Psychology Critical Thinking Booklet

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Critical Thinking Booklet

Psychology
Eighth Edition

Douglas A. Bernstein, Louis A. Penner, Alison Clarke-Stewart, and Edward J. Roy

William S. Altman Douglas A. Bernstein

Houghton Mifflin Company

BOSTON

NEW YORK

Sponsoring Editor: Jane Potter Marketing Manager: Amy Whitaker Marketing Assistant: Samantha Abrams Senior Development Editor: Laura Hildebrand Editorial Associate: Henry Cheek

Copyright © 2008 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Houghton Mifflin Company hereby grants you permission to reproduce the Houghton Mifflin material contained in this work in classroom quantities, solely for use with the accompanying Houghton Mifflin textbook. All reproductions must include the Houghton Mifflin copyright notice, and no fee may be collected except to cover the cost of duplication. If you wish to make any other use of this material, including reproducing or transmitting the material or portions thereof in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including any information storage or retrieval system, you must obtain prior written permission from Houghton Mifflin Company, unless such use is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. If you wish to reproduce material acknowledging a rights holder other than Houghton Mifflin Company, you must obtain permission from the rights holder. Address inquiries to College Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 222 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA 02116–3764.

Contents
Preface.....................................................................................IV Chapter 1—Introducing Psychology...........................................1 Chapter 2—Research in Psychology..........................................5 Chapter 3—Biological Aspects of Psychology............................9 Chapter 4—Sensation..............................................................13 Chapter 5—Perception............................................................18 Chapter 6—Learning...............................................................22 Chapter 7—Memory................................................................26 Chapter 8—Cognition and Language.......................................30 Chapter 9—Consciousness......................................................35 Chapter 10—Cognitive Abilities...............................................39 Chapter 11—Motivation and Emotion......................................44 Chapter 12—Human Development..........................................48 Chapter 13—Health, Stress, and Coping..................................52 Chapter 14—Personality..........................................................56 Chapter 15—Psychological Disorders......................................61 Chapter 16—Treatment of Psychological Disorders.................66 Chapter 17—Social Cognition..................................................70 Chapter 18—Social Influence...................................................74 Chapter 19—Neuropsychology................................................79 Chapter 20—Industrial/Organizational Psychology Summary. .84

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IV

Engaging in Critical Thinking in Psychology
Many educators rhapsodize about critical thinking (although often in rather vague terms) as a desirable activity that everyone should integrate into their course work. It might be easy to dismiss critical thinking as just another educational fad. But it isn’t. Critical thinking is simply another way to describe the process psychologists use when approaching a problem. We begin by describing the behaviors or phenomena that interest us; we attempt to develop explanations for them; we develop and test hypotheses, then attempt to predict outcomes based on our explanations; and we draw conclusions based on the results. In the process, we learn a great deal about the elements of the problem, their interrelationships, and connections to familiar ideas. Some researchers have found that if you use critical thinking when you write about a topic, you’re likely to learn more and to understand the material better (Tynjälä, 1998; Wade, 1995). Pena-Shaff and Nicholls (2004) found that students better understood information when engaged in critical thinking in online discussions. And, according to Kowalski and Taylor (2004) students who engaged in critical thinking were more likely to change their initial misconceptions about psychology than those who didn’t think critically. Many different people use critical thinking in all kinds of ways. You might be familiar with a television show called Mythbusters, in which Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman use critical thinking and experimental methods to look for the truth behind urban legends and other common misconceptions (Loxton, 2005). If you’re interested in psychic phenomena, you may want to see how the James Randi Educational Foundation (at http://randi.org/) applies critical thinking to people’s claims of paranormal abilities. The exercises in this booklet present ideas, beliefs, and statements, which are linked to each chapter in Essentials of Psychology (Bernstein & Nash, 2008). You’ll be asked to evaluate these ideas, beliefs, and statements using the critical thinking method. Because we want you to concentrate on learning to think critically, we’ve provided some source material for each question. You might want to look for more information, using appropriate search engines such as PsycARTICLES® or PsycINFO®, or by working with your school’s library or tutoring staff.

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Critical thinking isn’t just helpful for your school work, or for making decisions about which car to buy or how to invest your savings. It’s also a fun way to learn. Students who used critical thinking in online discussions (PenaShaff, Altman, & Stephenson, 2005) or in the classroom (Hays & Vincent, 2004) said it helped them learn better and develop their communication skills. So, when we engage in critical thinking, we learn more, deepen our understanding of what we already know, learn more effective ways to communicate with other people, and have a lot more fun in the process. We hope you’ll enjoy working on these critical thinking exercises, and that they’ll stimulate your curiosity, ingenuity, and sense of intellectual play. Be well, and enjoy!

William S. Altman, Ph.D.
Psychology and Human Services Department Broome Community College, Binghamton, NY

References
Bernstein, D. A., & Nash, P. W. (2008). Essentials of Psychology (4th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin. Hays, J. R., & Vincent, J. P. (2004). Students’ evaluation of problem-based learning in graduate psychology courses. Teaching of Psychology, 31, 124–126. Kowalski, P., & Taylor, A. K. (2004). Ability and critical thinking as predictors of change in students’ psychological misconceptions. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 31, 297–303. Loxton, D. (2005). Mythbusters exposed: How a special effects crew opened the most important new front in the battle for science literacy. Skeptic, 12(1), 34–42. Pena-Shaff, J., Altman, W., & Stephenson, H. (2005). Asynchronous online discussions as a tool for learning: Students’ attitudes, expectations, and perceptions. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 16, 409– 430. Pena-Shaff, J. B., & Nicholls, C. (2004). Analyzing student interactions and meaning construction in computer bulletin board discussions. Computers & Education, 42, 243–265.
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Tynjälä, P. (1998). Writing as a tool for constructive learning: Students’ learning experiences during an experiment. Higher Education, 36, 209–230. Wade, C. (1995). Using writing to develop and assess critical thinking. Teaching of Psychology, 22, 24–28.

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CHAPTER

1
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 1.1:

Assessing the Impact of Legislation

Governments often enact laws to solve particular social problems or to lessen their impacts. One example is the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002. Its purpose was to improve the quality of children’s education in the United States, and according to the Department of Education, the law is working as intended (http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml). One way in which the NCLB is supposed to help raise academic achievement is through testing, to determine whether there is actually improvement in the education of children. However, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing claims this approach has failed. You can read their statements about NCLB at (http://fairtest.org/nattest/bushtest.html). Researchers have looked at NCLB from a variety of perspectives. Smith (2005) and Johnson (2006) provide overviews of the law, its intentions, and some of its possible consequences. Others have looked at NCLB’s impacts on gifted children (Mendoza, 2006), music education (Circle, 2005), and visually impaired children (Ferrell, 2005). Use the critical thinking method outlined in your textbook to determine whether NCLB is working as intended. Be sure to look carefully at your sources to determine whether they are credible and accurate, or just someone’s opinion. The basis for critical thinking is the use of evidence. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Circle, D. (2005). To test or not to test? Music Educators Journal, 92(1), 4.
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Ferrell, K. A. (2005). The effects of NCLB. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 99, 681–683. Johnson, A. P. (2006). No child left behind: Factory models and business paradigms. Clearing House, 80(1), 34–36. Mendoza, C. (2006). Inside today’s classrooms: Teacher voices on No Child Left Behind and the education of gifted children. Roeper Review, 29, 28–31. National Center for Fair and Open Testing. (n.d.). Federally mandated testing page: NCLB. Retrieved December 29, 2007, from http://fairtest.org/nattest/bushtest.html. Smith, E. (2005). Raising standards in American schools: The case of No Child Left Behind. Journal of Education Policy, 4, 507–524. United States Department of Education. (n.d.) No Child Left Behind— ED.gov. Retrieved December 29, 2007, from http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml.

ACTIVITY 1.2:

Grade Inflation

Many people believe that today’s students are getting higher grades for doing less work, or work of lower quality than students of previous generations. Media outlets report that grade inflation is a problem at most ® colleges, as illustrated by reports from USA Today (2002) and Wikipedia (2006). Organizations such as GradeInflation.com (http://gradeinflation.com/) report that grade inflation is rampant and becoming more serious. Yet Ellenberg (2002) and Kohn (2002) suggest that it may not be such a problem. What is closer to the truth? Use the critical thinking approach to decide whether grade inflation is real. If so, is it a major problem or something not worthy of concern? Be sure to look carefully at your sources to determine whether they are credible and accurate, or just someone’s opinion. Remember that the basis for critical thinking is the use of evidence. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
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5. What conclusions are most reasonable? References: Ellenberg, J. (2002, October 2). Don’t worry about grade inflation: Why it doesn’t matter that professors give out so many A’s. Slate. Retrieved December 29, 2007, from http://www.slate.com/id/2071759/ .

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Grade inflation. (2006, December 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/ index.php?title=Grade_inflation&oldid=96950800 . Ivy League grade inflation [Electronic version]. (2002, February 27). USA Today. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002/02/08/ edtwof2.htm . Kohn, A. (2002). The dangerous myth of grade inflation. Chronicle of Higher Education; 49(11), pB7. Retrieved December 29, 2007, from EBSCO Academic Premier database.

ACTIVITY 1.3:

Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brains?

The famous American psychologist William James (1907) once said, “Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources” (p. 323). Many people believe we all have a great deal of untapped mental potential. Some think it’s based in a kind of reserve of intelligence, while others believe in paranormal abilities that have not yet been developed. Often, they’ll explain this by saying that we only use 10% of our brains. Perhaps your parents or teachers may have mentioned this to you. Creative Alternatives (Superconscious, 2007), CornerBar PR (Industry appetizers, n.d.), and other commercial sites all quote the 10% figure. Many, such as self-described psychic Uri Geller (n.d.), attribute it to Albert Einstein, while others cite Margaret Mead or other famous researchers. Anitei (n.d.) at Softpedia cites data from brain scanning studies to show that we only use about 20% of our brains when making memories. It’s worth noting that many of these organizations and individuals also provide materials or services, which they claim are designed to help you activate the slumbering part of your total potential. Many psychologists, such as Chudler (1997), call the 10% figure a myth. Several (Genovese, 2004; Radford, 2000) have sought to explain or debunk the idea that we only use 10% of our brain. Yet the belief persists despite the efforts of psychologists and psychology instructors (Standing & Huber, 2003). Could this be because it really is true?

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Do we have massive untapped resources in our brains? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?

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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable? References: Anitei, S. (n.d.). We use just 20% of out brains to make memories. Retrieved July 20, 2007, from http://news.softpedia.com/news/WeUse-Just-20-of-the-Brain-to-Make-Memories-52643.shtml . Chudler, E. (1997). Myths about the brain: 10 percent and counting. Retrieved September 4, 2007, from http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth. Geller, U. (n.d.) Uri Geller. Retrieved July 20, 2007, from http://www.urigeller.com/ lbmp_print.htm. Genovese, J. E. C. (2004). The ten percent solution. Skeptic, 10(4), 55–57. Industry appetizers: Overheard at the bar. (n.d.). CornerBar PR. Retrieved July 20, 2007, from http://www.cornerbarpr.com/industryappetizers/overheard.cfm? article=1033. James, W. (1907). The energies of men [Electronic version]. Science, 25(635), 321–332. Retrieved July 20, 2007, from Classics in the History of Psychology Web site: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/energies.htm. Radford, B. (2000). The ten-percent myth. Retrieved July 20, 2007 from http://snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm. Standing, L. G., & Huber, H. (2003). Do psychology courses reduce beliefs in psychological myths? Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 31, 585–592. Superconscious interview with Melvin Saunders. (2007). Creative Alternatives. Retrieved July 20, 2007, from http://www.mindcourse.com/interview.html .

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CHAPTER

2
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 2.1:

The Effectiveness of Peer Review

The scientific community relies on a process called peer review (see a good ® definition and discussion of peer review in Wikipedia ) to ensure that information published in scientific journals is accurate. Yet there are still major problems associated with the peer review process, and much inaccurate or misleading material may still be published. Weiss (2005) details many sorts of scientific misconduct that may not be detected by the peer review process. The issues surrounding the effectiveness of peer review are discussed in depth by Fox (1994) and Lundberg (2002). Still, most scientists seem to feel that the peer review process is the best way to ensure scientific integrity. Use the critical thinking approach to determine whether peer review is an effective method for maintaining honesty in scientific research. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Fox, M. F. (1994). Scientific misconduct and editorial and peer review processes. Journal of Higher Education, 65(3), 298–309. Lundberg, G. D. (2002). The publishing dilemma of the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 57, 211–212. Weiss, R. (2005, June 9). Many scientists admit to misconduct [Electronic version]. Washington Post. Retrieved December 29, 2007, from http://www.washingtonpost.com . Peer review. (2006, December 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
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Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Peer_review&oldid=96718551 .

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ACTIVITY 2.2:

Reiki

Practitioners of Reiki claim that it is a technique through which they can heal ® many physical, mental, and emotional conditions. According to Wikipedia , it was developed in Japan in the early 20th century. While Reiki masters have extolled its effectiveness (Rand, n.d.), skeptics claim that it is nothing more than quackery or fraud (Carroll, 2002). Some researchers (Rosa, Rosa, Sarner, & Barrett, 1998) have attempted to determine the effectiveness of Reiki. Is Reiki a real phenomenon, or are the skeptics correct? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Carroll, R. T. (2002). Reiki. In The Skeptic’s Dictionary. Retrieved January 13, 2007 from http://skepdic.com/reiki.html . Rand, W. L. (n.d.). The international center for Reiki training. In The International Center for Reiki Training Web site. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.reiki.org. Reiki. (2006, November 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki. Rosa, L., Rosa, E., Sarner, L., & Barrett, S. (1998). A close look at therapeutic touch. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 279, 1005–1010.

ACTIVITY 2.3:

Loony for Luna

For centuries, people have believed that the full moon causes insane behavior. Sources report links between the full moon and binge drinking, criminal disturbances, and violent crimes such as murder (Sims, 2007; Tasso & Miller, 1976; Townley, 1997). Townley (1977) also reports statistically significant correlations between the phase of the moon and the number of medical procedures performed, the conception of children, and other
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a relationship between the phase of the moon and the level of violence or strangeness of the homicides. Further confirmation of a relationship between lunar cycle and insanity comes from Blackman and Catalina (1973) who correlated the phase of the moon with the number of admissions to a mental health center emergency room. Other researchers dismiss the influence of the moon on such phenomena. Campbell and Beets (1978) found no relationship between the phase of the moon and the number of psychiatric hospital admissions, suicides, or homicides. They suggest that any findings to the contrary are a particular type of statistical error. This echoes the findings of Walters, Markeley, and Tiffany (1975), who studied the relationship between lunar phases and the number of emergency contacts to a community mental health facility. A meta-analysis of 37 studies (Rotton & Kelly, 1985) also refuted the supposed link between madness and the moon, attributing any links to various errors on the parts of some other researchers. Similar findings were reported more recently by Owens and McGowan (2006). However, in an article looking at both the positive and negative findings of various researchers in this area, Vines (2001) posits a possible explanation that might link the phase of the moon to human behavior, taking social and historical technological change into account, along with data on human biorhythms. Does the moon influence human behavior? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Blackman, S., & Catalina, D. (1973). The moon and the emergency room. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 37, 624–626. Campbell, D. E., & Beets, J. L. (1978). Lunacy and the moon. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1123–1129. Lieber, A. L., & Sherin, C. R. (1972). Homicides and the lunar cycle: Toward a theory of lunar influence on human emotional disturbance. American Journal of Psychiatry, 129, 69–74.
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Owens, M., & McGowan, I. W. (2006). Madness and the moon: The lunar cycle and psychopathology. German Journal of Psychiatry, 9(1), 123-127. Rotton, J., & Kelly, I. W. (1985). Much ado about the full moon: A metaanalysis of lunar-lunacy research. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 286– 306. Sims, P. (2007, June 7). British cops shine light on late-night lunacy. The Courier Mail. Retrieved on 4 September, 2007, from http://www.news.com.au/story/ 0,23599,21864175-13762,00.html . Tasso, J., & Miller, E. (1976). The effects of the full moon on human behavior. The Journal of Psychology, 93, 81–83. Townley, J. (1997). Can the full moon affect human behavior [Electronic version]? In J. Townley Dynamic Astrology: Using Planetary Cycles to Make Personal and Career Choices. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from http://www.innerself.com/Astrology/full_moon.htm. Vines, G. (2001, June 23). Blame it on the moonlight [Electronic copy]. New Scientist, 170(2296), 36–39. Retrieved July 23, 2007, from EBSCO Academic Premier database. Walters, E., Markley, R. P., & Tiffany, D. W. (1975). Lunacy: A type I error? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 84, 715–717.

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CHAPTER

3
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 3.1:

Is There a Biological Basis for Morality?

What is the source of morality? Recently, some scholars have suggested that morality is not something learned, but is inherent in the biological structure of the brain (Broom, 2006). Others believe it is something that is not at all connected to biology, but to other factors such as identity (Hardy & Carlo, 2005), parental influence (White & Matawie, 2004), and temperament (Kagan, 2005). Some psychologists (Flack & de Waal, 2000; Loye, 2002) look at the evolutionary basis of morality, as well. Use the critical thinking approach to determine whether morality is biologically based and a result of the evolution of the brain. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Broom, D. M. (2006). The evolution of morality. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 100, 20–28. Flack, J. C., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2000). Any animal whatever: Darwinian building blocks of morality in monkeys and apes. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7(1–2), 1–29. Hardy, S. A. & Carlo, G. (2005). Identity as a source of moral motivation. Human Development, 48, 232–256. Kagan, J. (2005). Human morality and temperament. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 51, 1–32. Loye, D. (2002). The moral brain. Brain and Mind, 3, 133–150.
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White, F. A. & Matawie, K. M. (2004). Parental morality and family processes as predictors of adolescent morality. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 13, 219–233.

