​Get the App!
The iScore 5 AP Psych app is now available for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store for Apple devices or Google Play for Android devices.
 
iTunes  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iScore5.Psych&hl=en
Google Play https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iscore5-ap-psychology/id6739144070

App Description 
iScore 5 AP Psych is an app designed to help students achieve high scores on the AP examination. The app makes exam review entertaining and engaging for students. The creators have designed an app that functions as a game, helping students master all the CED vocabulary words for AP Psychology. The app, however, goes beyond merely learning basic vocabulary by challenging students to master multiple-choice questions in levels of increasing difficulty. The questions have been written by experienced AP Psychology teachers and college professors of psychology, all of whom are also AP exam readers.
 
The app's interactive interface is easy to navigate, and students can return to study mode at any point during the game to practice basic vocabulary. The app tracks a running score, enabling students to monitor their progress and gain a deeper understanding of the concepts they will need to know for the exam. Within each level, including the study mode, questions and practice items are organized by units, allowing for targeted study of specific areas in the AP curriculum.
 
The app is also an effective way for students to prepare for classroom unit exams, midterms, and finals. Because it is portable and easily accessible via phone or tablet, students are more likely to review more frequently. Even if students only have five or ten minutes to review at a time, this will result in an impressive increase in knowledge of psychology content due to the spacing effect.

 
Prepare for the AP Psychology Exam with iScore5
 
Study Level: All of the concepts from the updated CED are organized by AP Psychology unit and presented in a flashcard format. The study level is available for review at any level of the game.  

Play Level: Four levels of increasingly difficult multiple-choice questions.

​Level 1:  Vocabulary questions are organized by each of the AP Psychology units and presented in a multiple-choice format. Level 1 provides 20 terms at a time for each unit, so it is recommended that students play this level often, as the app generates a different set of terms each time the student plays.
 
Levels 2, 3, and 4:  These levels contain a set of multiple-choice questions in an AP format for each of the AP Psychology units in the CED. Each level increases in difficulty, ranging from level 2 (general understanding) to level 3 (intermediate) and level 4 (advanced). The correct answer to each question is explained, regardless of whether the student provided the correct response.
 
Practice Exam
Students are given the same amount of time they will have during the official AP Psychology exam (90 minutes) and are provided with their total score. After completing the practice test, they can review the questions they missed and see answer explanations. 

Reset: On the home screen, students can press the reset button to restart the game at any point, allowing them to play as often as they like.
 
The iScore5 AP Psych app provides students with a fun way to review for the exam.  Because all the questions are crafted by expert AP Psychology teachers and university psychology professors, the quality of the questions is very similar to what students will see on the AP exam.

​
 
Get the App!
The iScore 5 AP Psych app is now available for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store for Apple devices or Google Play for Android devices.
 
iTunes (iPhones and iPads) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iScore5.Psych&hl=en

Google Play (Android phones and Chromebooks) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iscore5-ap-psychology/id6739144070
 
Other Apps Available from iScore5
The iScore5 company also offers review apps for other Advanced Placement topics, including AP United States Government and Politics, AP World History, and AP Human Geography. Visit the main iScore website for information about these other programs: http://www.iscore5.com.
 
Social Media
For more information about iScore5 AP Psych, visit the company website or follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
 
Website:
http://www.iscore5.com/apreg-psychology.html
 
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/iscore5/
 
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/iscore5/

The Essential Guide to Effect Sizes: Statistical Power, Meta-Analysis, and the Interpretation of Research Results
Author: Paul D. Ellis
ISBN-10: ‎ 0521142466
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0521142465
 
APA Style Citation
Ellis, D. (2010). The essential guide to effect sizes: Statistical power, meta-analysis, and the interpretation of research results. Cambridge University Press.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Effect-Sizes-Interpretation/dp/0521142466
​

​Book Description
What is an effect? Effects are everywhere—they result from treatments, decisions, accidents, inventions, elections, outbreaks, performances, etc. Researchers measure the size of effects, with statistical significance indicating the likelihood that results occurred by chance, and practical significance focusing on their meaning. Social sciences increasingly emphasize the need to report effect sizes alongside statistical significance to reduce bias and move beyond relying solely on p-values. This book explores three interconnected activities: interpreting effect sizes, analyzing statistical power, and conducting meta-analyses, which together form the foundation for robust research.

Part 1: Effect Size
Psychologists must address the “so what?” question by emphasizing the practical significance of their studies. A statistically significant result is unlikely due to chance, but practical significance reflects real-world impact. Researchers must communicate findings not only to peers but also to the public. Effect sizes, which measure the impact of treatments or the relationship between variables, are essential for interpreting study results, yet many researchers fail to report them. Effect sizes fall into two main categories: the d-family (differences between groups, such as Cohen’s d) and the r-family (measures of association, like correlation coefficients). Both are standardized metrics that can be calculated using tools like SPSS. When reporting effect sizes, researchers should specify the measure used, quantify precision with confidence intervals, and present results in clear, jargon-free language.
 
Even when effect sizes and confidence intervals are reported, they are often left uninterpreted, raising questions like “How big is big?” or “Is the effect meaningful?” Non-arbitrary reference points are essential for assessing practical significance, guided by the three C’s of interpretation: context, contribution to knowledge, and Cohen’s criteria. Small effects can be meaningful in the right context if they trigger larger consequences, alter probabilities of significant outcomes, accumulate into bigger impacts, or lead to technological breakthroughs or new insights. Interpreting contributions to knowledge requires more than comparing study results; researchers must also consider alternative explanations. Jacob Cohen’s 1988 criteria for small, medium, and large effect sizes offer a logical foundation and a starting point for resolving disputes about significance. While Cohen’s “t-shirt size” classifications are easy to understand and widely used, they remain controversial, with critics arguing against rigidly categorizing effects as small, medium, or large.
 
Part 2: Power Analysis
In any study, the null hypothesis assumes no effect (effect size = 0), while the alternative hypothesis assumes an effect (effect size ≠ 0). Statistical tests calculate the p-value, the probability of observing the result if the null hypothesis were true. A low p-value indicates statistical significance, allowing researchers to reject the null. Errors can occur: a Type 1 error (false positive) happens when researchers detect an effect that doesn’t exist, while a Type 2 error (false negative) occurs when they miss a real effect. Type 1 errors (α) and Type 2 errors (β) are inversely related; reducing one increases the other. Statistical power, the probability of detecting a true effect, depends on effect size, sample size, alpha significance criterion (α) level, and statistical power, with Cohen recommending a power level of 0.80. Underpowered studies risk missing meaningful effects, while overpowered studies may waste resources or highlight trivial findings. Power analysis, often done during study planning, helps determine the minimum sample size needed to detect anticipated effects. Researchers estimate effect sizes using prior studies, meta-analyses, pretests, or theory, aiming for conservative estimates to ensure adequate power. Tools like online calculators simplify these calculations, which are crucial for designing efficient and meaningful research.
 
Power analyses can be conducted for individual studies or groups of studies with a common theme or journal. In the 1960s, Jacob Cohen analyzed the statistical power of research published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology and found it lacking—a trend later confirmed across other fields. Published research is often underpowered, and the multiplicity problem arises when multiple statistical tests increase the likelihood of false positives. The family-wise error rate becomes relevant when multiple tests are run on the same data, as even low-powered studies can yield statistically significant results if enough tests are conducted. This can lead to practices like “fishing” for publishable results or HARKing (hypothesizing after results are known). To improve statistical power, researchers can focus on larger effects, increase sample sizes, use more sensitive measures, choose appropriate tests, or relax the alpha significance criterion.
 
Part 3: Meta-Analysis
Single studies rarely resolve inconsistencies in social science research, especially in the absence of large-scale randomized controlled trials. Progress often comes from combining results from many smaller studies. A qualitative approach, or narrative review, documents the story of a research theme, while the quantitative approach, meta-analysis, focuses on observed effects rather than others’ conclusions. Meta-analysis combines these effects into an average effect size to assess the overall direction and magnitude of real-world impacts. By statistically analyzing statistical analyses, meta-analysis systematically reviews research on a specific effect, weighting individual effect sizes by their precision to calculate a weighted mean effect size. This provides a more accurate estimate of the population effect size than any single study. Though designed to be objective, transparent, and disciplined, meta-analysis can still be undermined by biases, leading to precise but flawed conclusions. Each step in the process must be recorded, justified, and open to scrutiny, with the process generally broken into six key steps. See the classroom activity for details.
 
Large-scale randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for estimating effect sizes, but due to their cost and time requirements, research often starts with small-scale studies. When large trials follow a meta-analysis, comparisons can reveal inconsistencies, as meta-analyses may produce misleading conclusions. Bias in meta-analyses can arise from excluding relevant research, including bad studies, using inappropriate statistical models, or running underpowered analyses. The first three lead to inflated effect size estimates and increased Type I errors, while the fourth results in imprecise estimates and higher Type II errors. Excluding relevant research causes availability bias, and reporting bias occurs when only significant results are published. Studies with non-significant findings are often rejected, contributing to the "file drawer problem," which inflates mean estimates or increases Type I errors. P-values reflect sample size as much as effect size, meaning small samples can miss important effects. Non-significant results are inconclusive, indicating either no effect or insufficient power to detect one. Excluding non-English studies introduces bias. Discriminating studies based on quality also risks bias, scientific censorship, dismissal of valuable evidence, and overlooks differences in quality that can be controlled statistically.
 
Overall, this book provides information to help students evaluate psychological research. It explains the importance of effect sizes for understanding real-world significance and statistical power for designing studies that produce reliable results.
It includes a detailed discussion of meta-analysis, a method used to find broader patterns and trends in research while showing students how to recognize and avoid potential biases.
 
Other Related Resources

Author's Website- Check out FAQs

Author’s Website- Check out FAQshttps://effectsizefaq.com/about/
Psychological Concepts and Figures
Alternative hypothesis
Bias
Confidence intervals
Effect size
Generalize
HARKing
Meta-analysis
Null hypothesis
Qualitative
Quantitative
Replication
Sample size
Standard deviation
Statistical significance
Type I error
Type II error
Correlation coefficient

​Book Description
The book reflects over 20 years teaching a course on Relationships at Portsmouth High School, NH and incorporates other work with youth and young adults at the University of New Hampshire, Phillips Exeter Academy, New Beginnings youth programs, and other schools and agencies in New Hampshire and Maine.  I have also taught at the University of New Hampshire, The University of Massachusetts – Lowell, Fisher College and Hesser College. Currently, I am an instructor at Great Bay Community College.
 
Teaching Teens about Relationships describes how to teach a relationships course for adolescents, including many learning activities and instructional strategies, along with student reactions to it. The course integrated mindfulness work into each session and examined such topics as flirting, jealousy, infidelity, gossip, starting and ending relationships and other ubiquitous aspects of adolescent relationships rarely found in school curricula.
 
Incorporating student perspectives and experiences was essential to the course’s success. Students created their own material for use in acquiring and practicing relationship skills. Students provided the content to work with activities addressing communication issues, problem areas, sexuality, and the importance of relationships in their lives. They provided an extensive and diverse pool of information and experience that formed the basis of our discussions. This student-centered approach gave me access to their experiences, concerns, values, and strengths. The course gave them access to a safe environment to discuss issues that were in the forefront of their lives.
The book provides guidance for secondary and community college teachers and counselors and professionals working with adolescents in out-of-school settings, such as group homes, agencies, and faith communities. It describes how to develop a course or program series on romantic relationships and the rationale for doing so. 
 
