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

The Introduction to Psychology course is the hardest course to teach because we do not have expertise in the vast majority of the material. When you teach Intro Psych for the very first time, you get used to saying, “I don’t know.” As the years have rolled by, I’ve accepted that “I don’t know” is just part of my Intro Psych teaching lexicon. For me, however, it’s not the not knowing that’s problematic. It’s all of the information that I thought I knew, but, alas, did not. Finding out that I’ve gotten something wrong makes me wish I could contact all of my previous students and say, “Hey! Remember that thing I told you about? No, you don’t remember? Well, anyway, it turns out I was wrong. Here’s the right information. Or at least here’s the right information as we know it today.” Okay, maybe it’s best that I can’t contact my previous students. In some cases, the scientific research has given us updated information. For example, research published a week ago in Nature reveals that the motor cortex is not all about motor control (Gordon et al., 2023). There are pockets of neurons in between the motor control sections of the motor cortex that connect with other parts of the body. “As a result, the act of, say, reaching for a cup of coffee can directly influence blood pressure and heart rate. And the movement is seamlessly integrated into brain systems involved in planning, goals and emotion” (Hamilton, 2023). This is a beautiful example of the first of APA’s overarching themes for Intro Psych: “Psychological science relies on empirical evidence and adapts as new data develop” (Halonen et al., 2022) In some cases what I got wrong was me just not understanding. For example, if you used to teach that the cat running to the sound of the can opener was classical conditioning, you can identify with what I’m saying. (See this 2016 blog post for the explanation as to why this is not classical conditioning, but operant conditioning.) While I don’t have any suggestions on how we can speed up science, I do have some suggestions on how we can mitigate how much stuff we don’t understand, and, thus, mis-teach to our students. Here are some excellent books that will expand your Intro Psych knowledge. Most are written by experts in the field. Others were written by people who got deeply interested in the topic. If you have books that you have found useful for expanding your Intro Psych knowledge, please add them to the comments. Thanks! Neuroscience The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons: The history of the human brain as revealed by true stories of trauma, madness, and recovery written by Sam Kean Incognito: The secret lives of the brain by David Eagleman Livewired: The inside story of the ever-changing brain by David Eagleman Sensation and Perception An immense world: How animal senses reveal the hidden realms us by Ed Yong Perception: How our bodies shape our minds by Dennis Proffitt and Drake Baer Consciousness Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams by Matthew Walker Buzzed: The straight facts about the most used and abused drugs from alcohol to ecstasy, 3e by, Cynthia Kuhn, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson Development Breaking the age code: How your beliefs about aging determine how long and well you live by Becca Levy The gardener and the carpenter: What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children by Alison Gopnik Memory The memory illusion: Remembering, forgetting, and the science of false memory by Julia Shaw Moonwalking with Einstein: The art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer Cognition Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman The undoing project: A friendship that changed our minds by Michael Lewis Emotion Aroused: The history of hormones and how they control just about everything by Randi Hutter Epstein Why zebras don’t get ulcers: the acclaimed guide to stress, stress-related diseases, and coping, 3e by Robert M. Sapolsky Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert Social Aggression and violence: A social psychological perspective by Brad J. Bushman Kitty Genovese: The murder, the bystanders, and the crime that changed America by Kevin Cook Personality Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain   References Gordon, E. M., Chauvin, R. J., Van, A. N., Rajesh, A., Nielsen, A., Newbold, D. J., Lynch, C. J., Seider, N. A., Krimmel, S. R., Scheidter, K. M., Monk, J., Miller, R. L., Metoki, A., Montez, D. F., Zheng, A., Elbau, I., Madison, T., Nishino, T., Myers, M. J., … Dosenbach, N. U. F. (2023). A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05964-2 Halonen, J., Thompson, J. L. W., Whitlock, K. H., Landrum, R. E., & Frantz, S. (2022). Measuring meaningful learning in Introductory Psychology: The IPI student learning outcomes. In R. A. R. Gurung & G. Neufeld (Eds.), Transforming Introductory Psychology: Expert advice on teacher training, course design, and student success (pp. 57–80). American Psychological Association. Hamilton, J. (2023, April 20). An overlooked brain system helps you grab a coffee—And plan your next cup. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/20/1171004199/an-overlooked-brain-system-helps-you-grab-a-coffee-and-plan-your-next-cup         ... View more

