D2.Psy.9.9-12: Biological, Psychological and Sociocultural Influences on Thought, Perception and Behavior

Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Two friends walk out of the same movie. One says the ending was obvious; the other says it was a total surprise. List as many reasons as you can for why two people could take in the same two hours so differently."

   Pairs list reasons for 3 minutes. Collect them on the board in three unlabeled columns as they come in: one for body and brain (tired, hungry, wears glasses), one for the mind (what each expected, how closely each paid attention, mood) and one for the world around the person (friends' opinions, movies they grew up with, language). Then label the columns biological, psychological and sociocultural. The rest of the lesson gives each column evidence.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Three outcomes. Cognition is mental activity such as attending, remembering, reasoning and deciding. Sensation is the detection of light, sound, pressure and other energy by the sense organs; perception is the brain's organizing and interpreting of those signals into meaningful objects and events. Behavior is what a person observably does. A factor can affect one outcome or all three.

   Three levels of factors. Psychologists often explain a behavior at three levels at once. The psychiatrist George Engel named this the biopsychosocial model in a 1977 article in the journal Science. The levels are not rival answers: most real behavior has causes at all three, and the levels influence one another.

   The three levels of factors (examples written for this page)

   Level	What it includes	Example of an influence
   Biological	Genes, brain structure and development, hormones, the sense organs, health and age	A nearsighted student cannot read the board from the back row without glasses (perception)
   Psychological	Expectations, attention, beliefs about oneself, emotions, past learning	A student sure she will fail a test stops checking her work early (cognition and behavior)
   Sociocultural	Family, peers, school, culture, language, community norms	A student raised to address adults by title says "Ms. Rivera" without thinking (behavior)

   Two key ideas about perception. Bottom-up processing builds a perception from the features the senses detect. Top-down processing uses what a person already knows, expects or wants to interpret those features. A perceptual set is a readiness to perceive one thing rather than another, created by expectation, context or recent experience. Selective attention is focusing on part of what the senses take in while the rest goes unprocessed. Sensory adaptation is the fading of the response to a stimulus that does not change, such as no longer noticing the hum of a refrigerator. Both expectation and attention are psychological factors, but they are often set off by the social situation.

   Read Source 1 aloud. Hugo Münsterberg (1863-1916) directed the Harvard psychology laboratory and wrote these essays to persuade courts that witnesses' perception can be shaped by expectation.

   1But, as we have insisted, it is never a question of pure sense perception. Associations, judgments, suggestions, penetrate into every one of our observations. We know from the drawings of children how they believe that they see all that they know really exists; and so do we ourselves believe that we perceive at least all that we expect. I remember some experiments in my laboratory where I showed printed words with an instantaneous illumination. Whenever I spoke a sentence before-hand, I was able to influence the seeing of the word. The printed word was courage: I said something about the university life, and the subject read the word as college. The printed word was Philistines: I, apparently without intention, had said something about colonial policy, and my subject read Philippines. In this way, of course, the fraudulent advertisement makes us overlook some essential element which may change the meaning of the offer entirely. Experimental psychology has at last cleared the ground, and to ignore this whole science and to be satisfied with the primitive psychology of common sense seems really out of order when crime and punishment are in question and the analysis of the mind of the witness might change the whole aspect of the case.

   Then read Source 4, a current page from the National Eye Institute, for a biological factor in perception.

   1If you have color blindness (color vision deficiency), it means you see colors differently than most people. Most of the time, color vision deficiency makes it hard to tell the difference between certain colors.

   2Usually, color vision deficiency runs in families. There’s no cure, but special glasses and contact lenses can help people see differences between colors. Most people who have color vision deficiency don’t have problems with everyday activities.

   [...]

   3The most common type of color vision deficiency makes it hard to tell the difference between red and green. Another type makes blue and yellow look the same. In rare cases, people have complete color vision deficiency, which means they don’t see color at all.

   [...]

   4Men have a much higher risk than women for color vision deficiency. [...]

