[net-gold] [socialpsy-teach] TSP Newsletter - Vol. 11, No. 9
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 10:58:54 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 09:21:49 -0500
From: Jonathan Mueller <jfmueller@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: socialpsy-teach@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [socialpsy-teach] TSP Newsletter - Vol. 11, No. 9
Teaching Social Psychology Newsletter
Vol. 11, No. 9
May 31, 2012
the e-mail newsletter accompanying the
Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology website at
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow
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Activities and Exercises
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/activities.htm
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Methods/Social Judgment/The Self: Beyond the Purchase
http://www.beyondthepurchase.org/explore.php
Here's an intriguing new website developed by a few psychologists: "Our
basic message is that at BeyondThePurchase.org you can take short surveys
and quizzes to receive personalized feedback about your spending habits,
happiness, and values...Our goal at Beyond The Purchase is to: (1) educate
people about their spending habits, what impacts their financial
decisions, and the costs and benefits of specific consumer choices (i.e.,
introducing the public to consumer research and the psychology of money).
People can learn about how they spend their money and the psychological
variables (e.g., their development, personality, motivation, values,
beliefs, forecasts, and community) that influence these choices. (2)
disseminate scientific knowledge about how and why people spend their
money in different ways (i.e., contributing to consumer psychology). The
results we publish from our website wil expand our scientific knowledge
about the impact of psychological variables (e.g., their development,
personality, motivation, values, beliefs, forecasts, and community) on
financial choices... When I have introduced our website to instructors I
have told people that it makes a great teaching tool for a few discussion
points: (1) how simple, yet elusive, psychological constructs like
happiness are measured, (2) how surveys are constructed and validated in
psychology, (3) the pros and cons of sampling over the internet as well as
the pros and cons of sampling when the participants are opt-in only, (4)
and the possible cost-benefit ratio of providing good feedback while
simultaneously (and quite possibly) priming people before they take
specific surveys."
Class Assignments
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/assignments.htm
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Gender & Culture: Changing the world, $5 at a time, through a grant
assignment
http://www.socialpsychology.org/action/2012winner.htm
This assignment, by Jennifer Hunt, won the 2012 Social Psychology Network
Action Teaching Award. "When the grant assignment is introduced, students
are asked to select a problem related to women, sexuality, or gender that
they believe is particularly important. Students are also asked to
contribute $5 to create a 'grant fund' that will be used to help address
one of the problems selected by a class member. This donation is framed as
a small, manageable donation that could be accomplished by, for example,
giving up a minor luxury (e.g., a latte coffee). The instructor donates
money to the grant fund as well... After the papers are submitted,
students summarize their proposal in a brief oral presentation to the
class (approximately 4 minutes long). After hearing all of the
presentations, the class votes on which proposal should receive the pooled
grant money. The money is then donated to an organization that carries out
the intervention identified by the student."
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Gender & Culture/Prejudice: A public education project on intersecting
identities
http://www.socialpsychology.org/action/2012honor3.htm
Kim Case won an honorable mention in the 2012 Social Psychology Network
Action Teaching Award competition with this entry: "Intersectionality is a
feminist sociological theory that describes how biological, social, and
cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, and other
dimensions of identity interact to create social inequality. In this
action teaching assignment, known as the "Intersections of Identity
Education Project," students learn about intersectionality and carry out a
public education project that teaches others about the ways that
intersectionality can lead to social injustice. These projects, which are
developed with feedback from community members whose identity they
concern, include videos, documentaries, games, workshops, handouts, and
other educational materials. Once students have developed these materials
and activities, they use them in a public education project and then write
a paper connecting their project to course readings, theory, and concepts.
The paper also includes feedback from the community and a discussion of
what the student learned."
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General: Action research to improve the quality of life on campus
http://www.socialpsychology.org/action/2012honor2.htm
Subscriber Larry White won an honorable mention in the 2012 Social
Psychology Network Action Teaching Award competition with this entry: "The
main idea behind this action teaching assignment is that students design,
implement, and assess a behavior change project to improve the quality of
life on campus. In the first phase, the class identifies feasible
behavioral interventions that apply social psychological principles.
Students then work in teams to develop their project, presenting a
preliminary version to the class for feedback and drafting an action
research proposal that (1) describes the intervention, (2) explains why it
should work, and (3) discusses how the outcome will be assessed. Once
these proposals are approved, the teams implement their intervention,
evaluate its effectiveness, and present the results at a research poster
session that is widely publicized and open to the public. After the poster
session, each student caps off the experience by writing an APA-style
research report that describes the project and its results." Nice work,
Larry.
