the
psychologist conference edition
5-7 may 2015 www.thepsychologist.org.uk
Annual Conference 2015 A special digital edition with archive pieces to mark the Society’s flagship event
presidents june 14 may 15 filming trauma may 15 eye on fiction january 14 big picture september 13
words and sorcery march 15 the teenage brain october 07 laughter april 13 head to head debate january 15
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The Psychologist www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.psychapp.co.uk psychologist@bps.org.uk
Words and sorcery march 15 Simon Oxenham and Jon Sutton consider the causes and consequences of bad writing in psychology
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The social brain of a teenager Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
What’s happening to A-level psychology? Phil Banyard
dec 14
Psychological literacy: from classroom to real world december 14 Julie Hulme
ISSN 0952-8229
Can’t take my eyes off of you august 10 Matt Field on attentional bias and disorder
Website http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk For a complete archive, exclusive content, multimedia, and much more.
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october 07
Are you sitting comfortably? december 11 Christina Richards calls for reader injunctions
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© Copyright for all published material is held by the British Psychological Society unless specifically stated otherwise. As the Society is a party to the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) agreement, articles in The Psychologist may be copied by libraries and other organisations under the terms of their own CLA licences (www.cla.co.uk). Permission must be obtained from the British Psychological Society for any other use beyond fair dealing authorised by copyright legislation. For further information about copyright and obtaining permissions, e-mail permissions@bps.org.uk.
nov 10
Collective solutions to a global problem David Uzzell on psychology and climate change
Extra-sensory perception august 09 Eric Robinson with a student competition winner
sophie scott
Laughter – the ordinary and the extraordinary april 13 Sophie Scott on whether it is a universal emotion
The Psychologist is the monthly publication of The British Psychological Society. It provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’.
Managing Editor Jon Sutton Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Production Mike Thompson
Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera
Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, Charlie Lewis, Wendy Morgan, Paul Redford, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Nathalie Chernoff Interviews Gail Kinman Reviews Kate Johnstone Viewpoints Catherine Loveday International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus
the
psychologist annual conference special
may 2015
the issue december 02
Social comparison – blurring the boundaries Richard Crisp on reducing prejudice Being a man – putting life before death Martin Seager and David Wilkins introduce a special feature
june 14
Engaging with the emotional lives of men june 14 Roger Kingerlee, Duncan Precious, Luke Sullivan and John Barry consider the design of male-led services and interventions
...debates are understandings of mental illness mired in the past? John Cromby thinks so; Vaughan Bell disagrees
january 15
...meets interviews june 14 and may 2015 our editor Jon Sutton talks to 2014-2015 Society President Dorothy Miell, and incoming President for 2015-2016 Jamie Hacker Hughes august 12
careers we meet Tom Stafford (University of Sheffield) day in the life we hear about working as an expert witness, from Susan van Scoyoc
july 13
one on one with Susan Golombok, Cary Cooper, Richard Bentall
This special digital edition of The Psychologist is to mark the Society’s Annual Conference, to be held in Liverpool from 5-7 May (www.bps.org.uk/ac2015). All the material is from our archive, by psychologists who are due to speak at the conference. Note some pics have been removed for copyright. For psychology all year round, keep up with The Psychologist at http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk and on Twitter @psychmag. You may also be interested in our free Research Digest service: blog, e-mail, podcast and much more available via www.bps.org.uk/digest and by following it on Twitter @researchdigest. I will hopefully see you at the conference, where I am running an ‘informal debate’ on the causes and consequences of bad writing in psychology! Of course we have featured plenty of good writing over the years, and we continue to rely on your submissions. So do have a look at the website for details on how to contribute. A date for your diary to end: 26-28 April in Nottingham for Annual 2016! Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag
...reviews Eye on fiction: Capturing the experience of homophobia Martin Milton on the coming-of-age novel Moffie
january 14
...looks back Filming trauma Edgar Jones explores the making of an innovative film designed to show the treatment of soldiers suffering from shell shock
The Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Phil Banyard, Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Tony Wainwright, Peter Wright
may 2015
5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago… Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our complete archive.
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Big picture psychology and fashion, with Carolyn Mair (from September 2013)
INTERVIEW
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From ‘year Dot’ to the future
Society, and so hopefully this will soon start to turn round. We’ve also got people all over the world interested in associating and working more closely with UK psychology, so it’s good to see the new developments in the Society to make more connections internationally.
The Society’s new President (see p.435), Dorothy Miell, outlines some priorities for her term and beyond. Our Editor, Jon Sutton, poses the questions
o what extent does the President T pilot the ship? Well, you have to have some sort of direction setting, but it’s not a personal agenda – you’re doing it as Chair of the Board of Trustees, not as somebody who is setting out their own personal stall. I don’t think you should be pushing a particular individual position, you’re helping set and steer a collective direction. This can only be taken forward by the work of the whole Society – with the Chief Executive responsible for the operationalisation and management of that direction, working with staff of the Society, and the members contributing via their work on the Boards and in the various member networks. And what is your collective direction? During my term, I think the most important thing will be agreeing on then starting to work to the new Strategic Plan. That is something I was really bothered about getting done… it can have a lasting influence by helping the Society decide on priorities and then deliver them. When the Trustees consulted with the membership and staff as we developed the plan, the sort of issues they were raising about the Society were very similar to the ones we’d identified. The plan will help us focus on these agreed areas and avoid getting overloaded or indeed sidetracked by other things that are less clearly our main concerns. The plan lays out broadly three priority areas: promoting the advancement of the knowledge base and practice; making psychology more visible in both policy making and public discourse; and improving services to members, which will not only support our existing members but also hopefully grow the membership further. What could the Society be better at? We could be better at communicating what the membership fee goes towards, what we actually do. I was struck when I was chairing the Psychology Education
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That need to make connections presumably relates to other disciplines as well. Yes. One of the things I see as an academic is that we are blurring the edges of the discipline, and developing more of an understanding of the benefits of multiand interdisciplinarity in addressing the Board, we had lots of prizes, awards and questions that concern society. I think it’s grants but not enough people seemed to really important that we find ways to help know about them. And of course there are us to work even more effectively with many different reasons why people choose colleagues in other disciplines. And this to be members, and we may all want applies to practice as well as academia – somewhat different things from the working in multidisciplinary teams with Society, so what we communicate needs patients and clients is common, but to speak to as much of that range as perhaps we could do more in training possible. Independent clinicians or and CPD to teach how to work in such consultants, employed practitioners, teams? I’m particularly interested in undergraduate students, academics, all developing relationships need to hear how the Society with similar, adjacent is working for them. subject areas, learned Before my three years as “Let’s do what we do societies and professional Chair of the Psychology bodies and the strategic Education Board, it had been better, and show plan talks about building quite a long time since I’d people why it’s worth such collaborations. been involved in the running being part of” Every funding body, of the Society, and it was every policy body talks quite opaque to me why and about the benefits of how things happen the way interdisciplinarity, and I’m pleased that they do. I would like to review how we are planning to build really strong the Society works and clarify and connections with others, both in the UK communicate its functions and processes, and internationally. so members can understand more about it and get as much value as possible from That would presumably go some way what’s available. Let’s do what we do towards countering a common charge better, and show people why it’s worth levelled at the Society, that we are not being part of. There’s a lot to do here – visible enough. from improving what’s available through In terms of how we improve the public the website and how easy it is to find, to visibility of the subject and the Society, offering training and support to those the Strategic Plan proposes increasing members who give their time to serve on the number of large scale, public-facing the many committees of the networks and events. We’ve had some major successes the Society more generally, and there’s a with some of these already such as our lot in the plan about how we might start exhibits at the Big Bang Young Scientists on this work with some urgency. and Engineers fair and the Cheltenham Is the membership in good health? Science Festival. Also, there’s a new Psychology is one of the most popular proposal from Research Board for a A-levels, and it’s still one of the most Festival of Psychology in 2019 that will popular degrees at university, yet over be an important international event. I’d the last few years our membership has also like to encourage us to develop not been growing in line with this overall support for ‘citizen scientists’, using apps growth in interest. That means there are and other technologies to help interested more and more people that are getting members of the public to get more close to psychology but not yet seeing involved with understanding the benefits of membership of the BPS. psychology – and indeed contributing I’m impressed with the work being done to its development in accessible and fun by staff and members with schoolchildren ways, for example by ‘crowdsourcing’ data and students to explain more about the on everyday behaviour.
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Can you give me an example? The app ‘Mappiness’ (www.mappiness.org.uk) is fantastic. It was put together by academics in geography and environmental science who were interested in how people’s feelings are affected by features of their current environment – things like air pollution, noise and green spaces. The app alerts you a number of times a day, and when you get the alert you key in where you are, what you’re doing, and how you feel on a number of dimensions. It only takes a minute or two to do, and you then get access to your own data so you can start to chart out where and when you’ve been at your happiest. It’s really interesting for the person concerned but at the same time, it’s developing a database for the academics who are running it which is built up from people’s ratings and sound samples from all over the world. This isn’t a psychology example I know, and I’m aware of many colleagues in psychology who are doing similarly excellent activities, but there’s more to be done here I think and the Society could help with growing this strand of work. However, planning such events and initiatives obviously takes longer than the one year any President serves, so change can’t be achieved quickly. Working on the strategic plan allows us all to think about what can be done in five years rather than one, and gives a broader framework for the specific ideas any one President may have. Is there perhaps a more direct approach required when it comes to getting ourselves heard? We should have a far greater voice. What we could do more is have a small group of people who can be ‘The Voice’ of psychology and be more visible in public and policy spheres, who can ensure that our shared knowledge base of psychology and the value of its practice are being aired appropriately and often. What they say doesn’t need to surface the nuances of difference between all the branches of our discipline. We have to reassure our members that just because we may not all agree with every aspect of what that spokesperson has said, doesn’t mean to say that they aren’t doing a good service for psychology. Most people who are looking to psychology for some sort of insight are not looking for all those nuances, they are asking how they would get something of use from psychology, and where might they go to find out more. The BPS can communicate these broad-brush messages, and then point to
where other, more detailed, resources are available. How do the various member networks of the Society – Divisions, Sections, Branches – fit into this? I think we risk having an overcomplicated structure and duplicated set of groups, not all of which have a clear link to each other or to the overall goals of the Society. We perhaps need to improve the communication between the different networks and help them work together on matters of concern rather than setting up yet further new networks and subgroups. We also need to address how best to finance the various activities we agree as our priorities in the strategic plan, ensuring that networks have appropriate access to necessary funding
and using it effectively in order to support the things we agree are important. What other issues are close to your heart? I think it’s important we do more on equality issues. Psychology departments in universities with Athena SWAN recognition can apply for their own awards; yet approximately 60 departments in qualifying universities have not yet achieved this – why not? We’re a subject that attracts a far higher proportion of women students, and always has done, even at the postgraduate and professional training stages, yet you look round at those in senior roles both in academia and practice and the picture is very different. Through working with the Association of Heads of Psychology Departments, the Society could be providing a network of people who can help departments get that recognition within the Charter and start to improve the career prospects of women psychologists. And prospects for psychologists in
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general? We’re already working well with departments, for example to collect and share data on the long-term destinations of their graduates so that we can all learn more about how a psychology degree can be of use in later employment – information that’s useful across the board. The new partnership approach to accreditation of degrees is another success story I think – the Society is showing that it can work really positively with departments to improve psychology teaching and develop the curriculum. And whilst the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group (PsyPAG), funded by the Society’s Research Board, has done fantastic work to help postgraduates support each other through their studies, perhaps there’s an opportunity to do more for postdocs and newly qualified practitioners as they progress into the early parts of their careers? What was your own early career like? My own PhD research, with Professor Steve Duck at Lancaster, was on communication in developing relationships, and I have continued to focus on aspects of relationships and communication since. This has involved working in many different contexts – in primary and secondary schools looking at young children’s collaborations in their science, creative writing and music classes; interviewing women about their difficult relationship histories and experience of mothering; working with musicians, theatre directors, gallery directors and computer scientists to study how they collaborate to produce multi-media exhibitions and performances; and interviewing musicians about their changing sense of musical identity. I’m particularly interested in how people from different disciplines work productively together in developing their practice, and in how we might teach students, trainees and professionals in various fields to collaborate more effectively. After Lancaster I enjoyed many years at the Open University: their approach to opening up knowledge and learning through diverse and high quality materials was also very influential for me. Since 2010 I’ve been Vice Principal and Head of the College of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. The very international nature of the University and the close relationships we have with many outside agencies and disciplines have all further influenced my thinking about what the opportunities are for psychology.
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From civvy street to theatre of war Jon Sutton talks to Jamie Hacker Hughes, incoming Society President, Military and Veteran Specialist and Visiting Professor at Anglia Ruskin University
ow did your own military service H influence your later career and philosophy?
on whom the care of veterans falls when they leave the services, know very little about what a veteran is, what experiences they have had, and what their needs are.
I served as an army officer on a short service commission with The Queen’s In 2010 the Coalition’s ‘programme for Dragoon Guards, in England, Germany government’ promised extra support (during the ‘Cold War’) and Northern for veterans’ mental health needs. Are Ireland (at the time of the H-block riots they delivering on that promise? and Bobby Sands’ hunger strike). I didn’t Partially. Yes, there is extra funding for know it at the time, but it was the best Combat Stress Community Mental Health possible preparation I could have had for Nurses and a 24-hour helpline, and there my later life as a military psychologist. is some specialist commissioning funding From the moment I graduated from for a residential Combat Stress pilot University College London in 1990 I was treatment programme too. But when it knocking on the army’s door telling them that they needed to put psychologists into comes to delivering equity and parity of uniform (the last uniformed psychologists NHS and local authority veteran mental health and support services, we’ve still got served in World War II). I’m delighted a long, long way to go. Veterans, in theory, that, nearly 25 years later, in April last get priority treatment in primary care (but year, Captain Duncan Precious became seldom do in practice) and do not get any the first-ever clinical psychologist to be preferential treatment in secondary care, commissioned into the British Army [see where it is needed. There tinyurl.com/captdpr]. is widespread agreement I’m absolutely that the Armed Forces convinced about the Covenant is not delivering role that psychology “It’s going to be a heck of what it could or should. and psychologists have a year, but I’m going to to play in defence. give it my best shot” To what extent can you determine – and to what What’s the extent of extent is it important – the problem with whether it is service that causes veterans’ mental health? mental health problems, or that those 'It’s big. Our research tells us that up attracted to the armed forces may be to 20 per cent of veterans suffer from psychological health problems. That’s over predisposed to such issues? That’s a good question and, as half a million people from an estimated psychologists, we know a good deal about three million veterans according to the predisposing and vulnerability factors, British Legion. A worryingly large provoking factors and precipitating number, given that service personnel start factors. It’s true that the armed forces, out as fit, healthy and selected through particularly the army and particularly the rigorous training. Veterans are also ‘teeth arms’ such as infantry, traditionally strongly represented in the criminal recruit from areas of high unemployment justice system and in the homeless and social deprivation when individuals population. And the tragic thing is that may be seeking to leave behind abusive there is no one person in the Westminster and difficult pasts in the search for a government who’s coordinating all this. It falls between several stools of the Ministry better future, let alone a wage. At the same time, many parts of the forces of Defence, the Department of Health, the Department of Justice, and so on. And the recruit robust, balanced individuals to train for some of the more demanding other problem is that the vast majority of roles. So, of course, it’s a combination of people in the NHS and the Third Sector,
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the two, as it often is, but the rigours of deployment – particularly repeated and prolonged tours where there is daily or near daily exposure to death and injury (and this has certainly been the case in Afghanistan) – absolutely take their toll, however prepared and resilient the individual concerned. There’s also the question of whether it is the service that’s the issue, or the coming back to ‘civvy street’. I note your paper on deployment in Iraq actually being associated with improved mental health. The paper that I wrote about how going to war can be good for you followed a group of specially selected, highly trained, highly motivated soldiers (paratroopers) on their first deployment to Iraq in 2003. They went to carry out tasks that they had been specifically trained for, carried them out successfully, with minimum loss of life and limb and returned to the UK relatively quickly, and yes, their scores on pen and paper measures indicated that their mental health had improved over their deployment. But that is, sadly, not the norm, and our research indicates that troops exposed to danger on a regular basis suffer the consequences, especially if they are young, junior and inexperienced. Coming back to ‘civvy street’ is indeed a huge problem. I found it difficult enough returning from Belfast to Birmingham in 1981 after less than five years’ service. For people who have given 22 plus years of service the necessary adjustments are immense. You are leaving behind not just a job, but a way of life where everything is provided – food, entertainment, pay, clothing, accommodation – and where your whole social network is based. It’s a huge wrench. Alcohol must play a part… I have read soldiers’ accounts describing life as ‘a bunch of lads’ playing ‘the ultimate extreme sport’, ‘drinking and drinking and drinking and having a laugh’. It’s true that drinking huge amounts of alcohol has been considered as normal for far too long and, in many cases, is expected and forms part of initiation rituals, rites of passage, celebrations and commiserations. The MoD and the three individual services – Navy, Army and Air Force – are finally beginning to get the message; things are changing slowly. When I was a young cavalry officer, a gin and tonic before lunch was common on weekdays in the mess. That’s almost unheard of nowadays. Are veterans more receptive to some forms of mental health intervention
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than others? I note you use EMDR, which has often been controversial. I do use EMDR, and when I first heard of it 20 years ago I was hugely sceptical... until I started using it. I’ve been using it ever since, and it’s a most remarkable form of therapy and, in my experience, much more powerful than the CBT in which I had been trained in initially – although it is my view that EMDR is, in fact, a particular type of cognitive behavioural intervention rather than something completely different. The military and veterans respond extremely well to EMDR because you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, and it is particularly effective for the treatment of trauma where flashbacks and nightmares predominate, although it can also be very effective in more complex cases where shame and guilt are involved. The MoD love it too because it’s a NICE-approved intervention for the treatment of trauma, along with trauma-focused CBT. Some years back we discussed a special issue of The Psychologist on military health, but it was scuppered when colleagues in the MoD raised concerns about how it would be received. Is this still an issue that prevents psychologists in the area sharing their good practice? No. Not at all. Things have moved on massively and there is now a proposal to form a Military and Defence Psychology Section in the British Psychological Society, which would be a real result after such a long campaign to have one. Just in time, too, as we celebrate a century of military psychology in the UK in 2015. Military and defence psychologists, of all hues, are often right at the cutting edge of practice, as you would expect, and the formation of a Section, amongst other things, would really help in the promotion of our area of work. Presumably psychologists of many different persuasions have a role to play in veterans’ mental health. You’re absolutely right. When I was appointed head of clinical psychology for the MoD, we expanded the service to include counselling psychologists and health psychologists in addition to the clinical, forensic and neuropsychologists that we already had. And there are huge numbers of occupational and research psychologists in the MoD too – in the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force, in MoD Main Building and in the various research and training establishments. It’s absolutely fascinating and highly rewarding work, and I would commend it to anyone.
And perhaps input doesn’t have to be ‘formal’ psychology – is there a role for innovative therapies such as gardening, running, et cetera? Of course. Perhaps running isn’t that innovative after all though. It’s one of the things that all military people do, and they are very good at knowing when they need to go for a long therapeutic run or to ‘beast’ themselves in the gym. When deployed out in theatre, in an alcohol-free environment, ‘fizz’, as physical training is known, is incredibly popular as people engage in ‘Op Massive’ in the gym in
learn more about God. With regard to my work with the military, I very much believe in the ‘just war’ philosophy and that it is, sadly, necessary to have an armed force available to use as a last resort to prevent terror or tyranny. I really felt that when I was a soldier in the Cold War. The presence of very large numbers of conventionally armed troops in Germany was a real deterrent to any conflict, and I am pleased to have played my very small part in all that. Do your own personal and professional interests chime with your priorities for the next year, as incoming President of the British Psychological Society? In much the same way as I’ve been fighting over the last quarter of a century for a resurgence in military psychology, I’m going to use my term as President to seek a higher profile for the profession, a stronger voice for psychology and greater influence on policy and practice. But I’d also like to see better access, equality and transparency for our Society too.
order to return to the UK with a musclebound, honed, tanned body to impress their partners with. Gardening, though, is, actually, really beneficial as well. I’m mainly involved in veteran psychological health and social care research and delivery these days and am a supporter of two charities that have projects up and down the country where veterans work alongside horticultural therapists. I’ve seen them at work and am a big fan. I know you’re a religious man. Do you ever find it hard to reconcile this with your military involvement and scientific beliefs? I am. I happen to be a Christian and an Anglican Franciscan Tertiary (that is to say a lay member of a religious order within the Church of England), but I really do believe that everybody has a spiritual side to them regardless of whether they have a faith or not, and that the ‘spiritual’ in ‘biopsychosociospiritual’ is an extremely important, and often forgotten, component. No, I don’t find it difficult to reconcile my faith with my scientific beliefs at all. I’m not a fundamentalist and I am absolutely sure that the God that I believe in works through science and that science provides a way in which we can, perhaps, also
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What do you think is holding us back from having this profile, voice and influence?’ Perhaps it just hasn’t been seen as a priority. But I know, from what several members of the Society have said to me since I was elected as President Elect, that they would like the BPS to be more prominent, not only in the media but having a real voice and influence on policy and legislation. This is all now in the Strategic Plan and we have the necessary mechanisms to underpin it. We just need to be a lot more reactive, and much quicker at reacting too, telling people what we, as psychologists, know about an issue in question and demonstrating what psychology has to offer in the area. And, of course, this will require a lot of proactivity and planning and targeted communication too. I see the Society’s Boards as having a crucial role, as well as our policy advice and press team and, of course, The Psychologist. Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out! How are you going to find any time for yourself? I’m ruthless about the way in which I handle e-mails and social media and have very firm boundaries. Downtime, alone or with family and friends, is incredibly important. I find running and singing and playing music really restorative and enjoy learning foreign languages for fun too. It’s going to be a heck of a year, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
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NEWS FEATURE
Collective solutions to a global problem David Uzzell delivered the joint British Academy/British Psychological Society Annual Lecture, on psychology and climate change
he public are concerned about climate change. Typically, surveys from governments, pollsters and universities show that around 80 per cent of adults are very or fairly concerned about climate change. But levels of concern are on the wane – the UEA e-mails affair, the hype surrounding Copenhagen and the failure of the politicians to produce a significant agreement, and scepticism in the media have no doubt all played a part. But the public’s concern is more nuanced than these headline statistics suggest. When people are asked about their concerns over climate change in the context of the trials and tribulations of everyday life, climate change assumes significantly less importance than issues such as employment, taxes, healthcare, education, crime, etc. We have conducted a series of international studies over the years investigating the concern of different groups (e.g. urban/rural; environmental NGOs; children) about the environment. These demonstrate that people think that the condition of the environment is more serious at the global than at the national level, and at the national than at the local level. In the most recent of these studies interviewing UK and Swedish students (Räthzel & Uzzell, 2009) we found, in addition to the distancing effect, that students thought that environmental problems will be significantly worse in 20 years’ time at the local and national levels, but not at the global level. In other words, the
references
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Dolan, P., Hallsworth, M., Halpern, D. et al. (2009). Mindspace: Influencing behaviour through public policy. London: Institute for Government. Druckman, A. & Jackson, T. (2009). Mapping our carbon responsibilities: More key results from the Surrey Environmental Lifestyle MApping (SELMA) framework. RESOLVE Working Paper 02-09. Guildford: University of
worst things affecting the world will be visited upon the local environment in years to come. There is dislocation from the local, to the national and to the global, and from the present to the future. It is not only the public that dislocates climate change. The conventional approach to calculating carbon emissions is to focus on production: this includes emissions embedded in exports but excludes those in imports. From this standpoint, the UK performance over the last decade looks good. If we measure emissions from a consumption perspective (i.e. goods produced in China for the UK market) the picture is very different (Druckman & Jackson, 2009). From 1995 there has been a year-on-year increase in carbon emissions. This indicates that the UK has increasingly ‘off-shored’ carbon intensive industries overseas. Unfortunately, one consequence of this is that many people believe that the causes of climate change lie elsewhere. How often do we hear ‘What’s the point of us doing anything if the Chinese continue to build a power station every two weeks?’. The demonising of the ‘Other’, to use Edward Said’s term (1978), of those in the East for their ‘rampant’ and ‘irresponsible’ growth, provides a good reason for inaction on our part in the West. In the UK/Swedish study, we asked a series of questions as to what students saw as the most important causes of environmental degradation. As with the
Surrey. Räthzel, N. & Uzzell, D. (2009). Changing relations in global environmental change. Global Environmental Change, 19, 326–335. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. London, New York: Penguin Books.
approach to calculating carbon emissions, you get a completely different answer if you use a different accounting method. First, we used a five-point rating scale. The items that produced the highest mean score for both Swedish and UK students were ‘weak political action on part of the government’ followed by the ‘environmental policies of industries’. This mirrors a Defra survey in 2007 that found that 60 per cent of the people interviewed said that ‘If government did more to tackle climate change, I’d do more too’. If, however, instead of taking the highest mean score as an indicator of strength of feeling, we look at the proportion of students who rated these issues as extremely or very serious, we find that students identify the ‘industrialisation of developing countries’, ‘poverty in developing countries’ and ‘overpopulation’ as being the principal causes of environmental degradation. It doesn’t seem to be appreciated that industrial development and its impact on carbon emissions in the Global South cannot be separated from consumerism and lifestyles in the Global North. Even if the public are concerned, there is clearly a reluctance to make significant changes to lifestyles and practices – what we as psychologists call the value–action gap. How do we explain this, and what has been the government response? The policy options are typically expressed in terms of tackling consumption (which largely focuses on the individual consumer), and production (which focuses on technological fixes). Government policy has typically sought to bring the public onside by means of education, persuasion and sticks and carrots. Such a strategy rests on an assumption of individual choice and agency; as Elizabeth Shove puts it, ‘the assumption being that consumers can reduce the weight of their personal environmental “rucksack” if that is what they choose to do’. This is confirmed by numerous government reports with titles such as ‘Personal responsibility and changing behaviour’, ‘I will if you will’, ‘Driving public behaviours for sustainable lifestyles’ and, most recently, ‘Mindspace’ (Dolan et al., 2009). These immediately locate social change in a particular policy space that centres on the individual. For example, the UK government’s 1998 report Sustainable Development Opportunities for Change claims ‘consumers can have a huge impact on sustainable development through their influence as purchasers. But they need help to make choices’. Do we really
vol 23 no 11
november 2010
news feature
believe the consumer has this degree of These students not only considered unimportant, nor that psychological influence? Surely this fails to recognise environmental degradation a consequence constructs such as attitudes, values the way decisions by government and of ignorant, errant and self-serving and beliefs do not have explanatory producers structure the constraints and consuming behaviours, but thought or predictive value. They do. There opportunities in which we act as that the solution should lie in coercive is excellent work in psychology that individuals and as collectivities in relation government action. They supported demonstrates that we are able to facilitate to the environment and consumption? policy instruments of incentives, laws and increase pro-environmental This may be one of the reasons why and penalties. Very few saw themselves behaviours, for example, by changing the public are distrustful of government. as actors with a capacity to take action social norms. But we need to understand On the one hand they feel they are on climate change. where such attitudes, behaviours and subject to finger-wagging criticism for Evidence for the potentially negative choices come from, rather than just satisfying their hedonistic desires by and unintended consequences of forcing assuming they are the product of ‘human consuming too much of the wrong things. behaviour change without understanding nature’. We need to appreciate that the On the other, the government encourages people’s concerns comes from a local playing field upon which the consumer them to ‘spend, spend, spend’ in order to authority in southeast England which makes choices is not a level one in terms dig the economy out of a recession. Is it introduced an Alternative Weekly Waste of information and power. And we need surprising that the public feel the Collection Scheme. On paper it was to recognise that consumption is not an government is hypocritical, and highly successful – over nine respond by distancing themselves from months, recycling rates went the causes and solutions to the from about 27 per cent to just problems? under 40 per cent. This The government is now trying to reduced waste going to landfill bring about change in more subtle ways by about 500 tonnes a month through promoting policies such as – 50 fewer lorries. But there ‘nudging’. It is not difficult to see why was a great deal of public politicians and the government would opposition – letters, protests, like to nudge us to a sustainable future. headlines in the local paper. It doesn’t sound like the heavy hand of People continued to recycle, government; it implies gentle but they took their revenge persuasion and fun. But despite the fact at the ballot box. The ruling that David Cameron says ‘Changing our party that introduced the culture is not easy or quick… You scheme lost 24 seats at the cannot do it top-down’, the opposite is following election, and the implied in its advocacy. Maybe nudging introduction of the scheme Government policy rests on an assumption of individual will lead to new habits, but it does not was seen to be a highly choice and agency – each person reducing their own address the root causes of the problems significant factor in that personal environmental ‘rucksack’ we face. Equally importantly, this is the turnaround. language of the quick-fix solution, the If we want to change language of management. Consider behaviours then we need to these extracts from the Mindspace report exercise in individual choice but is concentrate on those attitudes and values (2009): ‘…behavioural approaches offer a shared and collective activity that will that drive behaviours. Those values and a potentially powerful new set of tools… be inconsistent and contradictory across attitudes, however, are not formed in [that] can lead to low cost, low pain ways time and space. a social and cultural vacuum. They are of “nudging” citizens – or ourselves – into The promotion of individualism and embedded and nurtured in and emerge new ways of acting by going with the from a social context, such as class, consumer choice has been an overriding grain of how we think and act’; and gender, ethnicity and environmental aspect of political culture over the last ‘changing behaviour without changing 20–30 years. One consequence of settings, all of which lead to the minds… focuses on the more automatic development of everyday cultures advancing individualism is that it can processes of judgment and influence – lead to the weakening of collective and practices. For example, if driving what Robert Cialdini calls “click, whirr” organisations and undermine a culture a particular kind of car is a reflection of processes of mind’. class and gender cultures as well as the that encourages and supports cooperation Do we really want to change and solidarity. Paradoxically, one desire to create and promote particular behaviours without changing minds? identities, then there is little virtue in implication of the absence of intrinsically Is this the kind of society we want? motivated collective action is that we trying to persuade people to travel by Surely we need more socially participative could end up with a Hobbesian scenario public transport or buy a hybrid car. models which involve people as partners in which socially responsible behaviour People occupy multiple roles and have in creative and rewarding solutionhas to be imposed from above by a strong multiple identities, often coming into generating, decision-making and conflict with each other – parent, office State. In other words, if – through the implementation processes? Models worker, school run driver. For the promotion of individualism – social in which those in power treat the government to say to such people, capital, social cohesion and cooperation decline, then it may be necessary to journeys under one mile should be on community not as a group to be coerce people into acting in support of foot fails to recognise conflicting demands persuaded and coerced, or even subtly interests other than just their own. For on their time and resources at a practical manipulated, but as partners with whom example, in the UK/Sweden study we level, and how such importuning may they should work? looked at students’ attitudes towards and threaten their identities at a psychological Let me be clear. I am not saying responsibility for climate change actions. level. What was it Margaret Thatcher was that individual choice and action are
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conditions in which poor an unsustainable diets have come about. To do this we used a ‘life histories’ approach, gathering in-depth information about the individuals’ changing behaviours and practices within the wider social, political and economic context. This captures the real-life complexity that often gets left out of quantitative approaches such as attitude surveys. We interviewed 14 women from Surrey and Northumberland, in three different age groups: 20–25, 30–55, and over 70. People told us their life story, walking forward in time and telling us how their life changed over the years. How family, community, national or even global influences and forces led to changes in their relations, what they did, how they travelled, what they consumed, and so on. Their accounts of how they were introduced to new foods became contextualised in larger social and economic processes. Through this we are better able to understand not only how food is chosen, prepared, cooked, eaten, but what are the practical and symbolic meanings of food and eating. Meat served a number of different functions in the lives of the women interviewed. It had a central role in representing traditional meals – it marked a fault line between simple (traditional) and sophisticated (modern) foods. Meat denoted status, and was used to display cooking capabilities. It was viewed as a necessary addition to the diet for good health, and one of the strongest themes which emerged during the analysis was the way in which food – and meat-centric meals – was used as a catalyst for social relations. The meal – often with meat – is used as an excuse or an incentive for gathering family and friends together, whether for celebrating festivals such as Christmas or simply satisfying the belief that it is important to sit down together as a family unit to talk. A shared meal is also a way of honouring people, to invite them to sit at your table and to share your food may be the most valuable thing you can give a guest. And historically, with This is an edited transcript – for the full audio version people you honour, you give see tinyurl.com/uzzell. To hear more about British them meat. It is a sign of Psychological Society Public Engagement events, and generosity and a sign of affluence, and those values to receive limited edition ‘Sharing our science’ coasters, have remained to the present sign up to the mailing list at www.bps.org.uk/soslist. day.