   [...]

   5Most people who have color vision deficiency are born with it. This is because the most common types of color vision deficiency are genetic, meaning they’re passed down from parents.

   • A psychological factor in perception: Source 1

     In Münsterberg's laboratory, a subject shown the printed word courage read it as college. What factor changed the perception, and is this bottom-up or top-down?

     Result: The factor is expectation set up by a sentence he spoke beforehand "about the university life": a psychological factor triggered by the situation. The printed letters never changed, so the difference came from top-down processing, an example of perceptual set.

   • A biological factor in perception: Source 4

     Source 4, paragraph 2 says color vision deficiency "runs in families." Is that phrase enough to call it a biological factor, and which outcome does paragraph 3 show it affects?

     Result: Not by itself: accents, recipes and religious customs also run in families, for social reasons. A reader has to check what the source says about the cause, which paragraph 5 does. The outcome is perception: paragraph 3 says one type makes it hard to tell red from green, and another "makes blue and yellow look the same."

   • Classifying everyday cases

     Name the level of the main factor and the outcome: (a) after watching a scary movie, a student hears the house creaking as footsteps; (b) a student who grew up where people bow in greeting bows slightly when meeting a new teacher; (c) a student with a fever cannot keep his mind on a reading.

     Result: (a) Psychological factor (fear and expectation), perception. (b) Sociocultural factor (a learned greeting custom), behavior. (c) Biological factor (illness), cognition.

   • Sensation versus perception

     Two people look at the same cloud. One sees a rabbit; the other sees a map. Which part is the same for both, and which part differs?

     Result: The sensation is much the same: similar light reaches both sets of eyes. The perception differs, because each brain organizes and interprets the shapes using its own knowledge and expectations.

   • Factors interact

     Source 4, paragraph 2 says most people with color vision deficiency "don’t have problems with everyday activities." Use this to show how a biological factor and a sociocultural one work together.

     Result: Whether an inherited difference in color vision affects behavior depends partly on the setting people build: a map or sign coded only by red and green creates a problem, while one that also uses labels or shapes does not. The biological factor is the same; the social design changes the outcome.

   Close the segment: In Example 1, would you call the spoken sentence a psychological or a sociocultural factor? Accept both with reasons: the expectation is psychological, and it was created by a social exchange. The point is that the levels are tools for explaining, not boxes that every cause fits into neatly.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Read Source 6 together. It is an invented study with invented data, written to show how a psychologist could test a top-down effect. Then read Source 3, a real historical comparison of two groups, and contrast the two designs.

   1Invented study summary, written for this page. A high school psychology teacher wanted to see whether the symbols around an unclear figure change what people see. Forty student volunteers from the school's psychology elective took part. Each had written permission from a parent or guardian, was told they could stop at any time, and wrote no name on the answer slip.

   2A laptop flashed a row of three symbols for one second. The middle symbol was the same in every trial: a hand-drawn figure that could be read either as the capital letter B or as the number 13. A random draw placed 20 volunteers in a letter group, who saw the figure between the letters A and C, and 20 in a number group, who saw it between the numbers 12 and 14. Right after the flash, each volunteer wrote down what the middle symbol was. Each volunteer saw one flash only.

   3Results. Letter group: 17 wrote B and 3 wrote 13. Number group: 6 wrote B and 14 wrote 13.

   4The teacher's note: "Most of the letter group read the figure as a letter and most of the number group read it as a number, even though the figure itself never changed. Everyone came from one elective at one school and saw a single flash, so this is a small first look, not proof about people in general."

   1. Variables. The independent variable is the context (letters or numbers on each side); the dependent variable is what each volunteer wrote. The middle figure, the one-second flash and the laptop stayed the same.
   2. Numbers. In the number group, 14 of 20 wrote 13, which is 14/20 = 70%. Leave the letter group's share for students to compute on their own.
   3. Factor. The context created a perceptual set: a psychological factor. Reading the symbols at all depends on having learned letters and numerals, which is a sociocultural factor in the background.
   4. Limits. Forty volunteers from one elective is a small, narrow sample, and each person saw one flash. The random draw makes it unlikely that one group simply had better eyesight.

