-gravestone-trnd/index.html Mars, R., & Kohlstedt, K. (2020). The 99% invisible city: A field guide to the hidden world of everday design. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing.   ... View more

What better tour guide through My Psychology than the author himself, Andy Pomerantz. In each of these brief videos Andy introduces a specific chapter, highlighting important topics to come while addressing student preconceptions. Using these is a terrific way to set the stage for your lectures and your students' encounters with the course material. Preview the Lecture Launchers by Chapter: Chapter 1: The Science of Psychology Chapter 2: Brain and Behavior Chapter 3: Sensation and Perception Chapter 4: Consciousness Chapter 5: Memory Chapter 6: Learning Chapter 7:  Cognition: Thinking, Language and Intelligence Chapter 8: Motivation and Emotion Chapter 9: Development Across the Lifespan Chapter 10: Diversity in Psychology: Multiculturalism, Gender, and Sexuality Chapter 11: Stress and Health Chapter 12: Personality Chapter 13: Social Psychology Chapter 14: Psychological Disorders Chapter 15: Therapy ... View more

"How Should I Study?" Get this question a lot? John Dunlosky and Regan Gurung answer this question with special tips for the pandemic. Check out their video especially made for students that provides direct explanations of key cognitive strategies and some new work. http://ow.ly/58ZI50Ci5wp ... View more

Carolyn Hax (2020), syndicated advice columnist, recently received a message from a parent who was tired of being the “bad cop” to their husband’s “good cop” in parenting their son.* The parent notes that while growing up, her** father was “pretty strict,” while her husband’s father “was not very involved when he was a teen.” When it comes to discipline, the mother is the enforcer. She reports that one of their teenage sons is “very headstrong.” The father, rather than supporting his spouse, tries to negotiate peace. As an example of her being the disciplinarian, mom writes, “[O]ur son does not clean up his room after promising to do so. I take the keys to his car for the day. Son spends way more time arguing about the unfairness than it would take to actually clean his room.” Father and son both find the punishment greatly outweighs the crime. In her advice, Carolyn Hax asks the letter writer, “Why are you treating your/your father’s strictness as the only legitimate approach?” She goes on to add that there could be workable boundaries. The son can do whatever he’d like with his room (within reason***), but common spaces need to be respected, e.g., dishes need to be done. “You can allow him a voice in these expectations and consequences. Not the last word, but a place at the table.” After covering parenting styles, provide your students with access to the article, then pose these discussion questions. Based on what you read in the article, is the letter writer more of an authoritarian parent or an authoritative parent. What evidence do you have to support your choice? What type of parenting style is the advice columnist, Carolyn Hax, suggesting the letter writer try? What evidence do you have to support your choice? In reflecting on your own experiences growing up—both with your own parents/guardians and those of your friends and classmates—did you or anyone you know have parents/guardians who were more authoritarian? Give an example from you or your friends’ experiences that illustrates an authoritarian approach to parenting. How did the children respond to this parenting style? Did you or anyone you know have parents/guardians who were more authoritative? Give an example from you or your friends’ experiences that illustrates an authoritative approach to parenting. How did the children respond to this parenting style?   Footnotes *You will need a Washington Post subscription to read the article at its original source. As of this writing, you can access the column courtesy of the Dallas Morning News via PressReader.com. Otherwise, work with your reference librarians to get a permalink to the column in your library’s database that you can share with your students. Just give your librarians the reference below.    **In Hax’s column, we are not told the gender of the person who wrote in asking for advice. In writing this blog post, I wrote myself into all kinds of knots trying to keep the gender ambiguous. Out of a need for clarity (and pure selfishness in getting to that clarity), I’m going to play the odds and assume the asker-for-this-advice is a woman. ***Newspapers take syndicated columns like this one (and all articles that come off the news wires, actually) and edit them down to fit the space available on the printed page. In the Seattle Times, for example, the sentence reads, “You can agree your son’s room is his jurisdiction (barring extremes, like vermin or contraband), and hold your lines on common spaces.” The Dallas Morning News struck the parenthetical in their publication. Conversely, the Dallas Morning News included the paragraph that begins “The flagrant notworking of the old method is reason enough to try a new one.” The Seattle Times deleted it. The only place to see the complete original is in the Washington Post, Carolyn Hax’s host newspaper—either through the Washington Post website or through your library’s database. Reference Hax, C. (2020, November 8). Mom resents “bad cop” role in discipling son. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-the-parent-who-has-to-be-the-bad-cop-is-feeling-blue/2020/11/04/818025b0-1aee-11eb-aeec-b93bcc29a01b_story.html ... View more

What does it mean to be WEIRD—that is, raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic? Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves—their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations—over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? Those questions are at the heart of the fascinating webinar session with Dr. Joseph Henrich, author of The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous.     ACCESS THE RECORDING TODAY! ... View more

I started my day by reading this Memebase post: “22 Loving People Who Restored Our Faith in Humanity.” It’s example after example of people being kind to animals and each other. After reading it, I felt compelled to reach out to a stranger and do a kindness for them. Being in pandemic lockdown makes it hard to connect with strangers, though. And then I remembered. A few months ago, I received a text from someone whose phone number is just one number off from mine. It read, "Hi number neighbor." I found the sentiment so delightful, I replied with "LOL! Thanks for that". This morning, after reading the Memebase post, I texted my number neighbor with this: "Good morning, number neighbor! Regardless of your politics, today is probably going to be a hard day. Wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you, stranger, and sending good thoughts." My number neighbor replied with, "Thank you I really appreciate it. I hope you stay safe regardless of the outcome." I wished them the same. In my Intro Psych course, we’re covering the learning chapter this week. Myers and DeWall (2020) write in that chapter The good news is that people’s modeling of prosocial (positive, helpful) behaviors can have prosocial effects… Real people who model nonviolent, helpful behavior can also prompt similar behavior in others” (p. 184). In my online courses I post announcements two or three times a week. Today’s announcement included a link to that Memebase post as well as my text exchange with my number neighbor. I know that the Memebase post prompted me to engage in a bit of prosocial behavior. I hope that the Memebase post and my own prosocial behavior will encourage my students to find a way to do a little prosocial behavior themselves today. I did an Internet search for “random acts of kindness stories” and “faith in humanity restored” to find some other examples of people doing good things for strangers. There are lots out there. My plan for the rest of the term is to include a link to webpage that features such stories with my beginning-of-the-week announcements along with something that I did for a stranger. In the U.S., regardless of your politics, the coming weeks will likely be a challenge. Modeling prosocial behavior is the least we can do. ... View more

Debra Roberts (Howard University), lead supplements author of My Psychology, draws on her years of teaching and research to share strategies for talking about diversity in psychology classes. WATCH THE RECORDING ... View more