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Meat is also highly gendered. In our study, gender differences in attitudes towards a low-meat or vegetarian diet were not confined to barbecues, the archetypal male cooking arena. Eating less meat was something that appeared to be at odds with the identities of the men in the lives of some of the women. Although eating little meat was seen as part of a modern diet and highly acceptable to the women, vegetarianism was seen as something of a taboo. Whilst eating less meat appears to be the norm for many of these women, it is generally perceived that the men in their families need meat and/or that they would find a low-meat or vegetarian diet unacceptable. Other interviewees revealed the change from traditional British food to more exotic, varied foods; how people started to travel around the world more, and how this has affected dietary preferences; and how the introduction of a new grocery store enabled the neighbourhood to experience different foods. They showed that our preferences and actions – and as a consequence our greenhouse gas emissions and the impact we have on the environment – are the product as much of the opportunities we are offered, as of our desires and tastes. So while behaviour change of individuals is important, how and why we consume is, as Elisabeth Shove reminds us, ‘the outcome of wide ranging, systemic transformations in culture, technology and social practice’. This is why we need to understand production processes and the ways in which available products guide our consumption. We are beginning to take this step with the second example of new research that I would like to discuss. Production – and thus jobs – will be affected by any kind of climate change policies, something we often forget. Even policies that centre predominantly on consumption – changing consumption through changing behaviour – will create less or changed demand and will influence production processes indirectly. Therefore, we ought to investigate how workers and management relate to DAVID BACON/REPORTDIGITAL.CO.UK
alleged to have said? ‘A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.’ We need to tackle the societal structures and processes that promote and reinforce such identity desires, values, images and inequalities if we are serious about changing car usage behaviour. In other words, while attitudes and values are seen by psychologists as residing within the head, we must remember they have got there somehow, and applying our psychological knowledge and theories to these conditions should be as much the concern of psychologists as investigating the attitudes and values themselves. As consumers, we are repeatedly told that the route to success is through the display of material possessions (i.e. having) and the acquisition of a socially desirable identity (i.e. being) and the two are inseparable. Comparatively little attention has been given – certainly at a policy level – to examining the ways in which consumption processes are created and shaped by the needs of producers to market their products, or how producers and marketers make the link between ‘having’ and ‘being’ and use this in an iconography and literacy to sell us images of ourselves as successful people. I would like now to discuss two research studies we are doing at the University of Surrey in conjunction with the University of Umeå in Sweden. These, we believe, are highly innovatory in terms of capturing the societal, spatial and historical context of environmental behaviours and practices. What goes on in the kitchen is clearly highly significant in terms of climate change. Some 22 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to food and catering, cooking and eating (Druckman & Jackson, 2009). It has been estimated that meat consumption in the UK has doubled over the last 40 years. Although the public have been encouraged to eat less meat and dairy for health and environmental reasons, relatively little attention has been given to the eating and cooking practices in which these products are consumed. If we are to encourage people to follow more sustainable diets we need to have a better understanding of the
vol 23 no 11
november 2010
news feature
climate change and to the policies that are developed to combat it. The first step we have taken to research this is a project being undertaken with my Swedish colleague, Professor Nora Räthzel. In this, we are examining the climate change policies of trade unions in the Global North and South. Trade unions are typically not seen as standing at the front line of combating climate change. They are often perceived to be reluctant to change and hostile to any kind of legislation that might threaten jobs; and workers in the major carbonemission industries – steel, cement manufacturing, transport – are doubly condemned as these industries are perceived to have a major responsibility for climate change. However, this is an inaccurate perception. The TUC in this country has been running a highly effective Green Workplaces programme. The Blue Green Alliance in the USA started as collaboration between the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club to expand the number and quality of jobs in the green economy and now includes a wide range of labour organisations and environmental NGOs. We have interviewed senior trade union policy makers and officers in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, India and Malaysia. One of the major planks of trade union policies is the concept of ‘just transition’. Formulated by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the policy states there is a need ‘to create green and decent jobs, transform and improve traditional ones and include democracy and social justice in environmental decision-making processes’. But while the ITUC has recognised that ‘The main victims of climate change will be the workers, in particular in developing countries, whose sole responsibility will be to have been born poor in the most fragile parts of the planet’, it is acknowledged that jobs may have to go and jobs may have to change. Just transition is far from easy to implement. One of the goals of our project is to understand better some of these challenges, as exemplified by two of our interviewees from the metalworkers union. One Canadian union official argued that ‘green jobs’ is a term from the environmental movement, not the labour movement. Another senior trade unionist saw the traditions of his industry and the identity of its workforce being challenged by the notion of greenness: Green jobs are insulting. Steel are brown jobs. You can’t build windmills and aircraft without steel. The steel job is a green job. A rigger is a rigger
when he is working in brown or green job. What is a green boss? A green boss is still a boss. A green capitalist is still a capitalist? Vestas – they might be green, but they are still bosses.
One of the key questions our research is asking is: What are the psychological barriers at the collective and individual level to a just transition? A senior international trade union policy maker – Julio – provides an example of how political and technological changes are related to broader societal problems and one cannot tackle environmental issues without addressing the social and the psychological: Because, for example, the social problem of…road transport. …it’s not easy, because the position of the driver is a real position in society. When you are a driver, it’s the same thing as when you are a miner: you do not have a high qualification but you have a real job – and you have real recognition. … You have a real identification. Because when you are a…young boy, you play with a car, and you hope to become a driver. … It’s not a technical problem. We know the technical problem perfectly well now. … It’s to change the social image and to change the population.
Steel workers, chemical workers, or, as in Julio’s example, lorry drivers, are proud of their work and their skills. Their aim is to do ‘a job well for its own sake’ as Richard Sennett (2008) expresses it. But Julio is also referring to another aspect of people’s work: jobs are articulated in terms of a certain way of being in the world, they give people a sense of purpose and imply a specific ‘way of life’ that is associated with specific kinds of work. In the case of a long-distance driver – adventure, independence and freedom. Julio speaks about identification with a ‘position in society’. In other words, work identities are not merely individual identities. They develop within a process in which people occupy positions that have existed long before they occupied them and will continue to exist after they have left them. Threatening industries threatens jobs, which in turn threatens identities. This is a potential major barrier to change. How can we formulate just transition policies and practices that recognise this? Can we provide new jobs, green jobs, decent and non-precarious jobs that not only enable the construction of new identities but also positive identities in the context of carbon-reduced production? This brings us full circle in some
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respects, to the kind of conclusions that Martin Seligman made last year in this same BA/BPS Annual Lecture. He argued for a psychology of positive human functioning that draws upon the scientific understanding of people as well as generating effective interventions that allow individuals, communities and societies not just to endure and survive, but also to flourish. I cannot help but feel that a psychology that sees its contribution to the major problem facing the world as only one of advising on individual behaviour change is perhaps selling short its legacy and aspirations. Psychology has to have a broader vision. Just as environmentalists talk of the importance of focusing on environmentally significant actions as opposed to environmentally convenient ones, we should be focusing on significant areas of explanation rather than familiar and comfortable areas of psychological practice. This will almost certainly require us to work in multidisciplinary teams and in interdisciplinary modes. I was struck by another comment from Julio, who said: Sustainable development is a possibility to build a new project for humanity. Because nobody knows what a sustainable society should look like. So each trade union in the world, each person in the world, each population in the world, has the possibility to express their views and their opinion in order to build this project.
What Julio is suggesting is a vision of a sustainable society that could be seen not as a threat or a sacrifice but as an opportunity – an opportunity for which all of us have a responsibility to create a world in which our relations with others and nature are more equitable and just. This brings to mind the African concept of ubuntu, ‘a person is a person through other persons’. We are our social relations. Community, well-being, rootedness to the environment, quality of life, beliefs and identity are always lived out among others. An individual’s wellbeing is caught up in the well-being of others and it is from others and with others that we learn, teach and act. It will be through working with and through others that we may have a chance to solve the serious social, economic and environmental problem we call climate change. I David Uzzell is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey d.uzzell@surrey.ac.uk
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without deeper knowledge… ‘using an impressive concept, not to identify a discovery, but to cover over a lack of discovery’ (Billig, 2013). In short, it is, as psychologist and author Steven Pinker says (2014b), ‘prose that is turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to Simon Oxenham and Jon Sutton consider the causes and consequences of understand’. bad writing in psychology That’s as much as we’re going to say about what bad writing is… we’re not here to give examples, to point the finger. (And yes, we’re painfully aware of Muphry’s Law – http://en.wikipedia.org/ ack in 1971 Stanislav Andreski’s have you started to read an article or wiki/Muphry's_law – writing about Social Sciences as Sorcery slammed chapter – yes, in this publication as much writing is a risky business). In any case, academics for their inability to as in more specialist journals and books – you already know what bad writing looks write clearly. There was, he argued, an before becoming hopelessly lost in a like, and you know what it feels like: the ‘abundance of pompous bluff and paucity thicket of writing that is stuffed full of big shudder when you encounter it, the of new ideas’, a use of ‘obfuscating jargon’ nouns and noun phrases, all ‘ontologies’ nagging sense of guilt when you resort to conceal a lack of anything to say. This and ‘epistemologies’? Might you own up to to writing it. So this is not a style guide. was, Andreski argued, another reflection similar failings in You will find little for the of modern society’s ‘advanced stage of your own written linguistic explorer; other cretinization’. work? pioneers, far braver than “Why do so many Fast forward to 2013 and social OK, let’s be we are, chart that territory psychologists write badly? psychologist Michael Billig’s superb Learn generous: all walks (e.g. Pinker, 2014a). What impact does it have?” to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the of life have their Instead, we roam the Social Sciences. Billig, while clearly a fan specialist language. fantasy land, considering of Andreski’s ‘gloriously ill-tempered As Professor Roy why bad writing thrives. Why stuff’, would recoil at his use of Baumeister (Florida State University) do so many psychologists write badly? ‘cretinization’. ‘Here, then, is the centre tells us, ‘[J]argon has a positive function. What impact does it have? And can we of my argument’, Billig writes. ‘The big Psychologists work with concepts that are chart a route out of the mire? concepts which many social scientists are often somewhat familiar to everybody – using – the ifications and the izations – but the everyday terms are used in fuzzy Bamboozling and boasting… are poorly equipped for describing what and sloppy ways and carry lots of Are writers who can’t write simply bad people do. By rolling out the big nouns, connotational baggage. Jargon is used people, lacking in the right stuff? social scientists can avoid describing because it is precise. New terms can be American philosopher Brand Blanshard people and their actions. They can write defined carefully, so that writers and wrote in 1954: ‘Persistently obscure in highly unpopulated ways, creating informed readers share an exact writers will usually be found to be fictional worlds in which their theoretical understanding of what is meant.’ And it defective human beings.’ According to things, rather than actual people, appear does at least seem that scientists use less Blanshard, to fail to write as clearly as as major actors.’ jargon in communication with a general possible is simply ‘bad manners’. Michael None of us want to live in that audience than when talking with peers Billig feels that such a person is ‘like a fictional world: a land of bluff and (although not always less obscure jargon: bully, who tries to humiliate others into sorcery, of ivory towers, where maps of see Sharon and Baram-Tsabari, 2014). submission’. And Pinker claims that the misunderstanding leave vast wastelands Simply criticising jargon, therefore, most popular explanation outside the marked only ‘Here be dragons’. Or do we? misses the point: there’s more to bad academy for bad writing is ‘the cynical prose. We find it in an abstract style, one: Bad writing is a deliberate choice. with the individual invisible; it hides in Beyond jargon Scholars in the softer fields spout obscure shadowy extra syllables (step forward How many conference presentations have verbiage to hide the fact that they have ‘methodology’ and ‘utilise’); it’s there in nothing to say. They dress up the trivial sailed right over your head? How often the academic terms chained together
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Andreski, S. (1971). Social sciences as sorcery. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Baumeister, R., Vohs, K.D. & Funder, D.C. (2007). Psychology as the science of self-reports and finger movements. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4), 396-403. Billig, M. (2013). Learn to write badly: How to succeed in the social sciences. Cambridge University Press. Blanshard, B. (1954). On philosophical
style. Indiana University Press. Davies, J. (2012). Academic obfuscations – the psychological attraction of postmodern nonsense. Skeptic Magazine, 17, 44–47. Eubanks, P. & Schaeffe,r J. (2008). A kind word for bullshit. College Composition and Communication, 59(3), 372–388. O’Connor, C. & Joffe H. (2014). Social representations of brain research exploring public (dis)engagement with
contemporary neuroscience. Science Communication, 36, 617–645. Oppenheimer, D.M. (2006). Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20(2), 139–156. Pinker, S. (2014a). The sense of style. London: Allen Lane. Pinker, S. (2014b). Why academics stink at writing. The Chronicle of Higher Education. tinyurl.com/writestinks
Sharon, A.J. & Baram-Tsabari, A. (2014). Measuring mumbo jumbo. Public Understanding of Science, 23, 528–546. Sperber, D. (2010). The guru effect. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1(4), 583–592. Starfield, S. (2004). Word power: Negotiating success in a first-year sociology essay. In L. Ravelli & R. Ellis (Eds.) Analysing academic writing (p.72). London: Continuum.
vol 28 no 3
march 2015
words and sorcery
MGM/THE KOBAL COLLECTION
as we become familiar with something, and obvious with the trappings of best simply isn’t that good’. we think about it more in terms of the scientific sophistication, hoping to So what exactly is it that the bad use we put it to and less in terms of what bamboozle their audiences with writer lacks? The obvious answer would it looks like and what it is made of.’ highfalutin gobbledygook.’ be education, but this is not the case. As Pinker cites a paper in which researchers But are bad writers like an evil Billig says, ‘You have to study long and used true/false statements, but wrote: Wizard of Oz, conning their readers with hard to write this badly. That is the ‘Participants read assertions whose elaborate tricks to make themselves seem problem.’ What Billig hints at here is veracity was either affirmed or denied by great and powerful? Or are they simply reflected in the Curse of Knowledge, the subsequent presentation of an ‘following orders’, delivering what they which Pinker argues is central to the assessment word’. In Pinker’s eyes the think is required by academia? Pinker appallingly opaque standard of researchers fell into the trap of functional acknowledges this explanation too, communication that makes up much of fixity, describing a word by its function, saying: ‘People often tell me that academic writing. The Curse of rather than in terms the reader can readily academics have no choice but to write Knowledge has many guises: lack of a interpret. badly because the gatekeepers of journals theory of mind, mind-blindness, egoThe solution to the Curse of and university presses insist on centralism, hindsight bias, false Knowledge seems straightforward, and ponderous language as proof of one’s consensus, illusory transparency, to name is common to many forms of seriousness.’ The former Guardian science a few. Pinker writes: ‘It simply doesn’t communication: we must editor Tim Radford agrees, consider our audience. Go once telling this publication the extra mile, break down (see tinyurl.com/radford0503): our chunks so that they match ‘I get the feeling scientists often the repertoire of our audience; get rewarded by journal editors consider that our expertise for dressing up trivia in may have caused us to lose jargonistic language… [Papers] sight of what the words don’t have to be written like actually mean to others. But that. On the 100th anniversary even if we do begin to see of Roentgen’s discovery of Xthrough the readers’ eyes, rays it was quite weird seeing Pinker explains that fear his paper and realising that can blind us: ‘[I]f our readers anyone could understand it.’ do know the lingo, we might But we would argue that be insulting their intelligence the problem is bigger than by spelling it out. We would journal publishing. Academia rather run the risk of has changed. With increasing confusing them while at least pressures on their time, Are bad writers conning their readers with elaborate tricks to appearing to be sophisticated academics produce hastily make themselves seem great and powerful? than take a chance at belaboring written works. There is an old the obvious while striking them saying ‘easy writing makes hard as naive or condescending.’ reading’, and founding father psychologist occur to the writer that her readers don’t Could something even deeper be at William James said that if there was know what she knows – that they haven’t play here? Might that ‘appearance of anything good in his own style of writing, mastered the missing steps that seem too sophistication’ be rather alluring? it was ‘the result of ceaseless toil in obvious to mention, have no way to rewriting’. visualize a scene that to her is as clear as Billig also warns of a ‘culture of day. And she doesn’t bother to explain the Does bad writing ‘work’? competition and self-promotion’ that is jargon, or spell out the logic, or supply The fact that bad writing not only seeping into the content of our academic the necessary detail.’ survives but thrives in a hostile world of writings. ‘This is a culture in which Pinker partially explains the Curse of grant applications and peer review might success and boasting seem to go hand in Knowledge through the phenomenon of lead us to believe that writing using hand. When we write, we are constantly chunking. If the receiver doesn’t possess jargon and superficially sophisticated boasting about our approaches, our the same ‘chunks’ of information that we language can enhance the perceived concepts, our theories, our ways of doing are using to communicate, then we might quality of our work. In 2010 social and social sciences and what these products as well be speaking gobbledygook. Pinker cognitive scientist Dan Sperber dubbed can achieve. It is boast after boast, but also borrows another concept from this phenomenon the ‘guru effect’: ‘All too we scarcely notice that we are writing like cognitive psychology, that of functional often, what readers do is judge profound academic advertisers and that we are fixity. People typically fail to see that what they have failed to grasp. Obscurity training our students to do likewise.’ objects can have uses other than their inspires awe’ (see box, over, for more). intended function: given a candle, a book Worse still, the opposite may be true if we of matches and a box of thumbtacks and …Or blinkered? fail to perform as expected, as Billig asked to attach the candle to the wall Other explanations for bad writing are explains: ‘[I]f students and their teachers without it dripping on the floor, it more forgiving. Roy Baumeister tells us: try to use simple, clear language, rather might not occur to us to fix the box ‘There are probably hundreds of thousands than big specialized concepts and phrases, of thumbtacks to the wall in order to then they will risk appearing as if they of social scientists worldwide, and many hold the candle. According to Pinker, were inadequate, untrained and, most never really mastered the art of writing. academics face the same problem. importantly, as if they did not belong.’ Usually they are trying their best to write ‘Expertise can make our thoughts more There is some evidence that this as they think the journals require. Their idiosyncratic and thus harder to share:
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The guru effect ‘… participating in such a collective process [of interpretation] involves not just an intellectual but also – and more surely – a social benefit, that of belonging, of getting recognition as a person in the know, capable of appreciating the importance of a difficult great thinker. Not participating, on the other hand, may involve the cost of being marginalised and of appearing intellectually stale and flat. ‘Here emerges a collective dynamics typical of intellectual schools and sects, where the obscurity of respected masters is not just a sign of the depth of their thinking, but a proof of their genius… Now sharing their interpretations and impressions with other admirers, readers find in the admiration, in the trust that other have for the master, reasons to consider their own interpretations as failing to do justice to the genius of the interpreted text. In turn these readers become disciples and proselytes. Where we had the slow back-and-forth of solitary reading between favourable interpretation and increased confidence in authority, now we have a competition among disciples for an interpretation that best displays the genius of the master, an interpretation that, for this purpose, may be just as obscure as the thought it is meant to interpret. Thus a thinker is made into a guru and her best disciples in gurus-apprentices.’ Dan Sperber (2010)
process is at play in university teaching and testing. A study of first-year South African sociology students found that students were awarded higher marks for conceptual ‘highly nominalised’ language (Starfield, 2004). Incidentally, as Billig points out, in the very same study the author herself uses highly nominalised language such as ‘ideational metafunction’ and ‘semantic fields’, when ‘content’ and ‘concept’ would do the job. Yet this style of writing has clearly worked for Starfield, who is now editor of the journal English for Specific Purposes, a journal covering academic English. Cognitive scientist Jim Davies has a theory on the pull of obscure writing. ‘I argue that some prefer it because each reader has to do so much work to get any meaning out of it, and when we have to work hard for something, we really value it’ (Davies, 2012, p.45). Davies’s conclusion is based on ‘effort justification’, an idea stemming from Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. Could it be that in the same way one might value a group membership after being put through an initiation ceremony, we place greater worth on works if we are forced to toil through them? There have been high-profile examples of obscure writing gaining acceptance: in 1996 physicist Alan Sokal successfully submitted an entirely spoof article to a postmodernist journal. But perhaps it is simply that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but
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we are not all falling victim to a giant case of pluralistic ignorance. In 2006 Daniel Oppenheimer challenged the ‘prevailing wisdom’ that complicated language increased perceived intelligence. He adjusted student dissertations using an algorithm that simply switched words of nine letters or more with the second shortest entry in Microsoft Word’s thesaurus. The simplified abstracts were rated as more intelligent than the original versions. Oppenheimer’s acceptance speech for his Ig Nobel prize, which is given for ‘Research that makes people laugh and then think’, neatly sums up his findings: ‘My research shows that conciseness is interpreted as intelligence. So thank you.’
Falling on barren land Bad writing becomes a particularly serious problem when scientific work is made inaccessible not only to our peers, but to researchers in adjoining fields and to the wider public beyond. Are we creating a generation of researchers who study the same things in similar ways but speak different languages to one another, a Babel filled with numerous disciplinary voices? If so, we risk preventing the cross-pollination of ideas and discoveries within the broad ecosystem of psychology. If readers have to reach for a dictionary – or, worse, tumble into a rabbit hole of successive journal articles – in order to find the meaning of a specialist term, our ideas risk getting lost.
According to Billig: ‘Size really does matter; and the intellectual circles, which specialist professors address in their writings, are becoming ever smaller.’ Another nasty side-effect of bad academic writing in psychology is the impact on the perception of the discipline among those outside of the field. Not too long ago the vast majority of academic research was locked up in an ivory tower, only seen by a relatively small community of career academics and psychologists. If a newspaper picked up a research story, researchers could expect journalists to be satisfied with a press release: the public weren’t likely to trek down to a university library to request a copy. Today, an increasingly educated and connected public may expect research covered in the news to be accompanied by a link to the paper itself. And, as Eubanks and Schaeffer (2008) point out, bad writing can then be ‘reprinted gleefully in the mainstream press as evidence that the eggheads at our universities are not just loons but absolute bullshitters… Such writing is seen as gamesmanship in a game that is rigged. In the public mind, there is no admirable art or craft to bullshitting an audience of fellow academics who suspend disbelief so willingly.’ If the public are having the smell of bullshit wafted under their noses, it’s no surprise that they don’t like it. According to O’Connor and Joffe’s (2014) study of social representations of brain research, drawing on interviews with 48 London residents, the public’s disconnect with academia can boil over into resentment and withdrawal. ‘Where do these people come from, that actually understand these things?’, asked one respondent: not her world, was the implication. ‘You just, like I say, blind people with science, don’t you,’ said another. ‘And then it becomes a subject that you just don’t understand. With me, I just switch off. I’m not understanding what you’re talking about here, so I just switch off.’ Even scientifically trained journalists, paid to read your work, can react in that way: they’re only human. As editor of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, Dr Christian Jarrett has reported on the scientific literature for more than a decade. ‘I feel as though I’ve evolved a mental machete for wading through thickets of jargon,’ he tells us. ‘Despite this, there are still instances where the writing is so dense that I give up, even though the topic of the study might
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sound fantastically intriguing. When the writing is that bad, it can make your head hurt. Conversely, to discover a wellwritten journal article is a joy. I find myself wanting to thank the authors for bringing pleasure to my day. That said, if the actual science is poor or boring, an eloquent author won’t be enough to convince me to cover the findings.’
A way forward If we want to understand, resist and, maybe, change how people are doing things in the academic world and elsewhere, then we will have to dream that we can do things differently. We might take note of the verbs – to understand, to resist, to change and to dream – and we might hope, but not expect, to find ways to set these old linguistic servants free on our pages. (Billig, 2013)
You may detect a note of pessimism in Billig’s suggestions. Indeed, he feels he is ‘whispering in the wind’. The conditions of academia will persist, and the motivation and awareness necessary for change are simply not there. ‘Academics today are not writing in answer to a higher calling,’ he says. ‘We are, to put it bluntly, hacks who write for a living… Most social scientists, like fishes in water, do not notice what they are doing. They just keep swimming through the density of their own prose.’ Can we reach a more optimistic conclusion? There are psychologists out there who write with intelligence, clarity and passion. Why not turn to them for an alternative view? Professor Alex Haslam, a social psychologist at the University of Queensland, studied English at university, and his love of the written word shines through. ‘I think that an appreciation of the beauty and musicality of words – as well as their power – is very important,’ he tells us. ‘Treat language as if it were a Stradivarius not a sledgehammer.’ Haslam also describes writing as a critical vehicle for thought. ‘Put another way, I often don’t know exactly what I think until I have written it, and I use the writing process as a forensic means of honing my own thinking. For this reason it is critical that what one writes is as precise and as economical as possible. There’s also a lot to be gained from changing the mysterious into the concrete, and for writing in ways that make it clear what one’s own perspective and role is (rather than implying, through omission of these details, that such things don’t matter).’ According to Haslam, writing for more popular publications like The
Psychologist, Scientific American Mind and New Scientist can help you hone your skills. ‘Writing for those outlets generally forces you to weed out woolly and wasteful prose, because (a) their readership is generally less tolerant of obfuscation and evasion and (b) their format generally places a premium on a high impact to space ratio.’ Others advocate putting the personal back at the centre of psychology, populating that world in order to move away from the science of ‘self-reports and finger movements’ (Baumeister et al., 2007). Professor Elizabeth Loftus tells us: ‘I like to include “stories” in my writing… stories of people who were wrongfully convicted based on someone’s faulty memory, stories of a famous person who misremembered something important from their past. Stories grab people and make them interested in learning more about the science behind the story.’ Writing for an online audience can also help tailor your style. Dr Jarrett says: ‘When you write online, you often receive instant feedback and this can help you better understand the audience’s perspective and expectations. With online writing there is also this sense that you’re competing for people’s attention. More than ever, you need to learn to grab their eye and lure them in. Once there, don’t waste their time whatever you do. Any waffle and they’re just one click away from the exit.’ Psychologist and blogger Professor Dorothy Bishop (University of Oxford) agrees that writing for social media helps develop a more readable style. She also tells us that she has had journal referees comment that the language in her papers is ‘rather informal’: ‘I am now old enough to just reply “I take that as a compliment”,’ she says. Bishop also gives us a simple tip for weeding out those tortuous sentences: ‘Just read your work aloud. I do this for most things I publish and it helps a lot. I think it was Alan Baddeley who first told me about this, and he proves the method works – his books are far more readable than most.’ Reading your work back all adds time, and we’re back again to the pressured and competitive conditions of academia. But some are convinced this is the key. ‘To me, good writing is simple writing,’ Professor Uta Frith (University College London) tells us. ‘But simple is not fast. In fact it is very slow, and it is all about knowing what not to say. Inspired by the Slow Food movement I have tried to argue for slow science. Belatedly, I have realised that I need to argue also for slow writing.’ Professor Frith’s advice is this:
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‘Feel proud if you can delete what has taken lots of time to write. It may seem like a waste of effort, but it’s not. Slow food is good because you leave out lots of unnecessary stuff that you believed was important. When writing, it is amazing how the necessary ingredients are revealed only after you have also put in some unnecessary ones and then – slowly and painstakingly – removed them. Actually, it works best when there is another person to read what you wrote and will discuss it with you. This puts in some brakes and is an excellent way to slow down the process. And at the same time it makes it fun.’
