Why do we enjoy gaming? We enjoy problem solving!

Ok, today I went to a workshop to learn a bit more about creating an online course and today's workshop was specifically about "Content Interactions" which is basically, how can we get onlines students to engage with course content, other students, and the instructor.

One of the most common ways of course is to create and use 'activities' which often include games or simulations. Same thing. And one of the reasons why such activities have been successful is that we like games! How many hours have you 'wasted away' playing angry birds, xbox games, WOW, Star Wars online, or some other video game? Hell, how many of you have spent a lot of time and money at casinos playing poker or the slots? The skinny I learned today is ultimately we are addicted to problem solving. And "When we're playing games, we're not suffering."

I had shared on facebook a while back about a 4th grade teacher, John Hunter, who in order to teach his class about global conflict, he has created a game for them to play, "The World Peace Game". He was interviewed by CBS This Morning and he is also on Ted talks.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50144133n

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_on_the_world_peace_game.html

http://www.worldpeacegame.org/

Well, in the workshop, I found out about another brilliant person, Jane McGonical, who was approached the World Bank Group "to create a game as a direct response to African demands – namely, universities’ request to develop ideas to engage students in real world problems and to develop capacities for creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Developing nations face steep challenges, and resources in these areas can be limited. These challenges demand the most robust and innovative of solutions.
EVOKE was also conceived as a crash-course in changing the world. It is a chance to showcase the kind of resourceful innovation and creative problem-solving that is happening today in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions, and to collectively imagine how the lessons from those scenarios can transfer, scale, and ultimately benefit the entire planet.
The World Bank Institute, the capacity-building arm of the World Bank, is a global connector of knowledge, learning and innovation for poverty reduction. One of its objectives is to create new platforms for learning, and knowledge exchanges to help practitioners construct their own development solutions and innovative approaches.
EVOKE is such a platform for open innovation. It is designed to support new ideas and collaboration, not to push existing solutions."

http://www.urgentevoke.com/ (this is the website to the game)

http://janemcgonigal.com/ (this is Jane's website, which includes videos from Teds talk, cnn, and others as well as information about her book "Reality is Broken" and more cool and awesome information)

Addendum:

A friend of mine sent me this link, very interesting addition to the conversation!

http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The-Science-Behind-Shaping-Player

Another Addendum:

Video Gamers Really Do See More: Gamers Capture More Information Faster for Visual Decision-Making

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130611161943.htm

Two interesting perspectives on violence

On facebook today, I first saw a Ted talks video by Dr. Jackson Katz on Violence & Silence. I found it extremely interesting in that Dr. Katz presents a "Bystander Approach" to violence prevention. I really like how he looks at the fundamental underlying language, how it's used, and (as I don't have a penis) a male perspective on the difference between sensitivity and leadership.

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Violence-Silence-Jackson-Katz-P


As I looked down the comments on the facebook link, one commenter (who disagreed with Dr. Katz's lecture) posted a link to another speaker's video on "Continuing distortions about intimate partner abuse." This speaker, Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, points out how the misuse of statistical information (some even outright make believe numbers) that keeps getting used even after they have been shown to be untrue, has distorted our perception of abuse and in turn does a disservice to victims of violence.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmfCB_IVkOc


Now, I honestly do not understand why the person who posted Dr. Sommers video seems to think that what she says negates anything that Dr. Katz says. To me, they both actually have a similar underlying message. Violence is a human problem, not necessarily specific to one gender. Also, misinformation, ignorance, and silence make the problem worse.

Also, both mention a documentary called "MissRepresentation." Now I must see it to find out what they are talking about.

Bottom line, in my humble opinion, go through out the day and try not to be an asshole to someone else. There's a start.

