For love or honour? The case of arranged marriages.

Travis DixonLove and Marriage, Teaching Ideas

The idea of arranged marriages is an inherently interesting topic and one that hits close to home in many cultures. Would (or will) you marry someone you weren’t in love with? This is the same question Levine et al. (1995) asked their participants when comparing across cultures the role of love in forming a relationship. Teaching Tip: I like to …

Lesson Idea: Murder Mystery – Who killed the marriage?

Travis DixonLove and Marriage

The Murder Mystery activity is another one credited to a workshop with the late Paul Ginnis some years back. The details can be found in his book. This idea goes along with the lesson “Negative Communication” in the Love and Marriage chapter. However, the murder mystery is an excellent problem-solving and collaboration activity that can be applied to any content. …

Lesson Idea: Reviewing Studies

Travis DixonRevision and Exam Preparation

I came up with this basic idea yesterday as I was putting together my student workbook for the Love and Marriage unit. In this entire unit (Chapter 5 of the student’s guide) there are four key studies applicable to the following topics: Hormones and behaviour (Bio) Evolution and behaviour (Bio) Methods and Ethics (Evolution – Bio) Methods and Ethics (Hormones …

The Evolution of Attraction: Extra Resources

Travis DixonBiological Psychology, Teaching Ideas

The study of attraction is definitely one of my favourite topics. Because there’s so much interesting research in this field, I thought I’d create this post to “dump” some extra resources that you might find interesting. WARNING FOR STUDENTS: Many of the “studies” in the videos below have been replicated for the purposes of TV entertainment. They are to be used …

Experiment Results: Is an evaluation distinguishable from a discussion?

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Curriculum, Revision and Exam Preparation, Teaching Ideas

After writing and sharing a recent post, I got some questions regarding the validity of my claim that a good evaluation and discussion are indistinguishable. So I decided to put it to the test by writing an example essay following the essay structure I advise for students and seeing if it was obvious which command term was being used. I gathered …

What is “an evolutionary explanation of behaviour?”

Travis DixonBiological Psychology

Offering an evolutionary explanation of behaviour can be more difficult than it first appears, so I want to show two ways to do this. I don’t teach evolution and behaviour as an individual topic in my course, as there are multiple behaviours that are applicable including fear, aggression (both in Criminology), attraction (Love and Marriage) and fear conditioning (PTSD). This …