Learning From The Best

Teaching legend Wilbert McKeachie shared lessons learned in 60 years of teaching during his James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award Address on Saturday. McKeachie was interviewed by longtime friend and colleague William Buskist. In preparing for the event, Buskist asked 67 psychology teachers, “If you could ask Bill McKeachie one question, what would it be?” 47 psychologists submitted a total of 101 questions (no one ever said psychologists followed parameters).  Buskist picked some of the most interesting and frequently asked to pose to McKeachie. The result was a varied tour of a great teaching mind, from general questions about keeping both students and faculty engaged over the course of a semester or a career to specific issues like dealing with personal values when teaching and why to avoid sarcasm in the classroom.  With an unparalleled body of knowledge about teaching and learning, McKeachie provided the audience with valuable lessons in the crucial task of education. 

-Ann Conkle

Ekman on ‘Lie to Me’

On Saturday afternoon, Paul Ekman and Robert Levenson brought a little Hollywood to the APS Convention with “Prime Time Psychology: Science is the Story in ‘Lie to Me.’ ‘Lie to Me,’ a new Fox television show this year, follows the work of the fictional Cal Lightman, a psychological researcher and “Human Lie Detector” with abilities based on Ekman’s work on human expression and emotion. Ekman was joined by Josh Singer, a writer and producer for the show, to discuss the science behind the series and the process of turning statistically significant results into dramatically significant television.  (more…)

Emotional Rollercoaster

Although we can all fly off the handle every now and then, our ability to control and deal with our emotions is a critical tool in our interpersonal relationships and career success. In the wide-ranging theme program “Emotional Ups and Downs: Experiencing, Self-Regulating, and Capitalizing on Affect,” researchers from a variety of disciplines (industrial/organizational psychology, developmental, cognitive, and neuroscience) explained their different approaches to the study of emotional regulation. (more…)

Bower Hour

“Science is not only intellectual but a social enterprise,” Gordon Bower stated matter of factly to his interviewer Walter Mischel during the “Inside the Psychologist’s Studio” event today. This was one of the many words of wisdom imparted by the National Medal of Science Winner during the interview which explored the life of one of this century’s most influential psychologists. 

Bower was born in a small town in Ohio and was fueled by a need to succeed from a young age. Knowing that his father sacrificed a career in academics to return home to take care of his ailing parents, only to have to support a growing family during the depression, Bower was determined to live the life that his father was never able to have. The only question was: Would he become a baseball star or a psychologist?

Bower was a highly sought after high school baseball stud, but went to Case Western Reserve University instead of joining the major leagues. There, he found experimental psychology. From that point forward, Bower immersed himself in quantitative studies comparing the joy of statistics to the feeling of hitting 3 home runs in one game. 

To say Bower is passionate about academics is an understatement. Although he is retired, Bower “wanders around” Stanford University attending classes from European Literature to Art and Architecture. He truly is a perpetual student.

-Catherine Allen-West

Overheard at APS

“I’ll give you $40 for that teal APS shirt!” -registration

“Alan knows how to throw a party!” -Exhibit Hall

“I think they are psychologists, but they are all really attractive and well-dressed, maybe they are model psychologists.” -Hotel guest in the elevator

“This is so cool! This is mad psychology” -Registration Desk

“Normally I would say every other day, but APS is an exception, you should shower everyday when you come here.” - Exhibit Hall

“APS blue is the new yellow.” - Member commenting on the highlighters at the APS booth

Hear something interesting? Let us know in the comments.

The Architecture of the Mind

This morning began with the first theme program of the convention, “The Architecture of the Mind.” This unique program brought together six speakers from fields ranging from psychology to neuroscience to anthropology to discuss their recent findings about how behaviors are influenced by genes and environment, how the architecture of the mind is formed, and how behavior can shape the mind. 

Dario Maestripieri kicked off this program by showing compelling evidence that physical abuse runs in families and that genetic factors may be implicated. Next, Daniel M.T. Fessler described his work on disgust, suggesting that this reaction evolved from keeping us from ingesting toxins to playing a role in reproduction: His data suggests that women are more disgusted by certain sexual behaviors when they are most likely to conceive. Akira Miyake then presented results of twin studies that suggest a strong link between behavioral problems in childhood and executive-function abilities in adulthood.  (more…)

Navigating Gender Issues

Gender stereotypes were put to the test in Nora S. Newcombe’s Psi Chi Distinguished lecture entitled “Women Hate Maps, Men Won’t Ask for Directions: Fact or Myth?”

Newcombe began her talk by contending that any differences between the sexes in navigation ability has been overblown and is not supported by research. While there are some real differences between the sexes in spatial functioning (men are more skilled at mental rotation, horizontality and verticality tasks and mechanical reasoning) any discrepancies between the sexes in navigation abilities cannot be directly attributed to actual differences in spatial ability. (more…)

Day 1 in Pictures

The Texas Combat PTSD Risk Project

Part of the brutal toll of war is psychological. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is disrupting the lives and health of an estimated 13 to 18% of soldiers returning home after their tours in Iraq. For those seeking to uncover the mechanisms underlying PTSD, assessing soldiers not only after their return from the battlefield but also before and during their deployment provides a unique opportunity for prospective research.

This is the rationale of the Texas Combat PTSD Risk Project. Prior to their Iraq deployment, a sample of soldiers from Ft. Hood spent a day at the imaging center at University of Texas, undergoing a range of assessments (genetic, neuroimaging, psychological, cognitive, and hormonal response to stress challenge). The project leader Michael J. Telch began today’s symposium by discussing the study design and some of its preliminary findings. (more…)

Beyond Challenge and Skill

Decades ago, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi revolutionized the study of optimal experience with his concept of “flow,” a state in which we feel pleasurably engaged by challenges and, in so doing, lose our sense of self and time. Csikszentmihalyi believed that such a flow state occurred whenever the challenges of a task before us were matched by our skills in accomplishing it. More recent research has refined the idea, though, and uncovered inconsistencies with the original theory. The seminar this morning, organized by Munich psychologist Kaspar P. Schattke, brought together several researchers trying to answer the paradoxes of flow in different ways. (more…)