(If it's not clear, some of the social psychology topics that I see tying into this includes at a minimum: gender, aggression, ingroups & outgroups, social identity, institutional supports, leadership, social scripts, altered perceptions, self-censorship and the illusion of unanimity, conformative influence, informational influence, prejudice, bystander effects, confirmation bias, lying with statistics and research ethics)

Articles specific to social cognitions (thinking) that occur everyday

I know I know, I can’t help myself. I was reading a few articles again, and I found several that I thought might add to your understanding or give a different perspective of some concepts that were in chapter two, The Self in a Social World. One of those concepts was “possible selves” (images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future). I thought this article was interesting because it is about some research that was done on how we actually view our ‘future selves’ as different people. On a neurological level even!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/business/another-theory-on-why-bad-habits-are-hard-to-break-shortcuts.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1348868847-VdNWtOIY/qX9sFFalvtfOg

Chapter three discussed mental heuristics (a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments). I found this little about a book that came out fairly recently (2010) about how we can override these mental shortcuts.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2010/09/20/does-trusting-your-instincts-make-sense

Chapter three also discussed self-handicapping (protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure). Here’s a little article about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/01/science/new-research-illuminates-self-defeating-behavior.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

And this one on the “what-the-hell effect” (what I consider one of the biggest handy excuses for failure)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/changepower/201111/beware-the-what-the-hell-effect-especially-holidays

Cracked.com How I love you!

There are many wonderfully humorous articles on the Cracked.com website. I have found a few that really really apply to social psychology. First let me say that yes, I am fully cognizant of the fact that Cracked.com is primarily humor based blogs with occasional adult only content. Now you know too, so don't complain if you see something adult oriented.

The first article I want to share with everyone is “5 Scientific Ways the Internet is Dividing Us”
http://www.cracked.com/article_19860_5-scientific-ways-internet-dividing-us.html

This particular little gem provides some intriguing and critical information, evaluation and dialogue about the nepharious ways group polarization is being pushed to the extreme. Please read the entire article to get the lowdown dirty details. But for those that can't wait here's the list:

#5 New algorithms that make sure you only talk to people you agree with
#4 New methods to make misinformation spread faster
#3 User-submitted news sites that create thought bubbles
#2 Discussion formats that encourage us to be negative
#1 The divisive gap between internet users and everyone else

If that doesn't wet your appetite to actually read the article there's no damn hope.

The second article I wanted to share with everyone is "The 6 cruelest science experiments ever done were done on kids"

http://www.cracked.com/article_19993_the-6-cruelest-science-experiments-ever-were-done-kids.html

This article provides an interesting perspective on some very classic well known studies many of which are from the field of psychology. I will be honest here. I've known about most of these for a very long time. It never occured to me that they could be considered cruel in any way. This article gave me something to think about for sure. I always learn a bit more when I try to look at things from someone else's perspective. Please read the article and see what you think. I bet most of you have heard of at least a few of these studies. Here's the list to get you going:

#6 Put kids in the wilderness, make them go to war
#5 Programming kids for violence, then turning them loose on a clown
#4 The broken toy experiment
#3 Tempting babies to crawl off a cliff
#2 Using orphans as practice babies
#1 Turning a ruined penis into a lifelong experiment

 

Technology today and social interaction

Is your smart phone making you lonely?

As the cell phone turns 40 years old, you might think that the technology has brought people closer together, but new research shows it can leave us feeling disconnected. Barbara Fredrickson, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Nick Bilton, technology columnist at the New York Times, and Sherry Turkle, a psychology professor at MIT, discuss the pros and cons of mobile phones.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50144131n

Some specific quotes of interest to me:

"Texting gives us the feeling that we can hide from each other, we can construct our texts to be who we want to be. We can create a self where we can hide in plain sight."

"If you don't teach your children how to be alone, they'll only know how to be lonely."

"You get the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship."

"Friends don't let friends lose their capacity for humanity."

