Description: Is there a home field advantage in professional sports? Regardless of your opinion (or hypothesis) on this question think about this: How could we possibly set up an experiment that would address this question? And if we could, what would be the results? Well, have you already come up with the natural experimental o[opportunity… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Research Methods
How Might You Measure a Connectedness to Nature?
Description: Without getting into the issues, principles and challenges associated with climate change and global warming, just simply think about how you would answer these questions: “Are you connected to Nature?” “How might we conceptualize a connection to Nature?” “How might we measure a connection to Nature?” Perhaps you see Nature as simply defined as… Read more »
Smartphones, Social Media and Loneliness: Time to Act?
Description: What comes to mind when you read or hear a statement that starts with the words “young people these days….”? There has been a lot of press over the research finding that young people (born around or since 1995) are expressing and experiencing significantly higher levels of stress, anxiety and loneliness even when compared… Read more »
Rushing to Get From Syndrome to Disease
Description: Have you heard of General Paresis? No, it is not a military officer. It was the name given to a mysterious collection of symptoms that were regularly seen among adults (usually but not always older) in Victorian London. It started with forgetfulness and progressed consistently into memory loss, delusions, hallucinations and eventually into seizures… Read more »
What Age Would You Pick to Be?
Description: When have you been happiest in life, at what age? If you are just in your twenties, do you think things will get better or worse in terms of your happiness as you go forward in life? If you could pick, what age would you like to stay at for the rest of your… Read more »
Memory: Introverts Versus Extroverts
Description: Think about this statement. Extroverts have better memories than Introverts. If you were to find a study (and there is a link below to a description of just such a study) that showed a correlation between scores on the personality dimension of Introversion/Extroversion you could just take the statement at face value (e.g., yes,… Read more »
Reactivating Stem Cells: Possbile Key to Treating Neurodegenerative Disorders
Description: When I first started teaching introductory psychology a few decades ago I used to tell students that they had most of the largest number of brain neurons they would ever have at the time they were born. After their birth the number of brain cells dropped due to things like attrition and pruning (neurons… Read more »
Video Games, Social Media and Mental Health: Research Debates on Screen Time Continue
Description: The debates and the research focused upon the impacts of video gaming and social media use on developing children and youth are heated and ongoing. The primary difficulty in sorting out the effects of video gaming and social media use is tied up in the comprehensive nature of their uptake in the population. As… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid: Being A Guinea Pig
Description: If I asked you to ponder what it is like to be a Guinea Pig, I suspect you would not actually start to reflect on what it might be like to be small and furry. Rather, you would be more likely to contemplate what is would be like to be a participant in a… Read more »
No Longer Need to See Red Over Seeing Red
Description: Here is a very simple and complex question. Do you see red like I see red? Simple, right? Look at the picture below. The garment and the umbrella are red right? So, what is complicated? Well, yes, we seem to use the same label for our sensory experiences when we see things like the… Read more »
Books for Success!
