Archives: Dr. Erin Smith

A few months back, I decided to do something crazy. No, I didn’t sky dive (I’ve done that already). No, I didn’t wander out of a Beijing airport at 2am, totally jetlagged and confused, hoping I understood what I had been told to do (I’ve done that too). And no, I didn’t have a baby and then fly with said 3-week-old baby and her toddler sister to Oxford for 5 weeks (yep, I’ve done that crazy thing, too). This time I did something truly audacious: I sat down to write a three-part blog series on writing well, with the goal of helping my students (you!) think about research writing not as a chore to be dreaded (avoided, and finally—at the very last minute—begrudgingly completed) but instead as an opportunity to develop the skills required to turn ideas into words that inspire action and world change. Of the things I’ve listed in this paragraph, I’m not sure what the craziest item is. 

What I had originally set out to do in three blog posts is now eight (nine if you count this one). And, if I’m honest, I haven’t even said all the things I wanted to. But I still think that what I’ve done is crazy—and it just might be helpful. So, I wanted to spend a few more sentences outlining what to expect in this blog series. I will end with an invitation for you.  

In the first two blogs, I focus on some topics around orienting yourself to the task of writing. First, I address the question of what scientific writing is (hint: if you are reading this blog on this research website, you are likely have/are going to engage scientific writing at some point in your educational or professional career). Second, I explore two characteristics of effective science writers, characteristics that promote the skill development of writing well. 

In blogs three and four, I zoom in a bit and tackle how scientific papers are organized. Blog three covers the purpose of the different sections of an APA style research paper and blog four tackles how to organize a literature review of research as a stand-alone paper. For all things, including writing, I firmly believe that when we understand the purpose of something, we can engage in a way that increases the likelihood of fulfilling that purpose. In science writing, fulfilling the purpose includes clear and effective communication of discovery (e.g., what things are really like, why the world works the way it does), because discovery is the plotline of science.  

From there, blogs five through eight take a bit of a nosedive into the weeds of writing. I provide 4 examples of tools that I use in my own writing. I take the case example of a paper I recently wrote, a literature review, and I show a few of my steps from start to finish. I tell you about my Dear Mom Draft; I show you how I organize my early literature review search of research articles to deepen my understanding and preparation to start writing; I give you a peek inside my method for editing—especially how I go about deleting sentences that I know need to go but that are hard to let go of; I underscore how the writing process is the thinking process—revision isn’t just for more clarity of phrase, but for clarity of thought.  

Across all these blogs, my goal is to reinforce a basic truth about writing: it is a skill that is developed with practice. I hope that, across these blogs, you’ll be better prepared to engage in the practice of writing well and that you might learn a few tools that are useful in your own skill development.  

There are, of course, many other issues (tools, obstacles, ideas) about writing well that these blogs don’t cover. For example, I didn’t talk at all about reading as a fundamental to good writing (it is!) or specifics of focusing a research question and searching library databases for good sources (key concerns!). Another big one mentioned by a student of mine that I don’t really address is how to maintain motivation to write in the face of waning enthusiasm (and an approaching deadline). Perhaps I’ll take these up in another miniseries which I might call revenge of the writing well blog.  

Between now and the revenge, as these blogs go live over the coming weeks, I want to issue you an invitation. I invite you to engage these blogs as opportunities for your own development. Writing well is not just about the research, it’s about the world change that comes with effective communication and clear thinking. Sure, this might not come out of that paper you are writing for your class, but the skills that you are practicing may just prepare you to be able to do just that. In addition to this long-term invitation, I want to know at the outset: what is it about writing well that you want to learn more about? 

3/7/2022 Update: The University Writing Center, an excellent CBU resource for developing your writing skills, has also contributed their thoughts as a continuation of this blog series. You can (and should) check that blog out here.

Want to play a game of “never have I ever?” Here goes. Never have I ever been told to study basic brain functions when I want to know how to grow in my spiritual life. Is that shocking to you? Probably not.

And yet, I wholeheartedly (or, whole brain-edly) believe that how we relate to God changes with a basic understanding of how the brain creates neural networks as a function of our experience. Before I get to that specific claim, let me back up a bit.

Your brain is responsible for your engagement with the world. What you see, feel, think, remember, and do is all contingent on your brain processing. Engaging in the world—whether it be zoned out in front of the 1,732^nd TikTok video for the day or reciting Shakespeare in Stamps Courtyard—changes your brain. Your brain is constantly changing in response to huge amounts of incoming information from the external world. Many of these changes are temporary. Consider this example: you read something from a textbook, think you know it, and then fail to remember it come test time. What happened? The temporary brain change from the reading did not result in long-term reorganization/creation of the neural networks for the memory of the thing you read; that’s what happened. What studying does (especially effective studying), is that it takes that temporary brain change and slowly makes it permanent. An analogy I like to use is a comparison to creating a path through a forest. At first, there is no path. But, if you travel the same path every day, cutting away obstructive branches, compacting the ground beneath your feet, eventually a path is born. Think of the creation of neural connections in your brain as doing the same thing¹. With enough practice, the pathway is born and the brain change is more than temporary.

William James, a pioneer of early psychology, wrote that “my experience is what I agree to attend to.” If we think about this from a brain-based perspective, this is true because what we attend is the thing that is ultimately burned into our ever-forming neural circuitry. Attention changes what happens in our brain (something called neuromodulation); it is the gate keeper to neural network activation and creation.

So, when Scriptures tell us to think on what is true, honorable, pure, lovely, and good, to think on what is excellent and worthy of praise in Philippians 4:8, this is not just a platitude to “think happy thoughts.” I think that Paul is pointing us to focus on these things because what we pay attention to changes us. Luke 6:43-45 records Jesus teaching that we are recognized by our fruit, fruit that is the overflow of our hearts. He says that a good man brings good things stored out of his heart whereas an evil man brings forth the evil stored in his heart. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So, what does this have to do with the neuroscience of attention? As I see it: everything.

The objects of our attention cause brain change. These brain changes reflect and represent the objects of our attention in the form of new neural networks. These neural networks, like the well-travelled path through the forest, work to increase the ease of which our brain can assess and make sense of an object of attention. In the forest, the path makes it easier to access the destination of the path within the forest. In our brains, the neural networks make it easier to remember and think about the object of our attention. So, when you look at your best friend’s face, you recognize them because the neural network that is the memory of their face (created from previous attention) is activated (the path is “travelled”).

