The Psychologist June 2013

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the

psychologist vol 26 no 6

june 2013

The paradox of knowing Do we have greater insight into others than ourselves?

David Dunning investigates.

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letters 382 news 390 careers 444 looking back 462

reports from the annual conference 398 imagining the future 418 interview: working at the cutting edge 424 methods: network analysis 430

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Contact The British Psychological Society St Andrews House 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR tel 0116 254 9568 fax 0116 227 1314 mail@bps.org.uk www.bps.org.uk www.twitter.com/bpsofficial

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psychologist vol 26 no 6

letters diagnosis debate; humour; stupidity; the academic backlog; disabled scientists; A-level; the virtual conference; and more

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news and digest 390 the launch of DSM-5; hospital passport; emotional support following stroke; nudge unit; fist clenching and memory; replication; awards; and the latest nuggets from the Society’s free Research Digest service annual conference 398 reports from the Society’s Annual Conference in Harrogate, including: Alex Haslam and Robin Dunbar covering each other’s keynotes; asylum seekers; social media; Presidential Address; magicians, mesmerists and mediums; the 2011 riots; contemporary masculinities; revisiting the classics; ethics; working memory and education; nostalgia; and more ANNA HEATH

The paradox of knowing Why do we have greater insight into others than ourselves?

David Dunning outlines some intriguing research

414

pull-out

Imagining the future – a bird’s eye view James Thom, Nicola Clayton and Jon Simons on episodic future thinking

418

Interview: Working at the cutting edge Lance Workman talks to Kevin Browne about his international work on institutional childcare practices

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Methods: Network analysis David Hevey, Aifric Collins and Amy Brogan

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society 432 President’s column; Lifetime Achievement Award; the Research Digest on the radio; and more careers and appointments

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we meet Professor Dame Glynis Breakwell, and Dr Jennifer Hall writes about her work in Uganda

june 2013

THE ISSUE In As You Like It, Shakespeare noted that ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool’. Bertrand Russell concurred: ‘One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision’.

In 1999 David Dunning and Justin Kruger demonstrated the effect experimentally in one of my favourite ever findings: incompetent people lack the competence to recognise their own incompetence.

But it’s not just the incompetent: we are all prone to errors in our understanding of ourselves in comparison to others. Nearly seven years on from his last piece (tinyurl.com/cu66oe3) we welcome Dunning back for an update on why people in general appear to know other people better than they know themselves.

Elsewhere we have an extensive set of reports from the Society’s Annual Conference (see p.398), and our broader ‘Reviews’ section (p.452) continues to benefit from willing volunteers, many alerted to opportunities through @psychmag on Twitter.

Dr Jon Sutton

reviews is psychology being taken for a ride?; pioneers; experiences of war; Being Human; A Box of Birds; Light Show; All in the Mind; and more

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new voices 458 an ecological approach to audio description from Louise Fryer in the latest of our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices) looking back Freud and the British royal family: David Cohen delves into some intriguing and bizarre connections

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one on one

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…with Stephen Murgatroyd

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LETTERS

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Debate on DSM-5: a false dichotomy?

contribute

Recent media coverage suggests that the debate between clinical psychology and psychiatry has become polarised; that the latter group proposes a strictly biomedical conception of mental ‘illnesses’ and that the former is opposed not only to the DSM project and the over-medicalisation of distress, but to the idea of classifying people’s problems at all. However, clinical psychological research opens up a third position between these extremes, allowing us to think differently about what a psychological ‘diagnosis’ could mean.

Validity is a central theoretical concern to psychology, so it is no surprise that the DSM’s lack in this regard should be felt by clinicians to be an embarrassing indictment of the manual’s clinical utility.

However, it is a mistake to infer that a lack of validity in actually-existingdiagnosis precludes the possibility of

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These pages are central to The Psychologist’s role as a forum for discussion and debate, and we welcome your contributions.

TIM SANDERS

A recent statement by the BPS Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) attacking the DSM-5 gained substantial visibility in the media, including a high-profile article in the Observer (12 May 2013) accompanied by opinion pieces by Professor of Psychological Medicine Sir Simon Wessely and author and child psychologist Oliver James.

According to the Observer article, the DCP representatives claimed that ‘it was unhelpful to see mental health issues as illnesses with biological causes [italics ours]… On the contrary, there is now overwhelming evidence that people break down as a result of a complex mix of social and psychological circumstances – bereavement and loss, poverty and discrimination, trauma and abuse’.

The DCP representatives in the media appear to predicate their argument on a false dichotomy between genes and environment, which seems to presume that search for genetic risk factors equals drive for medication and that demonstration of environmental risk calls for psychological therapy. We do not know of any informed researchers who would make a simplistic proposal like this. The pronouncements in the media also give the impression that ‘psychological and social circumstances’ are something that transcends biology. Yet anyone who has done their homework in keeping up with the research in the past 20 years should be able to draw the following simple conclusions for which the evidence base is unequivocal: I Individuals’ psychological circumstances do not exist without biology. Only a committed dualist would make this argument. Therefore, to understand psychological disorders, we cannot ignore biology.

I

I

There are substantial individual differences in how people react to ‘environmental’ risk factors and overwhelming evidence that genetic factors play a role in susceptibility to both bad and good environments.

‘Environmental’ factors cannot be assumed to be causal or free from genetic influences.

The above points should be taken into account by DCP representatives who are in danger of muddying mental health issues by ignoring the biology. Their present stance will fail to deliver help for those who suffer from mental health problems.

Unfortunately, this advice will be lost on those who are not slowed down by a need for an evidence base, but instead

a valid system of diagnosis. Psychology is founded on statistical and psychometric tools which allow us to identify meaningful classifications and approach the question of whether there is a coherent concept ‘out there’ or not.

Psychologists measure, with some degree of success, such abstract concepts as ‘attachment’, ‘stigma’ and ‘theory of mind’, and there is nothing inherent to mental health problems (as opposed to DSM categories) that suggests they could not be categorised in the same way. This need not entail a classification of people who manifest these problems, and it need not entail the assumption that the problems in question are ‘illnesses’ with a poor prognosis.

In fact, much current clinical psychological research, even where it rejects the categories of the DSM, points

Send e-mails marked ‘Letter for publication’ to psychologist@bps.org.uk; or write to the Leicester office.

toward the possibility of a more effective underlying classification. A recent example is Longden et al.’s (2012) comprehensive review of the role of dissociation and trauma in voice-hearing.

Longden and her colleagues suggest that a phenomenon once considered to be a ‘symptom’ of schizophrenia can more usefully be regarded as the result of dissociative processes that emerge as a result of traumatic experiences.

Although this represents a welcome turn from the ‘medical model’ of psychosis, it nonetheless assumes a reliably observable process occurring in voice-hearing, one that helps both to distinguish and explain cases of the phenomenon. Identifying a common dissociative process is not to mark people out for social isolation or shame, but to understand why their minds have manifested their distress in

Letters over 500 words are less likely to be published. The editor reserves the right to edit or publish extracts from letters. Letters to the editor are not normally acknowledged, and space does

not permit the publication of every letter received.

However, see www.thepsychologist.org.uk to contribute to our discussion forum (members only).

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letters

Fanning away the smoke irresponsibly make unsubstantiated and alarmist pronouncements about child abuse causing schizophrenia.

However, representatives of the DCP should know better. It is regrettable that the Observer appears to value a provocative soundbite over an informed debate on the issues of mental health and give column inches to die-hards like Oliver James.

As Sir Simon Wessely points out in his response piece to the Observer article, naturally the diagnostic ‘map’ changes as the scientific evidence comes in. And because the mechanisms that result in vulnerability to mental ill health are complex, the refinement of our understanding will not happen overnight.

The National Institute of Mental Health in the USA has indicated that they will direct their funding towards research that is not restricted by the current diagnostic criteria. As far as we can see, the purpose of their statement has not been to advocate a wholesale rejection of DSM-5 in current clinical practice, but instead to encourage new advances in our understanding of the symptoms that mark mental illness – particularly and explicitly with regard to biological vulnerability.

Current treatment methods for the symptoms of mental illness (whether these consist of medication or ‘psychological’ treatments) are far from universally effective. It is therefore critical that we do indeed endeavour to understand the complex factors that lead to mental ill health and that we do not write biology off in the process.

Professor Essi Viding University College London Professor Uta Frith University College London

a way that is, on the face of it, so confusing.

As a trainee clinical psychologist, I find formulation invaluable and idiographic research an essential corrective to the epistemic and social costs of categorisation; ultimately diagnosis should come to be seen as complementary to and not in conflict with these forms of knowledge. Ideally it would even be derived from something like a formulation and would be used in such clinical, research and administrative situations as require a short descriptive label.

Something like this may already be happening anyway, albeit without explicit acknowledgement; the sorts of arguments that get used against diagnosis themselves often rely on the same essential epistemological shortcuts that are currently clumsily provided by systems like DSM. A useful example is the diagnosis of ‘borderline personality disorder’.

So called borderline personality disorder is immensely controversial; it is widely acknowledged that it is a stigmatising term, even an insult.

I had long observed that nonnicotine factors can stop people quitting smoking (‘Why is it so hard to quit smoking?’ May 2013). Even anti-smoking ads with pictures of cigarettes or of pregnant women wreathed in

smoke can arouse desire. So the trouble with ecigarettes is that they are too much like real ones. I have also noted how many people begin smoking for something to do with their hands in a social situation.

My granddaughter was revealed to me as a two-years

Psychologists have shown that it is less a disorder than a particular psychic response to complex childhood trauma (e.g. Fonagy et al., 2003). Encouragingly, appropriate treatments have emerged in the form of manualised and evidencebased psychotherapies (e.g. Bateman & Fonagy, 2004; Linehan, 1993). In many ways, this has been a case of a category successfully tackled head on by psychological researchers and activists alike.

This success nonetheless relies on the existence of a common language between researchers and within services.

Campaigners can’t simultaneously deny the existence of the phenomenon whilst continuing to successfully discuss it as though it were real. The extreme nature of the problem (which can involve severe self-harm and suicide) makes it particularly important to have a shared language with which to understand it.

In abandoning the DSM, the Division of Clinical Psychology has dispensed with a particular set of names and their problematic assumptions concerning medical-genetic underpinnings. However to abandon classification altogether would

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smoker, when she had decided she wished to stop. She is a noted drama-queen in international TV and videomaking, working in a climate of smokers. I gave her a dozen cheap pretty folding handfans and ideas about how to flaunt them, and be a trendsetter.

There was also a laugh in using them too.

Since then I have offered playing with fans to other girls entrapped in smoking by social factors. To my knowledge they have all stopped smoking. Of course, other factors hold too – a disapproving grandmother may well be one.

Dr Valerie Yule Victoria, Australia

be to dispense with the conceptual means for addressing real clinical and social problems. The absence of any form of common language would send nomothetic clinical research and the organisation of mental health services into a communicative impasse.

Huw Green Trainee clinical psychologist and PhD student City University of New York References Bateman, A. & Fonagy, P. (2004). Psychotherapy for borderline personality disorder: Mentalization-based treatment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fonagy, P., Target, M., Gergely, G. et al. (2003). The developmental roots of borderline personality disorder in early attachment relationships: A theory and some evidence. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23(3), 412–459.

Linehan, M.M. (1993). Cognitive behavioural therapy of borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford Press.

Longden, E., Madill, A. & Waterman, M. (2012).

Dissociation, trauma and the role of lived experience: Toward a new conceptualization of voice hearing. Psychological Bulletin, 138(1), 28–76.

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letters

In good humour The articles in your April edition attest to the therapeutic power of humour, comedy and laughter. I was therefore a little surprised to see no mention of Frank Farrelly, founder of Provocative Therapy, the cutting edge in the clinical use of humour and reverse psychology in psychotherapy.

Farrelly (1931–2013) began his professional life as a psychiatric social worker at Mendota State Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, a psychiatric hospital for patients with severe, complex mental disorders. Trained in the Rogerian method of client-centred therapy (today known simply as ‘counselling’) his psychotherapeutic methodology changed dramatically in 1963 as the result of a single encounter with a very ill, chronic schizophrenic inpatient. Farrelly had counselled this patient for 90 sessions with no discernible effect. In the 91st session he realised that empathy, warmth and genuineness (the cornerstones of counselling) were simply not working and his patient remained pessimistic about his prognosis and chances of ever leaving the hospital.

In his seminal text on the subject, Provocative Therapy (Meta Publications 1973), Farrelly describes how he ‘gave up’ and said to the patient: ‘Okay, I agree.

You’re hopeless. Now let’s try this for 91 interviews. Let’s trying agreeing with you about yourself from here on out.’ The patient responded immediately both in more assertive body language and by telling Farrelly that he disagreed with this hopeless assessment of his case and that he was ‘not that bad’. As an intrigued Farrelly persisted with this innovative paradoxical approach, the patient continued to argue animatedly against his devil’s advocate-like assessments and six

As someone who has made a detailed study of humour – it was my PhD topic, I believe that more cognisance should be taken of Freud’s (1905/1976) triad of wit, the comic, and humour.

In brief, wit comprises contrived jokes, originally often ‘put-downs’ but today also word-play and similar mind games involving incongruities. The comic refers to visual humour, born from poking fun at those considered deformed or inferior, thus giving a boost to one’s feeling of superiority. Humour, by contrast, is an attitude or personality trait that enables us to make sense of an ambiguous situation where logic fails: it is a survival mechanism requiring creativity.

Much wit is cruel, and it is believed that the relief provided by laughter once one has ‘got’ the joke originated from a primitive ‘roar of triumph’ of the victor in an ancient jungle duel (Pettifor, 1982).

The loser, if still alive, showed submission with the ‘smile of appeasement’ (Raskin,

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weeks later felt so much better that he discharged himself from hospital.

Emboldened by his success with this, the first tool of Provocative Therapy (‘There is no solution to your problem’) Farrelly developed dozens of further tactics such as ‘Play the Blame Game’, ‘Do more of the same!’ and ‘What’s wrong with that?’ He went on to teach Provocative Therapy to therapists all over the world. Many would not exclusively use Provocative Therapy, but most would learn how to use humour and reverse psychology effectively and safely in their practices.

The golden rule of Provocative Therapy is to ensure that you have ‘a twinkle in the eye and affection in the heart’ when you use it. The client finds that his/her aberrant behaviour and thoughts are being therapeutically satirised but s/he as a whole person feels validated, understood and cared for – all much in the spirit of Carl Rogers but strategically very different.

Laughter is by far the most common outcome in a session of Provocative Therapy although all forms of catharsis are possible. When psychologist clients get their inner jokes, the funny side of how they are preventing themselves from finding fulfilment in life, a window of opportunity for meaningful change opens up for them. The goal of Provocative Therapy is essentially to change clients’ behaviour by therapeutically provoking them with humour and reverse psychology to locate, verbalise, own and enact their own solutions to their problems. the

vol 26 no 4

april 2013

Dr Brian Kaplan London W1

Have you heard the one about… … the psychology of humour, comedy and laughter?

Incorporating Psychologist Appointments £5 or free to members of The British Psychological Society

big picture centre careers 292 new voices 308 looking back 310

this is improbable 260 laughter 264 interview – Wiseman meets Herring 270 opinion: no laughing matter 272

1985); thus the smile originated in a completely opposite manner to the laugh.

There are many claims to being the world’s oldest joke, but it would be difficult to go further back than a riddle found among the hieroglyphics in the tomb of Pharaoh Snefru (2613–2589 BC).

One could not openly criticise someone who was considered to be a god without risking execution, but a tomb architect obviously wanted posterity to know something about this deity that was not discussed in polite circles during his lifetime. The architect therefore compiled the following revealing riddle: ‘How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? – You sail a boatload of young women down the Nile, dressed only in fishing nets, and

invite the pharaoh to go and catch a fish!’ Although it might lose something in the translation, with only a few changes to the wording it can be made a topical witticism that can be applied to some of our contemporary politicians, sports personalities and entertainers. Indeed, it seems that life has not changed much over four and a half thousand years!

Dr Michael Lowis Northampton References Freud, S. (1976). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. Pelican Freud Library Vol. 6, J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) and A. Richards (Ed.).

Harmondsworth: Penguin. (Original work published 1905) Pettifor, J.L. (1982). Practice wise: A touch of ethics and humour. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(7), 799–804.

