Abstract
Introductory psychology courses are generally designed primarily for pre-professional training and organized like traditional textbooks, that is, topical (overviews of various sub-disciplines of psychological discourse without specific concern for ordering of material or forging connections between topics); ahistorical (insufficient attention to how past discoveries inform present theory and research), and insulated and isolated from other academic disciplines. Such courses are often unsuccessful in college settings, where professors must prepare prospective majors for future study and pre-professional training, while simultaneously engaging and informing other students with more general interests in the liberal arts. In this chapter I present an overview of my effort to transform introductory psychology from a topical, a-historical, academically insular venture to a “sequential hierarchy of multimodal interdisciplinary recursive experiences.”
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
I use different materials each semester. In Spring 2012, students read Shedler and Block (1990) and Cohen, Sullivan, Solomon, Greenberg, and Ogilvie (2011) to get a sense of how research is actually conducted (about questions that have traditionally been dismissed as not being amenable to empirical inquiry); Rice (1997) as an example of flawed research (where dubious findings and erroneous conclusions are subsequently magnified by Steven Pinker’s (2002) uncritical acceptance of them in The Blank Slate); and, Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid (1977) and Haselton and Gildersleeve (2011) as examples of fine research devoted to interesting areas of inquiry.
- 2.
Skidmore students, like those in most introductory psychology courses, are required to serve as participants in research projects. Although this requirement is primarily imposed to serve researchers’ interests, participating in experiments is a great way to get a first-hand glimpse of how research is actually conducted, and at Skidmore we insist that experimenters provide thorough debriefings so that (in addition to the ethical imperatives) introductory students learn something of substantive value from their experiences. Indeed, my own interest in experimental social psychology was gestated in part from participating in a study of self-serving biases as an undergraduate majoring in chemistry at the time.
- 3.
Ideally this kind of conceptual and historical framing should be provided in introductory psychology texts, but I find this lacking in most contemporary books. In my opinion, only the earliest (first and second editions) of Henry Gleitman’s classic Psychology (Norton, originally published in 1981) approximated what I believe should be standard fare in this regard. I currently use the 2nd edition of Psychology by Schacter, Gilbert, & Wegner (Worth, 2010) because it is fairly rigorous and student friendly (i.e., easy to read and peppered with contemporary examples from popular culture and humorous throughout).
- 4.
In a recursive fashion at timely moments in the course; for example, in the first part of the course students learn that continuous positive reinforcement is effective for rapid acquisition of a desired response that is however extinguished rapidly when rewards are discontinued. Then in anticipation of studying different approaches to psychotherapy, I ask students to ponder how token economies designed by behaviorists might work to reduce hoarding by OCD patients, and hope that they can extrapolate from what they learned earlier in the term to posit that token economies based on continuous reinforcement are effective in clinical settings as long as reinforcement persists, and recognize the benefits and pitfalls of this kind of clinical intervention.
- 5.
I offer the examples in this paragraph for illustrative purposes, rather than as an exhaustive account of materials that I have used over the years, or as prescriptions for other instructors.
- 6.
I use printed handouts rather than PowerPoint presentations because my sense is that students are conditioned by massive prior exposure to PowerPoint to pay attention only to bulleted information and doze otherwise.
- 7.
For example, in response to students’ suggestions: there are currently four exams during the semester rather than three in the original version of the course; I do not lecture for one or two class sessions per term to give students an opportunity for careful and thorough reading of the text and associated primary materials; and, students are encouraged to write to me after each exam to provide an intellectual justification for erroneous responses that I then consider and sometimes award credit for.
References
Aristotle. (1995). De Anima. In S. M. Cohen, P. Curd, & C. D. C. Reeve (Eds.), Readings in ancient Greek philosophy (from Thales to Aristotle). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
Boyer, E. L., Taylor, P., & Boyer, L. (2012). Highlights of the Carnegie report: The scholarship of teaching from “Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate”. College Teaching, 39(1), 11–13.
Cohen, F., Sullivan, D., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Ogilvie, D. M. (2011). Finding Everland: Flight fantasies and the desire to transcend mortality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(1), 88–102.
Darwin, C. (1859/1999). The origin of species. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Haselton, M. G., & Gildersleeve, K. (2011). Can men detect ovulation? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(2), 87–92.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Pinker, S. (2002). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. New York, NY: Viking.
Rice, M. E. (1997). Violent offender research and implications for the criminal justice system. The American Psychologist, 52(4), 414–423.
Shedler, J., & Block, J. (1990). Adolescent drug use and psychological health: A longitudinal inquiry. The American Psychologist, 45(5), 612–630.
Skinner, B. F. (1973). The free and happy student. Phi Delta Kappan, 55(1), 13–16.
Snyder, M., Tanke, E. D., & Berscheid, E. (1977). Social perception and interpersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(9), 656–666.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Solomon, S. (2013). Creatively Teaching Introductory Psychology in Liberal Arts Institutions. In: Gregerson, M., Kaufman, J., Snyder, H. (eds) Teaching Creatively and Teaching Creativity. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5185-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5185-3_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5184-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5185-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)