In the June 2022 edition of the APA Monitor on Psychology is an excellent article on the psychology of traffic safety. The article features David Strayer’s “four horsemen of death”: speed, impairment, fatigue, and distraction. Given the number and breadth of psychological concepts covered, this article provides fodder for a good end-of-term assignment. It may also save the lives of your students. Note that the journalist uses the term “crash” rather than “accident.” “Crash” is the preferred term by U.S. government agencies, such as the CDC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The word “accident” implies an incident that could not be avoided. The word “crash” does not carry that connotation. Giving the causes of traffic fatalities are due to driver decision-making, whether it be the driver of the vehicle or the driver of another vehicle, “crash” is a better descriptor than “accident.”   Ask students to read the article “Improving Traffic Safety” (Pappas, 2022), and then answer the following questions. How many people died on U.S. roadways in 2020? Speed. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by excessive speed? The article describes three ways that our environment can contribute to unsafe driving. Take a photo of a road in your area that illustrates one or more of these environmental hazards. Explain. The article also describes three ways that our environment can contribute to safe driving. Take a photo of a road in your area that illustrates one or more of these environmental benefits. Explain. In a survey of drivers at the beginning of the pandemic, researchers “saw an increase in respondents saying they were more likely to break the law because they knew they were less likely to be caught.” Explain this finding in terms of operant conditioning. With fewer people on the roads during the pandemic shut-down, researchers speculate that street racing may have increased. What Ontario law led to a reduction in street racing? Explain this effect in terms of operant conditioning. If you are primarily a driver, what can you do to reduce your chances of dying in a car crash due to speed? If you primarily a passenger, what can you do to reduce your chances of dying in a car crash due to speed? Impairment. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by impaired driving? Based on your reading of the article, describe the relationship between stress, alcohol, and driving while impaired. What Big Five personality trait is associated with a history of driving while impaired and reckless driving? Given your knowledge of this trait, why might that association exist? Fatigue. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by fatigue? Why might this number be an underestimation? Summarize what you learned in this course about the effects of sleep deprivation. Choose five effects, and for each, briefly explain how it could negatively effect driving.   According to the article, what have Australian highway authorities done to combat boredom on empty stretches of highway? Distraction. What percentage of the 2020 traffic fatalities were estimated to be caused by distracted driving? Explain how stress may contribute to distracted driving. Explain how the design of cars may contribute to distracted driving. Give at least one example. Conclusion. What was the most surprising thing you learned in this article? Explain. Identify at least one concept you learned in this course that could apply to speed, impairment, fatigue, or distraction but was not discussed in the article. Briefly describe the concept, and then explain how it could be a contributor to car crashes.   Reference Pappas, S. (2022, June). Improving traffic safety. Monitor on Psychology, 53(4), 46–55.       ... View more

I have been fascinated by the Great Resignation—the mass of people who have left their jobs starting when the COVID-19 pandemic began in spring of 2020 and is continuing as I write in summer of 2022. The number one predictor of why people are leaving their jobs? Toxic work culture (Sull, Sull, & Zweig, 2022). And it’s not even close. “A toxic culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation.” The next closest is “job insecurity and reorganization,” and it’s only 3.5 times more likely to contribute than pay. Pay does not even make the top five reasons. Now the next challenge: determining what makes a work culture toxic. Researchers did a language analysis of employee Glassdoor reviews. Of the negative reviews, the comments fell into five categories: disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive (Sull, Sull, Cipolli, et al., 2022). Unsurprisingly, I found myself looking at these toxic work culture components through a classroom lens. If the class has a toxic culture, some students will stick it out. Classes, by their nature, are time-limited. When the term ends, the class ends. Other students may decide it is just not worth it and withdraw. Entire departments may have a toxic culture, and students may opt to change majors altogether to escape to a better space. For the purpose of this post, let’s focus on our classes and instructors as classroom leaders. Disrespect. This has the biggest impact on how employees rate their employer’s culture (Sull, Sull, Cipolli, et al., 2022). When an instructor has intense dislike for a student, disrespect for the instructor is a common reason why (Boysen et al., 2020). For students, feeling disrespected by instructors contributes to low subjective well-being (Small et al., 2019). As instructors, one place we can start showing and modeling respect for our students is in our syllabi. It is all too easy to add content to our syllabus with that one student in mind. Instead, write for the rest of your students. Do your late assignment policy and academic dishonesty statements read like accusations? Ask a trusted family member or friend to read your syllabus. Would they want to take your class? Abusive. This takes disrespect to another level. “The most frequently mentioned hostile behaviors in our sample are bullying, yelling, or shouting at employees, belittling or demeaning subordinates, verbally abusing people, and condescending or talking down to employees” (Sull, Sull, Cipolli, et al., 2022). If we replace the word “employees” with “students,” it is easy to picture a class we would not want to be part of. Noninclusiveness. A toxic work culture is fostered when members of historically marginalized groups feel marginalized by their employer (Sull, Sull, Cipolli, et al., 2022). Their allies notice it, too. Managers who favor some employees over others or the existence of cliques are included in the noninclusiveness category. As instructors, we need to ensure all of our students feel like they can be heard. Voting systems are a way to foster feelings of inclusion. Ensuring that our textbooks and our presentation slides represent everyone—in photos and names—can help students feel like they belong. When students say or do things in our class that contribute to noninclusiveness, it is our responsibility as instructors to speak up. Having course policies that apply to everyone and do not require instructor judgement can also help. For example, allow everyone to submit work up to 24 hours late or allow up to three assignments to be submitted up to a week