Dear Students:
As many of you may know, we have a thriving Psychology Club here at Ohlone College. One of the most visible and active clubs on campus, the Psychology Club regularly hosts guest speakers, organizes off-campus field trips, has regular fund raisers, and engages in regular discussions related to the field of psychology.
Our meetings are held every Tuesday, from 3:30- 4:30 pm.
We meet in Room 7107 (in the new Student Services Building).
Please join our Facebook page (see sidebar on this blog) for more info and updates.
Past events have included:
- Anthony Pratkanis, UC Santa Cruz professor of psychology, who discussed the psychology of persuasion and con-artists in "How to Sell FlimFlam"
- Eugenie C. Scott, anthropologist and proponent of Evolution who battles creationists who want to bring religion into the science classroom
- Philip Zimbardo, author of the famed Stanford Prison Experiment, about Evil vs. Heroism
- Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com called "Health Scams and Myths"
- Kim Peek (The Real Rain Man) and his father Fran
- Michael Shermer, best-selling author, skeptic, and psychologist speaking on "Why People Believe Weird Things"
- a field trip to the Body Worlds exhibit at the San Jose Tech Museum
- a visit by representatives from Furry Friends Pet Therapy (and their humans)
- a talk by local psychiatrist Dr John Cotrufo on schizophrenia and mental disorder diagnosis
- a field trip to hear Stanford University's Dr William C. Dement, world renowned sleep specialist
- a field trip to meet Kim Peek, a man with Savant Syndrome, and the inspiration for the movie "Rain Man"
- touring the Glankler School for children with autism and other behavioral difficulties
- regular "Donut Days" sales to raise money for the club, and many other fun events
See you there!
-- Sheldon
James Randi's reputation as a magician and escape artist is a matter of world renown. Although he 
occasionally still performs small feats, most of his current efforts involve his work as a tireless investigator and demystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Utilizing a keen scientific mind, Randi - as he prefers to be called - examines claims of paranormal powers and activities all over the world.
In 1996, Randi founded the James Randi Education Foundation (JREF) which offers a prize of $1 million for anyone who can, UNDER SCIENTIFIC CONDITIONS, demonstrate supernatural or paranormal abilities or phenomena. Although none of the professionals we see on television have taken him up on the challenge, hundreds of others have applied over the years. Needless to say, the prize remains unclaimed...and I think we all have a good idea why.
If you would like to watch the entire video Secrets of the Psychics, CLICK HERE (it's in 6 parts).
To watch a video introduction to Randi and his work, click the image below.
Spring Semester text books for my classes are shown below. If you use the ISBN displayed here, you can be certain that you're purchasing the exact book I am teaching from.
This information is also available in the Ohlone College Bookstore on campus, with classes organized in the store by department, instructor, and course. Just ask any of the floor staff to help you find the section marked "Psychology," and find the book(s) with my name on the tag.
General Psychology (PSY 101):
- Exploring Psychology, 8th edition (David G. Myers)
- ISBN: 978-1429238267
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Social Psychology (PSY 112):
- Social Psychology: Goals in Interaction, 4th edition (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini)
- ISBN: 978-0-205-49395-1
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Abnormal Psychology (PSY 115) BUY BOTH OF THE FOLLOWING:
- Abnormal Psychology, 9th edition (Alloy, Riskind, & Manos)
- ISBN: 978-0072422986
- Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology (Lilienfield, et al.)
- ISBN: 1593850700
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Note bene: It doesn't much matter to me how you get these books (in the campus bookstore, online, through a friend, etc.), but I cannot hold lectures or tests because you're still awaiting your book's arrival.
Last night's talk by Dr Anthony Pratkanis was a HUGE success! He packed the Jackson Theater,
and wow'ed the crowd with information about con artists and the power of The Big 5 persuasion tactics. Much of the credit goes to the members of the Ohlone College Psychology Club who pulled off running this even like pros.
