It was with great dismay that I read this New York Times article on the number of close calls between airplanes (Ember et al., 2023). With the challenges faced by understaffed air traffic control towers, the sheer number of close calls are not surprising. What is surprising is that the last time a U.S. airline had a fatal crash was in 2009. After reading that article, I opened my computer to see on my screen a ScienceDaily summary of a study that found correlations “between early classes, less sleep, poor attendance and reduced grade point average” (ScienceDaily, 2023). I thought, “yes, lack of sleep can negatively affect GPA, but it can also get people killed.” After covering sleep in Intro Psych, ask your students to review the tips for better sleep provided by the Sleep Foundation (Suni & Singh, 2023). All of these tips imply that we as individuals have complete control over our sleeping conditions. We know that it’s not quite that simple. For example, I have previously written about how social conditions can affect sleep (Frantz, 2022). This most recent New York Times article on airplane near misses points out that work can make getting good sleep problematic. Invite your students to read that New York Times article. And then in the context of a discussion (online or face-to-face) or as an assignment, ask students to answer these questions. Of the Sleep Foundation’s 20 tips for better sleep, which ones would be impossible for air traffic controllers do according to the New York Times article? Explain. Of the 20 tips, which ones might be difficult for air traffic controllers to do? Explain. Of the 20 tips, which ones would be easiest for air traffic controllers to do? Explain. If you were in charge of air traffic controllers, identify at least three things you would do to improve their sleep.   References Ember, S., Steel, E., Abraham, L., Lutz, E., & Koeze, E. (2023, August 21). Airline close calls happen far more often than previously known. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airline-safety-close-calls.html Frantz, S. (2022, January 10). Sleep deprivation is also a social justice issue. Macmillan and BFW Teaching Community. https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/psychology-blog/sleep-deprivation-is-also-a-social-justice-issue/ba-p/16243 ScienceDaily. (2023, March 28). Early morning university classes correlate with poor sleep and academic performance. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230328145459.htm Suni, E., & Singh, A. (2023, August 8). The 20 tips for how to sleep better. Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/healthy-sleep-tips   ... View more

The ‘R’ in the PERMA model of happiness is relationships (Madeson, 2021). In this New York Times article Maura Kelly tells us that following a break-up, she was feeling lonely. A friend advised her to become a regular somewhere (Kelly, 2023). [Cue the theme song from the sitcom Cheers.] Her friend’s advice was solid. All relationships matter, even the casual ones. During the COVID lockdown, I wrote about the importance of weak ties (Frantz, 2021).  For students who are starting college this fall away from home, they may be away from their family and high school friends for the first time in their lives. Their weak ties are gone, and their strong ties may be more challenging to maintain. Loneliness is to be expected. In Intro Psych, we can use the research methods chapter to normalize loneliness and provide students some strategies for reducing it. After covering surveys in the research methods chapter, ask students to read this article on a survey about loneliness done with older adults (Lam et al., 2023), and then answer these questions: Explain the difference between strong and weak ties. Give examples of each. [Background section] Where did the researchers find their survey participants? [Study section] What was the response rate for this survey? [Study section] Explain what is meant by the term response rate. How many participants were included in the researchers’ subsample? What was the purpose of the subsample? [Study section] According to the results of this study, which is more important: strong ties, weak ties, or a mix of both? [Conclusion section] The researchers argue that there are three reasons weak ties are important. What are they? [Conclusion section] While this study was about older adults, would you expect similar findings for first-year college students? Why or why not? Give an example of at least one weak tie that you have. How do you know this person? How often do you see them? Identify at least one thing you can do to increase the likelihood of developing more weak ties. A couple of years ago, we moved across the country. In our new community, we’ve been building our network of weak ties. From that network we’ve created some strong ties, too. For example, we visit our favorite local coffee shop once or twice a week. Over time, we have gotten to know the owners, the baristas, and many of the regular patrons. At our favorite restaurant, the servers now greet us with hugs. Weak ties, yes, but powerful weak ties. It is difficult to not feel a sense of community when you’re hugged just for going out to dinner. Assure your students that to develop weak ties, they do not need to be an extravert. Encourage your students to find a place where they like the atmosphere—a coffee shop, a comfy spot in the student union, a corner of the public library. Tell them to visit their chosen spot frequently. Assure them that the mere exposure effect will work in their favor. As your students begin to see faces that are now familiar, encourage your students to nod or smile in recognition of these others who are also regulars, and, over time, chat about something innocuous, like the weather. Face-to-face classes can be another source of weak ties, but since time in the classroom is limited, students may need to work a little faster to develop those ties. However, weak ties may be easier to develop with other students who are in the same major because they may see the same students in multiple courses. Loneliness is very real. Using this survey example in the Intro Psych research methods chapter is one way to encourage students to expand their network of weak ties.   References Frantz, S. (2021, February 2). Watercooler conversations: Weak-ties matter. Macmillan and BFW Teaching Community. https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/psychology-blog/watercooler-conversations-weak-ties-matter/ba-p/13702 Kelly, M. (2023, August 11). Where everybody knows your name. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/well/become-a-regular-loneliness.html Lam, J., Broccatelli, C., & Baxter, J. (2023). Diversity of strong and weak ties and loneliness in older adults. Journal of Aging Studies, 64, 101097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101097 Madeson, M. (2021, June 12). Seligman’s PERMA+ model explained: A theory of wellbeing. https://positivepsychology.com/perma-model/       ... View more

Omega-3 fatty acids are important for brain health (Barnes et al., 2021; Lange, 2020; Thomas et al., 2021). Nuts—particularly walnuts—are high in omega-3 fatty acids (The Nutrition Source, n.d.). After covering experimental design or as a experimental design booster in the lifespan chapter, give students this hypothesis, and then ask them to work in small groups to design an experiment that would test it. Hypothesis: Eating walnuts will enhance the neuropsychological and behavioral development of adolescents. Ask the groups to identify the independent variable—both experimental and control conditions—and the dependent variables. Students should also provide operational definitions of all variables. Before deciding on operational definitions, encourage students to consider what information they may be lacking. For example, has previous research revealed how many grams of walnuts a day may be needed? How many days or weeks may the walnuts need to be eaten to see any effects? What kinds of dependent measures might reveal effects? This is a good opportunity to explain the importance of a lit review. Knowing what other researchers have done and have discovered can inform how we design our study. After groups have had an opportunity to design their studies, invite a representative from each group to share their design. As an out-of-class assignment, ask students to read this freely available Lancet article on an experiment conducted in a dozen high schools in Barcelona (Pinar-Martí et al., 2023) and to answer these questions: What was the independent variable? Identify both the experimental and control conditions. What was the operational definition used for the experimental condition? What were the dependent variables? Hint: there were four neuropsychological variables and two behavioral variables. When the researchers removed from their data analysis those in the experimental group who did not eat the amount of walnuts as requested, what results did they find?   