late. This eliminates the instructor from having to decide if a child’s rescheduled soccer match is a good enough reason to allow the parent—your student—to submit late work. These are just a few examples. Books have been written on how to foster inclusiveness. Cutthroat. Social loafing is not uncommon in the workplace, but, interestingly, it is not perceived as a contributor to a toxic work culture. Toxicity happens when coworkers actively undermine and sabotage each other (Sull, Sull, Cipolli, et al., 2022). Encouraging student cooperation is much better for class culture than encouraging student competition, especially for first-generation college students (Canning et al., 2020). The practice of curving grades—where, say, the top 10% of grades earn As, the next 15% earn Bs, the next 50% earn Cs, the next 15% earn Ds, and the last 10% earn Fs, regardless of the actual number of points earned in the course—may result in students sabotaging others. If a student who earns 85% can fail the course if everyone else in the class earns above 85%, it is not hard to see how this course policy would encourage students to undermine everyone else. Unethical. This category includes employees and the employer engaging in unethical behavior, being dishonest, and lacking regulatory compliance (Sull, Sull, Cipolli, et al., 2022). In a class setting, unethical behavior may include allowing students to submit work late when they ask even though the syllabus late assignment policy clearly states that late work will not be accepted. Outright lying to students? Also not okay. If you teach long enough, you will have a class that will go sideways. Sometimes all we can do is mitigate the damage and get to the end of the term. For instructors who frequently have classes go sideways, it is time to take a close look at how the instructor’s behavior or class policies may be contributing to the class culture.   References   Boysen, G. A., Isaacs, R. A., Chicosky, R. L., & Delmore, E. E. (2020). Intense dislike of students: Frequency, causes, effects, and management among college teachers. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000200 Canning, E. A., LaCosse, J., Kroeper, K. M., & Murphy, M. C. (2020). Feeling like an imposter: The effect of perceived classroom competition on the daily psychological experiences of first-generation college students. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(5), 647–657. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619882032 Small, S. P., English, D., Moran, G., Grainger, P., & Cashin, G. (2019). “Mutual respect would be a good starting point:” Students’ perspectives on incivility in nursing education. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 51(3), 133–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/0844562118821573 Sull, D., Sull, C., Cipolli, W., & Brighenti, C. (2022, March 16). Why every leader needs to worry about toxic culture. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-every-leader-needs-to-worry-about-toxic-culture/ Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2022, January 11). Toxic culture is driving the Great Resignation. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/toxic-culture-is-driving-the-great-resignation/       ... View more

When I first started teaching, I remember getting some advice about students asking questions. If a student asks a question in class that you don’t know the answer to, research the answer, and then at the next class session, report what you learned. I tried that a couple times, both with the same result: students looking at me blankly, including the student who asked the question. Not all questions have the same degree of importance. There are burning questions, there are idle curiosity questions, and then there are questions that flick through our consciousness sticking around only long enough to come out of our mouths. Yesterday, my wife and I were on our way to meet friends for lunch. (That detail is not necessary for the story, but it adds a bit of ambiance.) I told her that I recently learned that where we used to live, King County, Washington (Seattle and environs), has a population of 2.2 million. The entire state of New Mexico—where we recently moved back to—has a population of 2.1 million. The difference of 100,000 is the population of our new hometown and the second largest city in the state, Las Cruces. In other words, if New Mexico had a second city the size of Las Cruces, we’d have as many people as King County, Washington. (This is merely one example of the deep, intellectual conversations we have.) Then I added that I recently learned that in the 1980s, Las Cruces had about 50,000 people. My wife replied, “I wonder what the population of Las Cruces was in the 50s and 60s.” I waved my hand in the direction of her phone. She said, “I don’t care that much.” I laughed, and said, “There should be a word for that.” There should be a word for a question that we have that we don’t care enough about to even pick up our phones to google it. My wife immediately coined a term. A question not worth googling we now call a “noogler,” a non-googler. (I just googled “noogler,” and it’s a term Google uses for their new employees. Since most of people don’t work for Google—at least not yet—I don’t expect us to run into any confusion. The next time you’re in class, and a student asks a question that you think might be a noogler, ask. “Is this a question you’d really like the answer to or is it a noogler?” If they’d really like the answer, give them the Google search terms you’d use to look it up and a reminder them that Reddit and Quora are not reliable sources. “Raise your hand when you’ve found the answer.” If it’s a noogler, return to your regularly scheduled course content. ... View more

When I first started teaching I was surprised at how exhausted I was at the end of the day. I grew up in working class family where I created my schema for work. Work was manual labor, and it was exhausting. Teaching was not manual labor, therefore teaching was not “work” as my young brain defined it. So why was I exhausted? When we cover cognition in Intro Psych, we spend a considerable amount of time on automatic cognition (Daniel Kahneman’s System 1). And rightly so. Our students need to know that we are cognitive misers—a term coined by Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor in the 1980s. I’d like us to throw a little more love at controlled cognition (Daniel Kahneman’s System 2). Teaching is all about controlled cognition. Hour upon hour instructors are consciously thinking about what we’re saying and about what we’re going to say next. When a student asks a question, we have to consciously search our long-term memory for relevant information that can inform our response. With the question answered, we need to exert conscious effort to identify where we left off and get headed down our path again. If an hour later, we are teaching a different section of the same course, we have the added challenge of separating what happened in the earlier section with what is taking place in this section. “I know I’ve said this already, but was that in the earlier section or earlier in this section?” As an added challenge, teach three sections of the same course. Back to back to back. That is a lot