Yet, when the objects of our attention cause brain change, it’s not just that we now “have a new memory.” It is something significantly more meaningful. That neural network now serves as a foundational network when your brain is trying to make sense of new information. Your brain is making constant calculations about what you will like, what you should say, what you might feel based on your previous experiences recorded in neural networks. Attention in and to these previous experiences is what creates these networks. Thus, every new experience we have is shaped, influenced, and interpreted through the lens of the neural networks created from our previous attention. This serves as the foundation for meaning making; our pre-existing beliefs, knowledge, expectations, desires (etc.) that we use to make sense of what is in front of us is, in part, driven by what we’ve previously attended to. Said directly, the brain we are creating today (out of our attention) is the filter through which we will make sense of all future experiences.

Researchers refer to the influence of what is already present in our heads on the meaning-making process of the moment as a “top-down influence.” This is how two people can look at the exact same stimuli and see different things. Remember the dress? Or Laurel/Yanni? These are all so interesting (and frustrating) because they illustrate the incredible power of top-down influences in how we make sense of the world. What we previously paid attention to shapes our brain to make sense of whatever might come next. This is efficient, but there are important real-world implications. This includes implications for our spiritual life because when we focus our attention on what is less than what we have been commanded to in Scripture, it has long-lasting implications for how we subsequently direct our attention and interpret the objects of that attention.

So, how we spend our time – the focus of our attention – matters beyond the individual moment of attention. We carry in our brains a representation of our previous attention history that serves as a filter for all subsequent interactions in the world. 

This is challenging, to be sure. But, importantly, we also worship a God of abounding grace. Neuroscience bears this out as well in a concept known as neuroplasticity. When we choose to re-direct our attention toward what is good, right, and true we, over time, change our brain’s neural networks, a change that is the direct result of the steadfast re-direction of attention. 

Dallas Willard wrote that “God does not ordinarily compete for our attention.” If attention is the gateway to the harvest of our heart, I think neuroscience research requires that we seriously ask about the objects of our attention. This is not a call to “look to the bright side of things” or to find that silver lining. I don’t believe that Scriptures call us to bury our heads in the sand instead of confronting problems. And yet, when we encounter problems or challenges, how do we comport ourselves in a manner fitting to our calling? What and to whom do we attend; how do we cultivate the daily habits and neural networks that produce that pleasing aroma of a life lived for Christ? 

One reason these questions may be challenging is that they make our small minutes meaningful. The good or the evil in our hearts is not harvested all at once, but rather developed over small, daily habits, habits all starting with our attention. These daily habits might not feel like they are doing much but they are slowly, and powerfully, changing our brains—brains out of which our behaviors flow.  

There is always data coming into and being processed by your incredible brain, even if you are not consciously aware of it. From a brain-based perspective, we are always attending to something. So, here’s the big question for you: what are you paying attention to? 

Footnote: 

1. The nerve cells in the brain are called neurons. They are the building blocks of the nervous system and, when they network together (neural networks), they form the foundation of all human functions ranging from the activation required to blink to the experience of love or misery. Your brain, through these neural connections and networks, carries a physical representation of your subjective, lived experience. 

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A version of this blog was translated into Spanish and published at Coalicion por el Evangelio.

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I have been thinking a lot about stillness over these past few months. The louder culture yells, it seems, the more desperately I desire a deep quietude of the soul.

In one version of this blog, I examined this desire for quiet considering Biblical proclamations to be still before the Lord (e.g., Psalm 37:7). I spent time thinking through how Biblical stillness does not mean we do nothing as stillness before God is not the same as “unplugging” in the modern call for self-care. No, I believe that stillness before the Lord is more like Jesus’ explanation of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27), giving space to prepare us to act consistent with the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). Because I am not a theologian, I was planning to connect this to mindfulness; mindfulness is a connection to the present, a means to give us eyes to see and a willingness to act toward justice.

And yet, that is not what this blog is about. I still think there is something to those ideas but the more I wrote the more I realized those ideas were not the primary thoughts about stillness swirling around in my head. My current desire for stillness is less about mindfulness and more about humility. Humility as the calm amid cultural storms.

As a psychologist, I am interested in thinking about humility from a scientific perspective. This means we need to start with measurement. Measuring humility is a notoriously difficult task. How do you measure whether someone is humble? If you ask participants “How much do you agree with this statement? I am a humble person,” how should you interpret the results? Someone who is legitimately humble should agree, right? But in agreeing, are they somehow less humble? What about the truly arrogant person who is the “most humble of everyone” in their own eyes? It’s a thorny issue, one that has garnered quite a bit of research lately.

One of the more recent psychological definitions of humility comes from Worthington et al. (2017). A humble person is defined as one who is other-oriented, modest (not self-promoting), and someone who accurately represents themselves. So, if I have three gold medals earned in underwater basket-weaving world championships, it would not make me arrogant to accurately portray my expertise in this time-honored tradition. However, the other elements of humility would require that I do so in a way that is not self-aggrandizing and in a way that keeps others as my focal point. (i.e., “Friend, I see that you keep losing your car keys. I have developed some skill in underwater basket weaving. Would it serve you well if I made you a basket to store your keys?”)

In this article, several empirically-supported practices for developing humility are described along with some key reasons why we might want to develop more humility. Humility, it turns out, is a boon to mental well-being. For example, humble people tend to better navigate life’s stresses and challenges. They also tend to exhibit other traits and practices that also have a host of positive benefits—gratitude, generosity, prosocial behavior, among others. If you stop to think about it, some of this might make sense. These kinds of practices are built into the definition of humility. If we are not so focused on ourselves, but wondering how we can serve others, these practices naturally follow. Moreover, humility shows its benefits even in places where we might wonder if a bit of self-promotion might be beneficial. Consider CEOs. As the leaders of their company, we might think that a little bit of “look at me, I’m leading and I’m awesome” might not be so bad. And yet, research shows that humble CEOs are better leaders and more innovative than less humble CEOs.

I think a great deal of the chaos in our culture might be attenuated with a bit more humility. But even this statement needs some additional explanation as Worthington et al. (as well as other researchers) distinguish between general humility (as described above) and more specific instantiations of humility. One of my favorite types of humility is intellectual humility. (Note: favorite doesn’t mean it’s easy or that I’m somehow the most awesome of this kind of humility…)

Individuals who are intellectually humble are willing to admit that they might be wrong and that there are things they don’t know. (Hi, my name is Erin and there is a whole lot of things that I don’t know.) Intellectually humble individuals will change their beliefs when presented with evidence that their beliefs are wrong. (This one is harder for me.) According to this study, intellectually humble people tend to be curious, open to new ideas, and reflective. They are willing (and able) to sit in the “gray zones,” where things are not known with certainty (which, if we were honest, describes most of the things we “know”).