Lots of people want to know the key to happiness. In my Intro Psych course, we cover Seligman’s PERMA model (Seligman, 2018). The PERMA model provides pretty good formula. P is for positive emotions. Emotion regulation, stress reduction, and coping strategies can all help foster positive emotions. E is for engagement. Mindfulness can help us stay engaged in the moment. Activities that foster a state of flow will do it, too. R is for relationships. We are happier when we feel connected to others. Those connections do not need to be deep. Casual conversation with strangers can help us feel like we are part of a community. M is for meaning. Feeling like our lives have meaning and purpose contribute to our sense of happiness. Doing meaningful work—in a job for pay or as a volunteer—is one path. Some find meaning through their religious beliefs or through their family. A is for accomplishment (or achievement). Accomplishing things we set out to do contributes to our happiness. Celebrate those achievements. After introducing the model, gives students a minute to think about someone they know who they believe is happy. Ask students to jot down what they’ve observed in this person that may fit each PERMA component. Next, give students an opportunity to share their observations in pairs or small groups. Invite volunteers to share examples from each component in turn. New retirees may face PERMA challenges. For example, when our work lives provide us with engaging activities, relationships with coworkers, days full of meaning, and opportunities for accomplishment, stepping away from work can leave a vacuum that may take us by surprise. Of all of these, losing relationships with coworkers may be the biggest hurdle with finding new meaning in life not far behind (Schulz & Waldinger, 2023). While much research has focused on the transitions from a life of work to retirement, that’s a bit far removed from the lives of most (but not all!) of our students. I wonder, too, about other kinds of life transitions. If time allows, ask your students to describe any PERMA-related challenges they faced as they moved from high school to college or to work. Or what PERMA-related challenges they can envision as they transition from college to their future work life. Consider taking a moment to reflect on your own PERMA state. In the components where you rate yourself as being a little thin, what changes can you make?   References Schulz, M., & Waldinger, R. (2023, March 10). An 85-year Harvard study on happiness found the No. 1 retirement challenge that “no one talks about.” CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/85-year-harvard-happiness-study-found-the-biggest-downside-of-retirement-that-no-one-talks-about.html Seligman, M. (2018). PERMA and the building blocks of well-being. Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(4), 333–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2018.1437466   ... View more

On the first day of class, I give my students a few get-to-know-each-other questions to discuss in small groups. While they discuss, I visit the groups and invite them to ask any questions they may have about me. This semester during one such small group visit I had a student ask me for my zodiac sign. I said, “Scorpio. But you know that doesn’t mean anything, right?” She looked at me as if I were the naïve one. In retrospect, I could have handled that better. “Why do you ask?” “Do you believe that the time of year we’re born is the sole determinant of personality? Our genes and experiences don’t matter at all?” In any case, I didn’t think any more about it. And then two days ago (April 4, 2023), Google announced that their Waze app is adding a zodiac mode (Waze, 2023). And this month, Waze is tapping into the all-knowing cosmos to find out if you navigate like a Saggitarius or a Scorpio, thanks to the latest driving experience: Zodiac. Drive with a vehicle and Mood outfitted for your sign and embody your true colors on the road. Our navigation guide is well-versed in astrology and knows how to get all types of personalities to their final destination — whether you're a fiery Aries, a balanced Libra, an independent Aquarius, an ambitious Taurus, a spontaneous Gemini, an intuitive Cancer, a detail-oriented Virgo, an intense Capricorn, a whimsical Pisces, a dramatic Leo, a free-spirited Sagitttarius or a loyal Scorpio. She does it with love, life advice and a little teasing. The first thing I did was roll my eyes. The second thing I did was uninstall Waze. You would think that as a Scorpio I’d be more loyal than that. When we lived in the Seattle area, Waze was my go-to navigation app. Now that we live where there is much less traffic, I don’t need help getting around traffic jams so I haven’t used Waze in two years. I admit that haven’t kept up with Waze’s fun features. I just reinstalled Waze to see how zodiac mode works. Unfortunately—and to my great disappointment—zodiac mode has not rolled out to my phone, yet. There are, however, several other ways for me to “customize my drive.” If I select zombie mode, the driving directions are delivered in a zombie voice—or rather, what someone imagines a zombie voice would sound like, the car icon I see is decaying green, and the icon that appears to other drivers is a stitched up gray blob. That helps me envision a bit what zodiac mode might look like. Just like the 70s/80s/90s mode or the cat/dog mode, I suppose zodiac mode is meant to be a new, fun, quirky way to get to and from wherever you need to be. While there probably aren’t many people who believe in zombies, a Pew Research Center survey found that 29% of U.S. adults believe in astrology (Gecewicz, 2018). You can assume that about a third of your students hold such a belief. Among college graduates however, the survey found that the number that believed in astrology dropped to 22% (Gecewicz, 2018). I credit the personality chapter in the Intro Psych course for that decrease. Ok. I don’t know that. It’s an empirical question, though, for someone looking for a research project. If you’d like to give your students some research practice in the personality chapter, point out that about a third of people in the U.S. believe that zodiac signs affect personality. Zodiac signs, however, were not included in our textbook’s personality chapter as a contributing factor. How could we find out if one’s zodiac sign affects personality? Give students a couple of minutes to think about this question on their own, and then ask them to discuss in small groups. The research designs will likely include some measuring of personality traits. The biggest challenge here may