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FACULTY GUIDE for use with the Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology VOLUME TWO WORTH PUBLISHERS FACULTY GUIDE for use with the Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology, Volume Two by Worth Publishers ISBN-10: 1-4292-9809-X ISBN-13: 978-1-4292-9809-4 © 2012 by Worth Publishers All rights reserved. The Interactive Presentation Slides, Volume Two, and its accompanying Faculty Guide are protected by the copyright laws of the United States. These laws prohibit duplicating the enclosed programs and/or preparing derivative works based on these programs. The contents or parts thereof may be reproduced for use with the Interactive Presentation Slides, Volume Two, but may not be reproduced in any other form for any other purpose without the prior written permission of the publisher. Worth Publishers 41 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10010 www.worthpublishers.com 2 CONTENTS I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..4 II. Volume Two Table of Contents………….………………………………………………..5 III. System Requirements and Instructions…………………………………............................ 6 IV. Technical Support Information……………….……………………………………………7 V. Credits ………………………………………………………………………………….… 7 VI. Guide to Embedded Videos and Activities Within the Slides……………………….…….8 VII. Copyright Information…………..……………………………………………………46 3 I. INTRODUCTION Welcome to the Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology, Volume Two, by Worth Publishers. This extraordinary series of “next generation” PowerPoint® lectures give instructors a dynamic, yet easy-to-use new way to engage students during classroom presentations of core psychology topics. Each lecture provides opportunities for discussion and interaction and enlivens the psychology classroom with an unprecedented number of embedded video clips and animations from Worth’s Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology, Digital Media Archives, and Scientific American Frontiers Teaching Modules, third edition, as well as lecture activities from ActivePsych. These PowerPoint slides were developed with you, the busy college instructor, in mind. We wanted to provide you with plug-and-play presentations that incorporate dynamic videos, vivid illustrations and photos, and live animations, without necessitating extra work on your part. These slides are appropriate for both first-time adjuncts and seasoned instructors, regardless of your level of media expertise. Simply follow the instructions that appear on the next page, review the instructor notes that appear below each slide (PDFs are already provided; print them and you are done!), and start your presentation. You might be wondering why these slides are loaded onto flash drives, not burned onto CD-ROM or posted online. There are two reasons for this. First, the embedded assets—the videos, animations, highresolution photos, and animation sequences—make each presentation folder quite large. Flash drives enable us to package each volume on a single device, not on multiple CDs. Also, more and more computers are abandoning CD drives, and we have heard from many instructors that flash drives make it easier to transport their lectures to other classrooms and computers. Secondly, most of the videos, photos, and animations within these slides have very strict permissions that prohibit us from disseminating the presentations online. Consequently, we ask you to respect our content by not posting the videos and other media assets within these presentations on YouTube or sharing them in any other unsecure way. Please see the copyright information at the end of this faculty guide if you have any questions or concerns about this. We hope that these slides help enliven the classroom experience for both you and your students and make your lectures a bit easier to prepare. If you have any suggestions for improving this product, please do not hesitate to contact us. ---Worth Publishers, August 2011 4 II. VOLUME TWO TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Thinking 2. Language 3. Intelligence 4. Motivation 4.1 Hunger and Sexual Behavior 4.2 Motivational Theories 5. Emotion, Stress, and Health 5.1 Emotion 5.2 Stress and Health 6. Personality 6.1 Psychoanalytic and Humanistic Perspectives 6.2 Further Perspectives and Assessment 7. Psychological Disorders 7.1 Introduction to Psychological Disorders 7.2 Anxiety and Mood Disorders 7.3 Personality, Dissociative, and Somatoform Disorders 7.4 Schizophrenia 8. Therapy 8.1 Introduction to Therapy 8.2 Psychological Therapies 8.3 Biomedical Therapies 9. Social Psychology 9.1 Social Cognition 9.2 Social Influence 9.3 Social Relations Instructor Notes (PDF’d versions of the presentations that include the notes right below each slide) Student Handouts (PDF’d versions of the presentations that include note-taking space next to each slide) 5 III. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND INSTRUCTIONS These are the minimum system requirements for optimum presentation of the slides and playback of embedded media: WINDOWS: - Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 - Pentium 2 Processor/266MHz or faster - 800 x 600 screen resolution or above - 64 MB RAM - 8x CD-ROM MACINTOSH: - OSX (10.3 or above) - G4 or faster - 800 x 600 screen resolution or above - 64 MB RAM - 8x CD-ROM Recommended Settings (MAC and PC): - 1024 x 768 screen resolution or above - 128 MB RAM -Microsoft PowerPoint, version 97 or later. -Apple QuickTime or Windows Media Player -Adobe Flash -An internet connection (to access ActivePsych activities) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To get started, insert the "flash" drive into your computer's USB drive, with the black and gold side facing up. The slides and their embedded assets are contained in zipped files within folders labeled by number and topic. IMPORTANT: You must copy over the zipped files to your hard drive and fully extract them in order for the embedded videos and animations to play correctly. Keep all the files that are packaged with the PowerPoint file together in the same folder. Once you have moved the desired presentation folders to your hard drive and extracted the contents, locate and click the PowerPoint file entitled "LAUNCH PRESENTATION." When the PowerPoint opens, click the "Enable Content" button if you are prompted to do so. The presentation should open in the slide view, with notes visible below each slide. To begin the slide show, click “Slide Show,” and then “From Beginning.” (This path might be slightly different depending on the version of PowerPoint you use.) Each presentation contains different animated features and video. We strongly recommend consulting the Instructor Notes for each presentation before showing them in class. We also discourage editing the slides themselves too extensively. They contain a lot of intricate animation schemes that can easily be disabled. Please understand that there are many different versions of PowerPoint and many different operating systems that each might handle these slides differently. If you have problems playing the videos within 6 these slides, we strongly recommend that you view PowerPoint’s “help” menu or visit Microsoft's PowerPoint support site: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/. IV. TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you have a question or comment about any aspect of the Worth Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology, Volume Two, please contact technical support by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (800) 936-6899. Please be sure to specify that you are using the Worth Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology and provide information about your computer (Mac/Windows, OS version, etc.). V. CREDITS Worth Publishers would like to thank the following instructors for their generous contributions to the Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology: Heidi Dempsey, Jacksonville State University Tamara Ferguson, Utah State University James Foley, College of Wooster Cathy Hunt, Pennsylvania State University Jeff Love, Pennsylvania State University Missy Patterson, Austin Community College Susan Scerbo, Old Dominion University Senior Publisher Catherine Woods Acquisitions Editor Daniel DeBonis Senior Media Editor Andrea Musick Executive Marketing Manager Katherine Nurre Development Editors Elaine Epstein Matthew Kachur Mimi Melek Senior Producer and Designer Kimberly Welsh, CityStyle Presentations Producers Wendy Lin Anna Matras Vallery Darmadji, Presentation Elevation 7 VI. GUIDE TO EMBEDDED VIDEOS AND ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE SLIDES The Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology contain many embedded videos, animations, and activities from our various media collections. While notes are included within the slides themselves about most of these assets, you may appreciate having more explanation about what each video or activity depicts. What follows are descriptions of the videos and activities media assets that we feel require a bit more context, as well as additional information about how to discuss them with your students. You can also access the complete faculty guides for the various Worth video and ActivePsych collections here: http://worthpublishers.com/Catalog/content.aspx?Title=4047. TOPIC 1: THINKING SLIDE 10: Problem Solving in Genus Corvus (Crows, Ravens, and Magpies) (Video) Length: 1:30 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: Behavioral Ecology Research Group, University of Oxford Description The program illustrates the strategies animals and humans use in solving problems. It also addresses the question of whether animals think, and more specifically, their capacity for making and using tools. In this video, birds of the genus Corvus (crows, ravens, magpies) confront the challenge of retrieving food from a long glass tube. As the clip opens, a bird finds two short wires atop a glass tube. The bird uses one of the wires to poke at the food in the bottom of the tube. Animals (as well as humans) often approach problems through trial and error. After several unsuccessful attempts to secure the food, the bird withdraws the wire from the tube and, with some effort, bends the wire into a small hook. Demonstrating insight the bird returns the hooked wire to the tube and, using it as a tool, successfully lifts the basket of food to the top. Interpretive Comments People and animals use a variety of strategies to solve problems. Some are solved through trial and error. Sometimes solutions come as sudden flashes of inspiration that we call insight. Animals display remarkable capacities for thinking. Moreover, they demonstrate a surprising capacity to create and use tools, something that was once thought to be uniquely human. 8 SLIDE 14: The Availability Heuristic (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. In this activity, students will make judgments between two possibilities about various categories—from populations of refugees and threatened mammal species to caloric intake of snacks. Student judgments are recorded on screen and later discussed along with related facts. For additional information about any screen activity, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screens to promote class discussion. SLIDE 15: The Confirmation Bias (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. This activity demonstrates how people use the confirmation bias to solve problems, often incompletely if not incorrectly. Students will be asked to play three versions of a game. Each version involves making choices about a set of four cards, with each set related to a rule. Class choices for solving the problems will be discussed in light of the confirmation bias. For additional information about any screen activity, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screens to promote class discussion. SLIDE 19: Animal Language (Video) Length: 3:15 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description Whether or not animals truly have language ability has been a topic of debate in psychology for many decades. The clip begins with some examples of non-verbal animal communication, such as the warning flash of a white-tailed deer, and the intricate “dances” of bees that indicate the location of a food source. A psychologist argues that there is no clear division between human language and that of other species, but rather that the differences are a matter of degree. One of the difficulties in evaluating animal language is that most species lack vocal cords. Research efforts with animals, therefore, focus on non-verbal methods of communication. The clip then shows research efforts to teach human language to dolphins. Some of these dolphins have been able to learn up to sixty words and to process these words in 2000 9 sentences. Bonobos also have been shown to be capable of language processing. In the clip, we see a bonobo communicating with a researcher via a symbol board. TOPIC 2: LANGUAGE SLIDE 12: Language Development in Infants and Toddlers (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. In this activity you will use video clips to show milestones in language development for children from birth through age six. Students will become familiar with language development in children exposed to a language other than English, or to multiple languages, as well as in children who attend child care centers. For additional information about any screen activity, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screen to promote class discussion. SLIDE 15: Chomsky’s View of Language Development (Video) Length: 3:50 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description In this clip, Noam Chomsky’s theory of language development is explained. The ability of humans to master grammar, Chomsky claims, cannot be explained solely by learning. Therefore, Chomsky asserts that the grammar in language is more likely to have a biological basis than the meaning of individual words. In other words, Chomsky argues that humans have an inborn, predisposition for language and grammar. The clip then gives examples of sentences that are grammatically different when words are removed at the end of the sentence. Humans are able to understand the sentences as meaning two different things without explicitly learning the grammatical rules that make the sentences different. SLIDE 22: Animal Language (Video) Length: 3:14 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description Whether or not animals truly have language ability has been a topic of debate in psychology for many decades. The clip begins with some examples of non-verbal animal communication, such as the warning flash of a white-tailed deer, and the intricate “dances” of bees that indicate the location of a food source. A psychologist argues that there is no clear division between human language and that of other species, but rather that the differences are a matter of degree. One of the difficulties in evaluating animal language is that most species lack vocal cords. Research efforts with animals, therefore, focus on non-verbal methods of communication. The clip then shows research efforts to teach human language to dolphins. 