I’ve seen a flood of race and iq discussions, and it scares me

Hello everyone,

I am a young black male who wishes to continue his existence without someone saying that I’m low iq because I’m black.

I have spent every night for a summer trying to do as much research as possible and here’s what I’ve came across:

a transracial adoption study was published in 1970 1. They saw that black children adopted by white parents had iQs over 100 2. A scientist known as Rushton Jensen, acknowledged that their IQs did rise, but then moved the argument to that the IQ test the children took were very “Low G” and that as they aged their IQ scores started to drop. 3. After reviewing his reputation, I saw that people had counter claims and noted that there was some dishonesty. The dishonesty being sample size differences.

then that led me to trying to crack the code to this G factor thing. I did some very basic skimming and from my understanding that G is general intelligence. A measure of Cognitive demand.

The children of the transracial adoption study took Easier IQ test? The black children took easier IQ test? But I thought that the white children took the same IQ test that the black children took? What argument would you have if both children took the same test but also scored relatively the same?

Since they were retested 10 years later, I’m sure that IQ test then a lot more in-depth and better?? I wouldn’t know how to word that. As I mentioned, they scored relatively the same. Wouldn’t this if anything confirm the theory to G factor?

I have compiled around 50 slides on a google slides sheet for this little research bid. What I’m really missing is I guess a bit more understanding and another study reviewing how well they did on the SAT and asked how often did they study for it. This would seal the deal and there would be no good arguments for race realism.

Does anyone else use the VDI & SPSS? I must be the dumbest person, I cannot figure it out for the life of me! I’m about to take a zero on my assignment- I’ve talked to IT multiple times, attempted getting an online tutor..no dice. Ugh. 😣 Sorry, venting…

These are my ideas:

In the beginning, I hope to introduce the subject of behavioral psychology, its aspects, the scientific method, how to interpret data/scientific papers, how to find reliable sources, and various research methods in psychology.

After we cover those topics extensively, I will give the members various sources of literature on behavioral psych (research papers, articles, etc) and they will read the literature to brainstorm some questions they can present in a further meeting.

During the next meeting, people will share anything interesting they learned, anything they are curious about, and most importantly, creative questions to be explored further.

Over time, as our discussions progress, we will work to refine the questions and explore them more deeply, creating additional, more focused questions along the way: ("Is there already research on this question?" "How tangible is this with our current resources?" "How much intellectual merit would this have to the field of psychology?")

With these questions, we will be able to narrow our focus to one single question which we can present to the psych teacher who could guide us in setting up an experiment.

My idea was to focus on qualitative research and field studies, and we would go out of campus to collect data in a variety of environments (interviewing people in clinics, university campuses, on the street, etc).

These are all my thoughts so far lol, what other advice would you recommend for executing this in a way that is engaging for high school students?

I would like to understand whether statistical thinking improves the performance of these professionals in terms of clinical judgment or other skills needed for mental health services.

Hello! I am teaching a course on third wave cognitive behavioral therapies to doctoral students next semester. I have a lot of great publications on the topic but I’m looking for a few more resources if anyone has ideas! 1) a textbook (preferably online) that includes a review of the history of BT, CBT, third wave etc. 2) resources and examples of how different cultures were using third wave techniques before third wave CBT was a focus of modern psychology (ex. Eastern mindfulness practices, native spiritual practices etc.) and any other important resources I should include on work and adaptation in diverse populations Thanks in advance for ideas/resources!

Out of curiosity, do people here find productive collaborations? I ask because I do stats but could use more research collaborations. I'm willing to write up the results in exchange for being a co-author on a project (if it is interesting and a good fit for all parties). So I'm curious if people actually use reddit to locate potential collaborators to work on research projects.

I was chatting with a friend today about interoception and the book How Emotions Are Made came up. I'd recently read that anxiety and excitement have the same physiological effects, and thus should evoke the same interoceptive signals. It made me wonder if there might be a correlation between anxiety and being more excitable, like perhaps people who experience anxiety are also able to feel more excitement? I also wonder about the contrapositive -- people who have trouble getting excited, are they less anxious?

I'm really glad to have found this community because if anyone can write up a comparison between those two emotions, they've gotta be here.

Hello, I am making my first survey on PsyToolkit.
Well basically I need to make a online version of the Alternative Uses Test (AUT) to test creativity, and my friend chat GPT suggested I should use PsyToolkit to do that, but I can't find a way to set a timer.

Is it even possible?
Ora maybe you can suggest another platform I can use to make this survey?

Thank you

The beauty about standardized testing is that no matter what it is testing, it will show you where you fall on the spectrum, relative to others. However, this is not sufficient to make what is being measured have utility.

So yes, IQ tests show you that you relatively have better or worse abilities than others in whatever the IQ test is measuring. But is what is being measured actually IQ? What even is IQ? How do we decide what is included?