   Now read Source 3. Rivers, a British physician and psychologist, tested Murray Islanders in the Torres Strait in 1898 with a figure now called the Müller-Lyer illusion: two equal lines, one ending in arrowheads that point outward and one in arrowheads that point inward, look unequal in length. Rivers used a brass instrument on which the two parts of one joined figure, AB and BC, sat side by side, and each person slid BC until the two parts looked equal. His summary table lists 38 Murray Islanders (19 men, 10 boys and 9 girls) and 42 English observers (two groups of 15 adults and 12 children). Sample warning: these are small groups made up of whoever was available, not random samples of either population.

   1[...] The illusion appears to be distinctly less marked to Murray Islanders than to the Europeans. This is shown not only by the average but by the maximum and minimum observations, and also by the median observations, which differ but slightly from the averages. [...]

   [...]

   2[...] There is no reason why a simple factor of this kind should not influence the Papuan as well as the European. The fact that the illusion seemed to be distinctly less marked to the Papuan than to the European may possibly be due to the fact that the former concentrated his attention more completely on the special task he was given to perform, viz. to make the lines AB and BC equal to one another, and tended to disregard the other lines present in the figure. The European, on the other hand, probably recognizes at once that he is dealing with more than the simple problem of the relative length of two lines and tends to regard the figure as a whole. [...]

   Discuss: (1) Paragraph 1 states the finding; which level of factor does a difference between two communities point to? (2) Paragraph 2 offers Rivers's own explanation; which level is it? (3) What is different about the design of Source 6? Ask how each design decided who was in which group. Later researchers, among them Marshall Segall, Donald Campbell and Melville Herskovits in their 1966 book The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception, reported data from many societies (fifteen in their 1963 report in Science) and linked the differences to habits of seeing learned from the visual environment people grow up in. That explanation is still debated.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read Sources 2, 5 and 7 on their own and use all seven sources for the quiz and homework. Source 2 is another of Münsterberg's classroom demonstrations; Source 5 is a current federal page on the teenage brain; Source 7 is an invented case. Sample warning for Source 2: the hundred papers came from one Harvard class of young men who knew they were being tested, and there was no comparison condition, so treat the result as a demonstration, not a measured rate for people in general.

   1Now, let us keep this in mind in looking over the last experiment, which I want to report. I stood on the platform behind a low desk and begged the men to watch and to describe everything which I was going to do from one given signal to another. As soon as the signal was given, I lifted with my right hand a little revolving wheel with a colour-disk and made it run and change its color, and all the time, while I kept the little instrument at the height of my head, I turned my eyes eagerly toward it. While this was going on, up to the closing signal, I took with my left hand, at first, a pencil from my vest-pocket and wrote something at the desk; then I took my watch out and laid it on the table; then I took a silver cigarette-box from my pocket, opened it, took a cigarette out of it, closed it with a loud click, and returned it to my pocket; and then came the ending signal. The results showed that eighteen of the hundred had not noticed anything of all that I was doing with my left hand. Pencil and watch and cigarettes had simply not existed for them. The mere fact that I myself seemed to give all my attention to the colour-wheel had evidently inhibited in them the impressions of the other side. Yet I had made my movements of the left arm so ostentatiously, and I had beforehand so earnestly insisted that they ought to watch every single movement, that I hardly expected to make any one overlook the larger part of my actions. It showed that the medium, famous for her slate tricks, was right when she asserted that as soon as she succeeded in turning the attention of her client to the slate in her hand, he would not notice if an elephant should pass behind her through the room.

   11. Adolescence is an important time for brain development.

   2Although the brain stops growing in size by early adolescence, the teen years are all about fine-tuning how the brain works. The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions.