Benefits of face-to-face communication:

• Triggers feel-good hormones
• Strengthens brain-heart connection
• Lowers blood pressure
• Boosts immune system

I found this entire segment very interesting, especially as a business owner with employees that have grown up with cell phones in their hands and seem to have difficulty in the business world helping customers in face-to-face situations. We are actually starting some training specifically in building confidence and communication skills. I am actually excited about this and will be participating in the training as well.

Stephen Fry: A brilliant man! Provides an incredible perspective on life and social interaction.

http://vimeo.com/11414505

Dove Experiment and "The Looking-Glass Self"

The textbook I use for my social psychology class, Social Psychology, 10th ed. by David G. Myers talks a little bit in chapter 2 about sociologist Charles Cooley's theory of The Looking-Glass Self, which describes how we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving themselves. Another sociologist, George Herbert Mead (1934) expanded this concept, saying that it is not how others actually see us, but how we imagine they see us that is important to our self-concept. The bottom line according to Mead is that since people generally praise rather than criticize, we may overestimate others' appraisal in turn inflating our egos. This self-inflation is found mostly in Western countries.

Now that all being said, I have always wondered if there was some gender bias in that idea, that we overestimate and therefore inflate our egos. In other words, "Is that a 'male' thing?" Because as a woman in western society, I have often observed and felt the opposite. Then, I saw the "Dove Experiment" on youtube. And then that made me wonder if they did this experiment on males, would it turn out the same? Honestly, I think it would. Of course, I could totally be wrong. Anyway, it's one of those things that makes me wonder...

Watch the Dove experiment yourself and see what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk

ADDENDUM!!!!!!

OMG, I know the following is supposed to be a parody of the other previous one, but it's kind of what I envisioned in my mind how this experiment would go with male participants. Go ahead and watch for a laugh! Now, I still don't know how this would turn out if actually done for real.

Emotions are Chemicals

Dr. Knight once explained to us that emotions were simply chemicals. I saw this graphic and it made me think of him. For those who don't know, Dr. Knight was one of my mentors and the Dept. Chair of the Psychology Department at UCO. He was also the my Master's Thesis Committee Chair.

Addendum!!! Hummm, looking back I should put a date on my add-ons ;P Oh well, I will from now on.

Picked up a new definition of Emotion (which really goes well with the Schachter & Singer 2-factor theory of emotion, actually, their theory states that emotion is a function of both cognitive factors and physiological arousal, that "people search the immediate environment for emotionally relevant cues to label and interpret unexplained physiological arousal.") 

The new definition is from Timber Hawkeye, in his Buddhism Boot Camp book--"Emotions are feelings with a story attached to them."

Another Addendum (April 3, 2014)!!!

I just have to share this youtube series I found called Experts in Emotion Series with Jane Gruber by YaleCourses, it's pretty frakken awesome!

What do social psychology, physics, and mosh pits have in common?

What do social psychology, physics, and mosh pits have in common?

Check out this NPR article and find out!

Mosh Pit Math: Physicists Analyze Rowdy Crowd

by Geoff Brumfiel

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/22/174962714/mosh-pit-math-physicists-analyze-rowdy-crowd

The bottom line?

The new mosh pit research could be interesting for another reason. In emergencies people panic, and the movement rules they follow change. Mosh pits might provide clues about the new rules.
"We hope that this will provide a lens into looking at other extreme situations such as riots and protests and escape panic," Bierbaum says.

Yes, my first blog.

I'm an adjunct at the University of Central Oklahoma and I teach Social Psychology in the Sociology Department. I'm working on creating the class to be taught online at UCO. I figured before I ask my students to potentially create a blog for the course, I should try myself first.

What is Social Psychology? It is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. In other words, it is everywhere we are.

What do I want my students to get out of Social Psychology? I will borrow from Dr. David G. Myers in saying that I want my students to know that knowledge of social psychology has "the power to restrain intuition with critical thinking, illusion with understanding, and judgmentalism with compassion."

What I plan to do with this blog is start posting anything I think relates to social psychology and explain why.