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Examples
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/examples.htm
Attitudes & Behavior/Prejudice: Prior attitudes influence attitude
formation
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/
strong-support-for-gay-marriage-now-exceeds-strong-opposition/
African-Americans have generally been opposed to same-sex marriage, until
now. What might have changed their attitudes? President Obama, whom they
also favor, recently has come out publicly in support of same-sex
marriage. A lot of other social psych concepts are in play here. Can
your students identify several of them?
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Helping: Identifiable-victim effect
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/16/
personalizing_civil_liberties_abuses/singleton/
We are more likely to help identified victims than unidentified or
statistical victims. Here's an example of personalizing victims, in this
case a group that many are uninterested in helping to begin with.
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Prejudice: Racial profiling
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/10/481589/
nypd-stop-and-frisk-young-black-men/
"In 2011, NYPD made more stops of young black men than the total number of
young black men in New York."
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The Self: Cognitive dissonance
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-may-8-2012/bad-credit
Jon Stewart reviews some recent examples in the news of how people try to
reconcile contradictory thoughts.
Articles
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/articles.htm
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Social Judgment: Are liars good lie detectors?
http://bit.ly/HPV5Z2
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2012/05/
skilled-liars-make-great-lie-detectors.html
Yes, according to this research. The first link is to the research; the
second link is to a blog entry about it.
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The Self: "I read Playboy for the articles"
http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-018.pdf
http://www.economist.com/node/14739888?story_id=14739888
"They asked 23 male students to choose between two sports magazines, one
with broader coverage and one with more feature articles. The magazine
which also happened to contain a special swimsuit issue was picked
three-quarters of the time, regardless of the other content. But asked why
they chose that particular magazine, the subjects pointed to either the
sports coverage or the greater number of features—whichever happened to
accompany the bikinis." The first link is to the research article; the
second link is to a popular press article about it.
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Student Resources
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/student.htm
Writing Resources: Videos on writing topics
http://pages.turnitin.com/webcastche.html
Turnitin provides a number of webcasts on topics such as good thesis
statement writing while combating plagiarism and peer editing and the
writing process.
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Writing/Research Resources: Annotated bibliographies
http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/library/help/help/
ask_librarian/general/?guide_id=132945
Here's an excellent resource for students on how to create good annotated
bibliographies.
Study Resources: Study skills
http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html
Some good study skill resources from the Cook Counseling Center at
Virginia Tech
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Topic Resources
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/topics.htm
Aggression: Are lactating moms more aggressive?
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2011/9/21/
one-tough-mutha-lactation-facilitates-moms-aggressive-behavi.html
Interesting study -- or as asked in this blog entry -- are lactating moms
more likely to go all Wild Kingdom on you?
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Aggression/Gender & Culture/Prejudice: Afghan school girls poisoned
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/
afghan-school-attack_n_1538705.html
"More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the
second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the
country's north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday.
The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals
opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic
powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left
unconscious."
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Attraction and Relationships: Some "cracked" relationship advice
http://www.cracked.com/funny-4420-advice-about-relationships/
For your amusement, possibly.
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Attraction & Relationships: "Is watching The Bachelorette bad for your
relationship?"
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2011/7/12/
is-watching-the-bachelorette-bad-for-your-relationship.html
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Interesting blog post from Science of Relationships
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Attraction & Relationships: "Who says 'I love you' first in a
relationship?"
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/
2011/3/25/who-says-i-love-you-first-in-a-relationship.html
Attraction & Relationships: Relationship humor
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/
2012/5/2/your-relationship-is-like-a-math-test.html
Okay, I found it amusing.
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Gender & Culture: "What happens when men get treated like women"
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/05/23/489372/dangelo/
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html
Here's an interesting essay about the artist D'Angelo and how his
sexualization may have helped undermine his career. It reminds me of an
essay by Gloria Steinem entitled "If men could menstruate." You can read
it at the second link.
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Gender & Culture/Prejudice: Gender wage gap by occupation
http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/68595
A 2012 report on 2011 data from the Institute for Women's Policy Research
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Methods: Facebook research site
http://psych.wustl.edu/robertwilson/
Authors of a recent article reviewing research on Facebook have created an
excellent website to keep track of such research: Facebook in the Social
Sciences. You can find an extensive bibliography of Facebook research and
other resources.
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Prejudice: "Federal anti-gay hate crimes law gets first test in Kentucky"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/
hate-crime-harlan-county_n_1534421.html
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Prejudice: Native American mascots in schools and sports
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-small-talk/
201205/the-native-american-mascot-tribute-or-stereotype
Subscriber Sam Sommers provides some good commentary on related recent
events and research on the question of whether the use of Native American
mascots is harmful or helpful.