Raskin, V. (1985). Semantic mechanisms of humour.

Dordrecht: Reidel.

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letters

The Laws of Stupidity It has long been my their universality would do contention that we much to obviate unnecessary psychologists spend far too hand-wringing over much time studying humanity’s foibles, providing intelligence whilst that other an understanding that our great human faculty, stupidity, highly evolved ability to be receives scant attention. Even stupid makes recurrent a cursory glance at history disasters simply inevitable. shows that our stupidity has Nikolaas Tinbergen, the great had a far greater effect on ethologist and Nobel Laureate, events than our much vaunted clearly recognised this when intelligence. (Warfare in its he said: ‘I believe that I have various forms is a good discovered the missing link example; don’t get me started between animals and on the tobacco industry.) intelligent life: it is us.’

Careful consideration of Let it not be said that I the field leads me to have been slow propose that there exists to apply these a set of underlying Laws insights to my of Stupidity, on a par professional perhaps with Newton’s work. I write Laws of Motion or the a lot of reports Laws of for the courts.

Thermodynamics in their In a recent one, universal applicability.

I offered a There appear to be four diagnosis of of these: stupidity, hedging Nikolaas 1. Stupidity is a this round with an Tinbergen universal human acceptance that this faculty, not found in did not exactly animals. – This means, comprise a recognised DSM-IV inevitably, that you are category. I argued that this was stupid and so am I. the only possible 2. Stupidity is not the opposite interpretation of the person of intelligence, they are having accidentally set fire to orthogonal dimensions. – their bed (with themselves in This means that it is it) on not just one, but no possible for someone to fewer than three occasions. be highly intelligent and The director of the agency that extremely stupid at the provided the instructions same time. promptly had kittens about 3. Whilst the stupidity of this unconventional diagnosis, others is obvious, one’s own but the court and the referring is entirely invisible, solicitors appeared to have no irrespective of magnitude. – problem with it at all.

This accounts for the There have been some common illusion that one moves in the right direction. is the only intelligent being A recent edition of New on the planet.

Scientist devoted its cover 4. Unlike intelligence, stupidity article to stupidity, recognising is additive, so that the the Second Law above and stupidity of a group equals commenting that the stupidity the sum of the stupidity of of intelligent people is its members. – Groups, particularly dangerous because such as corporations or of their ability to convert their governments, are therefore folly into action. Nevertheless, capable of acts of stupidity we shall probably have to wait which far exceed anything for some time before a Faculty any individual could of Stultology is established at manage by themselves. a university. And I still haven’t heard from Stockholm.

Galen Ives These laws explain a great Sheffield deal. A wider acceptance of

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FORUM SURVIVAL GUIDE Here’s an interesting question to ask any scientist: If you were to receive no more research funding, and just focus on writing up the data you have, how long would it take? The answer tends to go up with seniority, but a typical answer is three to five years.

Does this academic backlog matter? We’ve all done failed studies with inconclusive results, and it would be foolish trying to turn such sow’s ears into silk purses. But I suspect there’s a large swathe of research that doesn’t fall into that category, but still never gets written up. Is that right, given the time and money that have been expended in gathering data? Indeed, in clinical fields, it’s not only researchers putting effort into the research – there are also human participants who typically volunteer for studies on the assumption that the research will be published.

I think the backlog stems from the incentive structure of academia. If you want to make your way in the scientific world, you have to get grant funding and publish papers. When I started in research, a junior person would be happy to have one grant, but that was before the REF. Nowadays heads of department will encourage their staff to apply for numerous grants, and it’s commonplace for senior investigators to have several active grants, with estimates of around one to two hours per week spent on each one. Of course, time isn’t neatly divided up, and it’s more likely that the investigator will get the project up and running and then delegate it to junior staff, then putting in additional hours at the end of the project when it’s time to analyse and write up the data. The bulk of the day-to-day work will be done by postdocs or graduate students, and it can be a good training opportunity for them. All the same, it’s often the case that the amount of time specified by senior investigators is absurdly unrealistic. Yet this approach is encouraged: I doubt anyone ever questions a senior investigator’s time commitment when evaluating a grant, few funding bodies check whether you’ve done what you said you’d do, and even if they do, I’ve never heard of a funder demanding that a previous project be written up before they’ll consider a new funding application.

I don’t think the research community is particularly happy about this: many people have a sense of guilt at the backlog, but they feel they have no option. So the current system creates stress as well as inefficiency and waste. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I think this is something that research funders should start thinking about.

We need to change the incentives to allow people time to think.

I don’t believe anyone goes into science because they want to become rich and famous: we go into it because we are excited by ideas and want to discover new things. But just as bankers seem to get into a spiral of greed whereby they want higher and higher bonuses, it’s easy to get swept up in the need to prove yourself by getting more and more grants, and to lose sight of the whole purpose of the exercise – which should be to do good, thoughtful science.

Dorothy Bishop is Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford. Read the full version of this column at http://deevybee.blogspot.com. This column aims to prompt debate surrounding surviving and thriving in academia and research.

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Disabled scientists invisible?

It’s 2013, and where is the recognition of the disabled scientist? How many readers of The Psychologist know of a disabled adolescent who chose to study a scientific subject? At university, I was one of two reading psychology and neither of us received much support.

Now a Fellow of the BPS, I still have a 100 per cent record of rejection of applications to committees.

I sense that colleagues look at the quantity of published papers, not what you’ve actually achieved. The lack of knowledge concerning the real experiences of a disabled person means that I have to read some very insensitive comments in our journals. Referees either have no idea, or don’t care about the damage caused by ill-informed opinions expressed as fact. Errors and distortions aren’t corrected, perpetuating myths and undermining best practice.

The fact is that there are disabled scientists who can make a contribution to the alleviation of suffering even though they are housebound. Example: Who was instrumental in creating awareness of the illness now known as chronic fatigue syndrome in the early and mid-1980s? I expect that few will know of my involvement because severely disabled scientists, bar one, are invisible. And in my view, our expertise is not valued.

There is no scientific equivalent of the Paralympics. Shouldn’t we, of all the professions, be challenging what is essentially pure discrimination?

Ellen Goudsmit Teddington, Middlesex

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Psychology A-level teaching A perennial issue in the teaching of A-level Psychology is the qualifications of those teaching it. This was most recently raised by Caroline Rigby (Letters, October 2012), who referred to Ofqual’s ‘A-level Reform Consultation’ document and put in a plea for the number of qualified subject specialists available to teach psychology to be increased as a matter of priority. However, I am aware that there has been much debate about the quality of training, the number of training places available and a general feeling of ‘malaise’ in relation to psychology as an academic discipline at pre-tertiary level.

Psychology is not regarded as a valuable subject in the Key Stage 4/5 curriculum by the present Education Secretary, who does not seem to understand the complexity of the subject. This is despite the fact that it is classed and funded as a STEM science, and has one of the highest numbers of candidates at A-level. In some schools, it is because of popular subjects like psychology that minority A-level subjects remain viable.

Psychology addresses key government priorities by equipping students with skills in science, communication and data handling.

Students are trained in numeracy and statistics, scientific method, communication skills and ethics, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the diversity of human behaviour. Not only that, but psychology is the science subject which addresses a major gender issue, as it is studied by many more girls than boys.

The government funds psychology as a STEM science, so it is classified with the other sciences, and yet the Training and Development Agency for Schools places it in ‘other subjects’ when it comes to ITT; in higher education, psychology is a science with BScs and MScs being awarded, but in teacher training (and Ofsted inspection) it is a social science. Schools will be left with little or no choice but to teach psychology with non-specialists, as student demands for psychology remains high while the supply of qualified subject specialists declines.

This is problematic, given that it has been suggested that students taught by non-specialist psychology teachers often perform less well, particularly in research methods, statistics and cognitive psychology.

My local MP agreed to meet me to discuss my concerns further and we had a very productive 40-minute discussion after he observed one of my lessons. As a newly co-opted committee member of the Association for the Teaching of Psychology, I aim to continue to lobby the government on these issues. I am inspired by my own students, who describe psychology as ‘a disciplined scientific approach to understanding human behaviour’. We cannot let our students down by allowing psychology to be devalued by those who do not fully understand it.

Helene Ansell The Chetwynd Centre, Stafford

Clinical psychology heartache I wish to express my gratitude to Frances Harkness for her piece on breaking up with clinical psychology (Letters, May 2013). I was impressed with her frank discussion and filled with an overwhelming relief that it was not just me feeling this way.

I am a fourth-year undergraduate student and have been relentlessly pursuing volunteering opportunities throughout my undergraduate career, doing everything in my power to gain sought-after experience. I have been recently plagued with the dilemma of pursuing clinical psychology as a career, which would come at great cost to my finances, and time with the risk that it may be an unsuccessful pursuit. Due to naivety I often felt guilty for questioning the requirements

and saw this as my lack of commitment and resolve.

The heavy competition allows psychology to increasingly abuse graduates and I am fearful how long this can continue.

For many graduates it is simply unrealistic to be requested to work in minimum-wage support roles in pursuit of experience. This is leading to an elitist market in admissions, and will inevitably impact on the psychologist that the system produces. The nature of this system no longer reflects the values psychologists promote and has led me to question my faith in psychology. I feel inclined to take Frances’s message and invest my skills in a job which will reflect my personal values along with saving me five years of heartache.

I was recently at the Scottish BPS undergraduate conference and was delighted to listen to Society President Peter Banister comment on the wide range of skills psychology graduates gain, he described graduates as psychology’s ‘life blood’, and I was inspired by his take on the issue. Sadly, I feel the support for graduates is not reflected in the discipline and is increasingly dissipating their vital enthusiasm that psychology as a discipline could benefit from. By failing to nurture and support graduates I fear psychology is losing potential candidates like me, who would reflect the correct values required for clinical psychology training.

Sarah Rose Doune Perthshire

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The validity of the virtual conference I recently attended a virtual conference, curious to see how it would operate. It did not live up to my expectations. This letter discusses some of its pros and cons, encouraging debate over how appropriate virtual conferences are to meet the conventional aims of a conference.

Listing 23 advantages of a virtual conference on the conference website, a factor analysis of sorts would spawn only a handful. Whilst many were true (mainly regarding sustainability), I disagree that the event had the ‘same validity as face-to-face (F2F) conferencing’. Mostly, there was a distinct lack of socialising, which I was anticipating could have been enhanced online. From experience, the positive memories from the conferences I have attended in my time as a PhD student, including BPS conferences, have been predominantly social. This event was merely a repository of papers.

With no fanfare, there was no ‘realtime’ interaction (which could have been easily arranged). As such, there was no

motivation to be online at any particular time. The most interactive it got was an e-mail informing that someone left a comment on your paper. The few times this happened – with zero comments on the majority of papers – I simply logged on and replied. This did not allow for a genuine discourse to develop. It in no way mirrored the sort of face-to-face questions at a conference, whether after a presentation or in the hallway. Irritatingly, there was no notification that other delegates replied to my own comments. In fact, there was a lack of correspondence from organisers overall, without even so much as an e-mail to confirm the event was live.

It wasn’t all bad. For the first time at a conference, I had my submission peerreviewed. The papers were organised thematically, and there were no technical hitches. How many presentations have you been to where PowerPoint didn’t work, or there was an ‘Apple vs. PC’-style mishap?

Whilst there are advantages, the key question raised is whether or not the virtual conference can replicate or improve upon the traditional conference.

Based on my experience, I do not believe this to be the case. Glamorous as it is not having to choose one presentation over another with conflicting schedule or fumble about with business cards, I don’t see that the overall template (at least in the guise noted above) can in any way rival the tried and tested formula of conferences.

Is this merely a reflection of my own experience though? The majority of delegates were from Eastern Europe and did not seem to complain. Perhaps more useful is to consider the very purpose of a conference. In this respect, a virtual conference allows for research to be disseminated much quicker and to a far broader audience than traditional conferences. For such reasons, and given the general rise of digital journals, etc., I expect many of you will find yourselves at a virtual conference in the future.

Hopefully it’s a better experience than mine.

Steven Caldwell Brown Glasgow Caledonian University

obituary

David Westbrook (1950–2013) Dave was only 62 when a car crash killed him this April, and the loss to the worlds of clinical psychology, CBT, Oxford Health NHS Trust, and to his family, is enormous.

He started his professional life in 1979 with a gold medal from his training as a Registered Mental Nurse, and worked on Vic Meyer’s behaviour therapy ward before re-training (again with distinction) as a clinical psychologist in 1985. Altogether, he worked for over 40 years for the NHS: as a therapist, supervisor, trainer, researcher and manager, making friends everywhere. He became especially skilled in treating people with chronic depression and with obsessional disorders; he was a founder member of Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre (OCTC) and its director between 2004 and 2012. He retired last year, but continued to work as a clinician and to write.

His whole career provides an inspiring example of versatility in the very best tradition of clinical psychology. He has left us his contributions to the Oxford Guide to Behavioural Experiments in Cognitive Therapy, a hugely successful introduction to CBT, booklets for patients to use and many academic writings. All that he did was motivated by the wish to provide, develop and promote psychological services for those who need them. One of his special interests was in service-related research, and he tackled important questions: How does standard clinical practice compare with research results? Do people with complex problems benefit more from a longer than a shorter treatment?

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He was a hands-on psychologist, with a talent for management, whose clinical work was guided by care and compassion. Those who benefited from his training and supervision, for example in Poland, Iceland, Kosovo and Libya, but especially those in Oxford, enjoyed his clear thinking and relaxed delivery. His attitudes and personal style seemed to be designed for cognitive therapy: collaborative, experimental, open and explicit, ready to listen, and to respond to feedback as well as to offer it clearly and honestly. As many will remember, he was completely informal: never dressed up in jargon (and almost never in a suit); always able to appreciate the ridiculous and to laugh at himself.

I worked with him for nearly 30 years and never once heard him boast.

Dave Westbrook was a big man with a big brain and a big heart. He had a serious commitment to important stuff, with laughter never far behind, and an enviable light touch. No wonder he loved music and read philosophy as well as being superbly competent in all things technical. He was a devoted and very much loved family man. He will be remembered with admiration and pleasure as well as sadness.

Gillian Butler Oxford

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You had to be there Alex Haslam (University of Queensland) opens our Annual Conference coverage with his report on a keynote by Robin Dunbar

TONY DALE

Technology is often presented as Do they really offer anything different?

Conference in Harrogate in April. a solution to the woes of the human And, if they do, is this something we Despite the fact that many of the condition. E-mail, for example, was really need or can actually use? These speaker’s lectures are available online initially promoted as a tool that would were questions that Robin Dunbar – (e.g. on Oxford’s Creative Commons facilitate a host of cumbersome working Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology website), the auditorium was packed to practices and free up time for things that at the University of Oxford – addressed the proverbial rafters. This itself bears we really wanted to do. Reality, though, in his recent keynote address to the testimony to the fact that in the age of is less glamorous. Indeed, it sometimes British Psychological Society’s Annual the digital classroom, there is still seems that the main thing e-mail has something significant to be freed us up to do is more e-mails. gained from face-to-face At a more specific level, the NHS experience. Moreover, having National Programme for IT was been there, this is something initially sold as a project that would to which I can attest. Indeed, revolutionise health delivery and save in itself, the ability to say ‘I both time and money by streamlining was there’ is no trivial thing. the management of medical records For those at the BPS meeting and associated processes across it affirms one’s place in the institutions, services and professions. world as a high identifier with Ten years and £13 billion later contemporary psychological (enough to pay the salaries of 30,000 science just as surely as having clinical psychologists for a decade), seen Derek Stark’s screaming the project was scrapped without a 40-yard goal in Dundee single patient ever having benefited United’s 2-0 victory over AS from it.

Roma in the 1984 European In such ways, our capacity to be Cup semi-final marks one out seduced – but ultimately betrayed – as a committed and credible by technological development seems Tangerines fan. to be as limitless as the budgets that Moreover, having watched such developments demand. the Roma match replayed on Turning, then, to new social YouTube and listened to media like Facebook and Twitter, Dunbar again on Podcast, I can a critical question is whether their confirm that technology does promise to create a new superviolence to social reality. At The Society’s Annual Conference in Harrogate in connected and super-socialised Tannadice, Stark’s shot screamed April was attended by more than 500 delegates citizenry is equally far-fetched. into the net like a guided missile,

Opening the box Robin Dunbar returns the favour, with his report on Alex Haslam’s keynote Every discipline has its icons, and for social psychology these are surely the classic studies of conformity and aggression carried out by Stanley Milgram at Yale in 1961 and Philip Zimbardo at Stanford exactly a decade later. Taking a leaf from Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the Eichman Nazi warcrimes trial that same year, the grand conclusion from both these studies was that humans are not intrinsically evil, just mindless conformists. Alex Haslam takes a different view.