ACTIVITY 3.2:

The Age of Responsibility

The psychologist G. Stanley Hall linked adolescence to all sorts of social problems (Hall, 1904). Little seems to have changed in over 100 years— current newspapers and magazines are constantly bombarding us with information about the terrible nature of adolescents. They tell us that teenagers all over the world are violent, evil people who will kill or hurt others on impulse (Arinde, 2006; Larimer, 2000). They’re responsible for all sorts of crime; the tide of adolescent viciousness is rising. Steinberg and Scott (2003) argue that adolescents should not be held responsible for murder or other similar infractions, as their brains have not yet reached maturity. Beckman (2004) provides a good overview of some of the issues involved. Others posit that the relative immaturity of the adolescent is not the causal factor in such crimes. They mention factors such as parental levels of morality (White & Matawie, 2004), depression (Ritakallio, Kaltiala-Heino, Kivivuori, Luukkaala, & RimpelÄ, 2006), and community violence (Patchin, Huebner, McClusky, Varano, & Bynum, 2006). Use the critical thinking approach to determine whether Steinberg and Scott are correct in stating that adolescents should not be held to the same degree of responsibility for their immoral actions as adults. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Arinde, N. (2006, February 16). Gangland, New York City, part 2. New York Amsterdam News, 97(8), pp. 3, 34. Beckman, M. (2004). Crime, culpability, and the adolescent brain. Science, 305, 596–599. Hall, G. S. (1904). Adolescence—Its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion, and education. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
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Larimer, T. (2000, August 28). Natural-born killers? Time, 156(9), 37. Patchin, J. W., Huebner, B. M., McClusky, J. D., Varano, S. P., & Bynum, T. S. (2006). Exposure to community violence and childhood delinquency. Crime & Delinquency, 52, 307–332. Ritakallio, M., Kaltiala-Heino, R., Kivivuori, J., Luukkaala, T., & RimpelÄ, M. (2006). Delinquency and the profile of offences among depressed and non-depressed adolescents. Criminal Behaviour & Mental Health, 16, 100–110. Steinberg, L. & Scott, E. S. (2003). Less guilty by reason of adolescence: Developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility, and the juvenile death penalty. American Psychologist, 58, 1009–1018. White, F. A. & Matawie, K. M. (2004). Parental morality and family processes as predictors of adolescent morality. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 13, 219–233.

ACTIVITY 3.3:

He Thinks, She Thinks

In 2005, Lawrence H. Summers stirred up a major controversy when he spoke at the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on Women and Science. In his apology, Summers (2005) says that he unintentionally gave the impression that men were biologically better qualified to succeed in the sciences than women. This has generated a good deal of scientific and political debate, with many intelligent people arguing on both sides of the issue. Some neuroscientists provide arguments for (Hines, Chiu, McAdams, Bentler, & Lipcamon, 1992) or against (Byne, Bleier, & Houston, 1988) gender differences based on the structure of the brain, specifically a part of the brain called the corpus callosum. Other sources cite discrimination (Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Science, 1999), differing levels of “job involvement” and perceived levels of autonomy (Lorence, 2001), or socialization (Roger & Duffield, 2000) as the source of differences in women and men’s success in the sciences. What is closer to the truth? Are men biologically better adapted to scientific work than women? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
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5. What conclusions are most reasonable? References: Byne, W., Bleier, R., & Houston, L. (1988). Variations in human corpus callosum do not predict gender: A study using magnetic resonance imaging. Behavioral Neuroscience, 102, 222–227. Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Science. (1999). A study on the status of women faculty in science at MIT: How a committee on women faculty came to be established by the dean of the School of Science, what the committee and the dean learned and accomplished, and recommendations for the future. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from MIT Web site: http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.pdf. Hines, M., Chiu, L., McAdams, L. A., Bentler, P. M. & Lipcamon, J. (1992). Cognition and the corpus callosum: Verbal fluency, visuospatial ability, and language lateralization related to midsagittal surface areas of callosal subregions. Behavioral Neuroscience, 106, 3–14. Lorence, J. (2001). A test of “gender” and “job” models of sex differences in job involvement. Social Forces, 66, 121–142. Roger, A. & Duffield, J. (2000). Factors underlying persistent gendered option choices in school science and technology in Scotland. Gender & Education, 12, 367–383. Summers, L. H. (2005). Letter from President Summers on women and science. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from Harvard University, Office of the President Web site: http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/womensci.html.

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CHAPTER

4
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 4.1:

Hey Kid, Turn Down That Darned Noise!

Apple’s iPod™ and other music players have become incredibly popular. Wired Magazine reports that despite the fact that Microsoft manufactures a competing product, the iPod is wildly popular on the Microsoft campus, much to the annoyance of Microsoft founder Bill Gates (Kahney, 2005). Even colleges and universities are using iPods to disseminate information to students and others, and for use in student projects (Brandeis, 2005; Broome, 2007; Martin, 2007). And yet, many researchers (Geiger, 2006; Moore, 2006; Shafer, 2006) warn that using the iPod may damage your hearing. This may be due to of the design of the earbuds (Keizer, 2005) or the volumes at which people listen (Hitti, 2006). In fact, a class-action suit regarding this has been filed against Apple (Keizer, 2006). Are these worries overblown? Would colleges and universities promote the use of a technology that causes relatively permanent harm to its users? Is the iPod dangerous? Have your experiences with iPods been good or bad? Do you see valid points on both sides? Use the critical thinking method to evaluate the evidence and decide if the iPod is dangerous. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Brandeis University. (2005). Welcome to the home of the iPod experience! Retrieved July 23, 2007, from Brandeis University Web site: http://lts.brandeis.edu/teachlearn/ipod/
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index.html. Broome Community College. (2007). About BCC on iTunes U. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from Broome Community College Web site: http://itunes.sunybroome.edu/ overview.php. Geiger, D. (2006). When modern life pumps up the volume, give your ears some TLC. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2007/ HEALTH/04/10/healthmag.hearing/ . Hitti, M. (2006, March 16). Teens’ MP3 habits may up hearing loss: Adults listen longer, but teens turn the volume up higher. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from WebMD Medical News Web site: http://www.webmd.com/news/20060316/ teens-mp3-habits-may-up-hearing-loss. Kahney, L. (2005, February 2). Hide your iPod, here comes Bill. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from Wired Magazine Web site: http://www.wired.com/print/gadgets/mac/ commentary/cultofmac/2005/02/66460. Keizer, G. (2005, December 19). Eh? iPod earbuds can cause hearing loss. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from Information Week Web site: http://www.informationweek.com/story/ showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175006733. Keizer, G. (2006, February 2). Apple hit with iPod hearing loss lawsuit. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from Information Week Web site: http://www.informationweek.com/story/ showArticle.jhtml?articleID=178601009 . Martin, N. (2007, May 25). iPod study plants seeds of change. Retrieved on July 23, 2007, from Texas Tech Today Web site: http://www.depts.ttu.edu/communications/news/stories/ 07-05-food-safety-ipod.php. Moore, M. (2006). Hispanics may face higher risk for hearing loss from iPods, other MP3 players. ASHA Leader, 11(17), 3,17. Shafer, D. N. (2006). Noise-induced hearing loss hits teens. ASHA Leader, 11(5), 1, 27.

ACTIVITY 4.2:

Blind People Hear Better

As you know, people are highly adaptable. If something goes wrong in your life, you can often compensate for it by changing other aspects of what you
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do. Many people believe that when someone has an impaired sense, such as sight, they can compensate by developing more sensitivity in one of their other senses. For example, it is often said that blind people have more sensitive hearing than sighted people. Locke, Voltaire, and other philosophers subscribed to that theory, and many of us might want to believe it; it has a certain ring of fairness to it—a loss in one part of a person’s life is compensated by a gain in another. Many psychologists consider this sort of compensation a myth, citing such concepts as the all-or-nothing principle (recall the discussion of action potentials and the firing of neurons in your textbook, Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart, & Roy, 2008) which states that neurons either fire or don’t fire, but cannot fire by degrees. They also point out that the physical structures of hearing (pinnae, tympanic membrane, bones of the middle ear, etc.) are the same for blind and sighted individuals (see the diagram in your book, Bernstein et al., 2008, p. 114). However, other psychologists have looked at the plasticity of the brain, which suggests that compensation might be possible (recall the discussion of plasticity in Bernstein, et al., 2008). Sahlman and Koper (1992) found that blind individuals detected lies with far greater accuracy than sighted individuals. Furthermore, people who lost their sight early in life had a greater ability to locate the sources of sounds than sighted individuals (Lessard, Paré, Lepore, & Lassonde, 1998). These results were echoed by Voss, Lassonde, Gougoux, Fortin, Guillemot, and Lepore (2004), who posited that this greater ability might be due to early reorganization of the cortex, a theory supported by the work of Rauschecker and Korte (1993), who found such reorganization in the brains of cats. Yet other researchers (Morgan, 1999; Zwiers, Van Opstal, & Cruysberg, 2001) point out numerous flaws in such experiments. Do blind people compensate for their lack of sight by developing better hearing? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Bernstein, D. A., Penner, L. A., Clarke-Stewart, A., & Roy, E. J. (2008). Psychology (8th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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Lessard, N., Paré, M., Lepore, F., & Lassonde, M. (1998). Early-blind human subjects localize sound sources better than sighted subjects. Nature, 395(6699), 278–280. Morgan, M. (1999). Sensory perception: Supernormal hearing in the blind? Current Biology, 9, 53–54. Rauschecker, J. P., & Korte, M. (1993). Auditory compensation for early blindness in cat cerebral cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 13, 4538– 4548. Sahlman, J. M., & Koper, R. J. (1992, May). Do you hear what I hear?: Deception detection by the blind. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Miami, FL. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EC301405. Voss, P., Lassonde, M., Gougoux, F., Fortin, M., Guillemot, J.-P., & Lepore, F. (2004). Early- and late-onset blind individuals show supra-normal auditory abilities in far-space. Current Biology, 14, 1734–1738. Zwiers, M. P., Van Opstal, A. J., & Cruysberg, J. R. M. (2001). A spatial hearing deficit in early-blind humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 21(9), 1–5.

ACTIVITY 4.3:

How Do You Know You Won’t Like It, If You Don’t Try a Little?

When you were a small child, did your parents ever try to get you to eat something that you were convinced you wouldn’t like? Why did you think you wouldn’t like it? Did you actually like it, or did your preconceptions make it taste awful? Do you know people who seem to enjoy what you consider terrible-tasting foods (such as Limburger cheese or single-malt scotch whiskey), just because they’re high-status foods? Some psychologists suggest that our expectations can actually change our sensory experiences. For instance, Rozin, Fallon, and Augustini-Ziskind (1985) and Rozin and Fallon (1987) note that even though children might like certain foods, they begin to find them disgusting after they’ve come into contact with some other food that they find disgusting. Ratings of wines also seem to be heavily influenced by expectations (Friedman & Fireworker, 1977). In fact, expectations about the quality of a wine were found to influence diners’ enjoyment and evaluation of the quality of an entire meal, and how much of that meal they actually eat (Payne & Wansink, 2007; Wansink, Payne, & North, 2007). Taste experiments on beer (Lee, Frederick, & Ariely, 2006) and soups (Prescott & Young, 2002) also showed that expectations had a major impact on flavor ratings.
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Is this a real effect, or is something else going on? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about whether preconceptions change our sensory experiences. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Friedman, H. H., & Fireworker, R. B. (1977). The susceptibility of consumers to unseen group influences. Journal of Social Psychology, 102, 155–156. Lee, L., Frederick, S., & Ariely, D. (2006). Try it, you=11 like it: The influence of expectation, consumption, and revelation on preferences for beer. Psychological Science, 17, 1054–1058.

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Payne, C., & Wansink, B. (2007). How wine expectations influence meal evaluations and consumption. FASEB Journal, 21(5), 327. Prescott, J., & Young, A. (2002). Does information about MSG (monosodium glutamate) content influence consumer ratings of soups with and without added MSG? Appetite, 39(1), 25–33. Rozin, P., & Fallon, A. (1987). A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review, 94, 23–41. Rozin, P., Fallon, A., & Augustoni-Ziskind, M. (1985). The child’s conception of food: The development of contamination sensitivity to “disgusting” substances. Developmental Psychology, 21, 1075–1079. Wansink, B., Payne, C., & North, J. (2007). Fine as North Dakota wine: Sensory expectations and the intake of companion foods. FASEB Journal, 21(5), 329.

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CHAPTER

5
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 5.1:

Multitasking Makes Life Easier

Have you ever watched someone driving while talking on a cell phone, drinking a cup of coffee, and chatting with people in their car? Have you ever tried to study while also watching television, listening to something on your MP3 player, snacking, checking your e-mail, and talking to someone on the telephone? Many people believe that doing many things at once is far more efficient than doing one thing at a time. Articles in the popular press and some industry journals tell us that multitasking is not only necessary and useful (Booth, 2004; Overholt, 2002), but that it can enhance our working lives (Cook, 2005). Others talk about the dangers of multitasking in terms of driving safety (Peters & Peters, 2002), productivity (Davidson, 2006), and learning (Baddeley, Lewis, Eldridge, & Thomson, 1984; Blume, 2001). Still others (Greenwald, 2004; Wasson, 2004) discuss potentially good and bad aspects of the behavior. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about the utility of multitasking. Does it help people become more effective and efficient? Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Baddeley, A., Lewis, V., Eldridge, M., & Thomson, N. (1984). Attention and retrieval from long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 518–540. Blume, H. (2001). Mnemonic plague. American Prospect, 12(14), 39–41. Booth, J. E. (2004). The art of juggling. Association Management, 56(5), 69.
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Cook, P. (2005). Women in the workplace. Chemistry & Industry, 1, 12–13. Davidson, J. (2006). Why multitasking backfires. Associations Now, 2(6), 14. Greenwald, A. G. (2004). On doing two things at once: IV. Necessary and sufficient conditions: Rejoinder to Lien, Proctor, and Ruthruff (2003). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30, 632–636. Overholt, A. (2002). The art of multitasking. Fast Company, 63, 118–125. Peters, G. A., & Peters, B. J. (2002). The distracted driver: How dangerous is “multitasking”? Professional Safety, 47(3), 34–40. Wasson, C. (2004). Multitasking during virtual meetings. Human Resource Planning, 27(4), 47–60.

ACTIVITY 5.2:

Racial Profiling and National Security

In recent years, there has been a major thrust to identify and capture suspected terrorists before they can do any harm to the public. Newspaper columnists such as Nicolas Kristof (2002) have called for racial profiling to assist in this effort. Yet as both the New York Times (“The New Airport Profiling,” 2003) and Newsweek (Begley et al., 2001) note, profiling may not be a successful strategy. Yetman (2004) seems to argue that profiling may be helpful, and that it will occur, in any case. Grimland, Apter, and Kerkhof (2006) argue that the number of factors influencing suicide bombers suggests that they cannot be profiled successfully. Complicating this debate is America’s stated support for equality and the possible conflict between profiling and the civil liberties of the targeted people. Is the use of racial or ethnic profiling effective in identifying possible terrorists? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Begley, S., Clemetson, L., Rogers, A., Levy, S., McGrath, P., Chen, J., &
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Underhill, W. (2001, October 1). As America vows ‘never again,’ it is launching a series of antiterrorism measures—from ethnic profiling to snooping through your personal e-mail. Newsweek, 138(14), 58–62. Grimland, M., Apter, A., & Kerkhof, A. (2006). The phenomenon of suicide bombing: A review of psychological and nonpsychological factors. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 27(3), 107–118. Kristof, N. D. (2002, May 31). Liberal reality check: When racial profiling works [Editorial]. New York Times, 151(52135), p. A25. The New Airport Profiling. (2003, March 11). [Editorial]. New York Times, 152(52419), p. A28. Yetman, J. (2004). Suicidal terrorism and discriminatory screening: An efficiency-equity trade-off. Defence and Peace Economics, 15, 221– 230.

ACTIVITY 5.3:

The Roller Coaster of Love

What makes us fall in love? Why does one person completely bowl us over, while others make no impression at all? Is it fate, or is it something much simpler? Some psychologists suggest that it might be a phenomenon called excitation transfer, which is “the process of carrying over arousal from one experience to an independent situation” (Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart, & Roy, 2008, p. 447). For example, if you’ve just finished working out and an attractive person smiles at you, you’re likely to think that it’s his smile that’s making your heart pound, so you’re likely to have a much stronger emotional reaction than you would have if you’d met him when you were relaxed and just sitting around. Evidence supporting this position has been posited by several researchers (Lewandowski & Aron, 2004; Meston & Frohlich, 2003; Walsh, Meister, & Kleinke, 1977). In fact, McClanahan, Gold, Lenney, Ryckman, and Kulberg (1990) found that even when people were dissimilar, which usually results in dislike, transferred excitation would result in attraction. Cotton (1981) disagreed, suggesting that the evidence is not convincing, and that there may be other explanations. Meston and Frohlich (2003) reported that although excitation transfer was strong with non-romantic partners, it wasn’t if the people being tested already had an ongoing romantic relationship with each other. Other psychologists feel that other factors such as perceived similarity (Jones, Pelham, Carvallo, & Mirenberg, 2004; Montoya & Horton, 2004), the influence of friends (Graziano, Jensen-Campbell,
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Shevilske, & Lundgren, 1993), and physical beauty (Maner et al., 2003) might have considerably more influence on possible romantic feelings. Robert Baron (1987) even found evidence for the influence of negatively charged ions in the environment. What is the truth? Is transferred excitation as influential in stirring romance as some might suggest? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?