References Barnes, S., Chowdhury, S., Gatto, N. M., Fraser, G. E., & Lee, G. J. (2021). Omega‐3 fatty acids are associated with blood–brain barrier integrity in a healthy aging population. Brain and Behavior, 11(8), e2273. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2273 Lange, K. W. (2020). Omega-3 fatty acids and mental health. Global Health Journal, 4(1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glohj.2020.01.004 Pinar-Martí, A., Gignac, F., Fernández-Barrés, S., Romaguera, D., Sala-Vila, A., Lázaro, I., Ranzani, O. T., Persavento, C., Delgado, A., Carol, A., Torrent, J., Gonzalez, J., Roso, E., Barrera-Gómez, J., López-Vicente, M., Boucher, O., Nieuwenhuijsen, M., Turner, M. C., Burgaleta, M., … Julvez, J. (2023). Effect of walnut consumption on neuropsychological development in healthy adolescents: A multi-school randomised controlled trial. EClinicalMedicine, 59, 101954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.101954 The Nutrition Source. (n.d.). Omega-3 fatty acids: An essential contribution. Harvard School of Public Health. Retrieved August 10, 2023, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/types-of-fat/omega-3-fats/ Thomas, A., Baillet, M., Proust‐Lima, C., Féart, C., Foubert‐Samier, A., Helmer, C., Catheline, G., & Samieri, C. (2021). Blood polyunsaturated omega‐3 fatty acids, brain atrophy, cognitive decline, and dementia risk. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 17(3), 407–416. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.12195   ... View more

Earlier this week it was announced that U.S. consumer credit card debt has surpassed one trillion dollars for the first time. Interestingly, there is a positive correlation between household income and the number of households who have carried their credit card debt for more than a year. “Bankrate found that 72 percent of cardholders with credit card debt and annual household incomes of $100,000 or more have been in debt for at least a year. The percentage drops to 70 percent for households with credit card debt and incomes between $80,000 and $99,999; 63 percent for people earning between $50,000 and $79,999; and 53 percent for folks making under $50,000.” (Singletary, 2023). That is a lot of people who are paying interest on their credit card balances. The current average credit card interest rate is a whopping 24.69% (Black & Saks Frankel, 2023). The average U.S. consumer has $5,947 in credit card debt (Dickler, 2023). At least some consumers pay off their credit cards every month, but let’s take someone who is carrying $5,947 in debt on a credit card with a 24.69% interest rate. Nerdwallet’s credit card interest calculator can tell us how much interest we’d pay this month: $121.87. Credit card issuers vary on how they determine minimum payments. For balances over $1,000, the minimum payment for the major credit card issuers is commonly 1% of the balance owed plus interest and fees (Tsosie, 2022). For our hypothetical person who owes $5,947, their minimum payment would be $59.47 (1% of the balance) plus $121.87 (interest) for a total of $181.34. That $59.47 barely touches the principle. Why don’t credit card issuers have an even lower minimum, say, below the amount of interest? Because U.S. federal guidelines discourage it (Tsosie, 2022). Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, 29% of credit card holders make only the minimum payment or up to $50 above minimum. Why? Anchoring appears to be the culprit. These credit card holders seem to use the minimum payment as the anchor and then adjust up from that (Keys & Wang, 2019). When covering anchoring bias in Intro Psych, this example would provide an opportunity to give students a financial literacy booster. When young adults make the transition to independent living, do they have the financial literacy skills to help them keep their debt to a minimum? “Julie O’Brien [PhD in Social Psychology], head of behavioral sciences at U.S. Bank, said before they transition into the real world, it’s important to help your children understand the psychological side of finances. Buying new things can create positive emotions, which mentally reinforces to teens that spending is a good thing. Meanwhile, saving money doesn’t produce instant gratification, making it more difficult to do” (Glass, 2023). I’d even add that paying down credit card debt can be aversive. Giving money to a credit card issuer means less money for me to use. Reframing should help, though. The less money I owe on my credit cards, the less interest I’ll pay, and the more money I will have for me in the long run. Let’s say that instead of paying $121.87 in interest every month, I took a year’s worth of that interest ($121.87 x 12 months = $1,462.44) and put it into a 9-month CD that earns 5%. At the end of that term, I’d get all of my money back plus I’d make $73.12. I have noticed an interesting trend among some of my students. They have turned increasing their credit score into a game. Every time they pay down their debt, their credit score goes up. Several of my students have celebrated their increased credit scores as their good news for the week in our class online discussion boards. Their classmates have congratulated them and followed up by asking how they did it.   Talking about financial behavior in terms of reinforcement and punishment makes our coverage of operant conditioning another opportunity to talk about financial literacy.   References Black, M., & Saks Frankel, R. (2023, August 7). What is the average credit card interest rate? Forbes Advisor. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/average-credit-card-interest-rate/ Dickler, J. (2023, August 10). Average consumer carries $5,947 in credit card debt—A 10-year high. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/10/average-consumer-carries-5947-in-credit-card-debt-a-10-year-high.html Glass, K. (2023, July 18). The life skills teens should know before leaving home. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/07/18/teen-life-skills/ Keys, B. J., & Wang, J. (2019). Minimum payments and debt paydown in consumer credit cards. Journal of Financial Economics, 131(3), 528–548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.09.009 Singletary, M. (2023, August 9). Credit card debt tops $1 trillion, trapping even six-figure earners. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/08/credit-card-debt-1-trillion-high-earners/ Tsosie, C. (2022, November 28). How credit card issuers calculate minimum payments. NerdWallet. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/credit-card-issuer-minimum-payment   ... View more

People volunteer their time. I can’t find any research that tells me how many people donate their time or how much time people donate. (If you know of data, please email me at sfrantz@highline.edu or sfrantz@nmsu.edu.) I am going to go out on a limb and say that almost everyone volunteers at least a few minutes of their time in some way at least once a month. When we think of volunteering, we may think of committing a few hours a month to a particular cause. For example, people donate their time to make audio recordings of written material in the public domain (Librivox). Our local arthouse theater is run entirely by volunteers who do everything from selling tickets to selling popcorn (Fountain Theater, Mesilla, NM). As a college student, I volunteered a few hours a week at a domestic violence shelter and rape crisis center (Alice Paul House, Indiana, PA). While all of these activities require some level of training and commitment, there are plenty of less formal ways we can donate our time. For example, during this summer’s heat wave I visited a friend. I saw that he had a cooler on his porch with a sign that read “Cold water. Help yourself.” He puts it out for any delivery or service personnel who come through his neighborhood. It’s a small time (and financial) commitment, but it’s certainly a volunteer activity. I imagine that there are plenty of organizations that would be happy to have people volunteer for just a bit of time with no major time commitment required. Perhaps they would love to have a few people spend one hour—not one hour a week, just one single hour—pulling