Archive for March, 2012

Knowledge is power, said Francis Bacon. Are you putting your knowledge to good use? You know that if you praise someone for a specific behavior, the person is likely to show that behavior more in the future. Also, praising has the side-benefit of helping to maintain rapport. Whom did you praise today? For what? Did you praise someone in front of others? That has additional potential in that the observer can learn also to show the specific behaviour more in the future. For instance, yesterday I sent a department email to praise publicly five academics whose units received high student ratings. They likely felt that my comments showed appreciation for their hard and successful work. If others commend them too, they might try even harder in the future. At the least, I would expect the praise to help keep them working hard. Other academics observing the praise might see the potential for themselves to obtain appreciation of their teaching efforts. But I didn’t commend the academics so much to motivate them as to celebrate with them their success. Celebrating someone’s success is fun — that is another benefit of reinforcing desirable behavior. Finally, praising someone else’s good behavior often comes back as a matter of reciprocity. If I do something of note, the odds will be higher now that these individuals will join me in my moment of success.

So think about what you know. Use that knowledge, that power. Use it for good purposes.

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Assoc Prof of Psychology

You may be aware of evidence that taking a daily small amount of aspirin (e.g., 75 mgs) helps to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Newer studies show that a daily small amount of aspirin also helps to prevent cancer. These positive effects may be the result of aspirin’s reducing of inflammation. Some scientists now consider aspirin a vitamin, although others say the evidence is not strong enough for that conclusion. So does it make sense to take 75 mgs of aspirin a day as a preventive against disease? Is it worth the risk of side-effects?

Life has many tough decisions like that. We make a decision and see what happens, but sometimes we cannot tell whether the decision proved to be good or bad. On the question of aspirin, I decided yesterday to take a small amount (a tiny pill, indeed) daily and monitor for short-term positive and negative effects. If I observe no negative effects, I will continue as long as the scientific evidence seems to point in that direction. So I have made my life a small aspirin experiment. Other individuals try a new religion, a new romantic partner, a new diet, or a new career. Students in my behavior modification unit experiment with sets of behavior-change principles. At work, I experiment with different teaching methods. Humans experiment throughout their lives.

With what are you experimenting? Are you collecting data like a good scientist to test whether your hypothesis is supported? What experiments have paid off for you in the past?

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Assoc Prof of Psychology