10 Some of these dolphins have been able to learn up to sixty words and to process these words in 2000 sentences. Bonobos also have been shown to be capable of language processing. In the clip, we see a bonobo communicating with a researcher via a symbol board. TOPIC 3: INTELLIGENCE SLIDE 12: Pros and Cons of Intelligence Testing (Video) Length: 6:30 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description This clip describes the roles of Alfred Binet, Lewis Terman, and David Wechsler in the development of intelligence tests. The clip also explains how the controversial use of intelligence tests to screen immigrants created negative stereotypes about certain immigrant populations. SLIDE 14: Measuring IQ (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. In this activity students explore cross-sectional, longitudinal, and sequential studies as ways of measuring how intelligence changes with age. Animated illustrations demonstrate how confounding factors can bias or distort results in the different studies. For additional information about any screen activity, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screen to promote class discussion. TOPIC 4: MOTIVATION Presentation 4.1: Hunger and Sexual Behavior SLIDE 6: Experiencing Hunger (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. 11 In this activity some aspects of physiology and psychology of hunger are explored. This exploration mainly focuses on people who do not suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Two screens present animations about the absorption and fasting phases of food consumption. For additional information about any screen activity, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screen to promote class discussion. SLIDE 13: Childhood Obesity: Being Overweight (Video) Length: 2:31 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Human Development Description In this video, overweight children and their parents share some experiences related to being overweight in the culture of children. SLIDE 14: Overcoming Anorexia Nervosa (Video) Length: 3:20 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Slim Chance” 48 Hours (CBS News) Description Discussion of the psychology of hunger can include consideration of the important topic of eating disorders. David suffers from anorexia nervosa. At his lowest point, his diet consisted of carrots and club soda. His weight is down to 105 pounds when he finally arrives at the hospital. Although he should weigh 140, he reports scheming to reach 98 pounds. Video images taken by his wife show him to be extraordinarily thin. David’s self-perception is distorted; he does not believe that he appears emaciated. And although he recognizes that his thinking is irrational, he seems helpless to break the grip of the disorder. He reports that at home he would dump his yogurt down the kitchen drain in an effort to convince his wife that he had eaten it. In the hospital he describes his internal struggle. If he now fails to gain weight, he is a bad patient. If he does gain, he is a bad anorexic. Treatment at Somerset hospital includes medication, food, and therapy sessions. In group therapy, it is clear that David has a negative body image. At home, Joanne describes her husband as his own worst enemy. She finds David’s continued refusal to eat to be increasingly frustrating and tiring. When the narrator confronts David with the prospect of death from his illness, he acknowledges that possibility but also makes the bizarre claim that it would provide “some kind of validation.” After six months of therapy at the hospital David has successfully gained 25 pounds and is preparing to leave treatment. However, he describes his recovery as only beginning. Interpretive Comments Multiple factors contribute to anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which a normal-weight person diets and becomes 15 percent or more underweight yet still feels fat and continues to starve. Usually the disorder occurs (in contrast to this case) in adolescent females. Cultural pressure to be thin has contributed to the rise in anorexia nervosa among women in Western societies. In addition, low selfesteem (apparent in David’s case) and negative emotions interact with life experiences to produce the 12 disorder. Patients with anorexia often seem to come from families who are competitive, protective, and high-achieving. Twin research indicates that eating disorders may have a genetic component. SLIDE 18: Sexual Dysfunctions and Their Treatments (Video) Length: 6:05 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “It’s Just Sex” 48 Hours (CBS News) Description In addition to describing the treatment for one major sexual disorder, this video raises important questions about the goals and appropriate use of drug therapy. The Mayo Clinic is dedicated to eradicating erectile dysfunction. This segment explores the lives of five men who have participated in the clinic’s drug therapy program. John is a 51-year-old athletics instructor who developed erectile dysfunction after he was diagnosed with diabetes. Over the past eight years, he has tried a variety of drugs with mixed success. The effectiveness of each pill is carefully recorded. Some of the most dramatic effects have come from the drug Cialis, which has been nicknamed “The Weekender.” Tolman, a prostate cancer survivor, was one of the first patients to be treated with Viagra. The drug has now made medical, social, and marketing history. Viagra, explains one advertising executive, has become the equivalent of a generic and many view it as the cure to the problem of erectile dysfunction. Nonetheless, Viagra is not successful with all men. Approximately 25 million men could benefit from an alternative intervention. More than a dozen pharmaceutical companies are seeking to tap into the multibillion dollar market. Four of the men, including 61-year-old Joseph who suffers from diabetes, have tried the new drug Levitra. Similar to Viagra, Levitra is supported by an advertising campaign that features a younger man who “just needs a little help with his pain.” Focus is shifting from treating erectile dysfunction to enhancing erectile quality. That is, the drugs are being used in ways not originally intended. Men without a disorder are using them to improve their sexual experience. Research continues on new drug developing, which includes some that may eventually replace pills. For example, 61-year-old Wes, a CPA and prostate cancer patient, is using a cream that is applied locally to improve sexual performance. Perhaps the most revolutionary new treatment is a nasal spray recently tested successfully by Kurt, a 45-year-old photographer. In contrast to the cream, this spray works on the brain structure that triggers erections. Interpretive Comments Sexual disorders are problems that consistently impair sexual functioning. For men, premature ejaculation and erectile disorder (an inability to have or maintain an erection) are among the most common. Beginning with the introduction of Viagra, erectile disorder has been routinely treated with a pill. Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Viagra in 1998, 35 million men in more than 120 countries have taken nearly 2 billion Viagra pills. Cialis and Levitra are competitors and also big sellers. It is estimated that 4 million Americans take erectile dysfunction pills every year. 13 SLIDE 21: Homosexuality and the Nature-Nurture Debate (Video) Length: 8:00 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Gay or Straight?” 60 Minutes (CBS News) Description Your discussion of sexual motivation can be extended to a consideration of the roots of sexual orientation. This clip could also be used to highlight psychology’s biggest and most persistent issue, namely, the relative contribution of biology and experience to human traits. The clip visits the bedrooms of two brothers, Jared and Adam. The rooms are a study in contrast. One reflects strongly masculine interests, the other very feminine. Jared is eager to show the narrator his GI Joe collection. Adam displays his baby doll. He also wears bright red nail polish. Adam’s behavior is labeled “childhood gender nonconformity.” Children who show this pattern of behavior tend to grow up gay. The boys’ mother Danielle reports that the difference in her sons’ behaviors became apparent at 18 months. Psychologist Michael Bailey suggests that cases such as that of Jared and Adam indicate that nature rather than nurture shapes sexual orientation. Although research indicates that homosexuality runs in families, psychologists have also found that identical twin pairs can have different sexual orientations. For example, twins Steve and Greg had the same upbringing but one is gay and the other is not. Although they showed different interests in childhood, it was not until they were in high school that their different sexual orientations became evident. This difference in identical twins, admits Bailey, indicates that sexual orientation is not entirely genetic. Environmental influences, he continues, include those that occur already in the womb. In fact, research suggests that prenatal influence can be very important. At Michigan State University, Marc Breedlove has found that the hormones a rat is exposed to at birth can change its sexual orientation. Rats are born underdeveloped so this exposure comes at a stage when humans are still in the womb. A female rat injected with testosterone at birth shows a sexual behavior pattern characteristic of a male. A male castrated at birth (and thus deprived of testosterone) shows a sexual pattern characteristic of a female. Other research on sexual orientation has revealed the “older brother” effect. The more older brothers a man has, the greater the probability that he will be gay. There is no corresponding effect for lesbians. One explanation for this effect is that the mother produces antibodies when she conceives her first boy, and these antibodies affect the sons she subsequently carries. Strangely, this effect holds for right-handed but not for left-handed men. Trying to apply these theories to the real cases presented in the clip merely highlights the complexity and continuing riddle of sexual orientation. At this point, there are many more questions than answers. Interpretive Comments Research suggests that from 3 to 4 percent of men and 1 or 2 percent of women are homosexual. Sexual orientation seems to be biologically influenced. Genetic studies of family members and twins as well as research on the effect of exposure to certain hormones during prenatal development highlight the role of 14 biological influences. Studies of same-sex behavior in several hundred species as well as the finding of a straight-gay difference in brain anatomy contribute to the growing belief that biology plays an important role in the development of sexual orientation. In contrast, a child’s relationships with parents, childhood sexual experiences, peer relationships, and dating experiences are not predictive of sexual orientation. As this program suggests, prenatal environmental influence may help explain the occasional difference that has been discovered in the sexual orientation of identical twins. Presentation 4.2: Motivational Theories SLIDE 5: What Is Motivation? (Video) Length: 5:30 seconds Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description This clip follows a middle-aged Dairy Queen owner who becomes unhappy with his level of fitness and his weight, and decides that he wants to become a marathon runner. The clip discusses three aspects of motivation. The first of these is activation, which is the process of making a decision to engage in a new behavior. The second is persistence, or the ability to persevere with the new behavior. The third aspect of motivation is intensity, which is how hard one will work at the new behavior. The clip illustrates these three aspects of motivation by way of the marathon runner. TOPIC 5: EMOTION, STRESS, AND HEALTH Presentation 5.1: Emotion SLIDE 6: Moral Thinking and Emotion: A Challenging Dilemma (Video) Length: 5:34 minutes Worth Source: Scientific American Frontiers Video Collection, Third Edition Description This program opens with a description of the structure and function of the anterior cingulate cortex, a structure above the corpus callosum. It plays a critical role in helping us to resolve inner conflict. Joshua Greene of Princeton University poses the moral dilemma of a train headed for five people. All will be killed unless you throw a switch that diverts the train onto another track where it will kill one person. Should you throw the switch? Most people say yes. Now consider the same dilemma with this slight alteration. Your saving the five depends on pushing a large stranger onto the tracks where he will die but the five will live. What should you do? Although the logic is the same, most people say no. When Greene’s research team used brain imaging to study people’s neural responses as they considered the second dilemma, they found that the brain’s emotion areas lit up. The dilemma engaged emotions that lengthened the time people considered the dilemma and they changed their moral judgment. The Princeton team also used the last episode of the popular television series Mash to study how people wrestle with moral dilemmas. As a bus load of people hides from enemy soldiers, a baby onboard begins crying. The mother, in trying to quiet the baby, smothers her. In such a case, is it all right to kill the baby? This dilemma also generates strong conflict between moral feeling and moral thinking. After studying 15 neural processing while people consider such a dilemma, the research team believes that the anterior cingulate plays a critical role in receiving information from different parts of the brain to help us make a final judgment. Interpretive Comments The Princeton research program poses important questions about the role of the brain in moral decision making. It also raises questions about the relationship between moral thinking, moral feeling, and moral behavior. Clearly, moral judgment involves more than moral thinking. Sometimes moral feelings precede moral reasoning