One might look at this list and think, “so, intellectually humble people must not have opinions; they must just appease and agree with whatever group they are in, right?” No. Intellectually humble people hold beliefs with the same kinds of convictions as other people, they just do so with more nuance, recognizing (or at least being open to someone else’s recognition) the limits of what they know. This means that, when there is high quality and robust evidence supporting their beliefs, an intellectually humble person will hold to their belief; their beliefs do not change with the wind. But they will do so in a way that serves others (i.e., listening, engaging, and calling others to the whole scope of the evidence on an issue) and is authentically open to evaluating new evidence that might not be consistent with their beliefs.

One of the great tensions Jesus modeled can be seen in intellectual humility. As Christians, we are to be thoughtful, to have reasons for our beliefs (e.g., 1 Peter 3:15), but these reasons are not to be wielded as weapons to interfere with the greatest commandment, to love God and love others (Matthew 22:36-40). On the flip side, loving others does not mean that “all opinions are equal” or that “everyone can believe what they want,” developing their own truths (or so-called ‘alternative facts’). The intellectually humble hold their beliefs with reason and conviction, with a willingness to re-evaluate with evidence, and with the goal of being a better neighbor (not beating their neighbor with their facts). We are called to something more than this. We are called to speak truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

Let me now try to circle back to the peace—the stillness—that my heart craves. As I reflect on the quality and tone of conversations in our culture in this present moment, I am deeply aware of the lack of humility (generally) and intellectual humility (specifically). Nuance does not make good click bait and we are often too hurried for the depth of thinking that marks intellectual humility. I cannot change culture on my own, but I can—with God’s help—search my heart (Psalm 139:23-24). I can commit to a process of holding beliefs with a sense of curiosity and openness, to admitting that I might be wrong. I can confess my arrogance and turn my eyes toward others (Philippians 2:4), accurately, and modestly, portraying and leveraging my strengths for the benefit of my neighbor, always learning, always loving. This is difficult, but this is part of my calling. If you feel this is part of your calling as well, a good starting place is an open and honest acknowledgement that what we believe now is most likely a combination of things that are true and things that are false and that we can—and should—allow our minds to be changed with new evidence (empirical, revelation, tradition, community, experience, etc.).

I desire stillness. More specifically, I desire stillness to produce clarity. May the weight of glory bring humility and foster a stillness in my soul to distill culture’s competing shouts about truth as I steadfastly search the cloudy mirror for Jesus.

UPDATE: After this blog posted, I came across this quote from Andrew Murray in his book, Humility. I thought it worth sharing here, relative to the connection between quietude and humility:

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.

Hi, my name is Erin Smith, and I’m a control junkie. For me, time is a puzzle solved with color coded calendars, carefully curated schedules, and heavily researched expectations over future events. I have learned that I can quell a lot of anxiety when I over plan and over prepare for what is to come (and what might be, could be, may eventually be).

This characteristic is helpful….to an extent. But, when I am honest with myself, I know that this kind of control only gets me so far. (It also sometimes reinforces rigidity, which is not psychologically helpful, and sometimes it exacerbates my anxiety. Also not helpful….both topics for a future blog, perhaps.) An honest appraisal of the world, however, indicates that there are so many things, many important things, out of my control. This doesn’t mean that I’m powerless, only that there are limits to what my planning, preparing, and careful execution can produce.

Case in point: A pandemic.

Are there things that I, personally, can do to help mitigate the spread and impact of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19? Absolutely. This is why I wear my mask, social distance, and wash my hands often. Taking control and ownership of these behaviors is important. At the same time, can I, personally, stop the coronavirus? No, not on my own. I think, more to the point, I personally cannot ensure the maintenance of life-giving breath to my body. I contribute to my health—yes!—but I am ultimately not in exclusive control of whether my life will continue.

For a self-confessed control freak, this stark recognition of what is not in my hands is really difficult. It probably shouldn’t be because this truth is not new, it’s just usually unobserved. A paradox of the Christian faith (one that, coincidentally, mirrors my understanding of human agency from a psychological perspective) is that what we do matters—we have control!—but we are not ultimately in control (at least not total control!). My pastor once referred to this tension for our control as “radical responsibility and radical grace”. There is so much nuance here, nuance that I think is important, but instead of focusing there, I want to share what I have been practicing this pandemic to help mitigate the anxiety that bubbles up when I am faced with so much uncertainty. This is not a magic pill, it’s not a substitute for professional mental health care, when needed, nor is it the only thing I do. With all those caveats, one thing that has been really important to me during this season of uncertainty, change, and difficulty is the practice of gratitude.

What is gratitude?

When we are thankful and expressive of appreciation, we are being grateful. Researchers can talk about gratitude as a disposition (relatively stable way of interacting in the world), an emotion (the physiological reaction that prompts an emotional experience of thankfulness), and as a mood (moods are more stable than emotions, but less enduring than dispositions). I think it’s interesting to differentiate these three experiences of gratitude because it means that even if you are not naturally (or “dispositionally”) grateful, you can still develop habits of gratitude that will impact your emotional experiences and longer-lasting mood states.

What does gratitude “do”?

In addition to the straightforward instructions in Scriptures to practice gratitude (e.g., Ps. 106:1; Col. 3:16; Heb. 12:28-29), researchers have noted that grateful people tend to be healthier (physically and mentally), more likely to attain their goals, and more helpful toward others, among other effects¹.

One of the things that gratitude does is that is refocuses yourself off yourself and, it turns out, when we think of ourselves less we tend to be less consumed with anxiety, distress, loneliness, etc. Reflecting on what we have to be grateful for reminds us that beyond the difficulties of the present moment, there is life-giving hope, purpose, relationship, love, and acceptance. 

