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Transforming Our Lives through Self Reflection and Psychology
A psychology professor's collection of lessons fostering self-discovery through online activities, hands-on classroom experiences, engaging lectures, and effective discussion prompts.
Online Activity by Katie Hope Grobman

Stories of Death and Responsibility

How do we decide who is to blame when bad things happen? Read two short vignettes and assign a percent of responsibility to each character. | Psychology Key Concepts: Just World Hypothesis; Blame the Victim; Attribution

How do you decide who is to blame when bad things happen? To find out, you'll read two vignettes (very short stories). Then you'll assign a percent of responsibility to each character. In the feedback, you'll be able to compare your views of responsibility to other who read the same stories as you or different ones.

πŸ•°οΈ Estimating Time
πŸ€Έβ€β™€οΈ Activity (new tab): 10 to 15 minutes
πŸ““ After-Activity Reading (below): draft materials available so far
Margaret Hamilton original 1969 black and white photo standing with her Appolo code
A Picture Representing the Activity
with possibly additional information here
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A quote at least kinda' related to the activity, creating a space before the reading about the activity
Person, Source of the quote
Rough Draft of Activity - What it Means
✨ You can try this activity anytime! I'm still writing a companion essay explaining your results. If you're already familiar with the psychology, you may still find your personalized results interesting on their own. If you teach, you're welcome to use the activity with your students and interpret results together. I originally created these activities for my own Psychology classes, and I'm gradually expanding them with essays as time allows. Rather than wait until everything is finished, I'd rather share each piece as it's ready. Thank you for your patience while this little corner of the project continues to grow. πŸ’›

View Rough Draft Materials

Additional Information

Uneasy Feelings about Your Results?
Please remember your results with any activity are not who you are. Your results are a 'snapshot' of a moment when you did an activity. It's just one measure, a single thread, of the many strands of who you are. Any result is a guess with statistical error. And it's possible the measure is flawed in a way so it doesn't work for you. Please do not think of your results as definitive dogma. Instead they're a starting point for our self reflection. Please keep in mind too, self-reflection can feel uncomfortable. "Bad" feelings are not actually bad. They're information. So, even if your activity result is inaccurate and flawed, you might ask yourself what your feeling is trying to tell you? Trusted teachers, friends, and therapists can be helpful. I wrote an essay elaborating with concrete examples how we can appreciate uneasy feelings about our activity results.

Scholarly Information?
You're welcome to use Copernican Revolution activities and essays for your thesis and studies. Having information about scholarly aspects like psychometric data, activity design details, and norm calculations may help. The primary focus of my essays is connecting educated laypersons with psychology. To help people like you, with advanced academic interests, I add an appendix with each activity.
Citation

Grobman, K. H. (2015). Essay/Activity Title. CopernicanRevolution.org

Citation date reflects activity creation; essays are continually improved.
Margaret Hamiliton standing beside stacks of her Appolo code from floor to her height.