and our reasoning attempts to convince us and others of what we intuitively feel. SLIDE 11: The Physiology of Emotions (Video) Length: 3:04 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description The clip begins at a soccer game with parents describing some of the physical sensations that accompany their emotions. We then switch to a psychologist who discusses some of the earlier work on emotions that focuses on their relationship to the autonomic nervous system. He mentions that attempts to differentiate among different emotions using measures of autonomic arousal (such as heart rate, sweating, etc.) were only partly successful. More recent research into emotion has focused on its relationship to the central nervous system, more specifically on which parts of the brain are involved in specific emotional experiences. Another researcher goes on to explain that our left hemisphere is more related to positive emotions, while the right hemisphere is more related to negative emotions. He describes a phenomenon in which individuals who have had a stroke in their left hemisphere have a tendency to be more “cynical and sullen” in their demeanor, whereas individuals who have had a right hemisphere stroke tend to express more of a “What, me worry?” attitude. SLIDE 14: Rage: One Man’s Story and Treatment (Video) Length: 10:05 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Personality,” Human Mind (BBC Motion Gallery) Description Anger and its management are central themes of this program. You can use the program to introduce the key components of emotion as well as the causes, consequences, and control of the specific emotion of anger. The clip will also stimulate class discussion of the concept of catharsis. Does venting hostility reduce aggression or fuel more aggression? Is venting cathartic or does it merely foster shame and regret? Sean has a good job, a loving wife, and a new baby son. However, he has a problem with bouts of uncontrollable rage that often occur when he is driving. His overwhelming anger, including shouts and screams of obscenities, is later followed by feelings of shame and regret. He can’t stop to think before he reacts, claims his wife Angie. Sean fears he will lose everything if he does not change. In his first anger-management session, Sean describes his pattern of rage in detail. The therapist attempts to explain to Sean that the part of his brain responsible for the conscious control of behavior is in conflict with the part that underlies more automatic, impulsive reactions. The narrator notes that the challenge facing Sean is one of getting his frontal lobes to overrule his raging amygdala. The therapist counsels Sean to attempt to distract himself, if only temporarily, when confronted with specific situations that trigger his rage. 16 The first session seems to produce mixed results. Early in the week, Sean seems successful in controlling his anger but, as the days pass, his road rage returns. Angie notes that while her husband wants to change, his uncontrollable anger persists. Strongly motivated to bring his rage under control, Sean continues the anger-management sessions. His therapist encourages him to continue to monitor his specific behaviors very carefully and to reinforce himself when he succeeds in controlling his impulses. Several weeks of additional therapy end with Sean taking a final test drive. Wearing a monitor that assesses his heart rate and level of stress, he pursues a route that he typically hates taking. Sean remains calm and relaxed even when confronting situations that he formerly found stressful and that elicited rage. A month later, Sean and his wife reflect on the effectiveness of therapy. Sean reports greater self-control and a healthier relationship with his family. Angie agrees that therapy has been effective. Interpretive Comments Emotions are a mix of physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience. These three components are apparent in Sean’s anger. For example, he shows increased heart rate, shouts and screams obscenities, and experiences rage. Anger is especially likely to occur when another’s perceived misdeeds seem willful, unjustified, and avoidable. Venting one’s anger usually fails to produce catharsis, that is, a cleansing or relieving of aggressive urges. Typically, expressing anger breeds more anger. As this case study illustrates, expressing anger may temporarily reduce aggression because the behavior leaves us feeling guilty or anxious. SLIDE 15: The Search for Happiness (Video) Length: 6:15 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “The Pursuit of Happiness” CBS Sunday Morning (CBS News) Description This program provides a good introduction to classroom discussion of research on subjective well-being, as well as the perspective of positive psychology. It features the pioneering work of psychologists Martin Seligman and Ed Diener. Seligman suggests that happiness includes the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life. The latter involves serving something larger than oneself, and is marvelously illustrated by an elderly couple’s establishment of a retirement home for abused animals. For 22 years, the husband and wife team have served as “happy slaves” in meeting the basic needs of dozens of horses, dogs, pigs, and goats. The couple laughs at the irony of their working 14-hour days so their animals can retire. Darrin McMahon traces the history of happiness. In ancient times, happiness was thought to be something dispensed by the gods. The Greeks suggested that humans might play a role in their own happiness. For example, Aristotle maintained that happiness came in living a virtuous life. The early Christians believed that happiness came only in the hereafter. The nineteenth century American ideal of “the pursuit of happiness” assumes that we have the personal capacity to shape our lives and the world in the way that we like. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that the majority of Americans describe themselves as “pretty” or “very” happy. Research on the predictors of happiness suggests that money increases happiness only for the very poor. Once basic needs are met, more money makes little difference. 17 However, researcher Ed Diener notes that Americans’ expectations keep rising and cultural comparisons find that the United States ranks only 15th in subjective well-being. He calls for regular monitoring of a national index of well-being. Diener reports that, without exception, the happiest people all have supportive family and friends. In addition, the pursuit of important values and goals fosters long-term happiness. Enjoying the activities it takes to reach a goal is more important than attaining the goal itself. Diener notes that the pursuit of happiness may itself be long-term happiness. Clearly, happiness is a journey not a destination. Interpretive Comments Researchers in positive psychology aim to expand psychology’s study of emotion to include the positive emotions. They focus on subjective well-being assessed either as feelings of happiness or as a sense of satisfaction with life. Important predictors of happiness include not only close friendships and meaningful work, but also the personality characteristics of high self-esteem, optimism, and agreeableness. “Flow” results from optimal engagement of one’s skills. It is a focused state of consciousness in which there is diminished awareness of self and time. As Diener suggests, enjoying the activities that it takes to reach a goal become more important that the goal itself. SLIDE 16: Emotions and Facial Expressions (Video) Length: 3:30 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “In the Heat of the Moment” Brain Story (BBC Motion Gallery) Description Our facial expressions, claims psychologist Paul Ekman, communicate our internal states. They enable others to see what we are feeling. Different expressions communicate different emotions. Thirty years ago, Ekman traveled to New Guinea to study facial expressions of emotion. He went to live in the last stone-age culture on earth. The people he studied had had virtually no contact with the outside world. Ekman wanted to know whether the facial expressions shown by people in the industrialized world differ from those of people in New Guinea. Do emotional expressions change as societies develop or are they fixed and universal? Ekman showed photographs of people to the natives and asked them to point to the face that was displaying a particular emotion. He also asked them to be actors and to make facial expressions displaying different emotional states. He discovered that the facial expressions of the tribe in New Guinea were the same as those he had found elsewhere. He concluded that these common expressions reflected a simple set of core universal human emotions. Interpretive Comments Although the meaning of gestures varies with culture, many facial expressions of emotion are shared by everyone. The fact that even blind children who have never seen a face demonstrate the same facial expressions of emotions such as joy, sadness, fear, and anger suggests that these expressions are fixed and universal. However, cultures differ in the amount of emotional expression they consider acceptable. In cultures that foster individualism (in contrast to collectivism), emotional displays are often intense and prolonged. Charles Darwin speculated that before our ancestors communicated verbally, their ability to use facial expressions to convey greeting, threat, and submission fostered survival. 18 Presentation 5.2: Stress and Health SLIDE 4: What Is Stress? (Video) Length: 05:20 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description The clip begins with a psychologist explaining that stress has three components. The first component is the type of event we encounter. In most cases these stressful events have a negative connotation. We then meet a woman who describes when she first noticed an abnormal feeling in her breast that was later diagnosed as cancer. Because her daughter was soon to deliver a baby the woman did not tell her daughter of the breast cancer until the day after the baby was delivered. The daughter describes her feelings on that day. We are told that a second component of stress is that it is a discrepancy between what the situation demands and what you think your resources are. Our breast cancer patient describes her physical and mental reactions when her doctor gave her diagnosis. Finally we are told that the third component of stress is the physical reactions produced by the sympathetic nervous system. SLIDE 7: Stress on the Job (Video) Length: 10:41 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description Interactions in brain can be upset by environmental changes such as those experienced during stress. The physiological response to stress is discussed in this clip. The stress response activates many brain structures (the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, locus coeruleus, and adrenal gland) and results in the release of neurotransmitters (namely norepinephrine). Low levels of stress experienced over long periods of time keep messages from the limbic system flowing to the frontal cortex. The balance that the organism tries to maintain between the limbic system and cortex during stress is exhausting and leads to the erratic behavior that is often seen in victims of stress. This prolonged stress can cause exhaustion, disease (ulcers, cancer, and heart disease) and even death. The importance of the neurotransmitter GABA is also discussed. GABA appears to lower the excitability of cells that are about to receive incoming information. However, if stress is prolonged, GABA’s ability to block messages decreases. Individuals who experience high levels of prolonged stress can be helped by a class of drugs called benzodiazepines (i.e. Valium), which enhances GABA’s inhibiting action. SLIDE 9: Selye’s Stress Response Studies (Video) Length: 2:52 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and BBC Motion Gallery Description This clip provides excellent background to Dr. Hans Selye's classic work on stress. You can also use the clip to highlight the nature of stress, including both its positive and negative effects. 19 Hans Selye has worked as director of experimental medicine and surgery at the University of Montreal since 1945. The university is a world center for the study of stress. Selye explains his long involvement in research on stress. He observes that in addition to the symptoms that are unique to each illness, there is a syndrome or set of disease signs common to all illnesses, for example, feeling ill, tired, and without an appetite. Even as a medical student, Selye observed this syndrome of “just being sick.” Ten years later, he published his first manuscript on stress entitled “A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents.” Stress plays a role in every disease, argues Selye, because disease places increased demands on the body. In some diseases, stress proves to be the decisive factor. When asked about his own personal stress, Selve describes it as the “salt of life.” You need stress, he observes, to make life worthwhile. Stress plays a positive role in life. People vary in their need for, or their tolerance of, stress. For example, Selye notes he has a fairly intense need for work. In fact, he could not exist without it. At the same time, he does not fight for things he cannot win. Interpretive Comments Selye is best known for describing the general adaptation syndrome. When we experience a stressful event, we first go into an alarm state. With our resources mobilized, we are now ready to fight the challenge during the second stage of resistance. If the stressor lasts for a prolonged period, it may deplete our body’s resources and we experience exhaustion. SLIDE 11: Stress and the Immune System: Caretakers at Risk (Video) Length: 3:15 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Mind Over Body” Horizon (BBC Motion Gallery) Description Does stress undermine our physical as well as our psychological well-being? This video examines the impact of stress on our immune system and our body’s ability to heal. Madge is an elderly woman who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Franklin, her husband of 51 years, provides constant care. In contrast to other challenges he has faced, he knows this one will only get worse. The hardest part, Franklin claims, is the contrast that he sees between what his wife is now and what she had been she was when healthy. Researchers Jan and Ron Glaser conducted a detailed study examining the effects of stress on health. Research participants were people under continuous levels of high stress ,such as those who care for family members with Alzheimer’s. Such caregivers often describe their experience as a “living bereavement.” They see pieces of the one they love disappear over time. The Glasers found that psychological stress had lowered Franklin’s immune response. This finding is consistent with other studies of animals and humans, which have found that stress impacts aspects of the immune response. The unanswered question is whether these changes are large enough to have an effect on one’s physical health. 