Description: Think about this either based on personal experience or hypothetically. A teenager goes to school in the morning seeming rather relaxed and happy. At the end of the day they return home quiet (sullen) and clearly distracted. When one of their parents asks what is up they respond “nothing” in a grumpy tone and… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Social Psychology
How are Religiosity and Cognition Related? Perhaps not as you might think.
Description: At first glance it may seem odd or perhaps inappropriate to conduct research into the nature and even into the brain function associated with religious belief. However, rather than seeing religious belief and science as antithetical think a bit about what sorts of cognitive functioning might be correlated with religious belief. For example, how… Read more »
Improve Your Exam Performances by Thinking Metacognitively
Description: Think about the last time you went into an exam feeling like you had the material down tight and were going to do well on the exam. How did you actually do on that exam? If you did not do as well as you thought you were going to do going in what did… Read more »
Vaping and Smoking: What should we think, what should we do?
Description: I was at a hockey game the other day and watched the usual video announcement asking fans to refrain from foul language, fighting, drunken behavior or smoking including the use of e-cigarettes. I have occasionally wondered about the equating of cigarettes and e-cigarettes in sporting venues or elsewhere in public places. After all, the… Read more »
“Further Research” and the Growth Mindset: Applying Psychological Research
Description: I have written about Carol Dweck’s research on the “growth mindset’ before. Dweck’s research indicates that when students encounter difficult material (like say in Math) the attributions they make when their performance is not good on exams etc. makes a difference in their future performance. Performing poorly and deciding this reflects one’s basic lack… Read more »
Researchers are Real People: The replicability crisis and Amy Cuddy
Description: If your engagement with the field of psychology has been through your textbooks and your reading of research articles as part of your experiences in undergraduate (or even graduate) level courses you may not have had opportunity to directly observe the actual people (the researchers) who are designing, conducting, analyzing and writing up the… Read more »
How Biological and Neuro-chemically Driven are Addictions to Heroin and other Opioids? Welcome to Rat Park!
Description: What do you think you know about the addictive nature of opioid drugs like heroin or morphine? Have you heard that they can be addictive on first use? Have you heard that they work on the brain chemistry of all users to create a need for the drug or a dependency that is purely… Read more »
Praise Leads to Cheating? How so?
Description: Ok here is a “simple” question. What are the effects of praise (parental praise delivered to children) on those children’s moral development and their moral behaviour? Put more specifically, are children who are praised more or less likely to cheat if given an opportunity? What is your hypothesis reading the nature of this relationship?… Read more »
Afternoon Cognitive Downtime? Know Your Brain!
Description: Think about a typical weekday in your recent experience. When are your mental highs and lows (of drive, motivation and distractibility)? Do you know your highs and lows well enough that you build your course or work schedule with them in mind? Oh and it is not just BS (no not THAT, blood sugar,… Read more »
8 Months in Hawaii? YES! 8 months on Simulated Mars? Weeeellllll……
Description: How would you like to spend 8 MONTHS in Hawaii? Are you down with that? OK well what if the 8 months were to be spent on a plateau just below the summit of the still active Mauna Lao volcano on the Big Island on a simulated Mars mission with 5 other people living… Read more »
Books for Success!
