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

COVID has changed a lot of things. (Shall we nominate this for understatement of the year?) In this particular case, I’m thinking about sleep patterns. A New York Times article got me thinking about this (Braff, 2022). For the story, the journalist interviewed a few people whose sleeping patterns changed during COVID. One mother of three reported that she would wake up at 3am and then go back to sleep for an hour around 6am. While waking up was due to her mind racing, she began to value the few hours in the middle of the night that she had to herself. For another person, he had always split his night sleep into segments. With the shift to remote work, he was able to allow himself to fall into what felt like a more natural rhythm for him: sleeping from 10pm to 2am, awake for an hour and a half to two hours, then back to sleep for another three hours. The story that really struck me, though, was that of Diana Hughes who spent a year working with physicians trying to find a solution for her middle-of-the-night insomnia. She happened upon the solution by doing her own research. What if being up for an hour, or two, or three in the middle of the night wasn’t actually a problem? Once she labeled her sleep pattern as another legitimate way to sleep, there was no longer a problem to be solved. This was a powerful reminder to me that what we say in our Intro Psych courses and how we say it matters. When we talk about sleep, are we implying that sleeping seven to nine hours straight through the night is “normal” and how we should all be sleeping? And that any wakefulness during the night is “insomnia,” and thus a problem? Insomnia questionnaires (like this one), frame waking in the middle of the night as a problem. “Please rate the current severity of your insomnia” for falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking early. The next four questions, though, address whether it is really a problem: satisfaction with sleep pattern, does the sleep pattern interfere with life, do others think it interferes, and how worried are we about it. As someone whose sleep pattern became biphasic some time in adulthood, I’ve had occasion to give this a lot of thought. I typically fall asleep between 8:30pm and 9pm, wake up around 1am, and fall back asleep between 2am and 2:30am, and then wake up for the day between 6am and 7am. My home and work life give me the luxury to follow what sure feels like my natural sleep/wake cycle. For example, I don’t have children who need tending to in the evening. I don’t have a work schedule that requires me to set an alarm for 5:30am. In looking at the sleep questionnaire, yes, I suppose I have “difficulty staying asleep,” except I don’t perceive it as a “difficulty.” I am satisfied with my sleeping pattern, it does not interfere with my life, my wife doesn’t think it interferes with my life, and I’m not worried at all about my “problem.” But let’s imagine that I did have children that required my attention in the evening and in the morning, and let’s imagine that I did have a job that required me to be on the road at 7am in order to get to wherever I needed to be on time. Suddenly, my sleep pattern has become a problem to be solved. Why must I contort my biology to fit my life? That was the preferred solution pre-COVID. “You’re not sleeping through the night? Time for you to make some changes. Exercise more. Consume less caffeine. Kick your dog off the bed. Turn down the thermostat. Wear an eye mask. Turn on the white noise.” For many people, COVID flipped the script. If children are going to school remotely and if employees are working remotely, the removal of the lengthy daily commutes (and, if we’re being honest, the removal of the need to shower and get dressed) produced at least a few more free hours during the day. For some at least, sleeping patterns changed to something that felt more normal. (For others, the anxiety created by COVID, such as income loss, health worries, death of loved ones, produced insomnia.) As we watched the Great Resignation, we have seen a lot of white-collar workers unwilling to return to their daily commute. In droves, they have left their face-to-face jobs in exchange for remote employment. Their reasons are myriad, but I have to wonder for how many is sleep quality and quantity just one more factor. The New York Times article (Braff, 2022) ends with this: “When practicing segmented sleep, insomniacs don’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night, as that’s the way segmented sleep works,” Mr. Savy said. “Therefore, they can adjust the schedule to their insomnia and reduce the stress associated with it.” But returning to sleep patterns from the Middle Ages isn’t for everyone, Dr. Avena said, suggesting that segmented sleep should be tried only by those who are already having sleep issues. My goodness, the assumptions. The word “insomniac” implies someone with a problem. Yes, I’m awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night, but I’m not an “insomniac.” Second, segmented sleep is not something one tries. Years ago, I did not set my alarm for 1am and stay awake for an hour just to try out a biphasic sleep pattern. I just happen to wake up naturally at 1am, I do not define it as a problem, and I fall back asleep naturally an hour or two later. Again, I don’t have “sleep issues.” My big takeaways: I need to pay close attention to the assumptions I make about what is normal or typical, and I need to carefully consider how I talk about these concepts with students.   Reference Braff, D. (2022, February 12). Meet me at 3 A.M. for a cup of coffee. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/style/segmented-sleep.html   ... 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