   32. Brain development is related to social experiences during adolescence.

   4Changes to the areas of the brain responsible for social processes can lead teens to focus more on peer relationships and social experiences. The emphasis on peer relationships, along with ongoing prefrontal cortex development, might lead teens to take more risks because the social benefits outweigh the possible consequences of a decision. These risks could be negative or dangerous, or they could be positive, such as talking to a new classmate or joining a new club or sport.

   53. The teen brain is ready to learn and adapt.

   6The teen brain has an amazing ability to adapt and respond to new experiences and situations. Taking challenging classes, exercising, and engaging in creative activities like art or music can strengthen brain circuits and help the brain mature.

   [...]

   77. The teen brain is resilient.

   8Despite the stresses and challenges that come with adolescence, most teens go on to become healthy adults. Some changes in the brain during this critical phase of development actually help support resilience and mental health over the long term.

   1Invented case, written for this page. Theo is 16 and has just moved to a new city. At the end of his first week at the new school he texts a classmate, Ana, to ask whether she wants to work with him on a history project. Her reply comes an hour later: "ok." Theo reads it as annoyed. The next day he eats lunch alone instead of sitting at Ana's table.

   2In Theo's old town, his friends wrote long messages full of exclamation points, so a one-word answer looked cold to him. Ana and her friends usually text in single words. All week Theo had been expecting that classmates would not want a new student in their group, and he had been checking his phone for replies more often than usual.

   3After lunch, Ana finds Theo and asks why he did not come to her table. She says "ok" is how she always answers when she agrees, and they make a plan for the project.

   Task: build a three-row table for Source 7 with the headings Level, Factor in Theo's case and Evidence. Fill one row each for a biological, a psychological and a sociocultural factor. For the biological row, quote Source 5 with its paragraph number. Then write two sentences on how the three factors worked together to produce one behavior: eating lunch alone.

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: "Choose one source. Name the factor it describes, the level of that factor, and whether the outcome is cognition, perception or behavior. Then name one limit of the evidence."

   Teacher notes. (1) Sources 1-3 are historical. Münsterberg's reports are informal: Source 1 recalls laboratory trials without giving any numbers, and Source 2 is one quick demonstration with one class of young men, without the controls a modern study would use; and the same chapter goes on to claim that a quick test can pick out minds "unfit" to report what they saw, a sweeping claim drawn from one quick demonstration that a modern psychologist would not accept without much stronger evidence; that passage is not printed here. (2) Rivers's report uses the language of 1901 science: elsewhere in the same discussion he calls the islanders "wholly ignorant" and suggests that their more consistent measurements may have been due to that ignorance. He partly means that they did not know the illusion or psychological methods, but the sweeping wording is outdated and disrespectful; it reflects the period's views, not evidence about the islanders, and it is left out of the excerpt. (3) Sources 6 and 7 are invented for teaching; their data and people are not real. (4) Source 5 is general health information, not a way to judge any person. If a student raises a personal concern about health or stress, point them to a trusted adult, such as a parent, school counselor or doctor.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 1, Münsterberg's subject read the printed word Philistines as Philippines. According to the source, what produced this misreading?

   AA flash of light too short for the letters to reach the eyes BAn unusual word the subject had never seen printed before CA remark about colonial policy, spoken just before the word DA printing error that left two letters out of the word

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Eighteen of the hundred students in Source 2 did not notice anything Münsterberg did with his left hand. Which term from the lesson best names the process behind this?

   ABottom-up processing BSelective attention CSensory adaptation DPure sensation

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does Münsterberg say in Source 2 caused the eighteen students to miss what his left hand did?

   AHis warning beforehand that the task would be very hard BThe poor view of the desk from the back rows of the room CThe speed of the colour-wheel, which tired the students' eyes DHis own visible attention to the colour-wheel he held

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 2 says Münsterberg had "beforehand so earnestly insisted that they ought to watch every single movement." Why does this detail make the result more striking?