20 The Glasers sought to determine whether the impact of stress on immune functioning would affect the body’s ability to heal itself. Small identical wounds were made on the arms of all of the volunteers. Results indicated that it took longer for the wounds of those experiencing high stress to heal. The study provides evidence that stress inhibits our immune system’s response to the point of undermining our health. Interpretive Comments Our immune system includes two types of white blood cells called lymphocytes. B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight bacterial infections. T lymphocytes form in the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances. Macrophage, another agent of the immune system, identifies, pursues, and ingests harmful invaders. Stress is one important factor that depresses the immune system’s activities. Several studies have demonstrated its negative impact on physical health. In the study described in this clip, the Glasers found that the wounds of stressed participants took longer to heal. In another study, 47 percent of the research participants living stress-filled lives developed colds after a virus was dropped in their nose. In contrast, only 27 percent of those living relatively stress-free lives contracted the illness. Finally, findings from 23 studies reveal that family caregivers of people with dementia exhibit a 15 percent below-normal immune antibody response and a 23 percent increase in stress hormones. SLIDE 15: Companionship and Support: Pets Fill the Void (Video) Length: 4:35 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Garden of Eden”, 48 Hours (CBS News) Description Discussion of the ways that social support promotes health can readily be extended to a consideration of the benefits of animal companionship. Seven years ago, Dr. Bill Thomas began converting a nursing facility in upstate New York into an “Eden” for the elderly. He imported thousands of plants and hundreds of animals in an effort to create a more livable, stimulating environment for the residents. Birds, cats, dogs, and even rabbits now provide companionship to those who are no longer capable of living independently. In addition, Thomas invites children to visit the residents regularly. The Eden alternative seeks to care for the human spirit as well as the human body. It substitutes genuine human caring, claims Thomas, for drugs. In fact, the nursing home’s annual budget for drugs has decreased $75,000. In providing residents with strong social support and instilling in them a new reason for living, the new program has produced dramatically lower infection and mortality rates. When the narrator asks one resident what would happen if the plants and animals were removed, she immediately responds that she would lose her reason for living. The new environment also seems to bring out the best in staff by reducing their level of on-the-job stress. Nurses as well as residents have formed close bonds with the animals. Thomas has now brought the Eden alternative to over 300 nursing homes. “People belong,” he concludes, “in a human habitat surrounded by affection.” 21 Interpretive Comments Social support can act as a stress buffer and, as this clip suggests, can come in different forms. Other lines of research indicate that pets increase the probability of survival after a heart attack, relieve depression in AIDS patients, and lower the level of blood lipids that contribute to cardiovascular risk. Animal lovers might suggest that, in comparison to human companions, pets love you just the way you are, are never judgmental, and are always there for you. SLIDE 21: Stress Management: The Relaxation Response (Video) Length: 7:05 minutes Worth Source: Scientific American Frontiers Video Collection, Third Edition Description In the opening scenes of this program, Herbert Benson of Boston’s Mind/Body Medical Institute teaches Alan Alda the “relaxation response.” He instructs Alda to close his eyes, and then beginning with his feet, tells him to relax all the muscles of his body. He is to focus on his breathing while silently repeating to himself the mantra, “calm.” Other thoughts will occur, suggests Benson, but each time he should come back to “calm.” This attempt to elicit relaxation reflects a simple form of meditation and Alda responds well. Physiological measures confirm a significant reduction of muscle tension. Benson suggests that to the extent stress causes or worsens any disorder, the relaxation response is therapeutic. Indeed John Goddard benefits greatly from relaxation therapy. Once a victim of panic attacks, depression, and high blood pressure, he is now mentally stable and off his blood pressure medication. He states that his daily meditation is responsible: “It’s given me my life back.” In 1981, Benson led expeditions to northern India to study Tibetan monks who practice Tummo yoga as part of their spiritual practice. Vintage film footage dramatically demonstrates how the monks are able, through meditation, to dry (within three to five minutes) ice-cold, wet sheets that have been wrapped around their bodies. Benson reports that they are able to raise the temperature of their extremities by 15 degrees. At the same time they do not increase their heart rate. Benson reports that the relaxation response counteracts stress hormones and thus raises body temperature. Normally the flight-or-fight stress response occurs automatically and is beyond our conscious control. Meditation brings that stress response under control, and, as Alda concludes, “you don’t have to be a Tibetan monk to do it.” Interpretive Comments As a classroom exercise, you may want to ask students to close their eyes and follow the instructions that Herbert Benson gives Alan Alda at the beginning of the program. Interrupt the program to ask students to relate their experience (before Alda reports his!). Research indicates that Tibetans in mediation report a diminished sense of self, space, and time. Brain scans indicate that a part of the parietal lobe that monitors our location becomes less active than usual while a frontal lobe involved in focused attention becomes more active. Numerous studies document the benefits of relaxation therapy. For example, it has been shown to alleviate headaches, hypertension, anxiety, and insomnia. 22 TOPIC 6: PERSONALITY Presentation 6.1: Psychoanalytic and Humanistic Perspectives SLIDE 6: Freud Demonstration (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. In this demonstration, students role-play the three aspects of personality, according to Freud’s theory: the id, ego, and superego. Working in groups of three, students role-play either the id, ego, or superego in a simulated daily real-life decision. The ego comes up with a situation about which he or she needs to make a decision every single day; the id and superego play the parts of lawyers, arguing the cases from their perspectives; the ego makes the final, realistic judgment. For additional information about any activity screen, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screens to promote class discussion. SLIDE 7: Personality Structure: Id, Ego, and Superego (Video) Length: 5:30 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Freud: The Hidden Nature of Man”, The Phoenix Learning Group, Inc. Description Sigmund Freud provided the first comprehensive view of personality. This clip provides an intriguing overview of the three interacting personality systems proposed by Freud: the id, the ego, and the superego. By vividly highlighting the conflict between our biological impulses and internalized social restraints, the program provides a good introduction to the theory of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud describes his theory of personality structure. The conscious self that attempts to deal with the outside world of reality he calls the ego. But ego is not the master of self, claims Freud, because we are “constantly bedeviled by powerful unconscious forces.” The id reflects all that is primitive and infantile; it represents the blind instincts of sexual desire and aggression within us. The id is opposed by the superego, which is rigid, punishing, and repressive. The superego reflects the moral restrictions we have inherited from our parents and from our society. The three elements of personality are illustrated in David’s interactions with his employer, who challenges the way David has handled a client. Although David’s responses to his employer seem rational and calm, the inner voices of his id and superego reflect strongly conflicting forces. The id expresses strongly hostile feelings, while the superego voices respect. 23 David’s hostility toward his employer is based on unconscious hatred of his father caused by childhood jealousy and the Oedipus complex (a very young boy’s sexual desires for his mother and feelings of jealous hatred toward his father). Without insight into these dark forces, claims Freud, we are doomed to play out our lives in an endless dramatization of our childhood relationships with our parents. In a second scenario, the same conflicting forces are apparent in David’s interactions with his girlfriend Peggy. In this case, the strong sexual attraction he feels toward Peggy reflects the unconscious sexual attraction he felt at a very early age toward his mother. This id impulse is in sharp conflict with his superego’s moral restrictions on the expression of the sexual drive. The ego’s task is to meet the conflicting demands of id, ego, and reality and still preserve its own identity. Freud concludes that the struggle between the id and the superego can be the source of our growth only if we recognize the unconscious forces within us. Interpretive Comments Sigmund Freud was a physician who specialized in nervous disorders. His inability to explain his patients’ symptoms in terms of physical causes led to his view of personality. His theory of psychoanalysis focused attention on the conflict between biological impulses and social restraints, and included ideas about an unconscious region of the mind, psychosexual stages, and defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety. Freud has profoundly influenced Western culture. SLIDE 10: Repression: Reality or Myth (Video) Length: 12:40 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Traumatic Memories” Newsnight (BBC Motion Gallery) Description This case study can be used in a classroom discussion about the psychoanalytic perspective of personality and the controversy surrounding Freud’s proposed defense mechanism of repression. Alternatively, you may choose to present the program with the material on memory—specifically in your discussion of the research on reports of repressed and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Anna had always enjoyed pleasant memories of her childhood. But when she developed eating disorders, her deteriorating health led her to therapy. The psychiatrist asked Anna about her relationships with her parents including whether she felt safe with her father. She answered affirmatively. Anna was admitted to an acute psychiatric ward where other patients were in the process of recovering memories of sexual abuse. Anna’s disturbing dream about a male patient attempting to climb into her bed lead her therapist to encourage her to keep dream diaries. Anna believes that the therapist saw her dream as evidence that she had been sexually abused as a child. He gave her The Courage to Heal, a book intended to help readers recover memories of sexual abuse. Anna became convinced that her current problems were the result of past abuse. She first accused her step-grandfather, and then her father, of abuse. Although at times Anna had doubts about the accuracy of her recall, her therapeutic team assured her that it was accurate. But they did not seek any corroborating evidence. 24 Anna now claims that her therapist failed to provide adequate treatment for her eating disorders. In fact, she suggests that the therapy led to her abuse of drugs and made her suicidal. A working team of psychiatrists was appointed to address the controversy. Their inquiry led them to conclude that there is no evidence to support recovered memory theory. Specific guidelines now instruct therapists not to use memory recovery techniques intended to reveal evidence of past sexual abuse about which the patient has no memory. In addition, psychiatrists should alert patients to doubts about recovered memories. The psychiatrist who led the team inquiry goes even further and outright rejects repression and the notion of recovered memory. Clearly, not all agree with his assessment. Anna is now convinced she was never abused and members of her family are trying to rebuild their lives. Interpretive Comments Sigmund Freud argued that repression banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts and feelings from consciousness. It is the key defense mechanism because it underlies all the other defense mechanisms, each of which disguises threatening thoughts and feelings and keeps them from reaching consciousness. Contemporary researchers question whether repression ever occurs. The more common finding is that high stress enhances memory and thus negative emotional events are remembered well. Often vivid, unwanted flashbacks haunt survivors of rape and torture. Research also indicates that we construct our memories using both stored and new information. Children or adults who are exposed to misinformation after an event, or are asked to repeatedly imagine and rehearse an event that never occurred, may incorporate the misleading details into their remembering. Elizabeth Loftus’s finding that false memories of childhood trauma can be experimentally implanted is particularly relevant to this video on therapist-aided recall. Studies indicate that people can be wrongly persuaded that they almost drowned as a child or that they experienced a vicious animal attack. SLIDE 17: Self-Image: Body Dissatisfaction Among Teenage Girls (Video) Length: 3:20 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Skin Deep” 48 Hours (CBS News) Description This video can be used in discussing research on the self—particularly the research findings related to self-esteem. It is also relevant to a discussion of the social-cultural influences that impact the development of the self. Finally, the clip illustrates the importance of physical appearance in social judgments and in shaping our sense of self-worth. 