I read this CBC article on life coaches (Cowley et al., 2022) and felt great alarm. My alarm was not caused by the fact that anyone can call themselves a life coach, nor was it caused by these particular life coaches offering mental health advice. While I found this information disappointing, I cannot say that I was surprised. Instead, my alarm was caused by the fact that discussion of life coaches has not been included in our collective Intro Psych curriculum. We could do a much better job at arming the millions of students who take Intro Psych with the information they need to be informed consumers of mental health services. The therapy chapter would be a good place to use a jigsaw classroom. Divide your students (synchronous or asynchronous) into five groups. Assign each group one of the following professions. If you have a large class, divide the class into, say, ten groups, so that two groups will be working on each profession. Life coach Counseling psychologist Clinical psychologist Prescribing psychologist Psychiatrist Next, give each group the following set of questions to answer. Ask students to cite the sources they used to answer each question. What education is required for this profession? Does this profession require a license? If so, what is required to get licensure? What kinds of issues are typically treated by people in this profession? What kind of treatments can people in this profession provide? Once each group has the answers to these questions, assign students to new groups so that each new group has at least one member from the original groups. The new groups will be comprised of “experts” from each profession group. Give the new groups these instructions. In the following order, each group member will share what they learned about each profession: life coach, counseling psychologist, clinical psychologist, prescribing psychologist, psychiatrist. Once everyone has shared and all group members feel like they understand each profession, for each of the following issues, identify which profession or professions would be best and why. Lack of motivation for keeping a clean home Stress at work or school Relationship issues Severe anxiety Suicidal thoughts Heavy drinking Grief following the loss of a loved one Uncertainty in how to make a career change Once each group has finished its work, ask a spokesperson for each group to share what they generated. Start with “lack of motivation for keeping a clean home.” Once each group has shared, move on to the next topic.     Reference Cowley, J., Sampson, A., Szeto, E., & News ·, A. T. · C. (2022, February 26). Almost anyone can become a life coach. A hidden camera investigation reveals why that’s a problem. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-life-coach-1.6364745   ... View more

In 2015, the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) added behavioral science questions to the test. If you haven’t read the MCAT’s overview of the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior Section, it’s worth a look. Two-thirds of the questions from this section are expected to come from Intro Psych. They say that this “section emphasizes concepts that tomorrow’s doctors need to know in order to serve an increasingly diverse population and have a clear understanding of the impact of behavior on health.” As readers of this blog know, as an Intro Psych instructor deciding what should and should not be in the course, I keep my audience in mind. Many of our Intro Psych students will be pursuing careers in healthcare, and, for at least some of them, that means taking the MCAT. Some of us think about what we cover in our courses in terms of what we want students to remember years from now. What might the physicians of tomorrow remember from their Intro Psych course of today? I recently purchased this book written by physicians for physicians-to-be: Boland, R. J., Verduin, M. L., Ruiz, P., Shah, A., & Sadock, B. J. (Eds.). (2022). Kaplan & Sadock’s synopsis of psychiatry (12th ed.). Wolters Kluwer. The print edition of the book comes with free (pre-purchased, really) access to the ebook. All you need to do is enter the access code, give them your name, and pick the option that best describes your role. Here are my options: medical student, nursing student, resident, fellow, practitioner, nurse, nurse practitioner, program director, program coordinator, librarian. That’s it. Not even an “other” category. Since I had to pick something to continue the registration process, I decided to throw some love to my librarian colleagues. And where do I practice