Teaching Social Psychology

"Dead indoor plants strengthen belief in global warming" - On the other hand, being exposed to healthy or no plants had no effects on one's beliefs. What about fake healthy or dead plants? [added 7/8/12]

Reduce littering with the smell of cleaning - "A team of Dutch social psychologists has proposed a simple solution to the litter problem on trains - infuse carriages with the citrus scent of cleaning product. Martinijn de Lange and his colleagues made their recommendation after conducting a field experiment in which they concealed seven small containers of cleaning product (spiced up with a little Capitaine perfume oil) in the luggage racks of two carriages on a train travelling between Amersfoort-Schothorst and Enkhuizen, a journey of one hour and forty-four minutes." [added 7/8/12]

Memory for our prior intentions is unreliable - "Nearly six hundred undergrads answered open-ended questions about why they'd purchased, downloaded or copied their most recently acquired album (the vast majority had acquired one within the last two weeks), and then they provided the same information again six months to a year later. The participants' answers fell into five main categories: because they liked the artist, liked the music, liked a specific song or songs, someone had recommended the album, or they needed the album for a specific purpose. The key finding was that only one in five participants gave a consistent reason or reasons at both time points....Unsurprisingly perhaps, participants who recalled more reasons at the first time point tended to be more prone to forgetting reasons when quizzed again later. This was also true of participants who reported liking their CD more, perhaps because they'd felt less need to dwell on their motives at the time they acquired the album. A subset of 82 of the participants also gave their reasons at a third time point, approximately six months to a year after the second time of questioning. Although still evident, changes in memory between the second and third time points were far reduced compared with between the first and second time points. This is important for real-life legal situations because consistency of answers across later interviews could be interpreted as a sign of memory reliability. 'It appears critical to have an accurate and complete record of the very first interview given by a witness,' the researchers said." [added 4/28/11]

Using the IAT to predict suicide? - [added 7/13/10]

Can the aIAT detect lying? Can you cheat on it? - It has been suggested that the autobiographical IAT (aIAT) can serve as a lie-detection tool. However, this more recent research suggests people can be easily trained to fool it. [added 1/18/10]

"How to turn a liberal into a conservative" - "Across three studies, Paul Nail and colleagues tested the conservatism and liberalism of students before and after subjecting them to a threat. Their consistent finding was that a threat turned liberal students into conservatives." [added 1/18/10]

Conspiracy theorists - Do they even exist? I have my doubts. [added 1/18/10]

Just reading about it wore me out - A blog entry about some fascinating research in which participants reported a greater willingness to exercise when the instructions were written in easily read font than in a hard to read font. Similar results were found for instructions for making sushi. [4/17/09]

Try this out on your class. Give them the above blog entry to read for the next class. However, surreptiously hand half the class the article in an easy-to-read font and the other half the article in a more difficult-to-read font. Then, at the beginning of the next class ask how many of each group actually read the article. If you do not like that idea, you can probably think of many variations of this manipulation. [added 7/25/09]

Changing beliefs changes behavior - interesting report of a study on how changing students' beliefs in free will increased their cheating behavior [added 5/09/08]

Libertarian paternalism - interesting essay about "nudging" people towards desired behavior by helping to choose for them [added 5/09/08]

"A resource belief-curse: Oil and individualism" - This is a strangely interesting study: "We study the correlation between a belief concerning individualism and a measure of luck in the US during the period 1983-2004. The measure of beliefs is the answer to a question related to whether the poor should be helped by the government or if they should help themselves, while the measure of luck is the share of the oil industry in the state’s economy multiplied by the price of oil. The correlation is negative, suggesting that more reliance on luck is correlated with less individualism." [added 4/6/08]

Left-wing brains vs. Right-wing brains - You may have heard this study comparing the accuracy of liberals and conservatives on an inhibition task, and the neurological correlates. The media had a field day misinterpreting and overblowing this one. [added 11/17/07]

Different definitions of an attitude - A collection of some definitions of an attitude, and a description of the tripartite model - presented by Eugene Borgida [added 7/6/06]