of controlled cognition. Assuring our students that learning also requires a lot of controlled cognition and, therefore, is exhausting would help validate their experience. The human brain comprises about 2% of our body weight, but it uses about 20% of our energy. Unless we’re being grilled with math or interview questions, then the amount of energy our brain uses can increase by a third to almost half—or at least that was the case for one person (Gibbons, 2022). This apparent increase in the brain’s use of energy during controlled cognition may be why I ate my way through college and graduate school. And why I eat my way through grading. I know I’m not alone in this—looking at you, colleagues. Another cognitive-heavy activity is lying, especially if we haven’t planned and rehearsed the lie in advance. Every question we are asked, requires us to consciously decide if we are going to tell the truth or lie. If we choose lie, we have to consciously create a plausible story and monitor the reaction of the person we are telling the lie to (“Are they buying this?”). If they seem skeptical, we need to consciously amend our story. And then we need keep track of everything that we’ve said before. Given how poor we are at detecting lies, researchers wondered if they upped the cognitive load of lie-tellers, would we have an easier time telling truth from lie? They randomly assigned volunteers to tell the truth or tell a lie. These volunteers were then randomly assigned to do so under no additional cognitive load or while also remembering a 7-digit number. Reviewers blind to conditions found the lies told under the additional cognitive load less believable (Vrij et al., 2022). Another activity that requires a significant amount of controlled cognition is driving. When we are first learning to drive, the amount of controlled cognition is very high as we sort out which pedal is the gas and which is the brake, what turns on the windshield wipers, and how to turn on the turn signal—once we remember that we need to turn on the turn signal. It’s okay to turn right on red—unless the sign says we cannot. Once we have successfully learned the mechanics of driving, the general rules of the road, and the specifics of driving in our own areas, the amount of controlled cognition we need to use drops precipitously. When we are driving somewhere new, though, we may turn down the music or turn off the podcast so we can devote more cognition to navigation. And then if you find yourself driving in a country where they drive on the other side of the road, be prepared to find driving exhausting. It’s not bad as long as you are driving in a single direction. Right and left turns, though, require a lot of controlled cognition. When we were planning a trip from the U.S. to Australia, a friend with a lot of driving-on-the-other-side-of-the-road experience advised to make any turns the responsibility of everyone in the car. When turning, everyone in the car was required to say, “Stay left! Stay left!” As the driver, I very much appreciated off-loading some of this controlled cognition to my passenger, given the life and death consequences at stake. The Texas Department of Transportation began posting driving fatality numbers on highway dynamic message signs (DMS) one week a month starting in August 2021. The signs had a simple message, such as “79 TRAFFIC DEATHS THIS YEAR” (Ullman & Chrysler, 2022). Researchers wondered if this messaging would make drivers more cautious resulting in fewer crashes. It did not. In fact, the messages seem to have made things worse, causing a 1.52% increase in crashes within 5 km of the signs.   Our proposed explanation for this surprising finding is that these “in-your-face,” “sobering,” negatively framed messages seize too much attention (i.e., are too salient), interfering with drivers’ ability to respond to changes in traffic conditions. Supporting this explanation, we found that displaying a higher fatality count (i.e., a plausibly more attention-grabbing statistic) causes more crashes than displaying a small one, that fatality messages are more harmful when displayed on more complex road segments, that fatality messages increase multi-vehicle crashes (but not single-vehicle crashes), and that the impact is largest close to DMSs and decreases over longer distances (Hall & Madsen, 2022, p. 370). One last thought on traffic crashes and controlled cognition. In 2021, there were almost 43,000 traffic-related deaths in the U.S., the highest number in 16 years (National Center for Statistics and Analysis, 2022). Because of the pandemic lockdown, many of us did not drive much in 2020. As we began to re-emerge in 2021, did your driving skills feel as rusty as mine did? I found myself using much more controlled cognition than I did before or have since. This certainly is not the only explanation for the increase in traffic fatalities, but it can’t have helped. (Did more people take road trip vacations rather fly? That would put more people on the road and in unfamiliar locations.) To wrap up this blog post, I want to note that writing is also a cognitive-heavy activity. Right after posting, we are going to get into our car and drive to our local farmer’s market—and I’m going to try very hard to not think about traffic fatality statistics on our way there or back. Please stay safe.   References Gibbons, A. (2022). The calorie counter. Science, 375(6582), 710–713. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ada1185 Hall, J. D., & Madsen, J. (2022). Can Behavioral Interventions Be Too Salient? Evidence From Traffic Safety Messages. Science, 376(6591), 370. https://doi.org/0.1126/science.abm3427 National Center for Statistics and Analysis. (2022). Early estimates of motor vehicle traffic fatalities and fatality rate by sub-categories 2021 (BOT HS 813 398; Crash Stats Brief Statistical Summary, p. 10). National Highway Traffic Safety Admistration. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813298 Ullman, Gl., & Chrysler, S. (2022). How safe are safety messages? Science, 376(6591), 347–348. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abq1757 Vrij, A., Deeb, H., Leal, S., & Fisher, R. P. (2022). The effects of a secondary task on true and false opinion statements. International Journal of Psychology and Behavior Analysis, 8(185), 1–8.       ... View more