It begins by explaining the importance of establishing and maintaining a safe classroom environment to allow a diverse group of students to participate freely and fully.  Readers will learn how to approach each class as a unique experience, tailoring content and methodology to the students in a particular class. There is an emphasis on how to involve the students in determining content.
 
The book contains over 120 instructional strategies, including experiential activities, dyad and small group tasks, music and artistic expressions, role-playing, writing exercises, and quizzes. It addresses how to include beliefs and theories about relationships, mindfulness and communication skills, starting, building, and ending relationships, sexual decisions, problem-solving, and defining love. 
This publication is more than a how-to teach resource about relationships. It is also a story of the experiences of students who took the relationship course. In keeping with the spirit of reciprocity integral to a responsible relationship, readers are encouraged to communicate their thoughts, reactions, questions, ideas, or critiques with the author via email or his webpage.
 
Note: That discussing relationships can be triggering and should be led by an experienced individual with proper training in the field to address any potential trauma or vulnerabilities that may arise. 
 
Chapter Descriptions 
The Introduction explains the antecedents and development of the course. It describes the students who took this elective Relationships course and their motivations for registering. It previews the  content of the succeeding chapters.
Chapter 1 details how the initial sessions served to build comfort, trust, and safety among the students so that sensitive issues could be best addressed later in the course. Substantial time is spent on group-building activities, including the identification of group agreements to guide participation and class interactions. 
Chapter 2 contains activities and practices that recurred throughout the course. Its primary focus is on mindfulness training, with sample meditations and active mindfulness exercises.  It also includes the use of music as an instructional tool, describing how students presented their chosen songs about relationships and led group discussions regarding the songs’ messages.  
Chapter 3 takes a careful look at family connections and acknowledges that a range of experiences exists in families of origin and family constellations. How these early experiences might influence future relationships is examined, including a study of developmental stages and attachment theory as ways to help explain and understand the impact of earlier experiences.
Chapter 4 addresses friendships. This involves a look at expectations and realities, good times and not-so-good times. The chapter investigates such student concerns as the role of gossip among peers, joys and troubles among friends, beliefs about friendships, and loneliness, the lack of friends. Some common relationship themes are introduced here, with a look at how friendships might affect romantic relationships. 
Chapter 5 begins the focus on romantic relationships by identifying beliefs students bring to the relationships they establish and experience. Students scrutinize their own beliefs and values and those of their classmates and investigate beliefs common to different cultures. Myths and long held beliefs are compared to psychological research. The chapter also notes how the Arts portray beliefs about relationships. 
Chapter 6 examines the science of relationships through theories developed from research using the scientific method and conceptual thinking. These theories provide ways to explain how relationships begin and develop, and what factors contribute to problems and breakups.  Studying theories hones students’ abilities to reason and reflect and provides tools for identifying and combatting biases.
Chapter 7 focuses on how relationships begin, from first impressions through early interactions to growing connection. Using my own dissertation research, the stages of starting a relationship are explored. Important communication skills and strategies are practiced.
Chapter 8 provides an in-depth training in communication skills. Beginning with practices in developing listening skills, the chapter breaks down the dynamics of the communication process, examining the mechanics in a challenging, rigorous, and innovative training. Youth provide topics and situations to apply their training in lively conversational practices and feedback sessions.
Chapter 9 builds on the basic communication skills by integrating emotional content into practice. Attention to enhancing emotional intelligence to inform their communication processes helps students learn to honor and respect their own and others’ feelings while engaged in conversation.
Chapter 10 utilizes a strength-building approach, seeing problems as learning opportunities for youth. A key feature engages students in creating most of the content by identifying the problems they think are important to work on.  Respect for youth’s abilities to work through even the most difficult issues centers this work. The chapter addresses youths’ need for skills to perceive, understand, negotiate and resolve differences. It shows how to help them develop awareness of their own and their partner’s perspectives and to use strategies for dealing with conflict. It addresses difficult problem areas related to infidelity, jealousy, dating violence and abuse. 
Chapter 11 shows how to engage students in open and honest discussions of sexual issues. Beginning with a full discussion of the components of the consent process for sexual activities, the chapter shows how to allow and encourage students to identify and assess various experiences of sexual touch according to values, motives, impact of the partners involved and other criteria. As in the chapter on problems, students are encouraged to supply much of the content for discussion. The chapter applies communication skills to sexual topics and provides an opportunity to talk about what youth consider to be a first sexual experience. The chapter includes the use of movies to discuss sexual issues. It ends with students defining what constitutes a healthy sexual relationship. 
Chapter 12 addresses endings in relationships and concludes with the ending of the course and the relationship we had built as a class. It looks at why and how relationships end. Once again, pertinent communication skills are included. Special attention is given to ending abusive relationships and the impact of parental separation and divorce on children and youth. The course ends by honoring the students’ participation in this course with a selection of closure experiences.
 
Other Related Resources
Author website: Chuck Rhoades – Writing, Training, and Consulting on Psychological Health Education
Publisher website: Rowman & Littlefield.
Publication flier: Chuck Rhoades, Teaching Teens Flyer.pdf
Amazon link: Teaching Teens About Relationships: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors, and Youth Group Facilitators - Kindle edition by Rhoades, Chuck. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Goodreads link: Teaching Teens About Relationships: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors, and Youth Group Facilitators by Chuck Rhoades | Goodreads
Sex Ed Lecture Series Presentation link: Teaching Youth about Relationships | Sex Ed Lecture Series (square.site)

Psychological Concepts and Figures
Ainsworth, Mary
Allport, Gordon
Bowlby, John            
Ekman, Paul, 106
Erikson, Erik 
Sternberg, Robert
 
Abuse
Active listening
Adolescent development
Attachment 
Attraction
Bisexual youth 
Commitment 
Communication   
Confidentiality 
Conflict 
Consent 
Contact hypothesis 
Emotional intelligence 
Family 
First impressions
First sexual experiences
Gender 
Gender-fluid youth 
Gender non-conforming youth 
Identity
Inclusion 
Intimacy 
Lesbian youth 
LGBTQ+
Meditation 
Mindfulness 
Reciprocity
Sexual behavior
Sexual communication 
Sexual orientation
Substance use
Transgender
Trauma
Triangular Theory of Love
 

Brain Hacks:  Life-Changing Strategies to Improve Executive Functioning
​Author: Lara Honos-Webb, PhD
ISBN number: 13. 978–1641521604
 
APA Style Citation
Honos-Webb. (2018). Life-changing Strategies to Improve Executive Functioning. Althea Press.
 
Buy This Book
BRAIN HACKS: Life-Changing Strategies to Improve Executive Functioning: Honos-Webb PhD, Lara: 9781641521604: Amazon.com: Books

Book Description
According to the APA dictionary, executive function refers to a wide range of high-level cognitive processes (planning, decision-making, problem-solving, action sequencing, task assignment and organization, effortful and persistent goal pursuit, inhibition of competing impulses, flexibility in goal selection, and goal-conflict resolution. These skills often involve language, judgment, abstraction, concept formation, logic, and reasoning). They are related to neural networks in the frontal lobes and especially the prefrontal cortex.
 
Although there is no definitive set of executive functions (researchers define them differently), in Brain Hacks, the author focuses on five specific areas of executive functioning: focus and attention, planning and organization, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and impulse control. Each of the areas is interconnected, and increasing one ability will improve the others. The author is a practicing clinical psychologist who shares her ideas for improving executive functioning across multiple areas. The text begins with short yes/no questionnaires for each of the five executive functioning areas.
 
Sample Questions from the Organization and Planning Executive Function Assessment

• Do you have multiple calendars or apps to manage your time, yet use them infrequently?
• Do you miss out on opportunities because you forget to follow up or track important contacts you have made?
• Do friends, teachers, or family members complain that your space is sloppy?

 
By counting the number of yes responses, students will have a general idea of which of these areas of executive functioning are the most likely sources of challenges or problems. The areas with lower numbers of yes responses are areas of greater strength.    
 
The book provides specific exercises and methods to improve each area of executive functioning, which can be incorporated into classroom activities and projects. Improving in these areas of functioning, according to author Lara Honos-Webb increases personal, academic, and professional success. Improving executive functioning also can lead to increased work-life balance, reduced stress, and improved relationships. The exercises emphasize how small, continual efforts over time create meaningful growth. 
 
Each chapter emphasizes a separate area of executive functioning, provides a summary and background information, including psychological and biological influences, and ends with a bulleted list of key takeaways. There is also a series of exercises, tips, and special “brain hacks” to improve executive functioning. Brain hacks are tips for using the mind’s innate abilities to learn and improve to the greatest advantage. The book is designed as a tool to be used continually instead of being read once as inspiration and is laid out efficiently to find ways to increase functioning in everyday life mindfully. In the psychology classroom, the “brain hacks” and exercises can become engaging classroom activities and projects that allow students to apply what they learn in a personal manner. These activities can be spread across various units in a psychology course, including motivation and emotion, stress and health, neuroscience, memory, clinical, and developmental to increase student engagement and build metacognitive skills.

Psychological Figures and Concepts
Cognitive flexibility
Emotional regulation
Executive functioning
Exposure therapy
Fixed mindset
Focus and attention
Growth mindset
Impulse control
Metacognition
Motivation
Multitasking
Neuroplasticity
Planning and organization
Prefrontal cortex
Resilience
Working memory

ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—from Childhood through Adulthood
Author: Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., and John J. Ratey, M.D.
ISBN-10: ‎0399178732
ISBN-13: 978-0399178733
 
APA Style Citation
Hallowell, E & Ratey, J. (2021). ADHD 2.0: New science and essential strategies for thriving with distraction—from childhood through adulthood. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-2-0-Essential-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0399178732
​

Book Description
Authors Edward Hallowell and John Ratey are psychiatrists who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Their personal knowledge both in the field and in life offer a valuable perspective on ADHD, a condition that occurs in at least 5 percent of the population. ADHD is often misunderstood as individuals who are lazy or disrespectful, a condition that children will grow out of, or a condition created by pharmaceutical companies. The authors hope to dispel these myths and see the strengths of this condition, while focusing on some tools for management. Hallowell and Ratey often explain ADHD with the analogy, “A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength breaks. It’s the mismatch of engine power to breaking capability that causes the problems. Strengthening one’s brakes is the name of the game.”
 
ADHD is different for everyone, but there are some commonalities. Some of these indicators include distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Optimism and creativity have also been associated with ADHD. Rather than a deficit of attention, there is actually an overabundance of attention that can be challenging to control. There can also be an intolerance of boredom and a need for stimulation. There is often a set of contradictory tendencies, such as a lack of focus mixed with hyperfocus or procrastination mixed with a surge of productivity. This is just a sampling of the telltale signs of ADHD. As for the cause of ADHD, there is a highly genetic component and certain environmental stressors, such as lack of oxygen at birth, early infections, or other brain functioning problems. The mother’s behavior during pregnancy can also raise the risk for ADHD. Another explanation is the modern lifestyle that has been training our brains to go faster, multi-task more frequently, and require constant stimulation. The authors introduce a new term called VAST: the variable attention stimulus trait. This term refers to individuals with ADHD symptoms, but not meeting the criteria for a diagnosis. The term is also meant to shift away from attention deficit to the variability of attention and detoxify the label of ADHD. The focus has often been on the problematic side of the condition, but there are useful tendencies associated with ADHD as well.
 