my librarianship they wonder? None is an option, but if I’m going to pretend to be a librarian, I’m okay being a librarian in the U.S. At least some of their data will be meaningful. In the chapter on anxiety disorders, they have a section on the neurobiology of these disorders with a subsection titled “Neuroimaging Studies.” For reasons that are unclear to me, within that subsection is a sub-subsection titled “Psychological Studies.” I’m guessing that this was an error, and that this sub-subsection was supposed to be a section at the same level as the neurobiology section. I logged into the ebook to see if they may have fixed it there. Nope. So, there you have it. Psychological studies are a type of neuroimaging. That section weirdness aside, I found their description of classical conditioning fascinating.   Behavioral scientists have helped to elucidate the psychology of fear and anxiety through both animal and human studies. A full discussion of the psychological research is well beyond the scope of this chapter, but most relevant to anxiety disorders are the work of Pavlov and later scientists on the nature of conditioning. In the classic studies, the scientist exposes an animal to an (sic) neutral stimulus, such as an auditory tone, and then presents the tone while introducing an aversive stimulus, such as an electric shock. With the repeated pairing of the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus becomes associated with the aversive one, to the point where it alone can elicit the same response even when removing the aversive stimulus. The result is that the animal has been conditioned or learned to fear the neutral stimuli. In behavioral science, the neutral stimulus is called the conditioned stimulus and the aversive one the unconditioned stimulus. If the scientist presents the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned one and repeats this often enough, the animal will no longer associate the two stimuli; this is called extinction. How long extinction learning takes will depend on the particular stimuli and the individual animal. It also can depend on context, and a different setting can change the response. Behavioral studies suggest that the animal does not forget the conditioning. Instead, it is now competing with a new memory. Under appropriate circumstances, the pairing, and associated fear response, can be reinstated. As humans are animals, they experience conditioning and extinction as well. The relevance to anxiety disorders, particularly phobias, should be obvious. Research in conditioning has gone well beyond this simplified description to identify and elaborate the many subtleties of conditioned learning. (Boland et al., 2022, p. 411). Some observations. First, behavioral science and behavioral scientists have replaced psychology and psychological scientists. I knew we were doomed when behavioral economics replaced cognitive psychology, but it still pains me. I know many of you rebranded your departments of psychology as departments of psychological science. Have you rebranded again to the department of behavioral science? And is it solely behavioral science because the cognitive research has gone to economics? Identity crisis, anyone? Second, evidently it is important for the psychiatrist-to-be who is reading this text to know the terms conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. The terms conditioned and unconditioned response, however, are not noteworthy. And that brings me back around to an earlier blog post. How important are any of these terms? Third, extinction gets a shout-out by name and spontaneous recovery gets a shout-out by description, sort of. This sentence is a little mysterious to me: “Under appropriate circumstances, the pairing, and associated fear response, can be reinstated.” Yes, if you present the tone and shock the rat again, the fear would be reinstated. I’m not sure if that circumstance is appropriate, however. In any case, I’m just not sure what they were getting at here. Four, even though the authors recognize that this is a “simplified description,” I would have loved to have seen generalization get a mention. Yes, your patient is afraid of the person who sexually assaulted them, but your patient is also going to show some fear of people who look like their attacker. Of course, we cannot assume that the authors, editors, and reviewers of this text are representative of all physicians, but it does give me something to think about. Is this what our Intro Psych students remember about classical conditioning years later? Is this what we want them to remember?    ... View more

New research suggests that we find people with a stronger immune system more attractive: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2308406-we-seem-to-find-people-with-a-strong-immune-system-more-attractive/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2022-02-17-Physical-attrac ... View more