16-year-old Hayley indicates that she was only 13 years old when she first considered having corrective surgery for her breasts. Now, she is scheduled for breast augmentation. The surgeon explains that Hayley was concerned her breasts were too small and, in addition, they had a slight asymmetry. Hayley believed that she suffered a “deformity.” A photograph shows Hayley’s body and breasts to be normal. Hayley’s mother describes her daughter as an excellent student, a fine athlete, and socially popular. Still, she could not stand in front of a mirror without wearing a towel because she felt deformed. The mother’s efforts to reassure Hayley were unsuccessful. 25 Psychologist Lilly Freedland suggests that, for parents and teenagers, the definition of deformity has expanded to include anything that is not perfect. She worries that they may come to see surgery as a quick fix for what may not even be a problem. Dr. Freedland also questions whether teens have the necessary maturity to make such an important decision. One plastic surgeon states that he would not consider doing surgery for breast augmentation on any one under the age of 18. He questions whether a younger person is emotionally prepared to make that kind of decision. Such surgery, he argues, should not be viewed as a “haircut.” In addition, the surgeon has medical concerns because female breasts continue to develop between the ages of 16 and 18. Another surgeon agrees and notes that those coming for surgery often seem to think that looking good is more important than feeling good. The teenagers typically shrug off the potential surgical risks and younger girls continue to seek the surgery. Unfortunately, he notes, a teenage girl often experiences each day as a Miss America beauty contest. Interpretive Comments Self-esteem is a person’s self-evaluation or sense of self-worth. Researchers Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe have argued that the source of our self-esteem is a powerful guide for our behavior. They have identified seven possible domains in which people may invest their self-worth, including academic competence, virtue, other’s approval, God’s love, appearance, competition, and family support. A pervasive physical-attractiveness stereotype (the belief that what is beautiful is good) impacts social judgments and explains why people tend to worry about how they appear to others. However, cultures vary in what they find attractive. In North American society, breast augmentation, body piercings, and rhinoplasty (reshaping of the nose) have increased dramatically in recent decades. In contrast, women of the Padaung tribe in Burma focus on the length of their neck (the longer, the more beautiful) and women in China are concerned with the size of their feet (small feet are considered attractive). In a study of 600 college students, Crocker and her research team found that self-esteem based on appearance was linked to spending more hours per week grooming, shopping, and partying. Self-esteem based on academic performance was associated with greater success in gaining admission to graduate school. Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park have suggested that secure self-esteem is not contingent on external evaluations. Feeling accepted for who we are and not for our looks, wealth, or acclaim enables us to lose ourselves in relationships and in purposes beyond ourselves. Presentation 6.2: Further Perspectives and Personality Assessment SLIDE 11: A Happiness Trait? (Video) Length: 2:00 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Designer Babies” Horizon (BBC Motion Gallery) Description The clip provides a good introduction to trait theories of personality, including a discussion of the heritability and stability of the Big Five. You could also use this program in discussing the genetic contribution to happiness. 26 Researcher Dean Hamer has discovered a gene that affects mood. The gene operates like Prozac. People with a long version of the gene seem to have been on Prozac all their lives, while those with the short version of the same gene seem never to have had it. Hamer has researched the impact of this gene on personality. In studying hundreds of individuals, he has found that the gene is strongly related to neuroticism. Those with the long version of the gene are low in neuroticism. They feel good about themselves and optimistic about the future. Those with the short version of the gene are more depressed, worried, and pessimistic about the future. The presence or absence of a gene seems to profoundly affect personality. Hamer concludes that we are still a long way from genetically designing happy children. Probably many genes contribute to happiness. Interpretive Comments Trait theorists attempt to describe personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, or predispositions to feel and act. Neuroticism (emotional stability versus instability) is one of the Big Five personality factors. One end of the neuroticism dimension is marked by the predisposition to be calm, secure, and self-satisfied; the other end of the continuum reflects the tendency to be anxious, insecure, and self-pitying. The other four personality factors are conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and extraversion. Research suggests that these traits are substantially heritable, appear in all cultures, are stable in adulthood, and are good predictors of other personal attributes. Locating a person on these five dimensions currently offers the most comprehensive view of personality. SLIDE 14: Personality Traits (Video) Length: 3:35 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description This video describes the three trait theories of personality (Cattell’s sixteen personality factors, Eysenck’s three-factor theory, and McCrae and Costa’s Big Five Factors). Animated charts accompany coverage of each theory. SLIDE 20: Self-Esteem (Video) Length: 2:18 minutes Source: Video Tool Kit for Human Development Description Two teenagers in early adolescents describe how their feelings of competence and self-worth changed when they entered puberty. A 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy describe how their views of themselves and their behaviors change in different contexts. Although both recognize that their sense of self varies across contexts, older individuals are better able to integrate variations in their behavior in different contexts into a coherent sense of self. 27 SLIDE 22: Personality and the Brain (Video) Length: 5:30 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “All in the Mind” Brain Story (BBC Motion Gallery) Description The impact of biology on personality is clearly evident in this case study. The example of degenerative brain disease also revisits the mind-brain relationship and illustrates the general principle that everything psychological is simultaneously biological. Over the past eight years, Dick’s personality has changed dramatically. His wife reports that Dick is less aware of the impact his behavior has on others, shows less empathy, and become agitated when things fail to go his way. She also notes that she and her husband can no longer watch a film together on television because he cannot follow the plot. Dick has been diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease that is slowly destroying the front of his brain. Although he is aware that doctors anticipate that his condition will worsen, he seems largely oblivious to the changes in his own personality. He is grateful that the degenerative process is occurring more slowly than the doctors predicted. The frontal lobes underlie our individual differences. They are responsible for our temperament, our social interaction, and our personal style. Dick’s wife relates how brain damage is changing his personality and behavior. At the same time, she reports, he does not seem to care that his behavior is often socially unacceptable. Surprisingly, Dick’s frontal lobe damage has released abilities that he did not know he possessed. His disease has been accompanied by an overwhelming urge to paint. He expresses both surprise and pleasure in this new interest. Sadly, as his brain continues to deteriorate, this new skill will also fade. The brain may consist of a number of interactive modules, with some modules suppressing or inhibiting the functions of others. Thus, destruction of an inhibitory module may improve the function of another. Interpretive Comments Brain-imaging procedures are exploring a growing list of traits and mental states, including impulsivity, empathy, and aggressiveness. Biological underpinnings of personality are highlighted in research that suggests extraverts may seek stimulation because their normal brain arousal is relatively low. Biological influence is also clearly evident in the role of heredity in the development temperament. Phineas Gage, of course, provides the classic case study of how frontal lobe damage may alter personality. The friendly, soft-spoken Gage became irritable, profane, and dishonest as a result of his accident. 28 TOPIC 7: PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS Presentation 7.1: Introduction to Disorders SLIDE 9: Creative People and Disorders (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. In this activity, students are presented with some of the creative people who have suffered from psychological disorders. Screen 6 of the activity presents a video with John Nash, a mathematician and Nobel Laureate, who has suffered from schizophrenia and whose life is the subject of the Oscar-winning movie from 2001, A Beautiful Mind. For additional information about any activity screen, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screens to promote class discussion. Presentation 7.2: Anxiety and Mood Disorders SLIDE 4: Experiencing Anxiety (Video) Length: 8:00 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description In this segment, an interview with a young man named Julio provides insight into the experience and causes of anxiety. Triggering his anxious feelings, Julio lost two close friends to cancer. In addition, his schoolwork and daily life had become increasingly stressful. He describes his symptoms as being “edgy” all the time, and waking up in the middle of the night, fearing he, too, had brain cancer. His girlfriend, Nancy, briefly describes Julio’s anxiety attack, which led to his hospitalization. SLIDE 10: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Young Mother’s Struggle (Video) Length: 7:15 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Who’s Normal Anyway?” Obsessions (BBC Motion Gallery) Description This case study is a useful way to introduce students to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Stephanie’s obsessions center on her young son Jake. Fearing that someone may kidnap him, she keeps him under constant observation even when she is traveling in the car with him. At home behind locked doors, the fear persists. She goes through an elaborate ritual to protect Jake. 29 Although Stephanie knows her thoughts are irrational, she can't control them. Her desperate efforts to keep her son safe make life difficult. A stroller ride down the sidewalk illustrates Stephanie’s obsession. She stares at Jake continuously. Passersby pose a special threat. If they don’t kidnap him, they may still contaminate him. Stephanie also carefully navigates Jake’s stroller around any potentially contaminating objects on the sidewalk such as cigarettes. Before her son was born, Stephanie was diagnosed as having OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Now, her fear of contaminating Jakes leads to compulsive rituals that help her to manage her anxiety. She needs to scour her hands before touching him. She demonstrates the torturous, complex procedure that she goes through in laboriously washing each finger. After touching the garbage can, she feels compelled to repeat the process. Stephanie’s husband describes how his wife’s obsessions have become uncontrollable since the birth of their son. Stephanie is highly motivated and eager to begin treatment because she knows that her disorder is harming her son. Interpretive Comments OCD is one of the major anxiety disorders. It is clear that Stephanie’s obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors that center on the safety of her son are interfering with her everyday functioning and are causing her significant distress. Psychologists have applied both learning and biological perspectives to an understanding of the anxiety disorders. Certain behaviors such as checking door locks may relieve feelings of uneasiness, so we may check them again when the feelings return. Brain scans of people with OCD reveal elevated activity in specific brains areas associated with behaviors such as checking, ordering, hoarding, and even handwashing. The anterior cingulate cortex seems to be especially likely to be hyperactive in those with OCD. SLIDE 13: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Vietnam Combat Veteran (Video) Length: 3:55 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “In the Heat of the Moment”, Brain Story (BBC Motion Gallery) Description This case study provides a helpful introduction to anxiety disorders and, more specifically, to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a flashback to the Vietnam War, Dennis describes the horror of a firefight. With dead and wounded comrades all around and your own life threatened, you have a profound sense of fear and helplessness. Dennis claims the war “took his soul” along with any goodness and happiness he once possessed. Psychiatrist J. Douglas Bremner suggests that Dennis exhibits the important symptoms of PTSD, including intrusive memories over which he has little control, nightmares of the war, jumpy anxiety, and hypervigilance. Nearly one-fifth of Vietnam combat veterans returned from the war traumatized. Dennis explains that currently he feels trapped by his past trauma and is at times suicidal. He carries the hopelessness of the war into his present life. Busy streets continue to elicit the fear of ambush. His disorder interferes with his ability to do his work and to maintain close interpersonal relationships. Cars backfiring or even the smell of diesel brings Dennis back to Vietnam. 