Hallowell and Ratey provide the brain basics and explain current research findings. They walk the reader through the task-positive network (TPN) and default mode network (DMN) and take care to explain the difference between a neurotypical brain and someone with ADHD. They also explain the cerebellum and vestibular system’s connection to ADHD. The cerebellum is involved in physical balance, but it has also been found to control emotional equilibrium. By working doing exercises to increase balance, it has helped control the braking power needed with ADHD. Hallowell and Ratey share a particularly powerful case study of a young boy in China who was struggling with ADHD. After his mother attended a talk done by Dr. Hallowell, the two corresponded through email to set up a treatment program. The treatment program was set up based on connection, education, a strength-based model, and balance exercises. Within a few short weeks there was great improvement for the child.
 
Several chapters are dedicated to providing a better understanding what helps with ADHD and offer tools for therapy. Not feeling understood and a lack of connection often plague individuals with ADHD. Tips are provided for creating rich social connections. Boredom is the kryptonite for those with ADHD and many problematic behaviors become present when bored. But it is the strengths that are often ignored. A strength-based model is about identifying and using those strengths while being appropriately challenged. Creating the right environment can be powerful. This includes organization and daily structure, proper nutrition and sleep, surrounding oneself with positivity, and finding the right type of help. Behavioral therapy, such as applied behavioral analysis (ABA), has been found particularly helpful to develop a new set of skills, and social learning for adjusting to social situations. Exercise has also been found to be beneficial to improve mood and motivation and maintain focus. Studies have found that after just 20 or 30 minutes of moderately paced exercise subjects have increased their focus. Using brain breaks in the classroom is encouraging movement. To enhance balance, yoga and meditation have also been found helpful. The authors also acknowledge the tool many fear, which is medication. The use of stimulants has been found effective on average 70 to 80 percent of the time. The authors encourage using a risk/benefit analysis and discussing the medication options currently available. They explain the difference between methylphenidate and amphetamine medications. Many wonder why the use of stimulants for a hyperactive brain, but that stimulants raise the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, both of which are not balanced in the ADHD brain. Hallowell and Ratey point out the stimulants stimulate the brain’s brakes, providing more control. They also discuss stimulant-like drugs, outlier drugs, and the concern of addiction and abuse.
 
ADHD is not the same for everyone. With the power of knowledge and a better understanding of the condition, hopefully individuals can learn to reframe their thoughts and actions. Rather than seeing all of the problems, there are also strengths associated with ADHD. There is amazing potential, creativity, and energy. The authors leave the reader with, “Each of us finds a different way; there is no one right way. But what a liberating message it is for all of us to know that no brain is the best, and each of us has the magnificent, lifelong chance to find our own brain’s special way.”
 
Other Related Resources
Dr. Hallowell, The Hallowell ADHD Centers
https://drhallowell.com/2020/12/18/21444/

ADHD 2.0: A Conversation with Author Ned Hallowell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7_R7EXTYNA

Distraction Podcast: ADHD 2.0 Reveals New Science and Strategies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgb7bzfE__I

WHYY PBS, "ADHD 2.0" with Dr. Edward Hallowell
https://whyy.org/episodes/adhd-2-0-with-dr-edward-hallowell/

Psychological Concepts and Figures
Ivan Pavlov
B.F. Skinner
 
Addiction
Amphetamines
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Behaviorist movement
Cerebellum
Creativity
Dopamine
Epigenetics
GABA
Gratitude
Heritability
Longitudinal study
Meditation
Nature v. nurture
Neuroplasticity
Norepinephrine
Rumination
Sleep apnea
Social learning
Applied behavioral analysis (ABA)
Stimulants
Task-positive network (TPN)
Default mode network (DMN)
Variable attention stimulus trait (VAST)
Vestibular system

Brain Bytes: Quick Answers to Quirky Questions About the Brain
Author:  Eric Chudler and Lise Johnson
ISBN-13:
9780393711448

APA Style Citation
Chudler, E. H., & Johnson, L. A. (2017). Brain bytes: Quick answers to quirky questions    
about the brain. W.W. Norton & Company.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Bytes-Answers-Quirky-Questions/dp/0393711447​

Book Description
 
If you cover neuroscience in your psychology course, you know it is a fascinating topic about which students have many questions. In Brain Bytes, Quick Answers to Quirky Questions, neuroscientists Eric Chudler, Ph.D., the Executive Director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the University of Washington, and Lise Johnson Ph.D. who is a  scientist in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington teamed up to provide you with some of the answers.  Chudler has an amazing website (see other related resources) called Neuroscience for Kids, which is a treasure of information, activities, and resources for students of all levels interested in learning more about the brain that is updated regularly.
The book provides answers to questions commonly asked by introductory psychology students and is organized into twelve key categories. The authors encourage students to keep asking questions and to verify the responses presented with other sources. The book also includes several key appendices that provide even more information. The twelve categories are listed below, along with a sample of the research questions that are presented for each topic area.
 
Ancient Neuroscience

• Did people always believe that the brain was important?
• Did people really believe that the bumps on a person’s head would say something about a person’s intelligence and personality?

 What’s Under the Hood?

• How did  parts of the brain get their strange names?
• How are the two halves of the brain connected?
• Do we get more neurons after we are born?
• Does the brain really use electricity to send messages?

 People

• What is the difference between a neuroscientist and a neurologist?
• Who was H.M.?
• Who was Tan?

 Intelligence

• Are there foods that make people smarter?
• Does listening to music make you smarter?
• Does watching television, playing video games, or surfing the Internet kill brain cells?

 Memory

• Is memory like a tape recorder, flash drive, or hard drive?
• Can memories be erased?
• What was so special about Albert Einstein’s brain?

 Sleep

• Why do we sleep?
• Why do we dream?
• Can you learn while you’re asleep?
• What is lucid dreaming?

Sensation and Perception

• Would I feel anything if my brain was touched?
• Do all people experience pain?
• What is phantom limb pain?
• What is synesthesia?
• What causes color blindness?
• Why can’t I tickle myself?

 Drugs, Venoms, and Addiction

• Does alcohol kill brain cells?
• How does coffee wake me up?
• Is marijuana addictive?
• Is ecstasy dangerous?
• What animals have venom that attacks the nervous system?

 Popular Culture

• How do you become a brain researcher?
• Does the brain work like a computer?
• Why do songs get stuck in my head?

 Technology

• Can a computer be used to control my brain?
• Are brain transplants possible?
• What is a cochlear implant?
• What is brain stimulation?

 Medicine

• What is schizophrenia?
• What is prion disease?
• Can marijuana be used to treat epilepsy?
• What is face-blindness?
• What is the most common mental health issue?
• What is electroshock therapy, and why is it used?

 Brain Health

• What can I do to keep my brain healthy?
• What happens to the brain as it ages?
• Why do my eyes hurt when I walk outside after being inside a movie theatre?

  
For even more information about brain facts and neuroscience trivia, consider subscribing to the authors monthly Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter. This monthly email will keep you updated on the latest information on the website and in the field of neuroscience.  The newsletter includes the latest updates to the website, a neuroscience website of the month, neuroscience in the news, information on contests and research programs, media alerts, and a section titled “Treasure Trove of Brain Trivia.”
  
Other Related Resources
 
Neuroscience for Kids Website
https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html
 
Brain Bytes Eric Chudler and Lise Johnson Talks at Google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdI0Qv0g3cU
  
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Paul Broca
Walter Freeman
Phineas Gage
Galen
Franz Joseph Gall
Patient H.M.
Oliver Sacks
William Beecher Scoville
Tan
Karl Wernicke
 
Addiction
Amnesia
Aphasia
Brain imaging
Brain regions
Catatonia
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
Color vision
Dissociative identity disorder
Face blindness
Hallucinations
Hearing loss
Hypnosis
Hormones
Lucid dreaming
Medications 
Memory
Mental illness
Neurons, neurotransmitters, and neural transmission
Neurological diseases
Neurologist
Neuroscientist
Neurotoxins
Neurotransmitters
Pain
Perception
Psychoactive drugs
Rorschach test
Sleep
Split-brain
Stroke
Traumatic brain injury
Venom
 
 

​Author:  Carmine Gallo
ISBN: 978-1-250-04112-8

APA Style Citation
Gallo, Carmine (2014). Talk Like TED:  The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds.  New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Buy This Book
​​www.amazon.com/Talk-Like-TED-Public-Speaking-Secrets/dp/1250041120

Book Description
The TED Conference, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, has been around since 1984 but did not become well known until they began posting videos of their trademark 19-minute presentations online for free.  Author Carmine Gallo is a communications expert and the author of the bestselling book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.  Gallo examined over 500 TED presentations and added insights from research on persuasion and communication to generate a list of the critical aspects of highly engaging presentations. Talk Like TED offers nine key public-speaking tips utilized in some of the most well-known presentations.  The tips for giving great talks are organized into three broad categories:  Emotional (they touch the heart), Novel (they teach something new), and Memorable (they present ideas in a unique manner).  As teachers, we frequently deliver content to students in a presentation form, and this book can provide a variety of tools to use to increase student engagement and learning.  Each chapter describes a method used in the most successful TED talks including specific examples and insight from the speakers. One of the best aspects of this book was stopping periodically to watch the amazing TED talks discussed in the book!
 