Resisting the onslaught We’ve heard from some of the very best psychologists: when the chips are down the top dogs come up smelling of roses. If we can just follow their advice, hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate. OK, so maybe we’re as guilty of bad writing as anybody. And our clumsy, idealistic pleading may fall on deaf ears. Perhaps we are preaching mainly to the new generation. As Billig writes, ‘I can see young postgraduates struggling to understand what they know they must read. Sometimes, I see their confidence draining away in the face of big words, as if they were failing the test that defines whether they are fit to think intellectually. I want to tell them to trust their own supposed inadequacies, for their failings might protect them from the onslaught of big words.’ So our message for students and anyone else who will listen… take time over your writing: it matters. Don’t drain it of colour. Put yourself and others back into the worlds you write about. Above all consider your audience and try to write in smaller words for bigger circles. I Simon Oxenham is a science writer based in Bristol: follow @neurobonkers and see www.BigThink.com/Neurobonkers I Dr Jon Sutton is Managing Editor of The Psychologist: jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
Have your say Do you think bad writing is a problem in psychology? Perhaps you would like to share examples of beautifully written journal articles and books in psychology? Send your letters for consideration to psychologist@bps.org.uk or connect with us on Twitter @psychmag.
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The social brain of a teenager I
T has been known for many decades that the brain undergoes critical periods of development during the early years. However, only recently has it been discovered that brain development does not stop after early childhood. Indeed, new evidence shows that certain regions of the human brain continue to develop during adolescence and beyond. Some of these regions, in particular the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and superior temporal cortex, are involved in social cognitive processes, such as understanding others’ minds. Thus, it might be expected that certain social cognitive processes undergo refinement during adolescence. While there is a mass of self-report data on social development during puberty and adolescence, until recently very little empirical research had investigated social cognitive development after childhood. Here, I describe studies that fill that gap.
Early brain development – A brief history An adult brain has about 100 billion neurons; at birth, slightly fewer. However, during development many changes take place in the brain. Neurons grow, which accounts for some of the change, but it is the wiring of connections between cells (synapses) that undergoes the most significant transformation. Early in development, the brain begins to form new synapses, so that the synaptic density (the number of synapses per unit volume of brain tissue) in young animals greatly exceeds adult levels. This process of synaptic proliferation, called
WEBLINKS UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental Group: www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/ research-groups/Developmental-Group/index.php Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s homepage, including The Learning Brain: Lessons for Education: www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/sblakemore New Scientist report: www.newscientist.com/ channel/being-human/teenagers YoungMinds: www.youngminds.org.uk TeenIssues: www.teenissues.co.uk
SARAH-JAYNE BLAKEMORE with her Spearman Medal Lecture from the Society’s Annual Conference. synaptogenesis, lasts up to several months, depending on the species of animal. It is followed by a period of synaptic elimination (or pruning) in which frequently used connections are strengthened, and infrequently used connections are eliminated. This experience-dependent process, which occurs over a period of years, reduces the overall synaptic density to adult levels. Research on rhesus monkeys demonstrated that synaptic densities reach maximal levels two to four months after birth, after which time pruning begins. Synaptic densities gradually decline to adult levels at around three years of age, around the time monkeys reach sexual maturity (Rakic, 1995). Educational literature often suggests that the crucial phase of brain development in humans occurs from birth to three years and that during this time children should be exposed to all sorts of learning experiences. However, this claim makes the assumption that the time course of synaptogenesis is the same for humans as it is for rhesus monkeys. In the next section I describe the first experiments that looked at development of the human brain.
reaches a peak at eight to 10 months. After that there is a steady decline in synaptic density until it stabilises at around age 10 years and remains at this level throughout adult life (Huttenlocher, 1979). Different areas of the human brain develop at different rates. In the human frontal cortex – the brain area responsible for planning, integrating information and decision making – synaptogenesis occurs later and
Human brain development Cellular studies The time course of synaptogenesis and synaptic pruning is different for different brain areas, and different classes of neurons in the same brain region gain and lose synapses at different rates. Moreover, brain development varies between species. The only available data on the development of the human brain suggest that synaptogenesis follows a different time course from that in animals. In the human visual cortex, there is a rapid increase in the number of synaptic connections at around two or three months of age, which
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the pruning process takes longer than in the visual cortex. In this area, neuronal development continues throughout adolescence: synaptic densities peak at around age 11 and then decline during adolescence and into the twenties (Huttenlocher, 1979). MRI studies The scarcity of post-mortem brains meant that knowledge of the adolescent brain was until recently extremely scanty. However, since the advent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a number of brain-imaging studies, using large samples of participants, have provided further evidence of the ongoing cortical maturation into adolescence and even into adulthood. One of the most consistent findings from these MRI studies is that there is a linear increase in white matter, and a net decrease in grey matter, in certain brain regions during childhood and adolescence. These changes are most significant in frontal and parietal regions (Giedd et al.,
1999; Sowell et al., 1999). The rise in white matter with age reflects an increase in the myelin sheathing surrounding axons in the frontal cortex. While the increase in white matter is linear, the changes in grey matter density appear not to be. In one of the first MRI studies of human brain development, Giedd et al. (1999) performed an MRI study on 145 healthy boys and girls ranging in age from about four to 22 years. The volume of grey matter in the frontal lobes increased during childhood with a peak occurring at around 12 years for males and 11 years for females. This was followed by a decline during adolescence. A similar non-linear pattern was found for other cortical regions including parietal and temporal lobes. These findings have been replicated by a number of MRI studies (e.g. Gogtay et al., 2004). Generally, it has been found that brain areas associated with more basic motor and sensory functions mature first, followed by brain regions related to higher cognitive function. The non-linear pattern of grey matter development during adolescence has been interpreted as reflecting, at least in part, the synaptic reorganisation that occurs at the onset of and after puberty (Huttenlocher, 1979). Thus, the peak in grey matter at the onset of puberty (Giedd et al., 1999) is thought to reflect a wave of synapse proliferation, which is followed by synaptic pruning during adolescence. Given that certain brain areas are subject to protracted development, it might be predicted that cognitive abilities that depend on the functioning of these brain areas would also develop. In the next section, I consider the implications of structural brain development during adolescence for cognition. Social cognitive development during adolescence Cognitive abilities that rely on the brain regions that undergo the most protracted development – including PFC and superior temporal sulcus (STS) – include executive function and social cognition. There is evidence that a variety of executive function abilities undergo refinement during adolescence (e.g. Anderson et al., 2001; see Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006, for a review). Here, I focus on the development of social cognition during adolescence. Theory of mind, or mentalising, refers to the inferences that we naturally make
about other people’s intentions, beliefs and desires, which we then use to predict their behaviour. A number of neuroimaging studies, using a wide range of tasks, have reported activation in a highly circumscribed ‘mentalising network’, comprising the medial PFC, the STS and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and the temporal poles (see Frith & Frith, 2006, for a review). Lesion studies have also implicated the frontal cortex and STS/TPJ in mentalising (see Apperly et al., 2005, for a review). It has been known for many decades that the ability to attribute mental states develops over the first few years of life, culminating in the ability to pass complex false belief tasks by about age four or five (Barresi & Moore, 1996). While typically developing children are able to pass theory of mind tasks by five, the brain structures that underlie mentalising undergo substantial development beyond early childhood. Yet the development of social cognitive abilities such as mentalising after early childhood has been neglected. I now turn to two recent studies that have investigated development of social cognition during adolescence. The first concerns perspective-taking ability, a skill that is crucial for successful social communication. In order to reason about others, and understand what they think, feel or believe, it is necessary to step into their ‘mental shoes’ and take their perspective. Perspective taking includes awareness of one’s own mental states (‘first-person perspective’) and requires the ability to ascribe viewpoints, mental states or emotions to another person (‘thirdperson perspective’). Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that medial PFC, inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and STS are associated with making the distinction between third and first person (e.g. Ruby & Decety, 2001, 2004). We recently investigated development of perspective taking during adolescence (Choudhury et al., 2006). We tested preadolescent children (mean age 9 years), adolescents (mean age 13 years) and adults (mean age 24 years,) on a perspectivetaking task that required participants to imagine either how they would feel (first person) or how a protagonist (third person) would feel in various scenarios. Participants were asked to choose one of two possible emotional faces in answer to each question, as quickly as possible. Each participant’s reaction time difference 601
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References Apperly, I.A., Samson, D. & Humphreys, G.W. (2005). Domainspecificity and theory of mind. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9(12), 572–577. Anderson,V.,Anderson, P., Northam, E., Jacobs, R. & Catroppa, C. (2001). Development of executive functions through late childhood and adolescence in an Australian sample. Developmental Neuropsychology, 20, 385–406. Arseneault, L., Cannon, M., Poulton, R. et al. (2002). Cannabis use in adolescence and risk for adult psychosis: longitudinal prospective study. British Medical Journal, 325, 1212–1213. Barresi, J. & Moore, C. (1996). Intentional relations and social understanding. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19, 107–154. Blakemore, S-J. & Choudhury, S. (2006). Development of the adolescent brain: Implications for executive function and social cognition. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(3–4), 296–312. Blakemore, S-J., Ouden, H.E.M. den, Choudhury, S. & Frith, C. (in press).Adolescent development of the neural circuitry for thinking about intentions. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Choudhury, S., Blakemore, S-J. & Charman,T. (2006). Social cognitive development during adolescence. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(3), 163–164. Frith, C.D. & Frith, U. (2006).The neural basis of mentalizing. Neuron, 50(4), 531–534. Giedd, J.N., Blumenthal, J., Jeffries, N.O. et al. (1999). Brain development during childhood and adolescence:A longitudinal MRI study. Nature Neuroscience, 2, 861–863. Gogtay, N., Giedd, J.N., Lusk, L. et al. (2004). Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA 101, 8174–8179. Huttenlocher, P.R. (1979). Synaptic density in human frontal cortex: Developmental changes and effect of aging. Brain Research, 163, 195–205. Rakic, P. (1995). Corticogenesis in human and nonhuman primates. In M.S. Gazzaniga (Ed.) The Cognitive Neurosciences (pp.127–145). Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Ruby, P. & Decety, J. (2001). Effect of subjective perspective taking during simulation of action:A PET investigation of agency. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 546–550. Ruby, P. & Decety, J. (2004). How would you feel versus how do you think she would feel? A neuroimaging study of perspective-taking with social emotions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 988–999. Sowell, E.R.,Thompson, P.M., Holmes, C.J. et al. (1999). Localizing age-related changes in brain structure between childhood and adolescence using statistical parametric mapping. Neuroimage, 9, 587–597.
DISCUSS AND DEBATE How does brain development during adolescence interact with hormonal and social environmental changes occurring during this period of life? Is synaptic pruning during adolescence susceptible to environmental influence as it is during early development? Recent studies have shown that cannabis consumption during adolescence increases the risk of developing psychosis (e.g.Arseneault et al., 2002). How exactly does cannabis affect adolescent brain development? Have your say on these or other issues this article raises. E-mail ‘Letters’ on psychologist@bps.org.uk or contribute (members only) via www.psychforum.org.uk.
between first and third person perspective was calculated. The results showed that this reaction time difference decreased significantly with age. This finding suggests that the efficiency of perspective taking develops during adolescence, perhaps in parallel with the underlying neural circuitry. Whether this response pattern is because younger participants found it difficult to
‘The neural basis of theory of mind continues to develop well past early childhood’ differentiate between the first and third person, or younger children are less inclined, or find it more difficult, to enter into another person’s ‘mental shoes’, requires further investigation. The differences between age groups may also be influenced by differences in social experience. Perhaps adults show no significant difference between the time it took them to answer first and third person perspective questions as a result of their mature neural circuitry supporting social cognition, as well as their greater social experience. Next we turned our attention to the development of intention understanding. In a recent fMRI study, we investigated how the functioning of the mentalising brain network changes with age (Blakemore et al., in press). The aim of the study was to explore adolescent development of the brain regions involved in thinking about intentions. A group of adolescents (mean age 15) and a group of adults (mean age 28) responded to scenarios related either to their own intentions and consequential actions (intentional causality) or to physical events and their consequences (physical causality). We investigated how activity during these tasks in the adult brain compares with activity in the adolescent brain. The results showed that both groups recruit the mentalising network (medial PFC, STS/TPJ and temporal poles) during intentional causality relative to physical causality. However, adolescents activated the medial PFC part of this network to a significantly greater extent than did adults. Activity in a particular part of medial PFC during intentional causality occurred only in the adolescent group. This suggests that adolescents use additional regions of the
medial PFC to achieve the same performance as the adults. The results imply that the demand on medial PFC circuitry during mentalising tasks is higher in adolescence than in adulthood. One possible explanation is that cortical development, in particular grey matter reorganisation in the PFC (e.g. Giedd et al., 1999; Gogtay et al., 2004), mediates this developmental change in medial PFC recruitment. As described above, it has been suggested that the loss of grey matter in PFC during adolescence reflects synaptic pruning. It is unknown whether the synaptic pruning that occurs during human adolescence in parts of the brain (including the PFC) fine-tunes neural tissue into specialised networks in the same way as during early development. If this is the case, then such regions may not function as efficiently in adolescents as in adults. As a result, it is possible that they contain less efficient connections, which may result in more widespread, diffuse activity for tasks that involve processing in these areas. The results of our study suggest that adolescents require more activity in medial PFC when using mental-state representations during the intentional causality task. Part of the right STS, which, like medial PFC, is part of the mentalising network, was activated by intentional causality for adults only. This suggests that activity within the mentalising network shifts from anterior (PFC) regions to posterior (STS) regions with age over the period of adolescence. Many unanswered questions While children start to pass explicit theory of mind tasks by five years, the data described in this review suggest that the neural basis of theory of mind continues to develop well past early childhood. Social cognitive development during adolescence is a new and rapidly expanding field and yet many questions remain unanswered. The relative roles of hormones, culture and the social environment on the development of the social brain are unknown. Future research is needed to disentangle the contributions of biological and environmental factors to the developing social brain. ■ Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London. E-mail: s.blakemore@ucl.ac.uk.
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Fashion designers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers interact to produce an important global industry that employs millions of people worldwide. We buy, wear and dispose of clothes. Some design, make and sell; others collect, display, recycle and up-cycle. Our clothing affects our self-esteem and confidence as well as influencing people’s perceptions of us, and even their cognitive abilities (see Hajo & Galinsky, 2012, on enclothed cognition). This image was taken from Fashioning the Future 2009, a global student competition recognising the next generation of fashion designers and practitioners. It’s conceived and delivered by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion (www.fashion.arts.ac.uk). The college is committed to its ‘Better Lives’ agenda, using fashion to Reference Hajo, A. & Galinsky, A.D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 918–925.
drive debate and change the way we live with the aim of developing a more ethical fashion industry concerned with promoting wellbeing through fashion. Fashion is without doubt a fascinating and important aspect of our lives. And fashion, like psychology, is inherently concerned with behaviour. Before becoming an academic (I am now a Chartered Psychologist), I worked as a visual merchandiser, graphic designer, dress maker and portrait artist. Now I’m developing the first ever Psychology and Fashion master’s programme, to start in 2014 at the London College of Fashion. For more information contact me on c.mair@fashion.arts.ac.uk.
Photo by Sean Michael; designer Karina Michel; text by Carolyn Mair. E-mail jon.sutton@bps.org.uk with your ‘Big picture’ ideas
You are what you wear?
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Capturing the experience of homophobia Martin Milton on André Carl van der Merwe’s novel Moffie
sychologists have to navigate a tension. We are positioned as having special knowledge that we deploy in service of people’s well-being. Yet in the consulting room we recognise the limits to that expertise and, like the rest of the population, engage with intuition, gutfeeling, hunch and experience. It is the managing of this tension that makes all the difference when providing a therapeutic encounter. Similarly, when trying to understand a phenomenon we don’t just have one set of documents to consider. We consider professional guidelines and are informed by the available research. As practitioners, we also want to understand what clients have tried to educate us about. This is the case with any client’s presenting concerns. But there are particular difficulties when trying to meet the needs of LGBT clients. Some of our empirical evidence has been coloured by heterosexist assumptions and therefore offers very little knowledge about people’s experiences. More worryingly, this body of knowledge has offered a pathologising perspective and led to poor practice and inappropriate treatment (see Garnets et
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Bidell, M. (2012). Addressing disparities: The impact of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender graduate counselling course. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research: Linking Research with Practice, 1, 8. Coyle, A. & Kitzinger, C. (2002). Lesbian and gay psychology: New perspectives. Oxford: BPS Blackwell. Garnets, L., Hancock, K.A., Cochran, S.D. et al. (1991) Issues in psychotherapy
al., 1991; Milton, 1998). But, even for the psychologist who mines the literature and finds the more appropriate seams (see Coyle and Kitzinger, 2002 for a review), there are limits to what that material can offer. These bodies of knowledge cannot always help us get that elusive ‘feel’ of an experience. To know abuse has happened is one thing, to know what that abuse feels like and the impact it has on one’s sense of self is another. In our efforts to understand people and their situations as fully as possible, we must not underestimate good literature.
with lesbians and gay men: A survey of psychologists. American Psychologist, 46(9), 964–972. Kitzinger, C. (1987) The social construction of lesbianism. London: Sage. Milton, M. (1998). Issues in psychotherapy with lesbians and gay men: A survey of British psychologists. BPS Division of Counselling Psychology Occasional Papers: Vol 4. Leicester: British Psychological Society.
For those wanting to better understand the impact of homophobia, there are not many better books than André Carl van der Merwe’s novel, Moffie. ‘Moffie’ is a horribly pejorative, originally Afrikaans, term for a gay man. The novel is set in apartheid South Africa and narrated by Nicholas van der Swart: as a young child, ‘different’ to others; as a high school student, secretly starting to establish a sexualised existence; and as a conscript, aware that only by keeping his sexuality secret will he survive. All of these positions offer us the starkest, most visceral understanding of living with homophobia. So while this novel offers readers insight into many different aspects of apartheid South Africa, it is in relation to homophobia that this novel has a lot to offer the psychologist. Nicholas’s account helps the reader feel what it is like to be born into a world of non-stop pressure to not be who – or what – you experience yourself to be. Heterosexuality training starts very early and Nicholas’s experiences helps us recognise that no opportunity is missed to ‘train’ this young boy out of being gay. As a four-year-old (after his older brother dies), when thinking about his mother’s sadness Nicholas is aware that ‘[h]er one son is gone and the other is “different”’. As a nine-year-old the sense of difference is beginning to be understood and he writes: I am gay. Gay – this word and everything it stands for – is what I am at the age of nine, although I have not even heard of it yet. I know it, I feel it and, in secret, I start living it.
This awareness is ever-present. As a teenager, he notes: And through it all runs the cord of sexual discovery. How mortified would he [his father] be if he knew about the sex, his son’s exploration of the unmentionable, the other races. Yes, to him that would be the ultimate evil.
The novel gives us an insight into the ‘unknown knowns’ that many LGBT
Rivers, I. (1997) Lesbian, gay and bisexual development: Theory, research and social issues. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 7, 329–343. Stonewall (2012). The school report: The experiences of gay young people in Britain’s schools in 2012. London: Author.
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people report. People tolerate the difference but only on condition that it is not acknowledged. This lack of acknowledgement can be through silence or, for Nicholas, by threat.
so I only pose masked questions to Mr Davids. I stop sleeping. In the darkness, I am haunted even more, and by the time morning comes, I am more confused than ever. Eventually my school work starts suffering. My parents have no idea why their son is so introverted and spends all his time behind locked doors.
[Nicholas’s father] changes his tone to a sound I have not heard before as he turns to me. ‘If I find out that you are a moffie, that is the end.’ He waits for the gravity of the words to sink in, looking at me, looking through me. Later on in the novel, Nicholas reflects ‘That will be the end,’ he says in back on these difficulties and says: a measured way, stepping slowly When I eventually come out on the from one word to the next. other side, systematically I am paralysed, shedding the scabs, because that means “We need to empathise I realise that all this it is already the end with trauma but not anguish hinged around and there is overlook resilience and my being gay. Being the absolutely nothing I talents as people unmentionable, the can do about it. navigate the world” worst, the utterly sinful, [...] I know that to irredeemable, and survive I have to hide carrying it all on my the inescapable own – a secret too large to bear, too feelings I carry around inside me. devastating to share and too dreadful What does he mean by, ‘That will be not to. My mother’s Catholic Church, the end’? I dare not ask him. I am my father’s Dutch Reformed Church, walking on a knife edge and my only all our friends and family, my entire defence against catastrophe is my world, it feels to me, regard one thing ability to deceive. more heinous than anything else, and that is what I am. Hell is guaranteed; Pejoratives proliferate in the policing of at the end of a living hell I did not sexual identity, and it isn’t only parents or choose. authority figures who use such language.
Like Nicholas, those being policed are very sensitive to language. Poofter, queer, moffie, sissy, homo, pansy, fairy, trassie – how those words scare me. I’m so terrified of being ‘discovered’ that I obsess about it. Being a homo gives everybody the licence to persecute one. If I’m found out my life will be ruined. I MUST AT ALL COST, KEEP THIS A SECRET.
Despite knowing that negative ruminations or ‘obsessing’ is seldom psychologically useful, there is little point simply encouraging clients to rely on positive thinking. Nicholas does this and it’s clear that it is his way of keeping safe, but it comes at significant cost. Such pressure exerts a toll and those experiencing discrimination can suffer psychologically (Bidell, 2012, Rivers, 1997, Stonewall, 2012). Nicholas struggles and seeks comfort in different ways. I search for my Creator with exaggerated fervour. I read books on religion and spirituality in every spare moment and establish even stronger ties with the one man I trust – a mentor whose patience I test with my delirious perplexities. I don’t tell him about the root of my problems, for fear that even he won’t understand,
This is a powerful way of illustrating the concept of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ (Kitzinger, 1987). All the resources of the community amass to privilege one way of being and to create numerous sanctions against anything vaguely different. The accounts of Nicholas’s conscription into the South African Defence Force are numerous and painful to read. Physical and verbal abuse are the norm, and so is the pathologising and demonising of same-sex sexuality. As the novel puts it: The Defence Force distinctly forbids homosexuality, regarding it as an unpardonable offence against God and country, so perverse that it is socially acceptable to mete out punishment to anyone found to be of such orientation. If you are caught, you are sent to the psychiatric ward for shock, hormone, and aversion therapy – you are as good as eliminated
Through this multi-layered account of homophobia, Moffie gives us insight into the power of secrets and an understanding as to why the recipients of long-term discrimination and rejection may not be able to talk to anyone about their experience. This is important for
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
therapists to consider as it follows that clients may not be able to discuss their core concerns, certainly not immediately. Even with one’s friends opening up may be difficult. I want to look at Malcom but I can’t. I want to talk to him. I want to tell him how I feel, but sharing my fear could prove too much, could make me lose control, and all I have left is this thin line of restraint. Nothing else is within my power.
As well as the painful account of homophobia and an understanding of the trauma this incurs, the reader is also offered moments of hope, strength and optimism in this novel. We need to empathise with trauma but not overlook resilience and talents as people navigate the world. The novel also gives us a sense of the excitement and joy of falling in love. Ethan is my first army friend, and for the first week my only friend. Ethan is whom I want; Ethan is the drug to see me through – my medication. We are reshuffled [in platoons], and by the grace of God we are put in the same tent. For the first time I believe I am going to get through it all.
Reflexivity is probably important. I too grew up in apartheid South Africa and know this never-ending preoccupation with compulsory heterosexuality by way of misogyny, homophobia and racism. While delighted to say that my family life bears no resemblance to Nicholas’s, I too had to don the brown cadet uniform and march many an hour away in an absurd pretence at becoming a better soldier (read ‘man’). I was not spared fear and anxiety as I could not escape the exposure to the Church, school and wider culture’s insistence that nothing other than macho, somewhat misogynistc, heterosexuality would suffice. So I know this story in my bones and this is a realistic and well-crafted novel. A story of family violence, school and cultural oppression, racism, sexism and homophobia, could have been treated with sensationalism. Van der Merwe avoids this and captures above all else the subtle, yet crucial experience of needing to keep a secret. It’s because of this that Moffie is now on the reading list for my module in ‘Working with difference and discrimination’. I Martin Milton is Principal Lecturer and Programme Director at Regent’s School of Psychotherapy and Psychology and Regent’s University London miltonm@regents.ac.uk
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Are you sitting comfortably? Christina Richards calls for reader injunctions as a useful addition to the methodologies of the human and natural sciences Researchers in both quantitative and qualitative science are often reminded that they must be aware of the possible ways in which their own assumptions, biases and beliefs may influence the design, procedure and reporting of their research. This article argues that readers should also be injuncted to consider these matters. We must all recognise the lenses through which we are likely to be reading the research.
questions resources
Etherington, K. (2004). Becoming a reflexive researcher. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Finaly, L. & Gough, B. (2003). Reflexivity: A practical guide for researchers in health and social sciences. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
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In what areas would reader injunctions be particularly useful?
Barker, M. (2011). Writing for publication for counsellors and therapists, Part 1. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 26(1), 96–102. Fazel, S., Långström, N., Hjern, A. et al. (2009). Schizophrenia, substance abuse, and violent crime. Journal of the American Medical Association, 301(19), 2016–2023. Fine, C. (2010). Delusions of gender: The real science behind sex differences.
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hen Julia Lang opened BBC Radio’s Listen with Mother on 16 January 1950 she ad-libbed the now famous injunction to her (one might imagine) fidgeting audience of children: ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin’. In so doing she widened the focus, beyond her own performance to her listeners. She asked that they bring certain behaviours to the endeavour in order for it to be fully realised: that they be sitting comfortably in order that they could attend to the story fully, while at the same time respecting her position as co-creator of the encounter. Philosophically, this can be situated within the idea that people co-construct meanings in interaction (Gergen, 1999) – there is not a reader and a listener, but two parties fully engaged in the act of ‘storying’, albeit with one party (the speaker) as the more apparently active participant. We can see here an example of something many people are intuitively aware of: that true perception requires a great deal from the perceiver, as well as the originator of the work, to create the desired integration of experience. Consider the deep silence of the audience during an operatic aria, the stillness of an art lover in front of a great painting, the sea of cigarette lighters at a rock concert, or the crease of concentration of the academic as she strives to engage hermeneutically with a text. Gosh! Lots there – even existentialism at one point (I am smoking a Gitanes in my black polo neck as I type). Perhaps I should have asked ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ before I began. Consider:
How might the recognition of the text being a combined enterprise between author and reader assist understanding in those areas?
London: Icon Books. Fiske, S.T. & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd edn). New York: McGraw-Hill. Gergen, K.J. (1999). An invitation to social construction. London: Sage. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Golombok, S., Spencer, A. & Rutter, M.
How did you feel as the tone of the piece changed just then – from the academic style to a more informal tone with that Gosh! – was there a slight jarring? If there was, perhaps it was indicative of your engagement with the piece, if not, consider why not? How are you reading this? Skimming it on a train before a lecture? In review? Because (let us hope) it appears interesting? What are you bringing to the piece? It is this consideration of what the reader (rather than the author or researcher) brings, or needs to bring, to the endeavour that this article seeks to formalise.
Injunction to researcher reflexivity Many workers, especially in the human sciences and in qualitative research, have explicit injunctions towards researcher reflexivity within their methods: there is an onus on researchers to recognise what notions, ideas, aspirations and, crucially, assumptions they are bringing to the research themselves, and to address these in some manner. Some writers, such as Husserl (1900/1970), the founder of modern phenomenology, suggest that these assumptions can be ‘bracketed through epoché’ (i.e. that prior assumptions and ideas can be consciously set aside), in order that they do not interfere with our understandings, and so allowing us to take a ‘birds eye’ view of the work without our assumptions leading us to erroneous conclusions. In contrast writers such as van Manen (1997) and Langdridge (2007) assert that such epoché is not possible: That, if you will, the brackets ‘leak’ and the epoché is imperfect; leading to the influence of our ‘self’ on the research. They argue that, as this leakage is inevitable, researchers should become aware of their self and their assumptions and explicitly recognise, if only to themselves, how this could influence their work. Thus van Manen asks researchers using his method of phenomenological inquiry to recognise the essentially reflexive nature of writing that
(1983). Children in lesbian and single parent households: Psychosexual and psychiatric appraisal. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 24(4), 551–572. Green, R. (1978). Sexual identity of 37 children raised by homosexual or transsexual parents. American Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 692–697. Green, R. (2000). Family cooccurrence of ‘gender dysphoria’: Ten sibling or
parent–child pairs. Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 29(5), 499–507. Heckert, J. (2010). Listening, caring, becoming: Anarchism as an ethics of direct relationships. In B. Franks & M. Wilson (Eds.) Anarchism and moral philosophy. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Husserl, E. (970). Logical investigations (J.N. Findlay, Trans.). New York: Humanities Press. (Original work published 1900)
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involves ‘the totality of our physical and mental being’ (1997, p.132). Similarly, Langdridge (2007) asks researchers using his critical narrative analysis to ‘subject him- or herself to a critique using the hermeneutic most appropriate to the topic at hand’ (p.134). The researcher is invited to become aware of the hidden corners of their self and the assumptions that they bring, which could adversely affect their exploration of the topic under consideration. Within positivist, especially quantitative, science the influence of the researcher is well known. Consequently the ‘gold standard’ of this type of research is the double-blind controlled study in which neither the researcher nor the participant is aware of whether any particular participant is in the group of participants to whom an adjustment is applied (e.g. the group who has been given the new drug), or in the group who have not had any adjustment made (e.g. the group who took the placebo). In this way, the researcher is unable to inadvertently
ANNA HEATH
This, however, does not resolve a key difficulty within quantitative research; which is that researcher assumptions may influence the design of the study. For example, a study concerning college students’ sexualities using an ANOVA – a common statistical test used to determine differences in population samples – might have the categories heterosexual, gay and lesbian – it being assumed by the researcher that these are the totality of available sexualities. In this case the design would miss people who identified as bisexual. Similarly, if bisexual is included to give the assumed totality of available sexualities the design would miss sadomasochistic, asexual, furry, etc. – again through the researcher’s assumptions affecting the design. Common to both quantitative and qualitative methods are further researcher injunctions. For example, professionalism is expected and lying is unacceptable, as is falsification of data. Researchers are expected to be as dispassionate as possible and to report their findings ‘as they are’ rather than with political or ideological slants. Researchers are expected to be competent in their chosen methods, or supervised by someone who is. The method is expected to be clear to the reader in order that the findings can be considered in light of the modality of elicitation of data. Quite often the researcher is expected to present their findings in some formalised manner. Thus the onus is on the researcher, whether they are undertaking a True perception requires a great deal from the perceiver, qualitative or quantitative as well as the originator of the work study, to conduct and present their findings in a certain defined way; a way influence the outcome of the trial (perhaps that requires a great deal of knowledge and by treating each group differently) until professionalism from the researcher. This is the final data are analysed and the especially so if the findings are of a participant groupings become known. potentially incendiary nature.