I want to be clear that gratitude doesn’t make your problems go away. It doesn’t make you ignore the realities that you are facing. (That is delusion, not gratitude.) What gratitude does do is it promotes a form of cognitive reframing that gives you a different vantage point on your situation. During this pandemic I have doubled-down on my efforts to practice and express gratitude. This hasn’t made the pandemic and my associated anxieties magically disappear, but it has helped anchor me in my gratitude to God, to people made in His holy image, and to the beauty in the good creation we inhabit. Gratitude has helped me look at the same world with new eyes. With new compassion. With new energy. By looking for points of thankfulness and seeking ways to express it, I have moved myself from a place of anxiety over the unknowns and the fluctuations closer to a place of peace. Even if nothing goes as planned (I still do like color coded calendars, after all), I have so much to be grateful for, a gratitude that moves me to more fully see my neighbor and love my neighbor in word and in action.

How can you leverage gratitude in your own life?

I want to reiterate that practicing gratitude is a practice. It won’t come naturally to everyone. It’s also not panacea. I really wish I could tell you that for every anxious thought I reflect on one thing to be grateful for and *poof!*: anxiety gone. But that would be a lie. This is an ongoing effort. What I can tell you is that there are lots of good reasons to pursue the practice of gratitude—Biblical and scientific reasons.

Here are two ways you can intentionally practice gratitude. Try it. Tell me how it felt in the comments below.

1. An easy introduction: At the end of every day (for at least two weeks), reflect back on your day and make a physical list of five things you are grateful for. Think of your family, friends, pets, or when you received help (as starters).
2. A slightly more intense practice: Spend 15 minutes writing a letter to someone for whom you are grateful, but have never expressed gratitude to. Don’t worry about your spelling or grammar, instead be as specific and concrete as possible, detailing what this person did, why you are grateful, and the impact this person and their actions had on your life. If you feel so inclined, put the letter in the mail or schedule a zoom call and read it to them directly. Research shows that we tend to underestimate how gratitude will impact a person; if you feel inclined, share your gratitude and you and the recipient of the gratitude will reap positive psychological effects!  If possible, repeat this exercise several times a week.

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Notes:

1. Check out the work of Dr. Emmons, the preeminent researcher on gratitude: https://emmons.faculty.ucdavis.edu/. You may also find this (someone old, but still relevant) chapter interesting: Emmons, R. A., McCullough, M. E., & Tsang, J.-A. (2003). The assessment of gratitude. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (p. 327–341). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10612-021 Copy available here: https://sites.hofstra.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/86/2019/11/Gratitude-chapter-for-Pos-Assessment-volume.pdf

2. If you are looking for more of these kinds of activities, check out https://ggia.berkeley.edu/

Spring break. Graduation. A dinner and movie out with friends. You had all the plans. I had all the plans. And then, in what seemed like a totally surreal 48 hours around March 12, we didn’t. If your experience was anything like mine, you spent a few days in something akin to a fog of “what is happening?!” I noticed it first when I went to Target with my kids to buy one of their friends a birthday present. There I was, somehow oblivious with some Frozen II trinkets, surrounded by anxious-looking people with carts full of dog food and poptarts, because all the bread, peanut butter, sanitizer, and (yes) toilet paper had already sold out. It felt like an alternative reality. In some ways, it still does.

There are many things to think about in the context of this worldwide pandemic. Below I want to direct you to some of the interesting, thought provoking, and useful reflections I have come across in the recent days. Although a health issue, this pandemic—and our reaction to it—reflects important psychological and a spiritual issues as well.

Things did not go as planned. At least, not our plans. In the coming days, as we spend more time by ourselves and in our thoughts, may we choose to not just spend more time on Netflix or scrolling mindlessly through Instagram. May we, instead, reflect and use this unexpected moment to learn and grow in the midst of whatever trials this moment brings us. May we take each day as it comes because now is a moment when it is abundantly clear that we should not worry about tomorrow because today has enough trouble of its own.

Below, I link to a few things that I have found interesting. Since everyone is talking and writing about COVID-19, I do not claim that this is an all-encompassing list or even the most essential list. Instead, I have listed a few of the ideas that I’ve been thinking about the most as, perhaps, these things may be useful for you.

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In the comment section, please feel free to share your own thoughts, what you’ve been thinking about, and anything you have read or listened to that you have found particularly helpful, informative, or encouraging. Please be mindful of our CBU cultural standards in your comments.

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1. Pandemics do not have to be times of increased productivity. The first weekend the recommendations for social distancing went in place, followed shortly by Governor Newsome’s “Shelter in Place” order for Californians, my email and social media feeds were swamped with all the ways I could use this “newfound time at home” to live my best life. Some of the tips, resources, and business opportunities were helpful; at the same time, many felt a bit predatory. The implicit message behind many of these emails and posts was that I wasn’t really spending my time well unless I exercised more, cooked new foods, and took on a new hobby, all while adjusting to the reality of working from home with a baby, a preschooler, and a school-aged child (all home, all the time). It wasn’t until I read the Christianity Today: Women newsletter penned by Kate Shellnutt (Editor of CT Women), that I had words to identify my emotional reactions. Psychology is clear that disruptions to routines or sudden changes in environment can, indeed, be useful in spurring behavior change, depending on how you approach the disruption. In that sense, yes, the restrictions on travel and socializing may be useful in addressing some bad habits and working to foster better ones. However, as Kate pointed out, it is dishonest to not address the incredible stress that this pandemic is causing. In these moments of stress and—for many—great suffering, there are surely opportunities to refocus on our priorities and prioritize our souls. This kind of intentional prioritization of what is truly important will not sweep aside the realities of the difficulties of the moment; it will, however, mean that the realities of this difficult moment will not make this moment all-consuming. As our movements and routines are necessarily more limited, I am mindful that the push to be productive—for the sake of productivity—misses the mark. As the author of this piece reflects on the push for productivity, “hustle culture never stops, quarantine or not.” Especially in these moments, I am mindful of the reality that hustle is not the defining feature of God’s call on my life.

2. Stop touching your face! We all touch our faces….all the time. It’s a really hard behavior to break, though a particularly good one to change if you want to help prevent the spread of illness to others (and yourself). This podcast highlights why and this article provides some tips on how to actually change this behavior. (One hint: don’t think about your behavior as preventing you from getting sick; rather, think about your moral responsibility to help others not get sick!)

3. In times of uncertainty: God is good. I have been thinking about how to talk about this for about 2 weeks. I am now at the point of finally getting words on computer, yet I fear I am still too close to my own thoughts to be able to eloquently push words together in a way that clearly communicates, encourages, and (if relevant) challenges. So, I’m not going to try to do those things. Instead, I would encourage you to think about 20 prayers to pray during this pandemic, one theologian’s reflections on how to think Christianly in this public health crisis, or how this cultural moment might offer some important long-term opportunities for communities of faith to partner with scientific communities in a way that may lay the groundwork for fixing the perception that Christians are anti-science.