weeds or picking up trash on their organization’s property. Unfortunately, there isn’t a clearinghouse for these kind of volunteer activities. But what if there were? In the summer of 2022, a one-day pop-up shop appeared in Carlisle, UK. The shop was filled with donations from local businesses, but the prices weren’t in British pounds. They were in volunteer time for local charities. As a member of the initiative said, “It seems people have really responded to this idea because it broke down some of the barriers to volunteering. People do want to make a difference and help charities in their community, but it is not always clear how to do that or who to speak to – the Kinder Shop really connected people with those opportunities” (Gillespie-Wright, 2023). Martha Winn “picked up some impressive wooden chopping boards, vases and a bottle of gin and will be volunteering to help at Eden Valley Hospice’s torchlit procession in October” (Cumbria Crack, 2022). There is plenty of research that shows the value of giving to others. Recreating a pop-up Kinder Shop in your community could be a valuable project for your psych club or your Psi Beta or Psi Chi chapter. Students could share with patrons how giving increases our own happiness (think infographic handouts or posters) while connecting community members and students to volunteer opportunities.   References Cumbria Crack. (2022, June 22). Unique Carlisle shop where you just pay with kindness. https://cumbriacrack.com/2022/06/22/unique-carlisle-shop-where-you-just-pay-with-kindness/ Gillespie-Wright, K. (2023, May 16). The shop where the currency is kindness. Positive News. https://www.positive.news/society/kinder-shop-where-the-currency-is-kindness/   ... View more

On a recent flight, two people in the row behind me struck up a conversation. They were strangers to each other, but both were game for having a chat. Their conversation ranged widely. I was working, so I only periodically tuned in. My ears perked up when one person said, “There’s mental health in my family.” Now there’s an interesting euphemism. She’s didn’t say “there’s poor mental health in my family,” or “there’s mental illness in my family,” or “there are mental health challenges in my family.”  The woman’s conversation partner, however, understood exactly what she meant. For other types of health conditions, I bet she doesn’t say “There’s health in my family.” We may be making progress on reducing the stigma around mental illness, but the phrase “mental illness” is still difficult for some to utter. Our World in Data has 51 charts depicting data related to mental health. When study participants were asked “how comfortable a local person would feel speaking about anxiety or depression with someone they know,” 56% of Egyptian respondents said very comfortable with another 32% saying somewhat comfortable. In the U.S., a mere 7.2% of respondents said very comfortable with another 58% saying somewhat comfortable. At the bottom of that chart, click “Table” to see the full list of countries with data. Jordan tops the list for the most participants saying very comfortable (60.7%) and Japan brings up the bottom in the category (2.7%). Given the conversation on the plane, I wonder what the responses would be if participants were asked “how comfortable a local person would feel speaking about anxiety or depression with someone they were unlikely to ever see again.” Worldwide prevalence for depressive disorders appears to be between 2% and 6%. Worldwide prevalence for anxiety disorders appears to be similar, between 2% and 7%. Schizophrenia, as we’d expect, is much less common at 0.2% to 0.4%. As part of an in-class or asynchronous discussion, after covering psychological disorders, invite your students to view Our Work in Data’s charts related to mental health. Ask your students to identify from one of those charts the most interesting or most surprising data they found and to provide a brief explanation as to why they chose it. This will give students an opportunity to see how mental illness is perceived and occurs in their own country as well as the rest of the world.   ... View more

Did you know that the foot-pedal trashcan was invented by Lillian Gilbreth, who was arguably the mother of industrial/organizational psychology? Linda Woolf (Webster University) and I are starting a campaign to rename the foot-pedal trashcan. Let’s call it the “Gilbreth.” Gilbreth and her husband Frank were known for their time and motion studies. In the early 1900s, companies hired them to analyze jobs—to find ways to help their employees be more efficient in their work. When Frank died in 1924, the companies stopped hiring Lillian. Apparently, they thought, a woman could not possibly know anything about business. Long story short, Gilbreth must have thought something like this: Ok, you think women belong in the home? Fine. In her book The Home-Maker and Her Job, (freely available on Google Books), Gilbreth wrote that the “[w]aste of energy is the cause of drudgery in work of any kind. In industry the engineer and the psychologist, working together, have devised means of getting more done with less effort and fatigue and of making everything that is done more interesting” (Gilbreth, 1927, p. vii.). Gilbreth redirected her efficiency expertise into making improvements in the home with her greatest impact in the kitchen. While today the foot-pedal trashcan is sometimes marketed as good for hygiene, Gilbreth invented it in the name of efficiency. If you’re holding trash with two hands, you have to set it down to remove the trashcan lid. That takes time. Instead, why not use a foot to open the lid? That’s much faster. We can also credit the shelves in our refrigerator doors to Gilbreth. Imagine that we didn’t have those door shelves. Everything would be stacked on the main shelves. We’d be constantly taking stuff out to get to the stuff at the back. With the door shelves, we have much more of our refrigerated items at our fingertips. She also gave us the egg keeper, which readers of a certain age will remember. If you were collecting eggs from your own hens, having a dedicated refrigerator door shelf with indentations made specifically to hold eggs was handy. How about a dedication door space for butter? Yes, Gilbreth gave us the butter tray, too (Giges, 2012). Gilbreth redesigned the layout of our kitchens to be more efficient. Before Gilbreth, a kitchen was “a large room with discrete pieces of furniture around the edges. These might include a table, a freestanding cupboard or Hoosier cabinet, an icebox, a sink with a drying board and a stove. Ingredients, utensils and cookware might be across the room, or even in a separate pantry” (Lange, 2012). Your kitchen may sound very similar to what Gilbreth created. She “put stove and counter side-by-side, with food storage above, pan storage below, and the refrigerator a step away. A rolling cart provided additional surface area, and could be wheeled to the sink with a load of dirty dishes, where soap, sponge and drying rack were all within reach. The idea was to create a tight circuit for the cook, with no need to move the feet. The L-shaped arrangement she devised continues to be one of the most popular options for contemporary kitchens” (Lange, 2012). Gilbreth didn’t just think this design was more efficient. She tested it to see if it actually was. If you’d like to give your student some research design practice, invite your students to consider how such a study could be conducted. Gilbreth had a baker make a strawberry shortcake first in the traditional kitchen and again in the redesigned kitchen. The utensils and the equipment in the two kitchens were identical. The only difference was their placement. There were two dependent measures: 1) the number of operations, such as opening a drawer or closing the oven door, and 2) the number of steps—literally, the number of footfalls. The traditional kitchen required 97 operations, the Gilbreth kitchen only 64. The traditional kitchen required 281 footfalls, the Gilbreth kitchen a mere 45 (Lange, 2012). This redesign is now known as the kitchen triangle formed by the stove, sink, and refrigerator at the corners. Ideally, the perimeter of this triangle measuring no more than 26 feet. I just measured our kitchen. From center of stove to center of refrigerator is six feet, center of refrigerator to center of sink is seven feet, and center of sink to center of stove is eight feet. That’s a total of 21 feet. “Gilbreth’s final contribution to the kitchen as workspace is the Gilbreth Management Desk, exhibited by IBM at the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago in 1933… The desk had drawers for bills paid and unpaid, a shelf for cookbooks and a nook for a telephone”(Lange, 2012). Finally, I know who to blame for this weird, almost unusable space in our house. When bills came in the mail, when we had telephones that plugged into the wall, and before the advent of home offices and laptop computers, this space made sense. Now, not so much. These are only some of the contributions Gilbreth made to our home lives. Encourage your students to read more about her.   References Giges, N. (2012). Lillian Moller Gilbreth. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/lillian-moller-gilbreth Gilbreth, L. M. (1927). The home-maker and her job. D. Appleton and Company. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Home_maker_and_Her_Job/QAQLAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 Lange, A. (2012, October 25). The woman who invented the kitchen. Slate. https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/10/lillian-gilbreths-kitchen-practical-how-it-reinvented-the-modern-kitchen.html   ... View more