Langdridge, D. (2007). Phenomenological psychology. Harlow: Pearson. Langer, E. (1990). Mindfulness. New York: Da Capo Press. Pirsig, R.M. (1974). Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. London: Vintage. Ricoeur, P. (1970). Freud and philosophy: An essay on interpretation (D. Savage, Trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Silke, A. (2001). Terrorism. The Psychologist, 14(11), 580–581. Spinelli, E. (2007). Practising existential psychotherapy: The relational world. London: Sage. van Manen, M. (1997). Researching lived experience (2nd edn). London, Ontario: The Althouse Press.
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
We can see this in work such as Golombok et al. (1983) on children in lesbian and single parent households. It required a great deal from the authors in terms of methodology and mode and style of communication in order for the findings to appear valid and to be communicated properly. Similarly, Green’s (1978, 2000) findings that trans parents are just as good as cisgender (those who remain the gender they were assigned at birth) parents required a great deal of Green for the same reasons. In both cases readers, especially those who take umbrage with the notion of gay or trans parents, may well have engaged with the work without any prior reflexivity, or indeed injunctions of any sort as to how they should engage with the text.
Reader injunctions I assert therefore, that, especially in areas such as sex, mental health, culture, gender, race and conflict, where findings and research are likely to induce strong feelings in the reader, the author(s) should set out specifically how they wish the work to be approached by the reader. I suggest that this should precede, or form a formal part of, the introduction in both quantitative and qualitative research. This is in order that the reader is able to form the correct position vis-à-vis the research prior to engaging with it. This can already occasionally be seen outside the academy; as we saw with regard to Listen with Mother above; and also in the introduction to the film Lemony Snicket (2004) where the audience is told: The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant. If you wish to see a film about a happy little elf, then I'm sure there is still plenty of seating in theatre number two. However, if you like stories about clever and reasonably attractive orphans, suspicious fires, carnivorous leeches, Italian food and secret organizations, then stay, as I retrace each and every one of the Baudelaire children's woeful steps…
Here the audience are required to consider whether they like the outline given and so to engage with the film on its own terms – they are no longer passive observers but are rather co-engaged with the creators in the endeavour, in a sense they are co-creators of their experience. Similarly Pirsig (1974) recounts some Japanese bicycle assembly instructions which assert that assembly requires ‘great peace of mind’ (p.167). Indeed, some aspects of reader reflexivity could be seen as having much in common with the
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Buddhist (and lately psychological) concept of mindfulness: putting oneself in a state of open awareness, with a willingness to be present with the materials at hand (see Langer, 1990, for a wider summary of mindfulness research). What then of reader injunctions from within the academy? I propose the following reader injunctions as being a sound base, especially for work within contentious fields, although the list will of course need to be tailored to the specifics of the topic under consideration. Readers will need: Specific prior self-education on the topic The archetypal ‘educated lay person’ will mostly have been educated on psychological topics through the popular media. Thus accurate education will be necessary prior to reading a piece on an unfamiliar area of psychology. For example, media representations tend to exaggerate gender differences and attribute these simplistically to biological differences present from birth. It behoves the reader of psychological research on this topic to also familiarise themselves with the social psychology of gender and neuroplasticity through life (Fine, 2010). Similarly, papers on advanced mathematics quite reasonably assume a knowledge of maths beyond that which the educated lay person on the Clapham omnibus might reasonably be expected to have. It is reasonable that the onus is on the reader to obtain some basic level of education on the topic rather than for the authors of the paper to have to explain each point to a ‘lay person’. Consideration of specifically what prior understandings, prejudices, etc. they are bringing to their reading of the text. This is the idea of reader reflexivity, in which the reader identifies those assumptions they are bringing to the reading. For example, if the reader believes that those who commit acts of terrorism are inexplicably evil, they may struggle to accept data on possible motivations for terrorist activities (e.g. Silke, 2001). The reader should ‘first cultivate peace of mind’ in order that they are able to engage with the text ‘as is’ rather than through a lens of extra-text emotion and associated cognitions. In common with building bicycles, peace of mind is useful for reading contentious texts. Being open to the findings and able to consider them fully without being driven by ‘hot’ cognitions will allow the reader to appreciate the text more fully ‘as presented’. For example, someone who
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Papers on advanced mathematics quite reasonably assume a knowledge of maths beyond that of the educated lay person on the Clapham omnibus
holds the view that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia are violent will be less open to appreciating the findings of work stating that those who do not also have a substance misuse problem are no more prone to violence than the general population (e.g. Fazel et al., 2009). In such situations they are more likely to close down and resist further stress though challenges to their beliefs (Fiske, & Taylor, 1991). Acknowledgement that the author’s thoughts may change In line with many existential authors Spinelli (2007) questions the notion of a single, stable self. Indeed Heckert (2010) suggests that it does a violence to people to ‘fix’ them as unchanging. As written texts are unchanging (with the rare exception of texts with further editions), the reader must be aware that, while the text may remain fixed, the author does not (Barker, 2011). We can see this, for example, in the work of psychologists such as Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo whose famous early studies have been subject to questions around ethics, methodologies and interpretations, and who have taken on board many of these questions. It would be ludicrous for contemporary readers to criticise them for work from some 40 or 50 years ago which was written during a very different social and scientific landscape. Acknowledgement that the participants’ thoughts may change Similarly participants in research may change their views. The women studied by Carol Gilligan (1982) for her research on moral reasoning in abortion clinics will now be in their fifties. It would be strange to assume that they hold exactly the same views now, simply because they are captured in print.
Suspension of disbelief The reader must attend to the participants’ data (and the author’s considerations of that data) as presented, and perhaps sit with them for some time, until fully able to apply their own thoughts in a critical manner. This is similar to a mode of researcher reflexivity known as a ‘double hermeneutic’ in Langdridge (2007) after Ricoeur (1970). In this double hermeneutic a piece of work is first examined without endeavouring to challenge it (a hermeneutic of description) and only then is it examined in a thoughtfully challenging way (a hermeneutic of suspicion). When this is applied to reader reflexivity the reader is able to fully engage with the piece without a reflex response affecting their open consideration of it. This is of course, only a brief outline of the case for reader reflexivity. I invite you to consider how you engaged with this work. Were you more swayed by the sections with an academic tone or a personal one? Did the different illustrations (trans, abortion, terrorism) change how you engaged with the text? Did you like the references, the long words – did they add weight, quality? What did you bring to this? Is it hubris to question a foundation of the academy – that only the researcher, and not the reader, must work? Who am I writing for – who are you? Is there a meeting of minds? If not, is that solely to do with the adequacy of my writing and my argument? I Christina Richards
works for the West London Mental Health NHS Trust Christina.Richards@wlmht.nhs.uk
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4th Annual Military Psychology Conference
Resilience Through Change The Ark Conference Centre, Basingstoke Tuesday 3 November 2015 Professor Sir Simon Wessely Director King’s College London’s Centre for Military Health Research; President, Royal Institute of Psychiatrists Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes Director, Institute for Veterans and Families Studies, Anglia Ruskin University; President Elect, British Psychological Society
Second call for posters and papers (Deadline: Monday 13 July 2015)
In 2014, conference delegates were asked: (a) what gaps in our knowledge and understanding can research address?; and (b) how can the research presented be applied in practice? Responses to these questions can be found on the conference website (see below) and should be taken in to account when submitting a paper/poster abstract. Our focus will be cross-disciplinary and will be of interest to clinical, counselling, educational, forensic, health and occupational psychologists, as well as military personnel and civilians working closely with the military (past and present), and their families. Our aim is also to bring together expertise from different professions. Perhaps you work with the emergency services? Or do you work in HR developing strategies for enabling employers to deal with the impact in the workplace of supporting reservist colleagues? If you are interested in presenting a paper, or poster at the conference then please make your submission via the event website (below).
This event is organised by BPS Wessex Branch and administered by KC Jones conference&events Ltd, 01332 227775.
For further information, please go to: www.kc-jones.co.uk/military2015
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ARTICLE
What is happening to A-level psychology? Phil Banyard indicates why we should be worried
Why has the study of psychology become so genderised?
resource
Why do our male students do so much worse than female students?
BPS Psychology Education Board (2013). The future of A-level psychology. Leicester: BPS.
Boliver, V. (2013). How fair is access to more prestigious UK universities? British Journal of Sociology 64(2), 344–364. Boneau, C.A. (1990). Psychological literacy: A first approximation. American Psychologist, 45, 891–900. BPS Psychology Education Board (2013). The future of A-level psychology. Leicester: BPS. Higton, J., Noble, J., Pope, S. et al.
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ince the start of this century, the number of undergraduate psychology students in the UK has more than doubled and now stands at over 60,000 (Trapp et al., 2011). This growth has created jobs. A rough calculation based on 30,000 extra students since 2000 suggests there are up to 1500 more lecturing posts. These lecturers generate research activity, which in turn creates research posts. If the demand for our undergraduate courses declines, there is little doubt that this will be followed by downsizing in many departments. So there is a bubble growing… it hasn’t burst yet but someone is standing very near to it with a pin in their hand. For this reason alone we need to have a mind to what is happening in the school sector, and whether the coming changes in A-level being pushed through by the government will have any impact on the demand for undergraduate psychology courses. To cut to the chase, the simple and worrying answer is that the changes to GCSE and A-level are likely to have a substantial impact. That impact might well put students off from studying psychology at A-level and then undergraduate level as well. Although many higher education psychology departments are only dimly aware of the A-level in their subject, its popularity is a clear driver for university applications. Any weakening in A-level demand will inevitably have a knock-on effect in HE. But let’s start at the beginning. Psychology has been a relatively late addition to the school curriculum. It was
S
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Psychology is under attack. A-level psychology is the recruiting sergeant for undergraduate study but the future is looking uncertain. Psychology is not included as a ‘facilitating subject’ by the Russell Group in their advice on A-level choices. This means the examination results do not count towards the latest school league tables and do not appear in the latest summaries of national results. We are being written out of the script.
(2012). Fit for purpose? The view of the higher education sector, teachers and employers on the suitability of A-levels. Coventry: Ofqual. (Available at tinyurl.com/cuawx4m) Joint Council for Qualifications (2011). GCE A-level trends. Retrieved 21 July 2014 from www.jcq.org.uk/mediacentre/news-releases/entry-trends2011---a-as-aea-tables Joint Council for Qualifications (2013). A,
in the late 1960s that the British Psychological Society (BPS) set up a working party to look at the way that psychological issues were being taught in schools and colleges. The discussions were led by John Radford, then Head of Psychology at West Ham Technical College and now Emeritus Professor at the University of East London, who was subsequently invited by the Associated Examination Board to write and examine an A-level in the subject. Such were the concerns about the adult nature of the material that it was only offered to a selected group of 25 centres until the mid-1970s. During the next 20 years there was exponential growth (Radford & Holdstock, 1996) and although the pace of expansion has slowed, the number of entries continued to grow each year until 2013 when it registered its first fall. It is currently the fourth most popular A-level in the UK with over 55,000 awards in 2013 for the full A-level and nearly 100,000 awards for the AS (Joint Council for Qualifications, 2013). Psychology has been in the top eight subject choices for the last 10 years (Joint Council for Qualifications, 2011). The growth in demand for the subject has not been symmetrical across the demographic. The proportion of males taking an A-level in psychology currently stands at 25.6 per cent of the total entry and they perform less well than females with only 9.9 per cent obtaining a grade A or A* compared with 19.5 per cent of females (Joint Council for Qualifications, 2013). Interestingly at the halfway point of A-level (AS examination) the gender split is slightly reduced with 29.9 per cent of the candidates being male, though their performance is still weaker than the females. The genderisation of psychology has attracted a lot of speculation (e.g. Radford & Holdstock, 1995; Sanders et al., 2009), but it is not fully understood.
Psychological literacy Many A-level psychology students go on to apply to read the subject at university
AS and AEA results summer 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2014 from tinyurl.com/lmnfob6 Joint Council for Qualifications (2014). A level and AS entry data. Retrieved 21 July 2014 from www.jcq.org.uk/ media-centre/news-releases/a-leveland-as-entry-data-2014 McGovern, T.V., Corey, L.A., Cranney, J. et al. (2010). Psychologically literate citizens. In D. Halpern (Ed.)
Undergraduate education in psychology: Blueprint for the discipline’s future (pp.9–27). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. McInerney, L. (2013). What A-level subjects do Russell Group universities prefer? Retrieved 6 June 2014 from tinyurl.com/nc67k6e Ofqual (2012). International comparisons in senior secondary assessment.
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but the majority do not (see Hulme, this issue). As a result, the A-level is the only psychology they will study, and so these courses are in a position to have a profound effect on the nation’s understanding of psychological concepts. With over 100,000 people taking these courses every year for over a generation, the nation is becoming psychologically literate through this route. The term ‘psychological literacy’ was first used by Boneau (1990) in a study to identify key concepts in psychology. Subsequently McGovern et al. (2010) use the term ‘psychologically literate citizens’ to refer to the outcome of a course in psychology that results in students becoming ‘critically scientific thinkers and ethical and socially responsible participants in their communities’ (p.10). It is clear that in the UK the most common qualifications that students finish their studies in psychology with are AS and A-level. The psychological literacy of the UK will therefore be defined by these courses, and this is the second reason for psychologists to take an interest in A-level reforms.
(Ofqual, 2012). This report raises questions about the demand and challenge of the current A-levels, the breadth and depth of particular courses and of the A-level programme as a whole, and the design of assessments. One of the changes that is likely to affect psychology is the decoupling of AS from A-level. Currently the AS exams form the first half of the A-level qualification, but the new courses will be similar to A-levels of 25 years ago and have one set of examinations at the end of
Coventry: Ofqual. (tinyurl.com/kmvjr7c) Radford, J. & Holdstock, L. (1995). Does psychology need more boy appeal? The Psychologist, 8(1), 21–24. Radford, J. & Holdstock, L. (1996). The growth of psychology. The Psychologist, 9(12), 548–560. Russell Group (2009). STEM briefing. London: Russell Group. Retrieved 21 July 2014 from tinyurl.com/p9us7qf
Russell Group (2013). Informed choices: A Russell Group guide to making decisions about post-16 education. London: Russell Group. Retrieved 21 July 2014 from www.russellgroup.org/ InformedChoices-latest.pdf Sanders, L., Sander, P. & Mercer, J. (2009). Rogue males? Approaches to study and academic performance of male psychology students. Psychology Teaching Review, 15(1), 3–17.
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
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look kindly on psychology in schools and do not class the A-level as a ‘facilitating subject’, by which they mean a subject that is accepted as a general basis for study on most courses at university. The facilitating subjects as defined by the Russell Group are the predictable core curriculum from 50 years ago (Russell Group, 2013). The list is quite short – mathematics and further mathematics, English literature, physics, biology, chemistry, geography, history, languages (classical and modern). It could be argued that the omissions are as interesting as the inclusions. Although the Russell Group advice does not stipulate that students are required to take three of these subjects to enhance their chances of being accepted at a Russell Group university, it does say ‘If you take three facilitating subjects, you’ll have the largest number of degree courses to choose from further down the line’ (2013, p.27). The clear advice being given is that if you study ancient Greek at A-level you are more likely to be accepted onto a psychology degree at a Russell Group A-level reforms university than if you study The most recent reform of If you study ancient Greek at A-level you are more likely to A-level Psychology. A-levels has come to the end of be accepted onto a psychology degree at a Russell Group This might be a part university than if you study A-level Psychology a consultation period and is being explanation of why the admissions rolled out for teaching to begin in procedures of Russell Group 2015, with the first awards to be universities have been shown to be made in 2017. The reform is informed by two years study. The issue for psychology unfair (Boliver, 2013). The more modern two key reports, the first based on a is that it attracts a big entry to the AS and (relevant and useful?) subjects such as survey of higher education, teachers and this acts as a recruiting ground for the full psychology are less likely to be taught in employers on the suitability of A-levels A-level. This one change might lead to the private sector (Russell Group, 2009; (Higton et al., 2012). This report suggests a dramatic reduction in students taking Shepherd, 2011), and so by adopting their that there is general endorsement of Athe A-level. negative position to psychology (and levels by stakeholders, but it also The response of the government to other subjects) those universities that identifies gaps in skills and the issue of demand has been to look want to can maintain the class and a mismatch between the subject content to HE and in particular to the Russell regional discrimination they have in A-level and that required by higher Group, an association of 24 British public practised for generations. The danger for education institutions. The second research universities. This is where it psychology is that aspiring secondary report is an international comparison starts to look difficult for psychology. schools and academies will follow this of equivalent qualifications to A-level The Russell Group apparently do not lead (if going backwards can be called a
Shepherd, J. (2011, 15 June). A-level choices: The sharp contrast between private schools and comprehensives [Blog post]. The Guardian Datablog. Retrieved 21 July 2014 from tinyurl.com/kqtjcpn Trapp, A., Banister, P., Ellis, J. et al. (2011). The future of undergraduate psychology in the United Kingdom. York: Higher Education Academy. (Available at tinyurl.com/cts7kcl)
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‘lead’) and remove psychology from their curricula. And if the heat goes out of the A-level market it will only be a year or two before HE sees declining admissions and the bubble will have burst. The Russell Group report has had an impact on UK schools with a new measure added to school league tables that records performance on these facilitating subjects. This will inevitably encourage schools to guide students into these subjects at the expense of others. Among the many problems with this is the lack of any evidence to support the idea that these subjects do in fact facilitate entry to Russell Group universities. In the report it is stated that ‘many successful applicants…do have advanced level qualifications in at least two of the facilitating subjects’ (2013, p.24), but no evidence is presented to back this up. In fact, the best evidence there is suggests that the most popular A-levels taken by students accepted at these universities are not facilitating subjects. For example, the most common A-level held by students accepted to do medicine at Exeter is psychology (McInerney, 2013). The remarkable point here is that
the Russell Group advice is written in an authoritative style but is based on no evidence whatsoever. Despite this, the idea of facilitating subjects has developed a legitimacy such that the report of A-level entries by JCQ for 2014 only includes data for these subjects. So, psychology even though it is one of the biggest entry subjects does not warrant a mention. We are being written out of the script.
Doom and gloom? There are clearly some reasons to be gloomy. These include the attitude of the government to psychology and also the attitude of our colleagues in the Russell Group. On the bright side, in its current format A-level psychology is in rude health and still attracting students. Of these students, about 31 per cent say they would like to continue studying the subject and 15 per cent say they would like a career in psychology (BPS Psychology Education Board, 2013). Last year the BPS published The Future of A-Level Psychology to look at how the courses are developing and what can be done to support them. The report is part
of an ongoing attempt to join up the various sectors in education that provide courses in psychology. One of the strong messages from this report was that there is a major disconnect between HE and school psychology with regard to the skills that students are developing during their A-level and also the content they are studying. So what’s to be done? Maybe it is time for university psychology departments to embrace the A-level in their subject and make strong links with local schools and colleges that deliver it. Maybe it is also to time to value and promote the A-level, firstly for what it is (a great introduction to psychological ideas) and secondly for its value as a recruiting agent for universities. And maybe it is also time to revisit the undergraduate curriculum so that it builds on our student’s prior learning rather than repeating it. Phil Banyard is Reader in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University phil.banyard@ntu.ac.uk
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Psychological literacy – from classroom to real world Julie Hulme considers the implications of the continued popularity of the subject sychology is being studied by a growing number of people. At pre-tertiary level, it is now the fourth most popular subject, with over 56,000 entries for A-level examinations and 101,000 entries for AS-level examinations this year (JCQ, 2014). According to the Quality Assurance Agency Subject Benchmark for Psychology (QAA, 2010), psychology is one of the most popular subjects for undergraduate study in the UK (at the time of the publication of the Subject Benchmark, it was the second most studied subject overall, and the most popular science subject at undergraduate level). There are currently over 91,000 students studying psychology in UK universities, of whom almost 18,000 are postgraduates (see www.hesa.ac.uk/stats). This implies that there must be an enormous number of people in the UK who have studied psychology in some form, at some stage in their lives, and the numbers can only be increasing each year. It is therefore worth asking what impact the study of psychology has on these individuals, and, in turn, what is the wider impact on society as a whole?
With psychology’s popularity as a subject showing no signs of abating, a large number of people are gaining some psychological knowledge at some stage in their lives. What impact does this have on those people, and on wider society?
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Does psychology education provide students with skills, knowledge and attributes that are useful in everyday life? How can psychology educators and students maximise the value of psychology education for living and working in the real world?
resources
Insightful and reflective
references
Cranney, J. & Dunn, D. (2011). The psychologically literate citizen. New York: Oxford University Press. www.psychologicalliteracy.com www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ subjects/psychology/psychologicaleducation-literacy
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Akhurst, J. (2013). Enhancing psychology students’ employability through international community-based work placements. Higher Education Academy. Retrieved 30 September 2014 from tinyurl.com/pd6bmtg Akhurst, J., Coxon, M. & Hulme, J. (in press). Applying psychology to psychology learning and teaching. York: Higher Education Academy. Barnett, R. (2010). Life-wide education: A
It may be that substantially more students enter psychology courses with a view to becoming a professional psychologist than actually achieve this goal (Trapp et al., 2011), leading Reddy et al. (2013) to question whether students perceive psychology as a vocational, rather than an academic subject. In fact, between 15 and
new and transformative concept for higher education? In N. Jackson & R. Law (Eds.) Enabling a More Complete Education [Conference proceedings]. University of Surrey. (Available at http://lifewidelearningconference .pbworks.com/E-proceedings) Bernstein, D. (2011). A scientist-educator perspective on psychological literacy. In J. Cranney & D. Dunn (Eds.) The psychologically literate citizen. New
20 per cent of psychology graduates will go on to careers in professional psychology (QAA, 2010), and for these individuals, an appropriate psychology qualification provides the necessary credentials to enter those careers. However, this leaves a sizeable majority of 80 to 85 per cent of graduates who will take alternative routes. In addition, recent letters to The Psychologist (including Harkness, 2013) suggest that there may be considerable numbers of psychology graduates striving over several years to gain sufficient experience to enter training programmes. For those who do not achieve training places, there may be a sense of rejection and failure, the feeling of giving up a dream, or of having to follow a less desirable career that may not keep them in touch with psychological knowledge. Consider those who gain their qualifications and head out into a nonpsychological career or continued education. Can they now forget everything they learned about research methods, social psychology, cognition and the brain? As more people experience psychology education, it is appropriate for us to question to what extent their exposure to the discipline will benefit them, their employers and their communities in ways beyond simply participating in academic study and achieving an academic qualification. Where the particular discipline of study is of little relevance to the career destination of the student, can it still be of help? This is where the concept of psychological literacy comes in. The term was first coined by Boneau (1990), to describe the core knowledge and skill set acquired through the study of psychology. More recently, the concept of psychological literacy has evolved to become less prescriptive in terms of content, and more applied in nature. McGovern et al. (2010, p.11) define psychological literacy as ‘being insightful and reflective about one’s own and others’ behaviour and mental processes’ and having the ability to apply ‘psychological
York: Oxford University Press. Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education, 32(3), 347–364. Boneau, C.A. (1990). Psychological literacy: A first approximation. American Psychologist, 45, 891–900. Bromnick, R. & Horowitz, A. (2013). Reframing employability: Exploring career-related values in psychology undergraduates. Paper presented at
the HEA STEM Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, University of Birmingham, April. Retrieved 30 September 2014 from tinyurl.com/mm9xojq CBI/NUS (2011). Working towards your future: Making the most of your time in higher education. London: CBI. Retrieved 22 July 2014 from tinyurl.com/lsqsdwu CIPD (2011). The coaching climate.
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principles to personal, social, and organizational issues in work, relationships and the broader community’. Cranney et al. (2012, p.4) adopt a similar stance, describing psychological literacy as ‘the general capacity to adaptively and intentionally apply psychology to meet personal, professional and societal needs’. The concept of psychological literacy thus captures the ability of a psychology student to apply the knowledge and skills that they acquire during their education to all aspects of life: the workplace, their personal lives and the wider social context. As such, psychological literacy may provide a lens through which we can view the wider benefits of psychology education. It may also hold out some hope to students who may be coming to accept that their aspirations towards a career in psychology are likely to remain unfulfilled, but who remain enthused and inspired by the subject, and are looking for ways to continue to stay in touch with it.
The concept of psychological literacy, then, relates to the ability of students to take their learning from the classroom, and to apply it to their everyday work and lives. If psychology is the study of human mind, brain and behaviour, then, presumably, psychology is relevant and can be applied wherever one might find people. The possibilities are fairly limitless; in September 2013, the Guardian reported that psychology, in the forms of social isolation, confinement and experiencing constant surveillance, would be the major challenge facing potential volunteers sent to colonise the planet Mars (see tinyurl.com/ppjk54m). The applications of psychology in the criminal justice, health and education systems are already well recognised, hence the clearly demarcated professional areas of psychology relating to these, specifically forensic psychology, health and clinical psychology, and educational psychology. Marketing and human resources departments are also often well informed about psychological theory and strategies
Students now are being prepared for jobs that do not yet exist, using technology that has not yet been invented
London: CIPD. (Available via www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/surveyreports/coaching-climate-2011.aspx) Cranney, J., Botwood, L. & Morris, S. (2012). National standards for psychological literacy and global citizenship: Outcomes of undergraduate psychology education. Sydney, NSW: Office for Learning and Teaching. Retrieved 22 July 2014 from tinyurl.com/q98zg4y
Cranney, J. & Dunn, D. (2011). What the world needs now is psychological literacy. In J. Cranney & D. Dunn (Eds.) The psychologically literate citizen. New York: Oxford University Press. Dunn, D., Cautin, R.L. & Gurung, A.R. (2011). Curriculum matters: Structure, content, and psychological literacy. In J. Cranney & D. Dunn (Eds.) The psychologically literate
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that help them to do their jobs effectively; for example, using qualitative research methods to investigate markets, and using psychometric tests as recruitment tools. The application of psychological theory in a human resources context is also reflected in the rise of psychologically orientated coaching services adopted within UK management and industry; in 2011, 77 per cent of UK organisations used coaching as a leadership development tool (CIPD, 2011). However, the concept of psychological literacy allows us to take learning about psychology beyond those traditional graduate workplaces and into the much wider world (or solar system, apparently). At an individual level, good psychology students at all levels learn to think critically, to evaluate evidence and to recognise that knowledge evolves over time, rather than remaining fixed. They are equipped with the skills to find new information, and even to create knowledge for themselves through the application of their research methods and statistics training. They are well prepared to communicate their new-found knowledge through reports, articles and essays. The typical undergraduate degree prepares students to undertake psychological research using a variety of methods, and with an emphasis on ethical process (see QAA, 2010, for a comprehensive list of the skills associated with psychology graduates). Such skills are invaluable in the modern world. Students now are being prepared for jobs that do not yet exist, using technology that has not yet been invented (Reddy et al., 2013; Trapp et al., 2011). Global knowledge is expanding at a massive rate, and by the time students graduate some of what they learned in their first year at university may already have become outdated. The modern graduate, on gaining employment, will need to learn new skills, acquire and evaluate new knowledge and learn independently if they are to maintain currency. Employers are desperately seeking curious, creative problem solvers, who are numerate,
citizen. New York: Oxford University Press. Grabinger, R.S. & Dunlap, J.C. (1995). Rich environments for active learning: A definition. Research in Learning Technology, 3(2), 5–34. Halpern, D. (2010). Undergraduate education in psychology: A blueprint for the future of the discipline. Washington, DC: APA. Harkness, F. (2013). He’s just not that
into you. The Psychologist, 26(5), 314–315. Harnish, R. & Bridges, K.R. (2012). Promoting student engagement: Using community service-learning projects in undergraduate psychology. PRISM: A Journal of Regional Engagement, 1(2). Retrieved 22 July 2014 from http://encompass.eku.edu/prism/vol1 /iss2/1
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Harré, N. (2011). Psychology for a better world: Strategies to inspire sustainability. Auckland: University of Auckland. (Available at www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/psycholog yforabetterworld) Higher Education Statistics Agency (2012). Destinations of leavers from higher education institutions. Cheltenham: HESA. Joint Council for Qualifications (2014). A,
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ourselves and our families as we grow older, and of colleagues and friends who have developed atypically. Social psychology can help us to overcome conflict and prejudice, to appreciate cultural diversity, and to improve productivity and enhance team working. From biological psychology we gain insight into a vast array of human functions and dysfunctions, and can learn the harmfulness of stigmatising those who are somehow ‘different’. The psychology student, at whatever level, gains an understanding of human Psychology students and graduates are more likely to diversity that is unparalleled engage in voluntary work and are frequently motivated in any other discipline, and by the opportunity to make a difference learns that problem solving, of any sort, cannot rely solely on ‘common sense’; they 2012) and are frequently motivated by appreciate the need for an evidencethe opportunity to make a difference. based, informed approach (Mair et al., This has been used by several UK 2013). undergraduate providers to engage From a personal and employability students in community psychology perspective, then, psychological literacy, projects (e.g. Akhurst, 2013; see also the ability to apply psychology to the Harnish & Bridges, 2012). The desire ‘real world’, has the potential to enable to help, coupled with psychological students and graduates to develop understanding, can contribute to the themselves as thinkers, decision makers ability of students to positively contribute and problem solvers. Their ability to to the world in which we live. That is, cope with life can be enhanced, and they are psychologically literate citizens, their employers will value their skills, global citizens (Stevens & Gielen, 2007) knowledge and independence. Studying who are able to apply their knowledge of psychology can make a student self-aware psychology and their associated skills and and alert to social contexts, and creates attributes to problem solving and agility and flexibility of thought. interacting with the everyday world around them. McGovern et al. (2010) A better world define psychologically literate citizens as There is also significant potential for ‘critical scientific thinkers and ethical and psychological literacy to benefit the socially responsible participants in their global community. Students often enter communities’ (p.10). Do we want to psychology programmes because they enhance well-being in our workplace? want to help (Bromnick & Horowitz, Reduce the negative impact that our 2013). Psychology students and graduates species has on the global environment? are more likely than some other graduates Increase charitable giving? Reduce to engage in voluntary work (HESA, bullying, conflict and racism, or improve
AS and AEA results for summer 2013. Retrieved 14 August 2014 from www.jcq.org.uk/examinationresults/a-levels Mair, C., Taylor, J. & Hulme, J.A. (2013). An introductory guide to psychological literacy and psychologically literate citizenship. York: Higher Education Academy. (Available via tinyurl.com/k977zxt) McGovern, T.V. (2011). Virtues and
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communicative and independent (CBI/NUS, 2011). Lifelong learning (e.g. Mocker & Spear, 1982) is not optional; it is essential to ongoing employability. Likewise, in everyday life, we are constantly bombarded with information, through the media, our employment, and our interactions with friends and social networks. We live in ‘a world full of data’ (Porkess, 2013). Sometimes we have to make important decisions based on incomplete or competing ‘facts’. When reading the newspaper, choosing how to vote or making decisions about our children’s education or care provision for our elderly relatives, we need to research, analyse and evaluate information. A solid grounding in psychology provides us with the skills we need to carry out this process effectively. One might argue that the same is true for any other subject studied at university, and to some extent, this is true. Geography and sociology students, for example, are well versed in evaluating evidence, using data and thinking scientifically on the basis of evidence. However, psychology, with its emphasis on people, allows us to consider the human aspects of our choices in a more informed way. How important is the entertainment provided in a care home? To what extent am I being subjected to persuasion techniques when I listen to this politician’s speech? The subject knowledge acquired by studying psychology, as well as the skills, can be beneficial in all that we do. Likewise our experiences in everyday life can add to our understanding of psychology; we are equipped to employ life-wide learning in all of our social contexts (Barnett, 2010). Just about every aspect of the academic psychology curriculum has relevance to life in the real world. An understanding of cognitive psychology, including metacognition, can help students to be aware of their own learning capabilities and limitations, and can help to inform their personal and professional development and career choices. Developmental psychology adds to our understanding of our children, of
character strengths of psychologically literate faculty. In J. Cranney & D. Dunn (Eds.) The psychologically literate citizen. New York: Oxford University Press. McGovern, T.V., Corey, L.A., Cranney, J. et al. (2010). Psychologically literate citizens. In D. Halpern (Ed.) Undergraduate education in psychology: Blueprint for the discipline’s future (pp.9–27).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Mocker, D.W. & Spear, G.E. (1982). Lifelong learning: Formal, nonformal, informal and self-directed. Columbus, OH: National Center for Research in Vocational Education. Porkess, R. (2013). A world full of data: Statistics opportunities across A-level subjects. London: Royal Statistical Society and the Institute and Faculty
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our nation’s health? Psychology has the potential to facilitate behaviour and attitude change to help us to overcome the challenges that face us in the modern world. Solving our problems as a global community requires people with an understanding of psychology. Diane Halpern (2010, p.162) expresses this most eloquently: Today’s students must prepare themselves for a world in which knowledge is accumulating at a rapidly accelerating rate and in which old problems such as poverty, racism, and pollution join new problems such as global terrorism, a health crisis created by alarming increases in obesity, and the growing gap between the poor and the very rich. All of these problems require psychological skills, knowledge and values for their solution.