EMOTIONAL
The first third of the book is devoted to the three tips in the category related to emotional factors that “touch the heart.”  In chapter one, “Unleash the Master Within,” the author discusses the importance of choosing topics to discuss in which you have personal passion and interest.  According to the author, “the first step to inspiring others is to make sure you are inspired yourself.”  An excellent example of a TED talk that exemplifies passion was given by University of Waterloo Economics professor Larry Smith titled, “Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career.”  Smith discusses that although college students are told to pursue their passion most will not because “You’re afraid to pursue your passion.  You’re afraid to look ridiculous.  You’re afraid to try.  You’re afraid you may fail.”
https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career
 
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor gave one of the most watched TED talks of all time (about 20 million views).  The talk illustrates how having a strong emotional connection with the material leads to increased audience engagement.  Bolte Taylor’s talk is compelling because it involves a personal connection and exceptional storytelling.  TEDster Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor offers advice for teachers and other presenters, and that is to tell a story and demonstrate your passion for the topic. According to Bolte Taylor, “When I was at Harvard, I was the one winning the awards.  I wasn't winning the awards because my science was better than anyone else’s.  I was winning because I could tell a story that was interesting and fascinating and it was mine, down to the detail.”
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight 
 
 
Chapter two discusses how to “Master the Art of Storytelling” by illustrating how effective speakers utilize narratives to make an emotional connection with the audience.  For example, TED speaker Brene Brown famously begins her topic by defending qualitative research she conducts with the statement that “Stories are data with a soul.”  Effective storytelling engages each listener individually and allows them to become emotionally attached and to the ideas being presented.  Some of the most effective TED storytellers are discussed in this chapter including Brian Stevenson’s talk, “We Need to Talk About an Injustice” which led to the longest standing ovation in TED history (see earlier Books for Psychology Class post on his book Just Mercy).  The 1,000 attendees at Stevenson’s talk collectively donated $1 million dollars to his nonprofit, the Equal Justice Institute.  Stevenson raised $55,000 for every minute he spoke that day.  This TED talk was given without the aid of a PowerPoint, visuals, or props of any kind – a testament to the power of story. 
https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice
 
Another tip for an effective persuasive presentation according to the author, is to utilize Aristotle’s three components of effective persuasion ethos, logos, and pathos in the most effective ratio. Ethos refers to the credibility and credentials of the speaker, logos is the use of logic and data to make effective arguments, and pathos is the ability to appeal to the emotions of the audience.  When the author of the book analyzed the content of Brian Stevenson’s TED talk, he found it was 10 percent ethos, 25 percent logos, and 65 percent pathos or emotional appeal. Despite being 65 percent of pathos Stevenson’s talk has been rated as one of the most persuasive of all time. One of the ways the book recommends inserting pathos or emotional appeal is by including extreme moments. Dan Ariely, a psychologist and behavioral economist at Duke, introduces his talk on how research shows that people are predictably irrational with a dramatic personal story of his recovery from an injury that left him burned over 70 percent of his body.  Ariely’s talk is an excellent addition to the research unit for illustrating the need to test beliefs that are held intuitively through careful research methods. 
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code/transcript?language=en#t-102037
 
In chapter three, the author describes how effective TED presenters can use body language and verbal delivery to engage with the audience in a manner that feels authentic and conversational instead of an impersonal lecture to a large group.  The four elements of verbal delivery addressed in this section are rate, volume, pitch, and the effective use of pauses for emphasis.  One of the examples of effective nonverbal communications is a 2012 TED talk by a former Army general and U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell on the importance of providing children with structure early in life.  His speech is broken down to illustrate how particular gestures corresponded with the words he used during his speech. 
 
Another amazing TED talk that powerfully uses gestures to strengthen an argument was given by Ernesto Sirolli titled, “Want to help someone?  Shut up and listen!” is also broken down to highlight the expert use of gestures.  Sirolli’s talk discusses how his failure to listen led to failure for his NGO project designed to help increase food production in rural Zambia.  The project involved teaching people living in southern Zambia to grow Italian tomatoes and other vegetables.  Because the local population was uninterested, the NGO paid them to grow the vegetables.  Sirolli and his team were surprised that agriculture was not being used in this fertile region with excellent weather and soil.  According to Sirolli, instead of asking the people living there why they did not grow crops, they said, "Thank God we're here." Just in the nick of time to save the Zambian people from starvation." The result was that everything grew extremely well and we were telling the Zambians, "Look how easy agriculture is." When the tomatoes were nice and ripe and red, overnight, some 200 hippos came out from the river, and they ate everything. It was then that Sirolli asked the Zambians, “My God, the hippos!" and the Zambians said, "Yes, that's why we have no agriculture here." When Sirolli asked, “Why didn't you tell us?" the Zambians replied, "You never asked."
https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen
 
NOVEL
The second section of the book explains three aspects that contribute to an effective presentation because it is new and unique.  Kevin Allocca, who studies YouTube trends, stated this perfectly when he pointed out that in an era when two days’ worth of video is uploaded every two minutes, it is only the truly unique and original ideas that capture the attention of the online audience. 
 
The topic of chapter four, “Teach Me Something New,” describes how the best TED talks find a way to introduce new ideas or perspectives.  The author suggests that the titles of some of the most frequently viewed TED talks promise to teach something new such as “Schools Kill Creativity” (Sir Ken Robinson), “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (Simon Sinek), “The Surprising Science of Happiness” (Dan Gilbert), “The Power of Introverts” (Susan Cain), “8 Secrets of Success” (Richard St. John), and “How to Live Before You Die” (Steve Jobs).  Martha Burns, a professor at Northwestern, teaches how to use neuroscience to be a better educator and highlights the biology behind the “buzz” we experience when learning something in her powerful TEDx talk.  One of the best examples of teaching something novel is Hans Rosling's talk that makes statistics and correlations exciting and meaningful.  Rosling, an expert on global health, animates correlational data regarding health and wealth in a powerful demonstration.  You can view his entire talk at ted.com or view the abbreviated version titled:  200 countries, 200 years, 4minutes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
 
Novel presentations, according to chapter five, “Deliver Jaw-Dropping Moments,” in which presenters capture the attention and imagination of their audiences by using dramatic demonstrations or surprises.  Some of the most dramatic moments or “hooks” at TED talks have included Bill Gates releasing mosquitos and Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor who opens her talk by holding a human brain that is still attached to the spinal cord.  “Wow” moments can also come from a single shocking statistic.

• “This country is very different today than it was 40 years ago. In 1972 there were 300,000 people in jails and prisons. Today there are 2.3 million.  The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.”

Bryan Stevenson
 

• “Why are we ignoring the oceans?  If you compare NASA’s annual budget to explore the heavens, that one-year budget would fund NOAA’s budget to explore the world's oceans for 1,600 years.” 

Robert Ballard
 

• “One in a hundred regular people is a psychopath.  So there are 1,500 people in this room. Fifteen of you are psychopaths.”

Jon Ronson
 
Successful TED talks also hook new viewers by creating memorable headlines, which turn into sound bites that are often spread across social media.  TED even has a Twitter handle devoted to the catchy, memorable quotes that are likely to generate public attention (@TEDQuote). 
 

• “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”

Susan Cain
 

• “Don’t fake it till you make it.  Fake it till you become it.”

Amy Cuddy
 

• “Numbers are the musical notes with which the symphony of the universe is written.”

Adam Spencer
 
Chapter six highlights how the ability to “Lighten Up” by using appropriate and genuine humor can increase audience engagement.  The book provides numerous tips for adding humor to presentations, including quotes, short video clips, and anecdotes.
 
MEMORABLE
The final third of the book is dedicated to various ways to make your ideas and your presentation memorable.  Chapter seven, “Stick to the 18-Minute Rule,” explains why all TED talks are limited to 18 minutes.  This key rule was established because it allows enough time for thoughtful analysis, yet short it is enough to maintain audience engagement.  Research shows that information is remembered better if it is organized into related chunks, this has led TED to recommend that presentations be centered around three main areas or points that support one large overarching idea.  This concept can be applied to classroom presentations as well by limiting direct instruction to shorter chunks broken up with time for reflection and formative practice.  The 18-minute rule forces researchers to create a focused message that maintains attention levels, and that does not create what researchers call “cognitive backlog” or the problem in which too much information prevents the successful transfer of ideas.  There are also numerous other TED rules of three such as the Three A’s of Awesome:  Attitude, Awareness, and Authenticity which were shared by award-winning blogger and author of the Book of Awesome, Neil Pasricha in a TEDx talk.  https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome 
Kevin Allocca, a YouTube trends manager studies why some videos go viral, and others do not.  According to Allocca, 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, yet only a few will have millions of views.  In Allocca’s TED talk, he explains the three factors that contribute to the success of a video:  tastemakers, communities of participation, and unexpectedness.  Of course, there is also the three-minute TED talk titled “TED in 3 Minutes,” which has been given by individuals such as Arianna Huffington and New York Times tech columnist David Pogue.  The original three-minute talk was given by Terry Moore who showed the audience a better way to tie their shoes, which has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.  The rule of three suggests

1. Creating a Twitter-friendly headline
2. Support the headline with three key messages
3. Reinforce the three messages with stories, statistics, and examples

 
Chapter eight describes how effective speakers can “Paint a Mental Picture with Multisensory Experiences” and engage as many of the senses of audience members as possible.   For example, the best TED talks use memorable images, not excessive text on slides.  One of the major tips is for creating better more effective PowerPoint presentations by avoiding too much text and instead relying more on memorable images and other visuals.  One of the worst ways to present is PowerPoint karaoke in which the speaker reads text aloud off of the screen. The chapter includes several examples of successful TED talks that show the words being used by the presenter alongside a description of the images being displayed to audience members.  A powerful example of how words are delivered alongside dramatic images is Lisa Kristine’s TED talk about the hardships of indigenous peoples and the reality of the 27 million individuals living in modern-day slavery. https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery
 
The final tip for making your presentation memorable, “Stay in Your Lane,” is outlined in chapter nine. Staying in your lane means that your presentations need to be authentic and honest and speak from the heart.  One of the tips offered for “staying in your lane” is to practice by giving your presentation to a friend or family member first because when you have a close relationship with someone, you are more likely to show who you are. 
 
Talk Like TED is an excellent guide full of practical ideas for making your presentations, activities, and demos more engaging and effective.  The book is also an opportunity to learn about some amazing TED talks you may not have heard of before.  TED talks can be shown in class, assigned as homework to facilitate class discussions or offered as opportunities for students who want to expand their understanding of a particular area of psychology.  Another interesting way to use TED talks is to execute the demos or activities presented by a particular TED talk in class, and then after hooking students on the content, let your students know how to access the entire TED talk. Because many TED presenters are also authors, TED talks can be used to stimulate interest for students to read books related to their favorite TED talks or pursue research projects in areas related to what they watched. 
 
Other Related Resources
 
Author’s Website
Carmine Gallo’s website offers articles, videos, and links to other books.
http://gallocommunications.com/books/talk-like-ted-2/
 
The Top 20 TED Talks of All Time
http://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all?gclid=CjwKEAjwtNbABRCsqO7J0_uJxWYSJAAiVo5LuME8Z7o2-Ki6OahJAA2Liq3mJcpOAdNcrtYR4zRz0RoCKgPw_wcB
 
How to Sound Smart in Your TED Talk
Comedian Will Stephen’s take on how to give a TED talk and impress your audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o
 
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Dan Ariely
Aristotle
Paul Bloom
Jill Bolte-Taylor
Lera Boroditsky
Susan Cain
James Flynn
Daniel Gilbert
Malcolm Gladwell
Sydney Jensen
George Miller
Daniel Pink
Hans Rosling
 
10,000 Hour Rule
Altruism
Amygdala
Analogies
Dopamine
Dual-Coding Theory
Flashbulb Memory
Flynn Effect
Genius
Hippocampus
Imagery
Introversion
Linguistic Determinism
Linguistic Relativity
Magic Number 7 Plus or Minus 2
Multitasking
Neuroplasticity
Nonverbal Communication
Persuasion
Positive Emotion
Self-Esteem
Statistics 

​Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human
Author:  Elizabeth Hess
ISBN:  978-0-553-90470-3
 
APA Style Citation
Hess, E., (2008).  Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human.  New York: Random House.
 

Book Description
Nim Chimpsky is well-known for the part he played in a novel study to determine how language is acquired.  He worked with a number of instructors who tried to teach him American sign language.  Nim was taken from his mother just hours after his birth to be raised in a home with humans.  Stephanie La Farge (a former graduate student of the head researcher for the project) served as Nim`s initial mother and treated him just like one of her children to the extent this was possible with a chimp.  Nim took part in chores around the house, went to school to practice his sign language and loved roughhousing and getting tickles from his “siblings.” 
 
