Intro to Psych: A Roadmap for Life

Matthew Hutson, the news editor at Psychology Today, recently asked contributors to come up with a research finding that caused a significant change in their behavior. My problem was not so much thinking of one but of narrowing it down to the first fifty. I have often said that if only students paid stricter attention during Psych 101, it would do more to prepare them for life than any other class. Why should this be so? Because the lessons laid out in the introductory textbook explain and demystify every bit of behavior you’re likely to encounter during the rest of your time on the planet

Had John Dean not been looking out the window during the lecture on Authoritarianism, he might have better understood the machinations that transpired during his years in the Nixon Whitehouse. Not until the Bush era  –  when he wrote Conservatives Without Conscience  –  did it finally click. How many others are still wondering what happened? And how many more are relying on Confirmation Bias to convince themselves it didn’t really happen?

Along with the economic collapse came the realization that corporate CEOs actually pull down hundreds of millions while their minions go home with tens of thousands. Or maybe they don’t go home…because their houses have been foreclosed. So here there were two chapters missed in that General Psychology text. One involved all the insights from classic run away markets (like the South Sea Island Bubble and the Tulip Mania) that were forgotten or, more likely, never learned. The other involved motivation. Everyone seemed to forget that paying out fantastic sums of money is counterproductive when there’s a job to be done. Those CEOs didn’t have to like what they did or take pride in what they did. In short, the salaries were such that everything else (such as not running the business into the ground) didn’t matter.

There was a big fuss (as there always is) when that Bible-Thumping, Family Values congressman got arrested in an airport men’s room. That priests and politicians are worst than the rest of us never fails to come as a shock when, in fact, it’s exemplary behavior on their part that should set us back on our heels. Even if you were absent on the day Reaction Formation was covered, how could you have missed Shakespeare’s Me thinks he doth protest too much in your Literary Masterpiece class?

As I approach my senior years, I know I should forget about inventing anything truly original and concentrate mainly on applying my old learning to new problems. I am constantly amazed at how few people seem to be aware of life’s stages. There are certain times when you’re primed to do certain things…almost like Jean Paiget’s phases of childhood development. Creativity is for the young who don’t yet know what’s impossible…so they go ahead and do it. As you grow older and you no longer have the energy to sustain multiple failures, your creative urge is replaced by wisdom…or at least it should be. Here again, those who don’t study their psychology lessons are doomed to go astray.

And speaking of going astray, how many remember the chemistry of neurotransmitters and how attraction is followed by passion, only to be followed  –  after marriage, a mortgage and a baby –  by indifference? As the old joke goes, there’s an organ for reason and an organ for sex but only enough blood to operate one at a time.

Research involving the Placebo Effect has certainly colored my reaction to new nostrums. Even when half the people swear by this supplement or that vitamin it means nothing. In fact, anecdotal evidence is usually worse than no evidence at all. And that’s a good reason for questioning claims of the supernatural. After one classroom demonstration of the Phi Phenomenon, it should be obvious that Venus can indeed be seen to do figure eights in the night sky while Hypnopompic Hallucinations can account for even the sexiest alien abductions. Add Pareidolia and Satan’s face in the smoke of the World Trade Tower becomes just that –  smoke. Of course there will still be those who contend it was an inside job. Psychology 101 has an answer for that as well. If only more people paid attention.

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