A friend and I recently stayed at a bed and breakfast in northern England. The proprietor’s dog—a black terrier named Branston—was an excellent host. There were eight of us at breakfast—four Brits and four Americans. Branston spent some time lying on the floor and some time rotating amongst us. For a few guests, he didn’t limit himself to just looking at us with his puppy dog eyes. He upped it by putting his head in our laps. While Branston’s owner would prefer that guests not give him food, she said that some do. And she said that those who do are most often Americans. She swears that Branston spends more time with Americans, identifying us by our accents. I wasn’t even halfway into my full English breakfast before I was deep into thinking about operant conditioning. Branston is on both a variable interval and variable ratio schedule of reinforcement. Variable interval. At breakfast, people drop stuff. Branston’s behavior of circulating amongst the guests is occasionally rewarded with finding food on the floor. Variable ratio. At breakfast, when Branston looks at a guest, his looking behavior is sometimes rewarded by being given a tasty morsel. If that doesn’t work, his head-in-the-lap behavior, he has learned, sometimes results in the same reward. Discriminative stimulus—anything that signals that a behavior is more likely to be reinforced. Branston has learned that some people are more likely to reward his behavior with food than others. Is there a way he can increase his odds? It sure sounds like Branston is using accents as a discriminative stimulus. If Americans really are more likely to give him food, then it makes sense that he would learn that American accents sound different than, say, British, Danish, or Italian accents. When he hears someone who sounds American, he spends more time looking at them—and putting his head is their lap—because he has learned that we’re more likely to reward this behavior. Consider using this example to explain discriminative stimulus. If time allows, give students a few minutes to share in small groups other examples of a discriminative stimulus that they have experienced or witnessed. ... View more

In Finland, Andres Wiklöf was clocked by the police traveling approximately 82 kph (50 mph) in a 50 kph (31 mph) zone. He was fined €121,000 (USD $129,544) (Ogao, 2023). One reason that an intended punishment is not actually punishing is that we may be willing to pay the price. I had a friend tell me that when she was teenager, she would leave her house and spend the day in the mountains. She knew that when she got home, she’d be beaten so badly with a switch that the backs of her legs would bleed. For her, being at home was much more punishing than being gone. She was willing to pay the price. The beatings did not reduce her behavior of leaving the house for the day. Let’s consider speeding tickets. Let’s say I receive a speeding ticket of $100, including fine and administrative fees. Let’s also imagine a fantasy world where I make $500,000/year. I may be willing to pay $100 in exchange for getting to my destination faster. This may be especially true if I don’t get caught every time. But even if I did, that $100 doesn’t mean much to me. It would just become the price of my commute. However, if I make $10,000/year, having to fork over $100 hurts a lot. In fact, I may not be able to buy food this week or next. The $100 penalty sounds fair on the surface—the same penalty for everyone, but what it means to each person differs significantly. Most states—but not all, e.g. Mississippi, Minnesota, Washington—also implement a points system where each traffic violation results in points (FindLaw.com, 2016). Accumulate enough points and your insurance premiums may increase (again, no big deal for wealthy drivers) or your license may be suspended. A suspended license does not mean that you cannot drive. It just means additional penalties if you are caught driving with a license suspended. Several European countries take a very different approach to fines. Instead of a fixed euro amount, they implement day-fines, sometimes called unit-fines. Finland was the earliest adopter of this system in 1921, followed by Sweden and Denmark in the 1930s (Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, 2015). In the day-fine system, a judge uses the severity of the offense to determine how may “days” a person will be fined. This number of days assigned to each offense is often pre-determined by law. Next, the courts determine what a person’s “day” is worth. What is used in the calculation also varies by country, but may include annual income and assets and, perhaps, a deduction of some amount for, say, number of dependents. And then a fraction of a day’s worth—again determined by law, such as a half, is used to determine an individual’s day-fine (Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, 2015). That brings us back to Andres Wiklöf who paid a 20 mph over the limit speeding ticket of USD $129,544. As you might now guess, Wiklöf is a multimillionaire. Is this fine actually a punishment? Will it decrease his speeding behavior? Maybe. In 2013, he received a speeding ticket that resulted in a €95,000 fine, and five years later in 2018, he received another ticket with a €63,000 fine. And here we are another five years later. One ticket every five years? I’d say the fines have been punishing (Ogao, 2023). Ask your students how much a speeding ticket would need to be for them to never drive more than 10 mph over the speed limit. (If they do not drive, ask them to either imagine that they did or ask them to ask a friend or relative this question. If this is an in-class discussion, ask them to text someone now.) Record the results where students can see. Next, ask your students if they think their state or province should move to day-fines. Why or why not? Lastly, ask your students if there are other areas where penalties should be determined by the impact on each individual person. For example, should instructors have different late penalties based on a student’s current grade with higher grades resulting in higher late penalties? Why or why not? (A student with a higher grade in the course has less motivation to submit work on time because they can afford to lose 10%, 20%, or more points on one assignment. They can effectively buy more time to complete a late-in-the-course assignment than someone with a lower overall course grade.) I have no idea what students may say to this, but at least some may say that if their grades are that high, then they’ve earned the privilege. If so, follow up by asking if the wealthy have earned the right to speed and therefore should only pay $100 fines like the rest of us.   References FindLaw.com. (2016, June 20). Driver’s license points by state. Findlaw. https://www.findlaw.com/traffic/traffic-tickets/state-specific-points-systems.html Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, E. (2015). Day-fines: Should the rich pay more? Review of Law & Economics, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2014-0045 Ogao, E. (2023, June 6). Finnish businessman handed €121,000 speeding ticket. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/finnish-businessman-handed-121000-speeding-ticket/story?id=99861907     ... View more

