Psychology For Kids: The Science of the Mind and Behavior
Dr Kathleen Kremer worked with toy designers taking research results and using them to make toys kids would love You need to know their wants needs abilities constraints and behaviors You then use this information to figure out what to make and how to make it Dr Susan Clayton studied how people connect with animals and nature and how those connections might lead them to conserve our natural resources In my research at zoos I found that almost nine out of ten visitors will share their observations of an animal by pointing it out to their companions or simply by saying look Social interactions like these are opportunities to create and communicate shared values 10 Exploring Psychology
Dr Jennifer Manly studied how good quality early childhood education may protect the brain from disorders related to aging Her research showed for example that people who had brain disorders when they were old had gone to schools that spent less money on their students each year and had shorter school years Dr Manly’s work influenced other researchers to consider the quality of people’s education as important to their physical or medical condition throughout their lives You can learn more about these and other psychologists on the American Psychological Association website Psychologists like these are a curious bunch and their quest to understand the confusing surprising and sometimes silly world of the human mind and behavior takes them along many different paths Some study how we take in information and make sense of it Others try to understand how we learn and when that learning sticks and when it doesn’t Still others are interested in how people interact and influence each other The list goes on Try This Take a look at these questions Four are real questions psychologists are working to answer One isn’t 1 What’s the best way to convince people to protect the environment 2 Can you tell if someone is lying by watching their face 3 What fire truck color is the safest 4 How quickly is the universe expanding 5 Will people see someone in a gorilla suit if they walk right through a ball game Number four is a question psychologists are not working on Psychologists don’t study the expansion of the universe physicists have that covered But they do study the other questions and many more 11 What Is Psychology
WHAT DO PSYCHOLOGISTS STUDY The Brain Learning Memory Development Thinking Emotions Relationships Behavior Workplaces Senses Environment Health HOW DO PSYCHOLOGISTS ANSWER QUESTIONS Say you want to encourage people to change their behavior in ways that help the environment You can probably think of some ideas such as these Send an email to all the families in my school about the importance of recycling Give each family in my neighborhood a cloth bag for groceries so they don’t use plastic Set up a booth at a local fair to provide information about setting the thermostat in homes to use less energy 12 Exploring Psychology
These all sound like good ideas but how can you find out which ones actually work A research psychologist uses science to gather evidence to see if what people think will work actually does We all have ideas about why things are the way they are You might have a very strong opinion that you study better with music playing in the background But a psychologist would actually gather data about how kids did after studying with music compared to those who studied in quiet They would probably even check whether it makes a difference if the music has words or not The difference between opinion and science is evidence Check Out the Research Let’s look at one question that psychologists tried to answer How can we get hotel guests to reuse their towels Why is this important Well hotels use a lot of water and energy washing guests towels every day It would help the environment if guests would agree to hang up and reuse their towels Maybe putting a sign in the bathroom asking them to do just that would be a good idea But psychologists didn’t just guess what might work they tested to see whether it did Help save the environment Most guests reuse towels Join your fellow guests in helping to save the environment Three out of four guests reuse their towels during their stay So did a sign work Research in 2008 by psychologists Noah Goldstein Robert Cialdini and Vladas Griskevicius showed that it did but the words on the sign mattered too The psychologists found that if people were told that reusing their towels would help the environment some people did reuse them But if they told people that most visitors to the hotel chose to reuse towels a lot more people decided to do so That suggested that people are encouraged to do what they believe other people are doing 13 What Is Psychology