Additionally, I find myself more frequently confronting my own selfish sinfulness as I am more easily agitated, frustrated, and prone to anger with disruptions to my routine and things not working out “as they should.” And yet, as I continue the devotions through Proverbs written by Timothy and Kathy Keller, I am continually reminded that these moments of stress and suffering are the ones that God uses to refine my character as God works everything for His good. In my weakness, God’s mercy and grace is all the more apparent, if I will only slow down enough to rest in His presence. Even when I can’t make sense of what is in front of me: God is good.

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By Dr. Erin Smith

Are you familiar with Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13? The ones about the seeds falling in rocky soil, thorns, or good soil? Or about sowing weeds among seeds, or the size of a mustard seed plant? Among these verses, as Jesus explains why he speaks in parables, he says, “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” (Matthew 13: 16-17).

Why was it so hard for the religious leaders to open their ears and eyes? (And, related, why is it so easy for us to see that their ears are closed, but be blind to areas of our own deafness? See Matthew 7:3-5 if you don’t believe that we are blind in this way.)

As a psychologist, I think about this question in empirical—testable, measurable—terms. And it turns out that psychology has been investigating a variant of this question for the past 5 or 6 decades. When the question of hearing ears and seeing eyes is rephrased in psychological language, it might look something like this: how are incorrect beliefs revised; how are beliefs challenged and changed in such a way that we move closer to truth, and why do we so rarely see legitimate belief change in light of evidence? I think this is a fair rephrasing of Jesus’ question because Jesus wasn’t saying, “blessed are you because you’ve always believed the right thing”, but rather, blessed are you because you remained open to—and were thus changed by—God’s truth, despite the fact that it wasn’t what you were originally thinking, expecting, or looking for.

The story that psychological research tells about belief revision, about the process of opening our ears and eyes, is nuanced. It turns out that the cognitive and social systems humans are equipped with and embedded in have particular operations that make belief revision especially difficult. Much of this nuance is explored in an area of psychology called motivated reasoning (see Kunda, 1990) or, more recently, in the study of cultural cognition. Although we might hope that the goal of human reasoning is accuracy (e.g., moving closer toward what is true, in reality), research in psychology shows that we all also engage in forms of motivated directional reasoning. Motivated reasoning refers to the process of evaluating arguments and evidence in such a way that we arrive at our preferred conclusion. That is, we engage with information in a way that allows us to preserve our beliefs, even in the face of data to the contrary. Maintenance of beliefs may be another goal of human reasoning, a goal that is sometimes at odds with the goal of accuracy.

A considerable amount of research on motivated reasoning is nested within the context of politically-motivated reasoning (though religion is also an important factor that must be considered). For example, Campbell and Kay (2014) demonstrated that motivated reasoning is due, in part, to an aversion to the solution implicated in the problem. If we don’t like the solution, we are motivated to dismiss the problem (i.e., claiming that the data do not actually show a problem, that the problem is overstated, etc.). Crucially, Campbell and Kay demonstrated the explanatory power of solution aversion for Republicans and Democrats, albeit for different issues. Republicans and Democrats both dismissed issues when they were tied with solutions that countered typical conservative or liberal ideals.

Potentially more powerful in promoting motivated reasoning than solution aversion, however, is the connection of our beliefs to our identities. Shared Reality Theory proposes that “experience is established as valid and reliable to the extent that it is shared with others” (Hardin & Higgins, 1996, p. 28). That is, when we share beliefs with others, not only does that bond us with the other, but it also provides “evidence” of the reality of that belief. For example, research suggests that individuals were less likely to accept scientific arguments if they believed that their parents or friends did not accept those same arguments; accepting the argument would have threatened the reality shared within these relationships.

To be clear, motivated reasoning is rarely (if ever) conscious. People rarely look at data, read articles, have a debate with a friend and think, “I’m going to take what they say and totally misinterpret it…on purpose!” No, that’s not what happens. Rather, as a function of unconscious cognitive processes, we selectively remember, interpret, are critical of information in a way that protects our beliefs. If the evidence can be discounted (for presumably “good” reasons), then our beliefs can continue unchanged and the social connections with whom we share these beliefs are maintained or even strengthened.

Think about the implications of this. When evidence comes to light that something that we believe might not be true, it’s not just about the data. In fact, research in motivated reasoning indicates that exposure to data that suggests we might be wrong may, in some cases, polarizes belief, causing us to believe more strongly despite the mounting evidence that the belief is wrong. Why is this? Our most important beliefs are inextricably intertwined with our most important social connections. Shared Reality Theory suggests that these relationships are important, in part, because of their connection to the beliefs shared within them; our relationships validate our beliefs and our shared beliefs solidify and strengthen our relationships. (It’s a bit of a chicken-egg/important belief-important relationship thing.) Considered in this light, changing beliefs also threatens to upend our most pivotal social connections and our understanding of what makes life meaningful. What shared reality suggests is that it is exceptionally difficult to change beliefs, especially some of our most important ones, because of the threat this change implies for our social world. This is true even when there is a lot of evidence that our beliefs are wrong.

At this point, let’s return to the original question of the blog: why was it so hard for the religious leaders to open their ears and eyes? We find one answer in the very human process of motivated reasoning, especially considering the power of our social relationships as both a source of belief validation and belief maintenance. Although it might be easy for us to paint these religious leaders as bull-headed, arrogant, or even just as unidimensional characters in a story, this would be a mistake. These religious leaders were challenged with information that contradicted their views—their views about religion, who the Savior would be, what the Messiah would do, etc. This challenge was deeply threatening, psychologically and socially. For these religious leaders, to abandon their beliefs would have meant an entire upheaval to how they had always lived their lives and the social organization that had always guided it.

There is, however, more to this story. The New Testament tells of many followers of Jesus, some of whom were from those same circles of religious leaders who rejected Jesus. So, how did they develop ears to hear and eyes to see? This very important question with implications for you and your life—how can you develop ears to hear and eyes to see? Although I will take up this question from the perspective of psychological research in the next part of this blog, I’d like to hear your thoughts: what do you think is important in the process of changing beliefs? How do you think the process of motivated reasoning or shared reality inhibit belief change?