Sometimes we just need a little good news. In the Intro Psych social psych chapter, let’s give students some practice thinking through the Latané and Darley model of helping  (Latane & Darley, 1968). The next time students find themselves in a situation where they can help, maybe they will.   Let’s start with the model of helping. In the event of an emergency, we (1) have to notice that something is happening. Next, we (2) have to interpret that event as an emergency. Once we do, we (3) have to assume some responsibility for helping. Lastly, we (4) need to know how we can be of assistance. If there is failure at any of those steps along the way, we are less likely to help. Let’s start with truck driver Gary Wilburn. On October 4, 2022, Wilburn was driving through Arkansas when he encountered slow moving traffic. After an hour of this traffic, Wilburn spotted the cause. A state trooper’s car had crashed. He saw that the trooper was still in the car and was badly hurt. Wilburn called 911 and stayed with the trooper until help arrived (Good News Network, 2022). Using Wilburn’s decision to help, walk your students through the model. With traffic moving at a crawl, Wilburn had no choice but to notice something was going on. Once he saw the trooper’s car, he interpreted that something as an emergency. Wilburn accepted responsibility for helping. (Wilburn said, “I’m that idiot that runs into burning buildings and pulls out pets. When I see something like that, I can’t keep going on about my day” (Good News Network, 2022).) Lastly, Wilburn knew what to do: call 911. Now consider why all of the other drivers did not help. Is it possible that some drivers did not notice that (1) something was happening? For drivers who were just passing through and weren’t familiar with the local traffic patterns, they may not have thought that anything peculiar was happening. For the local drivers, though, this heavy traffic was certainly unusual. But (2) was it an emergency? Even if they spotted the crashed police car, they may not have noticed that the injured trooper was still in the car. They may have assumed that the driver had already been taken to the hospital. For anyone who saw the injured trooper, (3) they may not have accepted that they had a responsibility to help. They may have thought, “Look at all of these other drivers. Surely someone else has already called 911.” (Bystander effect!) Lastly, even if they decided that they had a responsibility to help, (4) they may have thought, “I don’t know first aid. I’m sure that someone not far behind me knows what to do.” When under pressure, it may not occur to us that, at minimum, we can call 911. Ask your students to read this article about Emily Raines (a nurse) and her boyfriend who saved a man’s life on plane (Corbley, 2023b). In small groups (or as an assignment), ask your students to walk through the decisions made by Raines in each step of the Latané and Darley model of helping (Latane & Darley, 1968). One more example! Ask your student to read this article about Michael Armus, Sr. who stopped a bank robbery in progress by asking the robber, “What’s wrong?” (Corbley, 2023a). Again, in small groups (or as an assignment), ask your students to walk through the decisions made by Armus, Sr. in each step of the Latané and Darley model of helping (Corbley, 2023a). To close out this discussion (or assignment), invite students to share an example of when they helped or did not help. Ask them to walk through their decisions at each step of the helping model.   References Corbley, A. (2023a, May 29). The incredible moment 69-year-old stops a bank robbery with words and a hug. Good News Network. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/the-incredible-moment-69-year-old-stops-a-bank-robbery-with-words-and-a-hug/ Corbley, A. (2023b, June 6). A nurse and her boyfriend saved a man’s life on flight home from Bahamas vacation. Good News Network. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/a-nurse-and-her-boyfriend-saved-a-mans-life-on-flight-home-from-bahamas-vacation/ Good News Network. (2022, October 15). Texas trucker is named ‘highway angel’ for stopping to rescue a police officer pinned in vehicle. Good News Network. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/gary-wilburn-named-trucker-highway-angel/ Latane, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3), 215–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026570     ... View more

Eating fruits and vegetables is good for all of us, including growing children. Researchers wondered what caregivers could do to increase fruit and veggie intake among the younger set. Explain to your Intro Psych students that the first thing researchers do is a literature review where we dive into the research databases to find peer-reviewed journal articles on our topic of interest. If you’d like your students to get practice using your library’s databases, contact your favorite reference librarian for database instructions you can provide your students. Ask students what search terms might yield the best results for this topic. I had success using just ‘vegetables’ and ‘children.’ Explain that researchers first read the article title. If the title sounds relevant to their topic, they’ll read the abstract. If the abstract sounds promising, they’ll read the article—or, rather, they’ll read the parts of the article of greatest interest and not necessarily in order. For example, after the abstract, they may read the discussion, and then go back to the beginning to skim the introduction paying closer attention to the last paragraphs since that’s where the hypotheses are most likely to be, and then carefully read the methods section to learn how the study was done, and, then, finally, read the results. Give students a few minutes to pop into your library’s databases to search for peer-reviewed articles that identify variables that are associated with children eating more vegetables. The studies may be correlational or experimental. When they find a strategy, ask them to share it. If you’d like to skip this lit review part, instead share with your students these variables that are associated with children eating more fruits or vegetables: repeatedly giving children a taste of a vegetable (Lakkakula et al., 2010; Wardle et al., 2003), caregivers eating more vegetables (Rasmussen et al., 2006), more shared family meals (Rasmussen et al., 2006), decreased amount of television watching (Rasmussen et al., 2006), decreased incidence of eating fast food (Rasmussen et al., 2006), increased variety of fruits and vegetables available at meals (Just et al., 2012; Roe et al., 2013). Give students this hypothesis posited by one group of researchers: “children eat more fruits and more vegetables when the regular family mealtime duration is extended” (Dallacker et al., 2023). Ask students to work in small groups to design a study that would test this hypothesis. Students should identify their independent variable—including its conditions and operational definitions for those conditions—and their dependent variable(s)—including operational definition(s). Invite groups to share their experimental designs. Highlight the strengths of each group’s design while also discussing possible shortcomings. Emphasize that there is no one right way to design an experiment. The more ways a hypothesis is studied, the more support we have for the hypothesis. As a follow-up assignment, ask your students to read the freely available journal article published by a group of researchers in Germany who tested this same hypothesis (Dallacker et al., 2023). Ask students to address these questions: The primary hypothesis was “children eat more fruits and more vegetables when the regular family mealtime duration is extended.” What was their secondary hypothesis? What committee provided ethics approval? Was consent to participate in the study given by the caregiver, the child, or both? How many parent-child pairs participated in this experiment? How did researchers figure out how long the regular meal and the intervention meal should be? What was the experiment’s independent variable? What were the two conditions of the independent variable? How were these operationally defined? What were the experiment’s dependent variables? How were these operationally defined? Were the researchers’ primary and secondary hypotheses supported by their data? Explain.   References Dallacker, M., Knobl, V., Hertwig, R., & Mata, J. (2023). Effect of longer family meals on children’s fruit and vegetable intake: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 6(4), e236331. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.6331 Just, D. R., Lund, J., & Price, J. (2012). The role of variety in increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables among children. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 41(1), 72–81. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1068280500004196 Lakkakula, A., Geaghan, J., Zanovec, M., Pierce, S., & Tuuri, G. (2010). Repeated taste exposure increases liking for vegetables by low-income elementary school children. Appetite, 55(2), 226–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2010.06.003 Rasmussen, M., Krølner, R., Klepp, K.-I., Lytle, L., Brug, J., Bere, E., & Due, P. (2006). Determinants of fruit and vegetable consumption among children and adolescents: A review of the literature. Part I: quantitative studies. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 3(1), 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-3-22 Roe, L. S., Meengs, J. S., Birch, L. L., & Rolls, B. J. (2013). Serving a variety of vegetables and fruit as a snack increased intake in preschool children,,. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 98(3), 693–699. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.062901 Wardle, J., Cooke, L. J., Gibson, E. L., Sapochnik, M., Sheiham, A., & Lawson, M. (2003). Increasing children’s acceptance of vegetables; a randomized trial of parent-led exposure. Appetite, 40(2), 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0195-6663(02)00135-6       ... View more

Reading this freely available Ars Technica article “This is catfishing on an industrial scale” (Cole & Wired.com, 2023) left me feeling like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion. Each paragraph left me more horrified than the last. Frankly, there is a lot of psychology in this article, but for the purpose of this blog post, let’s talk about who is being reinforced for and with what. I learned in the article that some dating sites are not what they seem. After being hired by one dating site, “Liam was asked to adopt fake online personas—known as ‘virtuals’—in order to chat to customers, most of them men looking for relationships or casual sex. Using detailed profiles of customers and well-crafted virtuals, Liam was expected to lure people into paying, message by message, for conversations with fictional characters” (Cole & Wired.com, 2023). Of course, the customers think they are interacting with a real person, not a fictional character. Each virtual has a dossier as does each customer. Every two minutes, a different employee takes over the virtual persona and continues the chat. When the employee switches to a new virtual, the employee scans the dossiers of both the virtual and the customer as well as recent messages. This helps the employee know how best to respond to the customer’s latest message. The entire goal is to get the customer to send just one more message. Why the switch every two minutes? The Ars Technica article does not address this, but it must be to keep the employees from getting attached to customers and to keep the customers from getting attached to a real person. Customers pay about 2 euros to send a message to the virtual—who, again, they believe is a real person. The employees get paid a mere 2 euros/hour. At today’s exchange rate, that is US$2.14. Since that is a very low pay rate for someone, say, in the U.S., such employees may sublet. For example, if I were hired by such a company at €2/hour, I could hire someone who lives somewhere where €0.80/hour is a decent enough wage to do my job for me. While the remaining €1.20/hour is not much to someone living in the U.S., it’s more than nothing, and, frankly, it’s not a bad wage for the amount of work required—which is nothing. The Ars Technica article does point out, “While illegal and not endorsed by the customer service companies, black market subletting is common in the industry” (Cole & Wired.com, 2023). To sum up the experience of one subletter, “While he chats, he pretends to be the owner of the account, who is pretending to be a woman in the United States, who is pretending to be hundreds of virtual women” (Cole & Wired.com, 2023). Liam, who no longer works for this company, had “seen users talking to the virtuals about their heaviest emotional concerns: ‘one was talking about suicide and how the fake woman had saved him from it, now that he’d found love.’ Liam had seen marriage proposals from users, some who had been on there as long as four and a half years. ‘And how can you blame them,’ says Liam, ‘when the system is doing its best to get to know you as well as it can?’” (Cole & Wired.com, 2023). In this industry, there is a whole bunch of positive reinforcement going on. If you’d like, summarize the article for your students, and then provide examples of positive reinforcement. Or if you’d like to use this as a launch point for discussion, ask your students to read the Ars Technica article “This is catfishing on an industrial scale” (Cole & Wired.com, 2023). Next, ask whose behavior is being positively reinforced and with what. We have the customers who keep coming back, we have the owners of the company who keep running this service, we have the official employees, and we have the sublet employees. And then there are Liam and another employee, Alice, who no longer work for the company. For them, was the positive reinforcement too little to outweigh the positive punishment that came with #$%&ing* with people’s feelings? Lastly, what does it say about how lonely people must feel that they turn to such sites in the first place?   *The article does use the f-word. If that’s an issue with your student population, consider sharing a redacted article instead.   Reference Cole, L. & Wired.com. (2023, May 17). This is catfishing on an industrial scale. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/05/this-is-catfishing-on-an-industrial-scale/   ... View more

Yesterday, a few dear friends (all psychology professors) and I were having a nice chat via text. I said I wanted a theme park, perhaps it could be called SueFlags, SueLand, or SueWorld. Susan Nolan suggested SueZoo. That brief exchange was enough to generate this assignment prompt: Create a theme park based on your Big Five scores. Explain how the elements of your theme park match each trait. To flesh this out a little more, I would add this to the instructions: Take the Big Five test on the fivethirtyeight.com website. When you receive your results, you’ll see a chart that depicts your traits. Take a screenshot of the chart and include it as part of your response. If you are uncomfortable revealing your Big Five scores, asked a willing friend or family member to take the Big Five test. Create a theme park based on their scores. Name your theme park <your or their name>Wood. For example, if your name were Dolly, your theme park would be called DollyWood. A version of this would work well for an in-class discussion. For a discussion, divide your class into small groups. Again, with the task of creating theme park elements, give each group a different low or high trait score. (If you have a small class, give each group both the high and low versions of a trait.) For example, one group would receive high neuroticism (or high emotionality or low emotional stability—use whatever term you use). Susan Nolan came up with this theme park attraction: “A haunted house that makes you anxious, although nothing actually bad ever happens.” Another group would receive openness to experience. Danae Hudson came up with this: “All new rides you've never seen! And a design your ride attraction.” Ask each group to create three theme park elements. Once discussion has subsided, invite a volunteer from each group to share with the class the trait they were assigned, their favorite theme park element their group created, and a brief explanation of how that element illustrates their assigned trait. In our text exchange, Susan Nolan suggested other settings besides theme parks, such as “vacation destinations, shopping mall stores, restaurant dinner orders, type of transportation, pet species.” If time allows, assign a different trait to each group, then give the class a new setting. What ChatGPT did with this assignment If you are planning on going the assignment route rather than discussion, I have a ChatGPT alert. With this prompt, “Create a theme park based on your Big Five scores. Explain how the elements of your theme park match each trait,” ChatGPT generated this: Welcome to "MindScape: The Big Five Adventure Park"! Step into a thrilling world where every corner of the park is designed to match the unique elements of my Big Five scores, providing an unforgettable experience for all visitors. Openness to Experience: The park's entrance, known as "The Gateway of Imagination," sets