1. Visit a court room when a trial is in progress. Note wherein psychology could be of service to the jury, to the judge, and to the attorneys.
  2. To test the reliability of evidence, proceed as follows: Take a large picture, preferably one in color and having many details; hold it before the class in a good light where all can see it. Let them look at it for ten or fifteen seconds, the time depending on the complexity of the picture. The students should then write down what they saw in the picture, underscoring all the points to which they would be willing to make oath. Then the students should answer a list of questions prepared by the teacher, on various points in the picture. Some of these questions should be suggestive, such as, “What color is the dog?” supposing no dog to be in the picture. The papers giving the first written description should be graded on the number of items reported and on their accuracy. The answers to the questions should be graded on their accuracy. How do girls compare with boys in the various aspects of the report? What is the accuracy of the underlined points?
  3. Let the teacher, with the help of two or three students, perform before the class some act or series of acts, with some conversation, and then have the students who have witnessed the performance write an account of it, as in No. 2.
  4. Divide the class into two groups. Select one person from each to look at a picture as in No. 1. These two people are then to write a complete account of the picture. This account is then read to another person in the same group, who then writes from memory his account and reads to another. This is to be continued till all have heard an account and written their own. You will then have two series of accounts of the same picture proceeding from two sources. It will be well for the two who look at the picture to be of very different types, let us say, one imaginative, the other matter-of-fact.
  5. Do all the papers of one series have some characteristics that enable you to determine from which group they come? What conclusions and inferences do you draw from the experiment?
  6. Does the feeling of certainty make a thing true? See how many cases you can find in a week, of persons feeling sure a statement is true, when it is really false.
  7. In the following way, try to find out something which a person is trying to conceal. Prepare a list of words, inserting now and then words which have some reference to the vital point. Read the words one by one to the person and have him speak the first word suggested by those read. Note the time taken for the responses. A longer reaction time usually follows the incriminating words, and the subject is thrown into a visible confusion.
  8. Talk to successful physicians and find out what use they make of suggestion and other psychological principles.
  9. Spend several hours visiting different grades below the high school. In how many ways could the teachers improve their work by following psychological principles?
  10. Could the qualities of a good teacher—native and acquired—be measured by tests and experiments?
  11. Visit factories where men do skillful work and try to learn by observation what types of mind and body are required by the different kinds of work.
  12. Does the occupation which you have chosen for life demand any specific abilities? If so, do you possess them in a high degree?
  13. Could parents better train their children if they made use of psychological principles?
  14. In how many ways will the facts learned in this course be of economic use to you in your life? In what ways will they make life more pleasurable?
  15. Make a complete outline of this chapter.

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING

GLOSSARY

Most of the terms given below are explained in the text, but it is hoped that this alphabetical list with brief definitions will prove helpful. It is a difficult task to make the definitions scientific and at the same time brief, simple, and clear.

Abnormal. Having mental or physical characteristics widely different from those commonly found in ordinary people. Acquired nature. Those aspects of habit, skill, knowledge, ideas, and ideals that come from experience and are due to experience. Action. Muscular contractions usually producing motion of the body or of some part of the body. Adaptation. Adjustment to one’s surroundings. Adaptive. Readily changing one’s responses and acquiring such new responses as enable one to meet successfully new situations; also having tendencies or characteristics which enable one to be readily adjustable. After-images. Images that follow immediately after stimulation of a sense organ, and resulting from this stimulation. Association. Binding together ideas through experiencing them together. Attention. Relative clearness of perceptions and ideas. Attitude. The tendency toward a particular type of response in action or a particular idea or association in thought. Bond. The connection established in the nervous system which makes a certain response follow a certain stimulus or a certain idea follow another idea or perception. Capacity. The possibility of learning, achieving, etc. Color blindness. Inability to experience certain colors, usually red and green. Complementary color. Complementary colors are those which, mixed in the right proportion, produce gray. Congenital. Inborn. Connection. The nerve-path through which a stimulus produces a response or through which one idea produces or evokes another. Conscious. Having consciousness, or accompanying consciousness or producing consciousness. Consciousness. The mental states—perceptions, ideas, feelings—which one has at any moment.