30 Interpretive Comments PTSD follows some traumatic event or events that the individual experienced but could not control. The greater one’s emotional distress during the trauma, the greater the risk for PTSD. Most people do not respond to trauma with disorder. Although half of adults experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, only 10 percent of women and 5 percent of men show PTSD. SLIDE 15: Three Anxiety Disorders (Video) Length: 4:10 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description The clip begins with a psychologist explaining the difference between specific phobias (irrational and excessive fear of a single thing or experience) and social phobias (fear of humiliation or negative feedback in a social situation). It is explained that we used to think phobias resulted from a single negative experience such as being bitten by a dog or trapped in an elevator. Psychologists now know that a combination of heredity, environmental experience and cognition come together to produce phobias. The clip also defines Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which is characterized by almost continual high arousal levels. The clip ends with a discussion on Panic Disorder. Panic Disorder can be triggered by 'overvigilance' to one’s physiology, which then leads to catastrophic thinking. This, in turn, increases the originally distressing physiological systems. SLIDE 20: Depression (Video) Length: 8:35 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Black Dog: A Depression Tale” (BBC Motion Gallery) Description The case of a 30-year-old man with clinical depression provides a helpful introduction to the major symptoms of the “common cold” of psychological disorders. Steve’s display of the contents of his “medication bag,” which includes sleeping pills and antidepressants, immediately reveals that he suffers from more than a blue mood. Steve suggests that others sometimes view his depression as less serious than a physical illness. They see it as only temporary sadness or as merely a mental disturbance that demands admonition rather than pills. In therapy, Steve admits he is discouraged about the future and has no motivation. Everything he does proves mentally exhausting. He opens a humorous birthday card with the greeting “It’s all downhill from here.” He agrees. Clearly, Steve’s depression has had a long history. He expresses surprise that he has gotten this far. Clinical depression takes over one’s life. It is totally debilitating. 31 When Steve was 10 years old, his mother committed suicide. Since her death, he has had difficulty trusting anyone. By presenting himself as someone he is not, he has tried to win others’ love. Steve’s wife, Victoria, from whom he is now separated, reflects on what it means to be married to a person with a severe mood disorder. The illness always lurks in the background and each day is unpredictable. At the same time, Victoria voices no regret over her marriage to Steve. In a greeting card she expresses her continued love and support and the couple embraces. Steve acknowledges that his depression has made a healthy relationship with his wife impossible. Steve concludes that moving forward in life with clinical depression is nearly impossible. In addition to confronting all the normal challenges of life, you are fighting feelings and emotions that are not based in reality. Although Steve's depression was diagnosed only three years earlier, he is convinced he has suffered from it all his life. In a closing scene Steve walks alone through a peaceful setting of hills, trees, and water. In this majestic place he reports finding temporary relief. Interpretive Comments The case provides an opportunity to introduce the general nature of psychological disorders as well as the specific disorder of depression. Steve’s behavior is deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional. Depression is the “common cold” of disorders and is the number one reason people seek treatment. Annually, a depressive episode strikes 5.8 percent of men and 9.5 percent of women. Major depressive disorder is defined by two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities. All of these characteristics are evident in Steve’s case. Presentation 7.3: Personality, Dissociative, and Somatoform Disorders SLIDE 15: Multiple Personality Disorder (Video) Length: 8:48 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description In this clip, a man named Tony describes his life and struggle with multiple personality disorder. Tony, with the help of a therapist, has identified at least 53 of his different personalities. While some psychologists agree that alternative personalities are created to escape trauma, others feel the disorder is culturally created and is not a true psychological disorder. Dr. Putnam and his colleagues examined evoked potentials in the brains of multiples. Results showed different patterns of activity in response to stimuli presented to different personalities of the same individual. These results suggest that actual bodily changes (galvanic skin response, patterns of brain activity) occur when different personalities surface. Dr. Putnam and others argue that this evidence supports the claim that multiple personality disorders is a valid psychological disorder that merits further research. 32 Presentation 7.4: Schizophrenia SLIDE 7: Schizophrenia: Symptoms (Video) Length: 6:00 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Description This video illustrates the symptoms of schizophrenia, and includes an interview with a schizophrenic patient and a brief tour of a schizophrenia ward at the National Institute of Mental Health, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, D.C. SLIDE 10: The Schizophrenic Brain (Video) Length: 00:52 seconds Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description This video shows the differences in brain characteristics of a schizophrenic patient when compared to the brain of his normal identical twin. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the schizophrenic brain shows larger amounts of spinal fluid in the space between the brain and the skull in comparison to the normal twin. This clip illustrates the brain abnormalities related to schizophrenia and the often-observed brain shrinkage in schizophrenic patients. SLIDE 12: A Case Study in Schizophrenia (Video) Length: 5:15 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Original Source: Schizophrenia: New Definitions, New Therapies, 1999 (Films for the Humanities and Sciences) Description This segment is a case study in schizophrenia. As the segment informs, schizophrenia is a collection of many diseases that manifest themselves differently in different patients. It is an organic, physical brain disease caused by both genetic and environmental factors. The segment cites recent research which has found a correlation between the likelihood of developing schizophrenia later in life and damage to the patient while still a fetus, particularly during the second trimester. There is evidence of schizophrenia even in infancy, with likely schizophrenics having smaller brains and larger brain ventricles than their healthy counterparts. The next segment includes an interview with researchers, Dr. Ruben Gur and his wife, Dr. Roehl Gur. They worked together to testify in the case of Russel Weston Jr., a 41-year-old man who killed two guards in a shooting at the U.S. Capitol Building in 1998. Weston was declared a paranoid schizophrenic. They discuss the difference between MRI scans of “normal” brain function, versus that of a schizophrenic. It appears that schizophrenic brains don’t activate certain regions in response to environmental stimuli and often activate the wrong regions instead. In general, schizophrenic patients are not violent. Only in cases of paranoid schizophrenia, like that of Russel Weston Jr., is violence more likely. 33 The segment continues with a description of the symptoms of schizophrenia, which can be divided into two categories: positive and negative. Positive symptoms are those that schizophrenics exhibit, but normal people do not. Examples of positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech. Negative symptoms are characteristics that represent a loss of normal function. Examples include social withdrawal, loss of pleasure, and lack of speech capability. One patient describes his experience with schizophrenia. The segment ends with a description of the history of treatment for schizophrenia. The first popular antipsychotic drug was Thorazine. Thorazine treated positive symptoms and led to waves of schizophrenic patients being released from mental institutions. However, the side effects, such as severe motor disturbances and impotence in men, were often considered worse than the schizophrenia itself. New drug treatments, such as Clozapine and Olanzapine lack these side effects, but are better for the treatment of negative symptoms. TOPIC 8: THERAPY Presentation 8.1: Introduction to Therapy SLIDE 4: Some Models of Therapy (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. This activity offers an overview of the following therapies: psychodynamic, humanistic, behavior, cognitive, and biomedical. Note that these therapies may overlap or be used in combination (e.g., cognitive and behavior techniques are often combined; drug therapy can be used with any of the other therapies; patients can be treated one-on-one or in group sessions. Videos, photos, and animations will help students better understand how a particular therapy or combination of therapies can help treat certain kinds of psychological disorders. For additional information about any activity screen, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screens to promote class discussion. SLIDE 9: Early Treatment of Mental Disorders (Video) Length: 04:57 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description During the first half of the twentieth century, many treatments for mental disorders were used. Most of these treatments were crude and largely ineffective. Some of the most popular forms of treatment are discussed and shown in this clip. The first treatment shown is called hydrotherapy. In hydrotherapy patients were sprayed by water in order to stimulate them. The wet pack was another technique that was commonly used, and involved wrapping patients in wet sheets. The third treatment was a continuous bath 34 that was used in order to sedate patients. Similar to the continuous bath, hot boxes and hot lamps, which the patient would either sit in or lie under, were used to help relax patients. A precursor to electroconvulsive therapy, insulin therapy was developed and used primarily on patients with schizophrenia. Insulin was administered to patients in order to produce an insulin-induced coma. Insulin therapy often produced convulsions and wet shock (excessive sweating and drooling) in patients. Another reaction to insulin therapy was referred to as dry shock, and involved a full brain seizure. Glucose was then administered to bring patients out of the insulin-induced coma. The purpose of this therapy was to alleviate severe mental disturbances. Other forms of convulsive therapy were also popularized during this time. The last method of treatment discussed in the clip is a lobotomy, in which the front portions of the frontal lobe are surgically severed from the other parts of the brain. Presentation 8.2: Psychological Therapies SLIDE 13: Therapy in the Real World: The Use of Real-Life Exposure to Treat Phobias (Video) Length: 02:16 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description In this segment, taken from a CBS News clip, a therapist is providing group therapy to a number of phobia patients. The interview follows one patient, Bill, who is afraid to ride an elevator and has not ridden on one in eight years. We see the therapist challenge Bill to ride the buildings elevator once, with his supportive therapy group cheering him on. The camera takes us inside the elevator as we watch Bill succeed. Upon exiting, his fear is apparent, but his elation at successfully completing the challenge suggests that he is on his way to recovery. The segment ends with a brief interview with the therapist providing real-life exposure therapy. This has proven a very effective method for the treatment of phobias. Although Bill’s experience on the elevator may be rather mild compared to the reactions to exposure many phobia patients experience, his success is not atypical. Presentation 8.3: Biomedical Therapies SLIDE 5: Schizophrenia (Video) Length: 05:15 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description This clip discusses the medical treatment of schizophrenia. In the 1950s, chlorpromazine was a drug that was given to many patients plagued with a variety of mental disturbances. While chlorpromazine was not very useful in treating some mental disorders, it was extremely effective in treating schizophrenia. Following the advent of chlorpromazine, many other drugs have been developed that help schizophrenic symptoms. All of these medications seem to have one thing in common; they act on the neurotransmitter dopamine. This discovery led to a theory of schizophrenia that suggests that schizophrenics suffer from excessive activity at dopaminergic synapses. These medications alleviate many patients’ symptoms by blocking dopamine receptors and normalizing the chemistry of the brain. The effectiveness of antipsychotic medications is demonstrated by showing two separate interviews with Augustine, a young 35 schizophrenic patient: one interview done before medication, and one interview completed after four weeks of treatment with medication. SLIDE 15: Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) (Video) Length: 05:05 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Description This clip discusses the use of electroconvulsive therapy for severely depressed patients. ECT is used on patients who do not respond to conventional methods of treatment. At the beginning of electroconvulsive therapy the patient is put to sleep and then given a dose of muscle relaxant. An electric shock is then administered for .5 to 4 seconds. ECT produces a seizure that needs to last 25 to 120 seconds to be effective. Patients typically receive 6 to 10 treatments over the course of 2 to 3 weeks. Following ECT treatments patients may show confusion or loss of memory for recent events. These deficits, however, are temporary and long term memory loss is rare. Mary, a depressed woman, is used as an example of a person helped by electroconvulsive therapy. ECT was used to quickly and effectively reverse Mary’s severe depression and constant thoughts of suicide. TOPIC 9: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Presentation 9.1: Social Cognition SLIDE 8: The Actor-Observer Difference in Attribution (Flash-based ActivePsych Tutorial) Worth Source: ActivePsych Classroom Activities Projects and Video Teaching Modules Length: 5-10 minutes, depending on the amount of discussion that ensues Description Click on the ActivePsych icon on the slide to launch the activity. (It will load in a browser window; therefore, an internet connection is required to play ActivePsych activities.) We recommend that you try the activity yourself before showing it during your lecture. This activity explores the actor-observer difference in attribution: the tendency to explain our own behavior in terms of the situation and our tendency to explain another’s behavior in terms of the person’s disposition or personal qualities. Students will respond to two questionnaires: (1) perceptions of the self; (2) perceptions of another (a former teacher). Students will anonymously indicate their responses on handouts. You will collect the handouts and record the results. For additional information about any activity screen, click on the illuminated gray tab; use the last “Consider This…” activity screens to promote class discussion. 