Construction of a "standard questionnaire" - More specifically, Eugene Borgida describes the "steps in the construction of a standard questionnaire according to the theory of reasoned action." [added 7/6/06]

Historical perspective on the attitude-behavior relationship - Another good resource from Eugene Borgida, this page describes social psychology's changing approaches to researching the attitude-behavior relationship over time. [added 7/6/06]

"The education of Shelby Knox" - In a P.O.V. show on PBS, "A self-described 'good Southern Baptist girl,' 15-year-old Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas has pledged abstinence until marriage. But she becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex ed when she finds that Lubbock, where high schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the state." [added 1/2/06]

Abstinence-only education - Report from Advocates for Youth entitled "Five years of abstinence-only-until-marriage education: Assessing the impact" [added 1/2/06]

Abstinence-only education - An opposing view on the above issue from The Heritage Foundation in this report entitled "Adolescent virginity pledges and risky sexual behaviors." [added 1/2/06]

Theory of Planned Behavior - Icek Aizen makes available on his site an explanation of the theory of planned behavior (in a nice, graphical, interactive format) as well as access to a number of his articles [added 6/7/02]

Self-determination Theory - a site from Edward Deci et al. on their motivational theory -- it includes an overview, bibliography, discussion of the reward controversy (overjustification effect), related scales that can be downloaded and more [added 6/6/02]

 

Survey/Polling Data

How to increase voter turnout - "Would-be voters received one of three kinds of phone call: either they were encouraged to vote and reminded of their duty; they were asked whether they intended to vote; or they were asked more detailed questions about when, where etc they planned to vote. A control group received no phone call. A classic study in the 1980s found that simply asking people if they intended to vote ended up making them more likely to vote - a phenomenon known as the 'self-prophecy effect'. However, this effect wasn't replicated here. Would-be voters in the current study, who were simply asked whether they planned to vote or not, were barely more likely to vote than the control group. Same story for the participants who received a call with encouragement to vote. By contrast, would-be voters who were asked questions about the when and where of their voting intentions were, on average, 4.1 per cent more likely to vote than controls. There's a further twist. Digging deeper the researchers realised that the detailed questions about voting intentions only exerted an influence on would-be voters who were the sole eligible voter in their household. Focusing on just these people, the detailed voting intentions phone call led to an average 9.1 per cent increase in turnout." [added 7/13/10]

European Values Survey (EVS) - From The Scout Report: "Based in the Netherlands the EVS concerns itself with asking Europeans about religion and morality, politics, work and leisure, and relationships. On their homepage, visitors can learn about their work by clicking on the "Organization" area. After learning a bit about their organizational structure, visitors will want to look at previous and current surveys. These are located along the left-hand side of the homepage, and they include surveys from 1981, 1990, 1999, and 2000. While visitors do not have access to the raw data on the site, they can look at the questionnaires and read publications based on this research. However, visitors do have access to the World Values Survey (WVS) data, which is available in the 'Values Survey, 1981-2004' section." [4/17/09]

"Unscientific" polls - a good blog entry about the media's use of unscientific polls [added 4/11/09]

"California same-sex marriage issues survey" - [added 6/6/08]

Survey of American youth - "Monitoring the Future is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of American secondary school students, college students, and young adults. Each year, a total of approximately 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th grade students are surveyed (12th graders since 1975, and 8th and 10th graders since 1991). In addition, annual follow-up questionnaires are mailed to a sample of each graduating class for a number of years after their initial participation." [added 8/05/07]

Attitudes between citizens of neighboring Asian countries - A survey from the Pew Research Center -- "There is a good deal of dislike, if not outright hostility, in how the publics of major Asian countries view their neighbors. The deepest divides exist between traditional rivals - roughly seven-in-ten Japanese express an unfavorable view of China and an equal number of Chinese dislike Japan. Similarly, most Indians have an unfavorable view of Pakistan and most Pakistanis hold negative views about India." [added 12/30/06]

Pew Global Attitudes Project - "The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys. More than 90,000 interviews in 50 countries have been conducted as part of the project." Current surveys include one in predominantly Muslim countries on the degree to which Islamic extremism is perceived as a threat in their countries. [added 7/6/06]