We know that when students have a growth mindset they tend to perform better in school (Yeager & Dweck, 2020). Do what instructors communicate about mindset matter? Here’s an activity that will give students some practice in experimental design while also introducing students to the concepts of fixed and growth mindset and perhaps even inoculating them against instructors who convey a fixed mindset. For background for yourself, read Katherine Muenks and colleagues’ Journal of Experimental Psychology article (2020). The activities below will replicate their study designs. After explaining to students the difference between a growth and fixed mindset, ask students if they have ever had an instructor who said something in class or wrote something in the syllabus that conveyed which mindset the instructor held. For example, an instructor with a growth mindset might say, “This course is designed to help you improve your writing skills.” An instructor with fixed mindset might say, “Either you have the skills to succeed in this course or you don’t.” As students share examples that they have heard, write them down where students can see them. Ask students if they think that these instructor statements could affect students. If so, how? Perhaps these statements could affect how much they feel like they belong in the course, or how interested students are in the course, or even how well students do in the course. Write down what students generate. Point out to students that they just generated two hypotheses. 1. If students hear an instructor with a growth mindset, then they are more likely to feel like they belong (or/and whatever other dependent variables students suggested).  2. If students hear an instructor with a fixed mindset, then they are less likely to feel like they belong (or/and whatever other dependent variables students suggested). Point out to students that the “if” part of the hypotheses gives us the independent variable (instructor mindset). Suggest that the experiment they will design has three levels to the independent variable: growth mindset, fixed mindset, and a control condition of no mindset. The “then” part of the hypotheses gives us the dependent variables, such as feelings of belonging and whatever other variables students think could be affected. Ask students to spend a couple minutes thinking about how they could design an experiment that would test both of these hypotheses. Then invite students to group up with a couple students near them to discuss. Lastly, give students an opportunity to share their designs. Remind students that conducting experiments is a creative endeavor and that there is no one right way to test hypotheses. In fact, the more ways researchers test hypotheses, the more confidence we have in the findings. Share with students how Muenks and her colleagues did the first of their studies. They created three videos of what was ostensibly a calculus professor talking about their syllabus on the first day of class. The same actor delivered the same information; it was all scripted. The only difference was that for the growth mindset condition, the script included growth mindset comments sprinkled throughout, such as “These assignments are designed to help you improve your skills throughout the semester.” For the fixed mindset condition, comments included things like, “In this course, you either know the concepts and have the skills, or you don’t.” The control condition excluded mindset comments. Volunteers were randomly assigned to watch one of the three videos. Muenks and colleagues assessed four dependent variables: vulnerability which was a combined measure of belongingness (five questions, including “How much would you feel that you ‘fit in’ during this class?”) and evaluative concerns (five questions, “How much would you worry that you might say the wrong thing in class?”), engagement (three items, including “I think I would be willing to put in extra effort if the professor asked me to”), interest in the course, and anticipated course performance. (See the second study they reported in their article for additional dependent variables, including feelings of being an imposter and intentions of dropping the course.) Volunteers reported that they would feel the most vulnerable with fixed mindset instructor, less vulnerable with the control instructor and the least vulnerable with the growth mindset instructor. Volunteers reported that they would feel the least engaged with either the fixed mindset or control instructor and the most engaged with the growth mindset instructor. Volunteers reported that they would be least interested in a course taught by the fixed mindset instructor, more interested in a course taught by the control instructor and the most interested in a course taught by the growth mindset instructor. Lastly, volunteers expected that they would perform the worst in a course taught by the fixed mindset instructor and best in the course taught by the growth mindset or control instructor. After sharing these results, explain that volunteers in this study reported what they think they would feel or do. For ethical reasons, we cannot randomly assign students to take actual courses taught by instructors who express these different views. However, if students were taking courses, researchers could do correlational research on student experiences. In studies three and four, Muenk and colleagues did correlational studies where students were asked immediately after attending class for their impressions of their instructor’s mindset along with a number of other measures, including feelings of belonging, evaluative concerns, imposter feelings, and affect. After the course was over, students reported how often they attended class, how often they thought about dropping the course, and how interested they were in the course discipline. Student grades in the course were gathered from university records. While there is a lot in the results to unpack, in sum, instructor mindset had an impact. For example, student grades were worst when students perceived their instructor as having a fixed mindset, but this result seems to have been driven by student feelings of being an imposter. End this activity with this question: Is it possible that being consciously aware of an (Leave it as a rhetorical question or challenge students to design the study as a take-home assignment.)   References Muenks, K., Canning, E. A., LaCosse, J., Green, D. J., Zirkel, S., Garcia, J. A., & Murphy, M. C. (2020). Does my professor think my ability can change? Students’ perceptions of their STEM professors’ mindset beliefs predict their psychological vulnerability, engagement, and performance in class. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(11), 2119–2144. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000763 Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2020). What can be learned from growth mindset controversies? American Psychologist, 75(9), 1269–1284. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000794   ... View more

[Updated May 8, 2022: David Myers wrote a blog post in 2020 where he identified economist Paul Krugman's Arguing with Zombies book as inspiration for Myers' own psychology zombie ideas. I was aware of neither Krugman's book or Myers' blog post when I read the Science article that was my inspiration for this zombie idea post. Mea culpa!] In the teaching of psychology world, we talk a lot about myths that need to be dispelled. Scott Lilienfeld filled a book with 50 of them (2010). For example, we only use 10% of our brain. Um, no. We use all of it. When we put that up on a slide and tell students that’s a myth, we may be inadvertently reinforcing it, not dispelling it. When we talk about it, it is not the first time students are hearing it. (That’s why it’s a myth.) Nor will it be the last time. If everyone keeps saying it—even us, even though we say “it’s wrong!”