shallow focus photography of black microphone

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In: 02. Research Methods, 06. Social Perception, 11. Social Psychology, Intro to Psych, Principles of Social Psych

During the COVID lockdown, Yale psychological scientist Brian Scholl “found himself reacting unexpectedly to two of his colleagues. One was a close collaborator with whom Scholl usually saw eye to eye, and the other was someone whose opinions tended to differ from his own. On that particular day, though, he found himself siding with the latter colleague” (Nuwer, 2025, p. 18). After the meeting, it occurred to Scholl that his close collaborator “had been using the junky built-in microphone of an old laptop, whereas the one with whom he typically disagreed had called in from a professional-grade home-recording studio” (Nuwer, 2025, p. 18). Could audioRead More →

person going up the stairs

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In: 02. Research Methods, 04. Self, 06. Development, 12. Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination, Intro to Psych, Principles of Social Psych

This is the fourth in a series of posts based on Becca Levy’s book Breaking the age code: How your beliefs about aging determine how long & well you live. **** In my last post, I wrote about how beliefs about aging can affect memory now and even a whopping 38 years later. Researchers have found similar results for physical functioning. Becca Levy and  colleagues “found that those with more positive self-perceptions of aging in 1975 reported better functional health from 1977 to 1995, when we controlled for baseline measures of functional health, self-rated health, age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status” (B. R. Levy etRead More →

side view photo of elderly man holding a paint brush

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In: 02. Research Methods, 06. Development, Intro to Psych

This is the third in a series of posts based on Becca Levy’s book Breaking the age code: How your beliefs about aging determine how long & well you live. ******* When research participants over the age of 60 were subliminally primed with words associated with wisdom, e.g., sage, accomplished, astute, they performed better on memory tests. When primed with words associated with senility, e.g., dementia, confused, decrepit, the participants performed worse. When younger participants were primed with the same words, they showed no difference in memory test performance (B. Levy, 1996). While that study demonstrated a short-term effect, Levy wondered how this would playRead More →

assorted books on shelf

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In: 01. Welcome to Psych, 02. Research Methods, 03. Biopsych, 04. Sensation & Perception, 05. Consciousness, 06. Development, 07. Learning, 08. Memory & Cognition, 09. Intelligence & Language, 10. Emotions & Motivation, 11. Social Psychology, 12. Personality, 13. Psychological Disorders, 14. Therapy, Intro to Psych

Intro Psych is the most difficult course we teach because we are not experts in the vast majority of the content. We rely on our Intro Psych textbooks—the one we adopted for our class and a stable of others that our students will never see—to help bring us up to speed in our weaker areas. Those who are lucky enough to have the funds go to conferences where they can hear experts who bring our knowledge up to date. For example at the 2025 Psych One Conference, we heard Kenneth Carter talk about how we can use high sensation-seeking behavior to help our students thinkRead More →

Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research

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In: 02. Research Methods, 03. Biopsych, 04. Sensation & Perception, 05. Consciousness, 06. Development, 07. Learning, 08. Memory & Cognition, 09. Intelligence & Language, 10. Emotions & Motivation, 11. Social Psychology, 12. Personality, 13. Psychological Disorders, 14. Therapy, Intro to Psych

Are you looking for new ways to introduce original psychological research to your Intro Psych students? In this freely available journal article, authors identified 14 articles from the open access Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, each relevant to one of 14 typical chapters in an Intro Psych textbook (Rouse et al., 2025). For each identified article, the authors provide the reference information for the article, the abstract, key terms, and five questions. The questions are intended to be used by an instructor to prompt students to reflect on each of the sections of a journal article. For example, for an article on procrastination (GregoryRead More →

red white and black labeled box

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In: 02. Research Methods, 05. Attitudes, Behavior, & Persuasion, 11. Social Psychology, Intro to Psych, Principles of Social Psych

Unnamed researchers at the University of Zurich created 34 false Reddit accounts that represented diverse demographics, such as “a male rape survivor, a trauma counselor, and a Black person who disagreed with the Black Lives Matter movement” (O’Grady, 2025, p. 570). From these accounts, the researchers posted AI-generated content in the changemyview subreddit. Their hypothesis was that if AI used information about the person who originally posted their point of view, AI could create a more persuasive argument. After 1,500 posts over four months, the researchers reported that their AI-generated posts resulted in more deltas, which are what readers give for posts that were influentialRead More →

close up shot of a toddlers feet

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In: 02. Research Methods, Intro to Psych

In Agnes, a comic strip by Tony Cochran, the protagonist is an eccentric little girl who lives with her grandmother and who often shares her quirky ideas with her best friend, a girl nicknamed Trout. In the May 17, 2025 strip, Agnes is sitting on the floor of her classroom with her shoes off. When asked to get back into her seat, Agnes explains that she was just “giving the toes a bit of the old ‘tug-a-roo’ because doing so “aids cognition and promotes relaxation.” The last panel is a common one for Agnes—she is visiting the principal’s office. In Intro Psych, after covering experimentsRead More →

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In: 02. Research Methods, 05. Consciousness, 06. Development, 07. Learning, 10. Emotions & Motivation, 11. Social Psychology, Intro to Psych

In this New York Times article (gifted to you), the writer Frances Dodds tells us the tragic story of how her sister’s four children came to live with the writer’s parents, the children’s grandparents (Dodds, 2025). Grandparents being responsible for raising their grandchildren is not an unusual occurrence. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that in 2023, 2.1 million grandparents were doing so. With very little effort, I can think of many “grandfamilies” I currently know or have known, including neighbors, my extended family, colleagues, and students. In my teaching and writing, I try to honor such families by referring to caregivers rather than parents. WhenRead More →