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What are your thoughts? Share below-CBU student comments left within a week of the publication of this blog will be entered into a raffle for a CSHB external battery to keep your phone charged when you are on the go. Winners notified via email.

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Although cultural encouragement for fresh starts are often reserved for the new year marked every January, the start of a new academic year is, perhaps, a better time for those of us running on a traditional academic calendar to take advantage of a new “year”. With the new academic year comes a new schedule, perhaps a new living situation, new friends, professors, responsibilities….I’m sure your list goes on. With all this new, there is also an opportunity: an opportunity for growth. Maybe it’s about time for you to really prioritize reading the Bible. Maybe you want to finally run that 5k or eat the vegetables your doctor says you should. Perhaps you just want to have better relationships this year. Luckily for us, psychological science has a lot to say about how to make the most of these kinds of opportunities. Here I want to share just a few of these evidence-based practices for real, lasting change.

1. Set the right kind of goals.

Spoiler alert: The kinds of goals we set are directly related to the outcomes we attain.

There is lots of research parsing this specific statement apart, specifying it, supporting it, and fine-tuning our understanding of it. For example, goals that emphasize growth and progress over perfection and demonstration lead to better outcomes[1]. Pursuing goals that are inherently meaningful to you, that you choose freely, are associated with a host of better outcomes for the goal itself, and for associated well-being. Factors like specificity of the goal and affect, among others, also influence how successful goal pursuit will be.

Much of the research on goal success is organized around what researchers call the “SMART goal framework.” SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Oftentimes, New Years’ Resolutions (or new academic year opportunities!) fail because we never turn our “good ideas” into “actionable ideas.” Take, for example, someone who has the admirable idea of wanting to be a better student this year. As a professor, I say, ‘yes! Pursue that!’, but then I have the SMART goal follow-up: How? What would being a better student look like for you? What kinds of behaviors are associated with the success of that goal? Perhaps it is reading all the assigned work for your social psychology course prior to the lecture date and committing to studying, review, and assignment completion for that class three times a week for 1 hour each session. Those statements are specific (read what has been assigned, study for three 1-hour sessions), measurable (at the end of the week, did you do it? Yes/No), attainable (this will depend a great deal on your own schedule, but I would suggest that if you don’t have three hours a week to devote to studying for a class, you may have too much on your plate[2]), relevant (completing course reading, assignments, and studying is surely part of being a good student), and time-bound (this goal will conclude at the completion of the course, since you don’t need to study for a class that has finished!).

It turns out that when we take the time to translate good ideas into SMART goals, we are much more likely to accomplish them. One potential reason is that SMART goals, when well-constructed, force us to face our reality honestly. For example, for someone with limited physical fitness it wouldn’t be an attainable goal to run a marathon at the end of the month. Sometimes it is hard to know if your goal is indeed structured well in this kind of formula; keep reading (especially tip #4!).

2. Consider Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medal Goals[3]

One problem, especially for perfectionists out there (seriously, go read Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset), is that goals are often framed as a “pass/fail.” You either did it or you didn’t. This, on its own, can actually be de-motivating. Folks who have tried to eat better by restricting all kinds of “bad” foods can experience this; one slip up can often lead to a downward spiral of out-of-control eating of the supposed “off-limits” food. This kind of black-and-white approach to goals is inherently self-defeating.

So, how do you set measurable, specific goals that also have room for grace and failure? One way is to have “tiered” goals: a gold medal, silver medal, and bronze medal goal. You want to start exercising? Maybe your gold medal goal is a SMART goal for exercising 5 times a week for 30 minutes [4]. So what about that week that every class has a paper due, your car breaks down, your best friend has a crisis….what then? Is your goal doomed? Maybe not. What if you can still make it to the gym 3 times that week for 20 minutes? That can be a silver medal goal. Because those days and minutes are better—in terms of moving you toward your ultimate long-term goal of an exercise habit—than nothing. And if you didn’t make three times…what about one day? Or intentionally taking a parking spot that is crazy far away and sprinting to class or chapel a few days a week? Might that count as something, perhaps a bronze medal goal? Having thought through various levels of achievement allows you the flexibility to view “near hits” of a goal not as a miss, but as a different level of achievement. The more successes you have, the more likely you are to continue in your goal pursuit because intention to achieve a goal alone is insufficient to actually achieve that goal.

3. Understand your time.

In order to set effective goals, given the parameters above, you need to have a clear understanding of how much time you have and where it is spent. You can’t honestly assess if it is realistic and attainable to exercise 5 days a week for 30 minutes or take on that part time job for 15 hours a week or spend 45 minutes each morning in Scripture and prayer if you don’t have an accurate handle on your time.

…we also need to be realistic about the time we have and the goals we chose to pursue in that time.

Time management skills are an important predictor for many goals, including academic success. The more we think about time as a resource, the better we can steward it. Just as we wouldn’t build a tower without first counting the cost (Luke 14:28), we also need to be realistic about the time we have and the goals we chose to pursue in that time. I find the visuals here to be helpful: time is fleeting. Understanding and using it appropriately (perhaps a topic for a different blog) is key. By sitting down and being honest with how you currently spend your time and how you can reclaim it in pursuit of your goals, you are (once again) adding to the stack of influences increasing your odds at goal achievement. As you prepare for a new semester, spend some time charting time in class, time at work, time studying/doing coursework, time eating, time exercising, time spent with friends…This kind of reverse engineering is an important reflection of what you are able to pursue, but also how what you pursue reflects about your priorities, as you live them.

4. Seek wisdom

Sometimes it is hard to know if the thinking inside your head makes sense outside your head, or how to make the most of the time you have. (I’m just going out on a limb here, assuming that’s not just me.) Thankfully, we don’t do this life thing alone and, as Christians, we are specifically called not to! As you think about what opportunities the new semester presents to you, what habits might need to change, and how best to change them, don’t have that conversation in a vacuum. Seek counsel. Bounce ideas off trusted friends. Ask a mentor for feedback on your goals. Visit a faculty member you respect during office hours. It might sound scary or a bit vulnerable to do these things but consider Proverbs 4:7: “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom…”. I love this. You want wisdom? Get it. But how—you can’t use what you don’t have! I believe the Biblical answer lies in community; seek those who have wisdom and in those relationships, get it. What better place to start than questions around how to improve your habits, habits which are the core of your character.