36 SLIDE 8: The Actor-Observer Difference in Attribution: Observe a Riot in Action (Video) Length: 00:44 seconds Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Original Source: Footage from the March 20, 2003 Antiwar Protest, San Francisco, Lisa Rein Description This segment is a handheld video of a street riot. Police officers are attempting to control the crowd and have weapons at the ready. One policeman hits an approaching woman with his club and moves away. Some crowd members are yelling “peace” or holding up peace signs. We should attempt to take the point of view of the different observers of this scene, in order to illustrate the actor-observer bias. SLIDE 17: Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (Video) Length: 08:19 minutes Worth Source: Digital Media Archive Original Source: Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment, 1988-2004 (Philp G. Zimbardo and Stanford University) Description This segment follows the events of Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo created a mock prison in the lower basement of Stanford University and divided participants into guards and prisoners by the flip of a coin. Those participants who were made prisoners were arrested and given prison garb, a number, and a crime for which they were supposedly jailed. Those labeled guards were given khaki uniforms, dark glasses, and a nightstick, and were asked to do frequent “counts” in order to tally the inmates and initiate interaction. The segment shows video footage at various stages of the experiment and interviews with participants and Zimbardo himself. The prisoners attempt several ways of dealing with their increasing sense of helplessness and despair. It begins with rebellion and solidarity. Some then passively rebel by breaking down emotionally until they are released from the experiment. Some become model prisoners, quickly obeying whatever the guards ask. The guards, too, quickly take to one of three roles. Some are incredibly sympathetic to the prisoners, doing them favors. Others are tough, but fair—sticking to the rules. Some, however, become sadistic, punishing the prisoners with solitary confinement, strip searches, strenuous physical exercise, and verbal abuse. One prisoner is removed after only 36 hours in the experiment when he falls into an uncontrollable rage. His replacement attempts to rebel, but finds no support from his fellow prisoners, now fearful of the guards’ punishments. One guard describes how quickly he began to see the prisoners as inferior beings who need to be controlled. Even Zimbardo himself describes how easily he was drawn into the drama, forgetting that it was a simulation and not reality. Not until a female graduate student spoke out against the treatment of the prisoners did he realize that the experiment needed to be stopped, only six days after it began. 37 The participants in this experiment, guards and prisoners, were brought together two months later to discuss what had transpired. This segment ends with a brief video of the postexperiment discussion between a particularly sadistic guard and one of the prisoners. The guard emphasizes the uniform and his orders as symbols of the role he felt he must fulfill. The prisoner expresses his discomfort with “knowing what [the guard] can do” given these circumstances. This segment illustrates the sometimes horrifying effects of dehumanization and social conformity. The prisoners were given numbers, not names. They were quickly viewed as inferior. The guards were given uniforms to denote power and authority. They were no longer individuals, but members of a team whose duty was to keep the prisoners under control. Under these circumstances, “good” people took on the roles they were assigned. Very similar results can be found in modern-day prison scenarios, such as the conditions leading to the events at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. Presentation 9.2: Social Influence SLIDE 8: Milgram’s Obedience Studies (Video) Length: 05:10 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: Pennsylvania State University and Alexandra Milgram Description This clip contains original footage of the most famous research in psychology, namely, Stanley Milgram’s studies of obedience. You may want to use this clip in introducing students to the literature on social influence. The studies also raise important questions about the ethics of research involving human participants. In these studies, participants were asked to serve as “teachers” in presumably pioneering research on the effect of punishment on learning. Milgram was actually interested in the extent to which the participants would obey authority in delivering supposedly traumatizing electric shocks to a screaming, innocent victim in an adjacent room. The opening scene pans the shock generator, which has switches ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts in 15volt increments. In administering the task to the learner, the teacher is instructed to “move one level higher on the shock generator” each time the learner gives a wrong answer. The “learner” (the experimenter’s confederate) is ushered into an adjacent room and, as the teacher looks on, the experimenter straps the learner into a chair and attaches an electrode to his wrist. The rest of the video focuses on one of the teachers as he administers the learning task. On the orders of the experimenter, with each error he delivers increasingly higher levels of shock to the learner. The learner’s protests become increasingly strident. At 300 and 315 volts, he screams his refusal to answer; after 330 volts, he falls silent. The experimenter instructs the teacher to treat nonresponses as errors. Reluctantly, this teacher (as do the majority of other participants in this study) fully obeys the experimenter’s commands. 38 SLIDE 12: Obedience and Authority: A Laboratory Demonstration (Video) Length: 06:05 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: Lab Rats (BBC Motion Gallery) Description You may choose to show this video while introducing the social-psychological literature on conformity. It is particularly relevant to a discussion of Stanley Milgram’s classic obedience studies. The narrator opens this segment by explaining how a tiny camera passed through the digestive tract is used to measure how research participants cope with stress. The purpose of the study is to assess our willingness to obey an authority. The experimenter (the authority) explains that she is interested in understanding the effect of adrenaline on taste. First, participants will rate the taste of chocolate on a scale from 1 to 10. Next, they will face a series of increasingly unpleasant experiences and each time rate the chocolate again. The hypothesis, as presented to the participants, is that increases in adrenaline (produced by the unpleasant experiences) will impact their taste ratings. However, the real question to be answered is the extent to which people obey the instructions of an authority. The study begins with the participants rating the taste of chocolate. The researcher then presents the first unpleasant experience, which is to take a deep breath of a rotting fish. All comply and again rate the taste of chocolate. Next, the experimenter instructs each participant to dig out a fish eye. Again, there is full compliance. Although the participants appear calm, the tiny cameras within their digestive systems signal increased stress. The experimenter then uncovers a large container of swarming maggots. As the participants watch and rate the chocolate, they show signs of increased emotion—including short, clipped speech. Told to place their hands in the maggot container, the participants again follow orders. Even when asked to place a maggot on the tip of their tongue and then finally to swallow it, the participants obey. Full compliance is accompanied by high levels of stress, as measured by increased blood flow to the stomach and air bubbles in the intestine. In summary, people often unquestionably obey someone they perceive to be an authority figure, even if means enduring very unpleasant, stress-producing experiences. Interpretive Comments Stanley Milgram’s studies of obedience to authority are perhaps the most famous and controversial in all of psychology. Conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s, the studies examined research participants’ responses to Milgram’s commands to shock a learner for errors made while mastering a simple task. The participants, torn between obeying either the experimenter’s commands or the learner’s pleas to stop the shocks, usually chose to obey the experimenter—even though that obedience presumably meant harming the learner. Participants were most likely to obey when the authority figure was nearby and was supported by a prestigious institution. In addition, compliance was higher when the victim (the learner) was depersonalized or at a distance. The deception and stress that were part of Milgram’s obedience studies resulted in vigorous debate over research ethics. After learning of the deception and the actual purpose of the research, virtually none of Milgram’s participants regretted taking part in his study. Later, when a psychiatrist interviewed 40 of the “teachers” (the participants) who had most agonized over their obedience, none appeared to suffer permanent emotional aftereffects. 39 SLIDE 18: The Wisdom of Groups (Video) Length: 07:25 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “The Crowd Knows Best” CBS Sunday Morning (CBS News) Description This video provides a good introduction to the question of how groups affect our behavior. It can stimulate classroom discussion on the possible limits or benefits of social influence. Interacting with others can have both bad and good effects. Do groups make wise judgments? James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, suggests that under the right circumstances a group of people can be smarter than the smartest single group member. By successfully tapping the knowledge of a large group, we can improve our decisions. We can even improve our predictions about the future. At the turn of the last century, Francis Galton averaged fairgoers estimates of the weight of an ox and found the average was just one pound less than the actual weight. Taking a similar problem to Times Square, Surowiecki and the narrator ask passersby to judge the number of jellybeans in a large jar. Surowiecki argues that the crowd will be much smarter than the average person. At the horse races, playing the odds usually pays off. The odds on the horses are set purely by the crowd. Every single person who bets affects the outcome. Similarly, in buying stocks, people are offering their best judgment on what a stock is worth. It is very hard for even the smartest money managers to do better than the stock market as a whole. This explains why index funds with holdings from an entire sector of the market beat managed funds where the experts select stocks. But crowds can go wrong, admits Surowiecki, when diversity breaks down or when people pay too much attention to what those immediately around them are doing. The Internet site NewsFutures enables anyone to bet on the likelihood of almost any specific future event. The crowd’s predictions prove accurate. Corporations use the Internet site for information on how to market their goods because it taps directly into the collective intelligence of the audience. Similarly, the crowd’s judgment of the success of future movies and even of likely Oscar winners is typically better than that of the experts. The actual number of jellybeans in the jar was 1369. The crowd’s average guess was 1247. No single guess was closer. Interpretive Comments Research using a variety of intellectual tasks has shown that two or more heads are better than one. For example, given challenging logic problems, three, four, or five heads perform better than one. Interacting groups of eyewitnesses also tend to give accounts that are more accurate than those provided by the average isolated individual. By critiquing one another, several individuals may enable the group to avoid some forms of cognitive bias and produce higher-quality ideas. In weather forecasting, two forecasters come up with a forecast that is more accurate than either arrives at working along. Surowiecki claims that Google has become a dominant search engine by harnessing the wisdom of the crowds. Google interprets a link to Page X as a vote for Page X, and weighs most heavily links from pages that are themselves highly ranked. By harnessing the democratic character of the Internet, Google takes a fraction of a second to lead users to what they want. 40 At the same time, group influence can be destructive. Submerged in a group that provides anonymity, we have a tendency to loaf or to have our worst impulses expressed in lootings, riots, and lynchings. Discussion in groups can enhance mutual racism and hostility. It may also suppress dissent that leads to groupthink and disastrous decisions. In short, group influence can be both good and bad for us. SLIDE 20: Liking and Imitation: The Sincerest Form of Flattery (Video) Length: 02:20 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Making Friends” The Human Mind (BBC Motion Gallery) Description This video can be used in a discussion of either social influence or social attraction. How does other people’s behavior influence our responses to them? For example, do we tend to mirror the behavior of those we like but not the behavior of those we dislike? In this study, an adult male (an actor) interacts either positively or negatively with research participants. In the first condition, he is friendly, warm, and agreeable when relating to the participants who come to discuss various subjects (e.g., their favorite films). In the second condition, he is unfriendly, cool, and difficult. Whether he is acting positively or negatively, he moves his body in very deliberate and specific ways during the course of his face-to-face interaction with the participant. For example, he rubs his eyes, folds his hands, puts his arms behind his head, or scratches his face. A camera carefully records the interaction, including the body movements, of both the actor and the participant. Gradually, as the conversation unfolds, the participants interacting with the friendly actor begin to copy him. On the other hand, the participants conversing with the unfriendly actor do not imitate him. The narrator concludes that, because the participants liked “Mr. Nice,” their minds prompted them to mimic him, reflecting a subconscious attempt to strengthen the bond between them. Interpretive Comments The chameleon effect refers to our natural tendency to mimic the behavior of others. Unconsciously mimicking others’ gestures, expressions, and even voice tones helps us feel what they are feeling. It is part of empathy. In fact, the most empathic people mimic the most. This segment suggests that we are particularly likely to imitate those we like, in an effort to strengthen our connections with them. Not surprisingly, those who are most eager to fit in with a group are especially prone to nonconscious mimicry. Other lines of research indicate that those who mimic the most are indeed liked the most. Behavior tends to be contagious. Even chimps are more likely to yawn after observing another chimp yawn. If a group of people gazes upward, passersby will tend to do the same. Short order cooks and bartenders “seed” their tip containers with money to suggest that others have given. Even “ illnesses” can be contagious. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more than two dozen schools had outbreaks of children reporting red rashes, which lead parents and school administrators to wonder whether biological terrorism was at work. 41 Presentation 9.3: Social Relations SLIDE 7: Hidden Prejudice: The Implicit Association Test (Video) Length: 06:10 minutes Worth Source: Scientific American Frontiers Video Collection, Third Edition Description In the Harvard lab of Mahzarin Banaji, Alan Alda takes a test designed to measure his attitudes toward women in the workplace. Having always thought of himself as a feminist, Alda anticipates the outcome of his own performance. Banaji’s test is the Implicit Association Test which measures the strength of associations we have often unconsciously formed between such things as men and career versus women and career. Actually, as the program explains, the key to assessment is the time it takes to make the association. Results of Alda’s test suggest that he harbors a slight bias against the association of women and career. Surprisingly, Mahzarin admits that the test shows that she has an even stronger bias again women in the workplace. Next Brian Nosek, one of the creators of the test, assesses his own associations between Europeans and African Americans with the characteristics of “good” and “bad.” In spite of his conscious and expressed tolerance of all ethnic groups, he shows a hidden bias against African Americans. While admitting his hidden bias, Nosek suggests that it need not control his actions. He also notes that when he thinks about positive African American exemplars such as Michael Jordan and Colin Powell, his performance on the test improves. Banaji also suggests that exposure to positive models is one way in which we can effectively combat implicit prejudice. In short, our environment can successfully intervene in combating bias whether it is overt or hidden and automatic. SLIDE 11: Competition and Aggression: Testosterone at Work (Video) Length: 03:20 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Hormone Hell”, Body Chemistry (BBC Motion Gallery) Description By examining the role of testosterone in social behavior, this program provides a good introduction to class discussion of the biology of aggression. Football players describe the emotional rush that accompanies anticipation of playing the game. Running out on the field you feel euphoric, notes one player, and you believe you can accomplish anything. Testosterone plays an important role in maintaining the sex drive and in the development of the sex characteristics. The hormone also motivated our early ancestors to hunt and to fight. In contemporary society, the power of testosterone is most evident in competitive sports. The hormone is both emotionally arousing and motivating. Research suggests that testosterone rises even in the fans of winning teams. The team itself, of course, experiences instant euphoria. Similarly, the feeling of dejection that follows defeat is accompanied by a measurable drop in testosterone within 15 minutes. 42 Research suggests that testosterone levels are associated with more enduring behavior patterns. For example, men with higher levels of the hormone seem to be generally more successful in life. However, the specific causal relationship between testosterone and achievement is unclear. Does higher testosterone breed success or does success produce higher levels of testosterone? Or does causality operate in both directions? Interpretive Comments This clip emphasizes the potential positive function of testosterone, especially its link to assertiveness. Research also indicates that high testosterone correlates with irritability, low tolerance for frustration, and impulsiveness. The gender difference in testosterone level has been linked to the gender difference in physical aggression. Among both male teens and adults, high testosterone correlates with delinquency, hard drug use, and bullying responses to frustration. SLIDE 17: Interpersonal Attraction: Clothes Make the Man (Video) Length: 04:20 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “Attraction” Secrets of the Sexes (BBC Motion Gallery) Description This video segment explores how physical appearance affects our evaluations of other people. Peter is a divorced, 37-year-old political science lecturer. He describes himself as short, skinny, and not very good looking. Observers are asked to assess Peter as he stands behind a store window on a busy city street. He is dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. Females think that Peter holds a low-status job with a low income and they overestimate his age. Most observers perceive him as unattractive. Past research indicates that women are attracted to men who can provide resources. When asked, however, women tell investigators that money is not one of their priorities. In fact, women in this clip specifically state that they are not attracted to men who are status-driven or money-oriented. The next day, researchers give Peter a more affluent look. He wears a suit coat, white shirt, and sunglasses. This time, female observers’ judgments are quite different. One observer even sees him as “sexy.” He is thought to have higher-status employment accompanied by a higher income. Most importantly, Peter is perceived as significantly more attractive. Obviously, physical appearance, which includes clothing, impacts our social judgments. Interpretive Comments Research indicates that physical appearance strongly impacts our judgments of other people. Findings suggest the presence of a physical-attractiveness stereotype—that is, the presumption that physically attractive people possess other socially desirable traits. In short, we tend to believe that what is beautiful is good. In this particular demonstration, the evaluation extends to clothing. 43 Physical attractiveness has wide-ranging effects. We believe that, in comparison to unattractive people, attractive people are healthier, happier, more empathic, more successful and more socially-skilled. Attractive, well-dressed job applicants are more likely to make a favorable impression on employers and to enjoy greater occupational success. Evolutionary psychologists report that females are particularly attracted to males with economic resources and social status. Females prefer mates who show a potential for long-term mating and long-term investment in their joint offspring. Males judge women as more attractive if they have a youthful appearance. By choosing healthy, fertile-appearing women as mates, males increase their chances of sending their genes into the future. SLIDE 21: Love: The Mind-Body Connection (Video) Length: 02:40 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: “In the Heat of the Moment” Brain Story (BBC Motion Gallery) Description Class discussion of the psychology of attraction can be extended to a consideration of the biology underlying love relationships. This program examines Rebecca Turner’s fascinating research on the role of the hormone oxytocin in the experience of love. More generally, the program provides useful insight into the physiology underlying emotions. As a young woman vividly recalls her husband’s marriage proposal in very glowing, positive terms, Turner’s research team measures the level of oxytocin in her bloodstream. Previous research has indicated that the hormone plays an important role in many reproductive behaviors, including breast feeding, childbirth, and orgasm. Turner notes that oxytocin receptors are present in many parts of the brain, including the limbic system and brainstem, areas that are involved in emotion and its autonomic control. This finding raises the question of whether this specific hormone underlies the experience of love. Turner notes that, in some women, the experience of positive emotions, particularly those associated with relationships, is accompanied by a surge of oxytocin. Similarly, negative emotion such as that associated with a significant personal loss is linked with a decline in the same hormone. In short, oxytocin levels seem to rise and fall in research participants with the level of loving attachment they feel. Turner concludes that the research findings suggest that oxytocin influences patterns of loving and associated behaviors. Interpretive Comments The research on oxytocin extends our understanding of the biochemical influences on social behavior. These findings run parallel to more familiar work on the role of testosterone and serotonin in aggression. More generally, this research raises questions about the physiological differences among specific emotions. In addition to possible hormonal differences, emotions differ in the brain circuits they use and in the activation of different areas of the brain’s cortex. When people experience positive moods, brain scans reveal more left frontal lobe activity. 44 SLIDE 27: Whom Do We Help? (Video) Length: 03:30 minutes Worth Source: Video Tool Kit for Introductory Psychology Original Source: Have a Go Heroes (BBC Motion Gallery) Description In addition to addressing the questions of why and when we help, the literature on altruism seeks to identify the characteristics of those whom we are most likely to help. In the opening scene, a female actress pretends to be in serious distress as she collapses on a busy city street. Passersby quickly come to her aid. The researcher suggests that we may be more likely to help females (in contrast to males) because we feel there is more we can do for them or because of empathy. In addition, the actress appeared to be a middle-class person and we may be less likely to come to negative conclusions about why a middle-class person (in contrast to someone from a lower class) is in need of help. One passerby discloses how her own past need for help has made her more responsive to others in distress. In the next scene, a male holding a bottle of beer collapses on the same city street. Although passersby notice him, they choose not to intervene on his behalf. Observers may assume he is homeless, drunk, and less deserving of help. Thus, they are reluctant to intervene on his behalf. After seven minutes, someone finally comes to the victim’s aid. The young male who helps explains that he thought something might be severely wrong with man and, with no one else intervening, he decided to do something. Interpretive Comments Many studies have compared help received by male and female victims. Most of these studies have involved brief encounters with strangers in need. Women offered equal amounts of assistance to males and females, whereas men offered more assistance when the persons in need were female. Furthermore, men were more likely to help attractive, rather than unattractive, women. Observers have speculated that in some cases a man’s helpfulness may be motivated by something other than genuine altruism. Other lines of research indicate that women not only receive more offers of help in certain circumstances (for example, if they are motorists with a flat tire), they also seek more assistance. They are twice as likely to seek medical and psychiatric help. The fact that the male victim in this demonstration is holding a bottle of beer is undoubtedly important in understanding observers’ responses. We are more likely to help those whose need does not appear to be due to their own negligence. That is, we are more likely to intervene on behalf of those we perceive as deserving our help. 45 VII. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION AND LICENSE AGREEMENT The Worth Interactive Presentation Slides for Introductory Psychology, Volume Two, and the materials within the slides are provided exclusively for use with Introductory Psychology textbooks produced by Worth Publishers. Individuals using a textbook published by Worth Publishers, which is NOT an Introductory Psychology text, may also request permission to use this product. Any use of these slides and the materials contained within them that does not conform to the purpose stated above is expressly prohibited by the Publisher. The Publisher retains the ownership of these slides and the materials within them. No part of this work may be reproduced, copied, recorded, translated, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or received in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, optical, or other--from the information on this "flash" drive. Commercial use of the information included on the USB drive is forbidden, unless prior written permission from Worth Publishers has been obtained. By using this "flash" drive, the user signifies that he or she has read and agreed to the stipulations on the use of all materials contained on it as stated above. If the user does not agree to the above stipulations, he or she should discontinue use of this product. 46