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One starting point for this claim was Haslam’s own investigations, with Steve Reicher (University of St Andrews), in the Milgram archives. What caught their attention was Box 44 – the original handwritten comments made by Milgram’s subjects after the experiment.

Among the most common was gratitude for having been allowed to take part in an important, ground-breaking scientific experiment – ordinary folk making their

contribution to science, something they viewed as worthwhile. (Oh, the days when scientists were held in such high esteem!) In essence, Haslam’s argument is that most of these people were far from being distressed by their experiences (as some have claimed) but rather were delighted to take part, felt honoured by the opportunity and were therefore committed to the grand project (science) that the experiment represented. They would have

done whatever Milgram asked because they believed in him: this was ‘engaged (or identified) followership’, not mindless conformity. Milgram himself had contributed to the effect: it was clear from the notes that he had ‘bigged up’ the experiment and their value in it.

Both Milgram and Zimbardo were skilled salesmen, and this in part explains why their experiments succeeded.

Herein, mused Haslam, may be

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on YouTube it looks altogether more ordinary. And although Dunbar’s lecture was up there with very best, the same is true of conference keynotes. Moreover, it is one thing to hear the applause of others, quite another to be part of its collective authorship.

Technology, then, is a good supplement but a poor substitute for the real thing. And much the same, it turns out, is true of Facebook friends. In its infancy Mark Zuckerberg’s creation was promoted as having the capacity to do for friendship networks what jet engines did for aeroplanes – with possibilities limited only by the scope of the user’s imagination. In the case of Facebook, this means that one could potentially have up to 5000 friends. But in reality, unless they are using them for something other than friendship (e.g. as a client base or fanclub) the number of friends that people actually have appears stubbornly constrained to an average of around 150.

For Dunbar, 150 is an integer that has particular resonance, since it is the number that bears his name. Why? Well because, as his research has shown, this is a recurring number when it comes to modern social groups (equating ‘modern’ with the emergence of the human neocortex approximately a quarter of a million years ago). It is, for example, the size of a band of hunter-gatherers, the size of effective organisational units (as discovered by Gore-Tex), and the number of people that typically read the Christmas cards we send.

Dunbar’s key point is that for all its promises, the value of technology is always constrained by human socio-

an answer as to why young graduate students so often find their experiments not working properly: unlike Milgram and Zimbardo, they lack the ‘identity entrepreneurship’ to talk up their project and persuade their subjects to engage enthusiastically.

Towards the end of his lecture, Haslam turned back to Arendt’s assessment of Eichmann, a view that had played a seminal a role in Milgram’s own thinking. In fact, Haslam makes a case for

biology – in this case, the number of people with whom we can interact meaningfully. Biology (the size of the neocortex) places limits on the number of people whose names we can remember, whose activities we can work into our diaries, whose allegiances we can monitor. Or, looked at another way, it was the need to sustain large social networks (and, in the animal kingdom, 150 defines the upper extreme of a continuum) that required us to develop brains that could support this.

Going back to one of the examples with which we started, the significance of this analysis is that it points to the problems that are likely to arise when we put a technological cart before the social psychological horse. The reason the NHS IT project failed was that its architects imagined foolishly that social behaviour would necessarily follow where computer science led. Likewise, it seems naive to believe that Facebook or any similar product can, in and of itself, be a panacea for problems associated with a lack of human connectedness.

This is not to say that such technologies are worthless. Indeed, Dunbar presents plenty of evidence that speaks to their utility and value – something with which 40 million Facebook users would no doubt agree.

The critical thing, though, is that our appreciation of their worth and our ambitions for their application must be tied to an appropriate understanding of the nature of human society. Indeed, empirical work that explores the impact of new technologies affirms that, far from making such understanding redundant, it is now more important than ever.

their having been ‘identified followers’. Himmler’s ‘Posnan Speech’, delivered in 1943 to his SS extermination squads in Poland, illustrates this. Like Milgram, Himmler played up the big story – the contribution the squads were making to the greater good.

Yes, it was dirty work and hard to do, and, yes, none of them liked doing it… but by giving the squads a purpose in the grand scheme of things, he was able to turn ordinary men into engaged followers,

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THE WAY THEY MOVE The vulnerability of child and adult witnesses to leading questions is well documented. But what about the way the interviewer moves their hands? Elizabeth Kirk at the University of Hertfordshire presented her research that involved the questioning of 30 two- to fouryear-olds and 26 seven- to nine-year-olds about the events in a 90-second video.

Kirk found that 93 per cent of the children were susceptible to being misled by an interviewer’s gestures – for example, stroking their chin at the same time as asking if a (clean-shaven) man in the video had had a beard. On average the children incorporated around 2.5 out of eight misleading gestures into their narratives.

Age and superior language ability offered no protection. Among older children only, a greater tendency to mirror the interviewer’s gestures was associated with more vulnerability to misleading gestures. ‘These findings have serious implications for how we interview child witnesses,’ Kirk said.

A related line of research was presented

by Daniel Gurney, also based at the University of Hertfordshire. Sixty adults were presented with a staged crime captured on CCTV and then asked 20 questions about what had happened. If the interviewer nodded as the participants answered, the participants tended to say they were more confident in their answers. In contrast, a shake of the interviewer’s head was associated with reduced confidence. Debriefed afterwards, it was those participants who said they’d noticed the nods and shakes who’d shown the strongest signs of being influenced.

A member of the audience asked about the subtlety of the gestures – would police interviewers really nod and shake their heads in this way? ‘We spend a lot of time performing these gestures in the most natural way possible, rehearsing them,’ Gurney said. CJ

enthusiastically and creatively doing what was necessary.

The key insight is that it makes nonsense of the ‘theymade-me-do-it-guv’ defence.

Eichmann and his ilk were not forced to do what they did.

They weren’t even given orders by the Führer (as Eichmann claimed in his defence). Theirs was a willing and committed engagement with the grand plan. Hitler didn’t need to tell them what the plan was: their whole being was committed to second guessing what the

Führer and his henchmen might want. Haslam’s point is that it was not blind obedience that motivated Milgram’s subjects and Himmler’s thugs; rather, they were actually engaged in a labour of love.

That’s an argument that gels with the emerging evolutionary social psychology view of charismatic leaders and the important role they have played (and still do play) in creating social cohesion around a central theme – in both politics and religion.

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Emotional closeness across the net As use of social media like Facebook and Twitter has exploded, there’s been an accompanying cacophony of speculation about the impact of these new media on our relationships. This symposium on the ‘perils and pleasures’ of social media was a chance at last to hear about some actual data on this controversial issue.

Jens Binder of Nottingham Trent University began by describing his new ‘fictitious friends’ paradigm. Student participants read six-month-long exchanges between two friends conducted via virtual media (such as Facebook) or traditional media (such as the phone and face-to-face).

Virtual exchanges were rated as less enjoyable, even though the content was just as positive as in the exchanges by traditional media. The students’ own technology use also made a difference.

Binder said low-tech users were ‘blown away’ by friendship exchanges that relied on virtual media, rating them very positively, but were less impressed by more traditional interaction patterns.

The reverse was found for high-tech users who responded less positively to virtual media use.

A similar study involving female nonstudents recruited online found that

friendships relying on virtual media were rated more negatively, but only when it was a close friendship.

Next we heard from Sam Roberts (University of Chester), who has been looking at the question of whether Facebook has the potential to increase the size and/or intensity of our social networks – in other words, to overcome ‘Dunbar’s number’ (the idea that time and cognitive restraints limit the number of people we can maintain in a social network). Two studies comparing Facebook users vs. non-users found no differences in their social network size or emotional closeness to contacts, even when focusing only on ‘active’ users as opposed to passive browsers.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: KEEPING A ROOF OVER PSYCHOLOGISTS’ HEADS In his Presidential Address, Peter Banister addressed ‘ignorance about how the Society is governed and how it works’, and reminded us of the successes of the Society in notably challenging times. The shift to HCPC regulation went ‘smoothly’, with approval also gained for the BPS qualifications. Membership numbers increased in anticipation of the HCPC move, and have remained at a steady level. Financial stability has been achieved – with the BPS literally keeping the roof over psychologists’ heads despite persistent thieving

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of the lead from the roof of the HQ building in Leicester!

Banister also pointed to other ways the BPS is growing and evolving to meet the needs of its diverse membership and to improve public impact.

These included the Learning Centre and online shop; myCPD and elearning provision; 100+ conferences and events a year; an increased public policy emphasis; the international impact of the Research Digest and the availability of The Psychologist in several formats; and an expansion

in electronic resources for members, such as EBSCO and Wiley Blackwell journal access, and the new PsychSource portal.

Banister described the Society’s web and social media developments as ‘a good effort’: although he said ‘I do not personally find it as useful as it might be’, it has been a developing avenue for increasing public awareness and information sharing about both the BPS and psychology in general.

On that note, do feel free to share your thoughts on the successes and challenges of the BPS on Twitter via @psychmag. AJ

Most compelling was Roberts’ diary study in which, for two weeks, 41 people kept track of their interactions with five friends, including how they felt after each contact and how much they laughed.

People reported laughing more and feeling happier after face-to-face contact, including via the video-call platform Skype, compared with after text-based or phone contact. Roberts said this shows the importance of non-verbal cues.

What of the idea of media multiplexity? This states that relationships improve as more media channels are used for communication.

Bernie Hogan at Oxford University put this to the test, analysing data from 24,242 husbands and wives from across Western Europe. He found that emotional closeness between couples increased the more types of media communication they used (ranging from interaction in virtual worlds to blogs, Facebook and more), but only up to a point. Beyond five forms of media, emotional closeness stalled or actually went into decline. Hogan speculated that perhaps excessive multimedia contact reflects couples’ attempts to save their relationship, or maybe it’s a sign of stalking behaviour as people lose trust in their partners. Hogan also shared an irony – his study had been sponsored by the dating website eHarmony, he said, and yet he found overall lower levels of closeness between spouses who first met online.

Lastly, we heard from Monica Whitty at the University of Leicester about the hundreds of thousands of people who have been ripped off by online dating scammers. The fraudster uses a fake photo and profile and close daily internet contact to ‘groom’ their victim. At first, a small gift is requested, and this progresses to a request for an airfare to visit the victim. ‘Crisis’ occurs when they fail to show up, by which time real-life personal relationships have often been displaced.

Whitty has conducted in-depth interviews with 20 victims of these scams.

Often the image they have formed in their head of their new ‘partner’ is so strong that they find it difficult to correct even when the truth is known. Some victims even continue to cherish supposed ‘photos’ of the person who scammed them. Whitty said the key for prevention was breaking up the relationships before the requests for money start. CJ

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The lives of asylum seekers and adversity. Clare argued that seeing themselves as resilient, allows participants to position themselves as responsible and capable mothers who are in control of their life and able to work towards building a better future for themselves and their children.

Nonetheless, she indicated that a discourse of strength can be problematic, as it can mask vulnerabilities and reduce opportunities for support to be offered and accepted.

In the final paper, Shani Burke (Coventry University) investigated how refugees manage talk about returning to their countries of origin.

As was highlighted in earlier presentations, participants contrasted the safety of the UK with the danger of their home country.

Although participants frequently faced

hostility and punitive treatment and did not feel they were living a good life in the UK, they were prepared to sacrifice happiness for safety.

The research findings presented in this symposium were in stark contrast to mainstream media representations whereby a horde of ‘bogus’ asylum seekers come to the UK for financial gain. Although the UK is considered a safe haven, refugees continue to face many privations here and their long-term safety is far from guaranteed. Nonetheless, despite their negative experiences, refugees do not want to be pitied or seen as spongeing on society. Participants’ accounts revealed a genuine fondness for British people and British culture and a genuine wish to contribute to society. GK JOHN HARRIS/REPORTDIGITAL.CO.UK

This symposium, convened by Simon Goodman of Coventry University, explored the experiences of people who have fled their home countries to escape conflict, persecution or violence. Four papers were presented that analysed asylum seekers’ accounts of their life in the UK using a qualitative, predominantly discursive approach. Helen Liebling (Coventry University) argued that safety was of fundamental concern for asylum seekers. Although the UK was generally considered a ‘safe haven’, they are frequently the target of hostility and racism from the community, and harsh sometimes inhumane treatment from the Home Office. The greatest fear for asylum seekers, however, is to be forcibly returned to their country of origin to face persecution or even death. Liebling disclosed that symptoms of trauma are common, which are exacerbated by loneliness, disorientation and feelings of being trapped and controlled by punitive Home Office procedures. Support received from friends and refugee centres in the UK is particularly valued, as many asylum seekers are destitute and homeless.

Steve Kirkwood (University of Edinburgh) considered asylum seekers’ constructions of racism and the consequences for social relations.

Reflecting Liebling’s findings described above, most participants had experienced antagonistic behaviour, ranging from name-calling to serious assault. Such experiences were downplayed or even excused, however, as participants were reluctant to acknowledge that widespread and ingrained racism exists in the UK. A range of alternative motivations for such behaviour, such as boredom and ignorance, was expressed. Kirkwood argued that attributing antagonistic behaviour to racism is problematic for asylum seekers; they are reliant on the host country for protection and may appear ungrateful if they criticise its citizens. He also proposed that it is functional for asylum seekers to make unstable attributions for what are clearly racist acts, as this engenders optimism for their future integration into UK society.

Maria Clare (University of Warwick) investigated how women refugees from Africa talk about emotion to construct an empowered and resilient identity. Analysis of participants’ accounts revealed two interconnecting themes: ‘rejecting pity’ and ‘being strong’ in the face of trauma

Who’d be a referee?

Constant stick from crowds, players, managers and the media. How do referees cope? Well, new research from Melissa Anderson (Northumbria University) suggests they are protected by an illusory belief that they are better than their peers.

Anderson compared 11 Premier League referees with a larger sample of countylevel officials. The refs rated themselves on positive characteristics such as how well prepared, confident and decisive they were, and negative ones such as their levels of anxiety and apprehension. Both groups saw themselves as superior to their colleagues, with no significant difference between elite and county refs (although age and years of experience correlated positively with superiority).

Turning to football managers, Andrew Manley (Leeds Metropolitan University) found that the impact of coach reputation was diluted by a footballer’s ‘need for cognition’. In other words, if a player was motivated to think, they were more likely to consider other sources of information when assessing a coach, rather than simply going on their trophy cabinet.

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The trainer–exerciser relationship has parallels with the coach–athlete relationship, and Paul Davis (Northumbria University) investigated it in the context of ‘bootcamps’ and zumba classes. Feedback from trainers that was perceived to provide encouragement, improve technique and correct bad form was positively associated with closeness, commitment and complementarity.

Perhaps surprisingly, instructors’ use of criticism did not influence perceptions of relationship quality.

Lastly in this symposium, John Batten (University of Winchester) presented an ambitious field study into studentathletes’ perceptions and behavioural responses toward a sport psychology consultant. When engaged in a standard imagery session with a consultant they had been told was inexperienced, studentathletes fixed their gaze on the consultant more so than if they thought they were experienced. Batten argued that they were engaged in a more rigorous and systematic data-driven strategy as they questioned the consultant’s reputation. JS

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A violent version of the Mexican wave? rational, collective response to oppression by the state. It is important to note that in the months prior to the riots, police in Hackney and Tottenham (a key area for rioting) performed 6894 stop and search procedures, mainly on young black men, but 6807 of them resulted in no further action. By rejecting the notion that the

the management of future crowd situations and discourage the generation and escalation of violence, we must reject simplistic explanations that focus on mob pathology. It is vital to identify the circumstances that led to and fuelled the riots through an identity-based theory of crowd behaviour that acknowledges its inherent complexity. In an analysis that drew on YouTube and Google Maps, Stott highlighted the role of the police, who typically acted against crowds as a whole rather than problematic individuals, thus engendering psychological unity and empowerment in such groups to resist police action. He concluded by emphasising the need for a science-based analysis of antisocial behaviour by crowds that embraces rather than marginalises psychological explanations, and the development of community-based interventions that work towards solutions rather than apportioning blame. The success of such interventions has been demonstrated, as Stott was involved in training police in conflict resolution techniques that proved to be successful in last year’s London Olympics. GK JESS HURD/REPORTDIGITAL.CO.UK

What can psychology teach us about the 2011 English riots?