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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable? References: Baron, R. A. (1987). Effects of negative ions on interpersonal attraction: Evidence for intensification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 547–553. Bernstein, D. A., Penner, L. A., Clarke-Stewart, A., & Roy, E. J. (2008). Psychology (8th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Cotton, J. L. (1981). A review of research on Schachter’s theory of emotion and the misattribution of arousal. European Journal of Social Psychology, 11, 365–397. Graziano, W. G., Jensen-Campbell, L. A., Shebilske, L. J., & Lundgren, S. R. (1993). Social influence, sex differences, and judgments of beauty: Putting the interpersonal back in interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 522–531. Jones, J. T., Pelham, B. W., Carvallo, M., & Mirenberg, M. C. (2004). How do I love thee? Let me count the Js: Implicit egotism and interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 665–683. Lewandowski, G. W., & Aron, A. P. (2004). Distinguishing arousal from novelty and challenge in initial romantic attraction between strangers. Social Behavior and Personality, 32, 361–372. Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., Becker, D. V., Delton, A. W., Hofer, B., Wilbur, C. J., & Neuberg, S. L. (2003). Sexually selective cognition: Beauty captures the mind of the beholder. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1107–1120. McClanahan, K. K., Gold, J. A., Lenney, E., Ryckman, R. M., & Kulberg, G. E. (1990). Infatuation and attraction to a dissimilar other: Why is love blind? Journal of Social Psychology, 130, 433–445. Meston, C. M., & Frohlich, P. F. (2003). Love at first fright: Partner salience moderates roller-coaster-induced excitation transfer. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 537–544. Montoya, R. M., & Horton, R. S. (2004). On the importance of cognitive evaluation as a determinant of interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 696–712. Walsh, N. A., Meister, L. A., & Kleinke, C. L. (1977). Interpersonal attraction and visual behavior as a function of perceived arousal and
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evaluation by an opposite sex person. Journal of Social Psychology, 103, 65–74.

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CHAPTER

6
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 6.1:

Hypnopædia (“Sleep Learning”)

According to the dictionary (Hypnopedia, 1987), hypnopædia is “A method of teaching in which information heard while the learner is asleep is supposed to be retained (p. 831).” The term was first used by Aldous Huxley (1932) in his novel Brave New World. Imagine learning everything you need to know for this psychology course by hearing recordings of the textbook and accounts of exciting experiments read to you each night by Dr. Bernstein. Each morning, you would awaken with a new store of information, which you would be able to use on later examinations, and later in life as you need to solve psychologically based problems. It sounds too good to be true. Is it? Almost as soon as the idea was issued, psychologists became interested in testing it. Leshan (1942) found that hypnopædia helped people stop biting their nails. Some researchers (Fox & Robbin, 1952) reported that subjects actually learned information during sleep. Other researchers (Simon & Emmons, 1955; Simon & Emmons, 1956) determined that any learning actually took place during a waking state, not during actual sleep. In his review of the literature on hypnopædia, Aarons (1976) found several anomalies in the various studies which might have accounted for the differing results and called for more controlled experimentation. The debate is still raging. Is hypnopædia effective? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Aarons, L. (1976). Sleep-assisted instruction. Psychological Bulletin, 83, 1–
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40. Fox, B. H. & Robbin, J. S. (1952). The retention of material presented during sleep. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 43, 75–79. Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus. Hypnopedia. (1987). In The American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Leshan, L. (1942). The breaking of a habit by suggestion during sleep. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 37, 406–408. Simon, C. W., & Emmons, W. H. (1955). Learning during sleep? Psychological Bulletin, 52, 328–342. Simon, C. W., & Emmons, W. H. (1956). Responses to material presented during various levels of sleep. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 51, 89–97.

ACTIVITY 6.2:

Never Change Answers on a Multiple Choice Test

Your teachers or parents have likely given you lots of advice about how to study and take tests. One common piece of advice is that you should never change your answers on a multiple-choice test, but should always go with your first “gut feeling” if in doubt. Several online sources (Dummies.com, n.d.; Fat Campus Test Taking Strategies, n.d.; Test Taking Strategy from the Editors at Campus Expert, n.d.) give this advice. However, not all students seem to take this advice. According to several researchers (Ballance, 1977; Frederickson, 1999; McMorris & Weidemann, 1986), most students change their answers. But does it help? A good deal of research on changing answers has been done by psychologists over the years. Matthews (1929), Reile (1952), Reiling and Taylor (1972), and Vispoel (2000) are among many researchers who studied the success rates of students who changed answers on tests. Should you stick with your first impulse on multiple-choice tests? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?
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References: Ballance, C.T. (1977). Students’ expectations and their answer-changing behavior. Psychological Reports, 41, 163–166. Dummies.com. (n.d.). Discovering test taking strategies for the GED. Retrieved on January 15, 2007, from http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/ id-1753,subcat-TESTPREP.html?print=true. Fat Campus Test Taking Strategies. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2007, from http:// fatcampus.com/test.htm. Frederickson, C.G. (1999). Multiple-choice answer changing: A type connection? Journal of Psychological Type, 51, 40–46. Mathews, C.O. (1929). Erroneous first impressions on objective tests Journal of Educational Psychology, 20, 280–286. McMorris, R.F. & Weideman, A.H. (1986). Answer changing after instruction on answer changing. Measurement & Evaluation in Counseling & Development, 19, 93–101. Reile, P. J. (1952). Should students change their initial answers on objective-type tests? More evidence regarding an old problem. Journal of Educational Psychology, 43, 110–115. Reiling, E. & Taylor, R. (1972). A new approach to the problem of changing initial responses to multiple choice questions. Journal of Educational Measurement, 9, 67–70. Test Taking Strategy from the Editors at Campus Expert. (n.d.) Retrieved January 15, 2007, from http://www.campusexpert.com/test.htm . Vispoel, W. P. (2000). Reviewing and changing answers on computerized fixed-item vocabulary tests. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 60, 371–384.

ACTIVITY 6.3:

A Computer on Every Desk

Many parents, educators, and reporters believe that all children can benefit from having computers at school (Bergin, Ford, & Hess, 1993; de Pommereau, 1997; Elliot, 2000). Some of the advantages they describe are that students will become better writers by using word processing software; will achieve better learning outcomes; will be more aware of current events
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by being able to access a world of information on the Internet; will learn to communicate better by using e-mail and instant messaging, and will become more equitable and cooperative. Others believe that computers may not be as useful or helpful as some might hope, either because they are less suitable for educational tasks (Attewell, Belkis, & Battle, 2003; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990; Toppo, 2006), because they will not be properly adopted by educators (Reynolds, Treharne, & Tripp, 2003), or because they will not be accessible to children outside of school (Selwyn & Bullon, 2000). Some feel that computer use will discourage students from learning, from paying attention in class and from interacting with people; that computer use may not be as effective as other teaching methods; and that using computers in school may harm students socially and physically. Even early researchers noted that there were major issues to be resolved before allowing computers to become part of children’s daily life in school (Lepper, 1985). What do you think? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about whether computers are beneficial in the classroom. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Attwell, P., Belkis, S-G., & Battle, J. (2003). Computers and young children: Social benefit or social problem? Social Forces, 82, 277–296. Bergin, D. A., Ford, M. E., & Hess, R. D. (1993). Patterns of motivation and social behavior associated with microcomputer use of young children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 437–445. Cunningham, A., & Stanovich, K. E. (1990). Early spelling acquisition: Writing beats the computer. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 159–162. de Pommereau, I. (1997, April 21). Computers give children the key to learning. Christian Science Monitor, 89(101), 11. Elliot, I. (2000, April). A laptop in every backpack. Teaching PreK-8, 30(7), 40–43. Lepper, M. (1985). Microcomputers in education: Motivational and social issues.
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American Psychologist, 40, 1–18. Reynolds, D., Treharne, D., & Tripp, H. (2003). ICT–the hopes and the reality. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34, 151–167. Selwyn, N. & Bullon, K. (2000). Primary school children’s use of ICT. British Journal of Educational Technology, 31, 321–332. Toppo, G. (2006, April 11). Computers may not boost student achievement. USA Today, 08d.

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CHAPTER

7
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 7.1:

Is Fish Really Brain Food?

For many years, people have believed that eating fish will help make you smarter and improve your memory, referring to fish as “brain food” (Calon et al., 2004; Kirchheimer, 2004; Marano, 2004; Warner, 2004). Yet some researchers note that eating fish may cause memory problems (Schantz et al., 2001). Can you improve your memory by eating more fish or by taking supplements that contain fish oil or other fish byproducts? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Calon, F., Lim, G. P., Yang, F., Morihara, T., Teter, B., Ubeda, O., Rostaing, P., Triller, A., Salem, N., Ashe, K. H., Frautschy, S. A., & Cole, G. M. (2004). Docosahexaenoic acid protects from dendritic pathology in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model. Neuron, 43, 633–645. Kirchheimer, S. (2004, September 1). Why fish seems to prevent Alzheimer’s damage: Study shows DHA in omega-3 fatty acid lowers Alzheimer’s disease risk. WebMD Medical News. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/93/102368.htm . Marano, H. E. (2004, March 16). FoodnMood: Save your brain. Psychology Today. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/ pto-20040316–000006.html .

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Schantz, S. L., Gassior, D. M., Polverejan, E., McCaffrey, R. J., Sweeney, A. M., Humphrey, H. E. B., & Gardiner, J. C. (2001). Impairments of memory and learning in older adults exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls via consumption of Great Lakes fish. Environmental Health Perspectives, 109, 605–611. Warner, J. (2004). Fish may protect brain from effects of aging: Fatty fish may help prevent Alzheimer’s, but other fats raise risks. WebMD Medical News. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/80/96450.htm .

ACTIVITY 7.2:

Cramming for Success

One constant from grade school through post-graduate study is that students take many tests. To pass them, you may have to learn a lot of information in a very short time. That’s not easy. Because there are many demands on a student’s time, one strategy people may use is cramming. This means that they study everything they need to know on the day before a test, so that it’s fresh in their minds when they have to take the exam. In fact, they may study all night and into the next day in order to read everything, usually using a rote memorization strategy. They may also use specialized tools, such as flash cards or other study aids. In some cases, this works well. Smart crammers may pass their examinations (Martel & Hemphill, 1996; Tigner, 1999). Others say it does not work under most circumstances (Tigner, 1999). Miller’s (1956) work on the limits of memory capacity may have some bearing. Some researchers report mixed results (Romano, Wallace, Helmick, Carey, & Adkins, 2005). Researchers looking at long-term retention imply that distributed practice, or spaced learning, tends to yield much better results (Conway, Cohen, & Stanhope, 1992). So, is cramming a good strategy for learning? Will people who cram for examinations be able to retain the information and use it in productive ways? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Conway, M. A., Cohen, G., & Stanhope, N. (1992). Very long-term memory
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for knowledge acquired at school and university. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 6, 467–482. Martel, J. & Hemphill, S. (1996, October 17). Getting ahead: Upgrade now! Rolling Stone, 745, p. 113–116. Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81–97. Romano, J., Wallace, T. L., Helmick, I. J., Carey, L. M., & Adkins, L. (2005). Study procrastination, achievement, and academic motivation in web-based and blended distance learning. Internet & Higher Education, 8, 299–305.

ACTIVITY 7.3:

A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body

In 2001, Newsweek magazine reported that keeping physically fit helps us stay mentally fit (Adler, Raymond, & Underwood, 2001). To this end, many people recommend lifelong sports such as hiking, golf, or tennis that can be played well into old age (Brainy Hikers, 2005). They believe that by engaging in these sports, you challenge yourself to think and remember things in ways that promote good long-term memory and problem solving ability. However, not all sports are helpful to all people. Christensen and Mackinnon (1993) note that certain types of physical activity were linked to certain types of memory gains and task performance. Slosman and colleagues (2004) report on the effects of scuba diving on memory, for example. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about whether engaging in lifelong sports will help you retain your long-term memory. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Adler, J., Raymond, J., & Underwood, A. (2001, Fall/Winter). Fighting back with sweat. Newsweek, 138(11), 34–41. Brainy Hikers. (2005, July/August). Backpacker, 33(6), 60.
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Christensen, H., & Mackinnon, A. (1993). The association between mental, social and physical activity and cognitive performance in young and old subjects. Age and Ageing, 22, 175–182.

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Slosman, D. O., de Ribaupierre, S., Chicheriao, C., Ludwig, C., Montandon, M.-L., Allaoua, M., Genton, L., Pichard, C., Grousset, A., Mayer, E., Annoni, J.-M., & de Ribaupierre, A. (2004). Negative neurofunctional effects of frequency, depth and environment in recreational scuba diving: The Geneva “memory dive” study. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 38, 108–114.

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CHAPTER

8
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 8.1:

Children’s Books: Big Words or Little Words?

Many parents and teachers believe that children’s stories should contain simple language, appropriate to the level of a beginning reader. They feel that if a child encounters too many difficult or unfamiliar words, the child will become discouraged and will not want to read. This was the idea behind basal readers, many of which are simplified versions of other stories. In fact, after an extensive review of the available basal readers, Hill (1997) described basal readers as excellent resources for learning language at an accessible level. Farr (1988) also extols the value of the basal readers. Ohanian (1987), however, feels that children benefit from more complex words and syntactic structures, and that children’s stories should contain more intriguing words and sentences. Sakari (1996) analyzed basal versions of children’s stories to see how well their original meanings came through. Other teaching methods have also been compared to the use of basal readers by several researchers (Popplewell & Doty, 2001). Do you believe that children’s books should be written at an extremely simple level? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Farr, R. (1988). Reading: A place for basal readers under the whole language umbrella. Educational Leadership, 46(3), 86. Green, G. M., & Olsen, M. S. (1986). Preferences for and comprehension of original and readability-adapted materials. (Technical Report No. 393). Washington: National Institute of Education.
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Hill, D. R. (1997, May 23). Graded (basal) readers—choosing the best. The Language Teacher Online. Retrieved from http://www.jaltpublications.org/tlt/files/97/may/ choosing.html . Ohanian, S. (1987, September). Ruffles and flourishes. The Atlantic Monthly, 260(3), 20–21. Sakari, M. D. (1996). Altering trade books to “fit” literature-based basals. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED396239).

ACTIVITY 8.2:

It’s Just Going Around Right Now

Diagnosing an illness is a form of problem solving. If you watch any episode of the show House (e.g. House’s New Staff, n.d.), you’ll see Dr. Gregory House and his team use differential diagnoses to determine the particular diseases or conditions of their patients. Doctors do this by listing every disease or condition that explains a patient’s symptoms, and then trying to figure out which particular condition she has through a process of elimination. They are trained to do this in medical school, much as clinical psychologists are in their graduate programs. In fact, differential diagnosis is a good example of critical thinking. Of course, doctors are human, and often take cognitive shortcuts rather than engaging in the entire process of differential diagnosis. After all, they’re experts, and their experience should help them cut through a lot of the tedium of working through such a long and involved process. Researchers suggest that experts use such shortcuts because of their superior knowledge base and experience at solving particular kinds of problems, and that these shortcuts help them make faster, better decisions (Davidson, 2003; Zimmerman & Campillo, 2003). Have you ever gone to the doctor and after describing your symptoms been told that you have the flu, even though the doctor didn’t examine you or run any tests? Perhaps your doctor had already seen 20 or 30 other people with these symptoms, so she formed a mental set to use as a shortcut. (You might want to review the discussion of the mental set in Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart, & Roy, 2008.) However, most viral infections have the same symptoms, so you might have had a much more serious condition. Without a full differential diagnosis, you might not know that you’ve contracted anthrax until it’s too late. Examples of errors caused by mental set in medicine abound (Basnyat, 2002; Cathebras, 2002; Kerr, 2004; Verheugt, 2002), and have been studied by medical professionals (Graber, Franklin, & Gordon, 2005) in an attempt to identify their causes and come up with possible solutions.

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Is this really a problem? Are the heuristic shortcuts that doctors use good because they make diagnoses and treatments more efficient, or are they shortcuts to disaster? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Basnyat, B. (2002). Uses of error: A developing country perspective. The Lancet, 359, 2026. Bernstein, D. A., Penner, L. A., Clarke-Stewart, A., & Roy, E. J. (2008). Psychology (8th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Cathebras, P. (2002). Uses of error: Cure. The Lancet, 359, 2273. Davidson, J. E. (2003). Insights about insightful problem solving. In J. E. Davidson & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.) The psychology of problem solving (pp. 149–175). New York: Cambridge University Press. Graber, M. L., Franklin, N., & Gordon, R. (2005). Diagnostic error in internal medicine. Archives of Internal Medicine, 165, 1493–1499. House’s new staff. (n.d.) Retrieved on July 27, 2007, from YouTube.com: http://youtube.com/watch?v=GsXXd_8RsSg. Kerr, D. J. (2004). Two errors. The Lancet, 364, 907. Verheugt, F. W. A. (2002). Uses of error: Who is to blame? The Lancet, 360, 789. Zimmerman, B. J., & Campillo, M. (2003). Motivating self-regulated problem solvers. In J. E. Davidson & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.) The psychology of problem solving (pp. 233–262). New York: Cambridge University Press.