the stage for an extraordinary journey. It features vibrant colors, whimsical sculptures, and interactive art installations. Each attraction within the park caters to various facets of human curiosity, encouraging visitors to explore and discover new perspectives. Conscientiousness: "The Path of Achievement" is a meticulously organized area that appeals to visitors who appreciate structure and order. It houses intellectually stimulating attractions like puzzle-solving challenges, strategy games, and a "Life Skills Academy" offering workshops on personal growth, time management, and effective goal setting. Extraversion: "The Plaza of Energy" is a bustling hub of social interaction, entertainment, and high-energy activities. It features lively shows, live music performances, and interactive games where visitors can compete with each other. The area also includes a "Hall of Laughter" with comedy clubs and improv shows to keep the atmosphere lively. Agreeableness: "The Garden of Harmony" provides a tranquil and serene environment where visitors can connect with nature. This area hosts peaceful rides, such as gentle boat cruises through beautiful landscapes, and offers meditation sessions, yoga classes, and mindfulness workshops. Visitors can also engage in cooperative games and team-building activities to foster a sense of unity and cooperation. Neuroticism: "The Realm of Thrills" is an adrenaline-pumping zone designed to satisfy the thrill-seeking nature of visitors. It features exhilarating roller coasters, daring skydiving simulations, and bungee jumping adventures. For those seeking a milder experience, there are virtual reality experiences that simulate extreme sports and adventure activities. Additional features: a) "The Mind's Observatory" is a centerpiece of the park, offering a panoramic view of the entire landscape. Visitors can reflect upon their experiences, engage in self-reflection, and journal their thoughts. b) "The Harmony Gardens" offer beautifully landscaped areas where visitors can relax, rejuvenate, and appreciate the park's natural surroundings. c) "The Knowledge Arcade" is an interactive educational space, blending technology and learning. Visitors can engage in hands-on exhibits, science demonstrations, and virtual reality simulations to expand their knowledge. "MindScape: The Big Five Adventure Park" celebrates the diversity of human personality and offers something for everyone, catering to each person's unique preferences and interests. So come, embark on this extraordinary journey of self-discovery and adventure! Aside from whiffing on neuroticism, it’s not bad, but it didn’t address the question. The original question asked about a person’s specific scores. As a student, I could modify the question to include Big Five scores. For example, a student could prompt ChatGPT with this, “Create a theme park based on high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, moderate openness, and low extraversion. Explain how the elements of your theme park match each trait.” This is what ChatGPT did with that: Welcome to Harmony Haven, a theme park designed to cater to individuals with high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, moderate openness, and low extraversion. Our park is designed to provide a serene and organized environment, with attractions and activities that align with the specific traits of our visitors. Let's explore how each trait is reflected in the elements of Harmony Haven: High Agreeableness: Harmony Haven emphasizes a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere, encouraging cooperation, empathy, and kindness. The park is adorned with beautiful gardens, tranquil water features, and soothing music, creating a serene ambiance. The staff members are trained to provide exceptional customer service, ensuring that guests feel welcomed, valued, and their needs are met. High Conscientiousness: Harmony Haven is meticulously designed and maintained to cater to guests who appreciate order, organization, and attention to detail. The park features clearly marked pathways, clean and well-maintained facilities, and reliable operational schedules. Our park's rides and attractions undergo thorough safety inspections and regular maintenance to ensure a worry-free experience. Low Neuroticism: Harmony Haven aims to create a stress-free environment, avoiding intense stimuli or situations that may cause anxiety or distress. The park offers gentle and family-friendly attractions such as gentle rides, scenic walks, and educational exhibits. Quiet areas are available for guests to relax, meditate, or simply enjoy a moment of tranquility away from the crowds. Moderate Openness: While not overly avant-garde, Harmony Haven still offers moderate levels of novelty and exploration for visitors who appreciate new experiences within their comfort zone. The park features diverse themed areas, each with its own unique atmosphere and attractions. These areas provide a range of experiences, including art exhibitions, cultural displays, and interactive workshops that encourage creativity and learning. Low Extraversion: Harmony Haven understands the preference for a more peaceful and introspective experience. The park provides secluded areas, including quiet gardens, reading nooks, and peaceful walkways, where guests can enjoy moments of solitude. The entertainment options cater to smaller groups, and there are opportunities for personal reflection and self-discovery throughout the park. Overall, Harmony Haven is a place where individuals with specific personality traits can find comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment. By aligning the elements of the park with high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, moderate openness, and low extraversion, we create an environment that caters to the unique preferences and needs of our visitors, ensuring they have a memorable and fulfilling experience at our theme park. In an attempt to thwart ChatGPT, I amended the assignment instructions so that the Big Five score graph is included and naming the park <name>Wood. This is how ChatGPT handled these new instructions. As an AI language model, I don't have personal traits or the ability to take tests. However, I can still create a theme park based on the Big Five traits for you. Let's imagine a theme park called "AdventureLand" based on a fictional person's Big Five scores. AdventureLand is designed to cater to the traits of our visitor, John, who has taken the Big Five test and scored as follows: Openness: High Conscientiousness: Moderate Extraversion: Low Agreeableness: High Neuroticism: Low AdventureLand is a theme park that embraces creativity, curiosity, and exploration. It offers a variety of immersive and educational experiences that align with John's traits. Here's how the different elements of the theme park match each trait: Openness: AdventureLand stimulates John's openness with innovative and unconventional attractions. It features interactive art installations, virtual reality experiences, and science exhibitions. There are also workshops and classes where visitors can learn about different cultures, cuisines, and artistic techniques. Conscientiousness: While AdventureLand encourages exploration and spontaneity, it also caters to John's need for structure and organization. The park provides detailed maps and schedules, allowing visitors to plan their day efficiently. There are also "challenge zones" where visitors can test their problem-solving skills and engage in team-building activities. Extraversion: Although John scored low on extraversion, AdventureLand acknowledges that everyone needs social interaction in varying degrees. The park includes cozy cafes and quiet corners for introspective moments, as well as social areas where visitors can engage in group activities, such as interactive shows, musical performances, and community games. Agreeableness: AdventureLand fosters a sense of harmony and cooperation. It features attractions that promote teamwork, such as escape rooms, collaborative challenges, and group adventures. The park encourages empathy and understanding through themed areas that showcase different cultures, histories, and ecological awareness. Neuroticism: To cater to John's preference for a calm and relaxed environment, AdventureLand incorporates tranquil gardens, meditation spaces, and wellness centers. The park also offers nature trails, soothing music performances, and mindfulness workshops to promote emotional well-being and stress reduction. By considering John's Big Five scores, AdventureLandWood creates an immersive experience that aligns with his traits, providing a diverse range of attractions and activities to cater to his preferences and promote personal growth. Please note that this is a fictional example, and the actual Big Five scores and preferences may vary for different individuals. Alternatively, instead of trying to thwart ChatGPT, you could use it. Ask students to give ChatGPT any of the above prompts, and then ask your students to critique the response. “Did ChatGPT characterize each Big Five trait correctly? Did its theme park elements accurately match each trait? Explain your rationale for each decision.”   ... View more

