I enjoy many of the articles in these magazines, and may share a copy
or article now and then with my students. After reading Annette
Taylor's post about how the students reacted to skeptical treatment of
their preferred beliefs, it struck me that some of the articles might be
useful in a social psych class when discussing belief perseverance. You
could provide the articles or excerpts from them before covering such
issues about belief formation and perseverance, and have students write
reaction papers to articles that might challenge favorite or culturally
popular ideas. I would guess we all encounter this from intro to upper
level classes---that is, the rationalization, dissonance reduction, etc
when confronted with challenges to ideas. I would also include examples
for the class of the instructor's experience in dealing with evidence
counter to his or her own favored beliefs so as not to put students on
the spot. Gary Peterson
