We’ve looked at the story of the Good Samaritan so now it’s time to scientifically answer the question: is it better to give than to receive? Psychologists have recently examined the relationship between happiness and charitable giving. Will you be happier if you donate money rather than spend it on yourself?

The research study discussed in this episode used a 2×2 factorial design. The image below is actually a "voicethread". This is a new technology which allows you to comment and draw on images and video. Here I explain the factorial design used in this study on the effects of giving on happiness. I can’t make this image any larger here, so use your mouse to zoom in and out as I explain the 2×2 factorial design. You can also click here to see this voicethread on the voicethread site.

If you go to the VoiceThread website get an account (it’s free) and you can insert your comments into this image as well. It’s pretty neat - try it out.

• The article discussed in this episode is Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness, by Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin, and Michael I. Norton, and it appeared in Science 21 March 2008: Vol. 319. no. 5870, pp. 1687 - 1688

Related Episodes

• The Good Samaritan Study
• Basic Research Design Part 1 (one independent variable with two and three groups)
• Basic Research Design Part 2 (factorial design with two independent variables)

Episodes Related to Happiness

• The Negative Side of Positive Thinking
• Positive Thinking and Running Away From Your Feelings

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Could it be that the roots of math anxiety lie not with math itself but with the way math is taught? In this episode I am extremely fortunate to speak with Dr. Eugene Geist, Associate Professor at Ohio University - Athens, Ohio and specialist in early childhood education. We talk about math anxiety - how it develops and what can be done to help kids overcome it. So if you have math anxiety, are a parent of a child with math anxiety or are a teacher of math you’ll want to hear what Dr. Geist has to say about this topic. Don’t let your kids say “I hate math!” Children are, as Dr. Geist will point out, natural born mathematicians and you can help them with their math homework and in the process help them overcome math anxiety.

Summary of Dr. Geist’s ideas as to what causes math anxiety

• Understand that, developmentally, young people hate to be wrong. We all don’t like being wrong, but it is especially embarrassing and painful to the developing child.
• Don’t Create Embarrassing situations: Asking students to “come to the front of the class and work out a problem on the board” contains the potential for a publicly embarrassing situation for a child. Use this approach (if at all) very carefully.
• Don’t focus on right and wrong: Math learning is difficult if it occurs in an atmosphere (either school or home) in which there is pressure to use one method to find the right answer. Allow some room for exploration and for the child to find one or more ways to find the best answer.
• Focus on Concepts instead of Math Facts and Processes. Focus math on applications and uses in daily life. When teachers focus on teaching only the processes or procedures of solving math problems and not on helping students understand conceptually why we do those procedures, then students will focus on learning processes (ex: “invert and multiply”) and not on seeing how those processes make sense. Fluency with the multiplication table can come later - first make sure students understand what is going on and why.
• Let Students Work On Their Own. Let students try to figure math problems out first on their own and let them debate with each other about the right answer. You’ll find that they enjoy learning math this way and are more likely to understand it better.
• Don’t Let Math be a Mystery: It is no wonder that math can seem like a mystery and create anxiety in many children when it is taught in the ways described above.
• Don’t Give The Right Answer. Give a try doing what Dr. Geist mentioned in the podcast: give students a problem, but don’t give them the answer right away. Let them think about it until next class when you give an answer - but tell them that it may not be the right answer. Let them tell you if it’s right or wrong and why.

What to do if Your Math/Statistics Teacher’s approach Isn’t Working For You

• Study in Groups: work with other students in your class to see how they are coping with the situation. Students can be great at explaining things to other students.
• Look online for help. Search YouTube - there’s lots of tutorials there on math made by other teachers. Also, iTunesU may have a lecture from a teacher on the topic you’re stuck on.
• Put up a question on Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers is a place where students ask other students questions about a whole range of topics. Check it out. See if some other student somewhere in the world would be willing to answer a math/stats question. Experts also drop by to answer questions on Yahoo Answers. I go there myself every once in a while to see if there’s a question I can answer.
• Rewrite Your Notes After Class. I know - this one sounds dull, but I did it when I was taking a class and was really confused. Re-writing your class notes - immediately after class - can really help clarify things for you.
• Use Your Textbook. Most textbook authors bend over backwards to explain things clearly. You paid for it - use it. And don’t forget to use the website that accompanies most textbooks.