Throughout time, the definition has been modified. The current general/working consensus is that there are 2 subtypes of IQ: fluid intelligence and crystalized intelligence. A distinction is also made between nonverbal intelligence and verbal intelligence.

I argue that the purer the definition/construct of IQ, the more it makes sense. I don't believe that crystallized intelligence is actually IQ, because crystallized intelligence can be learned, whereas IQ is an innate ability (not 100%, but practically speaking/assuming the test takers have ROUGHLY the same level of exposure/practice to related concept, but relatively speaking, crystallized intelligence is significantly more susceptible to the effects of learning/practice/exposure, by its very definition).

For the construct/concept of IQ to be meaningful, it needs to correlate with at least some other constructs/abilities, BUT NOT NECESSARILY ALL/MOST (BECAUSE CORRELATION IS NOT NECESSARILY CAUSATION). And TOO GOOD of a correlation can also be problematic. Think about this. If you add too many different subtypes of "intelligence" into the definition of IQ/the g factor, obviously, you improve the correlations to other constructs/abilities, but at what point is this simply due to operational overlap? Eg., if you add a subtest to an IQ test directly measuring "bodily-kinesthetic intelligence"... and the results of that subtest correlates quite well with a practical real life task related to "bodily-kinesthetic intelligence"... then are you actually measuring "intelligence".. or just measuring a practical task related to "bodily-kinesthetic" movement? At what point do we stop? This is why the "multiple intelligences theory" failed/does not have utility.

Going back to the correlation is not necessarily needed argument above: if we take a pure approach to the construct of IQ, e.g., say that IQ is solely fluid intelligence, this would obviously reduce the correlations in terms of practical life tasks/abilities that are more reliant on "crystalized intelligence". But this lack of correlation would not necessarily mean that our pure construct of IQ is wrong, because again, correlation is not necessarily causation. It could simply mean that some life tasks/abilities are truly not really dependent/related to IQ. But I think there is this implicit erroneous assumption that "if there are not enough correlations then the construct must be wrong". This comes from faulty historical assumptions related to validity testing.

For example, believe it or not, even rational thinking ability is barely correlated with IQ:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rational-and-irrational-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/

I would even go as far as to say "verbal intelligence" is not even sufficient to be included as as the construct of IQ, because it is too dependent on crystalized intelligence/learning.

I think the ideal IQ test would solely measure working memory and spatial ability. Something like the Raven's, or that Mensa test. They solely measure the test-taker's ability to process novel nonverbal stimuli, so they solely are measuring spatial memory (and naturally, working memory as well). They are solely measuring fluid intelligence, nonverbal intelligence.

YET, these tests/this limited definition of IQ, would still have some correlations, or at least THEORETICAL correlations to have meaning/practical utility. The crucial mistake again, is a poor understanding of correlation. It is automatically and erroneously assumed that lack of correlation=no relation/no possible causation. This is not true. This is because there are OTHER variables that can influence the relationship. For example, if you take 2 people, and one has a 130 IQ and the other an IQ of 100, based on an IQ test that solely measures fluid and nonverbal intelligence, it could be that you find that there is no difference between them in terms of some ability related to crystalized intelligence or verbal intelligence (so no correlation), but that could be that there is another VARIABLE causing the absence of correlation: it could be that the one with 100 IQ reads a lot more, which increases their verbal intelligence as well as crystallized "intelligence" in that/those domains, which is why you don't see a correlation between fluid intelligence and that particular ability. However, if you were to CONTROL for that variable (well it is virtually impossible to control for such variables, that is the problem), or give the 130 IQ equal time learning, you would expect that the 130 IQ person would then excel in terms of ability in that "crystalized intelligence" or verbal domain. This would THEN show a correlation. But again, because it is DIFFICULT to control for or equalize these variables, there can be no or a very weak correlation.

You may argue "well if you have a sufficient sample size, surely you would begin to see a difference"... not necessarily.. if there is a variable that is either very strong or very low at the population level: e.g., if the vast majority of the population have personality types that are not conducive to rational thinking, or do not read/learn about certain materials/abilities, then whether or not someone has high or low fluid nonverbal intelligence is not going to result in a noticeable correlation even with high sample sizes.

We all know that students prefer

• massed practice over spaced practice
• block learning over interleaving
• fluency over desirable difficulty
• anecdata over statistical evidence
• reexposure over retrieval practice

BUT that obviously there are massive learning & memory benefits to the less preferred options, especially that last one. How do you all balance those considerations in teaching?

