Aimed at integrating cutting-edge psychological science into the classroom, Teaching Current Directions in Psychological Science offers advice and how-to guidance about teaching a particular area of research or topic in psychological science that has been the focus of an article in the APS journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. Current Directions is a peer-reviewed bimonthly journal featuring reviews by leading experts covering all of scientific psychology and its applications and allowing readers to stay apprised of important developments across subfields beyond their areas of expertise. Its articles are written to be accessible to nonexperts, making them ideally suited for use in the classroom.

Columns by Topic

Development

• Following Lives Through Time: ‘As at 7, so at 70’?
• How Close Relationships Foster Health and Heartache
• Putting Feelings Into Foreign Words
• Quality Matters: The Value of Infant-Directed Speech for Early Language Development
• Resolving the Adolescent Mystery
• Submitting the Teen Brain to a Student Jury
• The Story of My Life and Yours: Stability and Change

Cognition

• Can Cognitive Flexibility Be Learned?
• Corralling the Drifting Mind
• Don’t Go Shoe Shopping When You’re Hungry: How Cognitive Mind-Sets Carry Over From One Task to Another
• Fast Thinking Feels Good
• How Mindfulness Works
• Individual Differences in Navigating
• Is Cognitive Control a Uniquely Human Capability?
• Mindful Students: The Pain and Pleasure of Awareness and Acceptance
• Rise to the Challenge: How to Enhance Your Concentration
• To Err Is Human: The Psychological Science of Voting Mistakes

Educational Psychology

• Does Montessori Schooling Work?
• When Anxiety Doesn’t Add Up: Understanding and Preventing Math Anxiety
• Why Preschoolers Sometimes Learn Better Than their Parents Do
• Teaching the Testing Effect

Emotion

• Happiness and Hurtfulness: Why Does it Feel So Good to Act So Bad?
• Teaching Students Why People Drive Aggressively and How to Prevent It
• Teaching Students Why Warmth and Competence Matter
• The Cost of Happiness: Teaching Students It Costs Less Than They Think
• The Upside of Being Down
• When Two Emotions Are Better Than One
• Words Have the Power to Inspire Violence and Peace

Evolutionary Psychology

• Understanding Mind From Matter: What Does Prehistoric Farming Say About Your Prefrontal Cortex?
• Simulating Cultural Evolution
• The Marriage of Relationship Science and Evolutionary Science
• The Face of Leadership

Facial Expression and Recognition

• Gasp! That Face Doesn’t Mean What You Think
• Variations in Face Recognition Ability: Stable, Specific, and Substantial

Implicit Associations, Stigma, and Racial Attitudes

• Can There Be Racism Without Racists?
• Confront and Contest Your Stigma
• Correcting Our Stereotype of Stereotypes
• Does Viewing Mental Disorders as Biological Phenomena Reduce or Increase Stigma?
• Not Quite Human: Teaching Students Why Blatant Dehumanization Exists
• Strength and Perceived Threat in Numbers: Teaching Students How to Celebrate Racial Diversity
• The Case for Implicit Associations: Teaching Students What Lurks Beneath Their Awareness

Intelligence

• The Story of My Life and Yours: Stability and Change
• Thinking Smarter About Intelligence
• What Makes a Really Smart Group?

Judgement and Decision Making

• A Handy Way to Study the Mind
• Building Better Decisions Through Choice Architecture
• How Psychological Science Can Support Smarter Medical Decisions
• Inspiring Interest in Interests
• No Free Lunch? Do Decision Making and Category Learning Require Careful Thought?
• Should You Trust Your Unconscious When Judging Lying? Probably Not!
• The Psychology Asymmetry of Experiencing Loss Versus Gain
• The Value of Careful Thought
• Why Smart People Can Make Not-So-Smart Judgments

Language

• Why Word Frequency Matters
• Quality Matters: The Value of Infant-Directed Speech for Early Language Development
• Putting Feelings Into Foreign Words

