[net-gold] [socialpsy-teach] TSP Newsletter - Vol. 9, No. 6
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:55:08 -0500 (EST)
.
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:25:42 -0600
From: Jonathan Mueller <jfmueller@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: socialpsy-teach@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [socialpsy-teach] TSP Newsletter - Vol. 9, No. 6
Teaching Social Psychology Newsletter
Vol. 9, No. 6
February 24, 2010
the e-mail newsletter accompanying the
Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology website at
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow
I appreciate all the feedback I get on the Newsletter, including new
ideas. It is not always easy to convey one's true meaning in email, so I
sometimes may confuse or mislead you. One reader understandably was taken
aback from a statement in my last issue when in an item on violating
social norms I linked to a picture of an actress with hairy legs. I then
said, "If you can stomach it, click on a link in the above article to see
a picture." As I told this reader, that line (if you can stomach it) was
meant as a joke. I was gently poking fun at some of our silly cultural
norms. Many other cultures have no problem with women's body hair. But,
of course, in email it is not always easy to convey subtle humor. Perhaps
long time subscribers have a sense of my perspective on things, but newer
subscribers may not. Sorry for any confusion.
On to more important stuff...as you may remember from the last issue,
subscriber Nora Murphy asked for some other ideas to illustrate the
concept of priming in her courses. Nora presented a list of words related
to tides but that did not include the word "tide." She then asked her
class to write down what detergent they use (after some filler tasks).
Students overwhelming reported "Tide." But many students were skeptical
that this is the result of priming. Perhaps that is just the detergent
most of them use. So, Nora asks, how else can she present the concept?
Subscriber Larry White suggests that Nora include a control group who was
not primed with tide-related words. Similarly, subscriber Diane Sunar
suggests that half the class receive one type of prime and the other half
receive a different type of prime. Then you could compare the results.
However, in both cases, the priming words could no longer be presented
aurally. But it could still work. Half the class could be given a list
of tide-related words on a sheet of paper initially handed to them face
down. The other half would get a different list. (For example, in the
original DRM false memory studies (e.g.,
http://memory.wustl.edu/Pubs/1995_Roediger.pdf), one list included bed,
rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore,
nap, peace, yawn, and drowsy. A large % of participants falsely reported
that the word "sleep" was in the list.) Either immediately or after a
filler task, students could be asked two questions: 1) Was the word
"sleep" in the list of words you just read? and 2) What detergent do you
use? Then reveal the two lists and find out how students in each group
answered the two questions. Actually, Question 1 will probably work
better if you also pick a couple of words on the "sleep" list and a couple
of non-sleep-related words that were not on the list. In other words, ask
them whether or not the following five words were on their list, and then
ask them what detergent they use.
Or, you could spread the demo out over the term, doing the second part
when you are ready to talk about priming. I just love the "clean spirit"
priming studies in which a below-threshold cleaning smell in a room primed
participants to give more cleaning-related responses. Earlier in the term
you could have students perform the word completion task in Experiment 1
of the cleaning study (which can be found at
http://www.ru.nl/contents/pages/299083/96aritkelpsych_science_clean_spirit.pdf).
Then, later in the term, after spraying a faint cleaning smell in the room
before students arrive(!), repeat the word completion task. The
differences in the above study were quite large between the experimental
and control conditions, so you might find such an effect. Or, you can try
the task in Experiment 2. Or, you can bring and hide a freshly baked
plate of chocolate chip cookies into class the second day and see if they
respond differently to hunger-related questions or requests than they did
to the same questions/requests earlier in the semester. (If you try this
last idea, and it works, please send me a dozen chocolate chip cookies as
a thank you. Actually, send four dozen, and I will send a dozen to Nora,
Larry, and Diane as well. That's a joke. See above.)
Class Assignments
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/assignments.htm
General: Variety of assignments http://psyc336.stasson.org/lectsyl.pdf
Mark Stasson offers a variety of assignments in his Social Psychology
syllabus.
General: Six short essays
http://www.devpsy.org/teaching/social_psychology/social_psychology_graduate_core.html
Several interesting essay assignments from Kevin Grobman's graduate Social
Psychology course
Presentation: Readings article talk
http://www.ubishops.ca/outlines/winter2009/pdf/psy246.pdf
Scroll down this syllabus to find assignment from Leo Standing's Social
Psychology II course in which students present a research article
accompanied by PowerPoint slides.
Activities and Exercises
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/activities.htm
Attraction and Relationships: Conversational Analysis
http://tinyurl.com/y8hqnfj
http://ocw.nd.edu/sociology/introduction-to-social-psychology/lectures/class-conversation-structure
Here is an activity from Jessica Collett's Social Psychology course in
which students analyze possible conversations they might have. The first
link takes you to the activity; the second link takes you to some
background info on conversational structure.