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applications of psychology, its relevance to the real world and the transferability of skills, rather than always teaching it in a theoretical context (Dunn et al., 2011; Mair et al., 2013); constructively align (Biggs, 1996) our courses to explicitly include psychological literacy in our learning outcomes, our teaching, and the assessments that we give to our students (Dunn et al., 2011; Trapp, 2010; Trapp et al., 2011); model psychological literacy in our own professional lives, through our interactions with colleagues and students, using psychology to inform our teaching practices, solve problems and ensure inclusivity (Akhurst et al., in press; Bernstein, 2011; Cranney and Dunn, 2011; McGovern, 2011; Zinkiewicz et al., 2003).
The thought of our students To some extent, and graduates, rather than undergraduate courses “Just about every forgetting all they learned in already incorporate an aspect of the our classes, going on to element of psychological academic create a ‘better world’ using literacy; all of us who psychology their psychological skills and teach on British curriculum has knowledge (Harré, 2011), is Psychological Society relevance to life in exciting. Given the large (BPS) accredited the real world” numbers of psychologically programmes, for example, educated individuals, this offer students the could have a huge impact. opportunity to demonstrate However, in order to achieve these their skills through an independent finalaspirational outcomes, psychology year research project (e.g. Watt, 2013), educators may need to adapt the and teach students about ethics. However, curriculum to facilitate transfer of psychological literacy is rarely made an knowledge and skills to situations beyond explicit outcome of psychology courses, the classroom. Dunn et al. (2011, p.16) despite now being referenced in the BPS state: ‘Promoting psychological literacy accreditation criteria, and particularly not entails re-orientating what and how we at school or college level. teach students in a way that emphasises In order to educate psychologically psychology’s relevance.’ We cannot expect literate citizens, students need to be given our students to transfer their learning to opportunities to practise applying their the real world, if we have not taught them knowledge and skills to solving novel, that to do so is not only possible, but real-world problems. Research methods appropriate, and given them practice in teaching provides one obvious home for doing so. This will require action on the this type of work, but in fact no aspect of part of those of us who deliver the psychology curriculum is necessarily psychology education. We need to: exempt. For example, cognitive I recognise and to teach the psychology can be used to improve
of Actuaries. Quality Assurance Agency (2010). Subject benchmark statement: Psychology. Retrieved 9 September 2013 from http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications /Documents/Subject-benchmarkstatement-Psychology.pdf Reddy, P., Lantz, C. & Hulme, J. (2013). Employability in psychology: A guide for departments. York: Higher Education Academy. (Available at
tinyurl.com/kthejrs) Stevens, M. & Gielen, U.P. (Eds.) (2007). Toward a global psychology: Theory, research, intervention and pedagogy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Trapp, A. (2010). Teaching you to suck eggs? Using psychology to teach psychology. In D. Upton & A. Trapp (Eds.) Teaching psychology in higher education. London: BPS Blackwell. Trapp, A., Banister, P., Ellis, J. et al.
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students’ own learning strategies, social psychology can be used to enhance group-working experiences, and developmental psychology provides a framework for thinking about students’ own personal development. There are likely to be gains in the classroom from taking this approach; we will be supporting our students to enhance their independent learning skills, and through making the relevance of psychology apparent, are likely to engage them far more deeply than we might through teaching apparently abstract theory (Dunn et al., 2011; Grabinger & Dunlap, 1995). Embedding psychological literacy in the curriculum may enhance our students’ intrinsic motivation to learn, by bringing psychology to life – but also by bringing life to psychology. By fully engaging with the concept of psychological literacy, the large numbers of psychology students who pass through our educational establishments can be equipped to apply psychology to enhance their own lives, their employability and contributions to the workplace, and their communities. They will have the opportunity to continue to engage with the discipline of psychology, well beyond the day that they achieve their qualification, even if they do not manage to gain entrance to a career in professional psychology. Developing our own psychological literacy, and becoming psychologically literate citizens ourselves, will mean that not only can we enable our students to make a difference to the world, but we can make a difference ourselves – to our students, our colleagues and institutions, our families and our communities.
(2011). The future of undergraduate psychology education in the UK. (Available at www.heacademy.ac.uk/ node/3576) Watt, R. (2013). Developing the psychologically literate citizen at the University of Stirling. York: Higher Education Academy. (Available via tinyurl.com/khjwacc) Zinkiewicz, L., Hammond, N. & Trapp, A. (2003). Applying psychology
Julie Hulme is Consultant in Academic Practice, Higher Education Academy julie.hulme@heacademy.ac. uk
disciplinary knowledge to psychology learning and teaching. York: Higher Education Academy. Retrieved 30 September 2014 from tinyurl.com/ntmrxlx
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to experienced states and motivated behaviour itself. Finally, I will discuss recent research into developing new types of treatment for addictions and anxiety disorders that train people to overcome their attentional bias.
Can’t take my eyes off of you Matt Field, winner of the Society’s Spearman Medal, on attentional bias in addiction and anxiety disorders When we experience emotional or motivational states, we find that environmental stimuli that relate to these states are able to grab our attention. Among individuals with emotional or motivational disorders, such as anxiety disorders and addiction, this ‘attentional bias’ seems to be a permanent feature. But does attentional bias just represent an output of the underlying state, or could it also bring about changes in states or even longer-term changes in ‘traits’? The latter possibility has been the driving force behind recent research suggesting that attentional bias modification could have a role to play as a treatment for psychopathologies such as anxiety disorders and addiction.
A variety of methods can be used to assess biases in selective attention, magine that you had a busy day at although here I will focus on the two work so you missed lunch. On your most commonly used methods. The walk home, crazy with hunger, you modified Stroop task is the classic notice a billboard advertising some tasty example of an interference-based food. Wouldn’t the advert capture your paradigm. In the task, participants attention more than it usually does? Or are presented with words displayed consider this scenario: I recently went to in different colours and their task is to watch Paranormal Activity at the cinema, rapidly identify the colour of the word, and when I got home that night every while ignoring its semantic content. By shadow in my introducing different house seemed to types of words (e.g. grab my attention those related to spiders until I figured out versus those related to that they were just vegetables), we can harmless shadows. compare participants’ Such examples, colour-naming speed supported by for the different types of laboratory work, words. If participants are illustrate that as slower to colour-name, our ‘wants’ or ‘fears’ say, the spider-related fluctuate, our words compared to the selective attention vegetable-related words, becomes influenced we would conclude that by things that relate the spider-related words to these wants or had interfered with fears. In this article, colour-naming I will demonstrate performance. This is how attentional usually attributed to the People with specific phobias (e.g. biases are a robust meaning of the words for spiders or snakes) have an characteristic of somehow ‘grabbing the attentional bias for pictures and psychological attention’ and reducing words related to their fear disorders such the pool of cognitive resources needed for as addiction and successful colour-naming. phobias, which are An alternative task is the visual probe disorders of motivation and emotion, task, which is the classic example of a respectively. The interesting theoretical facilitation-based paradigm. In the task, question is whether attentional bias is a pair of pictures or words (e.g. a just another ‘output’ of the underlying photograph of a woman smoking a emotional or motivational state, or cigarette, and a photograph of a woman whether it might actually contribute
questions resources
Yiend, J. (Ed.) (2004). Cognition, emotion and psychopathology: Theoretical, empirical and clinical directions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiers, R.W. & Stacy, A.W. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of implicit cognition and addiction. London: Sage.
references
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Could attentional bias contribute to some of the symptoms of psychological disorders?
Attwood, A.S., O’Sullivan, H., Leonards, U. et al. (2008). Attentional bias training and cue reactivity in cigarette smokers. Addiction, 103, 1875–1882. Bar-Haim, Y., Lamy, D., Pergamin, L. et al. (2007). Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: A meta-analytic study. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 1–24. Cisler, J.M. & Koster, E.H.W. (2010).
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How do we measure attentional bias in the laboratory?
Can we reduce our hunger just by looking away from food?
Mechanisms of attentional biases towards threat in anxiety disorders: An integrative review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 203–216. Edwards, M.S., Burt, J.S. & Lipp, O.V. (2006). Selective processing of masked and unmasked verbal threat material in anxiety. Cognition and Emotion, 20, 812–835. Fadardi, J.S. & Cox, W.M. (2009). Reversing the sequence: Reducing
alcohol consumption by overcoming alcohol attentional bias. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 101, 137–145. Field, M. & Cox, W.M. (2008). Attentional bias in addictive behaviors: A review of its development, causes, and consequences. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 97, 1–20. Field, M. & Duka, T. (2002). Cues paired with a low dose of alcohol acquire conditioned incentive properties in
social drinkers. Psychopharmacology, 159, 325–334. Field, M., Duka, T., Eastwood, B. et al. (2007). Experimental manipulation of attentional biases in heavy drinkers. Psychopharmacology, 192, 593–608. Field, M., Duka, T., Tyler, E. & Schoenmakers, T. (2009). Attentional bias modification in tobacco smokers. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 11, 812–822.
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applying lipstick) are simultaneously presented side-by-side on a computer screen for a relatively brief period, anything between about 10 milliseconds and 10 seconds (in different studies). After the pictures disappear, a small probe stimulus (e.g. an arrow pointing up or down) appears on either the left or right hand side of the screen such that it replaces one or other of the pictures. Participants are instructed to respond to the visual probe as quickly as possible. Over a series of trials, we can compare participants’ reaction times when probes replace our picture category of interest (e.g. smoking-related pictures), and when probes replace our control category of pictures. If participants are faster to respond to probes that replace smokingrelated pictures compared to probes that do not replace those pictures, then we infer that participants were directing their gaze to the smoking-related pictures just before the probe appeared in their place (so, attentional bias for smoking pictures), and this facilitated their reaction time. A real advantage of this task is that it can be combined with eye movement monitoring, such that we can constantly track where participants are looking while pictures are presented, which gives us a direct and unambiguous measure of biases in selective attention.
Addiction and anxiety disorders Research conducted over the past 30 years or so has demonstrated that patients with anxiety disorders have an attentional bias for threat-related stimuli. For example, patients with social phobia have an attentional bias for threatening facial expressions; patients with specific phobia (e.g. for spiders or snakes) have an attentional bias for pictures and words related to their fear; and patients with generalised anxiety disorder have an attentional bias for general threat-related information (see Bar-Haim et al., 2007). Substance abuse and dependence are also associated with attentional bias for substance-related cues. This has been
Field, M. & Eastwood, B. (2005). Experimental manipulation of attentional bias increases the motivation to drink alcohol. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 183, 350–357. Field, M., Munafò, M.R. & Franken, I.H.A. (2009). A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between attentional bias and subjective craving in substance abuse. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 589–607.
demonstrated in heroin users, cocaine users, cannabis users, alcoholics and tobacco smokers (see Field & Cox, 2008). Unlike with attentional bias for threatrelated stimuli, it seems unlikely that drugrelated cues would have any inherent motivational properties in people who have not used drugs, so attentional biases are likely to be learned. Therefore, most theoretical models suggest that attentional biases develop through a classical conditioning process, in that the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse become associated with environmental cues that are present at the time of drug self-administration. Through this conditioning process, drugs acquire conditioned incentive-motivational properties, which causes them to grab the attention (e.g. Robinson & Berridge, 1993). The role of conditioning is supported by laboratory conditioning studies which demonstrate that arbitrary cues that are paired with drug administration or drug availability are able to grab the attention after relatively few pairings (e.g. Field & Duka, 2002). Studies that used the modified Stroop task suggest that both anxiety disorders and substance-related problems are characterised by an identical pattern of attentional bias; that is, people with these disorders are slow to name the colour in which disorder-related stimuli are printed. However, studies that used experimental tasks that are able to discriminate between rapid orienting of attention, problems disengaging attention, and overt attentional avoidance (see Cisler & Koster, 2010), suggest a slightly more complicated picture. That is, there appears to be a qualitative difference between the types of attentional bias that are seen in anxiety disorders and substance-related problems. Anxiety disorders are characterised by rapid orienting of attention towards threat (when threat stimuli are presented very briefly), followed by problems disengaging attention from threat. When threatening stimuli are presented for fairly long periods of time (usually over one second), overt avoidance of the stimuli is often seen (Cisler & Koster, 2010). This is thought
Franken, I.H.A. (2003). Drug craving and addiction: Integrating psychological and neuropsychopharmacological approaches. Progress in NeuroPsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 27, 563–579. Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M. & Cuthbert, B.N. (1998). Emotion, motivation, and anxiety: Brain mechanisms and psychophysiology. Biological Psychiatry, 44, 1248–1263.
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to reflect a hypersensitive system for detecting threat, which leads to rapid detection of threatening stimuli followed by problems disengaging attention from them. The subsequent diversion of attention away from threat is perhaps motivated by desire to reduce the anxiety caused by focusing attention on the stimulus (Cisler & Koster, 2010). However, individuals with substancerelated disorders seem to show a different pattern of attentional bias. To date, no published studies have used adequate methodologies to convincingly demonstrate rapid orienting of attention toward drug-related stimuli. Instead, substance abusers seem to show a bias in the maintenance or disengagement of attention, in that drug-related cues are able to ‘hold’, but perhaps not rapidly ‘grab’, their attention (see Field & Cox, 2008). At least, this seems to be the case in substance users who are not receiving treatment at the time when attentional bias is assessed. Alcohol-dependent individuals who are receiving (or who have recently received) treatment seem to show attentional avoidance of alcohol-related pictures (e.g. Townshend & Duka, 2007), which may be preceded by rapid orienting of attention toward those cues (see Noel et al., 2006, Stormark et al., 1997). Therefore, attentional bias in treatment-seeking alcoholics may be more akin to that seen in those with anxiety disorders, which might reflect the fact that alcohol-related cues are perceived as aversive or even threatening in those who have recently been detoxified from alcohol. How does this apparent dissociation between the types of attentional bias seen in anxiety versus substance-related disorders sit with the observation that both disorders are characterised by Stroopinterference produced by disorder-related words? Any emotionally valenced stimulus could lead to colour-naming interference, regardless of whether its valence is positive or negative (e.g. Powell et al., 2002). Therefore, demonstrations of Stroop interference in any specific disorder are useful but they don’t tell us if this
MacLeod, C., Rutherford, E., Campbell, L. et al. (2002). Selective attention and emotional vulnerability: Assessing the causal basis of their association through the experimental manipulation of attentional bias. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 107–123. Nijs, I.M.T., Muris, P., Euser, A.S. & Franken, I.H.A. (2010). Differences in attention to food and food intake
between overweight/obese and normal-weight females under conditions of hunger and satiety. Appetite, 54, 243–254. Noel, X., Colmant, M., van der Linden, M. et al. (2006). Time course of attention for alcohol cues in abstinent alcoholic patients: The role of initial orienting. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 30, 1871–1877.
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interference arises because those cues are perceived as appetitive or aversive, or are positively or negatively valenced. In many disorders (such as the anxiety disorders) we can cautiously conclude that Stroop interference occurs because threat-related cues are appraised negatively. However, in substance-related disorders, drug-related cues might be perceived as either appetitive or aversive in different populations (e.g. those with alcohol dependence, versus tobacco smokers), or at different stages of the disorder (e.g. heavy ‘social’ drinking versus inpatient alcoholics). Indeed, drug-related cues might be simultaneously appraised as both appetitive and aversive in the same individuals. If we only use the Stroop task, we might conclude that substancerelated disorders are characterised by ‘attentional bias’ in general. But if we use more sophisticated methods, a more complicated picture emerges.
states represent the most salient feature of emotion, but that all emotions (whether appetitive or aversive) have correlates in other response domains, including physiology, behaviour, and cognition. Indeed, Lang et al. (1998) specifically noted that strongly valenced positive and negative stimuli elicit increased
correlation between the current strength of self-reported state anxiety and the magnitude of attentional bias at that point in time (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). More compelling evidence for this association comes from studies in which anxiety was experimentally manipulated, for example by briefly exposing people to a stressful
Emotional and motivational states Emotional and motivational disorders such as those described above are associated with attentional bias for disorder-related stimuli. But what of emotional and motivational ‘states’? It stands to Subjective craving is experimentally increased after an experimental manipulation – such as reason that an individual with generalised anxiety disorder would, administering a low dose of alcohol to social drinkers on average, experience a higher level of anxiety than an individual situation. Such studies demonstrate physiological arousal, and such stimuli without the disorder. Likewise, someone that attentional biases are increased in also influence attentional processes: highly dependent on heroin would experience magnitude after a stressor compared to arousing stimuli are more likely to be heroin cravings from time to time, but after a control manipulation (e.g. Edwards preferentially attended to than stimuli that someone who had never used the drug et al., 2006). Importantly, these effects are provoke low feelings of arousal. Given this, would not. So a reasonable question to seen in both individuals with anxiety one would predict that intense emotional ask is: to what extent are attentional disorders, and in ‘normal’ controls (in states would be associated with increased biases stable within individuals, or do whom state anxiety tends to fluctuate attentional processing of environmental they tend to covary with the strength of naturally, and can be experimentally stimuli that are relevant to that emotional experienced emotional and motivational manipulated with the use of laboratory state. states? stressors). Similarly, there is an association With regard to subjective anxiety, Theoretical work from Lang and between appetitive motivational states, and there is good evidence to suggest a robust colleagues (1998) suggested that subjective
Powell, J., Tait, S. & Lessiter, J. (2002). Cigarette smoking and attention to signals of reward and threat in the Stroop paradigm. Addiction, 97, 1163–1170. Robinson, T.E. & Berridge, K.C. (1993). The neural basis of drug craving: An incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. Brain Research Reviews, 18, 247–291. Schmidt, N.B., Richey, J.A., Buckner, J.D.
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& Timpano, K.R. (2009). Attention training for generalized social anxiety disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 5–14. Schoenmakers. T.M., de Bruin, M., Lux, I.F.M. et al. (2010). Clinical effectiveness of attentional bias modification training in abstinent alcoholic patients. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 109, 30–36.. Schoenmakers, T., Wiers, R.W., Jones,
B.T. et al. (2007). Attentional retraining decreases attentional bias in heavy drinkers without generalization. Addiction, 102, 399–405. See, J., MacLeod, C. & Bridle, R. (2009). The reduction of anxiety vulnerability through the modification of attentional bias: A real-world study using a home-based cognitive bias modification procedure. Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 118, 65–75. Stormark, K.M., Field, N.P., Hugdahl, K. & Horowitz, M. (1997). Selective processing of visual alcohol cues in abstinent alcoholics. Addictive Behaviors, 22, 509–519. Townshend, J.M. & Duka, T. (2007). Avoidance of alcohol-related stimuli in alcohol-dependent inpatients. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 31, 1349–1357.
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attentional bias for motivationally relevant cues. For example, self-reported hunger levels are associated with the magnitude of attentional bias for food-related cues (e.g. Nijs et al., 2010). In substance-related problems, attentional bias and craving strength are positively correlated, although a recent meta-analysis revealed that the association is fairly weak, with only 4 per cent of shared variance between the two (Field, Munafò et al., 2009). However, when attention was directly measured by monitoring eye movements or eventrelated potentials (rather than being indirectly inferred from reaction time tasks), the amount of shared variance increased to 13 per cent. Of course, this is still a long way off 100 per cent shared variance, but in the meta-analysis my coauthors and I discussed several methodological issues that may account for the generally low correlation. With regard to experimental manipulation of craving states, I have conducted several studies in which craving strength was experimentally manipulated, for example by requiring smokers to abstain for several hours, by administering a low dose of alcohol to social drinkers, or by exposing social drinkers to the threat of public speaking. Again, the general pattern of results is that when subjective craving is experimentally increased after an experimental manipulation, attentional bias tends to increase alongside it, which again suggests some degree of coherence between the motivational state and attentional bias (reviewed in Field & Cox, 2008).
What does attention actually do? Attentional bias for emotionally or motivationally relevant cues is clearly a feature of fairly stable emotional and motivational disorders, and it is associated with temporary fluctuations in emotional and motivational states. But could attentional bias actually play a causal role in the generation, escalation or maintenance of states, and even disorders? For example, with regard to addiction, one influential model argues that attentional bias simply represents an output of the underlying neurobiological adaptations that drive drug-seeking behaviour (Robinson & Berridge, 1993). On the other hand, an extension of this model (Franken, 2003) suggests that attentional bias might actually cause increased craving and drug-seeking behaviour, perhaps because if individuals find themselves repeatedly distracted by drug-related cues in their environment, they may ruminate on the anticipated positive consequences of drug use, and
this unwanted distraction may reduce such as tobacco smokers (Attwood et al., the ability to engage coping responses 2008; Field, Duka et al., 2009). The overall in order to resist the temptation to use conclusion is that attentional bias may drugs. Similarly, attentional bias might have a causal effect on craving strength, simply be an ‘output’ of underlying although this effect is weak and seemingly anxiety, or it may play a causal role by moderated by variables such as gender and generating emotional states or increasing participant awareness of the relationship their intensity, and thereby be an between picture location and probe important factor in the development and location during the attentional bias maintenance of emotional disorders (see manipulation phase. To date, effects on MacLeod et al., 2002). substance-seeking or actual consumption One way to test the potential causal in the laboratory have not been role of attentional bias is to experimentally consistently found. manipulate it before examining the effects It has been suggested that, while these of this on self-reported states or on brief experimental studies are useful, they motivated behaviour. This has been do not really get at the issue of the causal attempted in a number of recent studies, role of attentional bias in disorders such as originally by MacLeod and colleagues anxiety and addiction. This is because they (2002). They used a modified version of tend to focus on non-dependent substance the visual probe task users, or people who have in which the location higher than average anxiety of visual probes was levels but who do not have “attentional bias may manipulated such that an anxiety disorder. have a causal effect on for one group of Furthermore, they only craving strength” participants (‘attend focus on short-term changes threat’ group) probes in emotional or motivational replaced threat-related states, or fairly artificial models words on the majority of trials, but for of motivated behaviour in the laboratory. another group (‘avoid threat’ group), So some recent studies have looked at the probes replaced the threat-related words effects of longer-term interventions that on a minority of trials. The aim was that, attempt to manipulate attentional bias over repeated trials, the ‘attend threat’ over repeated sessions, usually spread over group should direct their attention towards several weeks. In the anxiety literature, threat-related cues, whereas the ‘avoid initial results are promising: attentional threat’ group should direct their attention bias reduction can bring about long-lasting away from threat-related cues. This was reductions in self-reported symptoms of indeed the case, although groups did not social anxiety disorder (e.g. Schmidt et al., differ in self-reported state anxiety 2009), and it can lead to long-lasting immediately after the manipulation. reductions in anxiety levels among However, the important finding was that students who enrol at university in a the ‘attend threat’ group showed a larger foreign country, which is a stressful time increase in state anxiety after they had (See et al., 2009). In the addictions, two completed a stressful task, compared to recent studies examined the utility of the ‘avoid threat’ group. The take-home attentional bias reduction as an adjunct conclusion from this study was that treatment for heavy drinking, and both attentional bias for threat might not found some evidence for beneficial effects, influence subjective anxiety per se, but including a reduction in the amount of it appears to increase vulnerability to alcohol consumed (Fadardi & Cox, 2009), stressors, such that when attentional or an increase in the amount of time that bias is elevated, the subjective response patients remained abstinent before to a stressor is elevated. relapsing to drinking (Schoenmakers et al., This paradigm was adapted to probe 2010). However, future studies with larger the causal role of attentional bias in sample sizes and appropriate control substance-related disorders. An initial conditions are required before this can study found that a group of heavy social be truly embraced as an intervention to drinkers in whom attentional bias for reduce alcohol problems and, perhaps, alcohol-cues had been experimentally other addictions too. increased reported higher levels of alcohol craving, and consumed more beer, than Matt Field a group in whom attentional bias had been is in the School of reduced (Field & Eastwood, 2005). Psychology, University of However, subsequent studies have either Liverpool failed to fully replicate these effects in m.field@liv.ac.uk heavy drinkers (Field et al., 2007; Schoenmakers et al., 2007) or failed to generalise the results to other populations
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COMPETITION
Extra-sensory perception – a controversial debate Eric Robinson, winner in the postgraduate category of our student writer competition, weighs up the evidence
A huge number of people believe in some form of extra-sensory perception (ESP) and claim to have witnessed evidence of it first hand. But are they naive and misguided? And is it right to ignore such seemingly preposterous claims? Or is there scientific evidence that supports these proposed ESP experiences? A wide body of research may suggest such claims are not as preposterous as we’d probably expect.
question resources
Bem, D.J. & Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 4–18. www.parapsych.org
references
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If overwhelming evidence appeared that almost certainly proved ESP, what ramifications might this have on society?
Bem, D.J. & Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 4–18. Bem D.J. & Palmer, J. (2001). Updating the ganzfeld database: A victim of its own success? Journal of Parapsychology, 65, 207–218. Carpenter, J.C. (2001). A psychological analysis of ganzfeld protocols. Journal of Parapsychology, 65, 357–359.
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xtra-sensory perception (ESP) is a term often scoffed at in psychology and wider science: an alleged ‘paranormal’ or supernatural phenomenon that many believe is best suited to science fiction films. Yet, to the surprise of many academics, a significant body of scientific evidence exists which may suggest otherwise. ESP has been defined as ‘anomalous processes of information or energy transfer, processes such as telepathy… that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms’ (Bem & Honorton, 1994, p.4). Although unexplained by current scientific thought, surveys continually indicate that belief in ESP is extremely common (Moore, 2005) and many individuals are adamant that they have experienced ESP at first hand (Greeley, 1987). Additionally, psychologists and sociologists have collected thousands of retrospective case reports of alleged ESP phenomena (Irwin & Watt, 2007). However, our knowledge of the human mind raises considerable doubts over the accuracy of such anecdotal evidence. Extensive research has shown us that memory can be unreliable, and that cognitive biases result in events regularly and easily being misinterpreted (Henkel & Mather, 2007; Kahneman et al., 1993). Furthermore, the laws of probability mean that weird coincidences that may well appear ‘ESP-like’ can’t help but happen. For example, thinking of a friend you have not spoken to for sometime and then receiving a telephone call from that very person may be seem too much of a coincidence, best explained by some form
Freud, S. (2003). Dreams and occultism. In A. Phillips (Ed.) Sigmund Freud: An outline of psychoanalysis (pp.26–51). London: Penguin. (Original work published 1940) Greeley, A. (1987). The ‘impossible’: It’s happening. Noetic Sciences Review, 2, 7–9. Harris, M.J. & Rosenthal, R. (1988). Human performance research: An overview. Washington, DC: National
of ESP. Alternatively it may just be pure coincidence; how many times is a distant friend thought of and they don’t call? If we also consider fraud and mistakenness, anecdotes are reduced to something only vaguely resembling scientific evidence. Yet the assumption that belief in ESP is related to lower IQ and poorer reasoning skills has been shown to be inaccurate (Roe, 1999). Indeed, education level has even been shown to be positively correlated with belief in ESP (Rice, 2003). Those that believe in the possibility of ESP are also in good company; William James, Carl Jung and Nobel Prize winner Charles Riche to name but a few great minds. Although many feel antipathy towards proposed paranormal and occultist suggestions such as ESP, Freud wrote that ‘This disinclination must ultimately be overcome. What we are dealing with is a question of fact’ (1940/2003, p.29). Parapsychology scientifically investigates the possibility of ESP, and has collected a large body of evidence which some suggest support such a remarkable claim (Bem & Honorton, 1994; Sherwood & Roe, 2003). The most common experimental design that has been used to examine the ‘ESP hypothesis’ is the ganzfeld procedure.