   AIt rules out that the students did not know they should watch BIt shows the students had been trained to watch magic tricks CIt proves every student watched only the colour-wheel closely DIt means each student was tested alone in a quiet laboratory

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does Rivers report in Source 3, paragraph 1?

   AThe illusion was stronger for Murray Islanders than for Europeans BThe illusion was weaker for Murray Islanders than for Europeans CThe illusion was equally strong for the islanders and Europeans DThe illusion was seen only by Europeans who knew the figure well

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Rivers's explanation in Source 3, paragraph 2 points to a factor at which level?

   ABiological: the islanders' eyes were built to judge length BSociocultural: the islanders' language had no word for illusion CPsychological: the islanders kept their attention on two lines DBiological: the Europeans' eyes were tired from close reading

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 4, paragraph 4 says men have a much higher risk of color vision deficiency than women. Read together with paragraph 5, which conclusion is best supported?

   ASex is linked to an inherited risk for this difference BMen pay less attention to colors than women do in everyday life CBoys are taught fewer color names than girls are in most families DMen's color vision weakens since they spend more time outdoors

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 5, paragraph 2, what is the prefrontal cortex responsible for?

   ASkills like seeing color, hearing pitch and keeping balance BSkills like walking, running and controlling our breathing CSkills like planning, prioritizing and making decisions DSkills like storing memories, feeling fear and smelling

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 5, paragraph 4 says teens "might" take more risks. Which pair of influences does the paragraph combine?

   AHormones that cause sleepiness and a school day that starts early BA focus on peers and a prefrontal cortex still maturing CLow self-esteem and pressure from parents to earn high grades DGenes for risk taking and too few rules in teenagers' homes

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Source 6, what percent of the letter group wrote B?

    A17% B74% C85% D58%

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which result in Source 6 would have weakened the teacher's conclusion that the nearby symbols changed what people saw?

    AIf both groups had written B equally often BIf most of the number group had written 13 CIf the letter group wrote B more often than 13 DIf every volunteer had written some answer down

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Source 7, which detail is a sociocultural factor in how Theo read the reply "ok"?

    AHis expectation all week that classmates would not want him BHis checking of his phone for replies more often than usual CHis age of 16, when the brain is still being fine-tuned DHis old friends' habit of writing long, excited messages

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student who has just read a news story about a shark sighting sees a dark shape in the water as a fin. Which pair names the main factor and the outcome?

    APsychological factor; perception BBiological factor; perception CSociocultural factor; perception DPsychological factor; behavior

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which statement best describes the biopsychosocial approach to explaining behavior?

    AEach behavior has one true cause, found at one of three levels BBiological causes matter most; the other two levels add detail CMost behavior has causes at levels that affect one another DSociocultural causes matter most, since all behavior is learned

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Invented case: Zara, 15, has moved from a town where people stand close together when they talk to a city where people usually stand farther apart. At her new school she keeps stepping closer to classmates, and some of them step back. Zara decides they dislike her and stops joining conversations. Explain her decision with one factor at each level, name the outcome each factor affects, and quote Source 5 for the biological factor.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Use Source 2 to explain the difference between sensation and perception. What probably happened at each stage for the eighteen students who noticed nothing on the left side?

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17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Rivers compared Murray Islanders with English observers. Besides "culture" in general, name two specific differences between the groups that could have affected how strongly they saw the illusion, and explain one problem with Rivers's single category "the European."

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18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Source 6 ends with the teacher's note that the study is "a small first look, not proof." Name two changes to the design that would make the result more convincing, and explain what each change would fix. Your plan stays on paper.

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19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Source 5 is sometimes summarized as "teen brains make teens take risks." Using two different paragraphs of Source 5, explain why that summary is one-sided.

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Sources 1 and 2 both show a psychological factor changing perception. Explain how expectation (Source 1) and attention (Source 2) work differently, with one quotation from each source.

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These standards connect to D2.Psy.9.9-12: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.