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Prejudice: Racist babies?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/
racist-babies-nine-month-olds-bias-faces_n_1477937.html
"New research indicates that by the time they are 9 months old, babies are
better able to recognize faces and emotional expressions of people who
belong to the group they interact with most, than they are those of people
who belong to another race."
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Prejudice/Psychology in the Courtroom: "Illegal racial discrimnation in
jury selection"
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html
A 2010 report from the Equal Justice Initiative
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Technology in Teaching
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/technology.htm
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Audio
Attraction & Relationships: Relationship Matters Podcast Series
http://spr.sagepub.com/site/podcast/podcast_dir.xhtml
Listen to experts in their fields discuss their work -- affiliated with
the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
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Video
Attraction & Relationships: Why your soulmate isn't that special
(mathematically, that is)
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2012/5/26/
if-relationship-scientists-were-funny-wed-be-like-this-guy.html
A great song by Tim Minchin -- thank you Science of Relationships
(http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/) for making me aware of it!
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General: "The five year engagement"
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In a recent TIPS listserv email, Marie Helweg-Larsen shared these thoughts
about a recent movie, The Five Year Engagement, that includes a social
psychologist as a main character. "'The five year engagement' is a
romantic comedy at a theater near you. The primary female character is a
social psychologist who gets a 2-year post doc at the University of
Michigan (several shots of the “department of psychology” sign there and
lot of college scenes) causing the couple to move there from San Francisco
and her fiancée to give up his job as a chef. Their adjustment to Michigan
is presented as one of the stressors in their relationship in addition to
issues with the supervising professor (no spoilers!).
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A couple of notes of interesting/awkward scenes
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-the primary experiment the lab group discusses is delayed gratification
in the famous “don't eat the marshmallow” (they even show some footage of
kids trying to not eat the marshmallow). In the adult version they want to
offer stale donuts and tell the participants that they can wait for 20
minutes to get fresh ones. The lab also suggest a mood manipulation in the
experiment. They don’t present the dependent variable very clearly
(presumably it would have to measured over time). That part seems pretty
well done (like the script writers actually talked to some research/social
psychologists). There is an odd scene in which the lab researchers are all
looking through the one way mirror at the gathered participants and the
lab researchers are negotiating whom among them should deliver the key
instructions about the donuts. Obviously in real life that would have been
carefully rehearsed ahead of time.
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-when she discusses her results she says that she “found a 25%
correlation” (yikes). Presumably you would not find correlations in an
experiment!
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-a scene when the primary character first gets to U of Michigan shows her
supervising professor lecturing in a social psychology class about
obedience. The fire alarm goes off and as students get ready to leave the
professor reassures them that it is not necessary even though you can see
fire fighters rushing upstairs. Students sit back down and he then talks
about authority and then reveals that the fire alarm and fire fighters
were all a spoof. The only odd thing here is that it appears that the
primary character is a student (or maybe TA?) in the class which she
obviously would not be if she were hired as a post doc. I assume the
filmmakers could not figure out how to introduce this scene other than by
sticking her in the class room.
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Oh and at the end the issue of delayed gratification come up in the
content of their relationship. Should you should eat the donut (slight
stale as it might be) or wait for something better? I don’t know if
research has examined the issue of delayed gratification in the context of
romantic relationships! Anyway, for those of you teaching social
psychology the topic of the accuracy of this movie might come up.
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Prejudice: Prejudice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw&feature=player_embedded
Another great song by Tim Minchin
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Prejudice: Best of Stewart and Colbert on gay marriage
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/jon-stewart-stephen-
colbert-best-gay-marriage-segments-video_n_1518165.html#s=977288
Here's a good collection of bits from The Daily Show and the Colbert
Report on the topic.
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How Do You ... ?
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Ever wonder how your fellow social psych instructors handle a certain
topic or issue in their courses? Then send me your "How Do You..?"
question and I will try and post it here. If I get some answers I will
post them in the following issue.
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Request Line is Open!
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Yes, I take requests; in fact, I encourage them. Are there particular
types of resources you would like examples of? Particular topics you are
interested in? Teaching tips? Technology
tips? I want to tailor this newsletter to your needs. So, please feel
free to send me your requests, suggestions, comments and resources. Send
them directly to me (jfmueller@xxxxxxxxxx)
or by replying to this message.
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The Teaching Social Psychology Newsletter is published monthly (hopefully)
by
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Jon Mueller
Professor of Psychology
30 North Brainard St.
North Central College
Naperville, IL 60540
jfmueller@xxxxxxxxxx
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu
Copyright, Jon Mueller 2001-2012.
.
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===============
Jon Mueller
Professor of Psychology
North Central College
30 N. Brainard St.
Naperville, IL 60540
voice: (630)-637-5329
fax: (630)-637-5121
jfmueller@xxxxxxxxxx
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu
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