A blog on analyzing polling data - "Political arithmetik: Where numbers and politics meet" is a blog from Charles Franklin, a professor of political science, in which he explains political bias in polls, the statistical analysis of them, and more. Lots of good examples and very detailed analysis. [added 7/6/06]

National Youth Poll - Hamilton College conducted a national survey of the high school class of 2006 on the hot button issues of guns, gays and abortion. [added 2/22/06]

Living with debt - A recent report on changing attitudes and behavior towards living in debt within the U.S. -- "Robert D. Manning of Rochester Institute of Technology conducted in-depth interviews and group discussions with nearly 150 people to better understand American's attitudes and behaviors when it comes to their debt." [added 1/10/06]

Survey on midlife sexuality - "2004 update of attitudes and behaviors: Sexuality at midlife and beyond" from AARP [added 9/20/05]

Survey data from NORC - another source of polling data from a national organization for research at the University of Chicago -- polls and reports on 9-11 and other topics [added 9/20/05]

"Discover what the world thinks about U.S." - Here is another site that includes polling data about how others feel about America. It also includes audio and video from around the world translated into English. [added 8/30/05]

How the U.S. is perceived around the world (2004) - a series of pieces on international perceptions of the U.S. including country by country surveys -- which can be compared and contrasted to American perspectives [added 12/1/04]

Attitudes about homosexuality - "This study is a compilation of public opinion polls on acceptance of homosexuality, gay marriage, civil unions, partner benefits, party identification and voting of gays, employment, and adoption. The study includes all of the latest polling data as well as important historical trends for comparative purposes." From the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research [added 3/20/05]

Health Poll Report - "Kaiser Health Poll Report is a bimonthly report designed to provide key tracking information on public opinion about health care topics to journalists, policymakers and the general public. Each Current Feature includes poll findings on a unique and timely topic, while the other sections track public opinion on some key broad questions over time." View the actual poll questions and summary of responses for a large number of topics including Americans' views of disability and public attitudes towards HIV/AIDS. [added 12/1/04]

World Values Survey - "The World Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It is conducted by a network of social scientist at leading universities all around world. The survey is performed on nationally representative samples in almost 80 societies on all six inhabited continents. A total of four waves have been carried since 1981 allowing accurate comparative analysis." Find the questionnaires used. Data sets are available for analysis, even some online analysis. [added 3/23/04]

CensusScope - easy and well organized way to search through the 2000 U.S. Census data, with charts, maps and rankings - do any of you have your students look at and use demographic data of any type? I would like to hear what kinds of activities or assignments you use so I can share them with the group. Send any ideas to me at jfmueller@noctrl.edu. [added 6/7/02]

Polling Data - PollingReport.com states that it is "an independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion." You can find an extensive collection of polling results on a variety of topics here, and it is kept current

Survey Research Center - from Princeton University - links to a considerable amount of survey and poll data and other related resources

Cognitive Dissonance

"When is it okay to lie? Teens answer" - [added 6/6/08]

Origins of cognitive dissonance - story about some fascinating research which investigated and found apparent dissonance-reducing strategies in four-year-old children and capuchin monkeys -- here is the original research article [added 12/16/07]

• Then, read this article discounting the cognitive dissonance explanation in the above research (and in much of the cognitive dissonance research in the past) and replacing it with a "Monty Hall" explanation
• Also, here is a New York Times article discussing the second article's critique
• Finally, here is a video explaining the Monty Hall dilemma and two sites where you can play the Monty Hall game [added 4/16/08]

Iraq on the Record - This site reportedly catalogs public misrepresentations by the Bush administration regarding the Iraq war. The site was prepared at the direction of democratic representative Henry Waxman. [added 6/9/04]

Links to some cognitive dissonance resources on the Web

"Attitudes and Cognitive Organization" - classic article by Fritz Heider (1946)

"Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance" - classic article by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)

 

Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology is a part of the CROW Project, Course Resources on the Web. CROW was initially sponsored by the Associated Colleges of Illinois and generously supported by UPS. This site was created by Jon Mueller, Professor of Psychology at North Central College, Naperville, IL. Send comments to Jon.