be finding two astrological experts who agree on the characteristics each sign is supposed to have. As another variable, students may suggest asking study participants for their sign. It’s possible that asking outright for a zodiac sign may prime the potentially one-third of participants who believe in the zodiac to skew their personality answers. There are at least two ways around this: ask for birthday and determine zodiac sign yourself or ask for the zodiac sign at the very end after all of the personality questions have been answered. Asking for birthday is probably safest as some volunteers may not know their zodiac sign. Also point out that birthdays don’t have meaning in some cultures, so members of those cultural groups don’t know the date of their birth. When a birthday is needed, they may use January 1. A good question for students to consider is how they could ask if a participant knows their birth date. If time allows, consider asking this question about ethics that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Do we each have a responsibility to share and only share factually correct information? If we know what we’re sharing is false or suspect that it might be, do we have a responsibility to say so? As a professor of psychology, I certainly have an ethical responsibility to share evidence-based information about psychology. If the evidence is lacking, then I need to make it clear that the evidence is lacking. Does a producer or film company have a responsibility to depict accurately how drugs work, how memory works, how psychological disorders work? Especially given how many people learn about these topics through media? When a tech company uses the zodiac to make commuting more fun, are they promoting—whether intentionally or unintentionally—belief in the stars having an impact on personality?   References Gecewicz, C. (2018, October 1). ‘New Age’ beliefs common among both religious and nonreligious Americans. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/ Waze. (2023, April 4). Customize your next drive and tap into the zodiac with Waze. Google. https://blog.google/waze/customize-your-next-drive-and-tap-into-the-zodiac-with-waze/       ... View more

It is not often that the New York Times publishes an article on operational definitions. Okay, they don’t call them operational definitions, but that’s what they are. Introduce this assignment by describing how so much of our health is influenced by our behaviors. If behavior is involved, psychology is there. How do researchers—or ourselves, for that matter—know if changes in our behavior, e.g., exercise, more nutritious eating, is positively affecting our level of fitness? The easy answer is that we randomly assign volunteers to, say, an exercise program of some sort or to a control group—maybe even a waitlist control group—and then after a predetermined amount of time, we measure their fitness. Great! Now, how do we measure fitness? Probably the most common way the average person on the street measures their fitness is by hopping on the scale. The more fat we carry, the greater the potential impact on our health. Since both fat and muscle have weight, the average scale does not differentiate. It is possible that the more we exercise, the more fat we lose but the more muscle mass we gain. Even though our fitness is increasing, our scales may tell us that we weigh the same or are actually gaining weight. Then there’s the body mass index (BMI). This is another measurement that does not differentiate between fat and muscle. The BMI is not lacking for critics. As one observer pointed out, the current BMI categories are not useful. Several longitudinal studies, they report, have found being BMI overweight (BMI 25-29.9) or in the first level of BMI obese (30-34.9) had little or no impact on mortality rates (Nuttall, 2015). What if we could just measure the amount of fat that we carry? There are scales that purport to do that. Such scales send an electrical current through your body. Water is an excellent conductor of electricity. Muscle contains more water than fat. The less resistance the electrical current encounters, the more muscle mass the scale concludes we have. The scales that have only two points of measurement—two feet—are less accurate than scales that have four points of measurement—two feet and two hands, but the two-point scales are considerably less expensive. The two-point scales tend to be reliable, but not accurate, underestimating or overestimating fat content significantly. However, if one is using such a scale to track changes, then they do fine. One more important point about these scales. If you’re dehydrated, the scale’s electrical current will meet more resistance, and the scale will say that we have more body fat than we have (McCallum, 2022). None of these measurements—overall weight, BMI, or fat composition—identify where our fat is concentrated. Abdominal fat is associated with poorer health outcomes than, say, fat stored in the lower body. The latter may actually have protective effects (de Lemos, 2020). If these measurements are not the best way to operationally define fitness, what are some alternatives? If you’d like to make this an out of class assignment, ask your students to read this New York Times article (Smith, 2023). The article identifies three different approaches to measuring fitness: heart metrics, physical performance metrics, and daily living metrics. Ask students to identify at least three operational definitions of fitness provided in the article for each approach.   References de Lemos, J. (2020, December 16). Why belly fat is dangerous and how to control it. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. http://utswmed.org/medblog/belly-fat/ McCallum, K. (2022, April 26). How accurate are scales that measure body fat? Houston Medicine: On Health. https://www.houstonmethodist.org/blog/articles/2022/apr/are-body-composition-scales-accurate/ Nuttall, F. Q. (2015). Body mass index: Obesity, BMI, and health a critical review. Nutrition Today, 50(3), 117–128. https://doi.org/10.1097/NT.0000000000000092 Smith, D. G. (2023, March 27). 3 ways to measure how fit you are, without focusing on weight. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/well/move/fitness-test.html   ... View more