Memory

• Flashbulb Memories: Uniquely Bright or Commonly Forgotten?
• Say It Out Loud: The Production Benefit in Human Memory
• Strategy Changes in Older Adults: Why ‘Old Dogs’ Don’t Always Perform ‘New Tricks’
• The Art of Memory: Drawing Can Improve Memory
• To Make it Memorable, Bring it to Life

Mindset, Self Control, and Achievement

• Can Brief Psychological Interventions Really Work?
• Getting Wise on Wise Interventions
• Let’s Hear a Good Word for Self-Esteem
• The Powers and Perils of Optimism
• Understanding the Science Behind Desire
• What Explains the Home-Field Advantage?
• When Does Self-Defeat Equal Success?
• Why Self-Control and Grit Matter

Misinformation

• Conservatives, Liberals, and the Distrust of Science
• Misinformation, Misconceptions, and Our Teaching Mission
• When Fiction Becomes Fact
• Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories

Morality and Prosocial Behavior

• Feeling Good Before and After Doing Bad
• Morality Matters: The Case of Political Ideology
• Selfish Genes or Native Prosociality
• The Hidden Key to Virtuous Behavior

Neuroscience

• Brain Size Matters
• Health Psychology Meets Neuroscience: Brain↔Body
• The Neural Greenhouse: Teaching Students How to Grow Neurons and Keep Them Alive

Parenting

• Getting at the Heart of the Love Hormone
• Why Don’t Psychologists Know More About Childbirth?

Perception

• Demonstrating Wishful Perceiving
• Sniffing Out Information: How Odors Change Our Worlds

Personality

• Following Lives Through Time: ‘As at 7, so at 70’?
• Inspiring Interest in Interests
• Shining the Light on Dark Personalities
• When More Isn’t Better: The Costs of Extreme Personalities

Political Psychology

• How Psychological Science can Influence Climate-Change Attitudes and Actions
• Is It Always Wrong to Be Right?
• Morality Matters: The Case of Political Ideology
• The Gaps Among Us: Understanding and Assessing Inequality
• The Psychology of Extremism

Psychopathy

• Once a Psychopath, Always a Psychopath?
• Shining the Light on Dark Personalities

Romantic Relationships

• Happy Marriages and Healthy Bodies
• Love Sees Loveliness
• Sexual Conflict: Uncovering the Mysteries of the Mating Battleground
• Shopping for Relationships: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
• Teaching Sexual Orientation
• Teaching Students Why a Good Marriage Is Hard to Find
• The Marriage of Relationship Science and Evolutionary Science
• The Two-Way Traffic Between Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction
• Why Do Romantic Partners Get Under Our Skin

Religion

• Psychological Science Meets Religious Faith
• Religious Engagement and the Good Life
• Why People Believe in God — or Don’t

Social Psychology

• ‘Ask and Ye Shall Receive’: Underestimating Our Social Power
• Bringing Zero Acquaintance Research Into the Classroom
• Getting at the Heart of the Love Hormone
• Getting High on Social Connection
• How Close Relationships Foster Health and Heartache
• How to Give a Gift: Shock and Awe, or Calm and Useful?
• People Need People: Why Close Relationships Predict Health
• Social Sleep: Why It Hurts Ourselves and Others to Skimp on Sleep
• The Net Result: Do Social Media Boost or Reduce Well-Being?
• The Psychology of Extremism
• The Ritual Animal
• The Truth About Trust

Stress and Wellbeing

• Does Low Self-Esteem Feed Depression?
• Moving Expenses: Teaching Students About the Costs and Benefits of Residential Mobility
• Teaching Students About How Simple, Positive Activities Can Increase Well-Being
• Teaching Students About the Sunny Side of Stress

Miscellaneous

• A Science of Meaning in Life
• Reflecting on 5 Years of Teaching Current Directions
• Why Teach Methods?

Columns by Date of Publication