Ideas on What Teachers and Parents Can Do to Avoid Fostering Math Anxiety in Children

• Have the right attitude toward math: math is not inherently “hard”. Math is about puzzles and kids love puzzles
• Work together with the child when working on math problems. Don’t stand over the child holding onto the “right” answer, ready to judge the child if he/she doesn’t get it right. Work collaboratively with the child to solve the puzzle.
• Model problem solving with the child. “Now let’s see, what should we do…?”, “How about if we try this…?”, “You know, I think I may be wrong here - let’s try a different approach.”
• Take a constructive approach to wrong answers: “Gee, that seems like a really big number. Do you think that’s right? I mean, how could….lead to….?” and, “I’m not sure about that one. Can you show me how you got that answer?”
• Get kids to work with each other to solve a problem. When they come up with different answers, have them work together to see who has the right answer.
• Make math learning not about long pages of worksheets, but rather an adventure in puzzle-solving.

Resources on Math Anxiety

• Dr. Geist has written and spoken widely about the topic of math anxiety as well as about the teaching of math and about constructivism. Here is a link to his website, and here is just a sample of some of his publications:
  • Geist, E.A. (2008 In Review) Because I SAID So: Power Relationships in Teaching Mathematics
  • Geist, E.A. (2008 In Review) What Is The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy and What Does It Have To Do With Learning Mathematics?
  • Geist, E.A. (2008 In Review) Dealing with Math Anxiety in Early Childhood Teachers and Students
  • Geist E.A & Geist K. (2007 in press) Do Re Mi:That’s how easy math can be: Music interventions to support mathematics concepts in infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Young Children
  • Geist E.A. & Janson G. (2007 in Review) Timed Tests and the Effects of Anxiety of Learning Mathematics.
  • Phillips, S.K., Duffrin, M.W. and Geist, E.A. (2004). Scientific salad and apple analysis: Take food out of the kitchen and into the classroom to teach mathematics, science, and more. Science and Children, 41(4), 24-29.
  • Geist, E.A. (2002) Annual Editions - Early Childhood Education 03/04 Children are Born Mathematicians: Encouraging and Promoting Early Mathematical Concepts in Children Under Five. p.174-179 McGraw-Hill; Guilford CT
  • 1993 Jacksonville State University - Jacksonville, Alabama - What is Constructivism: Beyond Just a Buzz Word.
  • 2000 Research Council on Mathematics Learning - Las Vegas, NV - Constructivist VS Traditional Methods of Teaching Mathematics.
• Here is the word problem Dr. Geist discusses in this class:
  

  A man buys a horse for #20 and then he sells it again for $30. He then he buys the horse back for $40 and sells it to somebody else for $50. Did he make money or lose money and how much did he make or lose?

• Here is the link to the web site called Project Construct. Here’s a blurb from their website telling what Project Construct is all about:
  

  Project Construct is derived from constructivism—the theoretical view that learners construct knowledge through interaction with the physical and social environments. Through “hands-on, minds-on” experiences, students in Project Construct classrooms attain deep understandings in the core content areas, while they also learn to work collaboratively with adults and peers and to be lifelong problem solvers.

Books

• Dr. Geist highly recommends the books of Constance Kamii. Here is a link to one of her books on Amazon: Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic: Implications of Piaget’s Theory (Early Childhood Education Series (Teachers College Pr))
• Dr. Geist also recommends the work of Catherine Twomey Fosnot. She has a number of books on Amazon as well: Young Mathematicians at Work: Constructing Fractions, Decimals, and Percents

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In this episode (a reposting of the previous episode due to a technical glitch) we delve into a two by two factorial research design. Sounds dull you say? Well, I’ll try my best to make it kinda fun. You’ll see how more complex research is carried out. In this case I’ll examine the downside to being an attractive person. And you thought attractive people get all the good stuff in life. Watch to find out how it can be to your disadvantage to be attractive and along the way learn a bit about research design.

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How many scientific studies find their inspiration from a parable in the bible? Well, this one does and for my 50th episode I’ll go over a very interesting study based on the Good Samaritan parable. We’ll take another look at the topic of bystander intervention by asking the question: are people more likely to help someone if they are thinking “pious” thoughts at the time?

After reviewing the study I’ll take a look at a couple articles that cite the good samaritan parable and ask the question: what does the results of this study imply about the value of character education, virtues programs, codes of ethics, citizenship and ethical behavior in general?