For more than a hundred years, social psychologists have tried to understand the reasons why crowds engage in antisocial activities. Various explanations have been provided: deindividuation theory maintains that people indulge in ‘mindless’ violence because their personal identity is subsumed into that of the mob, whereas convergence theory holds that crowd behaviour is a product of a ‘coming together’ of individuals who are predisposed to criminality.

In this incisive and very well-received talk, Clifford Stott (University of Leeds) considered the utility of these ‘classic’ psychological explanations in explaining why a peaceful protest escalated to serious rioting in several cities and towns across England in late summer, 2011. He argued that such explanations are flawed as they imply that antisocial behaviours by crowds would occur randomly, whereas analysis of the circumstances surrounding the riots has identified specific patterns.

Stott highlighted a determination amongst mainstream commentators to pathologise the riots and those that were involved in them, whereby the events were popularly constructed as a ‘a violent version of a Mexican wave’ performed by ‘flaming morons’ and ‘feral rats’. He also observed a general reluctance amongst these commentators to see the riots as a

riots were a rational response to such treatment and a reaction to the cuts, Stott argued that these commentaries raised important questions about the marginalisation of psychological theory where it contrasts with the government’s ideological stance.

Stott argued that in order to improve

MAGICIANS, MESMERISTS AND MEDIUMS ‘You need people like me’, argued Peter Lamont (University of Edinburgh), an expert in historical and conceptual issues in psychology. Psychologists are ahistorical, he said, neglecting centuries of data. In this talk, the focus was the feats magicians, mesmerists and mediums have performed, and what they can teach us about extraordinary beliefs.

Using plenty of nifty sleight of hand himself, Lamont demonstrated how tricksters direct the audience towards the ‘effect’ and away from the ‘method’ by harnessing our natural psychology: exploiting

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naturally interesting stuff, using eyes, voice and body language, and reducing or diverting suspicion. I was struck by the difference between magicians and psychics: the latter group

are more likely to struggle, and sometimes fail, giving the impression that they are not in control of their ‘powers’ in order to make it all more plausible.

When it comes to measuring paranormal belief, Lamont again turns to history. As he points out, traditional questionnaires can appear flawed in the cold light of day. Witches do exist, some people do have the ability to predict the future, mind reading is possible to an extent. To Lamont, we can shed more light on what is ‘paranormal’, what is believed in, through historical

examples such as the Davenport brothers’ spirit cabinet. As psychologists and historians we can then witness a kind of ‘tug of war’ around beliefs, where the exact same evidence used by sceptics becomes evidence of the nature of the phenomena for believers. Psychology itself is a product of thought and behaviour, Lamont argued, it’s reflexive. Even the modern sceptical movement is an expression of certain beliefs about the paranormal, and it is only the turn to history that can help us understand how people continue to come to the conclusions that they do. JS

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Contemporary masculinities This symposium, convened by Peter Branney from Leeds Metropolitan University, explored how representations of masculinity are lived out in and through the body. A total of four papers were presented, followed by an open discussion through a pecha kucha (a presentational method showing 20 images for 20 seconds each to initiate intensive discussion) led by the artist John D. Edwards.

Branney began the symposium by considering how conceptions of masculinity can be embodied in the penis, and how this sense of masculinity is affected by penile cancer.

Although penis cancer is rare, accounting for less than 1 per cent of new cancer cases, it has the potential to cause significant trauma. This is not only through the cancer in and of itself, but also through the potential surgical removal of penile tissue.

Losing part, or indeed all, of the penis left some males in this study feeling ‘less of a man’, although others recognised that there was more to being a man than possession of a penis. One of the key messages to emerge for this talk was that the support of a partner could be very important for feeling secure. Some of the interviewees indicated that they had even altered their sexual techniques following surgery, which had the positive effect of ‘spicing up’ their relationships.

Kate Hunt, from the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, considered men’s reactions to being diagnosed with breast cancer. One of the first challenges faced is for men to reconcile having an archetypical female cancer in a male body.

Male breasts are seldom the subject of discussion, unless linked to obesity, and many males do not realise that they can be diagnosed with breast cancer. Some men had elicited shock or

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disbelief from others and had to show their scar from breast removal surgery to convince others that they actually had breast cancer. This led to men having a dual status as both ‘a man’ and ‘a breast cancer patient’, statuses which had hitherto been regarded as mutually exclusive. This presents challenges to men in (re)forming their identity and sense of their own body.

Brendan Gough, from Leeds Metropolitan University, looked at the effectiveness of the ‘Motivate’ scheme in Nottingham to help men manage their weight. Male obesity is on the rise, but men tend to downplay the level of their own obesity. Similar to women, males on the ‘Motivate’ scheme rejected the idea of ‘normalised’ (BMI-based) ideal weights. Men also tended to use humour when discussing the issue of their own weight. Clothes acted as a barometer for their problems; if the men being interviewed could fit into certain clothes, or brands of clothes, they would feel better about their weight.

The final presentation in the symposium came from Paul Flowers, from Glasgow Caledonian University, looking at the rise in commodification of the aesthetic and function of the penis. There is a growth industry in marketing penis enhancements to men. Adverts for such techniques tend to link penis size to confidence, attractiveness and heterosexuality (there are very few, if any adverts aimed at gay men). These adverts try to establish their credentials through a strong biomedical theme, making their products and techniques appear more scientific and professional. The websites encourage men to view the penis as the centre of their lives and actively encourage comparisons with other men; constructing penile pathologies and concomitant vulnerabilities for many men. MS

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Revisiting the classics Where other sciences have their cardinal theories, the foundations of social psychology rest on a series of controversial, classic studies that have shaped the course of the discipline. This symposium revisited three – ‘interrogating’ them, in the words of coconvenor Professor Alex Haslam (University of Queensland), and moving our understanding forward.

Joanne Smith (University of Exeter) began, summarising Richard LaPiere’s 1930s ‘hospitality study’ in which he travelled across the US with a young Chinese couple. Despite this being a time of intense prejudice towards people of their ethnicity, the couple were denied board at only one out of 251 establishments. Yet when LaPiere contacted these same hotels and restaurants six months later, 92 per cent said they would refuse entry to Chinese people. To LaPiere , this showed there exists a profound disconnect between people’s stated attitudes and their actual behaviours.

Smith highlighted some of the shortcomings of LaPiere’s study – for example, he measured behaviour first, then attitudes, and he neglected to account for the influence of faceto-face social norms. Nonetheless, the research was hugely influential, inspiring others to identify the factors that affect whether there is a mismatch in attitudes and behaviour or not – including Icek Ajzen’s theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour. In more recent years psychologists have come to distinguish between explicit and implicit attitudes and their relationship with actual behaviour.

LaPiere was disappointed by the impact of his study, but, Smith said, ‘his key message – that we should not take anything about attitudes or behaviour, or their relationship, for granted – endures and continues to shape the field today’.

Next, Haslam was on fighting form as he accused post-war social psychology of

espousing a ‘conformity bias’ – the idea that we are somehow naturally inclined to obey and conform to group demands, as supposedly evidenced by the classic studies of Zimbardo, Asch and Milgram.

Haslam took particular aim at Zimbardo’s

On hearing he was a joint winner of the Society’s Award for Promoting Equality of Opportunity, Martin Milton (Surrey University) said he felt ‘excitement, humility, but then real anger’. Titled ‘From stonewall to the consulting room: Power, equality and sexual difference’, Milton’s talk explained why.

Milton said that attitudes to sexuality

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have changed, and that sexual minorities are now treated better, experience less discrimination, less physical threat and increased occupational freedom. ‘I/we /the field have achieved something. But are we at risk of starting to get complacent?’

It’s not that long ago, pointed out Milton, that our own profession was divided on the topic, with homophobic comments and letters sent to the proposers of the then Lesbian and Gay Psychology Section of the Society. The profession was also complicit in how sexualities were treated in DSM. ‘My anger is telling me “don’t think we’ve cracked it’’,’ Milton said.

Thankfully, Milton believes the anger has brought passion and energy to right some wrongs. Although critical of the Society for being ‘overly conservative’ in the past over what it could and could not do in terms of campaigning as a charity, Milton praised developments such as the guidelines for working therapeutically with sexual and gender minority clients, and the position statement on therapies

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Mark Burton

attempting to change sexual orientation.

‘We didn’t miss that boat’, he concluded.

‘We have an amazing role in helping society move towards equality of opportunity.’

The other winner, Mark Burton (Manchester Metropolitan University), followed on with a stirring and thoughtprovoking summary of an ethical orientation that has evolved over the course of his career. We face a perfect storm of ecological, economic and social crises, he warned. To talk of ‘the promotion of equality of opportunity’

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claims that ‘people cannot help but conform to the toxic requirements of toxic environments’ – the so-called Lucifer effect – an idea that he’s invoked to explain reallife instances of cruelty, such as at Abu Ghraib.

But Haslam pointed out that Zimbardo neglects to mention how much of an active role he played in the events of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Assuming the role of ‘prison superintendent’ Zimbardo issued dark instructions to his student guards, telling them: ‘their [the prisoners’] life is totally controlled by us’. This fact, Haslam argued, ‘is ‘massively inconsistent’ with Zimbardo’s story that the prisoners received no training, that their behavioural script was ‘their sole source of guidance’. ‘No it wasn’t,’ said Haslam, exasperated, ‘You fucking told them what to do.’

In contrast to the conformity model, social identity theory states that subordinated groups can resist

oppression, as long as they achieve a shared oppositional identity, as was shown to happen during Haslam and Steve Reicher’s BBC Prison Study.

Zimbardo has rejected this notion of prisoner uprisings as having ‘no external validity’. But it clearly does: Haslam highlighted several real-life examples of prisoner resistance, including at The Maze, in Northern Ireland and Robben Island, South Africa. The model of conformity purportedly supported by the classic studies is ‘dangerously flawed’, Haslam concluded, ‘appearing to explain why the social world is inherently toxic, rather than explaining how this toxicity is brought about by certain forms of leadership and identity – and hence how toxicity can be resisted and overcome’.

Last up, Mark Levine (University of Exeter) re-examined the story of Kitty Genovese and the bystander effect. He challenged the idea that 38 witnesses did nothing to help (in fact, none saw her actual murder), but he acknowledged the bystander effect itself is ‘one of the most reliable, robust’ phenomena in social psychology. This is the simple notion that people’s sense of social responsibility is diluted by the presence of others.

Unfortunately, said Levine, recognition

of the effect had for many years failed to translate into practical insights for how to overcome it, in part because it was assumed the group only ever inhibits helping behaviour.

Over the last decade, that’s changed, as Levine and others have examined the social identity factors influencing when and why the presence of others can actually encourage rather than inhibit individual action. For instance, in a 2005 study Levine and his colleagues showed that Manchester United fans were likely to help a fallen Liverpool fan when their shared identity as ‘football fans’ had been primed. Another paper published in 2009 showed that bystander women were actually more likely to say they’d intervene to help a female attack victim when they were in a group with other women, as opposed to when they were on their own.

‘It is only by unpacking the psychological relationships between bystanders, victims and perpetrators and how social identity processes might contribute to groups being harnessed for the power of good,’ concluded Levine ‘that we will be able to increase the likelihood of future Kitty Genoveses receiving help.’ CJ

A LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE ON ATTACHMENT at this point risks being something of a diversion, Burton argued: it neglects (in)equality of circumstances. It is ameliorative, not transformative: the wider transformational, liberatory agenda is silenced. Burton’s answer is community psychology, which he says offers a corrective to the psychologisation that can occur in psychology and in society.

Burton referred to recent events such as the Mid-Staffordshire NHS scandal, where ‘staff acted so callously, leaving their hearts at the door of the hospital’.

But care scandals are not new, he pointed out. So where did it all go wrong?

Interestingly, Burton points to the colonisation of the Americas as a point at which other humans were redefined as subhuman, the outsider, the lower order.

From then on, new coloniality did not require a colony any more – this sad situation is now integral to the modern world. We must work for the replacement of the present systems of domination, calling on liberation psychology in order to take the perspective of the oppressed. JS

When we think of ‘attachment style’ the first thing that comes to mind is usually the relationship between infants and caregivers.

The symposium convened by Andrea Oskis (University of West London) reminded us that Bowlby’s theory of attachment is in fact a lifespan perspective, in which childhood experiences play an important role in shaping our relationships and emotional well-being in adulthood.

We know that insecure attachment stems from adverse experiences in childhood, but two talks showed that different types of mistreatment actually have differential impact. In a high-risk community sample of women, Antonia Bifulco (Kingston University) found that severe lack of care in childhood, through neglect, antipathy or role reversal, was related to insecure anxious styles of attachment, whereas severe abuse was related to insecure angry dismissive styles. Further, insecure attachment mediated the relationship between childhood experiences and new onset of depression and anxiety.

Vittoria Ardino (London School of Economics) considered the relationship

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between childhood trauma, attachment style, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in forensic populations. Specific aspects of early childhood neglect and abuse in a sample of prisoners highlighted different pathways to PTSD, with maternal physical abuse particularly associated with risk of reoffending.

The other talks in the symposium looked at attachment style in adolescence. Insecure attachment style has previously been linked to dysregulated patterns of cortisol secretion in adult women but Oskis presented evidence that this link is also present in adolescent females. However, Catherine Jacobs (Kingston University) showed that change in attachment style during adolescence is possible. Her action research in partnership with St Christopher’s highlighted the very high incidence of insecure attachment styles amongst young people in residential care. Following a social learning intervention with rewards for prosocial behaviour though, all but one of 58 young people aged 11 to 16 years showed some form of improvement in their attachment style. AJ

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Working memory and education Whenever we need to hold multiple items of information in mind for further processing or imminent retrieval, it’s our working memory that we depend on. In her keynote, Professor Susan Gathercole, Director of the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge, described her lab’s research showing how this mental capability varies between children, and the implications this has for their performance at school.

Research with more than 400 children aged 7 to 10 with poor working memory has found that they tend to make poor academic progress, they have difficulty following instructions and keeping place when writing and copying, and they struggle with classroom tasks that require both processing and storage of information, of which there are many.

Teachers often describe children with poor working memory as ‘being in a world of their own’ or ‘always daydreaming’. Gathercole, a former winner of the Society’s Spearman Medal and Presidents’ Award, believes it’s not the case that the children have chosen not to listen – it’s that they can’t help it. Their difficulties are similar to those reported in children diagnosed with the inattentional

form of ADHD, and Gathercole confirmed there is a large degree of overlap between the populations.

So, having identified the importance of working memory ability for children, what can be done to help those who struggle? In the first instance, there are practical steps that can be taken in relation to teaching style, including – being prepared to re-show information, keeping a close eye on pupils with poor working memory, teaching children strategies to compensate for their memory weakness, and conducting classes in a way that minimises the load on working memory.

Gathercole has produced a free classroom guide for teachers which outlines these ideas in more detail (contact her directly).

Even more appealing would be if there were some way to improve children’s working memory ability. This is the precise claim of many online brain training products, and Gathercole has been at the forefront of research testing one of these, known commercially as Cogmed. The programme involves playful but challenging games that place demands on children’s working memory and that grow progressively more difficult as their performance improves. There have been

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promising results. A 2009 study that Gathercole conducted with Joni Holmes and Darren Dunning found that 35 minutes training a day for 20 days or more (over five to seven weeks) led to significant, sustained improvements in working memory. There was also a small knock-on benefit for maths performance, but this hasn’t been replicated.

And therein lies the crux of an ongoing controversy in this field.

Although working memory training programmes improve working memory performance, many studies have now shown that these benefits don’t generalise to learning performance or other aspects of daily life. Indeed, just days before Gathercole’s keynote, the New Yorker ran an article by the Pulitzer-winning writer Gareth Cook with the stark headline: ‘Brain games are bogus’ (see also the recent meta-analysis covered on our Research Digest: tinyurl.com/arnxjzq).