  “[A] reporter said to me, kindly, ‘Oh, you don’t look 40.’ And I said, just off the top of my head, ‘This is what 40 looks like…” (Steinem, 1998). We make assumptions about age, and those assumptions affect how we feel, think, and act toward others. When someone doesn’t match our idea of what a particular age should look like, it’s easier for us to mentally change the age of the person than it is to change our assumptions about what age they are. But what happens when we’re talking about ourselves? I know my chronological age is 55. My driver’s license says so. What if my own behaviors and attitudes don’t match the behaviors and attitudes I think a 55-year-old should do and have? What if I thought my behavior and attitudes better matched what I think is true of a 40-year-old?  Perhaps I’d say, “Well, I’m 55, but I feel 40.” A few years ago, an 80-year-old friend said to me some version of this, “My body can’t do as much as it used to, but cognitively, I feel no different than I did when I was in my 20s.” (She’s a research psychologist. I’m certain she said cognitively.) At the time of our conversation, I was knocking on the door of my fifth decade, and I totally got what she was saying. It may because I remember my 20s a little too well, but I put my felt age somewhere in my 30s. What do the data say? This is an interesting study for the Intro Psych development chapter or the older adulthood section of a Lifespan course. It’s a very nice illustration of using longitudinal data to reveal cohort effects. “The German Ageing Survey is a nationwide, cross-sequential study of individuals in their second half of life (40–85 years at their first measurement occasions). The first study sample was drawn in 1996, and individuals were reassessed in 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2020. Additional samples were drawn in 2002, 2008, and 2014 and reassessed at later measurement occasions” (Wettstein et al., 2023). (The study is freely available.) The survey question they were interested in for this study was “How old do you feel?” It’s a simple question, but the answer to it says oodles. Today’s older German adults report feeling younger than previous generations of older adults. For example, when people born between 1911 and 1935 turned 67, they reported, on average, that they felt approximately 59 (eight years younger). When people born between 1936 and 1951 turned 67, they reported, on average, that they felt approximately 54 (13 years younger). And, lastly, when people born between 1952 and 1974 turned 67, they reported, again on average, that they felt approximately 50 (17 years younger). Just as interestingly, the ages the survey participants reported feeling became less and less variable the older they got. And what variability there is decreased with each cohort (Wettstein et al., 2023). From the article, show your students Figure 1. It’s a fun graph, but you’ll need to take a few minutes to walk your students what the graph is depicting.   Discussion questions If we surveyed 40- to 85-year-olds in your community about the age they felt, would you expect the data to look similar to the German data? Why or why not? What do you think the data would look like if we asked 13- to 25-year-olds? Explain. What biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors might influence how old a person feels? What research could we do to find out if any of those factors do indeed affect how old a person feels?   References Steinem, G. (1998, April 6). 30th Anniversary Issue / Gloria Steinem: First feminist. New York Magazine. https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2438/ Wettstein, M., Wahl, H.-W., Drewelies, J., Wurm, S., Huxhold, O., Ram, N., & Gerstorf, D. (2023). Younger than ever? Subjective age is becoming younger and remains more stable in middle-age and older adults today. Psychological Science, 095679762311645. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231164553   ... View more

Recently, my wife and I saw the film “Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition” at one our local theaters. In the spring of 2023, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam opened its doors to the largest Vermeer exhibition in history. The show sold out within days of going on sale. This film offers you the chance to experience the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition on the big screen… With loans from across the world, this major retrospective will bring together Vermeer’s most famous masterpieces including Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Geographer, The Milkmaid, The Little Street, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, and Woman Holding a Balance. In all, 28 of his surviving 35 works. (Exhibition on Screen 2023, n.d.) The art of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) gave me a lot to think about, as good art should. The experts interviewed in the film noted the lack of visible brush strokes in his art work. The Essential Vermeer website tracks the location of every known Vermeer painting (Janson, 2023). The next time a Vermeer painting and I are in the same city, I’ll be making time to see it in person. What I find phenomenal about artists who can paint realistic images is their ability to turn off perception and paint only what their eyes see. For example, in The Music Lesson, look at the tile floor. If I, a non-artist, would attempt to draw such a tile floor, my tiles would all be the same size. Or rather, I’d know on an intellectual level that they’d have to become smaller the farther away they are, so I’d make them smaller, but I’m certain the perspective would not look right. Switching off shape constancy is a big ask. For me, anyway. Even more difficult for me would be switching off color constancy. Look at The Milkmaid—my favorite Vermeer—for example. We know that, in reality, the tablecloth would be all the same color. But we also know that how light falls on a scene changes the colors our eyes see. When part of a tablecloth is in shadow, our eyes see that that shadowed part is darker. During perception, our brain accounts for this different lighting. We know that the shadowed part of the tablecloth is not actually darker. Here, Vermeer is able to see that the shadowed tablecloth appears darker, and so he paints it darker. The milkmaid’s bodice is nearly white where the light from the window appears to shine on it but is dark brown in the shade. What I find particularly stunning in this painting is the bread. The next time you look at a loaf of bread, pay particular attention to the light as it reflects off the surface. There is nothing uniform about those reflections. The Girl with the Pearl Earring is Vermeer’s most famous painting. Again, we see Vermeer’s mastery of light. With one single apostrophe of white paint against a dark background, the earring sparkles. I have an advantage that Vermeer didn’t. I live in the age of color photographs. If I were to look at a photograph of a milkmaid pouring milk next to a basket of bread, I could zoom in and look at the colors, pixel by pixel. Vermeer, working 300 years before the development of color photography, did not have that opportunity. He had to rely solely on his ability to turn off his perception in order to reproduce what his eyes saw. We see what Vermeer saw, which, in many ways, is a more intimate experience than viewing a photographer’s picture. Did the photographer see the texture of the bread they photographed? Maybe. Did Vermeer see the texture of the bread he painted? Absolutely.   References Exhibition on Screen 2023. (n.d.). Vermeer: The greatest exhibition – Exhibition on Screen. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://exhibitiononscreen.com/films/vermeer-blockbuster-exhibition/ Janson, J. (2023, March 31). Complete catalogue of the painting of Johannes Vermeer. Essential Vermeer 3.0. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/vermeer_painting_part_one.html   ... View more