ACTIVITY 8.3:

Talent Might Stop You from Being Really Good at Something

NPR’s program From the Top (n.d.) features talented young musicians. Are
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they brilliant performing artists because they’re talented or because they work hard? Psychologists have long debated the question of whether nature or the environment is more important in our development as individuals, and the relative influences of talent and hard work are among the most studied areas with regard to this question. Stories of child prodigies such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, John von Neumann, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Temple, and Steve Wozniak abound. In fact, you’ll find an interesting list of such people on Wikipedia® (List, 2007). Researchers have long argued that such talent is natural, and is the basis for people’s accomplishments throughout life (Galton, 1865). Some view a child prodigy as a distinctly gifted individual (Feldman, D. H., 1993). Lubinski, Webb, Morelock, and Benbow (2001) found that talented early adolescents developed into highly achieving adults, and Webb, Lubinski, and Benbow (2002) reported that students with a talent for mathematics became successful in mathematical and scientific fields as adults. Yet other researchers maintain that what makes people into expert problem solvers is not their natural talent, but a set of acquired skills, honed through long periods of deliberate practice and concentrated learning (Ericsson and Charness, 1994). In fact, Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer (1993) found that “individuals acquire virtually all of the distinguishing characteristics of expert performers through relevant activities (deliberate practice)” (p. 397), and that expertise is not dependent on unique talent. For example, research on the differences between musicians and non-musicians found that individuals showed no major differences in most mental abilities (Helmbold, Rrammsayer, and Altenmüller, 2005). Thus, Sternberg (2001) describes giftedness itself as a form of expertise that is actually developed over time, a view that echoes the assertions of Lubinski and Benbow (2000) and Winner (2000). Some psychologists imply that being gifted as a child may actually interfere with the development of expertise. One reason may be that these children won’t feel the need to practice or critique their own errors while working to improve, or that relentless pushing by adults may make them lose interest in their abilities, and so they may not become expert performers or problem solvers as adults unless they are given appropriate educational opportunities to develop their talents (Winner, 2000). As Lubinski and Benbow (2001) note, becoming an expert involves certain costs. Other pressures, such as the pressure to fit in, or the jealousy of one’s peers may also play a role in preventing talented individuals from advancing in expertise (Plucker & Levy, 2001). Does having an innate talent guarantee that you’ll become an expert at something, or will it prevent you from doing so? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need
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to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49, 725–747. Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406. Feldman, D. H. (1993). Child prodigies: A distinctive form of giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 37(4), 188–193. From the top. (n.d.). Retrieved on July 26, 2007, from http://www.fromthetop.org/ .

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Galton, F. (1865). Hereditary talent and character [Electronic version]. Macmillan’s Magazine, 12, 157-166, 318-327. Retrieved on July 28, 2007, from Classics in the History of Psychology Web site: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/talent.htm. Helmbold, N., Rammsayer, T., & Altenmüller, E. (2005). Differences in primary mental abilities between musicians and nonmusicians. Journal of Individual Differences, 26(2), 74–85. List of child prodigies. (2007). In Wikipedia. Retrieved on July 26, 2997 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_prodigies . Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2000). States of excellence. American Psychologist, 55, 137–150. Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2001). Choosing excellence. American Psychologist, 565, 76–77. Lubinski, D., Webb, R. M., Morelock, M. J., & Benbow, C. P. (2001). Top 1 in 10,000: A 10-year follow-up of the profoundly gifted. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 718–729. Plucker, J. A., & Levy, J. J. (2001). The downside of being talented. American Psychologist, 56, 75–76. Sternberg, R. (2001). Giftedness as developing expertise: A theory of the interface between high abilities and achieved excellence. High Ability Studies, 12(2), 160–179. Winner, E. (2000). The origins and ends of giftedness. American Psychologist, 55, 159–169.

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CHAPTER

9
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 9.1:

Can You Talk to the Dead?

Many people believe that they can communicate with dead people. Some wish to communicate with relatives or friends, others with various noteworthy individuals. Often, that communication is facilitated by individuals called mediums, such as John Edward (http://www.johnedward.net/ about_John_Edward.htm), many of whom have become quite famous and have gathered huge numbers of followers. Recently, a group of magicians and other experts attempted to contact the spirit of escape artist Harry Houdini (Barron, 2006). Several spiritualists attempted to communicate with the spirit of Princess Diana Spencer by using the Eiffel Tower as a psychic antenna (Yu et al., 2003). The popular press is filled with the exploits of reporters who attend séances or participate in experiments in parapsychology, hoping to discover the secrets of the unknown (Miller, 1998; Stanford, 2002). On the opposing side, scientists investigating the ability of people to communicate with the dead have exposed numerous tricks, gadgets, elaborate schemes, and the medium’s exploitation of their clients’ gullibility or hope (Séance, 1999; Wiseman, Greening, & Smith, 2003). James Randi has long offered a one million dollar prize for any “individual who can prove, in a controlled setting, that they have ‘super’ powers ” (Randi, n.d.). So far, no one has been able to claim the money. Many scientists have explained the results of near-death experiences, often used as demonstrations of life after death, as hallucinations, based in the structure of the brain or the result of childhood fantasies (Siegel, 1980). Other scientists take issue with such findings (Stevenson, 1981). Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about whether people can communicate with individuals who have died. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable?

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References: Barron, J. (2006, November 1). Houdini declines comment, but not for want of trying. New York Times, 156(53750), p. B2. Miller, K. (1998, June). Psychics: Science or seance? A reporter visits the twilight zone. Life, 21(7), 80–87. Randi, J. (n.d.) James Randi Educational Foundation. Retrieved January 30, 2007 from http://randi.org/. Séance. (1999). The seance. Skeptic, 7(3), 100–101. Siegel, R. K. (1980). The psychology of life after death. American Psychologist, 35, 911–931. Stanford, P. (2002, April 8). Knock, knock. Who’s there? A dead man’s spirit. New Statesman, 131(4582), 32–33. Stevenson, I. (1981). Comments on “The psychology of life after death.” American Psychologist, 36, 1459–1461. Wiseman, R., Greening, E., & Smith, M. (2003). Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the seance room. British Journal of Psychology, 94, 285–297. Yu, T., Holmes, A., Wren, J., Davis, C., Doman, J., Fleeman, M., Jones, O., Jordan, J., Labossiere, R., Nolan, C., Paley, R., Stein, E., Stueven, M., & Warrick, P. (2003, February 24). Mediums rare: In search of Diana. People, 59(7), 20.

ACTIVITY 9.2:

The Future Is in Your Dreams

Some people believe that their dreams can help them foretell the future (called “precognitive dreaming”). This has been a common theme in literature and in many religious texts. Some researchers (Eisenbud, 1954; Krippner, 1969; Krippner, 1975) have found reasons to support this idea. Other researchers have determined that precognitive dreaming may be the result of an inadequate ability to realistically assess probabilities (Blagrove, French, & Jones, 2005) or an interpretation of meaningful coincidences based on a belief in the paranormal (Houran & Lange, 1998). James Randi (2006) provides a concise overview of the prevailing notions of dreaming as a way of predicting the future. Do dreams predict the future? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the
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following questions:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Blagrove, M., French, C., & Jones, G. (2005). Probabilistic reasoning, affirmative bias and belief in precognitive dreams. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 65–83. Eisenbud, J. (1954). Behavioral correspondences to normally unpredictable future events. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 23, 205–233. Houran, J., & Lange, R. (1998). Modeling precognitive dreams as meaningful coincidences. Psychological Reports, 83, 1411–1414. Krippner, S. (1969). The paranormal dream and man’s pliable future. Psychoanalytic Review, 56, 28–43. Krippner, S. (1975). Dreams and other altered conscious states. Journal of Communication, 25, 173–182. Randi, J. (2006). Dreams. In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. Retrieved February 1, 2007, from http://www.randi.org/ encyclopedia/dreams.html.

ACTIVITY 9.3:

Sleep Deprivation

We all need to sleep. Your textbook (Bernstein & Nash, 2008) discusses a number of problems associated with sleep deprivation, including difficulties with learning, decision-making, driving, and other activities. Some people are chronically sleep deprived because they suffer from conditions such as insomnia, sleep apnea, or stress, or because the scheduling of their jobs or other activities interferes with their ability to get enough sleep. Most studies of sleep deprivation deal with short-term losses of sleep. Your task is to determine whether long-term sleep deprivation will result in permanent damage to the abilities of an individual. In other words, will several weeks or more of sleep deprivation cause long-term damage to the brain? Some studies, that might be helpful, were done by Blagrove, Alexander, and Horne (1995), Horne (1978), and Miró, Cano, and Buela-Casal (2002). You might also want to look at information available from the National Sleep
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Foundation at (http://www.sleepfoundation.org/). Does sleep deprivation cause long-term brain damage? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Bernstein, D. A., & Nash, P. W. (2008). Essentials of Psychology (4th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin. Blagrove, M., Alexander, C., & Horne, J. A. (1995). The effects of chronic sleep reduction on the performance of cognitive tasks sensitive to sleep deprivation. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9, 21–40. Horne, J. A. (1978). A review of the biological effects of total sleep deprivation in man. Biological Psychology, 7, 55–102. Miró, E., Cano, C., and Buela-Casal, G. (2002). Effects of total sleep deprivation on cardiovascular parameters: An absence of biologically significant findings? Journal of Psychophysiology, 16, 119–126.

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CHAPTER

10
CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 10.1: Jumbo Intelligence What is intelligence? Is it possible that other species are as intelligent as human beings? Research on apes, monkeys, dolphins, dogs, and birds has been going on for many years. Recently, some researchers have posited that elephants may be extremely intelligent. For instance, Nissani (2006) looked at whether elephants seem to use causal reasoning in working with tools. Plotnik, de Waal, and Reiss (2006) investigated whether elephants can successfully recognize themselves in mirrors. In terms of social knowledge, McComb, Moss, Durant, Baker, and Sayialel (2001) reported on the abilities of older female elephants, and Slotow, van Dyk, Poole, Page, and Klocke (2000) studied the possible influence of older male elephants on younger males. Remember, intelligence is more than the simple ability to learn tricks. It may involve self-recognition and the ability to understand that another creature may think different thoughts than you do. Do elephants think in ways that we might consider intelligent? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Nissani, M. (2006). Do Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) apply causal reasoning to tool-use tasks? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32, 91–96. McComb, K., Moss, C., Durant, , S. M., Baker, L., & Sayialel S. (2001). Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants. Science, 292, 491–495.
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Plotnik, J. M., de Waal, F. B., and Reiss, D. (2006). Self-recognition in an Asian Elephant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 103, 17053–17057.

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Slotow, R., van Dyk, G., Poole, J., Page, B., & Klocke, A. (2000). Older bull elephants control young males. Nature, 408, 425–426.

ACTIVITY 10.2: IQ Test Bias Psychologists have been trying to measure intelligence for many years. Early attempts focused on the shape or size of the head, the weight of the brain, or the speed with which a person could perform certain tasks. Modern intelligence tests use more sophisticated methods, but of course, it is difficult to measure something that isn’t physical, so the results may be questionable. Some people believe that modern intelligence tests and college entrance examinations are biased against certain groups of people, women, for example (Sex and intelligence, 2007). If so, this is a serious problem. Feingold (1988) reported that such gaps were disappearing, and Cole (1997) reported that the gap in mathematics scores were small, although women still outscored men on tests of writing and language. Leonard and Jiang (1999) discussed the under-representation of women in college due to under-prediction of their abilities by the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT). Mau and Lynn (2001) note that although men generally get higher scores on the SAT and ACT, women actually get higher grades in their college courses. In looking at possible reasons for a gap in scores, Kimball (1989) proposed that males might score higher on tests given in novel situations, while females might have an advantage in familiar settings, such as their normal classrooms. Duckworth and Seligman (2006) suggest that the actual difference may be that females are more self-disciplined than males, and that this is of more value in classroom work than on standardized tests. So, who’s correct? Are these tests biased against women? There seems to be a lot of evidence on both sides. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Cole, N. S. (1997). The ETS gender study: How males and females perform
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in educational settings. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED424337).

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Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Self-discipline gives girls the edge: Gender in self-discipline, grades, and achievement test scores. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 198–208. Feingold, A. (1988). Cognitive gender differences are disappearing. American Psychologist, 43, 95–103. Kimball, M. M. (1989). A new perspective on women’s math achievement. Psychological Bulletin, 105, 198–214. Leonard, D. K., & Jiang, J. (1999). Gender bias and the college predictions of the SATs: A cry of despair. Research in Higher Education, 40, 375– 407. Mau, W.-C., & Lynn, R. (2001). Gender differences on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the American College Test, and college grades. Educational Psychology, 21, 133–136. Sex and intelligence. (2007). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence .

ACTIVITY 10.3: Feel Good, Be Good In 1986, George Deukmejian, then governor of California, created the State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility (Now, 1986). Among other objectives, this task force was supposed to understand the relationship between self-esteem and social and educational problems, and to recommend ways to enhance self-esteem in order to ameliorate or eliminate those problems. As a result of the task force’s deliberations, many psychologists began to study the benefits of having high self-esteem. In their study of 5th and 6th grade students, Wiggins and Schatz (1994) found that self-esteem was closely related to success in school, so much so that students whose self-esteem rose during the term managed to achieve much higher grades in the following year. Other studies have found relationships between self-esteem and aggression or behavioral problems (DuBois et al., 2002; Tevendale, DuBois, Lopez, & Prindiville, 1997). In their review of over 100 studies of self-esteem, Haney and Durlak (1998) found that programs that concentrated on changing children’s and adolescents’ self -esteem were more effective at alleviating various behavioral or social problems than programs focused directly on those problems. DuBois and Flay (2004) also stress self-esteem’s relationship to general health and socially valuable outcomes. Given all of the supporting research, it seems that encouraging high levels of
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self-esteem in children and adolescents will generate many excellent outcomes, but the picture is not all that clear. Shaw (1994) states that selfesteem actually has little or no impact on student success, noting that students’ self-esteem scores have been rising steadily, but that student achievement has been falling. Other researchers (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003, 2005) note that the posited relationship is backward, and that one does not do well because of high self-esteem, but that one achieves high self-esteem as a result of one’s accomplishments. In fact, they note that programs concentrated on boosting self-esteem have little effect on raising academic achievement, promoting occupational success, lowering violence, or engendering prosocial behaviors. This is consonant with the argument that it isn’t self-esteem, but how one pursues it, that is most important, and that there are many costs to the direct pursuit of self-esteem (Crocker and Park, 2004). The enhancement of self-esteem in the schools is a topic of great debate. Some educators believe fervently in its power to help students boost their achievement, while others feel that it has either no effect or a negative effect. As a psychologist, you are in an excellent position to help people decide which is true. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 1-44. Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2005, January). Exploding the self-esteem myth. Scientific American, 292(1), 84–91. Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 392–414. DuBois, D. L., Burk-Braxton, C., Swenson, L. P., Tevendale, H. D., Lockerd, E. M., & Moran, B. L. (2002). Getting by with a little help from self and others: Self-esteem and social support as resources during early
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adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 38, 822–840. DuBois, D. L., & Flay, B. R. (2004). The healthy pursuit of self-esteem: Comment on and alternative to the Crocker and Park (2004) formulation. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 415–420. Haney, P., & Durlak, J. A. (1998). Changing self-esteem in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27, 423– 433. Now, the California task force to promote self esteem [Electronic version]. (1986, October 11). The New York Times, 136, 8. Shaw, P. (1994, Summer). Education bulletin: Self-esteem rises to all-time high; test scores hit new lows [Electronic version]. Antioch Review, 52(3), 467–475. Retrieved on July 24, 2007 from EBSCO Academic Premier database. Tevendale, H. D., DuBois, D. L., Lopez, C. & Prindiville, S. L. (1997). Selfesteem stability and early adolescent adjustment: An exploratory study. Journal of Early Adolescence, 17, 216–237. Wiggins, J. D., & Schatz, E. L. (1994, March). The relationship of selfesteem to grades, achievement test scores, and other factors critical to school success [Electronic version. School Counselor, 41(4), 239– 244. Retrieved on July 24, 2007 from EBSCO Academic Premier database.

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ACTIVITY 11.1: Reproductive Education: Monkey See, Monkey Do? One of the major controversies in education has been whether to provide reproductive information to children and adolescents. Many people feel that it is necessary to provide children with clear information about their sexuality and reproductive health in school, to help them make better reproductive and sexual choices (Schemo, 2000). Educators often insist that such programs increase the use of safer sexual practices, such as the use of contraceptives (Ancheta, Hynes, & Shrier, 2005; Carrera, Kaye, Philliber, & West, 2000). Others insist that it is not the job of the schools, and that it should be handled by parents. One of the major objections to teaching children and adolescents about sexual health and reproduction has been that if they learn about it in school, they will engage in sexual behaviors at an earlier age. Others object on moral or religious grounds, arguing that sex education will promote immoral or dangerous behavior (de Vise, 2007), and insist that reproductive education programs only provide information about abstinence until marriage (Feldmann, 1995). In any case, when children and adolescents do not get information about sex, many remain ignorant or turn to the Internet, which often provides incorrect and sometimes dangerous information (Carrera, Kaye, Philliber, & West, 2000; Elias, 2005; Greenfield, 2004). Will children or adolescents who are taught about sexuality and reproduction in school be more likely to engage in sexual behavior than those who do not receive such information? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about this. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References:
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Ancheta, R., Hynes, C., & Shrier, L. A. (2005). Reproductive health education and sexual risk among high-risk female adolescents and young adults. Journal of Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology, 18(2), 105–111. Carrera, M., Kaye, J. W., Philliber, S., & West, E. (2000). Knowledge about reproduction, contraception, and sexually transmitted infections among young adolescents in American cities. Social Policy, 30(3), 41–50. de Vise, D. (2007, January 10). Board of education approves new sex-ed curriculum. Washington Post, p. B02. Elias, M. (2005, October 17). Teens turn to Internet for information on sex. USA Today, p. 07d. Feldmann, L. (1995, October 5). State lawmakers push abstinence-based sex ed. Christian Science Monitor, 87(218), p. 3. Greenfield, P. M. (2004). Inadvertent exposure to pornography on the Internet: Implications of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks for child development and families. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 25, 741–750. Schemo, D. J. (2000, October 4). Survey finds parents favor more detailed sex education. New York Times, 150(51531), p. A1.