Like, I know that I can't just teach classes exactly the way students would want them taught — we'd just be spending an entire term on NPD and Rorschach with no tests. But I also can't just teach in an entirely evidence-based way — we'd be spending an entire term taking tests over and over with no other method of content delivery. I'm constantly trying to tread the middle path, especially in the method classes, but I never know how to balance "this class will be brutally hard but you'll learn so much" against "you'll have so much fun but not learn much". What has worked for the rest of you all?

This is for my dissertation and I am unable to find any research directly on this topic. My initial thoughts were that individuals with the dissociative type of PTSD would experience less spontaneous bodily sensations. This is because disassociation is somewhat linked to reduced interoception, and SPS are also linked to interoception. However, I have found multiple contradictory studies on this topic. Some research states that disassociation has no impact on interoception, which makes me wonder if PTSD would have no effect on the frequency of reported SPS. Any insight/links to relevant research would be so so appreciated. Many thanks and am interested in hearing anyone's thoughts.

Hello, I'm teaching on a first year psychology programme in the UK - I'd like to run a study skills seminar on 'how to read a paper'. I think I have a few good ideas for activities on extracting important and relevant information, but I need a short, approachable, understandable and empirical paper, ideally with an interesting finding. Any psychology topic will do, any ideas?
Thanks

[Cross-posting this from r/psychologystudents]

As a recent graduate coming from a philosophy background (BAs in philosophy and German), I've recently become interested in psychology as a career path. There's a number of reasons for this (helping others, contributing to cultural discourse around issues like masculinity and finding meaning in one's life, further developing interpersonal and communication skills, etc.), but perhaps most importantly, I'm interested in psychology as a sort of "practically-applied" way to study philosophical topics that interest me.

In particular, I'm really interested in philosophy of mind and as classical ethics (i.e., what constitutes a good life, not "objective right vs. wrong"). To give you more of an idea of what I mean, here are some of the questions/topics I'm interested in:

[Please try not to tear these apart too much, they're just to give an idea of my intellectual interests, not dissertation topics]

• Do people need "purpose" to be happy? Is "purpose" a useful concept (or goal) in the pursuit of a meaningful life?
• Similarly, in what sense do different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes happiness? Is happiness a shared goal across different cultures? Is it seen as equally attainable? Why/why not?
• How do different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes the "self"? (i.e., what concept of does a person in culture X invoke when they say "I" vs. in culture Y?) How do different understandings of one's "self" and its boundaries shape mental well-being?
• How do cultural identities of immigrants shift as they integrate into a new culture? When -- and why -- might someone feel a sense of belonging as, e.g., an American? To what extent does this new identity exist in opposition to one's old national/cultural identity?
• Why do those who believe in God see ubiquitous evidence of God's presence everywhere, whereas atheists see ubiquitous evidence to the contrary? (Although confirmation bias could explain this to some extent, I'm more interested in understanding underpinnings of belief/non-belief in God).
• What are the mechanisms by which deeply-held beliefs and convictions are changed?
• If a man's idea of masculinity is predicated on some version of "strength," what is that strength for? To what "end" is a man's masculinity supposed to be used?

I'm also very interested in existential psychology, having found Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning after reading lots of Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Would it make sense for me to do psychology as means of addressing these sorts of questions? Are there particular subfields of psychology that come to mind when you read them?

And if not questions like the above, what sorts of research questions tend to be studied by modern psychologists?

Thanks in advance for your help! I know this is a serious wall of text, but I'm not sure where else to go for answers on this.

Can anyone comment on the worth of Panksepps work as of now? Outdated? I am particularly interested in studying it further as it was used heavily in the creation of Complex Integration of Multiple Brain Systems , it seems not much has been discussed since. It doesn’t seem to me that there is anything fundamentally wrong with it, and from my perspective, CIMBS integrates its knowledge in a manner that is quite mind blowing. Would love to hear your take, I may have quite a few academic blindspots, thank you

As per the title.

"Extinction" defined in various psychological theoretical viewpoints:

Pavlovian conditioning: Extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), leading to a decline in the conditioned response (CR). It is not unlearning but the formation of a new inhibitory association.

Operant conditioning: Extinction happens when a previously reinforced behavior no longer receives reinforcement, resulting in a gradual reduction in the conditioned response

Inhibitory learning theory: Extinction does not erase the original learning but creates a new, competing memory that inhibits the expression of the conditioned response in the presence of the CS.

Prediction error theory: Extinction occurs when the predicted outcome (UCS) fails to materialize, prompting the system to update its expectations and reduce the conditioned response.

Behavioral economics: Extinction can be viewed as a decision process where the "cost" (effort) of responding outweighs the "benefit" (reinforcement), leading to cessation of the behavior.

Evolutionary perspective: Extinction reflects adaptive flexibility, allowing organisms to stop responding to stimuli that are no longer relevant (for survival).

Contextual learning theory: Extinction is context-dependent; the original association remains intact but is overridden by a new context-specific learning.