The ganzfeld experiment A typical ganzfeld experiment involves two participants. Participant 1, known as ‘the receiver’ is seated in a comfortable chair in an acoustically isolated room. Translucent ping-pong ball halves are taped over their eyes, and a red floodlight shone over them while white noise is played through headphones. These measures are taken to reduce external noise and place
Academy Press. Henkell, L.A. & Mather, M. (2007).Memory attributions for choices: How beliefs shape our memories. Journal of memory and language, 57, 163–176. Honorton, C. (1985). Meta-analysis of psi ganzfeld research: A response to Hyman. Journal of Parapsychology, 49, 51–91. Hyman, R. (1985). The ganzfeld psi
experiment: A critical appraisal. Journal of Parapsychology, 49, 3–49. Irwin, H.J. & Watt, A.W. (2007). An introduction to parapsychology. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B.L., Schreiber, C.A. & Redelmeier, D.A. (1993). When more pain is preferred to less: Adding a better end. Psychological Science, 4, 401–405. Lawrence, T.R. (1993). Gathering in the
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participants in a comfortable ‘dreamy state of awareness’. The reasoning behind such procedures is that anecdotal reports of ESP often occur during altered states of consciousness. Participant 2, otherwise known as ‘the sender’, is located in a different room. A computer randomly selects a stimulus or ‘target’ (typically a photograph or video) from a large pool. It is the sender’s job to concentrate on the target and attempt to mentally send it to the receiver. During this time the receiver provides a continuous verbal report of any imagery or thoughts. After the session the receiver is presented with four stimuli (one is the target and the other three serve as decoys) and asked to select
sheep and goats: A meta-analysis of forced choice sheep-goat ESP studies, 1947– 1993. Paper presented at the 36th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association, Toronto, Canada. Milton, J. & Wiseman, R. (1999). Does psi exist? Lack of replication of an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 387–191.
which of the four was most similar to their mentation. By chance we would expect participants to select the target stimuli (otherwise known as a ‘hit’) on 25 per cent of trials. Early ganzfeld experiments The following extract from a paper by Westerlund et al. produced highly significant (2004) reporting ganzfeld experiments at the University results, well above what chance of Edinburgh, shows strong similarities between the would predict for performance. video the ‘sender’ was watching and the receiver’s Meta-analyses by thoughts at the time. parapsychologist Charles ‘On this tape, the target video clip is shown and Honorton and sceptic Ray at the same time the mentation of the receiver can be Hyman, examining 28 studies heard. One of the most remarkable excerpts shows taking place between 1974 and a man who is running through a forest; it seems that 1981, reported a hit rate of 35 he is being hunted (at the same time, the receiver says: per cent (Honorton, 1985). “Trees. People running. Fleeing…”). Suddenly, the man Although the 10 per cent falls down in a deep muddy pool (at the same time, the deviation may seem small, receiver says: “Falling. Muddy…”). The camera zooms in over so many trials this is on the man’s face (at the same time, the receiver says: a robust finding that is “Blond hair. 70´s hairstyle. Curly-ish. White face…”. All extremely unlikely to be the utterances appear to describe exactly what is being explained by chance shown on the film. The next thing that happens in the clip deviation. The studies also is that the man can no longer keep his head above the yielded an impressive effect surface, so he disappears into the mud (at the same size (0.5 is normally time, the receiver says: “Dead man in the water”)’ considered a medium-sized effect in the social sciences) of 0.63 (Bem & Honorton, 1994). Furthermore, the effect was replicated by numerous form of ganzfeld protocol was developed; researchers (Honorton, 1985). ‘the auto-ganzfeld’, whereby randomisation However, concern was raised over a and selection of stimuli were completely number of possible methodological computerised and procedural rigour flaws surrounding the experiments, tightened. including cues through sensory leakage and poor randomisation of The auto-ganzfeld procedure target stimuli (Hyman, 1985). In 1994, Psychology Bulletin published an Interestingly, a separate US National article by Cornell’s Daryl Bem and the late Research Council report by esteemed Charles Honorton analysing all autosocial psychologist Robert Rosenthal ganzfeld studies. Up to then, 354 autoalso accepted these flaws, but ganzfeld sessions had taken place during suggested that they were highly 11 studies. Again, results appeared to be unlikely to explain the remarkably in support of the ESP hypothesis. consistent effect (Harris & Rosenthal, Reminiscent of the earlier ganzfeld 1988). studies, a significant hit rate of 32 per Nevertheless, accepting such a cent was observed. In search of better controversial hypothesis based on understanding of the effect taking place, evidence coming from the authors also examined internal effects methodologically flawed experiments and suggested that degree of extroversion is poor science. Based on the previous and belief in the possibility of ESP problems of early experiments, a new
Moore, D.W. (2005, 16 June). Three in four Americans believe in paranormal. Washington, DC: Gallup Poll News Service. Rice, T.W. (2003). Believe it or not: Religious and other paranormal beliefs in the United States. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42, 95–106. Roe, C.A. (1999). Critical thinking and belief in the paranormal: A re-
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Weird coincidences in the laboratory?
evaluation. British Journal of Psychology, 90, 85–98. Schouten, S.A. (1993). Are we making progress? In L. Coly & J. Mcmahon (Eds.) Psi research methodology, a reexamination: Proceedings of an international conference. New York: Parapsychology Foundation Shermer, M. (2003). Psychic drift. Scientific American, 2, 31. Sherwood, S.J. & Roe, C.A. (2003). A
review of dream ESP studies conducted since the Maimonides dream ESP programme. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10, 85–109. Westerlund, J., Parker, A., Dalkvist, J. & Goulding, J. (2005). Remarkable correspondences between ganzfeld mentation and target content: Psi or a cognitive illusion? Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association Convention, 255–267.
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predicted performance (see Bem & Honorton, 1994). Such findings inevitably encouraged researchers to continue ganzfeld experiments. In 1999 Milton and Wiseman conducted their own meta-analysis of all auto-ganzfeld studies in the published literature. Surveying 30 studies, the authors’ analysis found no significant effect (Milton & Wiseman, 1999). Nonetheless, there have been objections to the conclusions drawn from the analysis. The quality of the experiments analysed has been called into question. During this period many studies were ‘processorientated’ and altered various aspects of the standard ganzfeld procedure, potentially removing conditions that may have facilitated ESP (Irwin & Watt, 2007). Nevertheless, over the 30 studies that explicitly investigated the existence of ESP, no evidence in support of the hypothesis was found. Additionally, the previous significant effects of individual differences in performance were not replicated. Due to such criticisms another metaanalysis followed in 2001. Finding an additional 10 later studies, Bem and Palmer (2001) analysed 40 studies overall. The average hit rate was 30.1 per cent; a significant effect had returned. Furthermore, the proposal that studies tampering with the previously successful standard ganzfeld procedure may have been responsible for non-significant findings gained some support. Studies conforming to the conventional procedure yielded significant results, whereas those that altered the methodology tended to produce chance scoring (Bem & Palmer, 2001). Yet, the effect size was much smaller than those reported in earlier experiments, suggesting that if an effect was taking place, it was only faint.
A future for ESP? Although it is not overwhelming evidence, experiments may suggest that a small effect is taking place. However, the small number of papers providing evidence in reputable psychological journals do not appear to have changed opinion or attracted much more scientific attention towards ESP.
Shermer (2003) suggests the major reasons are that (a) the effect is extremely difficult to replicate and (b) parapsychology lacks a unified and valid theory to explain such an anomaly. But how important are these? Science is primarily based on observation followed by explanation through theory. Some parapsychologists suggest the size of the field may explain why a substantial ‘breakthrough’ has yet to be made. Schouten (1993) calculated that in the last 111 years, the total amount of human and financial resources dedicated to parapsychology is the equivalent to the resources available to sustain all psychological research for a mere two months in the US. An alternative view may be: if such an ability or phenomenon exists, then surely 111 years of academic study should have provided enough evidence for opinion to be swayed? Nevertheless, parapsychologists have reported a number of findings that they suggest may explain the phenomena. Among a number of findings, analysis suggests that believers in ESP (possibly due to motivational effects) tend to outperform sceptics (Lawrence, 1993) and participant mood may also be related to experimental performance (Carpenter, 2001). Yet, as with most significant findings in this field, the sizes of these effects are very small. When considering the possibility of ESP, Freud was correct in reminding us that ‘the easiest explanation is not always right one: the truth is often not terribly simple’ (1940/2003, p.34). It is of importance to remember that our thoughts on physics, biology and psychology have been way off the mark before and continue to evolve. Hypotheses (backed by scientific evidence) that make the mainstream academic feel a little uncomfortable, whether later accepted or rejected, are what push understanding forward – not scientific dogma.
I Eric Robinson is in the Ingestive Behaviour Group at the
University of Birmingham, and the Psychology of Paranormal Phenomena Research Group at the University of Derby exr888@bham.ac.uk
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Students in The Psychologist This was the 11th annual Student Writer Competition of The Psychologist. Articles were rated blind on quality of writing; clarity of argument; and accessibility, relevance and interest for The Psychologist’ s audience. We think we have two worthy winners, both of whom get an expenses-paid trip to the Society’s London Lectures or Annual Conference. For next year’s competition, we would like to get a little more creative. The way students learn and are assessed has changed over the years, and the Student Writer Competition has not kept pace. Maybe it’s time to for a change of tack. Best psychology video or online resource? Best psychology tweet? A collaborative piece created by Wiki? Or perhaps we need to encourage you out into the world, for reflective pieces on how you have put psychology to use, or problem-based learning solutions to realworld challenges with psychological angles (as conducted by Nottingham Trent University’s excellent final-year students for a conference in May, tackling a range of issues including The Psychologist!). Send your ideas to the editor on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk. Remember, if you’re a student and you want to write for The Psychologist you don’t have to wait for the Annual Competition in order to do it. Part of the thinking behind discontinuing the ‘Students’ page as part of the January 2008 redesign was that it had the effect of forcing students into a ghetto, implying that everything on that page was by students and only of interest to students, and that they would not find a place elsewhere in the publication. In fact, we have often published articles, reports, letters and book reviews by students, along with pieces for the ‘Careers’, ‘Teach and learn’, ‘Methods’ sections and more. If it’s good enough – engaging, informative and suitable for a wide audience – then what stage of your career you are at is not relevant. Finally, don’t forget that the Society’s free Research Digest service is aimed particularly at students and their teachers. In addition to the blog and e-mail service, why not check out http://tinyurl.com/digestonfacebook and http://twitter.com/researchdigest. If you’re a Society member and think your student colleagues would be interested in The Psychologist and joining the Society, why not point them to www.bps.org.uk/studentgift for some selected highlights from past issues, and to www.bps.org.uk/june09 for last month’s. Dr Jon Sutton (Editor, The Psychologist) Dr Paul Redford (Chair, Psychologist Policy Committee)
vol 22 no 7
july 2009
ONE ON ONE
research and absolutely right in asserting that good relationships are a sine qua non for therapeutic progress.
…with Richard Bentall
One regret Mismanaged relationships with the opposite sex must be at the top of the list. I suspect the same is true for many middle-aged men. If only life was a dress-rehearsal.
Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool
One misconception about my ideological position I am usually described as belonging to the antipsychiatry camp. A couple of times I have even been compared to Laing, and I can’t work out whether to be flattered or appalled. I think of myself as a fairly hard-nosed empirical scientist and a pragmatic clinician. I’m against the standard way of thinking about mental illness (e.g the reliance on a categorical system of diagnosis and the over-emphasis of genetics) because it is bad science and harmful to patients.
coming soon
resource
One lesson from the developing world Mental health outcomes are at least as good in the developing
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world as in the industrialised West, so either they are doing something right or, at least, we are not doing anything better. Actually, one important thing that people do in the developing world is nothing. Studies in the West show that patients with psychosis who are given minimal medication but good social support do as well as those who receive conventional treatment but, of course, suffer fewer side-effects. Unfortunately, most Western-trained clinicians find it almost impossible to do nothing.
working self-reflectively day after day, which is very difficult. I don’t count myself as a particularly talented in this way. But if there is a cornerstone of my (broadly
One alternative career Richard Bentall I nearly became a pilot. I’m Richard.Bentall@liverpool.ac.uk far too neurotic to be in charge of an airplane so the world should be grateful that CBT) approach, it is respect I changed tack. for the patient’s way of seeing the world and curiosity about One cornerstone of my own what it entails. Even the treatment approach oddest delusional system is To be a skilled therapist you the end point of the patient’s have to have a particular type honest attempt to make the of temperament and to keep best sense of the world.
Writing Madness Explained (2004) was a labour of love, a fantastic opportunity to try and make sense of the wide-ranging but often misunderstood evidence about the nature of mental illness. A surprising number of service users have written to me to say that they’ve read all 500+ pages.
One hero When I was a trainee, most discussions about Carl Rogers were along the lines of: ‘Rogers was a nice guy; now let’s talk about CBT’. But he was a pioneer of psychotherapy
Articles on traumatic imagery, teaching happiness, aesthetics, an interview with Alan Baddeley, and much more... I Send your comments about The Psychologist to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 or to the Leicester office address I To advertise Display: ben.nelmes@redactive.co.uk, +44 (0)20 7880 6244 Jobs and www.psychapp.co.uk: giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk, +44 (0)20 7880 7556
contribute
One moment that changed the course of your career Waiting anxiously to see my psychotherapist for the first time, after becoming depressed following a messy divorce, and thinking, ‘My God, so this is what it’s like to be a patient!’
One thing that organised psychology could do better Psychology has begun to address the promotion of mental health, but this kind of work is in its infancy and, of course, involves political engagement. I like the Wilkinson and Pickett (The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Nearly Always Do Better, Penguin, 2009) concept of evidence-based social policy. We should be working hard to supply the evidence. One nugget of advice for aspiring psychologists Any young person wanting a research career in psychopathology should be encouraged by how little we know. We do not even know how to describe many psychiatric problems properly. Be bold, question the assumptions found in textbooks, and keep an open mind about methodology (qualitative, quantitative, physiological – they all have their place). One superpower The ability to deliver empathy, congruence and positive regard late on a Friday afternoon is an unrecognised superpower. Much more online at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
Think you can do better? Want to see your area of psychology represented more? See the inside front cover for how you can contribute and reach 48,000 colleagues into the bargain, or just e-mail your suggestions to jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
vol 24 no 4
april 2011
ARTICLE
channel for emotional expression in their own right (Sauter, Calder et al., 2010). The emotions we were working with in the mid-1990s (fear, sadness, happiness, anger, disgust, surprise) were those previously identified by Paul Ekman and colleagues (Ekman et al., 1969) as expressions of basic emotions – that is, emotions hypothesised to have distinct expressions, Is laughter a universal emotion? Sophie Scott investigates. different neurobiological profiles, be found in all human cultures and have an older evolutionary heritage (Ekman, 1992). Work by Ekman and his team had Your heart is racing, you’re uman vocal emotional expression demonstrated that facial expressions of struggling for breath. You’re includes both emotionally inflected the ‘basic’ emotions (fear, anger, disgust, weakened and vulnerable. Your speech, and non-verbal emotional happiness, sadness, surprise) were body crumples up, you can’t sit or vocalisations, like a scream or a sob. recognised cross-culturally, and stand up straight, you can’t look These non-verbal vocalisations are neuropsychological work in the 1990s people in the eye, and you can’t intriguing as they are unlike speech in found evidence for distinct neural systems speak. Yet you feel good: rather terms of the ways they are produced, with involved in processing facial expressions than running for your life, you’re little or no involvement of the articulators of at least some of the emotions, such as (tongue, jaw, soft palate, lips). Instead helpless with laughter. Laughter – disgust and fear (Broks et al., 1998, these vocalisations are dominated by it’s funny. Sprengelmeyer et al., 1996), recognition effects of changes in breath control, of which could be selectively damaged subglottal pressure, laryngeal tensions following brain lesions. and facial expression (Scott et al., 2009). We generated sets of emotional Notably, involuntary production of vocalisations (e.g. Scott et al, 1997) by these non-verbal emotional vocalisations is giving people scenarios (e.g. ‘someone you preserved in patients with bilateral damage love has died’) and asking them to produce to speech motor areas, who are unable to non-verbal sounds that expressed how speak or vocalise voluntarily (e.g. they might feel. Importantly, Simonyan & Horwitz, we did not give people 2011). This may link example utterances to non-verbal emotional “the dominance of these copy – any consistency vocalisations to negative emotions didn’t across talkers was driven by evolutionarily ‘older’ relate to my experience” their interpretation of the vocal production emotions, not because they systems, and the were all attempting to model production of identical sounds. We also excluded any vocalisations that do not need to be learnt Why do humans laugh? verbalised tokens (e.g. ‘boo-hoo’ or ‘yuck’). (Scheiner et al., 2004). In terms of their Are humans the only animals that We were after stimuli that were acoustics and production, we have argued laugh? comparable to the facial expressions of that the basic non-verbal emotional emotion, which were entirely non-verbal. expressions have more in common with We replicated some of the effects that mammal vocalisations than they do with had been previously demonstrated for the human speech (Scott et al., 2009). facial expressions of emotion with these I first became interested in laughter Provine, R.R. (2000). Laughter: A scientific non-verbal vocal expressions of emotion, as I was working on these non-verbal investigation. Harmondsworth: finding that there was evidence for distinct expressions of emotion, initially so that Penguin. patterns of acoustic properties that we could test neuropsychological patients https://sites.google.com/site/ laughterlabsks/ correlated with ratings of the different with vocal equivalents of tests of facial emotions (Sauter, Calder et al., 2010), expressions of emotion (e.g. Scott et al., and evidence for different neural systems 1997), and more latterly as an interesting
Laughter – the ordinary and the extraordinary
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Amoss, R.T., Martin, N.B. & Owren, M.J. (2011). Physiological arousal and laughter acoustics. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130(4), 2517. Arnott, S.R., Singhal, A. & Goodale, M.A. (2009). An investigation of auditory contagious yawning. Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 9, 335–342. Bachorowski, J.A. & Owren, M.J. (2001).
Not all laughs are alike: Voiced but not unvoiced laughter readily elicits positive affect. Psychological Science, 12, 252–257. Broks, P., Young, A.W., Maratos, E.J. et al. (1998). Face processing impairments after encephalitis: Amygdala damage and recognition of fear. Neuropsychologia, 36(1), 59–70. Buchowski, M.S., Majchrzak, K.M., Blomquist, K. et al. (2007). Energy
expenditure of genuine laughter. International Journal of Obesity (London), 31, 131–137. Catmur, C., Walsh, V. & Heyes, C. (2007). Sensorimotor learning configures the human mirror system. Current Biology, 17, 1527–1531. Coulson, M. (2004). Attributing emotion to static body postures. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 28(2), 117–139. Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of
emotion in man and animals. (reprinted 1965). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Davila-Ross, M., Allcock, B., Thomas, C. & Bard, K.A. (2011). Aping expressions? Chimpanzees produce distinct laugh types when responding to laughter of others. Emotion, 11, 1013–1020. Dunbar, R.I., Baron, R., Frangou, A. et al. (2012). Social laughter is correlated
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relief as candidate positive basic expressions, and as likely to be primarily expressed by the voice (and facially with a smile). As we were already working on vocal expressions of emotion, my (then) PhD student Disa Sauter and I were inspired to test Ekman’s hypothesis of a wider range of positive basic emotions that might be principally conveyed vocally, or perhaps most accurately distinguished from the voice. We produced stimuli in the same scenario-based method described above, now for the expanded range of potential positive basic emotions, as well as for the negative emotions that I had already been investigating. Experimentally, we found some evidence for recognition of non-verbal vocal expressions of pleasure, triumph, amusement, sensual pleasure and relief in British English and Swedish listeners (Sauter & Scott, 2007), which suggested that we might refine the original list somewhat (possibly by subsuming ‘contentment’ into ‘sensual pleasure’). However when Disa and Frank tested the recognition of these positive emotions by the Himba of Sophie Scott’s partner, Tom Manly, and their son share laughter North Namibia, a culture ‘The greater part of life uncontaminated by Western is sunshine’ influences, the only positive vocal why he thought there was such a negative When I was first working in this area, emotional expression which was bibias to the basic emotions that we were all I was struck that the basic emotions directionally recognised was an expression working with. Ekman explained that he that we were working with – fear, anger, of amusement, which was always thought that there would be more positive disgust, sadness, surprise and happiness – basic emotions than just ‘happiness’, and expressed with laughter (Sauter, Eisner et he had previously discussed this possibility were so weighted towards negative al., 2010). (Ekman, 1992). Importantly, Ekman also These studies provided the first emotions. Essentially, of the original six, hypothesised that these positive emotions concrete evidence that we could fractionate four are negative, surprise is arguably might be primarily conveyed by the voice, the wider emotional category of ‘happiness’ neutral, or is perhaps a precursor to rather than the face (and of course, by into different positive emotions another emotion, and only one ‘face’ he was referring to still photographs). (amusement, triumph, relief, sensual (happiness) is unambiguously positive. Specifically, Ekman identified the positive pleasure) in terms of their vocal Psychology has been criticised by Barbara emotions associated with sensual pleasure, expressions. Furthermore, we had some Fredrickson for having a profound amusement, triumph, contentment and evidence that triumph and sensual negative bias (Fredrickson, 2003), and associated with different emotions; for example, both vocal and facial expressions of fear are impaired following damage to the amygdala (Scott et al., 1997). Following several field trips to Namibia by Disa Sauter and Frank Eisner, also from my lab, we were able to demonstrate that there was bidirectional cross-cultural recognition of the emotions fear, anger, disgust, surprise and sadness by English and Himba people (Sauter, Eisner et al., 2010). Thus, English listeners recognise Himba expressions of fear, anger, disgust, surprise and sadness, and the Himba recognise the English expressions. It was becoming clear that the basic emotions were not solely associated with facial expressions, but that they were also expressed with non-verbal emotional vocalisations. Further work has extended this to the body, using both static and dynamic cues, and finding that some basic emotions are well expressed through the body as well as the face and voice (e.g. Coulson, 2004). This is further evidence that it is the emotion, not one particular channel or mode of expression, which is ‘basic’.
with an elevated pain threshold. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 22, 279, 1161–1167. Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6, 169–200. Ekman, P., Sorenson, E.R. & Friesen, W.V. (1969). Pan-cultural elements in facial displays of emotion. Science, 164, 86–88.
the dominance of these negative emotions certainly didn’t seem to relate to my everyday experience of emotions – both in terms of my own experience, and the emotions expressed by others. At a meeting at University College London in the late 1990s I had the opportunity to ask Paul Ekman in person
Fredrickson, B.L. (2003). The value of positive emotions. American Scientist, 91, 330–335. Gazzola, V., Aziz-Zadeh, L. & Keysers, C. (2006). Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current Biology, 16, 1824–1829. Gervais, M. & Wilson, D.S. (2005). The evolution and functions of laughter and humor. Quarterly Review of Biology, 80, 395–430.
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Lavan, N., Scott, S.K. & McGettigan, C. (2012). Nasality betrays the faker: Acoustic and perceptual correlates of emotional authenticity in laughter. Manuscript submitted for publication. Kohler, K.J. (2008). ‘Speech-smile,’ ‘speech-laugh,’ ‘laughter’ and their sequencing in dialogic interaction. Phonetica, 65, 1–18. MacLarnon, A.M. & Hewitt, G.P. (1999).
The evolution of human speech: The role of enhanced breathing control. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 109, 341–363. Owren, M.J. & Bachorowski, J.A. (2003). Reconsidering the evolution of nonlinguistic communication: The case of laughter. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27(3), 183–200. Owren, M.J. & Riede, T. (2010). Voiced laughter elicits more positive
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pleasure might be strongly culturally variable in their production, i.e. might not constitute ‘basic’ emotions. There was a suggestion that ‘relief’ might have elements of universality, and positive evidence that ‘amusement’ was bi-directionally recognised across very diverse cultures, consistent with it forming a basic emotion. However, there was a question of what precise emotion laughter might represent. We were still largely equating laughter with amusement: however, it is much more likely that laughter reflects a basic positive social emotion, one that signals that ‘our intent is play, not assault’ (Provine, 2013). Robert Provine, who has been working on laughter for many years, has also suggested that we bear in mind that laughter is a social behaviour about which we do not have a lot of insight. If you ask people what makes them laugh, they will make references to jokes and humour. However, if you look at what happens when people actually laugh, it’s mostly when we are talking with our friends (Provine, 1996; Vettin & Todt, 2004). We are 30 times more likely to laugh if we are with other people than if we are on our own, and it’s not the case that conversing with our friends results in a stream of jokes – during conversation most of the laughter is associated with statements, and indeed people laugh most often when they are themselves speaking, rather than when they are listening (Provine, 1996). Laughter may thus be associated more with signalling affiliation, agreement and affection than it is with amusement per se – it may be most accurate to consider laughter as an expression of a strongly positive social emotion, which we use to form and reinforce social relationships, and which has only relatively recent been expressly linked to ‘humour’. Along these lines, laughter has been shown to be produced by people in a context-specific way. For instance, in conversation, laughter is used to mark agreement and affiliation in addition to amusement (Vettin & Todt, 2004). Antiphonal laughter – laughter produced
emotion in listeners when produced with the mouth open than closed. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128(4), 2475. Panksepp, J. (2005). Beyond a joke: From animal laughter to human joy? Science, 308, 62–63. Provine, R.R. (1992). Contagious laughter – Laughter is a sufficient stimulus for laughs and smiles. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 30,
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in response to another’s laughter – is produced by women more in response to male laughs, and by men as an index of their familiarity with the other person (male or female) (Smoski & Bachorowski, 2003). The coordination and timing of laughter during conversation between deaf signers is similar to that seen during spoken conversation, which indicates that the timing of laughter is associated with higher-order aspects of the interaction, rather than practical aspects of how spoken language is timed (Provine & Emmorey, 2006). This social role of laughter has been shown to be neatly modulated by the channels available for social interactions. A striking paper from Robin Dunbar’s lab (Vlahovic et al., 2012) contrasted the amount of laughter that was reported to occur during, and people’s ratings of positive affect after, different kinds of interactions. Using self-reports and ratings, they found that people laughed most (and were happiest) when they were in face-toface contact with a conversational partner,
whether this was in person or online video conferencing; this effect was reduced for phone conversations, and lowest of all for text-based interactions, such as text messaging and e-mails. This is evidence that the more sources of social information that there are – face and body as well as voice – the more laughter is produced, which may itself be a direct index of how much people enjoy an interaction.
Laughing fit to burst The physical effort involved in laughter means that energy expenditure increases during ‘genuine’ laughter, by around 10–20 per cent, and raises heart rate above baseline levels (Buchowski et al., 2007), and this increased physical exercise is associated with many of the pleasant feelings associated with laughter, including the increased uptake of endorphins: this can be demonstrated as an elevated pain threshold after laughter (Dunbar et al., 2012). Laughter has some specific acoustic qualities that arise from
Anatomy of a laugh: Transcript of Brian Johnston (with Jonathan Agnew) laughing while trying to broadcast a cricket summary in 1990. The phrase is ‘35 minutes, hit a four over the wicketkeeper’s head, oh Aggers, do stop it’. The upper plot shows the speech waveform, and the lower plot the estimated pitch profile. Note how high the pitch rises, from ‘35 minutes’ to ‘head’, and how ‘head’ dissolves into a wheeze due to a spasm of the intercostal muscles. The full laughter episode is annotated here: tinyurl.com/at8f4z7
1–4. Provine, R.R. (1996). Laughter. American Scientist, 84, 38–45. Provine, R.R. (2013). Laughing, grooming, and pub science. Trends in Cognitive Science, 17, 9–10. Provine, R.R. & Emmorey, K. (2006). Laughter among deaf signers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11, 403–409. Sauter, D.A. (2006). An investigation into
vocal expressions of emotions. PhD Thesis, University College London. tinyurl.com/b9pjbhv Sauter, D.A., Calder, A.J., Eisner, F. & Scott, S.K. (2010). Perceptual cues in non-verbal vocal expressions of emotion. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(11), 2251-72. Sauter, D.A., Eisner, F., Ekman, P. & Scott, S.K. (2010). The universality of
human emotional vocalisations. PNAS, 107(6), 2408–2412. Sauter, D.A. & Scott, S.K. (2007). More than one kind of happiness: Can we recognize vocal expressions of different positive states? Motivation and Emotion, 31, 192–199. Scheiner, E., Hammerschmidt, K., Jurgens, U. & Zwirner, P. (2004). The influence of hearing impairment on preverbal emotional vocalizations of
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the way it is produced. In her PhD, Disa Sauter (2006) ran some experiments looking at how modifying vocal expressions of emotion (e.g. with noise vocoding: see tinyurl.com/cemf67f) affected the recognition of the emotions. A striking finding was that as long as the amplitude envelope of the sound was preserved, people could recognise laughter (Sauter, 2006). This was not true of other non-verbal expressions of emotion, which typically needed some pitch or spectral properties (Sauter, Calder et al., 2010). This is probably because laughter is better considered to be a different way of breathing than it is of speaking (Abercrombie, 1967, cited in Kohler, 2008), and the characteristic repetitive contractions of the intercostal muscles and diaphragm lead to a very characteristic rhythmic profile of the sound, whether is it voiced or not. This spasming of the intercostal muscles is the source of the weakness associated with helpless, involuntary laughter – as the intercostal muscles spasm, they become unavailable for the kinds of postural support that they normally confer. This is also one cause of the unavoidable effects that laughter has on speech. Human speech entails a very specific way of breathing out, such that a controlled flow of air passes through the larynx, and the vocal folds are vibrated to give the voice pitch and quality. This involves incredibly fine control of the intercostal muscles in controlling subglottal pressure: at first they need to prevent all the air rushing out, and as the air is released from the lungs, the intercostal muscles start to need to squeeze the air out to maintain the subglottal pressure. This is possible because of our upright gait – we have freed up our ribcage from a lot of its role in posture, and this enables us to use it to produce long controlled breaths when speaking (MacLarnon & Hewitt, 1999). Try talking to someone while doing press-ups and you will instantly notice how hard speech becomes when you need your ribcage to support your weight directly.
infants. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 56, 27–40. Scott, S.K., Sauter, D. & McGettigan, C. (2009). Brain mechanisms for processing perceived emotional vocalizations in humans. In S. Brudzynski (Ed.) Handbook of mammalian vocalizations (pp.187–198). Oxford: Academic Press. Scott, S.K., Young, A.W., Calder, A.J. et al.