In a 2008 10-minute TED Talk, Joshua Klein described how he created a vending machine for crows, and how he trained crows to use it using basic operant conditioning principles. Once trained, crows deposited coins in exchange for peanuts, a tasty snack for crows. (See? You’re not the only one working for peanuts.) While the coin vending machine is fun, it’s not very practical. Maybe, say, in the 1970s coins were commonly dropped on the street, because, well, there were more coins being carried around. But now? I doubt that our local crow population be able to come up with enough coins to cover the cost of the peanuts. Coins, though, are not the only thing that could be deposited in a vending machine. Södertälje, Sweden (home to the Tom **bleep** Experiment Science Museum*) evidently has a problem with people tossing their cigarette butts on the ground. A company called Corvid Cleaning has created a crow vending machine where, once trained, crows will be able to deposit cigarette butts in exchange for peanuts. After covering operant conditioning, share the above information with students, then open it up for discussion. Here are a few discussion questions to get things started. What responsibility does Corvid Cleaning have to ensure that the crows are not harmed by the litter they are picking up? [They report that they will be monitoring the health of the crows.] Is it ethical to pay wild crows to pick up human litter? Would it be more ethical to train humans to not toss their cigarette butts on the ground? Using what we know about operant conditioning, how could we train humans to not litter?   *I visited the museum’s website to learn the story behind the name. Because my knowledge of Swedish is limited to what I learned from the Muppets Swedish chef, I was very thankful that they offer an English translation. From the museum’s About page: “The slightly quirky name Tom **bleep** originates from a an imaginary figure who carried out scientific experiments in the French magazine L'Illustration at the end of the 19th century. Tom **bleep** demonstrated experiments and encouraged the readers to try out various fun activities with a scientific theme. Which is pretty much what we do here at Tom **bleep** Experiment!” ... View more

Many of our Intro Psych students are headed into careers in law, engineering, computer science, business, sports, or healthcare. In those careers (and others!), they are likely to work with psychologists. Or, perhaps, they will encounter a situation in their work where consulting a psychologist would be beneficial. The American Psychological Association has produced five videos to date where panels of psychologists working in law, human factors, industrial-organizational psychology, sports psychology, and occupational health discuss their work.   If you have students interested in these fields, please direct them to these recordings. If you would like to offer watching one of more of these an assignment, included are a couple questions students could answer. Careers in Applied Psychology: Law and Psychology (46 minutes): Panelists: Margaret Bull Kovera, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY: Overview of field Jemour Maddux, managing director of Lamb + Madduz, LLC: “Role in forensic value of harm, risk, and abilities in family, civil, sentencing, and police cases” Natalie Anumba, University of Massachusetts Medical School: “Faculty role as a clinical forensic psychologist in a public psychiatric hospital” Jason A. Cantone, senior research attorney at the Federal Judicial Center: “Role in judicial processes, legal decision making, and judicial education” Apryl Alexander, University of Denver: “Faculty role as a clinical forensic psychologist working in juvenile justice” Jason Lawrence, staff psychologist/certified forensic examiner with Missouri Department of Mental Health: “Role as a forensic examiner in the Center for Behavioral Medicine” Dennis Stolle, past president and senior consultant with ThemeVision and capital partner with Barnes and Thornburg, and APA senior director of Applied Psychology: “Role in trial strategy and jury consulting services in high-stakes litigation. Questions: Summarize the types of work psychologists do in psychology and law as described by Margaret Kovera. After listening to the panelists describe their work, which did you find the most? Summarize the panelist’s description of their work. Explain why you found that one the most interesting. Careers in Applied Psychology: Human Factors (54 minutes): Panelists: Nancy Stone, Missouri University of Science and Technology: Overview of the field “Philart”Jeon Myounghoon, Virginia Tech: “Faculty role researching human-computer interaction/human-robot interaction” Gabriella Hancock, California State University – Long Beach: “Faculty role researching cognitive neuroscience and human-technology interaction” Dominique Engome Tchupo, graduate student at the University of Rhode Island: “Role researching team communication using fuzzy cognitive mapping” Scotty Craig, Arizona State University: “Faculty role researching the design of elearning and learning technology” Rupa S. Valdez, University of Virginia: “Faculty role researching interventions supporting home health management” Shawn Doherty, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Daytona Beach: “Faculty role researching gaming/gamification and virtual reality” Questions: Summarize the types of work psychologists