You might want to keep a copy of that worksheet visible on a PowerPoint slide during this session. It provides space for the student to describe evidence, identify its source, judge its level of quality, and identify potential strengths and weaknesses. To help students keep these categories in mind as discussion proceeds, give them the worksheet presented below. As individual students present their evidence, ask the whole class to categorize each piece as hearsay, personal anecdote, case study, correlational study, survey, controlled experiment, meta-analysis, etc.

compliance and persuasion (usually found in the social psychology chapter).Īsk the class to describe the supporting evidence they have found, along with the source.

levels of consciousness and mental processing outside of awareness (usually found in the consciousness and or sensation and perception chapters).

the basic components of our memory systems, theories of forgetting, and eyewitness testimony (usually found in the memory chapter).

critical thinking, hypothesis-testing, and types of research methods (usually found in the introductory or research methods chapter).

You can of course encourage students to read beyond the assignment if they wish.): The assigned sections ideally should cover: Instead, they are chapter sections that are most likely to engage students’ interest and focus their attention on the psychological science associated with each unit’s high-interest myth. Suggested reading assignments (Notice that, as is the case with other units, these assignments are not entire textbook chapters.

Developing the habit of following a chain of sources can help hone your students’ research skills.). (We suggest that you let the students find the evidence on their own, but remind them to look at the references cited in each source, not just the sources themselves. To prepare for the next session, students can be instructed to bring all the evidence they can find to support the claim that it is possible to repress, and later recover, memory for traumatic events, and be ready to discuss the strength of that evidence. What conclusions are most reasonable given the evidence available so far?.Do we need additional evidence before drawing conclusions about the claim, and if so, how could we collect it?.Is there evidence that does not support the claim and how strong is the opposing evidence?.What evidence supports the claim and how strong is that evidence?.You will probably find that most but not all students endorse this claim, so you can tell them the next two class sessions will focus on answering the following questions: Ask students for a show of hands to identify those who believe that memories of traumatic experiences can be pushed into an unconscious portion of the mind, but may later be recovered. Introduce the claim during the last 10 minutes of class.

On the basis of her testimony about this memory, her father, George Franklin, Sr., was sent to prison for murder (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994).Įvaluating this claim should provide students with an opportunity to see that, often, the results of their inquiry may lead to conclusions that are not final, or at least not unqualified. For example, in 1989, Eileen Franklin told California police that when she looked into her young daughter’s eyes one day, she suddenly remembered seeing her father kill her childhood friend more than 20 years earlier. It is commonly claimed that people who experience trauma, especially childhood trauma, forget the event as a result of what Freud called repression, but may later recall it-either spontaneously or as a result of various forms of psychotherapy.

Repressed memories