—it must be true. We also know that source amnesia doesn’t help matters. Students may remember that they’ve heard this 10% thing before, but forget that they heard it in our classes where we said, “it’s wrong!” Instead, some researchers make a compelling argument for not talking about myths at all, and instead just talk about the truth (Schwarz et al., 2016) . For example, rather than talk about the 10% myth, we can instead talk about how we use 100% of our brain—and to drive the point home, how removing 90% of our brain would result in, well, catastrophic failure. For some myths, it is difficult to imagine how we could focus on the truth without tackling the myth head on. Here is one. Exercise provides many benefits, including improved sleep and reduced stress. Weight loss, however, is not one of the benefits. Exercise can help us keep from gaining weight and can influence where we store our fat, but it will not result in weight loss. Weight loss is mostly about diet—what and how much we eat (Gibbons, 2022). We can keep listing the benefits of exercise and excluding weight loss, but the latter is so engraved in our consciousness, people will assume it’s one of the benefits. John Speakman, an evolutionary physiologist, calls our collective belief that the key to weight loss is exercise is a zombie idea (Gibbons, 2022, article is freely available). Zombie idea. In psychology, I propose that we stop calling psychological myths “myths.” Let’s call them zombie ideas. It’s much better marketing. In fact, let’s up its stature with capitalization: Zombie Ideas. For every slide you have that features a myth, add the title “Zombie Idea,” and—this is crucial—drop some gruesome zombie images on the slide. Let’s see if we can get a little classical conditioning working for us. Think of Zombie Idea, experience revulsion. This may be another Zombie Idea; all of you who teach Developmental Psychology will know this better than I do. Who has the highest metabolism? Pregnant women and teenagers do not have a higher metabolism than anyone else. Toddlers between the ages of 9 and 15 months are the ones with an off-the-chart metabolism. They “expend 50% more energy in a day than do adults, when adjusted for body size and fat…That’s likely to fuel their growing brain and, perhaps, developing immune systems” (Gibbons, 2022, p. 713). Zombie Ideas. Who’s in?   References Gibbons, A. (2022). The calorie counter. Science, 375(6582), 710–713. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ada1185 Lilienfeld, S. O. (Ed.). (2010). 50 great myths of popular psychology: Shattering widespread misconceptions about human behavior. Wiley-Blackwell. Schwarz, N., Newman, E., & Leach, W. (2016). Making the truth stick & the myths fade: Lessons from cognitive psychology. Behavioral Science & Policy, 2(1), 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1353/bsp.2016.0009   ... View more

Here’s a question for your students after covering the brain in Intro Psych: “How would you react if you learned, today, that you were missing your left temporal lobe?”  In 1987 at the age of 25, EG (not her real initials) happened to have an MRI scan, and her physicians—and I imagine, she—were surprised to see a blank spot where her left temporal lobe should be. EG is highly educated with strong language skills. Her missing left temporal lobe does not appear to be affecting her in any way (Tuckute et al., 2022). Unless we have had an MRI scan of our brain, we have no idea if we have a neurotypical brain or if we, too, are missing an entire cerebral lobe. In the research article (Tuckute et al., 2022), Figure 2a features MRI scans of EG’s brain from the right, the front, and the top. The images are worth sharing with your students. In early childhood, language processing is bilateral. It is only later that language specialization—for most of us—moves to the left cerebral hemisphere. EG does not recall any early childhood brain trauma, so it may be that EG’s missing left temporal lobe was congenital. In any case, EG’s brain had no problem turning language specialization over to her right hemisphere. While EG’s left frontal lobe is intact, it is her right frontal lobe that is language dominant, not left. Researchers speculate that it is the language specialization of the temporal lobe that drives the language specialization of the frontal lobe. If that specialization happens in the left temporal lobe, then the left frontal lobe also develops language specialization. Conversely, if that specialization happens in the right temporal lobe—as it did for EG—then the right frontal lobe also develops language specialization. EG’s experience is a good one to share with Intro Psych students, because it illustrates the remarkable flexibility of the human brain. The research article featuring EG opens with a statement from EG herself. She opens with how she came into contact with this group of researchers in 2016. Then EG reminds us that the language we use matters. “Though [the research team’s] studies answer some questions about how my brain is wired the same as or differently than a typical brain, it does not tell others who I am. Please do not call my brain abnormal, that creeps me out. My brain is atypical. If not for accidently finding these differences, no one would pick me out of a crowd as likely to have these, or any other differences that make me unique” (Tuckute et al., 2022, p. 1). With many of our Intro Psych students preparing for careers in healthcare, EG includes an important reminder that each patient is a person, not merely a collection of health conditions who should then fit into a particular health condition box. “In the past, several well-meaning but misguided healthcare professionals have told me that I should not have more than a 5th grade vocabulary, that I should have seizures, or that I should have other deficits and limitations. I do not. They seemed disappointed, even angry, that I did not have the limitations they unilaterally pronounced that I should have, without the benefit of any further investigation” (Tuckute et al., 2022, p. 1).   Reference Tuckute, G., Paunov, A., Kean, H., Small, H., Mineroff, Z., Blank, I., & Fedorenko, E. (2022). Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe. Neuropsychologia, 169, 108184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108184   ... View more

Invite your students to register for this PsiChi Webinar with two Macmillan authors on getting the most out of your major in Psychology!  May 3, 2022 3:00pm EST PsiCh Webinar Getting Where You Want to Go in Psychology   with Dr. Jane Halonen & Dr. Dana Dunn This webinar will focus on making smart choices about how to select priorities and invest your time to get the most out of your undergraduate major.  Register on the PsiChi website at:  https://www.psichi.org/page/ learningresources#.YmMiZefMI2y ... View more