Acknowledging this transfer issue, Gathercole said the important point now is what to do about it. ‘Is it the case that we’ve only done half the job?’ she asked.

Borrowing from the field of brain injury rehabilitation, Gathercole and her colleagues are now working on new training programmes, including the use of virtual school environments, that engender a flexibility in children, encouraging them to transfer their working memory gains to real-life tasks.

Will it work? Watch this space! CJ

The affable Peter Thompson (University of York) accepted his Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology Education with modesty, humour and double entendre (‘Hard things can be fun’). ‘It’s an award which I thoroughly do not deserve’, he said, before going on to demonstrate ably why he does.

As the late Tom Troscianko wrote in his award nomination, Thompson demonstrates that good teaching can inspire good research. His famous ‘Thatcher illusion’, demonstrated for the audience in timely fashion two days after her death, began as a demonstration for electronics students, of high spatial frequencies in human perception.

‘I went to the Tory party office in York’, Thompson said, ‘and did it on the living room floor in 10 minutes.’ It has now been cited more times than there are words in the paper he wrote, Thompson noted: ‘a good goal for any writing’.

So has he learnt anything about how you engage people’s interest? Absolutely not, he said. But he had a message for people who say ‘It’s so easy for you, because visual perception is really interesting’. ‘That’s complete rubbish. There are people who can do it and people who can’t. And I have no idea which are which.’ JS

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Epistemic superhighway Therapy is not just about the ‘what’ but the ‘how’ of learning, opening the person’s mind via the establishment of trust.

That was the key message from Professor Peter Fonagy (University College London) in his opening keynote, meshing themes of the conference such as the atypical mind, education and attachment.

Fonagy took the audience through some successes of the Children and Young Persons’ Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative, an ‘ambitious

plan to transform services from something already good to something great’ by introducing evidencebased organisation of care.

At the heart of it all, in Fonagy’s view, is communication: humans are predisposed to ‘teach’ and ‘learn’ new and relevant cultural information from each other. Infants display species-specific sensitivity to, and preference for, cues which mark that a piece of cultural knowledge is about to be transmitted.

This opens an ‘epistemic superhighway’, with

ostensive cues (e.g. ‘hello baby’) triggering epistemic trust. Influential communicators (such as Bill Clinton, and Fonagy’s own Hungarian teacher from school!) create the ‘illusion’ of recognising agentiveness of the listener.

Fonagy sees social adversity – most deeply, trauma – as the destruction of trust in social knowledge of all kinds. The solution, he concludes, is to set up clinical services that focus on partnership and communication. JS

Doctors of the dark side?

Should psychologists help supervise the interrogation of terror suspects, ostensibly to ensure procedures remain safe and legal, or should we refuse collectively to play any part? This is a controversy, documented in our own news pages, that has rocked the profession for several years, especially in the USA, where declassified documents have shown psychologists were involved deeply in the design and practice of morally repugnant interrogation practices used in Afghanistan, in Iraq and at Guantánamo.

On the last day of the conference, delegates were shown an edit of US clinical psychologist Martha Davis’s 2011 feature-length documentary Doctors of the Dark Side, which uses interviews and dramatic interrogation reconstructions to explore the controversy (see www.doctorsofthedarkside.com).

We heard, for instance, about the existence in the US security forces of Behavioural Science Consultation Teams (BSCT – pronounced ‘biscuit’), whose job it is to identify detainees’ weaknesses. We heard how army psychologists like James Mitchell oversaw the waterboarding of detainees, including 83 instances of the practice used repeatedly on one single prisoner. And we heard how Mohammed Jawad, captured in Afghanistan by US authorities when he was just a teenager, had been subjected in prison to the

recommendations of a BSCT psychologist, including an instruction to ‘work him harder’ and increase his isolation.

Released without charge after seven years, his mother apparently no longer recognised him.

And yet the film said complaints made to State Licensing Boards against Mitchell and other psychologists have so far all been dismissed. Often these cases are taken up at a local level because the psychologists are not members of the American Psychological Association, and so can’t be disciplined by that organisation. The APA sanctions psychologists’ involvement in interrogation so long as strict ethical guidelines are followed – a position that has provoked fierce criticism from many quarters, including Psychologists for Social Responsibility, who believe psychologists should have no involvement whatever.

On the discussion panel after the screening were Karen Kitchener, a former chair of the APA ethics committee, and Frank Margison, chair of the Trustees of Freedom from Torture. Kitchener outlined the five ethical principles she believes should guide all psychologists (including doing no harm). She stated her belief that all five principles had been broken by the interrogation psychologists featured in the film. CJ

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BOOK AWARD The Society’s Book Award was given this year, shock horror, for a book that contained not a single new idea. This is because, unusually, this year the award went to a populist book – The Psychology Book (DK, 2012). As part of the Big Ideas Simply Explained series, this text manages the seemingly impossible task of condensing all of the big ideas in psychology into a single volume, in a way that is informative and easy to understand. The scale of the challenge faced by the authors was further revealed when it became apparent that the two (of six) contributors giving the award speech, Marcus Weeks and Merrin Lazyan, had not actually met before accepting the award.

This was possible because the book is designed to be read in sections, allowing students, teachers, parents, any interested reader, to dip in and out of different aspects of psychology. Weeks and Lazyan described the difficulty of having to select the most important ideas in the whole discipline and fit them within strictly allocated spaces. The four other authors are Catherine Collin, Nigel Benson, Joannah Ginsburg and Voula Grand.

In the future more popular science books will be recognised by the BPS in this way, with the creation of four awards in different categories: academic monograph; practitioner text; text book; popular science.

See tinyurl.com/bmz6cxq for details. AJ

KETAMINE James Moore, from Goldsmiths, University of London, spoke about the effects of ketamine on sensorimotor prediction in sense of agency (SoAg). SoAg refers to the experience of initiating and controlling actions in order to influence events in the outside world. SoAg is associated with a subjective compression of time: actions and their outcomes are bound together in subjective time. This is known as ‘intentional binding’ and, in healthy adults, depends partly on advance prediction of action outcomes. A disturbed SoAg is often found in schizophrenics, and is thought to be related to aberrant sensorimotor prediction.

Ketamine is a well-established drug model of schizophrenia. Participants completed the intentional binding task on ketamine and, in a separate session, using a placebo. Relative to the placebo, ketamine significantly increased the contribution of prediction to intentional binding. This pattern of results closely resembles previous data from patients in the early stages of schizophrenia, rather than those with more established schizophrenic illness. This suggest that ketamine is a useful model of aberrant experiences of agency associated with the earlier, rather than the later, stages of schizophrenia. MS

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MALTREATMENT AND PSYCHOSIS Over the past decade there has been a resurgence of research into the potential links between childhood maltreatment and the development of psychotic symptoms, reported Helen Fisher (Institute of Psychiatry). Accepting the Society’s Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research Contributions to Psychology, Fisher began with the worrying statistics that 25 per cent of young people are maltreated by their parents, and 63 per cent victimised by peers. The risk of psychosis – hallucinations, delusions and thought disorders – is much higher if you’ve experienced such bullying and maltreatment, with physical and emotional abuse by mothers having the strongest association.

It’s not an easy area to study – memory problems in self-report of maltreatment can clearly be compounded by delusions, and half of the association between childhood maltreatment and psychosis can be explained by re-victimisation in adulthood.

Thankfully Fisher has been able to make use of the ALSPAC prospective epidemiological study to tease apart how the specific characteristics of abuse exposure are differentially related to psychosis. Fisher suggested a passive gene–environment correlation, in that having a parent with psychosis does increase your chances of being maltreated. Child maltreatment is one of many risk factors for psychosis, Fisher concluded, though most with psychosis have not been abused and most abused do not develop psychosis. JS

Health, thinking and hormones As part of the student stream, Peter Lovatt (University of Hertfordshire) gave an enthusiastic and engaging overview of his research on the psychology of dance and its many implications for well-being.

Several different strands of research were covered, which were well illustrated

by Lovatt’s energetic dance routines and reinforced by audience participation.

The impact of dance on thought processes was highlighted, whereby structured dancing can enhance divergent problem-solving abilities and improvisation can

improve divergent thinking and creativity.

Lovatt also highlighted the health-related benefits of dance, providing evidence that it can reduce symptoms of Parkinson’s disease over and above the mere physical effects of exercise. Interestingly, only certain types of dance appear to be beneficial, with ‘a tango being more effective than a foxtrot’.

Research is currently under way to examine the long-term benefits of dancing for people with neurodegenerative disorders.

Dance also has an important role in the mate-

selection process. Lovatt’s research demonstrates that a woman’s fertility cycle influences the way that they dance. Women tend to isolate and move their hips more during their fertile periods. Eyetracking techniques have shown that men’s attention is more likely to be focused on women’s pelvic area during this time. Also emphasising the role of hormones on dance styles, Lovatt explained that women tend to rate more symmetrical men (who have higher levels of prenatal testosterone exposure) as better dancers. GK

INJECTING A FEELING Facial-feedback theory postulates that the facial expression of an emotion (for example smiling) creates, maintains or strengthens that emotion. Michael Lewis (Cardiff University) argued that injections of botulinum-toxin (botox), commonly used to ‘smooth out’ facial wrinkles, can influence our emotional experiences. Evidence was provided that paralysis of the frown muscles may temporarily reduce levels of depression and anxiety due to an inability to use these muscles. Moreover, injections of botox into the forehead may increase gullibility, as people are unable to raise their eyebrows to express surprise and scepticism. The clinical implications of this research were highlighted by Lewis, whereby paralysing the muscles responsible for nose wrinkling (the facial expression of revulsion) has the potential to reduce feelings of disgust in people with OCD, which is a common and distressing feature of the disorder. GK

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TIME FOR A WIKIASSIGNMENT? ‘There are projects to catalogue every cheese on Wikipedia; why not psychological topics?’ So argued Martin Poulter, an Associate for Wikimedia UK. A keen Wikipedia editor himself, he was running a workshop to encourage more psychologists to do the same.

Some pages on Wikipedia – for example Asperger’s syndrome – receive up to 20,000 views per day, yet are thought to be ripe for improvement.

Popular misconceptions, abstract concepts, competing traditions, fragmented terminology and insufficient review papers all mean that this is often the case with psychology. Poulter covered the rewards of contributing: he estimates that his piece on confirmation

bias was seen by 53,000 people in one day and his efforts ‘are a factor in the fact that people talk about confirmation bias more now’.

Why not encourage Wikipedia editing as an educational assignment, Poulter said. These are, after all, the same habits we’re trying to encourage in degree-level education: critical understanding, active involvement and more. Also, 72 per cent of students in a US survey preferred a ‘Wikiassignment’ to a conventional assignment. I note that more than 2000 psychological scientists and their students have joined the Association for Psychological Science’s Wikipedia Initiative: perhaps it’s high time for a UK equivalent. JS

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The emotions of ethics The psychologist gently told his client he was flattered by her feelings, but that it would be unethical for him to pursue the relationship outside of the office. She seemed to understand and left the office to go home, but her car wouldn’t start. It was raining hard, so she returned to the office to wait for a tow truck. She was soaking wet, so the psychologist grabbed a towel and started to help her dry off.

As he did so she turned and threw herself into his arms. They kissed and ended up having sexual relations on the couch in his office.

So concluded a fact-based scenario from Karen Kitchener (University of Denver) in her keynote (available in full via tinyurl.com/cd93lyk), in which she argued that in ethical dilemmas people are often thinking with something other than their head. Emotional responses, and the environment in which they find themselves, can have a big impact.

Drawing on the theories of Herb Simon and Daniel Kahneman, alongside fMRI studies in neuro-economics, Kitchener demonstrated that many moral decisions result from affective processes that are non-conscious and automatic.

I was struck by her reference to the research of Mumford and colleagues, finding that with socialisation into the

social and biological sciences ethical decision-making improved or stayed the same; yet ethical decision-making decreased with years spent in the health sciences. Moral decisions were affected by perceptions of the department climate,

justification has two levels: the intuitive, which is the seat of our emotional reactions to the situation, our values, the level of our professional identity development, and the facts of the situation itself; and the critical evaluative, which allows us to reflect on our intuitions, reform them when they are biased and make decisions when intuitions give us no guidance. The moral principles identified by the model differ somewhat from those identified by the Society’s own Code of Ethics and Conduct. They include nonmaleficence (do no harm), beneficence (produce good), respect for autonomy, justice and fidelity (be truthful, keep promises).

Kitchener presented a model of how such reasoning develops and a methodology that can be used to study its development. She finished with the implications of the ideas for Critical evaluation allows us to reflect on our teaching and learning ethics. intuitions, reform them when they are biased ‘Students need frank discussions of and make decisions when intuitions give us no the ethical environments in which guidance they find themselves,’ she said. ‘It is difficult and takes courage to be the and with more exposure to unethical only one who speaks up about the ethics events students’ moral decision making of a situation. Hopefully, I found ways to declined. give students that courage and that you Kitchener postulates that ethical will too.’ JS

The meaning of nostalgia from death awareness and anxiety. How would you complete the following word: COFF__? Sedikides showed that people who are asked to describe their emotions at the thought of their own death and then answer such a word completion task, respond differently depending on their level of trait nostalgia.

High nostalgics are more likely to answer COFFEE, whereas low nostalgics are more likely to answer COFFIN. So, far from being a psychological deficit, nostalgia, according to Sedikides, both confers meaning in life and acts as a natural defence against existential threats. AJ TONY DALE

As I think back on my time at the BPS Annual Conference this year, I fondly remember the talks, the large quantities of coffee, the time spent with friends and colleagues new and old, the large quantities of wine, and the dancing at the gala dinner. Fortunately, I am aware that becoming nostalgic in this way is not just a way to procrastinate in the face of the looming exam-marking period. According to the winner of the Presidents’ Award, Constantine Sedikides (University of Southampton), nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, should not be viewed as a dysfunction or liability but rather as a psychological strength.

When people are asked to think about a nostalgic event and either write about it for a few minutes or note down four key words, their sense of social connectedness increases. People who have become

nostalgic are less attachment avoidant and less insecurely attached. Nostalgia helps to provide meaning in life, mediated by our sense of sociality.

Being nostalgic may also protect you

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MALE SUICIDE Men aged in their 30s to 50s are particularly at risk of suicide because of potential social isolation linked to numerous changes in social roles and the conception of gender. That’s according to Clare Wyllie, from Samaritans Policy and Research.

Many males don’t have a way of expressing or coping with the changes in their lives.

Interactions with other males, who could provide social support, are often based on performing specific activities, such as sports, rather than discussing emotional issues. This results in the ‘big build’, which is an accumulation of mental issues and stress that continues until a breaking point is reached. Suicide prevention for this group must include the development of social connections as a key measure, taking into account the kinds of relationships and interactions men value. MS

PTSD Laura Freeman and Carolyn Choudhary, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, spoke about the occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its interrelationship with shame among new referrals to an NHS psychological therapy service. Shame may become a lasting disposition and involve defence strategies such as avoidance, concealment and aggression. These may affect interpersonal relationships and impede the process of therapy.

Surprisingly, up to 79 per cent of participants in the study met a diagnosis of PTSD. Total shame scores were also high among the sample and positively related to PTSD scores. Interestingly, characterological shame (as opposed to behavioural shame or body shame) made an independent significant contribution to PTSD. These findings support the conception that shame may be a symptom of PTSD and that screening for PTSD and self-conscious emotion should be considered for patients seeking therapy. MS

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Learning about ethics Ethical practice is at the core of psychological practice, and thus we might expect that teaching about ethics would be at the core of teaching about psychology. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case, as highlighted by Kirsten Bartlett (University of York) within the ethics symposium convened by Tony Wainwright (University of Exeter). A survey of postgraduate students found that around 65 per cent had received some formal ethics training at undergraduate level. Around the same level of PhD and master’s students reported receiving training during their current courses, though this increased to nearly 100 per cent for clinical doctorate students.

Worryingly, this means that some postgraduates will fall into a group who have not received formal teaching in ethical practice at any point in their studies.

The training that was reported was diverse, including structured teaching sessions, training focused on gaining approval for research, and training around specific dilemmas (for clinical students). It was also pragmatic, largely focused around how to gain research approval. A pragmatic approach to ethics teaching may be effective, but Bartlett asked whether this is really sufficient.