do in human factors psychology as described by Nancy Stone. After listening to the panelists describe their work, which did you find the most interesting? Summarize the panelist’s description of their work. Explain why you found that one the most interesting. Careers in Applied Psychology: Industrial-Organizational Psychology (59 minutes) Panelists: Tyler Salley, lead for global talent management at Under Armour Sasha Horowitz, senior director of talent management at the National Basketball Association (NBA) Neil Morelli, chief industrial-organizational psychologist for Codility Ruth Frias, diversity, equity, and inclusion manager at NYU Langone Health Ismael Diaz, California State University – San Bernardino Dorothy Carter, University of Georgia Questions: Summarize the types of work industrial-organizational psychologists do. After listening to the panelists describe their work, which did you find the most? Summarize the panelist’s description of their work. Explain why you found that one the most interesting. Careers in Applied Psychology: Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology (44 minutes) Panelists: Brandon Harris, Georgia Southern University: Overview of the field Angel Brutus, associate director of mental health for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC): “Career path to USOPC including university athletic department” Elmer Castillo, master resilience trainer-performance expert: “Performance psychology in the military/US Army” Abby Keenan, mental performance consultant at Intrepid Performance Consulting Sam Zizzi, West Virginia University Kensa Gunter, clinical and sport psychologist at Gunter Psychological Services Questions: Summarize the types of work sports, exercise, and performance psychologists do. After listening to the panelists describe their work, which did you find the most? Summarize the panelist’s description of their work. Explain why you found that one the most interesting. Careers in Applied Psychology: Occupational Health Psychology (45 minutes) Panelists: Christopher J. L. Cunningham, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: Overview of the field Emily Ballesteros, stress management coach Liu-Qin Yang, Portland State University Tim Bauerle, research behavioral scientist for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Spokane Mining Research Division Roxanne Lawrence, graduate student at the University of South Florida: “Graduate student role researching stress and emotional labor” Alyssa McGonagle, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Questions: Summarize the types of work occupational health psychologists do. After listening to the panelists describe their work, which did you find the most? Summarize the panelist’s description of their work. Explain why you found that one the most interesting.   ... View more

MARCH 10 | 3:00 PM ET Join Jonathan S. Comer, the renowned best-selling co-author of Abnormal Psychology and Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, as he reviews the rapidly growing body of research on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the state of mental health and its treatment. Register today to save your seat! REGISTER HERE *NOTE: You must follow this link to register. Responding above as "going" will not register you for this event. ... View more

My Intro Psych students, on the whole, are able to design a pretty good study when given a hypothesis. They describe using a control group and one or more experimental groups. They describe holding everything constant except for the independent variable. They describe the use of one or more dependent variables. Where they most often falter is in applying the labels. For our non-psychology majors, how important is it that students be able to say what the independent variable is? Even for our psychology majors, the world won’t end if after Intro Psych they can’t yet apply the correct label to the independent variable. It not like we keep our psych majors from taking Research Methods if they missed the research methods questions on their first Intro Psych exam. By the end of Research Methods, they should have the differences between independent variable and dependent variable down solid, but it might even be possible to pass Methods without having a solid grasp of which is which. I bet a psych major could even earn a BA degree in psych without doing better than chance on identifying the independent variable and dependent variable. I’m nearing the end of revising an Intro Psych textbook. For the last 12 chapters, my brilliant wife has been my in-house editor. We’ve been together almost 25 years. She’s heard a lot of psychology during that time. Reading this textbook, she’s learned even more (as have I in writing it). Periodically, she will say, “Oh! That’s that thing where <description of concept>.” Last week, she perfectly described the tragedy of the commons applying it to something she had just read in a non-psychology source, but she couldn’t come up with the name “tragedy of the commons.” I confess that it took my brain a minute to dig through my mental files to come up with the term. For Intro Psych, I think of my neighbors as my