The high subglottal pressures generated when people laugh result in extremely highfrequency sounds being produced, far higher than those seen during normal speech production (Amoss et al., 2011), and these pitches increase as with increases in physiological arousal in the person laughing. It also leads to wheezes, snorts, grunts and glottal whistles. Listeners are very sensitive to these acoustic cues; for example, listeners find laughs produced with an ‘open’ mouth to be more positive than those produced with a closed mouth (Owren & Riede, 2010). There is a common assessment that ‘voiced’ or sung laughter is associated with higher positive valence than unvoiced laughter, snorts, etc., especially when participants are rating female laughter (Bachorowski & Owren, 2001). This has been interpreted as a deliberate use of laughter to control the affective response of a listener (Owren & Bachorowski, 2003).
They all laughed The bonding effects of laughter can be briskly diminished if one is excluded from laughter. I was on Ipswich railway station last year when some teenagers tapped me on the shoulder, then ran away. Their helpless mirth when I looked to see who had tapped my shoulder filled me with intense irritation and anger, because although their laughter was warm and genuine, it was directed at me, and there was no question – I was not included in that laughter group. Although
(1997). Impaired auditory recognition of fear and anger following bilateral amygdala lesions. Nature, 385, 254–257. Simonyan, K. & Horwitz, B. (2011). Laryngeal motor cortex and control of speech in humans. Neuroscientist, 17(2), 197–208. Smoski, M.J. & Bachorowski, J.A. (2003). Antiphonal laughter between friends and strangers. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 327–340.
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‘Corpsing’ in the studio The studio might be the place to record that single take of pop perfection, but those attempts are often hijacked by hilarity. Here are some examples of laughter in song: New Order – Every Little Counts Arctic Monkeys – Love Machine (Live Lounge) Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream The Beatles – And Your Bird Can Sing (Anthology version) The Divine Comedy – A Drinking Song Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi Ryan Adams – To Be Young
I have no great desire to befriend young men at train stations, this exclusion was an unpleasant sensation. Previous research has expressly tried to identify what characterises a ‘taunting’ laugh from a ‘joyful’ laugh (Szameitat et al., 2009), but any laugh is capable of sounding highly evil if one is on the receiving end of it. Just as laughter can be used as a way of bonding with others, it can also be used as a clear way of excluding others from a laughing group. The question of emotional authenticity is important though: the ways that we laugh when we are helpless with laughter are very different from the kind of social laughter that we produce when we are talking to our friends. The difference may be best characterised as voluntary versus involuntary laughter (Gervais & Wilson, 2005). People are very good at distinguishing between mirthful and social
Sprengelmeyer, R., Young, A.W., Calder, A.J. et al. (1996). Loss of disgust. Brain, 119(5), 1647–1665. Szameitat, D.P., Alter, K., Szameitat, A.J. et al. (2009). Acoustic profiles of distinct emotional expressions in laughter. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 126, 354–366. Vettin, J. & Todt, D. (2004). Laughter in conversation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 28, 93–115.
Vlahovic, T.A., Roberts, S. & Dunbar, R. (2012). Effects of duration and laughter on subjective happiness within different modes of communication. Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, 17, 436–450. Warren, J.E., Sauter, D.A., Eisner, F. et al. (2006). Positive emotions preferentially engage an auditorymotor ‘mirror’ system. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(50), 13067–13075.
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laughter (Lavan et al., 2012), which ikely reflect their different social meanings. We have also found several acoustic and phonetic differences between voluntary social laughter and involuntary mirthful laughter. Some of these link directly to the greater forces generated during involuntary laughter, which lead to high-frequency wheezes and glottal whistles that are extremely hard to produce voluntarily. We have also found that social laughter can be nasalised, while involuntary laughter is never nasalised (in our data sets). This suggests that social laughs are not necessarily simply weaker forms of ‘real’ laughs, but have their own clear markers, reflecting their social importance. This may also mean that social laughter may be more culturally variable than involuntary laughter, but that remains an empirical question.
between ratings of the valence of the stimuli and activation in lateral premotor fields. The ‘mirror’ responses are thus not equivalent across all emotional expressions, and showed instead greater activation for the stimuli rated as more positive – triumph and amusement (laughter). We were interested in these
contagious (Provine, 1992), and we may be seeing a neural correlate of this behavioural contagion reflected in this motor activation. Another fMRI study, of yawning, showed that the more behaviourally contagious participants found a yawn (short of actually yawing), the more activation was found in orofacial ‘mirror’ regions (Arnott et al., 2009). However, the effect in our 2006 study was strong for laughter, but even stronger for triumphant sounds such as cheering: this is rated as an extremely positive and arousing emotion, but it is not behaviourally as contagious as laughter (or yawning). This may mean that for the laughter and triumph sounds, we are seeing a priming of more general smiling responses, rather than a more specific priming of particular emotional vocalisations. This would still be consistent with a role of mirror responses for positive social emotions, which, Ekman has pointed out, tend to share a smile (1992).
Laughter on the brain
You and me baby ain’t The strong social importance of laughter can nothing but mammals also be seen in the brain The theory of basic emotions responses to the sounds of (Ekman, 1992) suggests that laughter. We have analogues of the basic emotions, investigated the role of which have older evolutionary orofacial ‘mirror’ systems – histories than more culturally brain areas that are determined emotions, would be activated both by hearing found in and expressed by other emotional vocalisations and mammals (see also Darwin, by silently moving the face 1872). From Aristotle to Nietzsche, (Gazzola et al., 2006) – There are several acoustic and phonetic differences between laughter has been suggested to be when people listen passively voluntary social laughter and involuntary mirthful laughter something found only in humans, but to emotional vocalisations there is now abundant evidence that effects as it suggested that whatever (laughter, cheering, disgusted sounds, laughter is found across a variety of the role of motor cortex during the fearful sounds) (Warren et al., 2006). different mammals, from gorillas to rats perception of vocal emotional Mirror systems are recruited both by (Panksepp, 2005). Work with expressions, it was unlikely to reflect perception and production of the same chimpanzees has shown that their recognition processes (as all the stimuli kind of event, and are typically discussed laughter is modulated by social context – were well recognised) or simulation as being directly analogous to the mirror laughs produced when chimps are tickled processes, as there is no a priori reason neurons as they are described from the differ from those produced in response to why these should differ with valence. single-cell recording literature. There has the laughter of others (Davila-Ross et al, The ‘mirror’ response was also unlikely been a lot of discussion about what this 2011). Thus when humans laugh, we are to reflect emotional contagion, as disgust common activation of production systems engaging in a positive social emotional (a very negatively rated emotion) is by perception means, from ideas around behaviour that has its roots in our typically highly emotionally contagious. the obligatory use of motor evolution as mammals. Now, that’s funny. Instead, the effects seemed to be rooted representations to recognise actions, in some more behavioural effects. The through to the suggestion that they may positive emotions we tested – triumph simply reflect basic associations through Sophie Scott and amusement (laughter) – are highly a lifetime of paired presentations (Catmur is Professor of Cognitive social emotions, and ‘mirroring’ in social et al., 2007). When we interrogated our Neuroscience at the data further, we found that the orofacial interactions is typically associated with Institute of Cognitive ‘mirror system’ was not equally activated positive affect. These motor responses Neuroscience, University by all the emotional vocalisations, and may also reflect more direct ‘priming’ College London that there was a significant relationship of behaviour: laughter is immensely sophie.scott@ucl.ac.uk
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vol 26 no 4
april 2013
ONE ON ONE
One nugget of advice for aspiring psychologists Don’t ever give up until the door is finally closed. Just because one person, or one group of people, is not excited by your work does not necessarily mean that others will feel the same.
…with Susan Golombok Director, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge
One moment that changed the course of your career In 1976 I read an article in the feminist magazine Spare Rib about lesbian mothers losing custody of their children when they divorced, on the grounds that the children would develop psychological problems if they grew up in a lesbian family. The author of the article asked for a psychologist to carry out an independent study of the children. I was taking a master’s degree at the time and rooting around for a project. I volunteered and more than 30 years later I find myself still carrying out research on lesbian mother families.
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One challenge In my area, it’s to convince others – particularly policymakers – that just because people hold strong opinions about families does not necessarily mean that they
One pet hate The tendency for psychologists to study narrower and narrower aspects of a phenomenon to the point that their research becomes totally meaningless to anyone other than the three other individuals in the world who are pursuing the same futile question.
One proud moment I feel proud when the research of my team has an impact on policy and legislation in relation to Susan Golombok family life, e.g. by seg42@cam.ac.uk informing debate on aspects of the Children Act and the Human Fertilisation are right. For example, the and Embryology Act. relationship between single parenthood and outcomes for children is highly complex and has less to do with the absence of a parent than with Golombok, S. (2000). Parenting: What really counts? Routledge. other factors that go with ‘This book examines the relative importance of family structure and single parenthood, such as family relationships in children’s psychological well-being.’ low income and low social support.
Articles on intensive interaction, performance prediction, the chameleon offender, and much more... I Send your comments about The Psychologist to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 or to the Leicester office address I To advertise in The Psychologist: psyadvert@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9552 I For jobs in the Appointments section: psychapp@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9550
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One book that you think all psychologists should read Attachment by John Bowlby. We are much more likely to read critiques of Bowlby’s theories than the original work. Although his views had a negative impact on the lives of women after the Second World War by putting pressure on mothers to stay
at home with their children, he writes beautifully and compellingly about the interactions between infants and their mother. This aspect of his work has been lost to those not closely involved with the study of attachment relationships.
One great thing that psychology has achieved Psychological research has challenged prejudice and discrimination based on unfounded beliefs. One cultural recommendation Central Station, a Brazilian film about a boy who is separated from his family. It is a visually stunning, touching and endearing tale of resilience and the strength of family bonds. One heroine Some time ago I was invited to give the oration for Lady Helen Brook, founder of the Brook Advisory Centres, when she was awarded an honorary degree at City University. In researching her past, I was amazed by the battle she fought against deeply prejudiced opposition in order to achieve her aim of providing contraception for young women and reducing unwanted pregnancies. One problem We are losing many bright and enthusiastic young people who cannot find funding to support a PhD. We need to find financial support for a larger number of PhD students in psychology. One hope for the future That more men will become psychologists.
Think you can do better? Want to see your area of psychology represented more? See the inside front cover for how you can contribute and reach 45,000 colleagues into the bargain, or just e-mail your suggestions to jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
vol 22 no 8
august 2009
DAY IN THE LIFE
Working as an expert witness We hear from four psychologists about their interactions with the legal system
I
* Case details in all four authors’ contributions to this article are composites of actual cases or have been otherwise anonymised.
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I arrive at the young offenders prison with a sigh of relief but then panic as I cannot find my driving licence card – the essential ID to get in. I know the staff in the medical wing, I am a regular visitor so I wonder whether I can swing it, despite the security notices all around the entrance reminding all of the ID requirements. I take my Cambridge University student card (photo ID) and my BPS 2013 card and hope this might JAMES GROVER
wake on the day of the assessment thinking already about going to the prison to assess a 15-year-old boy accused of murder.* Young people who are facing trial for such serious crimes have often lived through more conflict in their short lives than I have in mine. I already have an idea of the circumstances of the alleged crime, according to both the papers from the prosecution and the defence solicitors, but now I go to find out for myself. Today I am assessing this child at the request of the defence, who have learned he has a history of ‘special needs’ when still attending school, although he stopped attending over two years ago. At this stage it makes little difference who has made the request for the assessment because I am to form my own opinion – one of the key duties of an expert witness to any court. I have a rushed breakfast but then remember to stop long enough to meditate, clear my head and begin the day with a fresh view of the world. I find this mindfulness-based practice helps me to be even more aware of my own responses and those whom I am to assess. I take the papers and the assessment materials with me and head for the train. Every time I wish my bag could be lighter as I haul it from car to train to tube to train to taxi. In the taxi to the prison I am given one of those speeches by the taxi driver once he knows I am going to interview someone: ‘They should all be shut away and left to rot... they don’t deserve to be out in society... life is too easy in prison.’ Today I choose to say nothing and keep my focus on the assessment ahead. When I leave the taxi I feel I should say something like ‘If it were your son/brother…’. I used to believe these views were rare but now I brace myself for such onslaughts whenever I say where I am going and why.
be enough – it is, although they looked at me a bit oddly. I always knew that one day the BPS membership card would come in handy! I go through security, which I now take for granted, but is a bit daunting. Think airport security but with a guaranteed pat down along with an occasional dog sniffing at you. I have learned to carry in nothing I do not absolutely need to avoid delays at security. Finally I am taken to the medical wing where I am given a room, and the young man comes to join me. He is a slightly built 15-year-old black British youth with a mix of worldly wise and child about him. I spend time taking care to explain why I am there, that he has a choice about taking part, even though in reality it will go against him if he does not. This is one of those times when my awareness of the ethical dilemmas in expert witness work makes me uncomfortable. Psychologists
enter into the legal system at their peril. We spend hours together, at first getting to know each other. I always feel the first few minutes are the vital ones, when we are both sizing each other up. ‘Establishing rapport’ is the official name, but for this young man it is a matter of deciding whether he can speak, who in this system of prison warders, solicitors and ‘shrinks’ he can trust enough to talk about his family and his life before prison. At YOI Feltham I already feel more relaxed than at other prisons because the room is quiet, I know we won’t be interrupted and I have time. At other prisons I can find myself in rooms where everyone can see in, or even in a visitors hall with 50+ other inmates and families. Being assertive is certainly a skill – but the last time this occurred I ended up politely sitting on the floor, making it clear I was not leaving until the room previously promised was made available. I have always been a fan of peaceful protest! The afternoon goes quickly. I feel sad for him, for his victim, for both families and all the people affected by this case. As I travel home again I reflect on the details of the crime itself, the assessment and wonder what the psychometric scores might reveal to add to this picture. I feel both sadness and frustration that so many opportunities to make a difference have been missed. I arrive home and pick up messages and e-mails. One is about a court hearing (a different case) set for the end of the week. No one seems sure whether I am going to be needed or which day. I start to stress out on how I am going to juggle this with other my therapeutic work. I am also warned this case is getting nasty. In the past I have had my degrees and chartered status questioned, my history of feminist writing and erotica writing for couples suggested as a bias in favour of women, rather than questioned on the assessment or opinion formed. I remind myself my role is to provide information and psychoeducation to the court, not to persuade them of someone’s guilt or innocence. Thank goodness I don’t have that responsibility. If I did, I couldn’t do this work. I Susan van Scoyoc is a Chartered Psychologist, registered with HCPC as a counselling and health psychologist, a member of the UK Register of Expert Witnesses and a senior member of the Register of Psychologists Specialising in Psychotherapy. She sits on a number of BPS committees and offers teaching on being an expert witness via the BPS Learning Centre.
vol 26 no 7
july 2013
ONE ON ONE
One regret Not having spent as much time as I would have liked with my two kids from my first marriage. I was starting my university career at the time, working long hours, going to conferences, etc. One should never miss those precious early years of childhood: you can never recapture them.
…with Cary Cooper Distinguished Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School
One book that you think all psychologists should read Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. It’s fiction, but it describes in psychological detail, with wonderful humour, how people behave in the workplace. It is frighteningly close to what the science of occupational psychology tells us about work.
One source of energy My children. They have always kept me grounded, active and I have worked hard to make them proud of me. Also, coming from a family that had to leave the Ukraine and Romania in desperate straits because of the antiSemitism they experienced, some of my energy comes from an inherited insecurity. One way organisations could reduce stress overnight Carry out an annual stress audit and then publish the headline results in their annual report. There is a move afoot in the HR world for sickness absence rates, corporate job satisfaction scores, etc. being reported in annual reports, so we may get there one day!
One cultural recommendation Schindler’s List means a great deal to me, not only because I come from an Eastern Cary Cooper CBE European Jewish c.cooper1@lancaster.ac.uk background where members of my distant family perished, but also know everything there is to because it highlights all know about human behaviour. human behaviour, from the dark side to the heroic. We see With every day that passes, I learn more just by watching in this work so much of the and listening, whether in my human spirit, man’s ability to professional or personal role. withstand the worst atrocities and above all the bravery of More answers online at one man to do something for www.thepsychologist.org.uk others without personal gain.
Cooper, C.L., Field, J., Goswami, U., Jenkins, R. & Sahakian, B. (2009). Mental capital and mental wellbeing. London: Wiley-Blackwell. ‘Based on a government Foresight project, it represented two years of work with great collaborators. I am proud of what it could achieve.’
Articles on working in an NHS alcohol service, golf, fathers’ behaviour and children’s psychopathology, the motor system, an interview with Chris Frith and much more… I Send your comments about The Psychologist to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 or to the Leicester office address I To advertise in The Psychologist: psyadvert@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9552 I For jobs in the Appointments section: psychapp@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9550
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One nugget of advice for aspiring psychologists Be on ‘Receive’ and not on ‘Transmit’ mode: We have a lot to give as a profession but it is important that we ‘listen’ to others and not assume we
One challenge occupational psychology faces Individuals, small businesses and others will face huge survival pressures over the next few years – we need to help, and we have the skills to do it.
resource
One thing I would change about psychologists Engage more with the media, to show the world we have
something very significant to contribute to society, which is far more important than pure economics: it is about the human condition, particularly during hard times like today.
coming soon
One way to raise mental capital Never put other people down, see their positive attributes and try to be kind and supportive. Mark Twain got it right when he wrote: ‘Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that
you, too, can somehow become great.’
contribute
One moment that changed the course of your career I was a master’s student at the University of California, Los Angeles when I met a visiting professor from Leeds University who invited me to England for a year. I’ve been here ever since!
Think you can do better? Want to see your area of psychology represented more? See the inside front cover for how you can contribute and reach 48,000 colleagues into the bargain, or just e-mail your suggestions to jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
vol 23 no 9
september 2010
careers
‘I’m inspired by my own ignorance’ Ian Florance talks to Tom Stafford (University of Sheffield) – academic, author, blogger and more ’m not sure I’ve got a life story to tell,’ said Tom Stafford when I first approached him for an interview but, having convinced him to give it a try, it became clear there was plenty to cover in his route to becoming an author, a prolific online presence and a lecturer in psychology and cognitive science at Sheffield University. ‘I went to a small village school: there were four people in my year. We moved to Winchester, and after a secondary school in Southampton I started studying history at the University of Sheffield. It became clear that I didn’t have the talent to write historically. I’d done some psychology in my first year so I moved courses and did a psychology degree. ‘There I was really switched on to the excitement of research into cognitive science. Most notably, Andrew Mayes did a neuropsychology course in my second year, and always used to turn up from the hospital slightly out of breath, wearing a doublebreasted blazer. He would talk with as much passion about what wasn’t known as about what was known. I was hooked. In the summer of my second year I applied to do research on temporallobe amnesia with his group. That was my first research job and so really the place where my psychology career started. I've always wanted to thank Andrew for giving me that chance. ‘At the end of my degree I didn’t have a plan. I rarely make a plan! I didn’t want to do a PhD since I wasn’t excited about the topics on offer. I went into the department to check my e-mails for the last time, one of my lecturers saw me and this led to a part-time research post with Professor Kevin Gurney on a neural network project. I started doing a master’s degree and in the end wrote it up as a PhD.’
‘I
‘Psychology has spent years trying to be physics’ Tom’s books and his online writing (www.idiolect.org.uk and www.mindhacks.com) are marked by two qualities: the ability to make complex topics as clear to as wide an audience as possible, and a sense that he’s not just explaining ideas but attempting to challenge thinking and get a reaction. Tom answers questions like that: pausing to get his answers clear and precise but not shying away from challenging opinions or admitting ignorance. It seems you can trace this approach back to his school days. ‘I suppose I was quite academic but I always thought I understood things less well than others at school. I had to try to simplify things to understand them. So, when I write now I do the same thing. A typical model of popular scientific communication is “Let me tell you something amazing which will blow your mind”. Black holes and dark matter are examples. A typical model of much psychological writing is “Let me show you something mundane and reveal how complex it is”. You could say I got fascinated with cognitive science because one of its guiding principles is “You don’t need a complex plan to explain something that seems complex. Interactions between simple things will generate it.” Neurons are an obvious example. I try to understand complexity through simplicity.’ On his idiolect blog you’ll find reports on Tom’s academic work but you’ll also read quotations from Aldous Huxley, Shakespeare and Orwell and, as I write this, a post headed ‘What if an evil corporation knew all about you’ (not to mention an announcement of a psychology in the pub session!). I suggest that some of the ways he talks about psychology are overtly political and ethical. ‘Most undergraduates start psychology wanting to either
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understand themselves or understand other people. At its best this can lead to the idea that psychologists help other people and themselves, at its worst that they fix people. Of course I still have some of these desires to help, but I see psychology as helping us to understand what it means to live. Study of mind and brain are linked to our physical experience in the world and our culture. We tend to be taught quite a narrow version of psychology and it can be a struggle to remember that big picture.’ This seems to link in with what I’ve read about Tom’s 2010 e-book The Narrative Escape. ‘The narrative of the world is pretty compelling and it’s easy to let it carry you along. I’m as prone to that as anyone. So I’m fascinated by people who resist it and step outside it into their own story.’ In another interview Tom has nominated Peter Tatchell as an example of someone who does this. ‘The world is a painful place and if you are politically or ethically motivated then right action requires a right understanding of the world.’ I suggest that sounds almost Buddhist. ‘Well, perhaps that’s because I’ve been reading some Buddhist writings. The topic of narratives might seem a long way from traditional psychology but, at base, it’s not. It’s addressing philosophy of mind – how far are our decisions instinctual, how far deliberate? How does our brain work? Decision making is a core research interest of mine. But you can’t just leave these concerns in the lab nor can you just apply them ad hoc because they’re “science”. Science is a modern idol. We practise savantism, making celebrities of people because they know something technical. There’s an important domain of life which is not amenable to technical explanation. If I had to express a hope for psychology in the future it would be that it re-established itself as a human science. Psychology has spent years trying to be physics without any great success.’
‘Science is inherently open access’ After his PhD, Tom had no plans to return to university. ‘I wanted to write. I moved to London in 2003, worked on a magazine and got involved in blogging about psychology and science, something that wasn’t very common at that time. I got reacquainted with an old school friend, Matt Webb, who one day made a joke about cortex
vol 25 no 8
august 2012
careers
hacking. Basically you can’t improve a product, an object or a system without understanding how it works.’ I suggested, showing my age, that in my youth everyone knew you could make vinyl record players sound better by taping a halfpenny on the playing arm. ‘Exactly. You improved it but you had to understand something about how a vinyl disc and its needle works to make that improvement. So why not do the same with the brain? Matt and I both got excited by this and sent a proposal to publishers. I think Matt's original plan was that I’d write the book, but we ended up writing Mind Hacks together. It helps people test neuroscience theories on their own brains.’ Writing the book, Tom updated himself on research and talked to lots of people ‘including technocrats in the IT industry. It sold very well and we set up the Mind Hacks website.’ Some of Tom’s more recent material is published under creative commons arrangements rather than protected by traditional copyright. ‘It’s open access because a science like psychology is inherently open access. That’s what blogging is.’
Psych olog Ayrsh ists ir Sco
e,
tland Comp etitiv e Sala ry
Professor in Sport, Health and Exercise Scienc ce e es s Wales £55,908 8 p. p.a. .a.
The intelligence of movement ‘I had a job at the BBC. Working as a journalist can be fun, but i found the experience of writing Mind Hacks had made me want to go deeper. I was drawn back to academic life. In addition I was pretty poor and worn out. So in 2005 I moved back to Sheffield and got my present role in the university.’ Tom says the research he’s doing is inspired by the fact that the brain evolved to move us around. ‘If you can understand the intelligence of movement then you can perhaps begin to understand intelligence more widely. For instance, we look at how people learn skills and how this translates into movement, but we also look at how decisions are made, which links this back to my interest in life narratives. How much is instinctual or habit or training, how much is deliberative? I also work with a neuroscience group on areas such as robotics. And I’m concentrating more on my research work over the next few years while planning longer-term writing projects.’ Tom is also involved in outreach and media activities for his department. ‘I like to help. I understand journalists, having worked in the media for a while, and know what they want. When they try to reach out, I think psychologists often underestimate the intelligence, but overestimate the precise knowledge of people. Hence a lot of attempts to write more popular books lurch between condescension and sections of very long, technical vocabulary.’ Since Tom had to head off for his regular football, we didn’t have time to discuss Tom’s impressive list of papers and articles or his two new books – Control Your Dreams and Explore Your Blind Spot – one a travel guide to lucid dreaming, the other an examination of the construction of consciousness despite missing information. I suggested to him that he didn’t sound like a neuroscientist . With an audible smile, if that’s possible, he answered, ‘Maybe I’m not one.’ And maybe no one fits the growing media cliché of the cognitive or neuro scientist. Tom approaches his subject from unusual angles and then communicates his ideas in a uniquely engaging way, one that spills over the traditional confines of what psychology is and the material it takes into account. I asked him to sum up what motivates him. He thought for a while and replied: ‘I’m inspired by my own ignorance.’
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HEAD TO HEAD
Understandings of mental illness – mired in the past? Are psychological conceptions stuck in the 20th century? John Cromby thinks so: Vaughan Bell disagrees.
All knowledge is shaped by its past: psychological understandings are no exception. But ‘mired’ suggests a negative shaping, a constraining or unhelpful trajectory. I would argue that the tendency to still conceive Dr John of psychological distress as Cromby is at mental illness, as diseases Loughborough with primarily biological University causes, is indeed constraining and unhelpful. The prominence of this tendency in psychology is illustrated by
references
WWW.MERCEDESURIBE.COM
the available textbooks in this field. The majority have the term ‘abnormal’ in the title, and their chapters are structured around the diagnostic categories of the DSM or ICD. This is in part because the psychiatric idea of distress as diseases with primary biological causes also dominates the research. Calton et al. (2009) found that of 10,000 papers at major international conferences on schizophrenia 75 per cent were predominantly biological in their orientation, whereas less than 5 per cent took a predominantly psychosocial stance and less than 2 per cent included any overt consideration of actual experiences of distress. All this would be understandable if there were good evidence that the illness model is correct, but in respect of the functional psychiatric diagnoses – those that comprise the vast majority, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety disorder, eating disorders, personality disorders, and so on – this is simply not the case. There is, of course, good evidence for biological causation in relation to the organic diagnoses – the dementias, intellectual impairment, Huntington’s disease, Korsakoff’s syndrome, syphilis, and so on; however, in relation to the functional We are at once personal, social and biological beings diagnoses this evidence is lacking.
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Calton, T., Cheetham, A., D'Silva, K. & Glazebrook, C. (2009). International schizophrenia research and the concept of patient-centredness – an analysis over two decades. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 55(2), 157–169. Cromby, J., Harper, D. & Reavey, P. (2013). Psychology, mental health and distress. London: Palgrave. Department of Health (2003).
Mainstreaming gender and women's mental health: Implementation guidance. Retrieved 11 August 2011, from www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publications andstatistics/Publications/Publication sPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4072067 Gazzaniga, M.S. (2000). The mind’s past. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Harré, R. (2002). Cognitive science: A philosophical introduction. London:
More than a century of extremely well-funded research using increasingly sophisticated technologies has failed to consistently demonstrate that any biological disease or impairment is the cause of any one of these presumed illnesses. In other words this research has failed to establish that these experiences are illnesses – rather than acquired, and frequently meaningful, responses to circumstances and life events. And this, of course, is why diagnosis is still dependent upon interviews, observations and history taking. There are no objective tests such as we see in physical medicine, simply because no biological impairment has ever been consistently identified in relation to any of these diagnoses. Despite this, some psychologists cling to illness models of the experiences associated with these diagnoses, even though doing so impedes the development of consistently psychological explanations and plays down other relevant bodies of evidence. In this sense, understandings are mired in the past. John, I admire your compassion, but I’m struck by the distinction you make between people who have difficulties associated with clear biological differences Dr Vaughan that are detectable Bell is at through medical tests University (what you call an College ‘illness’ – although London this is not a definition of illness I recognise) and people with ‘acquired, and frequently meaningful, responses to circumstances and life events’. This strikes me, I have to say, as an unhelpful false dichotomy. Let’s take a patient with epilepsy who develops seizures after being attacked and brain-injured in the street and now hears music from his childhood whenever a generalised seizure is about to occur. The patient
Sage. King, M., Coker, E., Leavey, A. et al. (1994). Incidence of psychotic illness in London: Comparison of ethnic groups. British Medical Journal, 309, 1115–1119. Lee, S. (2001). Fat phobia in anorexia: Whose obsession is it? In M. Nasser, M.A. Katzman & R A. Gordon (Eds.) Eating disorders and cultures in transition. London: Routledge.