The potential consequences of insufficient training and knowledge in ethical practice issues were shown in a separate presentation by Jean Daly (University of Ulster). Daly explored how clinical psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists respond to clients’ disclosures of unprosecuted criminal offences. Only 52.5 per cent respondents felt adequately informed about their legal obligations, and only 56.4 per cent had received training about these. Of greatest concern perhaps was that some participants who were aware of their legal duty still engaged in non-reporting behaviour when faced with hypothetical scenarios. Factors which affected reporting rates were the identity of the client, type of crime, timescale since offence, and level of risk to third party.

Wainwright, Chair of the BPS Ethics Committee, reinforced the need to question the way we currently think about ethics and ethics training in light of moral psychology. Despite the existence of many codes of ethical conduct which psychologists in different organisations may operate within, there is still much unethical conduct. It seems it is a good time to ask whether we want to create pragmatic researchers and practitioners, or moral psychologists. AJ

Mixed experiences of mixed methodology Attendees of the workshop on mixed methods research, developed by Rachel Shaw (Chair of the Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section, Aston University), Nollaig Frost and Anthony Murphy (both Middlesex University), included undergraduates, practitioners and academics up to senior lecturer level. Although mixed research designs are not new, people were there not only to learn about these approaches but also to learn how to increase others’ acceptance of them.

Mixed methods research might mean conducting a qualitative pilot study to

inform a larger-scale quantitative project. It could also mean integrating quantitative and qualitative measures to meet a research aim or understand the effectiveness of an intervention. This mix of quantitative and qualitative methods is usually what mixed methods research brings to mind. However, the workshop showed that it can also mean a mix of qualitative approaches or a mixture of types of data.

One approach covered was pluralism, where multiple qualitative methods are used to answer a complex research question. Looking at data through more than one lens,

rather than being driven by epistemological and ontological assumptions, may enable a greater level of insight into the meanings they contain. This is not about performing multiple analyses until you find one that produces the right result (equally an ever-present concern in statistical analyses, of course). Rather it was argued to be about putting the research question at the core, and accepting that there may be more than one explanation.

Whether psychologists can all accept that using more than one method may be advantageous is another argument altogether. AJ

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Protection or exclusion?

Do we have the right to risk harming vulnerable people by including them in research? Equally, do we have the right to deny people the benefits of research by deciding they are vulnerable?

Kate Bullen (Aberystwyth University) raised these challenging questions within the symposium on ethics convened

by Tony Wainwright (University of Exeter). The key message was that we must strive to minimise harm but also maximise the benefit when conducting research with vulnerable groups. For example, although working with cancer patients receiving palliative care is emotionally charged (for both patients and researchers), this should be balanced against the way in which taking part in research can help to give meaning at the end of someone’s life. And whilst we must use increased sensitivity when working with frail elderly populations, taking into consideration factors such as capacity and ongoing consent, this does not mean that it is right to exclude these older people from research.

An example of the dilemmas involved in conducting research with vulnerable people was separately provided in a talk by

Nadia Wager (University of Bedfordshire). Initially the project to conduct an online survey with survivors of sexual victimisation received an ethics rejection, prompting Wager to research the research process itself. Again, the key point was to minimise costs and enhance benefits. Literature showed that being asked about sexual victimisation was unlikely to bring up forgotten memories, whilst it was found that allowing people open spaces to record their thoughts and experiences maximised personal benefits. When the study actually went ahead, Wager asked participants to complete further questions about the experience of research participation. Survivors of sexual victimisation felt the survey was respectful, but interestingly people who did not have a history of victimisation felt it was not. Some reported experiencing unanticipated distress, and for a small minority this lasted the rest of the day, but participants also reported experiencing personal benefits. At the time of the talk, a follow-up study was planned but was struggling to receive ethics permission.

Both of these talks forced us to recognise that from the very moment we start considering the issue of vulnerability, we are beginning a power dynamic between researcher and participant. Who gets to say who is vulnerable, do you feel you should decide? AJ

Still no simple autism answers it is particularly important to include females in studies of autism.

The triad of autistic symptoms identified by Kanner – social difficulties, communication difficulties, and restricted repetitive behaviours and interests – are now thought to be separable.

Ronald explained the fractionable autism triad hypothesis, which suggests that these symptoms might actually have separate causes.

Each part of the triad is individually highly heritable, but little overlap has been found in their heritability.

However, shared genetic risk factors have been found between autism symptoms and comorbid disorders, such as ADHD. It is thought that further research into comorbidity will TONY DALE

Angelica Ronald (Birkbeck, University of London), winner of the Society’s Spearman Medal, considered how far we have come in our understanding of autism since Leo Kanner first described it as a disorder in 1943. We are sure now that genes and environment both play a role. As the etiology of autistic traits does not seem to differ from that of autism, it is also thought that there is a continuum at both the genetic and environmental level of risk.

It has long been known that boys are more at risk of developing autism, Angelica Ronald but it has recently been recognised that this means girls who develop autism may have a greater burden of risk factors. Therefore,

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

help to shed more light on the causes of autism.

Seventy years on, our understanding of what causes autism has certainly deepened but as Ronald’s speech showed, there are no simple answers. AJ

YOUR REPORTERS Professor Robin Dunbar (University of Oxford) Professor Alex Haslam (University of Queensland) Dr Alana James (Royal Holloway, University of London) Dr Christian Jarrett (Journalist, The Psychologist) Professor Gail Kinman (University of Bedfordshire) Dr Mark Sergeant (Nottingham Trent University) Dr Jon Sutton (Managing Editor, The Psychologist)

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The paradox of knowing We have greater insight into others than ourselves. David Dunning outlines some intriguing research.

To know others is wisdom, to know one’s self is enlightenment.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

People appear to know other people better than they know themselves, at least when it comes to predicting future behaviour and achievement.

Why? People display a rather accurate grasp of human nature in general, knowing how social behaviour is shaped by situational and internal constraints. They just exempt themselves from this understanding, thinking instead that their own actions are more a product of their agency, intentions, and free will – a phenomenon we term ‘misguided exceptionalism’.

How does this relate to cultural differences in self-insight? And are there areas of human life where people may still know themselves better than they know other people?

questions resources

Vazire, S. & Wilson, T.D. (Eds.) Handbook of self-knowledge. New York: Guilford.

Pronin, E. (2008). How we see ourselves and how we see others. Science, 320, 1177–1180. http://cornellpsych.org/sasi/index.php

references

Balcetis, E. & Dunning, D. (2008). A mile in moccasins: How situational experience reduces dispositionism in social judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 102–114.

Balcetis, E. & Dunning, D. (2013).

Considering the situation: Why people are better social psychologists than selfpsychologists. Self and Identity, 12,

414

The holier-than-thou phenomenon The ‘holier-than-thou’ phenomenon in behavioural prediction perhaps best illustrates this paradox of greater insight into other people than the self. The phenomenon is defined as people predicting they are far more likely to engage in socially desirable acts than their peers. Across several studies, we have asked people to forecast how they will behave in situations that have an ethical, civic or altruistic tone. For example, we

or the past twenty-odd years, the main discovery in my lab has been finding out just how unenlightened people are, at least in the terms that Lao Tzu put it. People appear to harbour many and frequent false beliefs about their own competence, character, place in the social world, and future (Dunning, 2005; Dunning et al., 2004). If ‘knowing yourself’ is a task that many philosophers and social commentators – from both Western and Eastern traditions – have exhorted people to accomplish, it appears that very few are taking the advice seriously enough to succeed.

But here is the rub.

Although people may not possess much enlightenment, according to Lao Tzu’s criteria, they do instead seem to display a lot of wisdom. At least when it comes to making predictions about the future, people achieve more accuracy forecasting what their peers will do than what they themselves will do. Through their predictions, they seem to Do people believe too much in their better selves? possess a rough but valid

F

Why don't people learn from the past that they tend to be overly optimistic about the future?

In what other areas of life might people know themselves better than they know others?

wisdom about the general dynamics of human nature and how it is reflected in people’s actions. They just fail to display the same sagacity when it comes to understanding their own personal dynamics. As psychologists, they appear to be much better social psychologists than self-psychologists.

1–15.

Balcetis, E., Dunning, D. & Miller, R.L. (2008). Do collectivists ‘know themselves’ better than individualists? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1252–1267.

Bass, B.M. & Yammarino, F.J. (1991).

Congruence of self and others’ leadership ratings of Naval officers for understanding successful performance. Applied Psychology, 40,

437–454.

Buehler, R., Griffin, D. & Ross, M. (1994).

Exploring the ‘planning fallacy’.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 366–381.

Borkenau, P. & Liebler, A. (1993).

Convergence of stranger ratings of personality and intelligence with self-ratings, partner ratings, and measured intelligence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65,

546–553.

Critcher, C.R. & Dunning, D. (2013).

Predicting persons’ goodness versus a person’s goodness: Forecasts diverge for populations versus individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 28–44.

Dunning, D. (2005). Self-insight: Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. New York: Psychology Press.

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ask whether they will donate to charity, or cooperate with another person in an experiment, or vote in an upcoming election. We also ask them the likelihood that their peers will do the same.

Consistently, we find that respondents claim that they are much more likely to act in a socially desirable way than their peers are (Balcetis & Dunning, 2008, 2013; Epley & Dunning, 2000, 2006).

But here is the key twist: We then expose an equivalent set of respondents to the actual situation, to see which prediction – self or peer – better anticipates the true rate at which people ‘do the right thing’. Do self-predictions better anticipate the rate that people act in desirable ways, with people, thus, showing undue cynicism about the character of their peers? Or do peer predictions prove more accurate, demonstrating that people believe too much in their better selves?

In our studies we find that people’s peer predictions are the more accurate ones. Self-predictions, in contrast, are wildly optimistic. For example, in one study, a full 90 per cent of students in a large-lecture psychology class eligible to vote in an upcoming US presidential election said that they would. They then provided another student with some relevant information about themselves, such as how interested they were in the election and how pleased would they be if their favoured candidate won.

Peers given such information predicted that only 67 per cent of respondents would vote. Actual voting rate among those respondents when the election arrived: 61 per cent (Epley & Dunning, 2000, Study 2).

Time and again we have seen such a pattern. For example, 83 per cent of students forecast that they would buy a daffodil for charity in an upcoming drive for the American Cancer Society, but that only 56 per cent of their peers would. When we check back, we found that only 43 per cent had done so (Epley & Dunning, 2000, Study 1).

In a Prisoner’s Dilemma game played in

Dunning, D., Heath, C. & Suls, J. (2004).

Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health, education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 71–106.

Epley, N. & Dunning, D. (2000). Feeling ‘holier than thou’: Are self-serving assessments produced by errors in self or social prediction? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79,

the lab, 84 per cent of participants said they would cooperate rather than betray their partner, but that only 64 per cent would do likewise. The actual cooperation rate was 61 per cent (Epley & Dunning, Study 2).

Accuracy as correlation

find significant, and if peers are familiar with the person in question, then peer prediction begins to outdo self-prediction.

Roommates and parents, for example, outpredict how long a person’s college romance will last, relative to self-prediction (MacDonald & Ross, 1999). Ratings of supervisors and peers outclass self-ratings in predicting how well surgical residents will do on their final surgical exams (Riscucci et al., 1989). Ratings of peers do better at predicting who will receive a promotion in the Navy early relative to self-impressions (Bass & Yammarino, 1991).

But wait, a careful reader might say.

People might prove overconfident about their own behaviour, but surely they know more about themselves than other people do. This accuracy just reveals itself in a different way. Namely, if we look instead at the correlation between people’s predictions and their actions, we might Misguided exceptionalism find a stronger relationship for selfTaken together, all this research suggests predictions than for peers. More that people tend to possess useful insight specifically, people may overpredict the when it comes to understanding human chance that they will vote. But those who nature. But this research also suggests that say they will vote will still be much more people fail to apply this wisdom to the likely to vote than those who say they self. In a sense, people exempt themselves will not. Forecasts from peers will fail to from whatever valid separate voters from psychological understanding nonvoters so they have successfully.

“We consider ourselves about their friends and This assertion free agents generally contemporaries. Instead, they is plausible, but it immune to the tend to think of themselves surprisingly fails constraints that dictate as special, as responding to empirical test. When other people’s actions” a different psychological we look at accuracy dynamic. The rules that govern from a correlational other people’s psychology fail to perspective, we find apply to them. We have come to call this that peers at least equal overall the tendency misguided exceptionalism. accuracy rates of those making selfWhat is it about their understanding predictions (see also Spain et al., 2000; of other people that respondents exempt Vazire & Mehl, 2008). In one of our voting themselves from? We contend, with data, studies, peers who received just five scant that people recognise that others tend to pieces of information about another be constrained in what they do. There are person’s view of an upcoming election forces, both internal and external to the predicted that person just as well (r = .48) individual, which are out of their control as did people predicting their own actions but that influence how they behave. The (r = .51) in correlational terms. Other smell of freshly-baked chocolate chip researchers report similar findings: All cookies does break people’s willpower. it takes is a few pieces of information for The opinions of the crowd place pressures a peer to achieve accuracy rates that equal on other people to conform. the self. The behaviour can be a But these constraints are for other performance in an upcoming exam (Helzer people. When it comes to our own & Dunning, 2012) or performance on IQ behaviour, we tend to emphasise instead tests (Borkenau & Liebler, 1993). our own agency, the force of our own And, if the action is one that people

861–875.

Epley, N. & Dunning, D. (2006). The mixed blessings of self-knowledge in behavioral prediction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 641–655.

Fiske, A., Kitayama, S., Markus, H.R. & Nisbett, R.E. (1998). The cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske & G. Lindzey (Eds.) The handbook of social psychology (4th

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

edn, pp.915–981). San Francisco: McGraw-Hill.

Helzer, E.G. & Dunning, D. (2012). Why and when peer prediction is superior to self-prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 38–53.

Koehler, D.J. & Poon, C.S.K. (2006). Selfpredictions overweight the strength of current intentions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42,

517–524.

Koehler, D.J., White, R.J. & John, L.K. (2011). Good intentions, optimistic self-predictions, and missed opportunities. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 90–96.

Kruger, J. & Gilovich, T. (2004). Actions and intentions in self-assessments: The road to self-enhancement is paved with good intentions.

Personality and Social Psychology

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Misunderstanding situations Ultimately, this misguided exceptionalism and overemphasis on individual agency means that people fail to apply an accurate understanding of human nature to themselves, one that would make their predictions more accurate. People, for example, are surprisingly good at understanding how situational circumstances influence people’s behaviour. In one study, we described a ‘bystander apathy’ study to students.

Bulletin, 30, 328–339.

Lambert, T.A., Kahn, A.S. & Apple, K.J. (2003). Pluralistic ignorance and hooking up. Journal of Sex Research, 40, 129–133.

Latané, B. & Darley, J. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn't he help? New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts.

MacDonald, T.K. & Ross, M. (1999).

Assessing the accuracy of

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character, and what we aspire, intend or plan to do. Relative to others, we believe that our actions are largely a product of our own intentions, aspirations and free will (Buehler et al., 1994; Critcher & Dunning, 2013; Koehler & Poon, 2006; Kruger & Gilovich, 2004; Peetz & Buehler, 2009). We consider ourselves free agents generally immune to the constraints that dictate other people’s actions.

Much recent empirical work reveals this differential emphasis for the self.

People think their futures are more wideopen and unpredictable, and that their intentions and desires will be more important authors of their futures than similar intentions and desires will be for other people (Pronin & Kugler, 2010).

When predicting their own exam performance, people emphasise (actually, too much, it turns out) their aspiration level, that is, the score they are working to achieve (Helzer & Dunning, 2012), but they emphasise instead a person’s past achievement (appropriately, it turns out) in predictions of others. College students consider their future potential – or, rather, the person they are aiming to be – to be a bigger part of themselves than it is in other people (Williams & Gilovich, 2008; Williams et al., 2012). People predicting who will give to charity consider the prediction to be one about a person’s character and attitudes – that is, until they confront a chance to give themselves, in which case they switch to emphasising situational factors in their accounts of giving (Balcetis & Dunning, 2008).

College students harbour reservations about excessive drinking, but not recognising that others also feel this same reluctance, they go along with the crowd

Students were shown an experiment in which a research assistant accidentally spilled a box of jigsaw puzzle pieces.