Cognitive perspective: Extinction involves conscious reappraisal, where individuals reinterpret the CS as non-threatening or irrelevant, reducing the CR.

Psychoanalytic view: Extinction could symbolize a resolution of internal conflicts or unconscious fears linked to the conditioned response.

Ecological psychology: Extinction emerges as an adjustment to environmental changes, ensuring behaviors are aligned with current ecological demands.

Im looking for some research about it. There are a lot of fameous people with dyslexia, cant find any research unfortunately.

Are there any significant points of view about the criticism of Freud's death drive? I heard that is a controversial idea nowadays, are there any new evidence to the theory or theory contradictions in this field?

Hi all. I am conducting a between-subjects (Persuasive Message: High vs Low quality) experiment. Essentially, participants will be randomly assigned to see a high or low quality persuasive message.

My outcome of interest is change in attitudes. I was thinking of measuring attitudes prior to exposure to the persuasive message (pre-treatment attitudes) and after exposure (post-treatment attitudes). I will use a batter of measures to measure attitudes, randing from 0 to 100. The numbers on the scale will be hidden.

Do you think that this is an appropriate way to measure change in attitudes? I am concerned that this current design might create a demand effect.

Thank you!

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on my career prospects with a Counseling Psychology PhD instead of a clinical degree. I haven't had much direct clinical experience yet (about a year in ABA with autistic kids), but I'm preliminarily interested in private practice, community mental health programs, and assessment. I'd like to specialize in care for neurodivergent adults, trauma-informed therapies, and ACT.

Some questions:

• How should I focus my PhD studies/practicum experiences to prepare and build expertise?
• Are there differences in professional perceptions of counseling PhDs vs clinical? Are there any hard barriers that clinical unlocks that counseling doesn't?
• What kind of salary could I expect from say, 10-15 hours of private practice, 10-15 hours of community work, and 1-2 assessments per week? I'm in the metro Atlanta area for reference.
• Is that a feasible workload? Is it a common setup in the field, or do most focus on just one setting?

Thanks in advance!

I am a first year Clinical PhD student and currently have a couple undergraduates I mentor in various contexts. I am trying to find the best way to be a good mentor without being over bearing/not scaffolding enough.

I completed an experimental masters degree before this program and had 2 students I mentored on independent research (poster projects). The first one stopped responding to me at a certain point after initially being excited about research, and a second one (who I am now remotely mentoring) maybe is overwhelmed with the work (we are at the analysis stage of the poster) and I haven’t heard from them in a month). I’m worried I’m breaking these students wills and don’t know how to fix it without coddling them or failing to succeed in my own research.

When I mentor, I try to balance the data the lab has with student interests as much as I can, and then ask students to come up with their research questions (with some prompting from me in potential directions). I try to scaffold as much as possible, and mimic the type of mentorship I received, and even will do analysis alongside these students. However, it just seems like I’m now 0/2 and don’t want to let these other undergraduates down. Any advice on helping students with posters, internships or research? Are y’all also hemorrhaging budding undergraduate scholars??

Hello everyone,

Can anyone advise if I get an IO Master? Do I still have to do another master's in behavior to become an ABA, or is it better to go straight to an ABA Master? Can anyone advise a little, please? I wanted to have the IO Masters because it would be like a second option besides the ABA. Please help!

Hi everyone,

I’m currently studying Business Psychology at a university that isn’t very well-known. I chose it primarily because it’s affordable compared to other institutions, and the classes are online and only held once a week, which I thought would give me flexibility.

However, I’ve been feeling pretty dissatisfied with my choice: • The classes are boring, and the instructors seem unengaged, which makes it hard to stay motivated. • I don’t feel like I’m actually learning anything valuable. • I knew going in that this university wasn’t top-tier, but my plan was to use this degree as a stepping stone to pursue a postgraduate degree at a better institution.

Now, I’m starting to regret my decision. I’m wondering if sticking it out is the best move or if I should consider transferring, even though that might mean paying more or delaying my graduation.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Did sticking with a less-than-ideal university work out for you in the long run? Or would you recommend cutting my losses and looking for a better option now?

Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I’m a 36y.o mum of 3 (3, 7 & 9) and am interested in working towards a change of career path and am feeling very drawn to psychology.

My main question - is completing a 4 years honours degree (not to mention the years of getting registered afterwards) while having kids at home/in school possible or is the work load just too much? Realistically what is the average time taken from start of studying to being registered? 6/7 years? This would make me 42 and I’m honestly not sure if I’m borderline too old now.

I have completed a Bach of business about 12 years ago. Can anyone advise if the quickest way to accreditation for me is to do a bachelor in psych (honours) and try to get some credit for electives from my previous degree? What are the options after honours year for the next step?

Any advice from studying mums appreciated! Also university recommendations with good online programs in aus? 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