The Good Samaritan Parable (Luke 10: 27-37)

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus…”And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down the road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by the other side. but a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? He said, The one who showed him mercy” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Resources on Helping Behavior

• Darley, J. M. & Batson, C. D. (1973) From Jerusalem to Jericho: a study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), 100–119.
• Samuels, S.M. and Casebeer, W.D. (2005). A social psychological view of morality: why knowledge of situational influences on behaviour can improve character development practices. Journal of Moral Education, 34, 73-87.
• Kotre, J. (1992). Experiments as Parables. American Psychologist, 672-673.

Episodes on Bystander Intervention and other Good Stories

• What Really Happened to Kitty Genovese?
• Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Study.
• John Watson’s study on Little Albert.
• Sherif’s Robber’s Cave study on group conflict.

Other Experiments as Parables

• Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.
  Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210
• Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
  67, 371-378.
• Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press.
• Watson, J.B. & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned Emotional Reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1-14.

Site Search: Ethics, Social Psychology

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 Psychological Study Ripped Straight from....the Bible?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Independent variables, dependent variables, t-tests, anovas, experiments, between subjects, within subjects, confounds…confused? You won’t be after you watch this week’s video episode. Learn research methods in psychology the fun way - by choosing an interesting topic. In this video I explain the basic concepts of research while examining the effect of gray hair on credibility. More fun than…let me think…well, trust me, it’ll be interesting.

Resources for This Episode

• The web site where you can change your appearance by mixing your photo with celebrities is called Hairmixer.

Notes

• Independent Variable: the variable you manipulate (”type of hair” in this example).

• Dependent Variable: the variable you measure (”credibility” in this example).

• Operational Definition: the exact data that you will collect. In this example, a subject’s rating on a 1 to 10 credibility scale is my operational definition of credibility.

Related Episodes

• Why Do Statistics Make Us So Queasy?

• Check out episode 3 in which I discuss hypotheses and Popper’s important concept of falsifiability.

• Looking for more fun with research? Check out my episode on how consumer researcher’s carefully watch your behavior in the grocery store.

• If you want to review many of the psychological research terms mentioned in this episode, check the “the mappr” - an audio review program I wrote.

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Have you heard about Mashups? What do they have to do with psychology? In this video episode I’ll show you how you use RSS feeds, Google Reader, and Yahoo Pipes to create a mashup that searches the web for the very latest information on psychological terms of interest to you. I’m not clairvoyant (is that the right term for people who can see the future?), but I think this IS the future of of research in psychology. Come take a look.
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Click here to see a larger version of this video.

Resources for this Episode

• Click to take a look at the Psychology Researcher mashup I created on Yahoo Pipes. I’ll be updating it all the time to improve it, but for now if you want to change the search term from "alzheimer’s" to some other term, just click on Edit Source on the Yahoo Pipes page and change the term alzheimer’s in the three search boxes you’ll see on the screen.

• You can set up an RSS reader for free at Google Reader where you can collect all the latest information from the top blogs in psychology.

• One of the great blogs I mentioned in this episode is called PsyBlog. It is run by Jeremy Dean who is a frequent blogger on a variety of psychology topics. Check it out.

• One of Jeremy’s blog posts is a series he created in which he lists a lot of excellent psychology blogs. Check out this post on his site.

Technorati: mashup, mashups

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 Psychological Research Using Mashups: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Taking a psychology class? Confused about Research Methods? Let me know what you think of a new tool I built which I call the "MAPPR". That stands for "Make A Personal Psych Review" (best name I could come up with). Here’s what it does: I’ve selected a typical topic from an Intro Psych course: the scientific method (might be referred to as Research Methods in your textbook) and I chose what I think are the bold terms that most students of psychology would have to learn from the chapter on this topic. I put these terms into a concept map and then recorded my own explanations for what these terms mean. Then (not done yet) I put the concept map and the audio files into a small online application which allows you to choose only those terms you find difficult or which you want to review. So: on the map you click the terms you want to review and then click the "Play" button and hear my explanation of those terms. It’s probably best to check it out yourself.

Let me know what you think!

Click here to go to the MAPPR

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In case you want to download the map itself, click on the image below and then print out or download the jpg image on the next screen.

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Why are we often anxious about or even suspicious of statistics? Let’s take a look at this topic. Along with some interesting examples I’ve got some statistics-oriented jokes I hope you’ll find funny (okay, maybe you’ll just find them…interesting. Humor me). Conquer your fears this week on The Psych Files.