Conformity: Authority in the classroom
Joe Wayand passed along this activity he conducts in his classroom: When I
cover the Milgram experiment, I show some of the original Obedience film
(most libraries have it). [Ed. note: Or you can show the segment on
Milgram's studies from the "The power of the situation" episode in the
Discovering Psychology series which is freely available online
at http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=1516.] I make sure that
I will run out of class time before I run out of video. Then I tell
students "I know we're almost out of time, but I want you to stay and
watch the rest of the video." Then at about 1 minute past, I again say "I
know we're running late, but it's important that you watch the rest of the
video." The students are very restless at this point, but typically they
will stay seated. 3 minutes past... 4 minutes past... Often I have to
"let them off the hook" by parroting the language of the experimenter:
"It is essential that you remain until the video has ended." "After the
video is over, I will rewind the video and we'll continue watching from
the beginning." Finally it will dawn on a student that I am tricking
them. As that first student gets up to leave, I yell: "Sit down! You
must remain and watch the video!" The student usually keeps leaving, and
I keep yelling. "I'm Dr. Wayand! I demand that you return to your seat!"
At this point, half the students are smiling, and the other half are
horrified. Eventually they get the joke, and I continue ordering them to
return as they all file out of the classroom. This really gives the
students a personal taste of the conformity that's all around us. They
understand it's not just "other people" who are subject to conformity. At
the start of the next class, we discuss what it felt like, etc. You have
to be a little brave to try this stunt, but the students really remember
it.
Social Beliefs: Eyewitness memory tests
http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Memory-in-the-Classroom
Two good eyewitness video activities that you can easily conduct in class
Social Psychology and the Sustainable Future: Several activities
http://www.teachgreenpsych.com/tg_socialpsychology.html#link
Examples
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/examples.htm ;
Gender and Culture: Pink (and less powerful) science equipment
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/the_powerlessness_of_pink.php
"This is a page from a Toys 'R Us catalog, illustrating some science toys,
and note the odd distinctions being made. Both the telescope and the
microscope come in special pink versions ... and note also ... that in
every case the pink model is less powerful than the black and gray model."
Helping: Guilt http://tinyurl.com/yefftvc
Fascinating story of Aki Ra who was forced at age 5 to plant land mines
for the Khmer Rouge. "Ra regretted what he had done during his time in
the Khmer Rouge—and he vowed to spend the rest of his life making it up to
his fellow Cambodians. He remembered where he had buried many of the land
mines, and knew how to quickly and safely disarm them. So, armed only with
a metal detector, a small pocketknife, and several other small tools, he
began locating land mines on the ground and disarming them by hand....So,
for more than 20 years, Ra has traveled through the Cambodian countryside,
disarming thousands of active mines and leading safety education programs
for villages. Though the mines are filled with TNT and could detonate at
any second, Ra has never been injured in his work."
Prejudice: Competition http://tinyurl.com/ybuzpxo
Apparently, they don't like short-track skater Apolo Anton Ohno very much
in South Korea. I can't help it -- I keep calling him Yoko.
Online Lectures
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/lecture.htm
Most topics (sociological social psychology) - Instructor: Jessica Collett
http://ocw.nd.edu/sociology/introduction-to-social-psychology/lectures/lectures-and-materials
Most topics - Instructor: Dan Gigone
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~dgigone/social/
Most topics - audio lectures - Instructor: Dacher Keltner
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978522
Most topics - audio lectures - Instructor: John F. Kihlstrom
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2010-B-74441&semesterid=2010-B
Articles http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/articles.htm
Attraction and Relationships: Happiness reduces the value of familiarity
http://psy2.ucsd.edu/~pwinkiel/devries-winkielman_warm-glow_ONLINE-FIRST.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/yasge9v
"In a series of experiments, researchers compared participant reactions to
familiarity under happy, sad, and neutral mood conditions. In the first
experiment, they found that under general conditions, when the mood
variable was not manipulated one way or another, people prefered
familiarity. But following experiments showed that sad participants
strongly preferred familiarity over the neutral condition (indicated in
both self-reports and facial electromyography – EMG). Happiness,
however, eliminated this preference. It’s worth noting that happiness did
not in any way reduce the level of familiarity – it simply reduced its
value (decreased the 'warmth of its glow')." The first link is to the
research article; the second link is to a blog entry about it.
Helping: Clean scents promote altruism
http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/facBios/file/Smell%20of%20Virtue%20Psych%20Sci.pdf
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/02/the_english_language_is_full.php
So, I mentioned the cool cleaning smell priming study above. Well, here's
another. "Two experiments demonstrated that clean scents not only
motivate clean behavior, but also promote virtuous behavior by increasing
the tendency to reciprocate trust and to offer charitable help." I'm
going to start carrying some Febreeze with me wherever I go. The first
link is to the research article; the second link is to a blog entry about
it.
Persuasion: Sin taxes versus subsidies
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/02/04/0956797610361446.full.pdf?rss=1
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2010/02/salvo-in-calorie-war.cfm
Clever study which asked are you more likely to change people's healthy
shopping behavior by taxing the unhealthy or subsidizing the healthy
food. "To put it bluntly, taxes worked and subsidies did not." The first
link is to the research article; the second link is to a blog entry about
it.
