Thanks Mike. As always, what makes misconceptions in general so pervasive, even in physics, astronomy and chemistry, where misconceptions have a more cohesive conceptual structure, is that there is a grain of truth in all of them. The situation/disposition (universality) is a good one! I had not looked at that aspect before and will take a closer look at other misconceptions from that perspective.
I think its' important for students to understand, however, that some adages are more true than others in terms of available evidence. For this one in particular, so many freshmen go away to college and think that when they come home at Christmas their lives will pick up where they left, off; and that they will be showered with love. Uh! What a rude awakening--usually their "space" has been invaded by other family members, everyone developed a new routine without them in in, and life is quite different. So while the students pined away for home, they home they frequently go back to is not the home of their ideal dreams. A good demo in an intro psych class where I always have some freshmen and some beyond freshmen, is to ask those who have been through the first semester reunion at home about it--almost unanimously they talk about things changing at home--while they were out of sight, and out of presence physically life went on and filled in their void at home. I think this is particularly important to me because I was sent away to boarding school starting at age 11. At the end of the first YEAR (yes, a whole year in France at age 11), I came home to a different home. My pink blankie was gone off my bed, replaced with a more "mature" beige bedcover; my drawers were taken over with overflow from the dining room, with linens. My toys had been emptied out of my closet and given away...you get the picture. It might have been more dramatic because I was now 12 (at the of that year), and had been gone a long time, but I think students do experience this and it's a good lesson across the board. Now, if I can just find some good studies....and not anecdotes and not what I call "back door" evidence--either the lack of studies that show absence makes the heart grow fonder (despite all those lovely reunions we see in San Diego, a Navy town, when the ships return from deployments), or that being IN sight keeps you IN mind...I will be happier with my evidence. Annette ps: Yes, yes, I know, it's not black and white....I'm just saying that the evidence LEANS ONE WAY more than the other. Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 tay...@sandiego.edu ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 8:01 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: Re:[tips] debunking proverbs On Sun, 28 Aug 2011 10:02:14 -0700, Annette Taylor wrote: > Hi Tipsters: > Well, it appears the New Yorkers came out OK :) Manhattan was very lucky. Other areas not so much. > So, maybe I can call on your collective wisdom (New Yorkers >and all points beyond) > > I am preparing to teach some courses I don't normally teach-- >social psychology and culture in personality development. > > As part of individual lectures I like to debunk popular proverbs and myths. > > Right now I am stuck on "absence makes the heart grow fonder" versus >"out of sight, out of mind." I am not satisfied with the evidence I am finding. >Do any of you have lecture material on this topic? I would appreciate any >sharing. A distinction that you might want to focus on is whether a proverb is viewed as being a "universally true statement" or "situation dependent statement". A universally true statement is like the law of gravity, that is, over the course of human history the law of gravity has been true, it is currently true on earth, and appears to be true everywhere in the universe. A situation dependent statement depends upon that factors that make up a situation. If one situation has a specific factor but another situation does not have that factor, then the proverb may not be true. The key issue is how do people view proverbs: as universally true statement or situation dependent statements? Something like the fundamental attribution error would suggest that most people would view proverbs as being universally true when in fact they may be situationally dependent. Consider, if someone has a strong emotional attachment to a person, place, or thing, the statement "absence makes the heart grow fonder" make sense: one *should* long for things one is emotionally attached to when they are absent. In this situation, the statement "out of sight, out of mind" makes no sense. Imagine a conversation like the following: Mother Teresa: "I'm glad that the kids are away at camp because it gives me more time for myself but I do miss them. How about you?" Narcissist: "Oh, right, I do have kids. They're away at camp. Frankly, I just forget about them when they're not around." I think that most people would find the "Narcissist's" response bizarre, raising the issue of what kind of parent forgets about their kids when they're not around? Single adults might forget people that they're casually dating but it is likely that they don't forget people that feel an emotional attachment to. So, regarding the issue of "debunking" proverbs might boil down to how "true" they are, that is, universally true or situation dependent and why is the proverb viewed as being one or the other. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu P.S. While waiting out Irene, I watched the movie "Stakeland" which is about a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has made zombie/vampire creatures of the infected. An interesting movie with a couple of plot points that make it somewhat unusual. There was a trailer on the DVD for another movie that will be coming out soon that also appears to be interesting. It's title "Norwegian Ninja" and apparently it reeks of sheer awesomeness. But don't take my word for it, see what salon says: http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2011/08/27/norwegian_ninja_review ;-) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: tay...@sandiego.edu. 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