One important caveat: be strategic in your accountability. Turns out that there are some unexpected consequences of sharing your goals, some of which can actually decrease the likelihood of goal achievement. However, when you choose whom to share your goals with carefully, such as sharing with a trusted friend of mentor, the effect of accountability serves to increase the likelihood of goal completion. In many ways, this mirrors what Scripture says about wisdom: you can’t get it from someone who doesn’t have it. To pursue it, you need to first go to the few who have it.

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Most of these tips fall under a large umbrella called motivational science. This literature has a lot more to say about how to produce lasting change successfully. Check out some of the links above and explore the rabbit-hole of internet knowledge. However, even without traveling that rabbit hole, I hope that you will take some of the cues in these tips and realize that you don’t need to know everything in order to make small changes. (That’s right: you don’t need to be an expert in motivational science to benefit from the knowledge it has produced.) Big changes are, after all, often just a series of routinized small changes.

With that in mind: where can you start fresh this academic year? What habit(s) need revision? Need better study habits? To prioritize your relationship with God? To take your eating or exercise habits more seriously? Or perhaps you need to develop better relational capacities. Whatever the change is, I hope that these tips will provide a starting point for thinking about how to make that change and make it last. I also hope that you will check back to this blog and check out some of the curriculum in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences here at CBU, as both will offer specific tools to help you in this journey.

Where can you start fresh this academic year?

As an added incentive for you to think about these questions, leave a comment below: where are you hoping to start fresh or what evidence-based tip above did you find most helpful? One comment from a current CBU student will be selected at random to win a CSHB power bank….you know, to keep your cell phone charged and ready to check back for more blogs, all semester long.

Update: Comments are working again! Please comment below. For the hassle, we’ll give away an extra power bank to a lucky CBU student!

Note: We will be giving away power banks all semester when you read and engage with new blogs, so be sure you check back for new blogs and leave comments! Raffles will be held a week after the blog is posted. Please email CSHB@calbaptist.edu if you have any questions.

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[1] This is a statement I’m particularly passionate about. There is a wonderful book on this topic, accessible to a non-technical audience, that I would heartily recommend. Check out more information here: https://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/index.html

[2] As a note on time: each unit of a course translates to 2 hours expected outside that course a week. Thus, a typical 3-unit class expects 3 hours in-class engagement and 6 hours out-of-class engagement in a typical week. Thus, the estimate above is actually a low estimate of expectation.

[3] Thank you to Dr. Iverson for sharing this model with me and a former Introduction to Psychology course.

[4] Keep in mind that the more specific you can make “exercise”, the better (e.g., cardio? Weight lifting? A GroupX PiYo class?).

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I will start with the formal recognition that some of you clicked on this post with the sole hope of finding out what a “blinterview” is. (To satisfy your curiosity, it is a word I just made up, my attempt at combining “blog” and “interview”–beating out my runner up option of “Interlog” which just sounded too je ne sais quoi.)

Now that that’s out of the way, the reason you should keep reading: we took notice that our very own Dr. Knabb (Director of the Doctor of Psychology Program) recently graced the top of the Psychology Today website as “Today’s Essential Read”.

His interview with Jamie D. Aten, Ph.D., focused on self-compassion and resiliency in the midst of pain and tragedy. Rather than getting the second-hand story here, read the original interview here. Pop on back when you’re finished and let us know what you think. How are you going to practice self-compassion today?

 

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Dr. Erin Smith. Ph.D.

Director of Research, Center for the Study of Human Behavior

Associate Professor of Psychology, California Baptist University

 

It’s 2am on a Thursday night. It feels shockingly close and amazingly far from the beginning of this semester. The reality of summer has (officially) escaped your soul, replaced with the magical allure and promise of all things pumpkin spice. It’s possible that right now the reality of deadlines, exams, and the fact that being up at 2am is no longer a good idea (we’re looking at you, 8am classes) is weighing on your mind like the combined weight of your textbooks. So, needless to say, you’re busy. Tired. Stressed.

But I hope you’re also optimistic. Excited. Energized.

Each semester offers as much opportunity as it does stress. If you are reading this, you are probably someone who likes opportunity. And that’s great because in this post, I want to invite you to a new opportunity. I want you to write the next CSHB blog article. I feel so strongly about that, I want to give you five reasons why I think you should. Let’s get going.

Reason #1: You have questions, you want answers. One thing that I love about teaching psychology is that is relevant. To everything. Who sits in a class about people and says, “yeah, this just doesn’t matter to me.” Really. Who does that? Instead, I usually have students who ask really great, creative questions that are deeply relevant to their own lives. Class may not always be well suited to dive into these questions and—frankly—professors might not have all the answers (#professorconfessions). But there is another solution: you find the answer yourself. This is what got me interested in psychology. I had too many questions for my professors to answer, so I decided to spend my life studying to answer them better. But it’s not just about me answering them; it’s also about sharing my answers to try to improve others’ lives.

So, how can you share answers to your questions to improve others’ lives? Forgive me for my bold claim here, but I think the CSHB blog is one such way. Let’s say you want to know how to have relationships that are more meaningful. Find a few research articles, read them, and summarize them in a blog for your peers. The process of finding, reading, and summarizing the articles will enhance your own understanding of how to have better relationships, and it also affords the readers of the blog a chance to learn from your own learning. How cool is that?

 Reason #2: You want to develop your CV. A curriculum vita (CV) is an academic resume and, chances are, if you are planning to apply to graduate school or are in graduate school, you will need one. There is no one “right” way to create a CV, but one thing you will want to be sure to do is to fully and accurately document all of your academic activities. If you publish a blog for the CSHB it can be added to your CV as a peer-reviewed, non-academic publication or as service to the profession. Especially for those of you pre-career, even the little things matter.

 Reason #3: You are looking to get involved. Related to #2, publishing in the CSHB blog is not just about adding lines to your CV because it represents something more than just lines on a document. It also represents your investment in your program and discipline. Not all students take the time to do work in their discipline outside of the requirements of the class. Those who do tend to be different kinds of students. More involved. More invested. More connected. If you are interested in the behavioral sciences because you desire to be a part of a community of behavioral scientists, this is a great first step. (Also, given that your submission will be reviewed, you can ask your favorite professor to pre-review your submission and provide feedback as another way to start to create relationships outside of the classroom.)

 Reason #4: You have ideas worth sharing. Did you know that some of the most important scientific breakthroughs in the history of science have come from young scholars? Including graduate and undergraduate students? People just like you?