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Resources For This Podcast

• Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulus is a very interesting book. I highly recommend it.
• Michael Shermer’s book, Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time is also an excellent book on the kinds of thinking that lead us astray. This is the book I mention in the podcast where Mr. Shermer took a tour through the Edgar Casey museum and took the ESP “test”.
• Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, is also a very readable book regarding why we believe strange things.
• Correction: In the podcast I said that Mur Lafferty was the host of the Grammar Girl. Actually Mignon Fogarty is the host and here is the link to the Grammar Girl. Mur Lafferty is the host of another interesting podcast called I Should Be Writing. Here is the link to her podcast.
• Here is the TED talks presentation by Peter Donnelly. Fascinating.

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Everyone thinks critical thinking is a great thing. I don’t disagree, but how about a little open mindedness? I take a look at last week’s episode on energy medicine and discuss being critical, the scientific method and remaining open to those matters we cannot access through the scientific method.

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Psychological Research in your life: does your local grocery store know more about you than you do? We take a look at the research that’s been done to learn more about your behavior in the supermarket and how that information is used to get you to buy more than you planned for.

Click to listen to this episode and learn more about how psychological research is used in your life.

From the MSN article “15 Ways Stores trick you into spending”

Read this article to find out more details on how observational research is used to design grocery stores.

• Shopping Carts: they are large and tend to be right near the entrance to entice you to use them
• Toys: far from the entrance
• The most expensive versions of items are at eye level while bulk options are at the bottom
• Items that are not on sale are arranged to look like they are on sale (placed at the end of the isle with a large sign)
• Commodity items, like socks, are surrounded by non-commodity items, like shirts and jeans (for example, peanut butter and jelly are placed near each other)
• There usually isn’t a section where inexpensive items are placed all together - inexpensive items are placed among expensive ones
• “Stores are designed to maximize the number of stops you have to make” because you buy when you stop
• Restrooms are placed far from the entrance to force you to go past things you might buy

From the article “The Theory of Supermarkets”

The New York Times Magazine, March 10, 1996

• The stock of your typical store (10 years ago) held about 30,000 items - tough competition among all these products
• have you noticed that the first thing you see when you walk in the door is produce? This is done to give you the idea of freshness and “bounty”. Notice also the colors, the water that rains down on the celery, etc. Gets you “in the mood” Other supermarkets begin with flowers
• Butchers have no blood on them because research has shown that this turns customers off (bloodier activities take place in the back)
• Cart behavior: when you turn the cart in one direction, you tend to look in the other direction. So, if we can steer you just right through the isles, we can put “specials” on the “strong side”
• you will buy more soup if it is not in alphabetical order
• store labels are always to the left of popular brands. Why? like reading, after your eye is caught be a familiar label, you tend to look left next. so, put the store brand on the left of the popular brand.
• The best viewing angle: the average eye height of a woman is 59 inches and a man: 64 inches, so 15 degrees below horizontal (51 to 53 inches off the floor)
• by the way, when you examine a shelf you’re likely to stand 4 feet away.
• background music: slow it down to about 60 beats/min and your cart will slow down as well and you’re more likely to see things you might purchase. classical music gives your products a higher degree of perceived value:
• play classical in the background - barnes and noble/ new agey
• play upbeat - clothes stores
• play rock - music stores, etc.
• Cereal arranged by type (flakes, brans) rather than by brand will decrease sales
• Also on cereal: make it difficult to compare them: create different size boxes, and call them by different names (Apple Cinnamon or Honey Nut) and it makes it diffiuclt to compare.

Other research:

• The smell of cucumber makes a room feel larger, while the smell of barbeque makes it feel smaller
• Lavender smell is relaxing
• Red colors tend to draw you physically closer

How to fight back?

• Use a list
• Don’t come hungry
• Don’t use a shopping cart unless you need to
• At the checkout re-think everything you put into your cart
• Start at the back and work forward
• Look at the bottom shelf first
• Carry a calculator
• If you don’t know for sure that something is a good deal don’t buy it (it’s probably not a good deal and you’re being tricked into thinking it might be)

Musical Resources

The classical guitar music you hear throughout the podcast is performed by David Temple and used by permission. You can go to David’s website by clicking here.

Rock Music: “Moonscape” by 37Hz. Click here to go to the site for 37Hz on Podsafe Music.

Upbeat Music: “If there was no people” from Chachi On Acid. Click here to go to their site in the Podsafe Music site.

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