man in black shirt and gray denim pants sitting on gray padded bench

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In: 06. Development, 10. Emotions & Motivation, Intro to Psych

My father died of cancer when I was a teenager. He was 52. I didn’t realize how young he was until I surpassed his age. My father died in middle age. It wasn’t his middle age. I’ve never liked covering death and dying at the end of the Intro Psych lifespan chapter. By putting death after discussion of being an older adult, the implication is that that is the right time to die. Everyone who dies before their 80s or 90s has evidently done life wrong. That doesn’t sit well with me. In my Intro Psych textbook, the previous author had placed death and dyingRead More →

snowy pine forest at copper mountain co

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In: 10. Emotions & Motivation, Intro to Psych

The 2024-2025 ski racing season is underway. Mikaela Shiffrin, at the age of 29 holds the record for the most World Cup alpine skiing wins with 97. She blew past the previous record holder, Ingemar Stenmark, who had 86 wins. Stenmark’s record was set in 1989 and was thought to be unbeatable. In alpine skiing, winners are commonly determined by tenths of a second. In a recent race, less than a second and a half separated the top eight racers (Zaccardi, 2024). All racers work to improve their technique in order to improve their speed. Their goal is not to win; their goal is toRead More →

close up photo of person holding pizza

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In: 07. Learning, 13. Psychological Disorders, Intro to Psych

It’s another fall Sunday in the U.S., so it’s another day of TV commercials featuring NFL players. I know that being a middle-aged woman does not make me the target demographic, but the Little Caesars ad featuring George Kittle still rankles. Let me get this out of the way first. Yes, that is Caesars plural, not Caesar’s possessive. I can make peace with that. I can believe that there are a bunch of little Caesars, not just one who has pizza. Now for the commercial. Give it a watch. Again, I recognize I’m not the demographic, but I don’t understand how watching 11 people (includingRead More →

Cannabis silhouette clip art psd

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In: 05. Consciousness, Intro to Psych

An estimated 43.6 million people in the U.S. who are 12 or older—that’s 15.4%—reported using marijuana in the last month. The largest group of people who used in the last month? They would be 18 to 25 year olds; 25.2% (8.6 million or so) (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2024a). How about daily use? In 2023, an estimated 15.7 million people in the U.S. who are 12 or older—that’s 5.6%—reported using marijuana daily or almost daily. The largest group of daily users? Yes, that would be 18 to 25 year olds again; 9.2% (3.1 million or so) (Substance Abuse and Mental Health ServicesRead More →

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In: Intro to Psych, Principles of Social Psych, Teaching Thoughts

On the right side of this blog site is an area called Psych-Related News. Scroll down for the most recent news. In my own news feed, I scroll through a few hundred articles (and 30+ comic strips) every day. When I see an interesting article (or comic strip) that may be appropriate for one of my book chapters or for this blog, I tag it. It’s the most recent 15 of those tagged articles (or comic strips) that appear in the Psych-Related News area. If you have your own news feed reader (I use Inoreader) and would like read the Psych-Related News at your leisure,Read More →

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In: 10. Emotions & Motivation, Intro to Psych

Cartoonists are often astute observers of people. Since cartoonists usually don’t name the psychological concept that they are illustrating, their cartoons can provide excellent fodder for class discussion. Before we get to the discussion, note that the comic strip below is part of the Go Comics family which uses Andrews McMeel licensing. Be sure to read their classroom usage statement to ensure that you do not inadvertently violate copyright law. Before beginning this activity, make your students understand the different types of emotion regulation (McRae & Gross, 2020). Situation selection. We select a particular situation in order to experience a particular emotion. For example, ifRead More →

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In: Intro to Psych, Technology for Academics (archive)

Friends and colleagues, We’ve had a good run! This blog started in 2009 as a way for me to keep track of how to do stuff. And then you all came along and learned right along with me. Perhaps you noticed that my posts to this blog have been reduced to barely a trickle? These days my energy has moved away from technology to psychology. Writing has kept me busy. For example, I have three psychology textbooks: Introduction to Psychology (with Charles Stangor), Principles of Social Psychology (with Charles Stangor; publishing Fall 2024), and Teaching Psychology: A Step-by-Step Guide (with Doug Bernstein and Steve Chew).Read More →

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In: 08. Memory & Cognition, Technology for Academics (archive)

A group of psychological scientists have identified 25 principles of learning. Of those 25, this group identified 9 to explore in greater depth as they relate to instruction. In this series of posts, I’ll look at each in turn, discussing some of the relevant technologies that can be used to take advantage of those principles. The first in the list: “The single most important variable in promoting long-term retention and transfer is ‘practice at retrieval’—learners generate responses, with minimal retrieval cues, repeatedly, over time.” In short, if students are going to be able to retrieve what they learned later they have to practice retrieving now (theRead More →