These students were then asked the likelihood that they would help pick the pieces up relative to the percentage of other students who would help. Of key importance, participants were shown two variations of this basic situation – one in which they were alone versus one in which they were sitting in a group of three people.

Those familiar with social psychology will recognise that people are more likely to help when they are alone rather than in a group (Latané & Darley, 1970). In the

predictions about dating relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1417–1429.

Markus, H.R. & Kitayama, S. (1991).

Culture and the self. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253.

Miller, D.T. & McFarland, C. (1987).

Pluralistic ignorance: When similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 298–305.

group, people are seized by the inertia of not knowing immediately whether to help, and thus taking their cue to do nothing based on the fact that everyone else, lost in the same indecision, ends up doing nothing, too. But would our participants show insight into this principle? Not according to their self-predictions.

Participants stated that they would be roughly 90 per cent likely to help either alone or in the group. They did, though, concede that other people would be influenced, and that the rate of helping would go down 22 per cent (from 72 per cent to 50 per cent) among other people by introducing the group. Of key import,

Peetz, J. & Buehler, R. (2009). Is there a budget fallacy? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 1579–1591.

Prentice, D.A. & Miller, D.T. (1993).

Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 243–356.

Pronin, E. & Kugler, M.B. (2010). People believe they have more free will than

others. Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 22469–22474.

Risucci, D.A., Tortolano, A.J. & Ward, R.J. (1989). Ratings of surgical residents by self, supervisors and peers.

Surgical Gynecology and Obstetrics, 169, 519–526.

Spain, J.S., Eaton, L.G. & Funder, D.C. (2000). Perspectives on personality.

Journal of Personality, 68, 837–867.

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when we ran the study for real, we found 1991). Far Eastern cultures, such as that placing people in a group had a 27 per Japan, emphasise instead cent impact (from 50 per cent down to 23 interdependence, social roles and group per cent) on actual behaviour. Again, peer harmony – that is, social constraints on predictions largely anticipated this impact. the self. Might those cultures, thus, be Self-predictions did not (Balcetis & relatively immune to the ‘holier’ Dunning, 2013). phenomenon?

This belief that self-behaviour Across several studies, we have found ‘floats’ above the impact of situational that people from collectivist cultures circumstances and constraints can lead display much less self-error than did those people to forgo decisions that would from individualist ones. For example, actually help them. Consider the task of young children attending a summer school staying within a monthly budget. In one on Mallorca were asked how many candies study, participants were offered a service they would donate to other children if they that would provide them with savings tips were asked, as well as how many candies plus a constant monitoring of their other children on average would donate. finance. For themselves, participants felt A week later, the children were actually the service would be superfluous. It would asked to donate. Children from more have almost zero impact on their ability to individualist countries (e.g. Britain) achieve their budget goals. What mattered donated many fewer candies than they had for them instead was the strength of their predicted, but those from more collectivist intentions to save money (Koehler et al., countries (e.g. Spain) donated on average 2011). just as many as they had predicted. Both But, in reality, a random sample of groups were accurate in their predictions participants assigned to the service was about their peers (Balcetis et al., 2008). roughly 11 per cent more likely to reach their budget goals. And, a group of Does the self have any participants asked to judge the impact of advantage? the service on other people estimated that Extant psychological research, however, the service would matter; that others does suggest one area where this general would be 17 per cent more likely to reach story about self- and social insight will their goals. Again, predictions about others reverse. People may be wiser when it better reflected reality than predictions comes to predicting the public and about the self, in that people could observable actions of others rather than recognise the impact of an important self, but they do appear situational aid on others, to have privileged but felt they themselves insight into aspects of were immune to those the self that are not influences (Koehler et al., “people from collectivist available for other 2011). cultures display much people to view. People less self-error” know that below the Cultural influences surface of their public This overemphasis on the appearance is a private self’s agency suggests possible cultural individual who feels doubt, anxiety, differences in the holier-than-thou effect. inhibition and ambivalence that he or And, indeed, such cultural differences she may not let wholly come to the arise. It is the individualist cultures of surface (Spain et al., 2000; Vazire, 2010; Western Europe and North America that Vazire & Carlson, 2010, 2011). Of course, emphasise autonomy, agency and the this individual does not see this roiling imposition of will onto the environment interior life in others.

(Fiske et al., 1998; Markus & Kitayama, As a consequence, people may lack

Vazire, S. (2010). Who knows what about a person? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 281–300.

Vazire, S. & Carlson, E.N. (2010). Selfknowledge of personality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 605–620.

Vazire, S. & Carlson, E.N. (2011). Others sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 104–108.

Vazire, S., & Mehl, M.R. (2008). Knowing me, knowing you. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1202–1216.

Williams, E.F. & Gilovich, T. (2008).

Conceptions of the self and others across time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1037–1046.

Williams, E., Gilovich, T. & Dunning, D. (2012). Being all that you can be.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 143–154.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

awareness that the what’s inside themselves is similarly churning and stirring within others. Thus, for example, people often consider themselves more shy, self-critical, and indecisive than other people (Miller & McFarland, 1987). College students harbour reservations about excessive drinking, but not recognising that others also feel this same reluctance, they go along with the crowd to excess on a Saturday night (Prentice & Miller, 1993).

In a similar vein, college students harbour much more discomfort about casual sex than they believe their peers do, with each sex overestimating the comfort level of the other sex when it comes to ‘hooking up’ (Lambert et al., 2003).

Concluding remarks Thus, current psychological research suggests that people may be wise, at least when it comes to understanding and anticipating other people, but they stand in the way of letting this wisdom lead to their own enlightenment. However, if research reveals this problem, it also suggests a potential solution to it. What we presume about other people’s behaviour and futures is likely a valuable indicator of what awaits us in the same situation – and may be much better indicator of our future than any scenario we are spinning directly about ourselves.

When predictions matter, we should not spend a great deal of time predicting what we think we will do. Instead, we should ask what other people are likely to do.

Or, we should hand the prediction of our own future over to another person who knows a little about us.

Whatever we do, we should note that perhaps we are, indeed, uniquely special individuals, but that it is too easy to overemphasise that fact. In anticipating the future, we should be mindful of the continuity that lies between our self-nature and the nature of others. It is in recognising this continuity that we realise the path that leads to our wisdom may be a pretty good path to our enlightenment, too. At the very least, that thought does remind one of another Chinese proverb that has survived the centuries, perhaps best indicating its worth – that to know what lies for us along the road ahead, we should be sure to ask those coming back.

David Dunning is at the Department of Psychology, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Dad6@cornell.edu

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Personal space Photo by Peter Forster (University of Worcester), who wins our first ever photography competition. ‘Big picture’ ideas? jon.sutton@bps.org.uk.

‘I took this picture in May 2010, close to where I lived in Tiwi, in the Northern Territory of Australia. The students were waiting for the bus to their school and the student on the right of the picture was at the front of the queue where the bus would stop. The same students waited here every school day, and I never saw them speaking to each other.

‘We use proxemics or personal space as part of managing the balance between being closed or open to others. Our personal space is influenced by many things including culture, gender, social status, whether or not we have an intact amygdala… this

picture illustrates interactions between some of these factors.

‘Any psychologist who wants to work with Aboriginal Australians, for example, would do well to recognise the different uses of personal space as exemplified here, as well as related factors such as eye contact and not adopting an authoritarian stance.

‘All were aware of my presence… note their different use of eye contact towards an old, white male photographer.

‘I can’t say that I am a skilful user of proxemics but, as a welltravelled psychologist, I am at least aware of its power in becoming accepted in a new country and culture.’

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REVIEWS

Psychology on the back seat?

Maureen Lipman: If Memory Serves Me Right Britain’s Biggest Hoarders BBC One A couple of recent offerings from the BBC had me pondering the use of psychological expertise in programme making. I can’t be alone in noticing that TV these days is all about the personal back story, the transformation, the ‘journey’. Are psychologists on board for the ride, or simply being taken for one?

Consider Maureen Lipman: If Memory Serves Me Right.

The clue’s in the name: this was going to be very much a personal account of the topic. Yet expectations for a seriously scientific take were raised by a considerable buzz on Twitter before the documentary aired. An impressive cast of contributors had been assembled, the real crème de la crème of UK psychologists involved in memory research.

The programme did indeed begin pretty well, and it included authoritative and engaging contributions from Professor Martin Conway (City University), Dr Catriona Morrison (University of Leeds), and Dr Hugo Spiers (University College London). But my own abiding memory will be of the ‘journey’ taking an unfortunate diversion to Paul McKenna’s house, so that he could hypnotise her into not crying when she talked about her late husband, playwright Jack Rosenthal. There was also a point that felt like ‘OK, enough of the experts – let’s get Michael Mosley in, viewers know him’.

I found this particularly hard to bear because I knew that on the cutting-room floor was enough material to make a really decent standalone documentary about memory. Dr Catherine Loveday (University of Westminster) was one of those who didn’t make the final edit. She said: ‘It’s always a difficult decision when you are invited to contribute to a TV or radio piece. I am passionate about public dissemination of science but I’ve had mixed experiences so have learned to be wary. It’s very easy to be taken advantage of, especially in terms of time commitment and receiving due credit, plus you often have to fight hard to maintain both scientific and ethical integrity. In the case of this programme, I knew many of my colleagues were involved and the producer was persuasive and appeared sincere so it seemed worth doing. I put a lot of preparatory work into the shoot that we did and we had some 60 older people who did a fantastic experiment that worked so it was very disappointing that it was not used, especially since I felt I had an important message to convey. The producer seemed to really like what we’d done but she went on maternity leave and the new producer obviously had different ideas. The experience was certainly still useful and fun, as well as hard work, but has only increased my level of caution about agreeing to get involved in future.’

Dr Catriona Morrison did make the programme, but she was not best pleased either. ‘If I’d known that Paul McKenna was going to be in it I wouldn’t have done it,’ she told me. ‘You don’t know what you're getting into. They’re just making a television programme, it’s just whatever fits. I’m sure I only stayed in it because my bit involved kids!' So would you do it again, I asked? ‘It’s so tricky,’ Dr Morrison replied. ‘You do it through loyalty to psychology, the BPS, the Uni, but you have no control. We don’t put a value on it, we don’t expect to get paid, we’re doing it to uphold credibility. But we expect credit where credit is due, and some decency.’

This issue of control seems to be key. I don’t think psychologists working with the media expect editorial control, but neither should the final product come as a complete surprise. And some, for example Professor Tanya Byron, have managed to find the middle ground. In our pages (December 2005), she told me: ‘I don’t have any editorial control over any of the programmes I make, but my relationship with my producers is the key. Because they respect that

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they’re portraying what I do, they do run things past me. There’s a healthy respect both ways. I know what I need to deliver for them to make their programmes – they need viewers, it’s not just a bit of charity education here – and they know they need to respect my integrity in order for me to give them what they need.’

The second example was Britain’s Biggest Hoarders. It began with the claim that this year has seen ‘hoarding disorder recognised as a distinct psychological condition’. It’s certainly the case that documentaries about hoarding disorder are stacking up like, well, hoarded stuff in a hallway. It’s obviously an extremely complex condition, with ‘up to three million suffering from it in the UK’.

Television presenter Jasmine Harman, whose own mother was for many years a hoarder, set out to try to help others in a kind of mix of documentary and Extreme House Makeover.

Harman met 87-year-old Olive, who has to be at the extreme end even for an extreme hoarder (although there were shades of my wife in her response concerning the marmalade that was 15 years out of date: ‘Course it’s alright, it’s only sugar!’). For Olive, hoarding is inseparable from the recycling she began in the Navy during the war – ‘I don’t hoard, I keep stuff that will be used again’ – and when she donates the £29.50 from 165 kilos of cans to St John Ambulance, you have to admire her. Clearing becomes as much of an issue as hoarding, as Olive struggles to dispense with memories from nearly 80 years in the same house. She deserved better than Harman’s speculations as to likely causes and solutions.

Unfortunately clinical psychologist Dr Caroline Wells was busy tackling the relationship between Janet, another hoarder, and her teenage daughter Vicky. Even then, there was very little professional input – on screen at any rate – and at times it seemed Dr Wells was just there as another pair of hands to shift stuff. However, Dr Wells told me: ‘It became clear that it was not going to be ethical, if possible, to explore the full picture of Janet’s story; it was so deeply buried and protected within her, exposing it for the sake of our understanding was not fair, as it was not possible to offer her longterm work and her history of engagement with local services was extremely poor. For this reason, our work focused more her behaviour; I wanted her to have the experience of clearing her belongings and to have the opportunity to realise that she could do it and that it was beneficial to her and her family.’

As psychologists, we need to be aware of the potential back story to the programme itself, and wary of becoming too precious about our involvement. If the audience need so much of the back story to engage, and only then will they understand the issues, then perhaps the producers have got it right? But I can’t help feeling we’ve got more to offer. If we’re along for the ride, then maybe we can learn from those who’ve managed to clamber up into the front seat.

I Reviewed by Dr Jon Sutton who is Editor of The Psychologist

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A classic that continues to improve Pioneers of Psychology (4th edn) Raymond E. Fancher & Alexandra Rutherford Pioneers of Psychology is one of the classics in the history of psychology. The first edition appeared in 1979. It was followed by a second edition in 1990 and a third edition in 1996. Now a fourth edition has appeared.

The main difference between this edition and the ones that preceded it is that its author, Raymond Fancher has produced it in collaboration with his former student Alexandra Rutherford. Rutherford is well known for her feminist-oriented work, and one of the intended consequences of the collaboration is that the book contains more material on women and gender issues. The fourth edition also contains new chapters on personality and applied psychology, while the chapters on social and cognitive psychology have been significantly expanded. Other than that, the book continues with its winning formula of intellectual biographies of important figures in the history of psychology.

The biographies are entertaining and well written. We learn, for example, that Hermann Helmholtz came from a poor background and was only able to go to university because of a scheme that the Prussian government had introduced to meet a shortage of army doctors. It paid for the medical training of poor but talented students on condition that they served as army doctors for a minimum of eight years.

We also learn that Charles Darwin originally intended to follow his father into the medical profession but decided that it was not for him after watching surgery being performed without anaesthetic on a child.

Among the stories connected with women in the history of psychology, one of the most poignant is that of Mary Whiton Calkins who completed the requirements for a PhD at Harvard University. Her supervisor, William James, considered her to be the best student he had ever had. In spite of this, she never received a PhD for the simple reason that Harvard University refused to award a PhD to a woman. These stories help to bring the history of psychology alive. I have used the book in courses over many years and have always found it to be popular with students.

While its popularity with students and lecturers has undoubtedly been an important factor in the book’s longevity, popularity should not be the only consideration. Although the history of psychology is widely taught in departments of psychology, specialists in the field are relatively rare. One of the consequences of this situation is that some of the most popular textbooks on both sides of the

Atlantic have been written by psychologists with no background in the subject and consist of regurgitated material from other textbooks. I would therefore advise anyone who is considering a textbook in this area to look carefully at the qualifications of its author(s). There are no problems here in that regard. Fancher is a former head of the International Society for History of the Behavioural and Social Sciences and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the APA’s history

of psychology division. Rutherford is an associate professor in the history and theory of psychology programme at York University in Toronto and the current president of the APA’s history of psychology division. They have a sophisticated knowledge of historiography (the theories and methods of history) and the book is based on the most recent research. It is thus one of those rare books that can be recommended both on scholarly grounds and in terms of its popular appeal.

I Norton; 2012; Pb £29.99 Reviewed by Adrian C. Brock who is at University College Dublin

Austere experiences of war Nineveh Theatre Témoin With the media so often focusing on issues closer to home, the daily struggle of people in war-stricken countries is often overlooked. A short-running play (16 April–11 May) consisting of in-depth, replicated dialogue of combatant experiences brought an enlightening and shocking reminder to London’s Riverside Studios.

Nineveh, by company Theatre Témoin, portrays aspects of director Ailin Conant’s ‘Return Project’ work in conjunction with the charity War Child. After running creative expression schemes with ex-soldiers and child fighters in Kashmir, Israel, Lebanon and Rwanda, Conant created this piece with writer Julia Pascal.

Drawing its story solely from combatant accounts, the play is set in the purgatory of ‘the belly of a whale’: simply staged in a small, darkened theatre space.