An interesting thing happens in all professions: you come into the profession knowing nothing (or very little), but over time you acclimate (or, get socialized) to “the way things are done.” Over time, we learn how to do things just like the most respected member of the profession. In science, this means that we learn a specific way of thinking about problems and we apply a standard method of inquiry to try to solve the problem. Cognitive psychologists call this a “mental set”, or a way of thinking about problems. The benefits of a mental set is that they increase your efficiency; you don’t need to think about the how, you just apply the methods you always have before. The drawbacks of mental sets is that it is really hard to think outside that framework. And some of the most intractable problems in science are intractable because we don’t have a good framework for thinking about them currently. To solve these problems, should we do more of the same, or be willing to challenge our current conventions and mental sets to make space for new ideas? I would suggest that you might have some of these new ideas partly because you are still developing the mental set of your discipline. Perhaps the blog won’t be where you publish your groundbreaking thesis for employee engagement, the best treatment for depression, or the construction of memory. But it might just be the place where you develop enough confidence in the worthiness of your ideas that you allow yourself to think big. Science isn’t just for the names you read in your textbooks….it’s for you.

 Reason #5: You like a good challenge. If the introduction of this blog post was correct, it’s now about 2:15am on that fateful Thursday, sometime in the middle of the semester. You’re wondering if there is enough coffee at Wanda’s to get you through to the weekend. You’re also wondering where you would find enough time to write a blog post. I mean, don’t you have enough on your plate?

Yes, you do have enough. But I also know that if you’ve made it this far in the blog post, your interest is piqued. So, I invite you into this challenge. Think of a topic. (If you are worried about time, maybe you can write on the research of time management!) Peruse the criteria for submission. Submit a blog post to be considered for publication by the CSHB. I dare you.

 

 

Are you thinking about submitting a blog post? Have an idea that you’d like someone else to write about? Looking for a collaborator? Leave your comments below.

 

 

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Dr. Erin Smith is the Director of Research at CBU’s Center for the Study of Human Behavior and an Associate Professor of Psychology.

Every Halloween I take a trip down memory lane, but probably not in the way you might expect. Sure, I remember my favorite costumes as a child (it was Jasmine, from Aladdin), the time my husband and I tied our legs together for an entire evening in our commitment to the costume of “three-legged race champions”, and my more recent adventures of Halloween as a mother of young children. Another thing I remember? The first time I read about the Candy Witch. That is what I want to tell you about today.

You say you’ve never heard of the Candy Witch? That’s a problem that I’m about to fix. Keep reading.

Starting with my Master’s thesis, continuing through my dissertation and into today, one of the fundamental questions that I’m particularly interested in researching is why we believe the things we do. This question, about how children develop an understanding of what is real or pretend, is of ongoing interest in the world of developmental psychology. For example, most children will believe that germs are real, without having ever seen one. Why? And what makes beliefs about germs any different from beliefs about Santa Claus? The tooth fairy? Or even God?

Some of the answers to this question about belief comes down to cultural supports. Children don’t think of concepts of germs, Santa, or God on their own. (Actually, there is some really interesting research suggesting that children may be predisposed to belief in a being like God, even without the cultural supports I’m about to describe…but that’s a topic for a future blog.) Rather, children come to believe these concepts because of the constant cultural discourse around these concepts. Take my own home, as an example. The one picture I have hanging up in our bathroom instructs my children to “wash your hands and say your prayers because germs and Jesus are everywhere.” These are the kinds of cultural supports—echoed in our daily conversations and activities—that may prompt children’s belief in these otherwise unobservable entities.

However, a problem that developmental psychologists face is that we can’t experimentally control children’s exposure to discourse around germs, Santa, or God. We can merely look for correlations between exposure and belief. This is a problem some creative researchers set out to address.

Enter: The Candy Witch.

Woolley, Boerger, and Markman published a paper in 2004 in which preschool-aged children were introduced to the Candy Witch at their daycare, about a week before Halloween. Their research question centered on how exposure and cultural supports for a novel fantastical being would predict children’s subsequent belief in the actual existence of that being. In other words, what would be required to get children to believe that something they couldn’t see firsthand, but that other people talked about as real, was indeed real?

To start, the researchers measured what children knew about Halloween and what they typically did. Then, importantly, they were introduced to the Candy Witch. Children were told that the Candy Witch was a nice witch who would visit houses the night after Halloween and take the trick-or-treat candy they had collected, leaving behind a new toy. After this story, some of these children’s parents also read a story about the Candy Witch to them at home. (Think about it, when children hear about germs, it’s from lots of people, not just someone at school.) The idea was that the more exposure, the more likely children would be to believe that the Candy Witch was real. Finally, some of these children then had their candy actually taken after trick-or-treating, with a toy left instead. (Sneaky parents!)

So, what happened? Did children believe in the Candy Witch? (Pause, make your predictions.)

The answer? It depends. Some kids—but not all—did believe that the Candy Witch existed when asked after Halloween. The kids who were the most likely to believe in the Candy Witch were older (e.g., 5 years old, rather than 4 years old). The older kids who had received a visit from the Candy Witch were the most likely to believe. Interestingly, a visit by the Candy Witch didn’t seem to convince the younger children to believe any more than the younger children who were not visited. It’s possible that the older children were better able to piece together the clues about the existence of the Candy Witch (e.g., the stories, the disappearing candy, the new toy) than the younger children were.

Another important factor in belief was the overall number of other fantastical beings the children believed existed. Children who believed that the Candy Witch was real were also more likely to believe that Santa and the Easter Bunny were real. It’s possible that these other cultural figures served as a starting point for belief in this novel character.

This is one of my favorite studies in developmental psychology. There are so many details I haven’t described here. For example, the researchers accounted for things like preference for toys versus candy and general fantasy orientation of the children. They measured children’s beliefs about the qualities of these fantastical beings, including the Candy Witch (e.g., could she eat dinner? Get her feelings hurt?). They asked parents questions about their encouragement of belief in the Candy Witch. And (most impressively), they followed up with these families a year later to measure how much the children remembered and whether they still believed in the Candy Witch (without ongoing cultural support for that belief). So many interesting bits!

On this eve of Halloween, I would invite you to create a new Halloween memory. Join me in the gleeful remembering of really awesome research. You can read the full article here.

When you were a kid, would you have wanted to be visited by the Candy Witch? Leave your comments below!

 

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Dr. Erin I. Smith

Associate Professor of Psychology

Director of Research, Center for the Study of Human Behavior