Chimps share 98.7% of their DNA with humans, so chimps were the logical choice to potentially teach researchers more about human language acquisition.  The debate regarding how we acquire language was primarily driven by B.F. Skinner and Noam Chomsky.  Skinner believed that language was learned by reinforcements for favored responses, while Noam Chomsky believed that language was inborn and that each person had an innate ability to learn language.  Herbert Terrance, of Columbia University, who headed Project Nim was a Skinnerian as he had studied under Skinner himself while at Harvard completing his doctoral degree.  Terrance was also hoping that Project Nimwould help shed light on how humans learn and use language.  Some believed that chimps could learn signs but not use them in creative and productive ways; Terrance set out to prove them wrong.
 
The La Farges found that caring for a chimp was more difficult than caring for a child.  Nim slept between the couple because he would not leave Stephanie`s side, destroyed many belongings, and while he was usually sweet and kind, as he grew, he became more dangerous and destructive.  One of the La Farge’s daughters, Jenny, also played a large role in Nim`s care asked if the family had a new baby or a new pet, it was a difficult question to answer.  The La Farges described themselves as the Brady Bunch - plus chimp.  
 
To make the process of learning sign language more official, Nim had multiple weekly meetings at Columbia University.  To determine if Nim had actually learned a new word, the sign had to be observed by at least three different people on at least five successive days.  At first, Nim was on the same schedule as a human deaf child might be in terms of the acquisition of new signs, but he often was reluctant to learn new signs and resisted his lessons.  He often threw temper tantrums to get out of learning.  Nim learned signs for the words sorry,stone,give, Nim, orange, and many more.  He eventually tapered off in his ability to learn new signs, learning roughly one new sign each month.  Progress could be extremely frustrating.  Nim did, however, thrive at reading the emotions of other people, and he could be quite manipulative.  
 
The La Farge family had to give Nim up after about a year because he was too much to handle.  Terrance was able to find an old mansion on the outskirts of New York City owned by the University to be used for the continuation of Project Nim.  While Nim had devoted teachers and handlers, he was growing quickly and would escape or bite his teachers with increasing frequency. He surprised neighbors by showing up at a birthday party and nearly bit a young child walking with his family nearby Delafield.  Finally, Terrance had to conclude Project Nimand send him back to the Institute for Primate Studies (IPS) affiliated with the University of Oklahoma where Nim was born.  Here, Nim lived a cage rather than being tucked into his bed with his stuffed animals after brushing his teeth.  Nim gradually adapted to this life and bonded with the other chimps, some of whom also had been involved with studies involving American sign language. Perhaps the most famous of these was Washoe who had been taught sign language from Roger Fouts who conducted the language research at the Institute. Nim, and the other chimps were frequently observed signing to one another and even were able to teach other chimps some basic sign language to communicate. 
 
When Terrance published his findings on Project Nim, many were surprised that he concluded Nim had not really learned language.  Terrance claimed that Nim was imitating his handlers and teachers, but it was just mimicking rather than productive language.  Nim did not often create new combinations of words, or if he did, they were often nonsensical such as “Give Nim orange, give, give.”  He concluded that Chomsky was right about the innate ability to learn language was exclusively reserved to humans.  
 
Eventually, the Institute for Primate Studies was disbanded after Oklahoma University cut funding of the research conducted there. The chimps were gradually sold off, and Nim was sent to the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery (LEM-SIP) in New York to be part of a study on hepatitis.  This was just a few miles away from where he had lived with the La Farge family but a completely different type of existence.  Because of Nim`s notoriety, he was saved after public outcry, but many of his fellow chimps did not fare as well and died in the hepatitis or other studies at LEM-SIP.  Nim was sent to the Black Beauty Ranch funded by Cleveland Armory who had made it his life`s work to save animals who had been mistreated or were in danger of being killed.
 
Because Nim alone was saved from the hepatitis study, he was caged by himself at the Black Beauty Ranch and became despondent and angry.  Chimps are very social and need contact with other chimps to thrive.  Eventually, Nim was joined by other chimps some of whom he had known at IPS in Oklahoma.  The chimp enclosure was gradually expanded to give the animals indoor and outdoor space in which they could thrive and get some exercise.  Nim bonded with many of the workers at the ranch, and they often ate their lunches in front of his cage, signing and sharing parts of their lunch. Nim sometimes escaped and would show up at the doorstep of some of the houses on the ranch where he was often welcomed in an offered a snack or a beer.  Stephanie La Farge went to visit Nim at the ranch, and he lashed out at her violently, as if he remembered that she had “abandoned” him many years before.  
 
On March 10, 2000, Nim was playing on his favorite tire swing when one of the workers at the ranch passed by on her way to prepare a snack, and Nim signed “hurry.”  When she returned with the snack a few minutes later, Nim was on the floor of his cage, he had died suddenly of a heart attack.  Nim died roughly 20 years too early, but in his short life, he gave much to researchers investigating language and touched the lives of many people in the process.  At his memorial service, many of those who had worked with Nim over the years gathered to celebrate “the chimp who would be human.”
 
Other Related Resources
Noam Chomsky on Nim Chimpsky and the Emergence of Language
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3w7h01
 
Documentary of Nim Chimpsky
http://www.coveringmedia.com/movie/2011/07/project-nim.html#trailers
 
The Sad Story of Nim Chimpsky
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-sad-story-of-nim-chimpsky
Betrayed by Science:  The Story of Nim Chimpsky
`Project Nim`:  A Chimp`s Very Human, Very Sad Life
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_04_012664.php
 
A tribute to my friend, Nim: By Bob Ingersoll one of Nim`s handlers at IPS
http://nimchimpsky.net/home
 
Columbia University: Herbert Terrance Studies Evolution of Language
https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/winter12/cover_story4
 
On the Myth of Ape Language:  Interview with Noam Chomsky
https://chomsky.info/2007____/
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Noam Chomsky
Charles Darwin
Franz Joseph Gall
Jane Goodall
Clever Hans
Virginia Johnson
Alfred Kinsey
William Masters
Steven Pinker
B.F. Skinner
Robert Yerkes
Washoe
 
 
Behavioral modification
Cerebral cortex
Clinical psychologist
Double-blind studies
Neurons
Operant conditioning chamber
Psycholinguists
Psychotherapist
Syntax
Transformational grammar
 
 

Against Empathy:  The Case for Rational Compassion
Author:  Paul Bloom
ISBN:  978-0-06-233933-1
 
APA Style Citation
Bloom, P.  (2016). Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, Harper Collins, New York, New York.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compassion/dp/0062339338
​

​Book Description
Paul Bloom knows that many people will read this book out of anger, with the intention and hope of refuting the argument that empathy is bad for the world.  I did. I wanted to find fault with the reasoning that placing ourselves in the shoes of someone else was somehow a danger to both ourselves and others.  While Bloom has not convinced me that empathetic behaviors cause more harm than good, I can acknowledge that sometimes his argument is strong.  He concedes that not all empathy is negative, but rather argues that on the whole, it is not beneficial.  He opens with an example of an adorable young girl who needs a kidney transplant.  Once we get to know this girl and understand that she will likely die without the transplant, we often demonstrate empathy by imagining what it might feel like if this was happening in our own family.  When given the opportunity to move this girl up the list of those waiting for the transplant, we may jump at the opportunity to save her and her family from their continued suffering.  Bloom argues that this would be a case of empathy leading to injustice.  The feelings of empathy for this young girl have prioritized her life over the lives of others also waiting for a kidney who were rightfully in line ahead of the girl with whom we empathize.
 
Bloom argues that one of the reasons most people are so deeply in favor of the concept of empathy is that is has been associated with many concepts such as compassion, sympathy, and kindness which are related to but not actually empathy.  Bloom makes it clear that he is in favor of kindness and compassion.  He believes that empathy causes us to make decisions that seem kind and compassionate but that can actually hurt more people than help. He argues that empathy is like cholesterol and has both good and bad types.  The first, cognitive empathy is the type of empathy in which a person can understand another person`s suffering but does not feel what they feel.  We can feel compassion or sympathy without feeling what the person themselves feel, Bloom argues that this is often the case when we help others.  If a child falls from a high jungle gym and breaks his nose, we will immediately try to help, but it is unreasonable to argue that we feel what he/she feels. Similarly, we can buy a gift that we think someone else will enjoy, without necessarily liking it ourselves; this is kindness but not empathy.  These concepts are often presented as interchangeable and interwoven, but Bloom argues that can exist as distinct entities.
 
The second type of empathy is emotional empathy; this occurs when we feel the pain of others, this is the emphasis of the book and the type of empathy that Bloom believes can blur the lines of morality, balanced reasoning and fairness and that which he argues against.  Bloom argues that empathy can be learned and socialized and is often employed to encourage people to “do the right thing.”  Children are often scolded by asking, “How would you like it if someone did that to you?”  Bloom argues that there needs to be more to morality than empathy and that in fact, they are distinct because they need not occur simultaneously.  If you see someone throw garbage out of his or her car window, this may upset you morally, but there is no empathetic element, you do not feel what the person does or for that matter what the garbage feels. 
 
Bloom uses the very emotionally sensitive topic of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in Newtown Connecticut as an example of how empathy can result in an unseen negative outcome.  While it is impossible to overestimate the tragedy that occurred in Newtown, More children were killed in the city of Chicago in a single year than those killed in Newtown.  However, the vividness of hearing the news of the Newtown victims and the painful emotions associated with this single event, makes the Newtown shootings stand out in our minds.  While the Chicago shootings may be covered daily in the paper they are not a single event, but rather multiple less salient events that are easier to forget. This availability heuristic created an outpouring of emotional empathy and gifts flooded into Newtown from all over the country.  Unfortunately, the gifts far exceeded what could be distributed in Newton a relatively affluent community, but many volunteers were needed to help store the gifts and toys even after Newtown officials asked that nothing else be sent. Bloom argues that this money could have been better spent saving lives by buying mosquito netting for children in Sudan and providing clean drinking water for those who have no access or meals to the elderly who do not have enough food.  In this way, people would be saving lives, but instead, their emotional empathy created a glut of teddy bears in a community that needed emotional support, but not tangible items and diverted resources from other potentially deadly situations.  
 
Bloom argues that this and other similar examples demonstrate that compassion is biased and often results in a cost-benefit net loss. Therapists who are too empathetic with their client’s problems face burn out and need to learn how to help their clients through the healing process without taking on the pain and suffering of their clients at the same time.  Bloom provides an example of a worker at the 9-11 sight looking for bodies when it was clear that they would find no more survivors, this person needed to try to dial back their empathy as they would otherwise have become overwhelmed and unable to help in the recovery efforts.  Surgeons may also need to practice this skill as too much empathy may inhibit their ability to do their job well.  The key here may to be employ understanding and caring rather than empathy. 
 
Empathy can also be counterintuitive; when we perceive that individuals play a role for creating a negative situation in their own life, we are likely to employ the just world phenomenon and demonstrate very little empathy even if it would be the kind and moral thing to do.  For example, if you found that someone was infected through HIV because they were an intravenous drug user who had used and infected needle, we might be likely to say that “it was their own fault.” Psychopaths are often said to lack empathy, but Bloom argues that criminal psychopaths have normal empathetic abilities, but they can dial it up to ingratiate themselves with people and then turn it down if they violate trust or engage in a criminal activity that may result in hurting others. Those with autism, unlike the criminal psychopaths, have little ability to empathize but do not have questionable moral behavior. Demonstrating Bloom`s argument that empathy and morality and not inevitable linked to one another. 
 