Nineveh presents physical and verbal demonstration of the austere experiences of war. The play features a small character cast of three adult ex-soldiers for its majority, arguing and fighting over their varying length of habitation in this purgatory and their associated superiority. A child-fighter with his mouth stitched together is found to be hiding at the play’s later stages, with an onslaught of suspicion and accusations thrown at him from the adult figures. The play depicts their mental anguish in the restricted, damp setting of the whale. In their entrapment, the four struggle with dreams of their violent fighter pasts and gain hope from ideals of their freedom and future.

At the play’s conclusion, most characters apparently come to terms with the struggles of their past and escape. A solitary member remains.

Featuring true accounts of violent, sexual and tender experiences, this one-hour play concisely delivers a breadth of post-traumatic reflection. Interspersed with dark comedy, this intense play is both uncomfortable and witty at times. Powerful dialogue, high-quality acting and proximity to simple staging combine to provide an intense, thought-provoking experience. Knowing the subject matter is grounded in true combatant experiences made this an informative, emotional and intelligent piece. It would be good to see a further run of this production – well recommended.

I Reviewed by Emma Norris who is a PhD student, University College London

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CHROMOSATURATION (1965-2013). CRUZ-DIEZ FOUNDATION. PHOTO: LINDA NYLIND

Bamboozling our visual systems Light Show Hayward Gallery, London Light Show at the Hayward Gallery from 30 January to 6 May curated work by 22 artists. Upon entry there was a glittering, hanging installation of lights (‘Cylinder II’ by Leo Villareal) which is mesmerising. The show includes fluorescent works by Dan Flavin, a beguiling misty installation by Anthony McCall, and strobe-lit fountains by Olafur Eliasson.

Is there something fundamentally visually exciting about this sort of art? I asked Dr David Kane, a visual psychologist from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

‘We like novelty’, David explained. ‘We are so well adapted to our everyday world that it no longer fascinates us. Lighting exhibits can place us in a novel, alien world… Art exhibits can push the visual system to the extremes and expose its limitations. Often it is when our visual system fails to correctly interpret the world that we are most fascinated.’

‘For instance the colour room,’ said David, referring to Carlos Cruz-Diez’s ‘Chromosaturation’. Here the same walls change colour depending on where you stand in relation to coloured bulbs. When you move from one room to the next, the walls’ colour seems to change, sometimes whitening, sometimes deepening in colour.

‘What’s happening here is a failure of colour consistency, which is the ability to see an object as having the same colour regardless of the background lighting conditions,’ said David. ‘In Carlos’s light room, the lights are monochrome blue, green or red. We can’t fully adapt, meaning that the walls take on the colour of the illuminant.

We do get some adaption, and this is where the fun begins.

Lingering in one room will cause partial adaption, and the walls will begin to whiten, but then move to another room and you have to readapt.’

For me, at Light Show, there was something I liked about extremes of light and colour. I also liked the darkness, especially in the misty installation, and I liked the idea (if less the execution) of Katie Paterson’s ‘Light Bulb to Simulate Moonlight’. Perhaps as well as enjoying the bamboozling of our visual systems, there is something about capturing familiar light experiences in unfamiliar ways. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, reflection… all of these light experiences were represented in the artworks, but in a man-made, off-kilter fashion.

I Reviewed by Lucy Maddox who is a clinical psychologist in the NHS and Associate Editor for Reviews An extended review is available at Lucy's blog: http://psychologymagpie.wordpress.com

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What makes us human?

Being Human: Psychological and Philosophical Perspectives Richard Gross Is there something about our species that makes us ‘exceptional’ or ‘unique’ and distinguishes us both biologically and socially from the other creatures inhabiting the planet?

In this book Richard Gross presents an unbiased look at a variety of arguments for and against the ‘uniqueness’ of human nature from a number of perspectives. Whether your interest lies in genetics, cognition, language, time-perception, culture or more existential questions surrounding the meaning of life, you will be sure to find this book captures your imagination.

Despite being only 335 pages long this book is packed full of information. The comprehensive chapters are logically structured beginning with ‘key questions’, moving on to information and examples punctuated by diagrams of

difficult concepts and boxes highlighting key studies, frequently incorporating ‘time for reflection’ to encourage readers to think about and question the content presented, and finishing with a detailed summary of the chapter contents and suggestions for wider reading.

While the book is primarily recommended for students of psychology and perfectly complements Richard Gross’s Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour, I would say it is equally enlightening for anyone who has ever stopped to think: what is it that makes us human?

Though don’t be surprised if the book raises just as many questions as it answers!

I Hodder Education; 2012; Pb £24.99 Reviewed by Amy Burton who is a Research Associate, Aston University

Truly excellent Clinical Practice of Forensic Neuropsychology: An Evidence-based Approach Kyle Brauer Boone This is a truly excellent book. In an era where private practice appears an increasingly appealing prospect to many psychologists, this book provides a comprehensive discussion of neuropsychology in a medico-legal context.

As a published professor and practicing neuropsychologist, the author provides a thorough evaluation of the literature alongside well-informed recommendations for practice. The book contains detailed discussion of methods of symptom validity testing, including free standing tests and indicators within standard cognitive tests.

The author also debates issues such as selection of normative data, maintenance of test security, methods of estimating premorbid IQ, and determination of the aetiology of lowered test scores.

As a clinical psychologist working in neuropsychology, my favourite aspect of this book is the ease of application to clinical practice. The chapter entitled ‘Seven common flaws in forensic neuropsychological reports’ provides some valuable recommendations for writing high-quality neuropsychological reports in any context.

I Guilford Press; 2013; Hb £33.99 Reviewed by Liane Hubbins who is a clinical psychologist

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Missing the mark as science communication The Salon Project Untitled Project Attempts at entertainment – a ‘gramophone DJ’ and a ‘tableau vivant’ of naked people, each with a different piece of technology, left me confused.

The event only really began to come alive towards the end, when the speakers gave their talks. Jenny Sealey’s talk about disability was heartfelt, and Professor Stephen McMahon’s discussion of pain was interesting, although as a psychology graduate I heard little that was new for me. One of the most difficult points for any science communication venture is pitching it at the right level. As this was aimed at the

looked on. I found this not only disturbing, but completely bewildering, and left the event with a feeling of having been left out – like there was some secret meaning that I should have understood but didn’t.

While the idea of dressing up and entering a world of intelligent conversation, performance and debate is wonderful, for me at least The Salon Project missed the mark.

It didn’t seem to know what it was – shocking art, designed to make us uncomfortable, or an entertaining evening aiming to get people talking about neuroscience? With more

rushed through costume, hair and make-up, with only a few minutes spent on each of us.

Although the costumes were stunning, and the stylists did a great job with the limited time available, an indulgent, pampering experience quickly became stressful, as we were herded into the Salon.

The ambiance in the Salon was wonderful, but once the initial impressions of the glamorous room and fantastic outfits wore off, we were left fending for ourselves – just a load of strangers in fancy dress.

art/science crossover I think Professor McMahon did a good job, but I would have liked more detail.

Towards the end, we were assembled for a photo, at which point two toga-clad girls sat amongst us. If this wasn’t baffling enough, they then stood in the middle of the room, staring at an older girl on a screen, before taking two swords off the wall and leaving the room. What followed was an unnecessarily grizzly film of naked actors, throats cut, lying in pools of blood, while children

experts and the hosts introducing people to each other and initiating conversations, it could have been a stimulating event. However, attempts to shock, distracted from the point of the evening, and made me less likely to spark up conversations with strangers.

For this reason, I think The Salon Project, while a great concept, was an unsuccessful science communication activity.

Fresh insights Eating and Its Disorders John Fox & Ken Goss (Eds.)

TOMMY GA-KEN WAN

As part of the Barbican’s ‘Wonder’ series on the brain in March/April, Untitled Project brought The Salon Project to London, promising ‘a new music theatre event inspired by the rituals of the 19th century salon… where performance interventions, music and guest speakers entertain and provoke conversation’. Excited by the idea of dressing up in period costume and experiencing an evening of challenging neuroscience-inspired conversation, I went along.

Our evening got off to a slow start, running half an hour late with no explanation. We were

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I Reviewed by Ginny Smith who is a psychology graduate and freelance science communicator

The simplicity of the title of this book does not do the content justice. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the authors focused on both a practical as well as an academic approach to eating disorders. The book largely explores the social, emotional and psychological influences that contribute to the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Therefore if you are more interested in the biological and neuropsychological processes involved in eating disorders, this may not be the book for you.

Despite this, I would argue that for most people interested in eating disorders this book is definitely a useful and worthy read. The authors manage to direct us through new research and ideas being applied to the psychological assessment and treatment of eating disorders, whilst also considering practical issues that practitioners face when treating this client group.

Overall, the book was well structured, thought-provoking and easy to follow. Therefore I would highly recommend this book, both to academic scholars and to practitioners wanting to update their knowledge and gain some fresh insights into these ever-evolving disorders.

I Wiley- Blackwell; 2012; Pb £34.99 Reviewed by Sarah Forrest who has a Health Psychology MSc and is a support worker at Fairfield General Hospital, Bury

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From doomsday to the Digest All in the Mind BBC Radio 4 All in the Mind, the award-winning Radio 4 programme, is back with a new series.

I listened to the first episode, which included an interview with The Psychologist’s own Dr Christian Jarrett, who pre-recorded his contribution at BBC Broadcasting House.

All in the Mind is great at getting a good mix of topics on its programmes. This episode had three main items: a feature on doomsday prophets and cognitive dissonance, one on whether reading the news is bad for our mental well-being, and the interview with Christian on some of the latest interesting research taken from the Society’s free Research Digest service (see www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog and www.twitter.com/researchdigest).

I asked Christian what the experience of being on the programme was like: ‘It was exciting visiting the BBC and both the producer Fiona Hill and presenter Claudia Hammond were very friendly and professional, which put me at ease and made it really enjoyable. After we'd finished recording they showed me round the recently refurbished building and I saw the open plan office that appears behind the news readers on the BBC's main TV news bulletins.’ Christian’s ‘best bit’ of the experience was ‘watching my wife’s facial expression when she listened to me on the radio’.

As a listener, I found the feature on doomsday prophesies really interesting, as

I thought the cognitive dissonance angle on why people subscribe to beliefs about the end of the world was a fresh take, clearly explained. Christian’s interview linked well with this too, as he commented on this but also went on to talk about other research.

One nugget he discussed was a study that shows having a picture of a motivational woman on the wall when women are giving a public speech makes them speak for longer and more confidently. Women: change your screensavers to Angela Merkel now. Or maybe Claudia Hammond.

I Reviewed by Lucy Maddox who is a clinical psychologist in the NHS and Associate Editor for Reviews

Flights of fancy A Box of Birds Charles Fernyhough ‘Plato said the mind is like an aviary full of birds, one for every thought or memory you've ever had. They’re all there, all these thoughts and bits of knowledge: the problem is catching them.’

This novel, psychologist Charles Fernyhough’s second, could be read as a glimpse into his own aviary, all vividly coloured flights of fancy on memory, identity, faith vs. science, thinking vs. feeling. There are a few other psychologists-cum-novelists – Frank Tallis, Dorothy Bishop and Ken Gilhooly spring to mind – who draw on their professional lives to varying degrees, but here Fernyhough heads straight for psychology’s big issues in something of a busman’s holiday.

The plot, which flies past at genuine ‘page turner’ pace, involves a race to map the (fictional) Lorenzo Circuit, ‘the deep root-system of the self... the basis of memory, emotion and consciousness in the human brain’. There’s a shadowy biotech company and a mysterious cult leader, some sizzling sex, and at the heart of it all is an academic (Dr Yvonne Churcher) and her students. Engaging in a bit of armchair psychology it’s hard not to see the book as a reflection of Fernyhough’s own divided life, part academic and part writer. Dr Churcher is scolded with ‘You’re given a choice between thinking and feeling and you choose brainpower every time’. A character is trying to ‘bring the sordid business science to its knees’, and I would say it’s clear Fernyhough is not a fan of conferences!

It’s hard to like Dr Churcher. Living her life as ‘a richly detailed sleepwalk’, forever abrogating responsibility, leaves her maddeningly open with her life and her students. ‘I’m half a person,’ she bleats, ‘ruled by linkages I have no map for. I’m a passenger in my own life, a hostage in a runaway car.’ ‘Stay,’ her lover says, ‘don’t go’. She looks at him sadly. ‘I was never even here’. Yuk. Like most 30-yearolds, she needs to grow up. But that’s just it: as the book progresses, you realise that Fernyhough’s will-o’-the-wisp is actually an everyday hero. Don’t we all, to an extent, feel like Churcher? ‘That feeling of centredness, of me-ness, that is supposed to keep you rooted in your life: well, it passed me by.’

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The ‘illusion of the self’ is very much in vogue at the moment, and Fernyhough does a great job of picking that apart in an individual and her interactions. Churcher is ‘some kind of zombie’, ‘the confection of a restless, pattern-seeking brain’, ‘a ragtag collection of self-obsessed processors, each of which is mostly blissfully unaware of what the others are doing’. ‘I don’t have thoughts, I have wildlife’, she says, ‘sparks of ghostly activity in systems that act without knowing, siren warnings from a storytelling machine.’

Fernyhough heeds those siren warnings as he grapples with faith – in science, in stories, in fairy tales. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Dr Churcher says, ‘I’ve just read too much neuroscience.’ Materialism is ‘everything… It’s how a dumb lump of flesh can inherit a soul’. Yet in a tale that takes in connectomics, diffusion MRI and deepbrain stimulation it’s as if Fernyhough himself thinks it’s probably dangerous to care too much about this stuff. Ultimately, science can only take us so far.

I needed reminding of that. I tend not to read a lot of fiction, and early on in A Box of Birds I realised why.

Partly it’s petty jealousy… as an editor I’m a destroyer of words not a creator of worlds, and it frustrates me to see others managing it apparently effortlessly. But mostly it’s the idea that you expect me to invest, emotionally and intellectually, in this made-up world, characters and dialogue? When there’s so much I still need to understand about real life, about science? Fernyhough may have ended my face-off with fiction, as I realised – it really shouldn’t have been a surprise – that the two need not be mutually exclusive. We can, of course, learn about our world while our head’s in an imagined one, just as our experience informs our writing. ‘Stories are truth’, he writes. ‘Stories are the truest truth’. I’m grateful for the siren warnings from the storytelling machine that is Charles Fernyhough.

I Unbound; 2013; Pb £9.99 Reviewed by Jon Sutton, Managing Editor of The Psychologist

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Wide coverage and high quality The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Coaching and Mentoring Jonathan Passmore, David B. Peterson & Teresa Freire (Eds.) approach to development within organisations.

The editors have gathered together a very strong collection of authors, many seen as experts in the field and representing views from across the globe. The topics covered are diverse with each chapter being a succinct literature review of an area whilst highlighting the gaps and future research needs. The topics are very up to date and reflect the latest approaches; including, for example, chapters on how neuroscience developments and mindfulness can benefit coaching.

The wide coverage and the high quality of the contributors makes this a valuable course text for any student of occupational or business psychology, or indeed of other

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qualifications related to coaching and mentoring. I have already recommended it for my students.

I Wiley-Blackwell; 2013; Hb

just in

This is part of a series of books from Wiley-Blackwell designed as course texts to support those studying and/or researching topics relating to industrial and organisational psychology.

There is a plethora of books available on coaching and mentoring from a range of authors (some more credible than others), but the vast majority are firmly focused on the practice of coaching and mentoring rather than on the research and evidence behind it. This is partly because this is still a relatively new field and research has been very much trailing behind the practice.

However, there is a growing body of research out there and this book fills a gap, pulling together the evidence behind what has rapidly become a common and widely used

£120.00 Reviewed by Emily Hutchinson who is Executive Coach at ejh consulting and Senior Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire

Sample titles just in: Heroic Leadership Scott Allison & George Goethals Psychocinematics Arthur Shinamura Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking Douglas Hoffstadter & Emmanuel Sander For a full list of books available for review and information on reviewing for The Psychologist, see www.bps.org.uk/books Send books for potential review to The Psychologist, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester LE1 7DR Remember, ‘Reviews’ now covers psychology in any form: books, films, apps, plays, web, TV, radio, newspapers, etc.

To contribute, e-mail psychologist@bps.org.uk or tweet your suggestions to @psychmag.

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