“Rising parental expectations and criticism are linked to an increase in perfectionism among college students, which can have damaging mental health consequences, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association” (Bentsen, 2022). The research cited is a two-study meta-analysis (Curran & Hill, 2022). With the original research article would be a bit much for Intro Psych students to read and comprehend, students in an upper division psych course might be able to get something out of it. For Intro Psych students, the APA press release should provide enough fodder for discussion. In Intro Psych, after covering parenting styles in the developmental psych chapter, give students these instructions for completing a pre-discussion assignment: Read “Rising parental expectation linked to perfectionism in college students.” Describe the difference between self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and socially-oriented perfectionism. For each, give an example. Describe the relationship between parental expectations on self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism. How have parental expectations changed since 1989? In a face-to-face or online discussion, ask students to consider these questions: In thinking about your own life and the lives of your friends and family members, have you seen where parental expectations contributed to a child’s need for perfection? The research focused on parental expectations. Are there other important people in a child’s life whose expectations may contribute to the development of perfectionism? Explain. In the reading, the lead author of the cited article noted that parents should not be to blame for having such high expectations because they are reacting to today’s social environment. Do you agree or disagree with that view? Explain. The reading ends with the following paragraph. Do you, personally, believe that failure is simply part of living? Explain. In this course, are you more focused on learning or more focused on test scores? Explain. Parents can help their children navigate societal pressures in a healthy way by teaching them that failure, or imperfection, is a normal and natural part of life, Curran said. “Focusing on learning and development, not test scores or social media, helps children develop healthy self-esteem, which doesn’t depend on others’ validation or external metrics,” he said. Conclude the discussion by noting that throughout the course, we will continue to see examples of how our social and cultural experiences influence who we are.   References Bentsen, T. (2022, March 31). Rising parental expectations linked to perfectionism in college students. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2022/03/parental-expectations-perfectionism Curran, T., & Hill, A. P. (2022). Young people’s perceptions of their parents’ expectations and criticism are increasing over time: Implications for perfectionism. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000347   ... View more

Earlier this year, the journal Science “asked young scientists to imagine that they could go back in time and create a university course that would help scientists navigate the years 2020 to 2022” (da Silva et al., 2022, p. 1086). In the psychology category, one person suggested a course titled “Resilience in research: How to collaborate in a virtual world.” Another suggested “New academic hotspots: Opportunities and challenges.” While the focus of the Science article is on conducting research, I’ve been thinking more broadly about the role psychology could play for the general public. As a way to bring closure to an Intro Psych course, give students this prompt (adaptable for an online discussion): Imagine we could go back in time to early 2020, right before the pandemic. Imagine that we have access to the resources to create a high quality, 20-minute YouTube video that we know will go viral. It will be translated into dozens of languages and seen by millions of people around the world. What content from this course would you want everyone to know before we headed into the pandemic? Pick up to three topics and be ready to explain your rationale for each. If you are done thinking about the pandemic, use these instructions instead. The topics student generate may or may not be different. Imagine that we have access to the resources to create a high quality, 20-minute YouTube video that we know will go viral. It will be translated into dozens of languages and seen by millions of people around the world. What content from this course would you want everyone to know? Pick up to three topics and be ready to explain your rationale for each. After students have had a few minutes to choose their topics. Invite students to get into group of three to five. In your groups, share your topics and rationales. As a group, from the topics shared, choose your group’s top three topics. After groups have agreed on their topics, ask a group to share their topics and rationales. Ask the next group to share any different topics that they generated, and so on. Write the topics where everyone in the class can see them. Once all groups have had an opportunity to share their list of topics, invite individual students to share any topics that they feel are important but did not make the list. Ending the Intro Psych course with a discussion such as this provides students with an opportunity to reflect on what they learned as well as reflect on the value of psychology. And maybe—just maybe—one of our students will someday have the resources to create that high quality YouTube video that will go viral.   Reference da Silva, C. F. A., Uzonyi, A., Cusimano, J. M., Nilsson, T., Konstantinides, N., Oda, F., Al Harraq, A., Beardsley, F., Heim, A. B., Jiang, J., Buhle, E. L., & Burnette, K. (2022). A pandemic education. Science, 375(6585), 1086–1087. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo5791 ... View more

Heads-up displays (HUD) have been common in airplanes for years. (See examples here, or do a Google image search for airplane HUD.) With a HUD, information of use to pilots is projected onto the window, so the pilot can see the information without having to glance down at dashboard gauges, taking their eyes off their view out the window. Automobile manufacturers are now bringing this technology to cars. With a car HUD, the driver will be able to see projected on their windshield information such as speed, speed limit, distance to the car ahead, and highlighted pedestrians. As I read about this technology, I can’t help but wonder if the attentional demands outstrip the value making driving more dangerous with a HUD. After all, pilots are highly trained. In one article about automotive HUDS, I was horrified to read, “And, of course, you should be able to display information from your phone onto the windshield” (Wallaker, 2022). We know that talking on a phone (hands-free or not) takes attention away from driving. A driver who is reading text messages or making a different music selection on their windshield would be seconds away from a crash. On the other hand, if the HUD marks the car in front as green, then we will know that we are following at a safe distance. If the car is red, we need to back off until it goes green. That’s real-time, useful information that is directly related to safe driving. We know from behavioral change research, immediate feedback is more useful than delayed feedback—or in the case of the lack of technology most of us currently drive with—no feedback at all. After covering attention, this may be a good opportunity to give your students a little practice designing experiments. Describe automotive HUD technology, including some of the information that HUDs can display. Ask students to design an experiment that would test these hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: If drivers are given driving-relevant information, such as speed and distance to vehicle in front, via a heads-up display (HUD), then they will have better driving performance. Hypothesis 2: If