Bloom also discusses that the development of an in-group to whom we are likely to empathize and find similarities often creates and out-group may lead to stereotyping, dehumanization and unfair negative attributes.  While we can empathize with the victim of a crime or a family member who is suffering, Bloom argues that there are limits in empathy.  For example, if you heard that 30 people were killed in a flood in Indonesia, you would likely feel badly and perhaps empathize with the families of those killed or injured.  However, if you heard that 3000 people were killed in the flooding, would you feel 300 times worse?  We might go to herculean efforts to remove child trapped in a well, but do very little to try and change the climate which may over time results in the deaths of thousands more people.  Bloom uses quotes by both Stalin and Mother Teresa to demonstrate this point.  Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.  Mother Teresa, “If I look at the mass, I will never act, if I look at the one, I will. Both understood the limits of empathy, but one in demonstrating Bloom`s thesis, the morality of this understanding is neutral, empathy need not only be used for good.  
Bloom does recognize that some good can come out of empathy and organizations such as effective Altruism advocate doing good deeds that combines the efforts of the head and the heart.  
 
Other Related Resources
The Atlantic:  Short video of psychologist Paul Bloom making the argument that empathy is a bad thing
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/474588/why-empathy-is-a-bad-thing/. Bloom maintains that he is against empathy but for compassion.  He poses that empathy should not override rational deliberation; it should be a reliable servant-but never a master.
 
Big Think:  Why Empathy is not the Best Way to Care:  Video in which Paul Bloom describes why empathy can backfire and lead to negative effects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhCGmDJQRpc
 
Psychology Today:  Why Paul Boom is Wrong about Empathy and Morality
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/good-thinking/201310/why-paul-bloom-is-wrong-about-empathy-and-morality
 
Quartz: Empathy Makes us Immoral
https://qz.com/1250764/work-japan-app-aims-to-help-foreigners-find-blue-collar-jobs-despite-japans-resistance-to-immigrants/
 
Oxford Education Blog:  Against Empathy?  Really
https://educationblog.oup.com/theory-of-knowledge/against-empathy-really
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Amygdala
Anterior Insula
Autism
Availability Heuristic
Base Rate
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive Empathy
Cognitive Neuroscience
Dualism
Emotional Contagion
Emotional Empathy
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
File Drawer Problem
fMRI
Incentive
Just World Phenomenon
Localization
Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Mindfulness
Mirror Neuron
Neuroanatomist
Neuroimaging
Posterior Cingulate Gyrus
Psychopaths
Statistical Significance
Theory of Mind
 
Psychological Figures
Charles Darwin
David Eagelman
Sigmund Freud
Michael Gazzaniga
Marc Iacobini
Steven Pinker

Just Babies:  The Origins of Good and Evil
Author:  Paul Bloom
ISBN: 978-0-307-88685-6
 
APA Style Citation
Bloom, Paul (2013). Just Babies: The Origin of Good and Evil.  New York: Broadway Books.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Just-Babies-Origins-Good-Evil/dp/B00GDLY8Q2
​

Book Description
After watching a fantastic 60 minutes episode focusing on research being conducted at Yale University on morality in babies, I was drawn to this book written by one of the psychologists featured in the video clip.  The 60 minutes story is based on work currently underway at the Yale University Infant Cognition Center.  A link to this information is included in the related resources section at the end of the post. The author of Just Babies, Paul Bloom is the husband of  Dr. Karen Wynn, the director of the lab and the primary investigator at the center.  Bloom also does work on pleasure, morality, and prejudice.  In this book, Bloom examines the question of whether or not morality is the result of nature or nurture.  His studies and the other research included in the book indicate that to some degree morality is not developed entirely by experience with the environment but that a significant part of morality is innate and the result of evolutionary processes. According to research referenced by Bloom, even very young babies demonstrate an innate morality based on compassion, fairness, and empathy.  Although limited, evidence shows that babies have a rudimentary capacity for morality. 
 
The book Just Babies, explains in detail much of the research conducted at Yale and describes a variety of experiments to explore morality in children.  One study, in particular, features one-year-old babies (and even younger) watching puppet shows featuring nice puppets who demonstrate sharing and helping behaviors and naughty puppets who demonstrate stealing and aggressive behaviors.  When shown the nice and naughty puppets after the show, babies in significant numbers “choose” the nice puppet either by reaching for it or by the length of their gaze (very young babies who do not have the motor control to reach). Children in the studies demonstrated preference by how long they looked at the preferred puppet.  When given a chance to reward or punish the puppets the children were likely to take treats away from the “bad” puppets and give the treats to the “nice” puppets.
 
The results from the various puppet studies and other innovative research indicate that while babies do have the basis of morality and prefer those who help others, they are also likely to favor those with whom they share traits.  Even seemingly arbitrary preferences impacted the moral decisions of the babies in the study.  Babies who were asked to choose a snack (graham crackers or cheerios) were more likely to favor puppets who liked the same snack and were more likely to punish puppets who liked a different snack. 
 
The book provides numerous examples of how psychologists study morality in children using games and dilemmas created by behavioral economists.  By having children of various ages participate in public goods and commoner’s dilemma games with varying situational factors, psychologists can study the development of concepts such as fairness, equality, empathy, responsibility, in-group favoritism, prejudice, punishment, and altruism in children some of whom are too young to communicate verbally. 
 
In addition to a review of the history of the impact of human compassion and empathy, Bloom also discusses the human tendencies of selfishness and aggression and the potential evolutionary purposes of antisocial behaviors such as racial bias.  The book also goes into detail about several classic psychological studies including the Milgram obedience study, the Clark doll study, Tajfel’s Kandinsky/Klee study, and Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment that are related to the introductory psychology curriculum.  Bloom provides some unique insights into these studies and how they relate to research on morality and moral development in babies with regards to both nature and nurture.  Numerous unique aspects of the studies many may not be familiar with are revealed in the book.  For example, in the Robbers Cave study, Sherif found even very trivial differences could create in-group bias.  The two groups of campers (Rattlers and Eagles) created differences in communication.  The Rattlers swore, but the Eagles emphasized their use of clean language.  Sherif claims that these differences exaggerated the preference for one`s group over the others.  The Robber’s Cave experiment illustrated how easy it is for individuals to identify with others with whom they are grouped regardless of how arbitrarily and to view members of their group as superior.  According to Bloom, research with very young children shows that humans start out with the tendency to distinguish between groups, but “it is our environments that tell us precisely how to do so.”  Children can categorize people by the color of their skin, but very small children do not show any bias in skin color when selecting friends. Environmental factors create prejudices out of a natural tendency to separate individuals into similar groups to better navigate the world around us.  Bloom also discusses the Clark doll study and makes connections to his current research on the origin and development of ethnic and racial prejudices. 
 
Paul Bloom’s book, Just Babies:  The Origins of Good and Evil does an excellent job of explaining how developmental psychologists study moral development in babies and children by connecting classic studies with innovative current research. The book adds new insights and details from classic studies that can be used to expand student interest and understanding of a variety of topics in developmental, cognitive, biological, and social psychology. This can help instructors and students make connections with units beyond developmental and cognitive psychology such as motivation and emotion and intelligence and testing. 
 
Other Related Resources
 
Born good? Babies help unlock the origins of morality In this 60 Minutes video of research at the Yale University Infant Cognition Center – Video of the amazing research conducted by Yale University on how infants understand good and evil as well as examples of research on morality in older children. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvVFW85IcU
 
2017 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize - Video interview with psychologist Paul Bloom and his wife and research partner Karen Wynn.  The 2017 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize is awarded to Paul Bloom for his research into the origins, nature, and development of children's moral thought and behavior.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdf_xOTcnWI
 
CNN 360 video with Anderson Cooper - What your baby knows might freak you outAnderson Cooper’s interview with researchers at the Yale Infant Cognition Lab. http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/13/living/what-babies-know-anderson-cooper-parents/
 
PBS Series The Spark with Alan Alda – At Oxford University, Alan Alda finds out from Robin Dunbar how human social networks compare to those of chimps, and at the Yale University Infant Cognition lab observers watch babies as young as three months old pick cooperative puppets over those who do not play fairly.  Note:  There are numerous other high-interest videos on the PBS series site for The Spark.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/video/program-three-brain-matters-video-excerpt-social-networks-and-the-spark/421/
 
Public Goods Dilemma simulation game – The complete instructions for playing a public goods dilemma game using cards.
https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/experiments/examples/36647.html
 
Baby Laughing Video – This viral video of a baby laughing at an unexpected experience has been viewed more than 93 million times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4abiHdQpc
 
Yale Infant Cognition Lab
Psychologist Karen Wynn runs the Yale Infant Cognition “Baby Lab” which is researching the developmental foundations of morality, the origin of prejudice, and early emotional cognition. The lab also is studying adult (especially parents’) naïve theories of the minds of infants, and how adults’ intuitive conceptions of who babies are shape their’ interactions with infants. 
https://campuspress.yale.edu/infantlab/
 
Author Paul Bloom’s TED Talk on the origins of pleasure, which has almost 2 million views. The talk addresses questions such as why do we like an original painting better than a forgery? Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that human beings are essentialists - that our beliefs about the history of an object can change how we experience it, not simply as an illusion, but as a deep feature of what pleasure (and pain) is.
https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure
 
Author Paul Bloom’s TED Talk on if prejudice can ever be a good thing.  According to Bloom we often think of bias and prejudice as rooted in ignorance, but Bloom seeks to show, prejudice can often be natural, rational, or even moral. The key, says Bloom, is to understand how our own biases work -- so we can take control when they go wrong.  This talk references Henri Tajfel’s research on stereotypes.  The talk covers a large range of studies and issues related to prejudice and stereotypes including explicit v. implicit bias.
https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_can_prejudice_ever_be_a_good_thing
 
 
Other Books by Paul Bloom
Bloom, P. (2010).  How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like.  New York:  W.W. Norton Company.
Bloom, P. (2018). Against Empathy, The Case for Rational Compassion. New York:  Harper Collins.
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Gordon Allport
Dan Ariely
Noam Chomsky
Kenneth and Mamie Clark
Charles Darwin
Frans De Waal
Carol Dweck
Sigmund Freud
Carol Gilligan
Jane Goodall
Daniel Kahneman
Lawrence Kohlberg
Stanley Milgram
Steven Pinker
Muzafer Sherif
Henri Tajfel
Altruism
Contact hypothesis
Egalitarianism
Emotion (e.g., anger, disgust, embarrassment, fear, guilt, shame)
Habituation
Honor culture
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Language development
Mere exposure effect
Moral development
Mortality
Natural selection
Negativity bias
Oxytocin
Prosocial game
Psychopathy
Public goods game
Punishment
Racism
Robbers Cave experiment
Sharing
Social groups
Social status
Stereotype
Sucking behavior infant research method
Trolley problem
Ultimatum game
Unconscious racial bias
Yale Infant Cognition Center
 
 

​Psych Experiments:  From Pavlov's Dogs to Rorscharch's Inkblots, Put Psychology's Most Fascinating Theories to the Test
Author:  Michael A. Britt
ISBN: 10:  1-4405-9707-3
 
APA Style Citation
Britt, Michael (2017). Psych Experiments.  Avon, MA: Adams Media.

