Teaching Aids

36 Questions - Self Disclosure

Have students go to The Greater Good Science Center's 36 Questions for Increasing Closeness activity on their phones or tablet. Ask them to pair up with someone they don't know in class and select 10 questions to ask each other. Have them fill out questionnaires about their perceptions and feelings about their partner before and after the activity. Debrief by having students share about their experiences and highlight social psych concepts such as self-disclosure and reciprocity. You can also ask the class what other factors influence whether two people form a relationship. Submitted by Jan Kang, Resource Manager, SPSP

Persuasion/Social Influence Review Game

For this activity, I show a 12-minute illustrated video describing Cialdini's six principles of persuasion/social influence and then play a review game using these questions. Some questions are based on real research studies, some on my own experiences, some via online examples—you can easily come up with different/additional questions for students to practice identifying these concepts. I did this as a competitive game where the students formed teams of 2-3, we went through the questions one at a time (giving 30-60 seconds per question), I recorded how many questions each team got correct, and the teams in first and second place each got a prize (just mini candy bars). You can also do this as a more serious review activity without the gamified aspects. Submitted by: Ashley Hansen-Brown, Assistant Professor, Bridgewater State University

Open Stats Lab

Open Stats Lab (OSL) activities use open data sets from articles published in Psychological Science to help teach introductory statistics. Each OSL lab is comprised of three components: a published article, a data set, and an activity for students.  The lab activities guide students through the reproduction of the results reported in one of the studies from the published paper.  In addition, some of the activities also focus on issues related to data analysis, such as computing new variables.  Submitted by Kevin McIntyre, Associate Professor, Trinity University

Designing a Public Service Announcement

In this activity, students design and film a Public Service Announcement (PSA) using evidence-based principles of persuasion and attitude change. The activity pairs well with lectures or readings on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, social norms interventions, etc. This activity scales well from small discussion sections (where it can be used as an in-class activity) up to large lecture courses (450+ students) where it can be used as a multimedia written assignment and/or video completed outside of class time. Students can work alone or in groups. 

This document includes guidelines for use as a written assignment for a larger lecture course; to modify for in-class use, have students complete any relevant readings or lectures ahead of time and shorten the assignment to a 30-second video. When used as an in-class activity, PSAs can be designed and filmed in a single 50-minute class period using students' camera phones. Optionally, resulting PSA videos may be shared with the class as a whole in subsequent class periods. Submitted by Erin Westgate, Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Helping Behavior Example Video and Discussion Questions

At the beginning of my class day on helping/prosocial behavior, I show this recent(ish) news clip of Mamoudou Gassama rescuing a child from a balcony in France. After we discuss factors that influence helping (e.g., kinship selection, social exchange theory, social norms, social learning theory), we spend 5-10 minutes applying them to this video example (see these discussion example questions). We go on to talk about the bystander effect and the five-step model of helping behavior, after which we return again to the video example and talk about how Mamoudou Gassama made it past all five steps.  Submitted by: Ashley Hansen-Brown, Assistant Professor, Bridgewater State University

Confirmation Bias and Backwards Records

I use this to teach confirmation bias. I begin by explaining the concept and then talk about how in the 70s a bunch of parents got together to see if they could find satanic messages by playing records backwards.  

Then, I pull up this website. I first choose a song (I usually just choose "Stairway to Heaven").  I play it forward and then backward (without the words). 

I then ask students if they heard references to Satan (most are primed enough to have heard it).  Then I ask further questions: Did you hear it say 666?  How about how satan was sad and torturing people in a woodshed...?  No. That's weird. 

Then I replay the song backward, with the words showing.  This often gets an audible gasp from the students as they can now plainly hear the words. An excellent demonstration of you will see it (hear it) if you believe it. Submitted by Jana Hackathorn, Associate Professor, Murray State University

Inequality Graphics

This website page shows the development of income inequality in the United States with a series of cartoon images that makes it easy for the viewer to understand. 

Companion article: Kraus, M. W., Park, J. W., & Tan, J. J. X. (2017). Signs of Social Class: The Experience of Economic Inequality in Everyday Life. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(3), 422–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616673192 Submitted by Jan Kang, Resource Manager, SPSP

Student-friendly Articles 

Our students have used these articles in their final projects for Research Methods in the past. 