ACTIVITY 11.2: Second Best In 1963, Avis, the second-largest car rental company in the United States, ® began to use the slogan “We try harder” as a way of promoting their brand (Avis, 2003). The idea they tried to promote was that being number two meant they had to, and would, work much harder to earn and keep your business. They wanted consumers to believe that the number-one company was just sitting back, taking it easy. The campaign has been a tremendous success. Do you remember Aesop’s fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare? Some researchers believe that being in first place makes people complacent, and therefore sloppy or inattentive (Charbonnier, Huguet, Brauer, & Monteil, 1998; Huguet, Charbonnier, & Monteil, 1999). Sports psychologists study phenomena like this to help athletes learn to do their best at all times.
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Does being in second place make someone work harder? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

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References: Avis. (2003). We try harder.com. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.avis.com/ AvisWeb/html/wetryharder/index.html. Charbonnier, E., Huguet, P., Brauer, M., & Monteil, J.-M. (1998). Social learning and self–beliefs: People’s collective effort depends on the extent to which they distinguish themselves as better than others. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 26, 329– 340. Huguet, P., Charbonnier, E., & Monteil, J.-M. (1999). Productivity loss in performance groups: People who see themselves as average do not engage in social loafing. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(2), 118–131.

ACTIVITY 11.3: Weighty Problems How many times have you seen friends diet unsuccessfully? They may not be able to lose any weight, or may succeed for a short time, but then regain the weight. Some individuals believe that people who can’t lose weight are just weak-willed, and that if they really wanted to, they could just buckle down and do it. Many weight-loss programs are based entirely on this idea, and provide a lot of personal support for their clients, sometimes in the manner of the twelve-step programs used to work with addicts (Hunger in Soul, 1993). Television personality Dr. Phil McGraw takes this approach (Hellmich, 2003). Researchers have looked at several other possibilities for weight gain (Baumeister, Kahn, & Tice, 1990; Grilo & Pogue-Geile, 1991; McGuire, Wingh, Klem, Lang, & Hill, 1999; Moreno-Aliaga, Santos, Marti, & Martinez, 2005). Other possibilities are detailed on pages 303 and 304 in your textbook (Bernstein & Nash, 2008). Is it true that the reason many people can’t lose weight is personal weakness? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References:
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Baumeister, R. F., Kahn, J., & Tice, D. M. (1990). Obesity as a selfhandicapping strategy: Personality, selective attribution of problems, and weight loss. Journal of Social Psychology, 130, 121–123. Bernstein, D. A., & Nash, P. W. (2008). Essentials of Psychology (4th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin. Grilo, C. M., & Pogue-Geile, M. F. (1991). The nature of environmental influences on weight and obesity: A behavior genetic analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 520–537. Hellmich, N. (2003, September 9). Dr. Phil talks the talk on controlling weight. USA Today, p. 10d. ‘Hunger in soul’ dooms dieters. (1993). USA Today Magazine, 122(2579), 5. Moreno-Aliaga, M. J., Santos, J. L., Marti, A., & Martinez, J. A. (2005). Does weight loss prognosis depend on genetic make-up? Obesity Reviews, 6, 155–168.

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ACTIVITY 12.1: Structured Activities Vs. Free Time Bruno Bettelheim (1987) talks about the need for all children to engage in free play, unfettered by adult models, in order to learn to solve problems, persevere, and develop their own minds. He notes that attempts to engage children in organizations such as scouting or organized sports will only interfere with children’s natural development. In the same vein, Robert Paul Smith (1984) writes about leaving children alone to do whatever they like. His contention is that kids need to be kids, and that adults should stay away from them. In fact, Zero to Three: The National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families (n.d.) stresses the importance of play for infants and toddlers, saying that “Not only is it fun, but it is very important to children’s development. It is their “work” and their way of learning about the world around them.” Modern parenting doesn’t seem to work that way. From an early age, children are scheduled for play dates, music lessons, and other activities. Parents today seem to believe that unless children have a lot of structured activity, they won’t reach their full potential. Carey (2007) writes about a new children’s playground where adults have been hired to teach children to play properly. People magazine (Schindehette, Fowler, Nelson, & Wesfall, 2002) reported that children whose schedules are overloaded with structured activities show dangerous signs of stress and anxiety. Ferguson (2004) discusses groups of parents who attempt to defuse that stress in their children’s lives. Yet, as Busseri, Rose-Krasnor, Willoughby, and Chalmers (2006) report, some breadth and depth of involvement in certain types of activities is highly beneficial to the development of young people. Studying the impact of afterschool activities on success in school, Cooper, Valentine, Nye, and Lindsay (1999) found that children who participated in structured activities did better in school than those who did not. This was especially true of children whose after-school activities were academically oriented. In fact, Luthar, Shoum, and Brown (2006) reported that over scheduling of children’s activities was not a problem, but that the actual difficulty lay in parental expectations and pressures.
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What is really going on? Is the over scheduling of children for structured play and organized activities causing them harm? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Bettelheim, B. (1987, March). The importance of play. The Atlantic Monthly, 259(3), 35–46. Busseri, M. A., Rose-Krasnor, L., Willoughby, T., & Chalmers, H. (2006). A longitudinal examination of breadth and intensity of youth activity involvement in successful development. Developmental Psychology, 42, 1313–1326. Carey, B. (2007, January 14). Can Johnny come out and (be taught to) play? New York Times, 156(53824), 3. Cooper, H., Valentine, J. C., Nye, B., & Lindsay, J. J. (1999). Relationships between five after-school activities and academic achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 369–378. Ferguson, S. (2004, November 22). Stressed out! Macleans, 117(47), 30– 38. Luthar, S. S., Shoum, K. A., & Brown, P. J. (2006). Extracurricular involvement among affluent youth: A scapegoat for “ubiquitous achievement pressures”? Developmental Psychology, 42, 583–597. Schindehette, S., Fowler, , J., Nelson, M., & Wesfall, J. (2002, September 23). Learning to chill. People, 58(13), 74–78. Smith, R. P. (1984). Let your kids alone. In M. Rainbolt & J. Fleetwood (Eds.) On the contrary: Essays by men and women (pp. 93–98). Albany: State University of New York Press. Zero to Three: The National Center For Infants, Toddlers and Families. (n.d.). The importance of play. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.zerotothree.org/ Search/index2.cfm .

ACTIVITY 12.2: Defining the Family There are many kinds of families in the world. In some cultures, children are raised by an extended family, with many people of different ages sharing in each other’s daily lives. In other cultures, children are raised in nuclear
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families, which consist of just the parents and children. Yet other children are raised by single parents, grandparents, or other relatives, or foster parents. Many people in the United States believe that the best way to raise children is in a nuclear family, where the father works and the mother stays at home with the children, as depicted in television shows such as Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best. Critics such as Whitehead (1993) say that children not raised in such households are more likely to be poor and abused, are likely to have difficulty with intimacy, and may be unable to hold regular jobs. Walker and Hennig (1997) did find some difficulties with regard to ego functioning, family intimacy, and conflict among children and parents in their comparison of single-parent and two-parent families. Gartrell, Deck, Rodas, Peyser, and Banks (2005) investigated the psychological development of children who were brought up in homes with two lesbian parents, comparing their development to that of children brought up in heterosexual two-parent homes. Comparisons of children from heterosexual, two-parent households with children from households with parents who are lesbian couples or single mothers were made by Solombok and colleagues (2003). Researchers have also looked at the development of parent-child relationships and the psychological well being of the mothers in both single-parent and two-parent homes where donor insemination was used to conceive the children (Murray & Golombok, 2005). Is the model of the heterosexual two-parent family the best way to raise children? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Gartrell, N., Deck, A., Rodas, C., Peyser, H., & Banks, A. (2005). The national lesbian family study: 4. Interviews with the 10-year-old children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 75, 518–524. Solombok, S., Perry, B., Burston, A., Murray, C., Mooney-Somers, J., Stevens, M., & Golding, J. (2003). Children with lesbian parents: A community study. Developmental Psychology, 39, 20–33. Murray, C., & Golombok, S. (2005). Going it alone: Solo mothers and their infants conceived by donor insemination. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 75, 242–253.
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Walker, L. J., & Hennig, K. H. (1997). Parent/child relationships in singleparent families. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 29, 63–75. Whitehead, B. D. (1993, April). Dan Quayle was right. The Atlantic Monthly, 271(4), 47–84.

ACTIVITY 12.3: Space Cadet Science-fiction writers have long speculated about what life would be like if we could colonize space. Recently, several companies have been set up to give people tours of space or vacations in space (Glines, 2005; Grainger, 2004; Robertson, 2006). There has also been much serious speculation about setting up space industries, such as mining in the asteroid belt or creating a colony in earth orbit (Erickson, 2006). Many writers have contemplated colonies in the weightless environment of outer space, positing that people would be healthier and would live longer in such places. NASA and other scientific organizations have been looking into long-term stays in space, but obviously no one has been able to try raising a family there. Still, a lot of work has been done on our ability to live in space for extended periods (Durante, 2002; Hawkey, 2003; Nicogossian, 2003). Would people raised outside the gravitational field of the earth be healthier and live longer? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Durante, M. (2002). Biological effects of cosmic radiation in low-earth orbit. International Journal of Modern Physics A: Particles & Fields; Gravitation; Cosmology; Nuclear Physics, 17, 1713–1721. Erickson, K. R. (2006). Next X-Prize: L1 base with linked asteroid mining as prime catalyst for space enterprise. AIP Conference Proceedings, 813(1), 1145–1152. Glines, C. V. (2005, May). SpaceShipOne introduces space tourism and a new era for aviation. Aviation History, 15(5), 6.
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Grainger, D. (2004, November 1). Space nerds face the final frontier. Fortune, 150(8), 16. Hawkey, A. (2003). The importance of exercising in space. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 28, 130–138. Nicogossian, A. (2003). Medicine and space exploration. The Lancet, 362, 8–9. Robertson, E. (2006, April 7). Virgin takes next step in space race. Travel Weekly: The Choice of Travel Professionals, 12.

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ACTIVITY 13.1: Is Beauty the Key to a Better Life? Some individuals believe that good-looking people operate under the burden of their looks, that they cannot have stable relationships, and that they aren’t taken seriously at work. They’re often subjected to derogatory terms that emphasize their looks and belittle their talents or intelligence. Other individuals seem to believe that good-looking people actually have much happier lives than less attractive people; that they earn more, have more stable home lives, gain more social status, have better love lives, and live longer. These varying viewpoints have been studied by many social psychologists (Baron, Markman, & Bollinger, 2006; Farley, Chia, & Allred, 1998; Henderson & Anglin, 2003; Judge & Cable, 2004; Kalof, 1999; McKelvie & Coley, 1993; Rhodes, Simmons, & Peters, 2005; Shackelford & Larsen, 1999; van Leeuwen & Macrae, 2004). Some writers (Nash, Fieldman, Hussey, Lévêque, & Pineau, 2006) have even implied that cosmetics can make a massive difference in the ways in which people are treated. Television shows such as ABC’s Extreme Makeover or TLC’s What Not to Wear are designed around the idea that people who look better will have better lives. Do beautiful people have better lives? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Baron, R. A., Markman, G. D., & Bollinger, M. (2006). Exporting social psychology: Effects of attractiveness on perceptions of entrepreneurs, their ideas for new products, and their financial success. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 467–492.
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Farley, S. D., Chia, R. C., & Allred, L. J. (1998). Stereotypes about attractiveness: When beautiful is not better. Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 13, 479–492.

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Henderson, J. J. A., & Anglin, J. M. (2003). Facial attractiveness predicts longevity. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24, 351–356. Judge, T. A., & Cable, D. M. (2004). The effect of physical height on workplace success and income: Preliminary test of a theoretical model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 428–441. Kalof, L. (1999). Stereotyped evaluative judgments and female attractiveness. Gender Issues, 17(2), 68–82. McKelvie, S. J., & Coley, J. (1993). Effects of crime seriousness and offender facial attractiveness on recommended treatment. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 21, 265–277. Nash, R., Fieldman, G., Hussey, T., Lévêque, J.-L., & Pineau, P. (2006). Cosmetics: They influence more than caucasian female facial attractiveness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 493–504. Rhodes, G., Simmons, L. W., & Peters, M. (2005). Attractiveness and sexual behavior: Does attractiveness enhance mating success? Evolution and Human Behavior, 26, 186–201. Shackelford, T. K., & Larsen, R. J. (1999). Facial attractiveness and physical health. Evolution and Human Behavior, 20, 71–76. van Leeuwen, M. J., & Macrae, C. N. (2004). Is beautiful always good? Implicit benefits of facial attractiveness. Social Cognition, 22(6), 637–649.

ACTIVITY 13.2: Does It Matter Whether Your Glass Is Half Full or Half Empty? Optimism is based on the belief that no matter what happens, things will generally turn out for the best. In investigating the roots of optimism, Sethi and Seligman (1993) noted that it seemed to be tied to particularly fundamentalist religious beliefs. In fact, optimism seems to be a powerful force. Many people believe that optimistic individuals will lead happier, healthier, and longer lives (Optimistic, 2003; Warner, 2004), and score higher on measures of the quality of life (Mayo, 2002). On the other hand, Segerstrom (2006) found that optimism seems to depress the functioning of the immune system. Other researchers (Mahler & Kulik, 2000) have found that both optimism and pessimism may be necessary for proper recovery from illness.
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Will optimistic people live longer, happier, and healthier lives? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Optimistic people live longer. (2003, January). Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter, 20(11), 2–5. Mayo Clinic Study: Optimists report higher quality of life. (2002, November/December). FDA Consumer, 36(6), 7. Mahler, H. I. M., & Kulik, J. A. (2000). Optimism, pessimism and recovery from coronary bypass surgery: Prediction of affect, pain and functional status. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 5, 347–358. Segerstrom, S. C. (2006). How does optimism suppress immunity? Evaluation of three affective pathways. Health Psychology, 25, 653– 657. Sethi, S. & Seligman, M. E. P. (1993). Optimism and fundamentalism. Psychological Science, 4, 256–259. Warner, J. (2004, November 1) Optimism may help you live longer. WebMD Medical News. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.webmd.com/content/article/ 96/103659.htm .

ACTIVITY 13.3: The Power of Prayer Many people believe that intercessory prayer can successfully appeal to the power of some deity or spirit in order to help someone in their community. For example, if a person is ill and other people pray for her recovery, she will get well or suffer less pain (Krucoff et al., 2001). Proponents of this approach claim that it works even if the patient doesn’t know that people are praying on her behalf, although some find that the people who are praying must be in the patient’s presence (Matthews, Marlowe, & MacNutt, 2000). Other researchers are skeptical, and find no evidence of the effectiveness of intercessory prayer (Benson et al., 2006; Mathai & Bourne, 2004; Palmer, Katerndahl, & Morgan-Kidd, 2004; Shermer, 2006). Masters (2005), on the other hand, suggests that the question cannot be investigated by scientific methods, as they are ill equipped to deal with questions of divine intervention. You can find a good overview of this topic on WebMD (see:
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http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/can-prayer-heal. Does intercessory prayer have a direct effect on a patient’s health? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Benson, H., Dusek, J. A., Sherwood, J. B., Lam, P., Bethea, C. F., Carpenter, W., Levitsky, S., Hill, P. C., Clem, D. W., Jain, M. K., Drumel, D., Kopecky, S. L., Mueller, P. S., Marek, D., Rollins, S., & Hibberd, P. L. (2006). Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. American Heart Journal, 151, 934–942. Krucoff, M. W., Crater, S. W., Green, C. L., Maas, A. C., Seskevich, J. E., Lane, J. D., Loeffler, K. A., Morris, K., Bashore, T. M., & Koenig, H. G. (2001). Integrative noetic therapies as adjuncts to percutaneous intervention during unstable coronary syndromes: Monitoring and actualization of noetic training (MANTRA) feasibility pilot. American Heart Journal, 142, 760–769. Masters, K. (2005). Research on the healing power of distant intercessory prayer: Disconnect between science and faith. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 33, 268–277. Mathai, J., & Bourne, A. (2004). Pilot study investigating the effect of intercessory prayer in the treatment of child psychiatric disorders. Australasian Psychiatry, 12, 386–389. Matthews, D. A., Marlowe, S. M., & MacNutt, F. S. (2000). Effects of intercessory prayer on patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Southern Medical Journal, 93, 1177–1186. Palmer, R. F., Katerndahl, D., & Morgan-Kidd, J. (2004). A randomized trial of the effects of remote intercessory prayer: Interactions with personal beliefs on problem-specific outcomes and functional status. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 10, 438– 448.

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Shermer, M. (2006). Prayer and healing. Skeptic, 12(3), 20–21.

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ACTIVITY 14.1: Liar! In a typical courtroom drama, someone takes the witness stand and is sworn “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Truth is very important in any society. And yet, people lie. They may lie for benevolent reasons, such as not hurting someone else’s feelings, or to help protect another person from harm. They may also lie for personal gain, or to inflict pain on another person. Can you spot a liar? What would you look for? Ekman (1996) writes that there are many reasons why we cannot or do not detect liars. There’s been a lot of research on the effectiveness of mechanical “lie detectors” such as polygraph machines, voice stress analyzers, or thermal imaging systems (Dery, 2004; Grubin & Madsen, 2005; Stern, 2003). Some scientists believe that you can tell whether someone is lying by looking at their body language or their facial expressions (Ekman, O’Sullivan, & Frank, 1999; Elaad, 2003; Hart, Hudson, Fillmore, & Griffith, 2006; Vrij, Edward, & Bull, 2001; Vrij & Mann, 1999). It’s even been suggested that dogs can be trained to sniff out lies (Magnusson, 2002). Is it really possible to know whether someone is lying? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Dery, G. M. (2004). Lying eyes: Constitutional implications of new thermal imaging lie detection technology. American Journal of Criminal Law, 31, 217–250.