Book Description
Psych Experiments, the much-anticipated book by psychologist Michael Britt, known to psychology teachers everywhere as the host of the Psych Files podcast is an excellent source for experiments that can be used in the classroom or as student projects.  The Psych Files is best known to students and teachers for the animated videos designed to help students memorize the parts of the brain. The book contains 50 different experiments that are all based on psychological research. The experiments range from classic studies to more current research.  The book opens with general advice for conducting psychological research including information about replication, ethics, participant rights, and statistics.  Each of the 50 studies includes background information, related psychological concepts, a summary of how the original research was conducted, and step-by-step instructions for replicating either the original research design or a modified version.  Before replicating any of the studies listed in the book students should review the ethical guidelines in the early chapters.
 
One of the experiments Britt discusses is the famous examination of the misinformation effect by Elizabeth F. Loftus and John C. Palmer (1974).  After describing the original study and discussing the significance of the results for illustrating the fallibility of memory students can use Britt’s outline for exactly how to replicate this research in the classroom. The book includes step-by-step instructions. The author recommends having a sensitivity to students who may not wish to participate possibly as a result of personal experiences with car accidents.  An additional activity related to the Loftus and Palmer research on memory can be found in the “Open Your Class with this” activity posted with this book review.  This activity is designed to demonstrate the fallibility of memory using virtual reality technology.  An excellent way to close out this lesson/research experiment would be to show Elizabeth Loftus’s TED talk titled “How Reliable is Your Memory.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLYY77LPr3U. 
 
Many of the experiments created by Michael Britt for this book would work well as class demonstrations or student-directed research projects for science fair competitions.  Students can view the examples of direct replications and unique variations of classic psychology experiments to help them develop ideas for their own original research.  Some of the ideas in the book that are easily adapted for classroom use are:
 
Cognition (Memory, Thinking, and Problem Solving)
How You Are Manipulated Into Paying More Money Than You Wanted:  I Bet You Expected to Pay Thousands For This! - Anchoring Bias
Based on research by Dan Ariely, George Loewenstein, and Drazen Prelec (2003)
 
Mental Sets Can Limit You Into One Way of Thinking:  How to Get Unstuck – Mental Set
Based on research by Abraham S. Luchins (1946)
 
Why Do You Remember Certain Things:  That’s Deep, Man – Levels of Processing
Based on research by Fergus I. M. Craik and Endel Tulving
 
Learning/Conditioning
When Trying Really Hard Makes No Difference:  I Give Up! – Learned Helplessness
Based on research by Martin Seligman and Steven Maier (1967)
Replication/extension research by Steven Maier and Martin Seligman (2016)
 
Motivation and Emotion
Noticing a Face in the Crowd:  I Never Forget a Face – Identifying Emotions
Based on research by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen (1971)
Replication/extension research by Christine Hansen and Ranald D. Hansen (1988)
 
Treatment
How to Think More Positively About Life:  Sing Your Problems Away – Cognitive Therapy/Cognitive Defusion
Based on research by Andreas Larsson, Nic Hooper, Lisa A. Osborne, Paul Bennett, and Louise McHuch (2015)
 
How Psychiatric Labels Affect How We Se People:  Sticks and Stones May Not Break My Bones, but Labels May Incarcerate Me – Labeling and Mental Illness
Based on research by David L. Rosenhan (1974)
Replication/extension research by Darcy Haag Granello and Todd A. Gibbs (2016)
 
Social Psychology
How Roles Can Affect Us at a Deep Level:  Are You the Role You Play?- Social Roles
Based on research by Craig W. Haney, W. Curtis Banks, and Philip G. Zimbardo (1973)
Replication/extension research by Stephen Reicher and Alexander Haslam (2006)

How Anonymity Can Make Us Mean: “That is the Stupidest Thing You Ever Said!” – Deindividuation
Based on research by Philip Zimbardo (1969)
 
The Power of Conformity:  How Much Would You Pay for That Cornflake? – Conformity
Based on research by Solomon Asch (1952)
 
When Trying to Look Good Looks Bad:  My What Big Words You Have! – Influence
Based on research by Daniel Oppenheimer (2006)
 
Where Discrimination Begins: Those People are All the Same! – Prejudice and Discrimination
Based on research by Muzafer Sherif (1954)
Replication/extension research by Henri Tajfel (1970)
 
Michael Britt’s book, Psych Experiments contains many more that could be used by student both inside and outside of class, and that can serve as inspiration for additional student-directed research.
 
Other Related Resources

Author’s Website
http://www.thepsychfiles.com/
Michael Britt’s website includes psychology resources for review and years of excellent podcasts organized by unit. Some of the most popular podcasts include:

• Episode 274: Be the First to Act – or the Second – Both Are Great
• Episode 243:  Did Your Therapy Really Work?
• Episode 224: If Freud Worked Tech Support (Defense Mechanisms)
• Episode 195:  How to Memorize Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
• Episode 72 (video): Memorize the Parts of the Brain
• Episode 68: Mnemonic Device for Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development

 
Elizabeth Loftus TED Talk “How Reliable is Your Memory?”
https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Dan Ariely
Solomon Asch
Robert Cialdini
Fergus Craik
John Darley
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Paul Ekman
Leon Festinger
Carol Gilligan
Harry Harlow
Daniel Kahneman
Lawrence Kohlberg
Elizabeth Loftus
Konrad Lorenz
A.S. Luchins
Stanley Milgram
George Miller
Ivan Pavlov
Jean Piaget
Hermann Rorschach
D.L. Rosenhan
Martin Seligman
Muzafer Sherif
B.F. Skinner
Richard Wiseman
Philip Zimbardo
 
Anchoring Heuristic
Attachment
Attraction
Change Blindness
Classical Conditioning
Cognitive Development
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Therapy
Conformity
Creativity
Decision Making
Deindividuation
Discrimination
Dopamine
Emotion
Encoding
Eyewitness Memory
Facial Expressions and Emotion
Forgetting
Framing Effect
Frontal Lobe
Functional Fixedness
Human Factors Psychology
Intelligence
Labeling and Mental Illness
Loci Method
Mental Set
Moral Development
Obedience to Authority
Operant Conditioning
Perception
Personal Fable
Persuasion
Prejudice
Rorschach Inkblot
Social Psychology

​Flirting with French:  How a Language Charmed me, Seduced Me and Nearly Broke my Heart
Author:   William Alexander
IBSN:  978-1-61620-020-6
 
APA Style Citation
Alexander, W. (2014).  Flirting with French:  How a Language Charmed me, Seduced Me and Nearly Broke my Heart.  Chapel Hill, North Carolina:  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

​Book Description
William Alexander loves everything French: French croissants, the aesthetic of the country, vacations on a bicycle traveling between small villages, and the beautiful sound of the language.  He is determined to master the French language and become a Francophile in earnest.  While Alexander wants to learn French, he still has trepidation from the memories of his high school French teacher Madame D.  He dropped the course after his sophomore year and made it through college choosing majors for which he did not need a foreign language to graduate. After he graduated, he took a trip backpacking across Europe with France as the last country he visited.  While he did not know the language fluently, he thought he could get by with the French he had learned in high school.  He saved money for the entire trip to go to one fancy French restaurant to end the trip in style.  He ordered rogons de veau for two, thinking he had just ordered a nice cut of veal.  He and his companion could afford nothing else, so they waited for the meal only to receive two small kidneys with no garnish or accouterments… so much for his high school French. 
 
In his mid-fifties, Alexander attends a linguistics conference only to be told that he was essentially too old to learn French like a native speaker.  Presenter after presenter emphasized the advantage that younger children had over adults for acquiring a new language.  It seems that Alexander’s critical period for language had long since passed.  Still, he was determined to fight biology and become fluent in the language he so adored.
 
In a study with Russian and French babies, just ninety-six hours after birth both sets of babies showed a preference for their native language over others.  All languages have different cadences to which babies adapt quite early.  Italian has many i and o sounds, French can be distinguished by its nasal vowels, and Scandinavian languages contain hard g sounds.  Babies even cry in phonemes (the smallest unit of sound in a language) consistent with their native language.  If not exposed early to these different sounds contained in language, adults often have a difficult time adjusting to the new sounds present in the language they are trying to acquire.  For example, many Asian speakers who learned English as adults cannot make the “r” and “l” sounds in English or differentiate between those two sounds.  Researchers found that seven-month-old Japanese babies can distinguish between “r” and “l” sounds but by ten months of age they cannot. 
 
Alexander cites Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures book for moving the study of language from vocabulary to syntax.  Chomsky proposed that language could not be explained solely by mimicking others because adults do not say things like “Tommy hitted me”, but nearly all children do.  In this case, children are overgeneralizing the past tense of hit (which is still hit) and applying the rule more broadly than it should be applied.  Nearly all children demonstrate these types of errors as they work their way through language.  Chomsky believes that children are innately wired to learn language through what he described as a language acquisition device.  This common innate ability to understand the basic rules of language is known as universal grammar. In a study conducted by Elissa Newport and Jenny Singleton, deaf children who were not exposed to proper syntax, still intuitively used American Sign Language correctly which seems to support Chomsky’s view.  However, cases such as Genie who was found in Los Angeles, California as a teenager and who had never been exposed to language further complicate the issue.  While Genie initially learned two-word strings quite quickly, she never acquired the ability to produce a negative question or ask a question.  She remained in the stage of speech typical of a toddler.  While we may have an innate ability to learn a language, Eric Lennenberg extended Chomsky’s theory by suggesting that there may be a critical period before the teenage years in which language is most easily acquired.  Genie is a single case study that cannot be generalized to the entire population and she may have been intellectually disabled from birth, but similar case studies seem to point to the same conclusion. 
 
Biological evidence now exists that those exposed to multiple languages early in life have more brain area devoted to language.  Once neural pruning begins in adolescence, removing those neural networks that are not useful may make those that remain more efficient, we may lose the ability to rewire our brain to be more focused on language.  This lends biological support to Chomsky’s belief in the inborn nature of language.
 
Alexander cites many examples of the intermingling of languages during a foreign invasion or language diffusion by more peaceful means, many of which remain today.  In English courts, individuals are told to “cease and desist,” which essentially are synonyms and the phrase is redundant, but this combination harkens back to when the Normans (temporarily) made French the official language of England.  The cease is English but the word desist comes from the French verb desister. The word mortgage in English is derived from the French: death contract”, which many who have experienced foreclosure may relate.  Curfew comes from the French term couvre-feu which was the time that people had to cover their fire.
 
Alexander laments the quirks to the French language, such as their lack of numbers beyond sixty, for which one has to add to even say the number, for example, seventy is “sixty-ten” (soixante-dix), and seventy-nine is “sixty plus ten plus nine” (soixante-dix-neuf).  Temps can refer to either weather or time.   In other difficulties in learning the French language, Alexander cites the gender which must be memorized for each object and impacts the meaning of the sentence when used incorrectly.  Especially for English speakers who are not accustomed to objects having gender’s this can be quite a challenge. French idioms while humorous in English do not always translate well.  For example, the French counterpart to the English idiom “It costs and arm and a leg in English” is “it costs the skin of an ass”. 
 