drivers are given driving-irrelevant information, such as the ability to read text messages or change music selections, via a heads-up display (HUD), then they will have impaired driving performance. “In your design, identify each level of the independent variable, and identify the dependent variable. You may have more than one dependent variable. Include operational definitions of each.” To help students get started, explain that researchers use driving simulators for research such as this as it would be (very!) unethical to put research volunteers behind the wheel of a real car on a real road where they could kill real people, including themselves. The additional advantage of driving simulators is that researchers have complete control over the simulated environment. They can decide what information to display, when a text message appears, and when a virtual child runs into the street. After students have had a few minutes to consider their own experimental designs, invite students to work in groups of three or four to discuss their designs with the goal of creating one design for the group. After groups appear to have settled on a design, invite one group to share their independent variable and its levels. Ask if other groups have different independent variables or different levels. As groups share, identify pros and cons of each independent variable and level. Take the best options offered. Next, ask a group to share their dependent variable(s). Invite other groups to share their dependent variable(s). Again, identify pros and cons of each, then take the best options offered. If you’d like to expand this into an assignment, ask students to dive into your library’s databases. Have any research teams done experiments like the one the class just created? If so, what did they find?   Reference Wallaker, M. (2022, February 6). How does a car HUD work? MUO. https://www.makeuseof.com/how-does-car-hud-work/   ... View more

Remote work and online courses—both synchronous and asynchronous—existed before COVID, but COVID introduced many, many more people to this work/educational modality. And it looks like remote work and its educational counterpart is now a permanent part of our work/school landscape, whether employers or educational administrators like it or not. Workers and students had been striving for something that felt like work/life balance. For those who can work/go to school from home, removing commute time and having our dogs under our desks and our cats on our laps (or on our keyboards) suddenly made it all feel more humane. While it is not for everybody, for others it has been a God send. The Great Resignation has workers who are being forced back into offices to quit their jobs and seek employment with those who are happy to have quality employees who work from home. Career advisers have begun offering advice to people who are just starting in a new remote job (Dietz, 2022). As I read through the advice, there is a lot here for students as they start a new term with a new professor and new classmates. “Ask how your [instructor] prefers to communicate” As instructors, we should tell students how best to reach us—email, phone, office hours. When we have multiple options, providing some guidance on what modality to use for what can help. Short questions with (likely) short answers? Email may be easiest. Bigger issues that would benefit from discussion? Phone or office hours. If an instructor does not share their communication preferences with students, students should ask. “Ask for feedback sooner than later” In the first week of the term, students should ask for a short five- to ten-minute meeting with their instructor to discuss instructor expectations. Even if no assignments have been scored yet, students can get an idea of whether or not they are on track. For instructors who use an online booking service, such MS Bookings, YouCanBook.me, or Calendly, consider setting up a booking calendar with ten-minute meeting times for, say, the first two weeks of the term. Encourage students to make an appointment to meet with you as a quick, beginning-of-the-term check-in. “Schedule meetings with your coworkers” In an online class, it might be going a bit too far for students to ask a classmate for a phone call or Zoom meeting. However, if the class has a discussion board, students should take full advantage of it. Are there others in the class who have similar interests or concerns? A reply to those students—even if not required for points—can foster a feeling of connection. As instructors, we can build our discussions to encourage connection. For example, in my weekly discussions I have a section where students are asked to share their good news from the last week. I assure them it can be anything, even eating a candy bar is good news. Pretty quickly, we learn about each student’s favorite activities: gardening, cooking, reading, sports, cars, movies, television, video games. I’ve heard from students who share similar interests connecting in real life. “Send a quick ‘thanks’” When students receive help from their instructor or classmates, it is good practice to reply with a thank you. In my discussion instructions, I encourage students to thank anyone who helps them. We can also help students express thanks. When a student emails me with a question, I always end my reply with “Does that help?” Most students take the time to respond with a quick “Yes, thanks!” “Keep yourself sane with a routine” For all students, having a routine is essential. For students who are taking asynchronous online classes, having a routine is crucial. It is too easy to not think about online classes. Students should be encouraged to set aside time in their calendar to work on each of their online classes, and then guard that time, just as they would if it were a time when then needed to be in a classroom. By looking at what is due and when in each of their courses, students can create a weekly work plan. For my Intro Psych course, I provide a weekly work plan students can start with and then adjust as they need. If they’re able, they should create a space in their home where they go to study, even their bedroom floor will work. It just needs to be a place where going there tells their brain it is time to get to work. And turn off the phone. Lastly, students should take breaks. Set a timer and every 20 minutes or so, get up, stretch, step outside for a little fresh air. Then go back to it. “Be kind to yourself” For employees, this is about recognizing you’re the new kid, and there is a lot to learn about the job and the culture of the company. For students, this is about recognizing that each instructor has different expectations and different assignments with different requirements. The first few weeks of any course is about sorting it all out and finding a rhythm. For students who are taking a full load of courses, there will be a lot of sorting to do. Assure students that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed. It’s okay to say, “I can’t deal with this right now.” Take a longer break—take a brisk walk, visit a coffee shop, catch a movie.   As instructors, we know that the skills students develop or further develop in college will help them in their careers, whatever those careers may be. If that career involves working with others remotely, taking synchronous or asynchronous online courses can only be a benefit.   Reference Dietz, M. (2022, March 17). Everything you should do on the first day of a remote job. Lifehacker. https://lifehacker.com/everything-you-should-do-on-the-first-day-of-a-remote-j-1848666722   ... View more

