Psychology
Freewill Vs Biological Determinism; The benefits of choosing positive stress perception…..
As shown above the classic Yerkes Dodson inverted ‘U’ illustration of the relationship between anxiety and performance 
used in sport and a range of other areas of applied psychology -the right amount of stress at the right time can aid performance. However, if you were to ask most people about their stress levels – you will get a consistent answer regarding there being too much of it, which is difficult to argue with. Or is it? Below is a lecture that discusses how the choice of perceiving the stress response in a psychologically healthy way has the significant influence of the body effectively following suit and minimising the physiological symptoms of stress including premature death. These are significant claims – watch the video and examine the evidence presented, is it as simple as changing your mind? If so the freewill debate just received some long needed support……….As 90’s band En Vogue sang ‘Free your mind and the rest will follow‘ maybe they were onto something.
Female serial killers……there are more than you think!
A recent article by the British Psychological Society research blog has highlighted the sudden rise, 150% since 1975, of Female serial killers with hedonistic (financial, lust) reasons cited as a strong motivational factor as well as power seeking.
Clever Hans…….horses for courses……
The Clever Hans effect is wonderful example of how important it is for psychological research to be double blind if it is to truly minimise any bias from researcher or participant. The story goes the horse – Hans was taught Maths everyday for two years was able to tap out with his hoof the answer to difficult mathematical sums (by reading them first equally as outstanding!). Hans was paraded around Europe as an example of animal intelligence………..when in fact Hans was only tapping his hoof after noticing small changes in his trainers (Van Ousten) body language before receiving a stick of carrot and therefore receiving an unconsciously transmitted signal from his trainer. In research methodology this is commonly referred to as the observer-expectancy effect.
Watch a dramatisation below of Hans being taught and the realisation he wasn’t the mathematical genius everyone first thought……
The power of music on the mind…..
Oliver Sacks discusses how the power of music is an important tool for the fight against he onset of dementia. This video truly shows how important music is to our very being. This phenomenon is so powerful there is an initiative to build a bank of playlists to help change people’s lives. http://www.playlistforlife.org.uk/
Skill development in Psychology
Psychologists and therefore psychology students need to be proficient in a range of key skills in terms of English (writing reports or journal articles), Maths (analysing data and drawing conclusions in research) and IT (communicating effectively and using IT to support their work).
Research Methodologies in Psychology
Activities related to the support of key themes in psychological research from an experimental and non experimental perspective….
Predictive Validity? Mind manipulation in the future……
If you have seen either one or both versions of Total Recall…………or better still read the short story (we can remember it for you wholesale) by science fiction writer Philip K Dick, you will know that part of the storyline (no spoilers) consists of implanting memories to an individual of exotic holiday and other exciting adventures which may be usually financially impossible or highly unlikely as a cheaper alternative.
In the future we may never set foot on a tropical beach when we go one holiday, we could just visit them virtually through downloads we place inside our brain, Dr Kaku says
The article also discusses the notion of false memories which has been studied directly by Loftus and how easily it is to manipulate the mind into believing something actually happened which did not.
Loftus’ research on being lost in a shopping mall is a highly illuminating yet arguably unethical piece of research that proves the point. See below for what she did and how she did it….can we trust our memory as being a factual recollection of precise events or a malleable reconstruction of internal and external forces?
2D:4D Ratio…….Counting examples of biological determinism on one hand.
Palmistry…….you have to hand it to it has really nailed the art of feeding in to fortune telling and has historically been given the thumbs up from the most unlikely of sources…but now it is time to knuckle down and look at the evidence of how our hands can tells us about ourselves. Apologies for the poor puns……..I promise from now on to give it a wrist……
Contemporary research has focussed on some links between finger length and correlations between a range of variables such as sporting prowess. Have a watch of the video below from The New Scientist…..do you agree with the conclusions drawn or is it just science getting out of hand?
Psychlite 