In one survey of Intro Psych instructors, 25% did not cover emotion (Nevid et al., 2023). That used to be me. As I wrote in this blog post from September, 2022, seeing the results of people losing their temper prompted me to add emotion—especially emotion regulation—into my Intro Psych course. As spring quarter came to a close, I asked my students for the top ten important things they learned in the course. (See this August 2019 blog post for details on my top ten assignment.) One of my students listed better anger management skills as her most important thing learned. While we didn’t discuss anger management explicitly, it doesn’t require much effort to see how the emotion regulation strategies would apply to managing anger specifically. There is plenty of evidence that a cause of procrastination is emotion regulation. In one intervention with college students, teaching them about emotion regulation strategies via online modules decreased reported incidents of procrastination as compared to waitlist controls (Schuenemann et al., 2022). The training used in that study totaled nine hours. I’m not sure that the training needs to be that extensive to have similar procrastination reduction effects. Would, say, 15 minutes of in-class time spent discussing how procrastination could be the result of emotion regulation be enough to help students reduce their own procrastination? There’s an empirical question ripe for investigation. If emotion regulation is a new topic for you, Stanford emotion regulation researcher James Gross gave an excellent 25-minute overview at the 2022 American Psychological Association convention. Watch it here.   References Nevid, J. S., Keating, L. H., & Jaeger, A. J. (2023). Topical coverage in teaching introductory psychology: A national survey of instructors. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000348 Schuenemann, L., Scherenberg, V., von Salisch, M., & Eckert, M. (2022). “I’ll worry about it tomorrow” – fostering emotion regulation skills to overcome procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 780675. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.780675 ... View more

Every discipline has their zombie ideas, even library science. This could be a good discussion to have with students in the Intro Psych research methods chapter regarding the pitfalls of common sense. Ask students via clicker, Plickers, or by a show of hands this question: When touching the pages of old, valuable books, you should wear white gloves. Yes, no, or I don’t know? Most of your students will likely say yes. Now ask how do they know? This will be a harder question for them to answer. They may not remember how they learned this. They may even say that it’s common sense. Common sense may be common in that a whole lot of people think it is true, but that doesn’t make it true. And that’s the case with wearing white gloves when touching the pages of old, valuable books. In this New York Times article, librarians describe this belief of needing to wear white gloves when handling the pages of old, valuable books as an idea that will not die (Schuessler, 2023)—a zombie idea, if you will. The rationale for why wearing white gloves is a bad idea is good: “Gloves reduce your sense of touch, increasing the likelihood that you might accidentally tear a page, smear pigments, dislodge loose fragments — or worse, drop the book” (Schuessler, 2023). Gloves also tend to gather dirt and cause hands to sweat (Schuessler, 2023). Dirt and moisture are bad for books. The librarians remind us that the books have been handled with bare hands for as long as they have been around. There are a few exceptions to the no-glove rule, however. Nitrile gloves are recommended for photographic pages and certain book covers (e.g., book covers that contain metal, ivory, velvet, and certain other types of cloth). Also, wearing gloves is a good idea for handling book covers that may contain arsenic, but that’s for protecting the reader, not the book. Although one librarian added, “The moral of the story is, don’t lick the books and you will be fine” (Schuessler, 2023). Don’t lick the books. Got it. If the white glove thing isn’t actually a thing, why did Sotheby’s take a photograph of Brontë family manuscripts with white-gloved hands (Schuessler, 2021)? They are likely taking advantage of our ‘common sense’ for their monetary gain. If white gloves signal ‘valuable book,’ then we may be likely to pay more money for it (Schuessler, 2023). No white gloves? Then perhaps the book is no different than the paperback we picked up last week from our local bookseller. If you’d like to expand this discussion into one of ethics, ask your students if some of their ‘common sense’ knowledge comes from what they’ve seen in movies or television shows. Do producers and writers have an ethical obligation to present accurate information or to note when they are not? What about the creators of YouTube or TikTok videos? If the content creators do not have such an ethical obligation, does the responsibility then lie with the viewer to sort out what is fact and what is fiction? If so—and if we choose not to expend the time and energy to do so—then are we at risk for spreading misinformation? This could be a good opportunity to launch a discussion on the importance of information literacy.   References Schuessler, J. (2021, May 25). A lost Brontë library surfaces. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/arts/bronte-library-sothebys-auction.html Schuessler, J. (2023, March 9). For rare book librarians, it’s gloves off. Seriously. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/arts/rare-books-white-gloves.html     ... View more