The French take their language very seriously and have established the Academie Francaise to publish an official dictionary of the French language in an effort to keep the language “pure” and free from too much foreign influence.  Of course, they have had to make some changes to keep up with modern times, “wifi” and “podcasts” have made their way into the French language and appear much as they do in other languages.  Others foreign words such as “le jogging”, “les cheesburgers” and “le weekend” have grown common in the French language much to the dismay of the l’Academie. 
 
Despite the linguists warning that it would be difficult to learn language during middle age, Alexander forges ahead, tackling Rosetta Stone, finding a French pen pal (Sophie) who will write to him in English while he responds in French.  Alexander finds a Meetup.com group and takes an immersion weekend class in New York.  For his final push, he enrolls in a two-week immersion class at the esteemed Millefeuille Provence in southern France.  It is said that once one becomes fluent in a given language, they no longer have to translate the meaning in their original language, so they are essentially “thinking in their new language.”  Sadly, the linguists might be right.  Alexander is never fully able to understand and speak in French although he does improve considerably during the course of the book.  He is generally able to understand his instructors and get the idea of what the speaker is discussing (receptive speech), but finds that outside the controlled environment of the classroom or Rosetta stone; real day-to-day French is difficult to follow and even more difficult to speak (productive speech).
 
Related Resources
The French Blog:  William Alexander’s blog
http://www.thefrenchblog.com/p/my-books.html
           
Genie:  The Secret of the Wild Child
Article:  http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/genie.htm
Video:  http://documentarystorm.com/secret-of-the-wild-child/
 
Noam Chomsky:  Chomsky speaks about language and cognitive processes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i_W6Afed2k
 
Are You a Polygot?
http://ilanguages.org/bilingual.php
 
The Development of Language:  A Critical Period in Humans
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11007/
 
L’Acedemie Francaise (In French, but worth the look for the pictures alone)
http://www.academie-francaise.fr
 
 
The Secret to Learning a Foreign Language as an adult
http://time.com/3453841/secret-learn-foreign-language-adult/
Human Language Development
https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/language-10/human-language-408/human-language-development-235-12770/
 
The Future of Language will be one of Decline and Diffusion
http://www.korsgaardscommentary.com/2013/06/the-future-of-language-will-be-one-of-decline-and-diffusion.html
 
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Noam Chomsky
Charles Darwin
Eric Lennenberg
B.F. Skinner           
American Sign Language
Broca’s Area
Critical Period Hypothesis
Genie
Grammar
Linguistic Acquisition Device
Morphemes
Neural pruning
One-word Speech
Phonemes
Productive Speech
Receptive Speech
Syntax
Telegraphic Speech
Universal Grammar
Wernicke’s Area
 
 

The Defining Decade:  Why your twenties matter – and how to make the most of them now
Author(s):  Meg Jay, PhD
ISBN:  987-0-446-56176-1

APA Style Citation
Jay, M. (2012). The defining decade: why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them now. New York: Twelve.

Book Description

The Defining Decade:  Why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them is an insightful and research based examination of how the decisions one makes during their twenties have enormous impact on happiness and success later in life.  The author, Meg Jay, PhD is a clinical psychologist with a private practice and a University of Virginia professor. The book is a mix of development, personality, and neuroscience research related to early adulthood.  The book addresses how the important choices individuals make regarding careers and friendships during their twenties can have long-term ramifications.   Although the book is written for individuals in their twenties, it can certainly helpful for high school students. 

The book opens with a quote from linguist Noam Chomsky, “Almost invariably, growth and development has what’s called a critical period.  There’s a particular period of maturation in which, with external stimulation of the appropriate kind, the capacity will pretty suddenly develop and mature.  Before that and later than that, it’s either harder or impossible.”  Dr. Jay considers one’s twenties an example of a developmental critical period because eighty percent of the events which define one’s life (careers, relationships, education, parenthood, etc.) occur before the age of thirty-five.  This book encourages twentysomethings to think seriously about the decisions they are making or putting off.  Research shows that during one’s twenties most of a person’s lifetime wage growth occurs which makes thinking critically about one’s career during this decade vital.  It is during this critical period that career paths are determined and decisions regarding marriage and family are often made.  This period is biologically defined by the final stage of brain growth in the development of the prefrontal cortex, which contributes to the importance of this time period. 

Much of the book focuses on paths to career development during one’s twenties such as developing identity capital and utilizing weak ties. Identity capital, a term used by sociologists, refers to the outcome of the investments individuals make in themselves which can be used like currency to advance careers and find healthy relationships. Identity capital includes education, work experiences, and specific achievements, but it also involves appearance, who we know, interests, and personality traits.  These collective experiences, traits, and achievements determine what we have to offer in the career marketplace and should be carefully considered during one’s twenties because about two-thirds of lifetime wage growth occurs during the first ten years of a career.  The book also encourages individuals in their twenties to utilize weak ties, a term coined by Stanford professor Mark Granovetter as a result of his research into social networks (decades before online social media).  Granovetter found that close friends and family were not the individuals who proved most helpful in job searches and career advancement.  Surprisingly, more than three-quarters of new jobs or major advances in career development were the result of contacts that individuals saw only rarely.  Weak ties include classmates and coworkers you do not know well, friends of parents, or former acquaintances.  One’s closest ties consist of individuals who are most likely very similar to us and thus unlikely to be able to provide new and different opportunities.  Weak ties conversely are more likely to be individuals we do not know very well (or at all) and are very different from us which can generate truly unique opportunities.

According to Dr. Jay, “Claiming your twenties is one of the simplest yet most transformative things you can do for work, for love, for your happiness, maybe even for the world.”  The Defining Decade provides evidence from numerous research studies to provide insights which will help individuals in their twenties make the best possible decisions for future happiness and success in many aspects of their lives including the following. 

·      Career success takes time:  according to research by K. Anders Ericsson this means 10,000 hours (this is also covered in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers).  Twenty-something individuals should be reminded that it might take about five years of full-time work in their new career before they develop mastery and full confidence. 

·      Personality changes more in one’s twenties than at any other time.  The twenties represent the final period of development for the frontal lobe and behaviors and personality patterns become hardwired for adulthood.  This is the time to change what you want to about yourself. 

·      Romantic relationships are important and the adage that “you cannot choose your family but you can choose your friends” is incorrect because it is during ones twenties that you in fact do choose a family.  According to Dr. Jay, “The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one.”  Invest the same amount of attention and planning in your romantic relationships as you do for your career because decisions in this area have dramatic and long-term impact on your personal happiness and life satisfaction.

Other Related Resources
Meg Jay, Ph.D. – TED Talk
Dr. Jay’s 2013 TED talk “Why 30 Is Not the New 20″ which has been viewed more than 2 million times.
http://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20.html

NPR Podcast
This seven minute podcast from Chicago Public radio includes a short interview with author Dr. Jay and impromptu conversations of twentysomethings on the campus of George Washington University. 
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/22/150429128/our-roaring-20s-the-defining-decade

The Year 25 Series
NPR created a series of interviews called the Year 25 series in which they interviewed several famous individuals about what was happening in their lives when they were twenty five.
http://www.wbez.org/series/year-25

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at age 25 from the Year 25 Series.
http://www.wbez.org/series/year-25/who-was-25-year-old-rahm-emanuel-108327

Psychological Figures and Concepts
Albert Bandura
Carol Dweck
Erik Erikson
Phineas Gage
Daniel Gilbert
Karen Horney
Adolescence
Big five personality traits
Critical periods
Emerging adulthood
Frontal lobes
Happiness
Identity
Mindset
Neuroticism
Plasticity
Self-efficacy
Similarity and attraction
Ten thousand hours

Love at Goon Park:  Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection
Author(s): Deborah Blum
ISBN:  9780465026067

APA Style Citation
Blum, D. (2002) Love at Goon Park:  Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. New York:  Perseus Publishing.

Book Description

Psychologist Harry Harlow challenged the notions of the 1950s regarding parenting and the power of attachment and love.  From his humble beginnings as a bright yet odd child in Iowa, Harry found himself in disagreement over the zeitgeist of the field of Psychology  early in his career. Famous psychologists such as John Watson in his book Children and Child Care  promoted a parenting style, which strictly forbade the hugging and kissing of young children.  Other Behaviorists agreed with this approach and parents who doted on their children were often accused on making their children “soft”.  The events of WWII in London forced the evacuation of many children to the English countryside, placing them away from parents or caretakers.  The results of this forcible removal suggested that children could be well provided for in terms of food and basic necessities, but a lack of parental love caused children to suffer both emotionally and developmentally.  Investigations into “fostering homes” or orphanages (which were widespread during WWII) led to the same conclusion.  Harlow was determined to challenge traditional notions on parenting and tested the importance of love and attachment.  Harlow also wanted to test animals more like humans and get away from the Behaviorist habit of working only with rats.  He conducted his research at the University of Wisconsin by providing young monkeys with artificial mothers. 

The title of the book Love at Goon Park refers to Harlow studies of attachment and love and the address of the psychology building at the University of Wisconsin (600 N. Park Street) to which packages often appeared to be headed for “GOON Park”.  Harlow demonstrated that “contact comfort” was more important than providing food to the young monkey as it helped to forge a strong bond between infant and mother. These monkey’s spent nearly all of their time with the “cloth” mother regardless of whether or not food was provided.  They only went to the “wire” mother for food and quickly returned to the “cloth” mother. Those monkeys not provided any type of mother figure were unable to develop a strong attachment to a mother figure later in life and often became aggressive towards other monkeys.  Harlow was far ahead of his time and his findings are supported by modern research (See the book review of How Children Succeed:  Paul Tough) regarding the importance of attachment. 

Harlow faced challenges in his own personal life, he was married three times and his first and third wife Clara (whom he married again after the death of his second wife) was a participant in the famous “termite” study in which Lewis Terman longitudinally studied gifted children.  Harlow himself was not a very involved parent and spent nearly all of his time at the lab.  He drank too much and ultimately succumbed to Parkinson’s disease. 

The book discusses the shift from Behaviorism to a more Social Cognitive approach and discusses in detail to power and importance of attachment.  In addition, his other research regarding isolation and community supports as well I.Q. tests with primates are detailed in the book.  Harlow’s connection to other notable psychologists is fascinating, he studied under Lewis Terman at Stanford and mentored a young Abraham Maslow at Wisconsin, in addition to countless others. 

Other Related Resources
Book Website
http://deborahblum.com/Love_at_Goon_Park.html

This American Life:  Episode 317, Unconditional Love
This episode addresses the importance of attachment and the challenges families can face when attachment is not established at an early age.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/317/unconditional-love

Conquest Clip of Harlow’s Monkey
This clip shows Harlow’s lab and his original studies of monkeys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O60TYAIgC4

PBS:  A Science Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhharl.html


Psychological Figures and Concepts
Mary Ainsworth
Gordon Allport
Alfred Binet
John Bowlby
Anna Freud
Sigmund Freud
G. Stanley Hall
Clark Hull
Wolfgang Kohler
Konrad Lorenz
Abraham Maslow
Ivan Pavlov
Martin Seligman
B.F. Skinner
Carol Tavris
Edward Thorndike
John Watson
Robert Yerkes
Attachment
Behaviorist Manifesto
Little Albert
Stanford-Binet test
Learned helplessness