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Ekman, P. (1996). Why don’t we catch liars? Social Research, 63, 801–817. Ekman, P., O’Sullivan, M., & Frank, M. G. (1999). A few can catch a liar. Psychological Science, 10, 263–266. Elaad, E. (2003). Effects of feedback on the overestimated capacity to detect lies and the underestimated ability to tell lies. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 349–363. Grubin, D., & Madsen, L. (2005). Lie detection and the polygraph: A historical review. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 16, 357–369. Hart, C. L., Hudson, L. P., Fillmore, D. G., & Griffith, J. D. (2006). Managerial beliefs about the behavioral cues of deception. Individual Differences Research, 4, 176–184. Magnusson, P. (2002, April 8). Maybe they can sniff out lies, too. Business Week. 3777, 12. Stern, L. (2003, November 17). We know you’re lying. Newsweek, 142(20), E4. Vrij, A., Edward, K., & Bull, R. (2001). Police officers’ ability to detect deceit: The benefit of indirect deception detection methods. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 6, 185–196. Vrij, A., & Mann, S. (2001). Telling and detecting lies in a high-stake situation: The case of a convicted murderer. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15, 187–203.

ACTIVITY 14.2: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? Have you decided on a career, or are you still exploring your options? Some people believe that personality tests are the most accurate way to match a person to a profession in which they can excel and find satisfaction. Many researchers have created tests specifically to do this sort of matching. A growing number of sites on the Internet provide personality matching for jobs (for example, you may want to look at some of the tests available at http://humanlinks.com/ or http://www.monster.com/). You may even have taken some of these tests in school, as they’ve become quite popular with many school guidance departments, as well as with major corporations’ personnel departments (Maynard, 1994; Sherrid, 1994). Over the years, researchers have investigated the effectiveness and accuracy of these tests. Butler and Crinnion (1972) examined the Kuder Preference Record with regard to career advising and the subsequent job
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satisfaction of employees who had used it to decide on their occupations. Knapp, Knapp, and Knapp-Lee (1985) looked at the COPSystem Interest Inventory as a predictor of the occupational choices of high school graduates. Costa and McRae (1984) reported on the possible utility of combining tests for occupational type and personality. The combination of interests and abilities as predictors of occupational choice was also investigated by Tracey and Hopkins (2001). Researchers have even looked at the correspondence between the prediction of a test that a person will do well in a job, and how well those people were rated by their supervisors on the job (Chockalingam, Ones, & Hough, 2001; Murphy & Dzieweczynski, 2005; Piedmont & Weinstein, 1994). How successful are personality tests at matching people with their professions? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Butler, F. J. J., Crinnion, J., & Martin, J. (1972). The Kuder Preference Record in adult vocational guidance. Occupational Psychology, 46, 99–104. Carr, P. G., de la Garza, J. M., & Vorster, M. C. (2002). Relationship between personality traits and performance for engineering and architectural professionals providing design services. Journal of Management in Engineering, 18, 158–166. Costa, P. T., McCrae, R. R., & Holland, J. L. (1984). Personality and vocational interests in an adult sample. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 390–400. Knapp, R. R., Knapp, L., & Knapp-Lee, L. (1985). Occupational interest measurement and subsequent career decisions: A predictive Follow Up study of the COPSystem Interest Inventory. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 32, 384–354. Maynard, R. (1994, June). Match the right workers with the right jobs. Nation’s Business, 82(6), 10.

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Murphy, K. R., & Dzieweczynski, J. L. (2005). Why don’t measures of broad dimensions of personality perform better as predictors of job performance? Human Performance, 18, 343–357. Piedmont, R. L., & Weinstein, H. P. (1994). Predicting supervisor ratings of job performance using the NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Psychology, 128, 255–265. Sherrid, P. (1994, October 31). A 12-hour test of my personality. U. S. News & World Report, 117(17), 109. Tracey, T. J. G., & Hopkins, N. (2001). Correspondence of interests and abilities with occupational choices. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48, 178–189. Viswesvaran, C., Ones, D. S., & Hough, L. M. (2001). Do impression management scales in personality inventories predict managerial job performance ratings? International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 9, 277–289.

ACTIVITY 14.3: Love Online Do you know someone who has met his or her partner or spouse through an Internet matching service? Computer dating services have been around for a very long time. As far back as the 1970s, people began to think that by using the power of the electronic brain, they could find the one person destined for them (Lum & Curran, 1975). Originally, these services matched people based on answers to basic questions about their likes and dislikes, lifestyle preferences, religion, and other such variables. As computers became more powerful, the programs became more sophisticated. Several companies offering matchmaking services on the Internet use proprietary personality tests as the basis for their pairings (Carter, 2005; Hansell, 2004). One company even claims to help people find their “soul mates,” although as Gottlieb (2005) reports, that may be more complicated than some people anticipate. You can find information about some of these Internet based companies by looking at their Web sites. For example, you may want to look at http://eharmony.com/servlet /about/eharmony or http://www.match.com/ help/aboutus.aspx.

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As you might imagine, anything to do with love is going to attract a lot of attention, even in the psychological community. Many researchers have looked at how people are attracted to one another, different kinds of love in which people might find themselves, and what makes relationships last (Gattis, Berns, Simpson, & Christensen, 2004; Murstein & Brust, 1985; Sternberg, 2000; Zentner, 2005). Others (Houran & Lange, 2004) have investigated the expectations of people who use computer-matching services. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion about whether Internet matchmaking sites are likely to provide successful results. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Carter, S. R. (2005). For modern-day cupids, data replaces dating. APS Observer, 18(2), 25–26. Gattis, K. S., Berns, S., Simpson, L. E., & Christensen, A. (2004). Birds of a feather or strange birds? Ties among personality dimensions, similarity, and marital quality. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 564– 574. Gottlieb, L. (2006, March). How do I love thee? The Atlantic Monthly, 297(2), 58–70. Hansell, S. (2004, March 8). Getting to know me, getting to know all about me. New York Times, 153(52782), C5. Houran, J. & Lange, R. (2004). Expectations of finding a ‘soul mate’ with online dating. North American Journal of Psychology, 6, 297–308. Lum, K., & Curran, J. P. (1975). Personality similarity and interpersonal attraction in the computer dating situation. Journal of Social Psychology, 95, 233–239. Murstein, B. I., & Brust, R. G. (1985). Humor and interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 637–640. Sternberg, R. J. (2000, July/August). What’s your love story? Psychology Today, 33(4), 52–59.
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Zentner, M. R. (2005). Ideal mate personality concepts and compatibility in close relationships: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 242–256.

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ACTIVITY 15.1: Me and My Invisible Friend When you were a child, did you or any of your friends have an imaginary companion? Do you sometimes still think about him or her? In the movie Harvey, James Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, a man who has befriended a giant invisible rabbit named Harvey (Koster, 1950). His family and the people he meets are convinced that he’s mentally ill, and that he needs to be put into an institution for his own well being. Some researchers point out that children with imaginary companions are more vulnerable in certain ways (Bonne, Canetti, Bachar, De-Nour, & Shalev, 1999; Hoff, 2005). Others indicate that it is perfectly normal for children to have imaginary friends (Brott, n.d.; Pearson et al., 2001; Taylor, Carlson, Maring, Gerow, & Charley, 2004; Taylor, Cartwright, & Carlson, 1993). In fact, some studies report that children with imaginary companions may be more creative (Hoff, 2005), may find the imaginary companions nurturing in childhood, perhaps helping the children to work out their personal anxieties or develop schemas about social relationships (Friedberg, 1995; Gleason, 2002; Hart & Zellars, 2006), and may have advantages in dealing with anxiety or other negative emotions later in life (Gleason, Jarudi, & Cheek, 2003). Where do we draw the line between a harmless exercise of the imagination and the beginnings of mental illness? Do children’s imaginary playmates signal the beginnings of detachment from reality, and the early signs of mental illness? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Bonne, O., Canetti, L., Bachar, E., De-Nour, A. K., Shalev, A. (1999).
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Childhood imaginary companionship and mental health in adolescence. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 29, 277– 286.

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Brott, A. (n.d.). Imaginary friends: Should you be concerned. In Family Resource.com. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.familyresource.com/parenting/ character-development/imaginary-friends-should-you-be-concerned. Friedberg, R. D. (1995). Allegorical lives: Children and their imaginary companions. Child Study Journal, 25, 1–22. Gleason, T. R. (2002). Social provisions of real and imaginary relationships in early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 38, 979–992. Gleason, T. R., Jarudi, R. N., & Cheek, J. M. (2003). Imagination, personality, and imaginary companions. Social Behavior and Personality, 31, 721–738. Hart, T., & Zellars, E. E. (2006). When imaginary companions are sources of wisdom. Encounter,19(1), 6–15. Hoff, E. V. (2005). Imaginary companions, creativity, and self-image in middle childhood. Creativity Research Journal, 17, 167–180. Koster, H. (Director). (1950). Harvey [Film]. United States: Universal International Pictures. Pearson, D., Rouse, H., Doswell, S., Ainsworth, C., Dawson, O., Simms, K., Edwards, L., & Faulconbridge, J. (2001). Prevalence of imaginary companions in a normal child population. Child: Care, Health and Development, 27, 13–22. Taylor, M., Carlson, S. M., Maring, B. L., Gerow, L., & Charley, C. M. (2004). The characteristics and correlates of fantasy in school-age children: Imaginary companions, impersonation, and social understanding. Developmental Psychology, 40, 1173–1187. Taylor, M., Cartwright, B. S., & Carlson, S. M. (1993). A developmental investigation of children’s imaginary companions. Developmental Psychology, 29, 276–285.

ACTIVITY 15.2: Do Vaccines Cause Autism? According to your text, autistic spectrum disorders occur in roughly 10 to 20 out of 10,000 children (Bernstein & Nash, 2008). Researchers believe that some of the causes of autism may be genetic factors or developmental anomalies in the parts of the brain that control communication. Recently, some people began to suspect that these anomalies are caused by impurities in the vaccines given to infants to help them build up immunity to disease. As a result, some fearful parents have begun to withhold
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vaccinations from their children in an effort to prevent autism. Drug companies and government agencies have declared that there is no link between vaccines and autism, but many people feel that the manufacturers and governments are simply lying to avoid litigation and want to be able to sell more vaccine (Allan, 2004; Roberts, 2002). In response, researchers have attempted to document the link between autism and certain vaccinations (DeStefano, Bhasin, Thompson, Yeargin-Allsopp, & Boyle, 2004; Goldman & Yazbak, 2004; Honda, Shimizu, & Rutter, 2005; Madsen & Vestergaard, 2004). Is it likely that autism is caused by substances carried in children’s vaccines? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Allan, S. D. (2004, May 21). Victim families say autism-vaccination link painfully obvious. Greater Things Conservative, Prophetic News Trends Service. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://www.greaterthings.com/News/daily/2004/05/21/autismvaccination_link/. Bernstein, D. A., & Nash, P. W. (2008). Essentials of Psychology (4th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin. DeStefano, F., Bhasin, T. K., Thompson, W. W., Yeargin-Allsopp, M., & Boyle, C. (2004). Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: A population-based study in metropolitan Atlanta. Pediatrics, 113, 259–266. Goldman, G. S., & Yazbak, F. E. (2004). An investigation of the association between MMR vaccination and autism in Denmark. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 9, 70–75. Honda, H., Shimizu, Y., & Rutter, M. (2005). No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of autism: A total population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46, 572–579.
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Madsen, K. M., & Vestergaard, M. (2004). MMR vaccination and autism: What is the evidence for a causal association? Drug Safety, 27, 831– 840. Roberts, Y. (2002, February 21). An epidemic of crude propaganda. Community Care, 1410, 23.

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ACTIVITY 15.3: All Artists Are Nuts Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his ear and tried to give it to someone as a gift. Many gifted writers such as Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allen Poe are said to have suffered from mental illnesses. Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Steven Foster are among the many creative musicians listed among the ranks of the tormented. To many people, it seems that creativity and madness are inextricably linked (Lauronen et al., 2004). Psychologists have investigated the possible relationship between creativity and several psychological conditions, such as bipolar disorder (Rothenberg, 2001; Shapiro & Weisberg, 1999; Weisberg, 1994; Creativity and Bipolar Disorder, 2006), schizophrenia (Cela-Conde et al., 2006; Gosline, 2004), and depression (Kaufman & Baer, 2002; Verhaeghen, Joormann, & Kahn, 2005). Franklin and Cornell (1997), on the other hand, have suggested that creativity may itself be mistaken for mental illness under certain conditions, even in individuals who are emotionally stable. What do you think is the most reasonable conclusion? Is madness necessary for true creativity, or does creativity eventually cause madness? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Cela-Conde, C. J., Arenillas, C. L., Nadal, M., Capó, M. À., Mascaró, À. C., & Marty, G. (2006). Creativity and evolution. International Congress Series, 1296, 95–105. Creativity and bipolar disorder. (2006). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 13, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_bipolar_disorder . Franklin, K. W., & Cornell, D. G. (1997). Rorschach interpretation with highability adolescent females: Psychopathology or creative thinking? Journal of Personality Assessment, 68, 184–196. Gosline, A. (2004, July 24). Creative spark can come from schizophrenia. New Scientist, 183(2457), 14.
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Kaufman, J. C., & Baer, J. (2002). I bask in dreams of suicide: Mental illness, poetry, and women. Review of General Psychology, 6, 271– 286.

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Lauronen, E., Veijola, J., Isohanni, I., Jones, P. B., Nieminen, P., & Isohanni, M. (2004). Links between creativity and mental disorder. Psychiatry, 67, 81–98. Rothenberg, A. (2001). Bipolar illness, creativity, and treatment. Psychiatric Quarterly, 72, 131–147. Shapiro, P. J., & Weisberg, R. W. (1999). Creativity and bipolar diathesis: Common behavioural and cognitive components. Cognition and emotion, 13, 741–762. Verhaeghen, P., Joormann, J., & Khan, R. (2005). Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood, and creativity. Emotion, 5, 226–232. Weisberg, R. W. (1994). Genius and madness? A quasi-experimental test of the hypothesis that manic-depression increases creativity. Psychological Science, 5, 361–367.

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ACTIVITY 16.1: The Acid Test Most people know LSD only as a psychedelic drug used during the 1960s by hippies. However, some scientists believe that LSD can be used to treat autism, alcoholism, and schizophrenia with a great degree of success. Early studies done by psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s were said to show some promise in these areas (Dyck, 2005; Whalen, 1998). In 1955, the Saturday Evening Post declared LSD to be a new wonder drug (Yoder, 1955). Yet, only a few years later, that same publication declared, “if you take LSD even once, your children may be born malformed or retarded” (Davidson, 1967, p. 22). Even some early researchers who had been convinced of LSD’s usefulness and safety turned against it later, for several reasons (Novak, 1997), but there is a movement among some scientists to renew LSD research (Claridge, 1994; Grinspoon, 1981). Can LSD be useful in treating alcoholism, autism, and schizophrenia? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Claridge, G. (1994). LSD: A missed opportunity? Human Psychopharmacology, 9, 343–351. Davidson, B. (1967, August 12). The hidden evils of LSD. Saturday Evening Post, 240(16), 19–23. Dyck, E. (2005). Flashback: Psychiatric experimentation with LSD in historical perspective. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 50, 381–388.
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Grinspoon, L. (1981, January). LSD reconsidered: Should clinical research be resumed? Sciences, 21(1), 20–23.

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Novak, S. J. (1997). LSD before Leary. ISIS: Journal of the History of Science in Society, 88, 87–110. Whalen, J. (1998, November-December). The Hollywood experiment. Utne Reader, 90, 81–118. Yoder, R. M. (1955, October 22). Help for the living dead. Saturday Evening Post, 228(17), 42–43, 64, 66, 71.

ACTIVITY 16.2: Does DARE Deliver? The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program began in Los Angeles in 1983. According to the official DARE Web site (http://www.dare.com/home/about_dare.asp), it is currently available in 75% of the school districts in the United States, and has also been picked up in 43 other countries. Information on the program’s Web site notes that current research shows it to be an effective program (http://www.dare.com/home/Resources/Story1eb3.asp? N=Resources&M=16&S=43) and (http://www.dare.com/home/Resources/documents/DAREMarch06ProgressRe port.pdf). Still, Aniskiewicz and Wysong (1990) note that while it does seem to be successful in accomplishing its stated aims in the short term, it is more of a success in a political sense. Other researchers (Drug Education, 1999; Ennett, Tobler, Ringwalt, & Flewelling, 1994; GAO, 2003; Thombs, 2000; Zagumny & Thompson, 1997) have raised concerns about DARE’s long-term effectiveness. Is DARE successful at keeping children and adolescents from using drugs? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Aniskiewicz, R., & Wysong, E. (1990). Evaluating DARE: Drug education and the multiple meanings of success. Policy Studies Review, 9, 727– 747.
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Drug education programs fail in Houston. (1999, January/February). Society, 36(2), 3–4. Ennett, S. T., Tobler, N. S., Ringwalt, C. L., & Flewelling, R. L. (1994). How effective is Drug Abuse Resistance Education? A meta-analysis of Project DARE outcome evaluations. American Journal of Public Health, 84, 1394–1401. GAO literature review reiterates ineffectiveness of original D. A. R. E. (2003, January 27). Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, 15(4), 1–2. Lynam, D. R., Milich, R., Zimmerman, R., Novak, S. P., Logan, T. K., Martin, C., Leukefeld, C. & Clayton, R. (1999). Project DARE: No effects at 10-year follow-up. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67, 590–593. Thombs, D. L. (2000). A retrospective study of DARE: Substantive effects not detected in undergraduates. Journal of Alcohol & Drug Education, 46(1), 27–40. Zagumny, M. J., & Thompson, M. K. (1997). Does D. A. R. E. work? An evaluation in rural Tennessee. Journal of Alcohol & Drug Education, 42(2), 32–41.