The Confirmation Bias of Wordle Fans https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/misinformation-desk/202203/the-confirmation-bias-wordle-fans?fbclid=IwAR32p20dgZjxuBxp8yCOFR2q90iSGeO90S7_tNleBvQ_P64sZxTQQRoX0UU ... View more

I’ve been thinking a lot about identity and how our identity—whether it’s an accurate reflection reality—influences our behavior. Most recently I’ve been thinking about this after reading Jeff Holmes’ article in the Teaching of Psychology journal on students who have identified themselves as bad test-takers (Holmes, 2021). Holmes opens the article with this statement: “One of the best ways to be bad at something is to tell yourself you are bad at it” (p. 291). In Holmes’s study of 311 college students, a whopping 91% believed that students who otherwise know the course material can be bad test-takers with 56% of the students identifying themselves as bad test-takers. A third of the students said that someone else told them that they were bad test-takers. Importantly, those who identified as a bad test-taker were more likely to disagree with “I know how to study effectively.” Additionally, “Students who see themselves as bad test-takers…tend to—relative to students who do not possess such an identity—have lower confidence in their broader academic abilities, expend less effort on cognitive activities, and feel entitled to positive academic outcomes regardless of performance” (p. 296). And, yes, those who identify as bad test-takers were also more likely to report test anxiety, even when other variables—such as overall academic performance and study skills confidence—were controlled for. I could retire early if I had a dollar for every time I had this conversation with a student: Student: “I studied hard for this test, and I still failed! I’m just a bad test-taker.” Me: “Tell me how you studied.” Student: “What do you mean?” Me: “When you sat down to study, tell me what you did.” Student: “I read the chapter, then I read it again, and again. Oh! And I highlighted stuff.” Me: “Tell me what you know about <concept covered on exam>.” Student: <awkward silence> “I don’t remember.” <More awkward silence> Since I’m a bad test-taker, can I do something for extra credit?” In Intro Psych, wherever you discuss attributions (e.g., social psych, abnormal, psychotherapy), consider using the bad test-taker attribution as an example. If a student does poorly on an exam and they say, “I’m a bad test-taker,” they are making an internal, stable, and global attribution. Internal: It’s a trait I have. Stable: It’s a trait that’s not going to change. Global: My bad test-taking applies regardless of the test. It is unlikely that a student who makes this attribution will do anything differently on the next test.   Now ask students to imagine a different attribution. After doing poorly on a test, the student says, “I didn’t know that material well enough.” This is an internal, unstable, specific attribution. Internal: The grade was because of something I did. Unstable: If I do things differently, I can get a different result. Specific: This is what happened on this specific test; that doesn’t say anything about the next test. This student has agency. “I’m going to try out some of the known-to-be-effective study strategies my instructor told me about.” Reiterate to students that in both examples, the result of the first test was the same; both students failed. But who is most likely to fail the second test, too? To make that second attribution—“I didn’t know the material well enough”—students have to have enough insight into their own knowledge or have to accept that their test score is a reasonably accurate reflection of their knowledge. When students read and reread chapters over and over and over again, the material begins to feel familiar. That familiarity can feel like knowledge. It’s not. It’s the illusion of knowledge. One of the many benefits of self-testing is that it keeps students from deluding themselves while they study. Unless they attribute their poor self-testing to being a bad test-taker. [Side note: If the student sees test-taking as a skill that can be learned (unstable attribution), then they may choose to work on upping their test-taking skills. A quick Google search of “test taking skills” produced a number of websites with a bullet-point list of strategies. The sites I saw all included some version of “be prepared.” What’s the best way to be prepared? Use solid study strategies to learn the material.]     References Holmes, J. D. (2021). The bad test-taker identity. Teaching of Psychology, 48(4), 293–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320979884 ... View more

One of my students contacted me recently to ask if I knew of any volunteer opportunities that would be a good match for her, a psychology major. As an undergraduate, I volunteered at a domestic violence shelter/rape crisis center. The hours of training plus my two years of time there was invaluable. While its obvious how this experience would be a solid base for a psychotherapist-to-be, it provided lesson after lesson for this future social psychologist. In addition to experience, there is plenty of evidence that connects volunteering with happiness. For example, a study based on UK survey data that controlled for happiness levels prior to volunteering found that volunteering did indeed create a boost in happiness (Lawton et al., 2021). I put my student in contact with a colleague who I felt would know more about local volunteering options than I did. When that didn’t pan out, I directed my student to VolunteerMatch.org. Enter your location (virtual only is an option), pick your favorite causes, and select your skills. Under “More Filters,” select whether you’re looking for opportunities for kids, those who are 55+, teens, or groups—a psych club, perhaps? If you would like to introduce your students to the VolunteerMatch.org website, during your coverage of happiness would be a good place. Here is a suggestion for an assignment or an online discussion. Visit VolunteerMatch.org. Enter your location. (At the top of the page, click virtual opportunities if you would prefer something remote). In the “Find the Best Volunteer Opportunities” section, click the “More” button to see all of the topic. Choose your favorite topic or topics. Briefly explain why you chose the topic or topics you did. Identify at least three volunteer opportunities that appeal to you. Briefly explain why you chose each one. How likely is it that you will volunteer with one of these in the next 12 months? Why or why not.   Reference Lawton, R. N., Gramatki, I., Watt, W., & Fujiwara, D. (2021). Does volunteering make us happier, or are happier people more likely to volunteer? Addressing the problem of reverse causality when estimating the wellbeing impacts of volunteering. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22(2), 599–624. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00242-8 ... View more