audience. Many of my neighbors have bachelor’s degrees in something other than psychology. Looking at how many college students take Intro Psych, it’s likely that most of my neighbors took the course. As we all know, our writing and speaking has to be geared to our audience to be most effective. When I think about my Intro Psych audience, I think about my neighbors—people who will go into careers like healthcare, business, engineering, and social work. What do they need to know about psychology? This brings me to my terminology crisis. Which is more important? That my Intro Psych students/neighbors can design a decent experiment? Or that they can accurately label the independent variable and dependent variable? Is it more important they can identify a novel example of the tragedy of the commons? Or that they can accurately label the example as the tragedy of the commons? When I gave multiple choice tests, most of the questions were about accurately labeling. I didn’t do that because I gave deep thought to what my multiple choice questions should be testing. I did it because that’s how I was tested, that’s how my colleagues tested, and those were the bulk of the questions in the test bank. If everyone is testing for knowledge of terminology, then I must test for knowledge of terminology, too. (Is it more important that I recognize this as an example of going along with the group or that I can accurately label it “conformity”?) Here’s an example of testing for concept knowledge, rather than terminology knowledge. In a city, the roads are a shared resource. As individuals, we have a choice to drive (or take some other individualized transportation, such as a cab/Uber/Lyft) to work (adding to air pollution) or to take public transportation (not adding to air pollution). What does psychology predict that people are most likely to do? Drive (or take some other individualized transportation) without consideration for what is good for all of us. “If I drive, I won’t be adding much air pollution.”) Take public transportation because it is for the good of all of us. (“If I take the bus, I won’t be adding more air pollution.”) For those who can’t quite give up terminology altogether, tack this question on at the end. For ¼ point extra credit, what is the name of the concept that describes this? _________ Here’s another example. A researcher hypothesizes that students who take tests in hot rooms will score more poorly on the test. Which research design would be best for testing this hypothesis? Give students a test in a hot room and see how they score. Ask students if they would prefer to take a test in a hot room or a comfortable room. Put those who prefer a hot room in a hot room and those who prefer a comfortable room in a comfortable room. Give all students the same test and see how they score. Ask students if they would prefer to take a test in a hot room or a comfortable room. Put those who prefer a hot room in a hot room and those who prefer a comfortable room in a comfortable room. Give the hot room students a difficult test and the comfortable room students an easy test. See how they score. Randomly divide students into two groups. Put one group in a hot room and another group in a comfortable room. Give all students the same test and see how they score. Randomly divide students into two groups. Put one group in a hot room and another group in a comfortable room. Give the hot room students a difficult test and the comfortable room students an easy test. See how they score. For ¼ point extra credit, identify the independent variable in this example. ___________ For ¼ point extra credit, identify the dependent variable in this example. ___________ Currently, my Intro Psych students take open-note, open-book, take-at-home essay tests of a sort. In looking through my questions, for about half of them, I have an expectation that my students will be able to wrestle with the terminology and accurately apply it. My students aren’t expected to memorize the terms, but I do expect them to go from definition to application. Is it because it’s really necessary? Or is it out of my own convenience? For example, in one question in the learning chapter, I give students four examples, and ask students to identify the schedule of reinforcement. It’s much easier for me to score whether “fixed ratio” is correct, than it is to score “reinforcement after a set number of responses.” Although, in the end, what I really want is for a student to remember years later is something like, “I want to exercise more. I’m going to put a quarter in the jar for every 2,500 steps. I can only use jar money at the coffee shop.” If they don’t remember that this is a fixed ratio reinforcement schedule, I’m okay with that. If I’m okay with that for years later, it seems like I should be okay with it while they’re in the course. ... View more

How can psychologists stay safe standing up for the truth in a climate where misinformation is so common? The anatomy of a misinformation attack: How a respected psychologist ended up getting attacked online for sharing the facts https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2022/news-anatomy-misinformation ... View more