ACTIVITY 16.3: Can Television Stop Teenagers from Smoking? There have been many efforts to convince people to stop smoking. Many states (e.g. New York http://www.nysmokefree.com/newweb/pageview.aspx? p=45); or Florida (http://www.doh.state.fl.us/ Tobacco/quitline.html) and the federal government (www.smokefree.gov) have web sites and hot lines designed to help people quit. Even tobacco companies have provided resources to help people give up tobacco if they want to (Philip Morris USA, 1999). Some of the most innovative and attention-grabbing television advertisements and online viral marketing efforts against the dangers of ® smoking have been created by the truth campaign. Their focus, as you might expect, is to stop people from using cigarettes. According to their Web site, “truth has one mission: spread information about the tobacco companies and their deadly, addictive products so people can make decisions about smoking based on the whole story—not just the one the industry’s given us (truth, 2007, p.1).” Researchers have investigated whether the campaign actually lowers youth smoking rates (Farrelly, Davis, Haviland, Messeri, and Healton, 2005; Sly, Hopkins, Trapido, and Ray, 2001). Others have looked into its effects on young people’s perceptions about tobacco (Hersey et al., 2005), and whether the program may be helped by “branding” the truth® campaign (Evans, Price, and Blahut, 2005).
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The truth videos seem to have gotten a lot of people talking about the problem of cigarette smoking, but have they actually convinced anyone to avoid smoking or to give up the habit if they already smoke? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Evans, W. D., Price, S., & Blahut, S. (2005). Evaluating the truth ® brand. Journal of Health Communication, 10, 181–192. Farrelly, M. C., Davis, K. C., Haviland, M. L., Messeri, P., & Healton, C. G. (2005). Evidence of a dose–response relationship between “truth” antismoking ads and youth smoking prevalence. American Journal of Public Health, 95, 425–431. Hersey, J. C., Niederdeppe, J., Evans, W. D., Nonnemaker, J., Blahut, S., Holden, D., Messeri, P., & Haviland, M. L. (2005). The theory of “truth”: How counterindustry media campaigns affect smoking behavior among teens. Health Psychology, 24, 22–31. Philip Morris USA. (1999). Philip Morris USA—Smoking & Health Issues— Quitting Smoking. Retrieved January 20, 2007, from http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/ en/health_issues/quitting_smoking.asp. Sly, D. F., Hopkins, R. S., Trapido, E., & Ray, S. (2001). Influence of a counteradvertising media campaign on initiation of smoking: The Florida “truth” campaign. American Journal of Public Health, 91, 233– 238. truth. (2007). Thetruth.com. Retrieved 20 January, 2007, from http://www.thetruth.com/.

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ACTIVITY 17.1: Does Marriage Need Defending? Marriage and family life are integral parts of American culture. Many people fall in love, and want to marry and raise families. It seems as though everyone has some idea of what a family should look like. For many people, the family consists of a father, a mother, their children, and sometimes grandparents or other relatives. Other people believe that families might consist of other combinations, for example two men and their children or two women and their children. Some people believe that gay or lesbian marriage is perfectly normal and healthy, and that it is a right that should be protected by the idea of equality under law (Hartocollis, 2006). Others, often for religious reasons, believe that such unions are unnatural, and can threaten the stability of normal families (Lueck, 2004). In fact, the federal government took a position on this when the Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law in 1996 (Defense, 2007). Overall, public opinion on the issue seems to have been shifting towards acceptance of such unions in the past few years (Paulson, Miller, & Paul, 2004; Toner, 2003). Will the acceptance of gay and lesbian unions threaten the stability of marriages in general? Some research on the success of gay and lesbian families has been done (Herek, 2006; Kurdek, 2005; Solomon, Rothblum, & Balsam, 2004), and may be worth viewing in your deliberations. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Defense of Marriage Act (2007, 17 January) In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 20, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act.
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Hartocollis, A. (2006, July 8). Meaning of ‘normal’ is at heart of gay marriage ruling. New York Times, 155(53634), B3. Herek, G. M. (2006). Legal Recognition of same-sex relationships in the United States: A social science perspective. American Psychologist, 61, 607–621. Kurdek, L. A. (2005). What do we know about gay and lesbian couples? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 251–254. Lueck, T. J. (2004, March 10). Bishops assail gay marriage as a threat. New York Times, 153(52784), B1. Paulson, A., Miller, S. B., & Paul, N. C. (2004, February 27). Wedding shots deepen gay-marriage divide. Christian Science Monitor, 96(64), 3. Solomon, S. E., Rothblum, E. D., & Balsam, K. E. (2004). Pioneers in partnership: Lesbian and gay male couples in civil unions compared with those not in civil unions and married heterosexual siblings. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 275–286. Toner, R. (2003, July 25). Opposition to gay marriage is declining, study finds. New York Times, 152(52555), A16.

ACTIVITY 17.2: What’s So Funny? In his guise as the 2000 Year Old Man, Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is if I’ll cut my little finger … Comedy is if you fall into an open sewer and die” (Brooks, 1994). His explanation was that all comedy is based on the pain of somebody else—your own pain is tragic, someone else’s can be funny. Of the four major psychological explanations for comedy, one is that the things we find funny are those that make us feel superior (Berger & Wildavsky, 1994; Fatt, 1998). This is how many psychologists explain the popularity of slapstick humor, ethnic jokes, political satire, and other aggressive forms of comedy (Berger & Wildavsky, 1994; Wyer & Collins, 1992). For example, McCauley, Woods, Coolidge, and Kulick (1983) reported that subjects were more likely to find cartoons funnier if their subject matter was more aggressive. Interestingly, there may be other forces at work. In looking at some of the reasons for the success of aggressive or violent comedy, McIntosh, Murray, Murray, and Manian (2003) found that the frequency of films depicting such humor seemed tied to specific social conditions. So, is humor based on the pain of other people? Do we need to feel superior to laugh? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions:

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1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?

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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable? References: Berger, A. A., & Wildavsky, A. (1994). Who laughs at what? Society, 31(6), 82–86. Brooks, M. (Speaker). (1994). The complete 2000 year old man (CD recording #71017). Los Angeles: Rhino. Fatt, J. P. T. (1998, October/November). Why do we laugh? Communication World, 15(9), 12–14. McCauley, C., Woods, K., Coolidge, C., & Kulick, W. (1983). More aggressive cartoons are funnier. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 817–823. McIntosh, W. D., Murray, J. D., Murray, R. M., & Manian, S. (2003). What’s so funny about a poke in the eye? The prevalence of violence in comedy films and its relation to social and economic threat in the United States, 1951–2000. Mass Communication & Society, 6, 345– 360. Wyer, R. S., Jr., & Collins, J. E. (1992). A theory of humor elicitation. Psychological Review, 99, 663–688.

ACTIVITY 17.3: You Have a Huge Web of Friends. Or Do You? Humans are a social species. We all have our groups of friends and family on whom we depend for so many things. Originally, all of our personal interactions were face-to-face. We knew to whom we were speaking and could relate to them directly, often getting cues about their feelings or motivations from their faces or their body language. The invention of writing, the telegraph, the telephone, and more recently the Internet, has changed that. Now, many people increasingly find their friends and social support groups among people they might never see in person (or in what some Internet aficionados call “meatspace”). How has this affected their relationships? Andrew Brown (1998) talks about the close friendships he’s developed via email. He mentions that although they only seem to have come together over a common interest in the Grateful Dead, they do seem to like one another; that although e-mail is an artificial way to get to know people, these relationships feel as real as other friendships. In exploring the similarities
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and differences between online and offline friendships, Carter (2004, 2005) notes that friendships in cyberspace operate in much the same way that friendships have always operated: starting tentatively, building trust, and developing over time. In fact, many people have not only begun friendships online, but loving relationships, which have been consummated in marriage in the non-virtual world (Chen, 2007). Mesch and Talmud (2006) report that online and offline friendships are extremely similar; in both cases, newer relationships tend to be superficial and longer-term relationships are quite strong. However, some researchers report that online friendships are not as well developed or as deep as offline friendships. Cummings, Butler, & Kraut (2002) found that although they are highly interactive, and may carry a lot of message traffic, most online communities do not develop strong social ties with intimate personal communication, perhaps due to the lack of face-toface or direct voice cues. People who use the Internet extensively show declines in non-virtual communication with their families and social groups, and a drop in the size of their social groups, as well as increased depression and loneliness (Kraut, Patterson, Kiesler, Mukopadhyay, & Scherlis, 1998). Does the Internet actually promote deep friendships, or are the relationships generated online only superficial? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Brown, A. (1998, December 4). Real friends. New Statesman, 127(4414), 42. Carter. D. (2004). Living in virtual communities: Making friends online. Journal of Urban Technology, 11(3), 109–125. Carter, D. (2005). Living in virtual communities: An ethnography of human relationships in cyberspace. Information, Communication, & Society, 8(2), 148–167. Chen, C. Y. (2007). Virtual vows. Foreign Policy, (158), 101. Cummings, J. N., Butler, B., & Kraut, R. (2002). The quality of online social relationships. Communications of the ACM, 45(7), 103–108.
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Kraut, R. Patterson, V. L., Kiesler, S. Mukopadhyay, T., & Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 53, 1017–1031. Mesch, G., & Talmud, I. (2006). The quality of online and offline relationships: The role of multiplexity and duration of social relationships. The Information Society, 22(3), 137–148. Morris, D. (1967). The naked ape: A zoologist’s study of the human animal. New York: McGraw Hill.

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ACTIVITY 18.1: Crowded and Crazy You may have seen newspaper stories in which the reporter speculated that the crowded nature of cities is causing an upsurge in violence. People have long suspected that crowding may cause higher levels of aggression and mental health problems (Miller & Peterson, 1984). Indeed, Gregor, Smith, Simons, and Parker (1970) found that aggressive behaviors were increased by increasing the crowding of mice. Rats reared in high-density situations also showed more emotionality and other indications of stress (Morrison & Thatcher, 1969). Population density also had negative effects on the problem solving abilities of rats faced with complex tasks (Goeckner, Greenough, & Mead, 1973). Scientific American published a good overview of the studies on crowding (de Waal, Aureli, & Judge, 2000) which looked at studies on several species, including humans. Research on humans has linked high population density and hot temperatures to several measures of people’s feelings and more negative responses to other people (Griffitt & Veitch, 1971). Evans, Palsane, Lepore, and Martin (1989) noted that crowding may cause breakdowns in people’s social relationships, which may account for some of the pathological responses seen in crowded situations. In contrast, Baron and Needel (1980) note that humans’ greater cognitive complexity must mediate our reactions to situations of density and crowding. However, Lawrence (1974) noted that there are problems with drawing simplistic conclusions about human reactions to crowding and population density, and after many years of research and environmental design, Paolo Soleri (2001) believes that the urban setting is the perfect environment for human beings. Does crowding cause people to be more aggressive? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable?

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References: Baron, R. M., & Needel, S. P. (1980). Toward an understanding of the differences in the responses of humans and other animals to density. Psychological Review, 87, 320–326. de Waal, F. D. M., Aureli, F., & Judge, P. G. (2000, May). Coping with crowding. Scientific American, 282(5), 76–81. Evans, G. W., Palsane, M. N., Lepore, S. J., & Martin, J. (1989). Residential density and psychological health: The mediating effects of social support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 994–999. Goecknet, D. J., Greenough, W. T., & Mead, W. R. (1973). Deficits in learning tasks following chronic overcrowding in rats. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 256–261. Gregor, G. L., Smith, R. F., Simons, L. S., & Parker, H. B. (1970). Behavioral consequences of crowding in the deermouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 79, 488–493. Griffitt, W. & Veitch, R. (1971). Hot and crowded: Influences of population density and temperature on interpersonal affective behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 92–98. Lawrence, J. E. S. (1974). Science and sentiment: Overview of research on crowding and human behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 81, 712–720. Miller, J. A., & Peterson, I. (1984, June 16). Life in a maddening crowd. Science News, 125(24), 377. Morrison, B. J. & Thatcher, K. (1969). Overpopulation effects on social reduction of emotionality in the albino rat. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 69, 658–662. Soleri, P. (2001). Urban ideal: Conversations with Paolo Soleri. Albany, CA: Berkely Hills Books.

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ACTIVITY 18.2: Kids Today Are Just Plain Rude, and It’s All Because of Their Cell Phones and Other Electronic Gadgets It’s no surprise to find that many older people seem to believe that members of the younger generation are not as polite, hardworking, or serious as they were in their younger days. This is perhaps best exemplified by a quote attributed to Hesiod (8th Century B.C.E.):
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.

Or this one, attributed to Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.):
The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.

Still, many people note that there seems to be a rise in general rudeness (Grimes, 1993; Kelly, 2004; What?, 1997). This seems prevalent in the college environment, as well (Burstein, 2003). Commentators and researchers call for a return to civility (Lauer, 2002; Melton, 2000). In 1999, Governor Mike Foster of Louisiana tried to pass a law requiring students to treat their teachers with respect (It’s the law, 1999). One hypothesis is that the use of instant messaging, cell phones, MP3 players, and other equipment has disconnected people from interaction in the “real” or “f-2-f” (face-to-face) world. Because of the stresses of modern life and immersion in the virtual world of their technological toys, young people have become isolated and alienated, contributing to what their elders see as their impatience and rudeness (Carter, 2006). E-mail also encourages feelings of anonymity, which can promote rude behavior (Krakovsky, 2004; Marx, 1994). Of course, some analysts believe that the technology is just the latest way through which we express good old self-centered thinking (Anderberg, 2003; Marx, 1994). Are today’s youth more rude and impatient than the young people of previous generations? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions:
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1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?

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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable? References: Anderberg, K. (2003). Phone (un)etiquette. Communications News, 40(3), 4. Burstein, J. (2003, November 7). Rudeness loves company. Chronicle of Higher Education, 50(11), B5. Carter, R. (2006, August 17). Rudeness is running rampant in today’s hightech society. New York Amsterdam News, 97(34, 10, 41. Grimes, W. (1993, October 17). Have a #%!&$! day. The New York Times, 143(49487), 9/1. It’s the law. (1999, August/September). Teacher Magazine, 11(1), 21. Kelly, K. (2004, January 18). New concern that politeness is a lost art in the office. The New York Times, 153(52732), 10/1. Krakovsky, M. (2004, March/April). Caveat sender. Psychology Today, 37(2), 15–16. Lauer, C. S. (2002, March 4). The end of civility? Modern Healthcare, 32(9), 29. Marx, G. (1994, January). Taming rude technologies. Technology Review, 97(1), 66–67. Melton, M. (2000, August 14). Listen up! Rudeness is rife and it=s time to fight back. U.S. News & World Report, 129(6), 57. What? Me? Rude? (1997, April). Scholastic Choices, 12(7), 6–9.

ACTIVITY 18.3: It’s So Much Nicer When We All Agree There are many ways for a group to make decisions. Some groups have strong leaders who determine their courses and whose decisions are respected and followed by the group’s members. Others strive for inclusive forms of decision-making in which all group members are encouraged to come to consensus. Proponents of consensus claim that it is the best method because everyone in the group feels that their concerns have been taken seriously. People who
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engage in consensus-based decision-making view the decisions as more fair and are generally more supportive of those decisions (Gautschi, 1988; Lentz, 1999; Sager, & Gastil, 2006). Sargisson (2004) found that utopian communities in New Zealand that used consensus-based decision-making were extremely effective at promoting power sharing and participation among their members. According to Gautschi (1988), “Consensus thinking can not only make better use of the available resources, but it can also increase the participants’ commitment to any decisions that result from the consensus process” (p. 192). Opponents say that trying to reach consensus is too slow and inefficient for some tasks, and should only be used in particular circumstances (Lentz, 1999). Peterson, Peterson, and Peterson (2005) assert that consensus is actually a bad way to make decisions, as the process may ignore the fundamental and actual realities of a situation in favor of the constructed reality of the group. This view is supported by Briant (2005). In fact, Kuhn’s (1970) argument in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is that scientific progress is only made when the consensus view held by scientists is challenged and disproved by specific research. It is also worth noting that Sager and Gastil (2006) report that certain personality traits and levels of supportive communication seem to be related to the successful use of a consensus strategy. Given the success of consensus-based thinking in mobilizing support and feelings of fairness and inclusion, is it the best method for most groups to use in coming to important decisions? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Briant, J. (2005). Consensus can be wrong. Institute of Public Affairs Review, 57(4), 35. Gautschi, T. F. (1988, October 17). The advantages of consensus thinking. Design News, 44(20), 192. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lentz, S. (1999). The well-rounded leader. Health Forum Journal, 42(5), 38–
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40. Peterson, M. N., Peterson, M. J., & Peterson, T. R. (2005). Conservation and the myth of consensus. Conservation Biology, 19, 762–767. Sager, K. L., & Gastil, J. (2006). The origins and consequences of consensus decision making: A test of the social consensus model. Southern Communication Journal, 71(1), 1–24. Sargisson, L. (2004). Justice inside Utopia? The case of intentional communities in New Zealand. Contemporary Justice Review, 7, 321– 333.

