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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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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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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Time for a little fun. I know you’ve asked yourself this question: why do people engage in those dangerous sports like hang gliding, bungee jumping and rock climbing? Would you believe it might have something to do with neurotransmitters and something called Monoamine Oxidase? In this video episode we learn about Sensation Seekers. Come along for the ride.

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• Darn! The video I made with the chasing snow mobiles using the Stuntman video game didn’t come out looking so good in this podcast. In case you want to see the video, I’ve embedded it below. I’m still thinking about ways to use machinima for educational purposes. If you’ve got any ideas let’s talk about it.
• 
  Click on this image to use the drag-and-drop activity to demonstrate neurotransmitter movement across the synapse.

Resources for this Podcast

• Personality Psychology website at Arcadia. This site has a lot of great resources on personality. Highly recommended.
• Take the sensation-seeking scale here.
• Lots of resources on personality can be found at the Personality Pedagogy site.
• Good article here from the HealthyPlace website on monoamine oxidase and it’s role in depression.
• A nice overview of Sensation Seeking can be found in Motivation Theories and Pinciples 5th edition by Robert Beck.
• Biopsychology by John Pinel has some excellent illustrations and extensive explanations on how neurotransmitters work.

Media Resources for this Episode

• Thanks to the band 3Kisses for allowing me to use “It’s Not About You” for the soundtrack to my extreme snowmobile chase.
• Extreme Bungee on YouTube.
• Here’s the YouTube video showing the extreme hang gliding video featured in this episode.
• The snowmobile chase machinima was made with the video game Stuntman: Ignition
• Here’s a link to one of the many machinima sites.
• I created the neurotransmitter animations using Adobe Flash

Technorati: extreme sports, neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, sensation seeking

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sensation seeking, monoamine oxidase, neurotransmitters

 

 Episode 35: The Psychology of Extreme Sports [21:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The gestalt principles of perception - how do they explain how we not only sometimes perceive strange things, but also how we can appreciate works of art? In this episode I take a close look at why people see a lot of strange things around them - including me. We’ll see images on lemon slices, floor panels, building tops, etc. Why do we perceive these things?

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Resources for this Podcast

• Perceptual Set Experiment: go here to do the "Man on a horse" experiment I created. You can run this experiment on your friends, or even use it for a project in class. Have fun with it and let me know if you’ve got any feedback/suggestions. NOTE: The control condition is the "condition 1" button (random pictures which are unrelated to the man on the horse). The experimental condition is the "condition 2" button (pictures of animals which should help the viewer more easily see the man on the horse).

Here are a few sites which further explain some of the Gestalt principles of organization:

• You can learn how psychological gestalt principles apply to web design at the Web Design for Instruction site
• And more about psychological gestalt principles from the Spokane Falls Community College Graphic Design website.
• Here’s the NASA site where you’ll find the "Face On Mars" pictures.
• Here’s a good site which describes the gestalt principles. It’s from the Interaction Design website.

 

 Episode 31: Lemon Slices and a New Face on Mars! Gestalt Principles at Work [19:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I decided that it was time to look at the biology behind the changes that occur in our lives as we grow. As I put my ideas together to do this, I employed a very neat program called Timeliner. It is so cool in fact that I decided to do an episode solely on how to use Timeliner, especially the tool called “merge”. If you are an educator I think you’ll find this episode interesting. It shows how to use Timeliner to compare timelines that focus on different aspects of life - in this case I merge Erikson’s stages with significant events in my life and then with some of the significant the physical changes that occur in everyone’s life as we age. In part 2 I’ll talk more about these changes, but in this episode I just wanted to share how great a program Timeliner is. This is an uncompensated endorsement of this great program. I wanted to share how this program could be an example of what Jonnassen calls a “mindtool”. Hope you find this interesting.

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Resources for this podcast

• Go to the Tom Snyder Productions website where you can purchase Timeliner and explore development across the lifespan.
• I mention Jonassen in the podcast. Here is a link to his text on mindtools.

Related Episodes

Other information on Erikson can be found in these podcasts:

• Interviews with individuals in the different stages of Erikson’s model can be found in episode 21.

• Part 2 of this series on Erikson’s stages can be found in episode 24.

• Part 3 of this series on Erikson’s stages can be found in episode 25.

 

 The Brains Behind Erikson part 1 Timeliner [14:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It is time to take a look at the cars we drive and find out what they say about ourselves - our personalities and our lifestyles. This week on The Psych Files.

Many thanks to Frank Fasano for doing the interviews with the many fine folks who come to the Rhinebeck Antique Auto Show.

 

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In this video episode we look at what your bowling style says about you and about human nature in general. And by the way, why do you keep pressing that elevator button?

Watch episode 11 showing how principles of behaviorism can explain your bowling style. Click the video below.

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Resources for this episode

• Go to the book Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research at Amazon.
• Watch a great video on YouTube which shows how the principles of behaviorism were used to train a parakeet to play golf and basketball.

 

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Do Birds of a Feather Flock together or do Opposites Attract? That’s the question we examine this week on the first video episode of The Psych Files.

I got a little ambitious and decided to do a video podcast. One of my favorite topics (I suppose many people’s favorite topics) has to do with how romantic relationships begin and why some relationships flourish while others don’t. Well, this is a topic that psychologists have studied in great depth and some time back I had one of my classes conduct a survey on the topic. So this video podcast has 3 parts: 1) a little background on 3 theories which relate to how relationships begin, 2) a quick overview of the survey my class and I created, and 3) a look at the results using a very neat new program called InspireData (from the Inspiration concept mapping people). I really had fun putting the video podcast together and I hope you find it informative. If you’ve got a moment let me know what you think.

 

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