Alison Jane Martingano

Alison Jane Martingano, Ph.D. is a social psychologist at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, where she leads the Social Research Lab dedicated to investigating empathy and perspective-taking. She has published her research in leading academic journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and Popular Media. She hosts the fortnightly Psychology & Stuff podcast, chatting with psychologists and Green Bay locals about topics ranging from sports to false confessions. In addition, she blogs for Psychology Today, translating cutting-edge psychology research into clear, relatable insights. As an immigrant and military wife, Dr. Martingano appreciates the difficulties and opportunities that communicating with those dissimilar from ourselves can bring. She is a passionate educator and TEDx speaker and hopes to inspire her students, and others, to nurture empathy in a changing world.

TEACHING AND LEARNING PHILOSOPHY

My teaching is grounded in the belief that psychology must be taught as an empirical science, and that students learn best when they actively engage with its methods and applications. To encourage critical thinking from day one, I begin my classes with an activity that asks students to take a position on provocative psychological claims (e.g., “Video games cause aggression”) and then partner with someone who holds the opposite view. After introducing key research concepts, I ask students to identify what kind of evidence could support or challenge their position, prompting both methodological thinking and respectful discourse. This commitment to scientific rigor is paired with a strong emphasis on experiential learning. I regularly incorporate interactive activities—such as replicating Pavlovian conditioning using lemonade powder and a bell—which help students internalize psychological processes by experiencing them firsthand. These strategies extend to my online classes, where I’ve integrated platforms like PlayPosit to maintain engagement through short, interactive content bursts. Across all modalities, my goal is to foster critical thinking, that consistently foregrounds the process of how knowledge is generated, not just what is known.