Most of these articles report more than one study, and at least one of the studies is simple enough for a student with basic skills in research methods to understand. The most complex experimental design would be a 3-way factorial design. The most complex correlational design uses multiple regression and (sometimes) mediation.  Submitted by Beth Morling, Professor, University of Delaware

Friends - Cognitive Dissonance

The video shows Phoebe experiencing cognitive dissonance because the lamp she wants to buy is from Pottery Barn, which conflicts with her values.  Submitted by Jan Kang, Resource Manager, SPSP

Mind Field: The Stanford Prison Experiment

This Mind Field episode (S3 E4) provides a different perspective on the results from Zimbardo's Prison Experiment. After viewing the video, it's possible to have a great discussion/debate on conformity, deindividuation, and research methods. Submitted by Heather Scherschel, Professor of Instruction,    University of Tampa

Key & Peele Skit

I show this video at the start of my first day on social cognition as an example of Bruner and the "new look"— perception as a decision process. It has some profanity, but it's a nice illustration of how two people can interpret the same ambiguous stimulus in vastly different ways based on their needs/wishes/expectations (and students think it's hilarious). After showing the video, we talk about the definition of social cognition, Bruner and the "new look" (very briefly), a few classic examples of how context influences perception (e.g., the A B C vs. 12 13 14 activity where the B and 13 are the same stimulus but get perceived differently). Then we return to the skit and spend some time discussing how this video shows an example of these concepts. How is this skit an example of perception as a decision process as it relates to social cognition?  Submitted by: Ashley Hansen-Brown, Assistant Professor, Bridgewater State University

Graphs and Infographics for Online Dating

This is a series of slides with graphs and infographics highlighting key statistics regarding the use of online dating. Graphs are followed by four discussion questions combining what students have learned regarding intimate relationships, the self, and cognitive dissonance. Submitted by Heather Scherschel, Professor of Instruction, University of Tampa

Not Awful and Boring Ideas for Teaching Statistics Blog

Since 2013, Dr. Jessica Hartnett has been collecting and sharing engaging examples for teaching Psychological Statistics on this blog. Submitted by Jessica Hartnett, Associate Professor, Gannon University

Translation Code (SAS, R, SPSS, Stata, & Python) 

As part of our NSF-funded passion-driven statistics project, we are sharing our “translation code” aimed at supporting folks in learning code-based software and in moving more easily between them. The file includes all of the basic syntaxes for managing, displaying, and analyzing data, translated across SAS, R, Python, Stata, and SPSS. Please feel free to circulate widely to students, instructors, data science professionals, and everyone in between.
 
For more information about our warm and welcoming data-driven curriculum, check out https://passiondrivenstatistics.com or reach out to Kristin Flaming at kri[email protected] or Lisa Dierker at [email protected]. Submitted by Kristin Flaming,  Research Associate, Wesleyan University

Passion-Driven Statistics E-book

Passion-Driven Statistics is an NSF-funded, multidisciplinary, project-based curriculum that supports students in conducting data-driven research, asking original questions, and communicating methods and results using the language of statistics. The curriculum supports students to work with existing data covering psychology, health, earth science, government, business, education, biology, ecology, and more. From existing data, students are able to pose questions of personal interest and then use statistical software (e.g. SAS, R, Python, Stata, SPSS) to answer them. The e-book is presented in pdf format for ease of use across platforms. It can also be customized by downloading and editing the .iba file (available at https://passiondrivenstatistics.com) using the free “iBook Author” software.
 
For more information, contact Lisa Dierker, ldi[email protected], Kristin Flaming, [email protected]. Submitted by Kristin Flaming,  Research Associate, Wesleyan University

TeachPsychScience.org 

A curated collection of resources (videos, lectures, activities, demonstrations, assignments, syllabi, projects, and articles) for teaching research methods, statistics, and communication in psychology (e.g, APA research reports, paper/poster presentations, etc.) Submitted by Gary Lewandowski, Professor, Monmouth University

DARN Friendly Syllabus Project

This is the language I have circulated to my department listservs for faculty and graduate students to encourage people to include more welcoming language about disability accommodations in their syllabi and opening-day lectures for both undergraduate and graduate classes.

DARN is the Disability Advocacy & Research Network, a community for disabled psychology scholars and allies funded by a Community Catalyst Award from SPSP, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Submitted by Lisa Aspinwall, Professor of Psychology,  University of Utah