If you missed the talk, Pratkanis' book is available in the Ohlone Bookstore, and many of his findings are also available on the Internet. It's really worth a read!
In the meantime, enjoy this informational video he helped create for the AARP to educate older adults about how to spot con artists who target the elderly:
As we all experience and share (perhaps a bit too much?) shock over the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, we might do well to take a step back and look at the biggest lesson in the story.
Jobs announced about seven years ago that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and took his time telling Apple's board of directors and shareholders. That created quite a scandal since, as Apple's lead visionary and the "face" of the company, his life was important for more than one reason. What should have created a much bigger scandal, but didn't, was the fact that Jobs refused conventional (e.g., REAL) medical treatment, opting instead to take the advice of a "naturopath," concentrating on treating his cancer by eating certain types of food.
There's no scientific basis for thinking that a special diet will cure any type of cancer, including the one Jobs had been diagnosed with. So, doing this, Jobs illustrates that being a creative innnovator in one area doesn't necessarily make you a good critical thinker. For those of you who have heard about the high death rate for pancreatic cancer, and who are thinking to yourselves, "What difference does it make?", think again. Steve Jobs had a rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which is quite treatable if caught in the early stages (as Jobs had) and treated immediately. He could have lived much longer than the decade or so survival rate that is the average in cases like his. Instead, he delayed treatment and ate the food that some wacko "naturopath" told him would cure his cancer. And seven years later, he's dead.
The question of why people choose to believe in "alternative" medicine (there's no such thing, by the way...if it works, it's called medicine) is baffling. It's also one of the many con's that utilizes the psychological persuasion techniques that will be discussed in Anthony Pratkanis' talk on October 28th. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, see my blog post below and join us. It should prove fascinating!
The general consensus among many Americans is that most (if not all) of the differences between the sexes is due to societal pressures. Commercials show girls playing with dolls, so little girls copy this behavior and become more "nurturing." Movies show males engaged in violence or working on car engines, so boys follow suit and become boxers and auto mechanics.
But what if these tendencies are in our biology? Research with rhesus monkeys has shed some light on this question, showing that we may not be as "programmed" by society as you think.
CLICK HERE to read a report about this research (with embedded video of the monkeys playing with toys, so you know it's adorable).
Dear Students,
CLICK HERE to be taken to the wonderful Brainz.org website where they summarize what they describe as "The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments" in history. Although some might add (or subtract) from the list, it certainly contains some extremely interesting and enlightening studies, some of which you might know about but would like to know more.
1. Robber's Cave - Social Identity
2. The Stanford Prison Experiment - Power Corrupts
3. Milgram Shock Machine - Obedience to Authority
4. Solomon Asch - Conformity
5. Lying to Ourselves - Cognitive Dissonance
6. Elizabeth Loftus - Memory Manipulation
7. George Miller's "Magic Number 7" - Short-Term Memory Limits
8. Mass Panic - War of the Worlds
9. The Bargaining Table - Why Threats Don't Work
10. Risky Behavior - Prospect Theory and "The Framing Effect"
Enjoy!
-- Sheldon
I'm never quite sure how posts like this one will be approached by my students. After 25 years of being immersed in Psychology, one tends to lose perspective on whether something is exciting to the general public or only to those of us in the field.
At any rate, I recently ran across one of the most valuable web-based collections of historical documents from the history of Psychology. CLICK HERE to visit a site that houses dozens of original journal articles and other writings from some of the biggest names in the field: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Gordon Allport, Muzafer Sherif, B.F. Skinner, Harry Harlow, Carl Rogers, Ivan Pavlov, Abraham Maslow, Wilhelm Wundt, John B. Watson, Fritz Heider, and Alfred Binet, just to name a few!
Although many of these names may be unfamiliar to you (and some may be downright foreign), the contributions of these people to our understanding of human behavior and the inner workings of the mind cannot be overstated. In this collection, we find some of their most important works, all easily browsed by name or by category of study.
Enjoy!
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