Social Beliefs: "How framing affects our thought processes"
http://davidhardisty.info/downloads/2010-ADirtyWordOrADirtyWorld-HardistyJohnsonWeber.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/yky6fw2
"David Hardisty and colleagues have dug a little deeper into framing, to
show first, that these kinds of effects can interact with people's
political persuasion, and second, that they can act by altering the order
of people's thoughts." The first link is to the research article; the
second link is to a blog entry about it.
Topic Resources http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/topics.htm
Aggression: Dominance/disadvantage in movies Avatar/Blind Sides
http://tinyurl.com/yb8sveg
Aggression/Prejudice: "Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/04/girl-buried-alive-turkey
Conflict and Peacemaking: The conflict in Northern Ireland
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/northern_ireland/understanding/
http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/hidden/links.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/
More resources from BBC News Online (first link), The Art Gallery,
University of Maryland (second link), and PBS (third link)
Conformity: Coordinated behavior among humans and other animals
http://tinyurl.com/ydp85gh
Interesting blog entry describing why animals evolved the ability to
coordinate novel behaviors, such as the fascinating video included of a
flock of starlings avoiding a predator
Conformity: "Public behavior in private spaces" http://tinyurl.com/yhwzfec
For example, how do mall rules affect behavior?
Gender and Culture: Men and marriage
http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2010/02/men-and-marriage.html
A blog entry comments on recent research: "A recent Pew Research report
indicates that there has been a major reversal: according to their
analysis, men actually benefit financially more from marriage than women
do."
Gender and Culture/Persuasion: Anti-smoking ad in France
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/europe/24france.html?hp
"A new French antismoking advertisement aimed at the young that plays off
a pornographic stereotype has gotten more attention than even its creators
intended, and critics suggest that it offends common decency and creates a
false analogy between oral sex and smoking."
Gender and Culture/Prejudice: "The look of young Hollywood"
http://socialpsychologyeye.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/the-look-of-young-hollywood/
"This month Vanity Fair magazine released their Young Hollywood issue,
featuring celebrities that they proclaim are the new wave in Hollywood.
However, a quick glance at the cover reveals that their selections seem to
be particularly homogenous: all of the picks are attractive, thin, white,
and female."
Group Influence: Going with the social flow http://tinyurl.com/ykhch99
"The key finding is that the participants in the high interdependent
condition were rated as more joyful than participants in the low
interdependence condition, based on self-report and on scores given by
trained observers who watched their facial expressions and body language."
Helping/Prejudice: Differences in empathy or us-vs-them mentality
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/empathic-myopia-by-digby-glenn.html
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/14/haiti/index.html
Two interesting essays on how broadly we extend our empathy to "others"
Prejudice: The "Guido" stereotype on the TV show "Jersey Shore"
http://socialpsychologyeye.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/the-situation-with-the-jersey-shore/
Prejudice: Colorism and light-skinned Blacks http://tinyurl.com/yclftvw
Psychology in the Courtroom: Race and gender of judges matters
http://tinyurl.com/yl2jdp8
Social Beliefs: Jumping to quick conclusions in the Alabama shooting
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-small-talk/201002/shoot-first-ask-questions-later
Subscriber Sam Sommers provides some more good social psychological
commentary on a current news tragedy.
Social Beliefs: Doubting your doubt = confidence?
http://tinyurl.com/yl4tw6o
If you doubt your doubt you will be more confident than if you are
confident in your doubt? So the study says. "For instance, by turning a
belief that one is definitely going to fail into a belief that one might
fail, a therapist could help inspire a client to overcome the paralysis of
hopelessness."
Social Beliefs: "'Counterfactual' thinkers are more motivated and
analytical http://tinyurl.com/yhavs4q
Social Beliefs: The Ellen Langer story
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/21/mind_power/
Interesting article about Ellen Langer and some of her fascinating
research
Technology in Teaching
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/technology.htm
Images
Conflict and Peacemaking: Images from Bloody Sunday
http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/hidden/tour/intro.html
"Hidden Truths: Bloody Sunday, 1972 probes one of the great tragedies of
recent Irish-Anglo history, the shooting by British soldiers of Irish
civil rights protesters in Derry, Ireland, on Sunday, January 30, 1972."
Video
Aggression: Anti-teenage dating violence ad
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8515601.stm
In the U.K., "An advertising campaign is being launched to raise awareness
of domestic violence in teenage relationships."
How Do You ... ?
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.
Request Line is Open!
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.
The Teaching Social Psychology Newsletter is published monthly (hopefully) by
Jon Mueller
Professor of Psychology
30 North Brainard St.
North Central College
Naperville, IL 60540
Copyright, Jon Mueller 2001-2010.
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Jon Mueller
Professor of Psychology
North Central College
30 N. Brainard St.
Naperville, IL 60540
voice: (630)-637-5329
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