Why do marriages end in divorce? A cognitive explanation

Travis DixonCognitive Psychology, Human Relationships, Love and Marriage

The material in this post will help students who are studying for the Human Relationships option and want to make sure they can answer any possible question about the topic: “Personal relationships.” Understanding why marriages may deteriorate and end in divorce is key in preparing to answer questions relating to the topic “why relationships may change or end. Perhaps the …

Review Idea: Key Study Jenga

Travis DixonUncategorized

I’m sure this idea has probably been around for years, but I’ve never seen it so here’s what I came up the other day as I spied a jenga set in a classroom. This review idea would work well at the end of the course before exams. It might be an idea to give to students to do for themselves …

Lesson Idea – Understanding Etiologies With a Case Study

Travis DixonAbnormal Psychology, Biological Psychology, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Teaching Ideas

This lesson is designed to help students understand how reduced function in the vmPFC might be connected with symptoms of PTSD. As with other similar lesson ideas, it tries to make the abstract more concrete by giving real-life examples.  The Activity Students are to read the following summary of Due, a fictionary Vietnamese War vetern. After reading the summary, they …

Lesson Idea: Kahn the Caveman

Travis DixonAbnormal Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Teaching Ideas

This lesson comes from the PTSD unit/chapter and will help students understand an evolutionary explanation of the effects of stress (emotion) on memory. It also helps consolidate learning about fear conditioning, which is a key concept in the study of PTSD. Kahn the Caveman! Kahn is living 40,000 years ago. He’s part of a hunter-gatherer tribe living in Southern Europe. …

Essay Writing Tips: Three Rules of Three

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Revision and Exam Preparation

If you’re learning how to write essays in IB Psychology or looking for good tips to pass on to your students, I would suggest the following “Three Rules of Threes.” #1: Three Parts to an Essay Every good essay has three parts (excluding the introductions and conclusions): Central argument/s Supporting Evidence Counter argument/s The central argument is where you address …

Can perceptual illusions teach us tolerance?

Travis DixonGeneral Interest

Warning: This post is me rambling and thinking out-loud. “I don’t know how on Earth you can see a black and blue dress, when that’s clearly white and gold.” “Are you mad. What? What? You’re messing with me, right? They’re definitely grey and blue sneakers. Where the heck are you seeing pink and white?” These were some of the things …

So you want to assess ethical considerations?

Travis DixonResearch Methodology, Teaching Ideas

One way of evaluating studies in psychology is to consider whether or not the study might have ethical issues. When evaluating ethics, many students want to jump straight to condemning studies by saying something like, “This study was unethical because…”  I would refrain from making such condemnations and using this definitive language because it’s often very hard to completely write-off …

What should we include in a mock exam? (Year One)

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Teaching Ideas

The guidance in this post is going to be most helpful for teachers who are: teaching a two year course using our textbook, IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide  …and are following a similar course structure to the one I’ve proposed here. (i.e. Criminology, Social Influence and Quantitative Methods covered in Year One). Here’s what I include in my End-Of-Year Exam for …