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ACTIVITY 19.1: Our Brains Are Hard-Wired for Religion In 1998, neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran claimed to have seen evidence of a module in the brain for processing religious information and feelings (Talan, 1998). Later research suggested that religious experiences were cognitive processes related to particular brain structures (Azari et al., 2001; Azari, Nimmsimer, & Seitz, 2005). Some psychologists suggest that these structures require us to think in certain pre-programmed ways, which either predispose or compel us to have religious experiences (Newberg, 2001). Critics believe that the brain is too complex for such studies to bear any useful fruit (Albright, 2000). Responses from the theological community have even questioned the ability of neuropsychology to ascertain anything about transcendent religious experiences in terms of brain functions (Delio, 2003). Livingston (2005) and Seybold (2005) argue that simply finding correlations between religious feelings and activity in particular areas of the brain does not constitute evidence for what some researchers have called a “God module” in the brain. Are we programmed to believe? Is religion nothing more than an artifact of the way in which our brain has developed? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Albright, C. R. (2000). The “God module” and the complexifying brain. Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, 35, 735–744. Azari, N. P., Nickel, J., Wunderlich, G., Niedeggen, M., Hefter, H., Tellmann,
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L., Herzog, H., Stoerig, P., Birnbacher, D., & Seitz, R. J. (2001). Neural correlates of religious experience. European Journal of Neuroscience, 13, 1649–1652. Azari, N. P., Missimer, J., & Seitz, R. J. (2005). Religious experience and emotion: Evidence for distinctive cognitive neural patterns. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 15, 263–281. Delio, I. (2003). Brain science and the biology of belief: A theological response. Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, 38, 573–585. Livingsont, K. R. (2005). Religious practice, brain, and belief. Journal of Cognition & Culture, 75–117. Newberg, A. B. (2001). Putting the mystical mind together. Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, 36, 501–507. Seybold, K. S. (2005). God and the brain: Neuroscience looks at religion. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 24(2), 122–129. Talan, J. (1998, March/April). Religion: Is it all in your head? Psychology Today, 31(2), 9.

ACTIVITY 19.2: Is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation the “New Lobotomy”? In their review of the history of psychosurgery, Mashour, Walker, and Martuza (2005) note that the use of lobotomies was widespread during the early 20th century. This didn’t begin to decline until the advent of psychopharmacological agents such as chlorpromazine in the mid-1950s. In fact, lobotomies later became illegal in many countries, and recently the Norwegian parliament has offered compensation to individuals who were subject to lobotomies (Goldbeck-Wood, 1996). In contrast to performing lobotomies or prescribing psychoactive drugs, there are a number of other non-surgical procedures for the treatment of various psychological conditions. One that seems to show great promise is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which consists of using a magnetic field to depolarize specific areas of the brain (Mashour et al., 2005). TMS is currently being investigated for the treatment of several conditions, and has been found effective in treating schizophrenia (McIntosh et al., 2004; Sachdev, Loo, Mitchell, & Malhi, 2005), depression (Januel, et al., 2006; Rossini, Lucca, Zanardi, Magri, & Smeraldi, 2005), Parkinson’s disease (Lefaucheur et al., 2004), and post-traumatic stress disorder (Cohen et al., 2004). It has also been investigated for use in enhancing certain mental abilities (Hilgetag, 2004; Osborne, 2003; Vanderhasselt, De Raedt, Baeken, Leyman, & D’haenen, 2006).
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Proponents claim that it is a safe procedure, but this is also what practitioners said about the use of lobotomies, early forms of electroconvulsive (electro-shock) therapy, and other treatments that have since been shown to be harmful. Direct magnetic stimulation of the brain is a relatively new idea and may not yet be fully understood. If someone you care about were suffering from one of the conditions listed above, would you be confident in recommending TMS as a treatment option? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Cohen, H., Kaplan, Z., Kotter, M., Kouperman, I., Moisa, R., & Grisaru, N. (2004). Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in posttraumatic stress disorder: A double-blind, placebo-controlled study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 515– 524. Goldbeck-Wood, S. (1996). Norway compensates lobotomy victims. British Medical Journal, 313, 708. Hilgetag, C. C. (2004, January). Learning from switched-off brains. Scientific American Special Edition, 14(1), 8–9. Januel, D., Dumortier, G., Verdon, C.-M., Stamatiadis, L., Saga, G., Cabaret, W., Benadhira, R., Rocamora, J.-F., Braha, S., Kalalou, K., Vicaut, Pr Eric, & Fermanian, J. (2006). A double-blind sham controlled study of right prefrontal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS): Therapeutic and cognitive effect in medication free unipolar depression during 4 weeks. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 30, 126–130. Lefaucheur, J.-P., Drouot, X., Von Raison, F., Ménard-Lefaucheur, I., Cesaro, P, & Nguyen, J. P. (2004). Improvement of motor performance and modulation of cortical excitability by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex in Parkinson’s disease. Clinical Neurophysiology, 115, 2530–2541.
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McIntosh, A. M., Semple, D., Tasker, K., Harrison, L. K., Owens, D. G., Johnstone, E. C., Ebmeier, K. P. (2004). Transcranial magnetic stimulation for auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research, 127, 9–17. Mashour, G. A., Walker, E. E., & Martuza, R. L. (2005). Psychosurgery: Past, present, and future. Brain Research Reviews, 48, 409–419. Osborne, L. (2003, June 22). Savant for a day. New York Times Magazine, 152(52522), 38–41. Rossini, D., Lucca, A., Zanardi, R., Magri, L, & Smeraldi, E. (2005). Transcranial magnetic stimulation in treatment-resistant depressed patients: A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Psychiatry Research, 137, 1–10. Sachdev, P, Loo, C., Mitchell, P., & Malhi, G. (2005). Transcranial magnetic stimulation for the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia: A pilot investigation. Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 354–357. Vanderhasselt, M.-A., De Raedt, R., Baeken, C., Leyman, L., & D’haenen, H. (2006). The influence of rTMS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on Stroop task performance. Experimental Brain Research, 169, 179–282.

ACTIVITY 19.3: Knock Yourself Out In the late 1950s, Soviet scientists began working with a device that induced sleep by passing a low-level electrical current through the brain. It was rumored that the Russian sleep machine would make it possible to get an entire night’s worth of sleep in only a few minutes. These stories were published in the popular press, and by the 1960s, scientists in the rest of the world began to experiment with the equipment (Rosenthal & Wulfsohn, 1970). Brown (1975) and von Richthofen and Mellor (1979) provide good overviews of how the system worked and some history of its development. Many researchers found it extremely effective as a sleep aid (Magora, Beller, Aladjemoff, & Tannenbaum, 1964; Nias, 1976) or for the relief of tension (Singh, 1967). Others claimed it was an effective treatment for depression or psychotic conditions (Flemenbaum, 1974). However, some scientists claimed that it was totally ineffective (Woods, Tyce, & Bickford, 1965). Evaluators felt that scientists who did find electrosleep (as it was called) effective had made various methodological errors in their testing (von Richthofen & Mellor, 1979). Brown (1975) reported that in some instances test subjects experienced complications, including salivation, micturition, cardiac arrest, and respiratory arrest.
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If you’re like most students, you may have problems getting enough sleep. Would you use the Russian sleep machine? Your answer should address the machine’s safety and effectiveness. Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

CAUTION: Several of the articles cited in this exercise provide some schematic diagrams and rudimentary instructions for building a Russian sleep machine. These directions are neither complete nor fully tested, and therefore it would be unwise and possibly unsafe for you to attempt to build a Russian sleep machine for yourself.
References: Brown, C. C. (1975). Electroanesthesia and electrosleep. American Psychologist, 30, 402–410. Flemenbaum, A. (1974). Cerebral electrotherapy (electrosleep): An openclinical study with a six month follow-up. Psychosomatics, 15, 20–24. Magora, F., Beller, A., Aladjemoff, L., & Tannenbaum, J. (1964). Electrical sleep in dogs. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 36, 407–414. Nias, D. K. B. (1976). Therapeutic effects of low-level direct electrical currents. Psychological Bulletin, 83, 766–773. Rosenthal, S. H., & Wulfsohn, N. L. (1970). Electrosleep clinical trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 533–534. Singh, K. (1967). Sleep inducing devices: A clinical trial with a Russian machine. International Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 3, 311–318. von Richthofen, C. L., & Mellor, C. (1979). Cerebral electrotherapy: Methodological problems in assessing its therapeutic effectiveness. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 1264–1271. Woods, L. W., Tyce, F. A. J., & Bickford, R. C. (1965). Electric sleepproducing devices: An evaluation using EEG monitoring. American Journal of Psychiatry, 122, 153–158.

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ACTIVITY 20.1: Tenure Makes Professors Complacent and Lazy According to the American Association of University Professors (2006), “Tenure is a means to certain ends; specifically: (1) freedom of teaching and research and of extramural activities, and (2) a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability” (p. 3). Tenure guarantees professors the freedom to investigate and share knowledge about any topic, no matter how offensive or obscure, without the fear of losing their jobs. Benjamin (1999) points out that although he believes that it does indeed achieve its stated goals, there is some controversy with regard to whether that is actually true. Some colleges, universities, and even state legislators claim that tenure gives professors a sense of complacency, making them unproductive (Fairweather, 2002). Others claim that in these tough economic times, the tenure system makes it impossible for institutions to be sufficiently flexible in terms of staffing (Dowdy, 1998; Holden, 1977) and some institutions are attempting to eliminate tenure in favor of contracts or other “tenure-like” systems (Bess, 1998; Holden, 1977). Yet many believe that the need for tenure has never been greater. Participants at a Harvard University-sponsored conference on the merits and problems associated with tenure noted that many scholars would be afraid to pursue important research topics were it not for the protections of tenure (Dowdy, 1998). Williams and Ceci (2007) report that even among tenured faculty, it is not until a person has achieved the highest rank that they feel capable of doing or speaking freely about controversial research. Evidence for this is abundant in recent news, as the unpopular opinions of some educators have angered government officials and members of the public, who call for their ouster, despite tenure’s protection (Giroux, 2006). Fairweather (2002) notes that it is the rare faculty member who can be highly productive both in research and in the classroom, as the demands of each are different, but that tenured faculty were more likely than untenured faculty to be productive in one arena or the other, and that only tenured faculty were generally able to be productive in both. This echoes Benjamin’s (1998) findings about the productivity of tenured faculty, both as researchers
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and teachers. Benjamin (1998) also notes that the ratio of students to faculty has risen dramatically in the past few decades, which may also have something to do with instructors’ ability to teach effectively.

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What do you believe? Does tenure help promote good research and teaching, or does it make professors too comfortable, resulting in bad teaching and poor research? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: American Association of University Professors. (2006). 1940 statement of principles on academic freedom and tenure with 1970 interpretive comments [Electronic version]. Retrieved September 4, 2007, from American Association of University Professors Web site: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/ 1940statement.htm? wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished. Benjamin, E. (1998). Declining faculty availability to students is the problem B but tenure is not the explanation. American Behavioral Scientist, 41, 716–735. Benjamin, E. (1999). Some implications of tenure for the profession and society. Retrieved July 27, 2007, from American Association of University Professors Web site: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/issues/tenure/benjamintenureimps.htm? wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished. Bess, J. L. (1998). Contract systems, bureaucracies, and faculty motivation: The probable effects of a no-tenure policy. Journal of Higher Education, 69, 1–22. Dowdy, Z. R. (1998). Is tenure in your future? Black Issues in Higher Education, 15(19), 12–13. Fairweather, J. E. (2002). The mythologies of faculty productivity: Implications for institutional policy and decision making. Journal of Higher Education, 73, 26–48. Giroux, H. A. (2006). Academic freedom under fire: The case for critical pedagogy. College Literature, 33(4), 1–42.
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Holden, C. (1997, April 4). Tenure turmoil sparks reform. Science, 276(5309), 24–26. Williams, W. M., & Ceci, S. J. (2007, March 9). Does tenure really work? Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(27), B16.

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ACTIVITY 20.2: Honesty Is the Best Company Policy When one of the authors was working his way through graduate school, he applied for a job at a national electronics chain store. As part of the interview process, the manager handed him an honesty test, and left him alone to complete it. Knowing something about test construction, he held the paper up to the light, and found that the check-boxes for the correct answers were marked on the back of each page, so he checked off nearly all of the right answers (there were close to 100 items) but left two incorrect, so he wouldn’t appear to be cheating. When the manager scored the test, he told our hero that not only would he get the job, but that it was wonderful to be able to hire such an honest and upstanding person. Many businesses use integrity tests as a part of the hiring process. Some tests are dependent on personality variables, and others measure hypothetical behaviors in specific situations. Some organizations even used polygraph systems (sometimes called “lie detectors”) as screening devices (Jussim, 1985), although use of the polygraph is no longer permitted as a result of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988. Many researchers support the use of integrity testing, saying that some tests give an accurate picture of the prospective employee’s level of honesty (Goodstein & Lanyon, 1999; Wanek, 1999). In fact, Lucas and Friedrich (2005) found that integrity testing was also a good measure of whether students would engage in academically dishonest behaviors, such as cheating on examinations. Others, however, maintain that many of the tests used are not valid measures of integrity (Guastello & Rieke, 1991; Lilienfeld, Alliger, & Mitchell, 1995; Saxe, 1994). One problem is that the actual construct of integrity is not well defined (Rieke & Guastello, 1995), and often contains particular biases (Lilienfeld, Allinger, & Mitchell, 1995). Another is that individuals can be coached to get good scores on many of the integrity tests currently in use (Alliger & Dwight, 2000; Lilienfeld, Allinger, & Mitchell, 1995). Although they noted that some integrity tests might be useful, Camara and Schneider (1994) discussed several methodological and ethical problems regarding the use of such instruments. Other psychologists have also raised ethical issues (Rieke & Guastello, 1995). Should employers use integrity testing as a part of their hiring decisions? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. What am I being asked to believe or accept? 2. What evidence is there to support the assertion? 3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
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4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? 5. What conclusions are most reasonable?

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References: Alliger, G. M., & Dwight, S. A. (2000). A meta-analytic investigation of the susceptibility of integrity tests to faking and coaching. Educational Psychology & Measurement, 60, 59–72. Camara, W. J., & Schneider, D. L. (1994). Integrity tests: Facts and unresolved issues. American Psychologist, 49, 112–119. Goodstein, L. D., & Lanyon, R. I. (1999). Applications of personality assessment to the workplace: A review. Journal of Business & Psychology, 13, 291–322. Guastello, S. J., & Rieke, M. L. (1991). A review and critique of honesty test research. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 9, 501–523. Jussim, D. (1985, December 21). Lies, damn lies—and polygraphs. Nation, 241(21), 665, 682. Lilienfeld, Alliger, G., & Mitchell, K. (1995). Why integrity testing remains controversial. American Psychologist, 50, 457–458. Lucas, G. M., & Friedrich, J. (2005). Individual differences in workplace deviance and integrity as predictors of academic dishonesty. Ethics & Behavior, 15, 15–35. Rieke, M. L., & Guastello, S. J. (1995). Unresolved issues in honesty and integrity testing. American Psychologist, 50, 458–459. Sackett, P. R. (1994). Integrity testing for personnel selection. Current directions in Psychological Science, 3, 73–76. Saxe, L. (1994). Detection of deception: Polygraph and integrity tests. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 69–73. Wanek, J. E. (1999). Integrity and honesty testing: What do we know? How do we use it? International Journal of Selection & Assessment, 7(4), 183–195.

ACTIVITY 20.3: Telecommuters Are More Productive Than Office Workers According to Wikipedia (2007), “Telecommuting . . . is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy limited flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links” (& 1). In other words, you don’t need to go to a
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specific location to work, but might work from home, a favorite restaurant, or even a park or campsite. Many people believe that this flexibility allows workers to be happier and more productive (Apicella & Jefferson, 2001; Wahl, 2007). Butler, Aasheim, and Williams (2007) found that productivity increased when people became telecommuters at the Kentucky American Water Company, and that they sustained that increase over a five-year period. Some researchers have shown that telecommuters’ productivity is not as high as that of on-site workers (Westfall, 2004). Others note that only certain types of workers are likely to be able to work well as telecommuters (Apicella & Jefferson, 2001; Khaifa & Davidson, 2000; Wahl, 2007), or that telecommuting only works in certain types of situations (Apicella & Jefferson, 2001; Khaifa & Davidson, 2000). Managers claim to have difficulties with how telecommuters are to be supervised (Gross, 2006; Schiff, 1998). If you owned a company, should you encourage your workers to telecommute rather than to come in to the office? Use the critical thinking method to come to your own conclusion. Be sure to support your thoughts with credible source material. Remember that in thinking critically, you need to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What am I being asked to believe or accept? What evidence is there to support the assertion? Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence? What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? What conclusions are most reasonable?

References: Apicella, M., & Jefferson, S. (2001, March 12). Telecommuting proves beneficial and detrimental. Infoworld, 23(11), 52–53. Butler, E. S., Aasheim, C., & Williams, S. (2007). Does telecommuting improve productivity? Communications of the ACM, 50(4), 101–103. Gross, G. (2006, June 19). Government managers resist telecommuting plans. Computerworld, 40(25), 21. Khaifa, M., & Davidson, R. (2000). Exploring the telecommuting paradox. Communications of the ACM, 43(3), 29–31. Schiff, D. (1998, October 22). Go telecommute. Electronic Design, 46(24), 64T. Wahl, A. (2007, March 12). Work naked. Canadian Business, 80(6), 33–35.

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Westfall, R. D. (2004). Does telecommuting really increase productivity? Communications of the ACM, 47(8), 93–97. Telecommuting. (2007). In Wikipedia. Retrieved on July 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommuting .

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