Melzer, D., Fryers, T. & Jenkins, R. (2004). Social inequalities and the distribution of the common mental disorders. Hove: Psychology Press. Newton, T. (2007). Nature and sociology. London: Routledge. Read, J., Fosse, R., Moskowitz, A. & Perry, B. (2014). The traumagenic neurodevelopmental model of psychosis revisited. Neuropsychiatry, 4(1), 65–79.
vol 28 no 1
january 2015
head to head
arrives in the clinic anxious, depressed Gazzaniga (2000), we even have a left and having difficulty adapting to their hemisphere system specialised for this. new circumstances. Which part of this Likewise, your response assumes that don’t you find meaningful? Every I am saying that biology is irrelevant to response to the attack, from the distress: this is also wrong. Biology development of seizures, to the hearing continuously enables all experiences, of childhood music, to the worries about including experiences of distress. the future, is perfectly meaningful when So of course the person with epilepsy we consider the person as a whole and whom you describe will find meaning in not just a disembodied mind. their experiences. And of course these In fact, there are biological causes in meanings will be enabled by their biology, everything we do and experience. The shaped by their culture, and reflective of fact that we can’t adequately explain them their individual trajectory of social does not make biology suddenly relations. More specifically, in this irrelevant. Your exact same argument neurological example EEG or MRI applies to social factors, of course, but examinations could identify neural I don’t see you arguing that we should features or patterns associated with the ignore the role of society because we don’t person’s seizures. However, the lack of have a perfect theory of consistent biological human interaction. If evidence means that you’re arguing that social this kind of objective “the primary causes of factors are important testing is not possible distress are, in fact, not because we have solid for any of the simply biological at all” evidence that they play a functional psychiatric role, then I’m afraid diagnoses. Your biology cannot be excluded response makes the either. We are at once personal, social further assumption that by highlighting and biological beings. All are important, this I am naively separating biological whether you call someone’s problems and social factors, but that is not correct distress, illness or a problem of living. either. These concepts are tools and none is the For me, the best part of your response final answer. If we’re stuck in the 20th is your proclamation of ‘death to the century it is because people persist in ideology of explanations’. Nevertheless, seeing different levels of explanation as we must tread cautiously when making mutually exclusive. Death to the ideology such assertions. All psychological research of explanations! All are tools, to be forged necessarily presumes some notion of by evidence, and used in the service of a persons and their worlds. It is therefore common humanity. always entangled with values, ethics, morals and – ultimately – ideology. We Vaughan, there are various must also be mindful that the conceptual assumptions embedded in and methodological development needed your response. It may help to produce research of the kind you call to make some of them for has, for the most part, simply not explicit. Your response been conducted (Rose 1997; Newton, assumes I would deny 2007). meaning to a person With these caveats always in mind experiencing epilepsy: this is then, yes, let’s challenge the taken-forwrong. Both theory and evidence suggest granted distinctions – the dualisms – it is part of our species-nature to be between biology and culture, individual meaning creators who use cultural and social, and so on. But let us also resources to narrate our experiences. distinguish the truism that biology enables According to the neuroscientist psychological distress from the
Read, J., van Os, J., Morrison, A.P. & Ross, C.A. (2005). Childhood trauma, psychosis and schizophrenia: A literature review with theoretical and clinical implications. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 112, 330–350. Rose, S. (1997). Lifelines: Life beyond the gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tienari, P. (1991). Interaction between genetic vulnerability and family environment: The Finnish adoptive family study of schizophrenia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 84(5), 460–465.
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unsubstantiated belief that biological impairments cause it. Let us recognise that we do not have to accept psychiatric concepts of mental illness in order to include biology in our understandings. And let us recognise the robust evidence that the primary causes of psychological distress are, in fact, not simply biological at all. Many thanks for a thoughtful reply, John, but I can’t help being struck by your seeming to have quite a narrow view of causality. If we accept that we are biological, we must accept that biology is causal. If we are psychological beings, we must accept that psychology is causal. Both of these are true at the same time. There is no one causality that necessarily trumps the others, just theories about causes, at different levels of explanation, some of which are better supported by evidence than others. You rightly note that different theories of causality are culturally entangled with values and ideology, but it seems to me that by suggesting that biology plays no causal role, rejecting the laws of physics in the process I note, you are as much a slave to those values and ideology as the person who argues only biology ‘matters’. As to your distinction between biology ‘causing’ and ‘enabling’ distress, I’m afraid I’m lost as to how this makes sense either philosophically or scientifically. But here’s where I do agree with you. When you say ‘we do not have to accept psychiatric concepts of mental illness in order to include biology in our understandings’ I wholeheartedly agree. Let’s sidestep the argument over what might be considered ‘psychiatric’ (dear old Foucault, of course, would have us psychologists well within the psychiatric power structure) and just say that one does not have to work within a medical framework to successfully work with people to overcome their distress or impairment. These frameworks are tools, however, and to suggest that certain approaches are necessarily more compassionate than others entirely misses the point. Just as some people object to their psychological distress being medicalised, others object to their problems being ‘psychologicalised’. Is it our job to persuade people of our own prejudices? Or to inform them of how each can be a tool for progress? If our responsibility lies anywhere, it is to highlight how social and psychological approaches are underemphasised while simultaneously
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encouraging an integrated view of human existence. A 21st-century psychology should drop the incoherent battles over the false dichotomies of the mind when the issue is one of understanding people in all their rich complexity.
So it seems we agree that the idea of mental illnesses with primary biological causes is unhelpful. We also agree that more attention should be paid to social and psychological influences. But we disagree, somehow, about causality. The distinction between enabling and causing comes from Harré (2002). Simply put, we all have dreams, desires, wishes and hopes. We all experience pains and frustrations when these are challenged or blocked. All of these experiences – all the dreams and desires, all the pains and frustrations – are made possible or Biological features are only associated with distress when their bearers occupy toxic environments enabled by biology. But this does not mean that they are simply caused by biology. Their causes are vastly more is good evidence for various other causal just like you won’t find unemployment complex, and in many respects not influences – but they all seem to operate inside a person, but claiming they are simply biological at all. Nothing here probabilistically and contingently, in not part of the causal chain defies reason breaches the laws of physics. complex and sometimes synergistic and leads us into dualism. In our recent textbook on distress interactions. I sense that a great deal of your (Cromby et al., 2013) my co-authors Such an account of causality is needed misplaced objection relates to diagnosing and I used Harré’s distinction between precisely because distress is not illness. ‘mental illnesses’ which you seem to enabling and causing. In the chapter It is, instead, a set of variable, fluctuating arbitrarily distinguish from ‘biological on causal influences we characterised and heterogeneous psychological illnesses’ – based, entirely it seems, on causality in distress as multiple, complex, experiences. These experiences are what methods we use to diagnose them. over-determined, neither necessary nor biologically enabled and culturally shaped But this argument is not an attempt to sufficient, probabilistic, contingent and (e.g. Lee, 2001). They are simultaneously address human nature – it’s just pointing (sometimes) synergistic. thoroughly bound up with social and at whatever we cannot diagnose This notion of causality is necessary material circumstances, power relations biomedically and saying, somewhat because, although biology remains (Foucault was right!), personal bombastically, ‘See! No biology there!’ influential, there is no consistent evidence biographies, relationships, and life The goalposts shift, of course, every time for causal biological impairments, events. science makes a new discovery; but more diseases or diatheses (as in the diathesisthan that, I find it a naive approach to stress model). It is necessary because I’m afraid, John, you’ve understanding ourselves that misdirects there is good evidence that social lost me. I entirely agree us from genuinely important debates inequality causes distress (Melzer et al., with what you say about about the validity of diagnoses as tools for 2004) – albeit that most people in poverty the under-appreciated social directing treatment and the role of do not experience distress. There is good factors that can promote, medically sanctioned classification as an evidence that trauma, abuse and neglect enhance and cause distress, agent of social power – both of which cause distress (Read et al., 2005) – but the fact you think these have important implications for the although most people abused as children are in competition with humane care of people who are do not receive diagnoses. There is good biological accounts seems to be an experiencing distress. evidence that distress is more common ideological position rather than coherent When you talk about how poverty, amongst women (Department of Health, argument. To say biology has no causal marginalisation, abuse and neglect are 2003) – although most women do not role in distress is like saying humans under-emphasised in debates about receive diagnoses. There is good evidence have no causal role in unemployment. mental health, I’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder that black people in the UK are more Just because you’re trying to explain with you. But when you try and justify likely than white people to be given a a higher-level concept you don’t get to this by reality-stretching accounts of diagnosis of schizophrenia (King et al., ignore the components of the system causality and critiques based on straw1994) – even though most will never be if you want to understand how it works. man definitions of illness, I can only given this diagnosis. And likewise, there You won’t find distress inside a neuron, think you’re undermining these laudable
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aims. So here’s what I propose for the 21st century: a tools-based approach to mental health resting on sound philosophy and nuanced empiricism with compassion and respect as its highest ideals. Join me on the barricades, John, we need good people. The evidence suggests that biological illnesses are not the primary causes of distress. I have acknowledged that biology nevertheless remains influential. So we need sophisticated accounts of biological influence that go beyond commonsense assumptions. Consider (1) general traits (2) general biological capacities and (3) concepts of biological difference. First, general traits: in the adoption study by Tienari (1991), children born to parents given diagnoses of schizophrenia were only themselves at increased risk of diagnosis if the adoptive home was dysfunctional. Tienari hypothesised that what these children inherited was not a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia, but a general tendency to be more sensitive and reactive to others. This trait – which might make its bearers better lovers, parents or colleagues – had adverse consequences only when those carrying it were placed in toxic environments, because the effects of those environments were then felt more keenly. Second, general biological capacities – for example, Gazzaniga’s (2000) putative left-hemisphere system – can get adversely socialised (by social inequality, abuse, racial prejudice, etc.) to produce the intrusive voice-hearing associated with psychotic-spectrum diagnoses. Research has begun detailing the specificities of these interacting social, material and relational forces and capacities. Third, Read and colleagues (2014) traumagenic neurodevelopmental model compares the neural consequences of child abuse with the brain features sometimes observed amongst people given psychotic spectrum diagnoses. It reconceptualises the biological differences seen in some people with these diagnoses as injuries, not illnesses. A simplistic account of these examples might erroneously posit biological causes. A sophisticated, ethically sensitive account recognises that these biological features are only associated with distress when their bearers occupy toxic environments. This account identifies those environments as the causes of distress, and the biological
features as enabling, mediating, or even (as in the third example) being produced by them. Despite more than a century of research, the illness model of distress is unproven. Despite the ideological bias toward biological causes, good evidence for social and psychological causation has emerged. Some biological influences have been identified (the above are not the only examples) and clinical psychological techniques that do not presume biological illness have been developed. Biology does not simply cause distress – it enables it. Time, now, to leave the mire. What you describe in your first example, is called a gene–environment interaction, and it is the mainstay of modern genetics. In this case, you think you’re arguing against the orthodoxy, but you’re actually arguing for it. This is a good thing, because it’s a well-supported foundation for understanding human nature. Your second example sounds like the ghost of Julian Jaynes (who sounds like he owes an apology to Michael Gazzaniga), and the third example like a reasonable attempt to highlight the under-appreciated effects of trauma while incorrectly suggesting that this fully explains any biological differences found between people with psychosis and people without. Psychosis is sometimes compared to fever (not a medical illness, you might be interested to know) because it seems to be a common result of what happens when lots of things start working unpredictably through various pressures on their functioning. In the case of
psychosis, these pressures can be trauma, a history of child abuse, drugs, brain injury, neural instability (like epilepsy) and our susceptibility to these differs, in part, due to genetics and prenatal development. Call it what you will – psychological distress, illness, disorder, revelation – but let’s not blinker ourselves to inconvenient evidence. I think, however, you reveal both your humanity, and the source of your misunderstanding, when you say you are arguing for an ‘ethically sensitive account’ of human nature. If I might say, John, one thing I have been impressed by during our exchange is how you have consistently championed a compassionate approach to human suffering. But ethics relates to how we apply knowledge, not the knowledge itself. To say that some sorts of knowledge are ‘ethical’ is a category error and there is no ‘ethically correct’ theory of human nature, only those that are better supported by evidence than others. Ethics enters the picture when we attempt to translate our understanding into action. Compassion lies not in our tools, but in our actions and objectives. Theories, evidence, science, humanities, fMRI, grounded theory, blood tests, twin studies, art, matrix algebra, clinical experience, neuropsychological tests, statistics, lived and shared experience, are all tools – ways for us to understand ourselves – for which humanity should be our common aim. This is the 21st century in which I want to live, and in which I hope we can work together to alleviate distress and disability. j.cromby@lboro.ac.uk vaughan.bell@ucl.ac.uk
Let the debate continue To share your views on this topic, e-mail your letters to psychologist@bps.org.uk or go to our new website – http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk – to comment at the bottom of this debate. Each month, on the inside front cover of this publication, we state that The Psychologist ‘provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society’. But does it? Yes, we have our ‘Letters’ pages each month, and the occasional ‘Opinion’ piece (all collected on our new website at http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/debates). But the ‘head to head’ debate you have just read is our first for more than 12 years. And it’s not for want of trying… during that time I have repeatedly invited psychologists and non-psychologists, members and non-members, to take each other on in print. People don’t seem to like doing it, so credit to John and Vaughan for agreeing to this one. However, readers have often asked me for more debate in the publication, arguing that the discipline moves on through the airing of genuine controversy in such a prestigious and prominent forum. So get in touch, or engage on Twitter @psychmag – let’s have your suggestions for topics and participants. Dr Jon Sutton (Managing Editor)
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Social categorisation
Blurring the boundaries F you think of conflicts around the world, a common link emerges: in many cases they can be traced to differences in religion, ethnicity, or countless other bases for group membership. The pervasiveness of classification into social categories as a bedrock of intergroup relations is evident in all strata of social life; from efforts towards closer integration of European member states to the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, from ‘ethnic cleansing’ in former Yugoslavia to genocide in Rwanda. How we classify ourselves and others along these multiple social criteria has a significant impact on intergroup relations. Ever since Allport’s (1954) seminal writings categorisation has played a central role in explorations of person perception. It is now understood to be an integral part of the explanation for prejudice and discrimination. With such understanding comes the possibility of modifying some aspect of the categorisation process to alleviate social conflict. Can we use what we know of social categorisation in attempts to improve intergroup relations, whether it be curtailing of either violent intergroup conflict or the social exclusion of ethnic minorities and other stigmatised social groups? One emerging approach in social categorisation research may offer the potential for reducing prejudice. Typically, work in intergroup relations has focused on single ‘ingroups’ and ‘outgroups’ (where ingroups are social categories that include the self and outgroups social categories that exclude the self). But the complexity of real social contexts in an increasingly multicultural world demands a new approach. Psychologists are realising that
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WEBLINKS The Commission for Racial Equality: www.cre.gov.uk MORI research on multiculturalism: www.mori.com/polls/2002/cre.shtml
The winner of the 2000 Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research Contributions to Psychology, RICHARD J. CRISP, describes his research on the potential of ‘multiple social categorisation’ in reducing prejudice. people can classify themselves, and others, along multiple dimensions of category membership simultaneously (e.g. ‘female’ or ‘male’ and ‘young’ or ‘elderly’; ‘British’ or ‘French’ and ‘black’ or ‘white’), and that such multiple social classification can have significant effects on social perception. Do people use multiple social classifications? Perceivers certainly have the mental ability to process non-social stimuli that vary along multiple criteria (Crisp & Hewstone, 1999; see also Deschamps, 1977). But this ability is not restricted to the classification of physical objects. In culturally varied contexts people also seem spontaneously to use multiple bases for classification in the processing of social information. With colleagues, I adapted a paradigm used by Park and Rothbart (1982) to allow subtle manipulation of multiple category memberships. Participants were presented with a short paragraph, ostensibly taken from a local newspaper, and were told that the experimenter was interested in how people read such stories. The stories concerned different events, both positive (e.g. a citizens’ award) and negative (e.g. drunk driving). Participants read the story and answered several questions, then the experimenter left the room as if the ‘survey’ was over. Forty-five minutes later the experimenter reappeared and gave the participants a surprise cued recall test in which they were required to recall some specific information about the character in the story (e.g. age, occupation). We used this paradigm in a study in Northern Ireland and found that participants processed the information, about females and males and Catholics and Protestants, as an interactive function of
both category dimensions (Crisp, Hewstone & Cairns, 2001). Put another way, both bases for category membership were attended to by participants. We found similar effects in studies that employed the same paradigm, but in different cultural contexts (Singapore, Wales) and using alternative category dimensions (ethnicity: Chinese vs. Malay; nationality: English vs. Welsh) (Crisp & Hewstone, 2001). These studies demonstrated that people can spontaneously use multiple criteria in the processing and retention of information about their social world. The question then became how people use these combinations of category membership. To fully understand (and beneficially use) multiple categorisation as a potential means of reducing prejudice, it is necessary to model the effects we expect multiple group affiliations to have on social judgements. Several such models have been proposed, and recent work is establishing when and how social judgements vary according to particular combinations of group membership. Models of multiple categorisation A consequence of activating more than a single basis for social classification is that ‘others’ can be classified as both the same as us and different from us at the same time. Take, for example, sex and age. If the perceiver is a young female then other young females share group membership with the perceiver on both dimensions of categorisation (they are ‘double ingroup’ members). Young males and elderly females are thus ‘mixed-category’ members (being partially ingroup and partially outgroup), and elderly males are ‘double outgroup’ members (being different from the perceiver on both category dimensions).
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TABLE 1
Degrees of positive evaluation of different combined groups
Two shared memberships (ingroup + ingroup) 1. Additive 2. Social inclusion 3. Equivalence
Combined categorisation One membership One membership shared, one shared, one not shared not shared (ingroup + (outgroup + outgroup) ingroup)
High High High
Moderate High High
‘European’ is a more inclusive membership than ‘British’, which in turn is more inclusive than ‘Londoner’). We asked participants simply to remember a number of different names during ‘filler’ tasks that involved indicating whether a personality trait appearing on a computer screen was positive or negative in connotation (Crisp & Hewstone, 2000b). In fact, the names varied in the extent to which they were typically male or female, and the extent to which they were also typically English or Welsh (e.g. ‘Rachel Whitehouse’ versus ‘Aled Thomas’). Faster responses to positive traits and slower responses to negative traits indicated higher evaluation of the name currently in memory. Finally, prior to each trait presented on the screen a masked prime appeared for 50 milliseconds. This prime was either neutral ‘xxxx’, the pronoun ‘we’ or the pronoun ‘they’. It was predicted that the pronoun ‘we’ would act like a ‘superordinate prime’, making a higher-level superordinate identity more salient (see Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Perdue et al., 1990). In so doing, judgements in the
Neither membership shared (outgroup + outgroup)
Moderate High High
Low Low High
multiple-category context should become themselves more inclusive with any basis for shared membership (even if the target was partially an outgroup) promoting positive evaluation (in other words, the social inclusion pattern). Only those targets completely excluded from the ingroup (i.e. the double outgroup) should retain a relative negative evaluation. As predicted, the superordinate ‘we’ prime did in fact lead to a more inclusive pattern. Reaction times to positive traits were facilitated when participants retained in working memory any name that indicated some element of shared membership. For our English female participants, this meant English female, English male, or Welsh female names, compared with the total outgroup name (Welsh males; for related work involving exclusive ‘they’ primes, see Crisp, Hewstone et al., in press). It is worth asking at this point whether specifying the interrelationships between multiple memberships in the context of more inclusive memberships is too abstract and complex for any application to real
FIGURE 1 The effects of positive mood on evaluations in a crossedcategorisation context (data from Crisp & Hewstone, 2000a) neutral feedback positive feedback 6
Evaluation
As demonstrated by the memory studies in Northern Ireland, Singapore, and Wales, people can and do respond to others differently contingent on the relative composite of multiple group memberships. Specifying exactly how evaluations vary in such contexts is an intriguing question. (Would, for instance, British psychologists identify more with British engineers or German psychologists?) There are several models that specify how the four composite groups possible with two categories of membership will be evaluated (see Brewer et al., 1987; Hewstone et al., 1993). Initial work examining composite group evaluations found that some patterns were more prevalent than others (e.g. the ‘additive’ pattern, where positive evaluation varies simply according to the degree of shared group membership; see Table 1, row 1,). Other more complex patterns were, however, also evident (e.g. the ‘social inclusion’ pattern, where evaluations are equally high for any group with at least one membership shared with the person making the judgement). Another example is the ‘equivalence’ pattern where all combined groups are evaluated equally positively). This variation in the pattern of evaluation observed across crossed-category composite groups prompted work that tried to uncover when different patterns of evaluation might be observed, and what psychological processes might explain their structure. Some key moderators are now emerging from work that has examined potential predictors of the different patterns of evaluation. Compared with the most basic ‘additive’ pattern (which is the baseline pattern, expected in the absence of all other influences), positive mood seems to promote more socially inclusive evaluations. For example, we studied the effects of positive mood on combined categorisations using artificial groups (Crisp & Hewstone, 2000a). The anticipated additive pattern of bias was found in the neutral mood condition. As predicted, when participants were in a good mood (by receiving positive feedback about their performance on a ‘vigilance task’) the additive pattern of responding was replaced with an equivalence pattern (which represents positive and equal evaluation of all the composite groups; see Figure 1). This shift supports the notion that positive mood promotes a more inclusive use of categorisation (Isen et al., 1992). Something else that can change how people evaluate composite groups is the simultaneous presence of a ‘higher level’ superordinate membership (for example,
5 4 3 2 1 ingroup/ingroup
ingroup/outgroup
outgroup/ingroup
outgroup/outgroup
Combined categorisation
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Reducing prejudice Early anthropological observations suggested that multiple and crossed societal structures may promote lower levels of intergroup conflict. For instance, LeVine and Campbell (1972) noted improved intergroup relations in cultures where there
were conflicting group loyalties. They observed that individuals may have an obligation to engage in military operations for their local group but at the same time be obliged to do the same for their group founded on common ancestry. When these loyalties were mutually inconsistent, there seemed to be reduced conflict (apparently due to the dilemma in attempting to find a way to satisfy the two or more groups instead of being disloyal to one of them). LeVine and Campbell suggested that group members actively make use of this state of affairs by affiliating themselves with multiple groups. Despite these promising observations, experimental studies comparing simple categorisation with criss-crossing group structures have been equivocal in their findings. In a review of experimental studies addressing this issue we found as much evidence in favour of the proposed bias-reducing effects of crossed categorisation as we did against (Crisp & Hewstone, 1999). However, we did find methodological variability that may account for this lack of consensus, such as the absence of particular statistical comparisons and baseline conditions. We addressed these issues in a refined test of the bias-reduction hypothesis (Crisp, Hewstone & Rubin, 2001). In this study, participants were categorised by means of a random allocation procedure (into artificial groups) and completed ‘reward matrices’ (Tajfel et al., 1971), awarding points to members of either a single outgroup, mixed group (with one shared and one non-shared membership), or double outgroup (with two non-shared memberships). A higher
points allocation to participants’ own group indicated ingroup favouritism. The findings revealed that participants were no less biased against a person with shared (mixed) membership compared with those without. There was, in fact, an increase in bias against targets who differed from participants on two criteria. Encouraging participants to consider a shared additional group membership did not, therefore, reduce bias. In another study we investigated whether actively introducing a shared basis for categorisation into an existing situation involving just one ingroup and one outgroup would reduce bias. A similar study was carried out to that described above, but this time participants rated first single outgroups and then mixed/double outgroups. Point allocations at Time 2 (combined categorisation) were compared with those at Time 1 (single categorisation, Crisp, 1998). The introduction of a shared categorisation did not change the level of bias for (Time 2) mixed groups, but the introduction of an additional non-shared membership led to a significant increase in bias for (Time 2) double outgroups. Once again, an additional shared basis for group membership did not improve evaluations, and bias only increased against total outgroup members. In a final experiment, we extended the crossed-categorisation paradigm by adding an extra four categories for consideration instead of just one; for example, Cardiff and Bristol students who were all also ‘psychologists’, ‘females’, ‘living in university accommodation’, ‘18- to 21year-olds’ and ‘born in the UK’. (Crisp, Hewstone & Rubin, 2001). We
FIGURE 2 Evaluations of single, mixed and total outgroups relative to ingroups (data from Crisp, Hewstone & Rubin, 2001; Experiment 2) Ingroup Outgroup 6.5
Evaluation
intergroup relations. I would argue that it is not, and that such studies can capture the complexity of real social contexts well. Consider for instance the case of European integration and the effects of using this highly inclusive membership to categorise oneself and others. As we have noted, people do spontaneously (and apparently pre-consciously) use multiple criteria for classification when thinking about others. As we are increasingly encouraged to consider our European membership in conjunction with national and ethnic affiliations, the relevance of how patterns of judgement may vary becomes clear. For instance, what it means to be British and Asian may change in the context of a more inclusive European identity. Studies of the determinants of models of multiple classification may well help to clarify what to expect in an increasingly dynamic sociopolitical climate. Recently we proposed a framework to unite all the work outlined above. This framework integrates what we now know of the antecedent factors that determine different patterns of evaluation in multiple category contexts (e.g. positive mood, a salient superordinate identity), and predicts when and via which psychological route (e.g. affective, cognitive) particular outcomes are likely (Crisp, Ensari et al., in press). Such a model will, we hope, guide future developments in our understanding of complex intergroup contexts. There is, however, an additional proposed benefit of multiple categorisation. Compared with settings where one criterion for group membership is situationally dominant, considering additional shared bases for categorisation may offer a way of reducing prejudice. For instance, racial discrimination may be reduced when people are aware of shared (e.g. nationality) as well as non-shared (race) group memberships. Can encouraging people to consider additional bases for group membership reduce the extent to which an existing social classification is used as a basis for intergroup bias? Some recent work suggests that, under the right conditions, multiple categorisation can indeed reduce negative evaluations of outgroups.
6 5.5 5 4.5 4 Single
Mixed
Total outgroup
Combined categorisation
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hypothesised, on the basis of a return to the functional assumptions inherent in theories of social categorisation (e.g. Tajfel, 1969), that using more than just two categorisation criteria in the social context may be more successful in improving attitudes towards the outgroup. Our reasoning recognised that categorisation is a basic, adaptive and useful cognitive mechanism that allows us to make sense of the complexity of our everyday environment. It is not easy to ‘switch off’ this automatic mechanism when we encounter people instead of objects. The spontaneous classification of people (especially into basic level categories such as sex and race) forms the mental distinction between ingroups and outgroups, and the prerequisite for prejudice and discrimination (‘they’ cannot be evaluated negatively compared with ‘us’ if no mental distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ exists). Even two categorisation criteria (as in typical crossed-categorisation contexts) may provide enough of a simplifying function to remain ‘useful’, hence the findings I have discussed so far. But an increase in the number (and complexity) of available classifications may lead people to abandon the whole categorisation strategy as a useful guide to social judgement altogether. Instead, when making judgements, people may rely more on considering people as individuals, rather than members of particular social groups. In this study we found a pattern of evaluation entirely in line with these predictions (see Figure 2). Compared with single classification, when both mixed and total outgroups comprised five bases for social classification, less bias was observed (i.e. a smaller difference between ingroup and outgroup evaluations). As predicted, the reduction in bias was equivalent for both multiple-group conditions – if categorisation was abandoned as a means of guiding judgement, affiliation to those categories should indeed be incidental. Supporting the notion that categorisation was abandoned, in the multiple-group conditions participants thought less about the situation as involving two distinct groups, but instead regarded all targets in the experiment as individuals. This difference statistically explained the improved outgroup evaluations. Thus, multiple categorisation can lead to a shift in how people are perceived (if there are enough clear additional criteria for classification), and can improve intergroup relations.
Conclusion In this article I have reviewed a programme of research that has sought to establish whether, when, how and why multiple social categorisation may improve intergroup relations. We know that people use multiple criteria for social classification in naturalistic settings (e.g. when selectively processing group-relevant information). Furthermore, the use of multiple classification in person perception can lead to predictable variations in the evaluation of others who both share and do not share group memberships with perceivers. This variation in evaluation can be predicted on the basis of situational factors such as mood, or the presence of superordinate identities. Finally, while making just one additional basis for classification salient may not reliably improve intergroup relations, recent work has found that when many more criteria for classification are considered in conjunction with the target groups, people think less categorically. They then show improved attitudes towards the outgroup. In the context of increasing multiculturalism, such findings will
improve our understanding of the relationship between complex social categorisation and intergroup discrimination. Future clarification of the phenomena associated with such complex group affiliation will hopefully yield more insights into the psychology of social categorisation. Perhaps most importantly, what we now understand of the intricate links between mental representation and evaluation of social groups is contributing to the development of prejudice-reduction and conciliation strategies. For example, by promoting a shift from categorised to individuated thought, multiple categorisation may prove useful in orienting rival groups away from broad divisions prior to any conciliatory meeting. Application of such psychological models may ultimately provide an invaluable contribution to the promotion of social inclusion and the establishment of harmonious intergroup relations. ■ Dr Richard J. Crisp is at the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham. E-mail: r.crisp@bham.ac.uk.
References Allport, G.W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Brewer, M.B., Ho, H-K., Lee, J-Y. & Miller, N. (1987). Social identity and social distance among Hong Kong school children. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13, 156–65. Crisp, R.J. (1998). Crossed categorization and intergroup bias: Context, process, and social consequences. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cardiff University. Crisp, R.J., Ensari, N., Hewstone, M. & Miller, N. (in press).A dual-route model of crossed categorization effects. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.) European Review of Social Psychology (Vol. 13). Hove, and Philadelphia: PA: Psychology Press. Crisp, R.J. & Hewstone, M. (1999). Differential evaluation of crossed category groups: Patterns, processes, and reducing intergroup bias. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 2, 303–333. Crisp, R.J. & Hewstone, M. (2000a). Crossed categorization and intergroup bias:The moderating roles of intergroup and affective context. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 357–383. Crisp, R.J. & Hewstone, M. (2000b). Multiple categorization and social
identity. In D. Capozza & R. Brown (Eds.) Social identity theory: Trends in theory and research (pp. 149–166). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Crisp, R.J. & Hewstone, M. (2001). Multiple categorization and implicit intergroup bias: Differential category dominance and the positive–negative asymmetry effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 45–62. Crisp, R.J., Hewstone, M. & Cairns, E. (2001). Multiple identities in Northern Ireland: Hierarchical ordering in the representation of group membership. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 501–514. Crisp, R.J., Hewstone, M., Richards, Z. & Paolini, S. (in press). Inclusiveness and crossed categorization: Effects on cojoined category evaluations of ingroup and out-group primes. British Journal of Social Psychology. Crisp, R.J., Hewstone, M. & Rubin, M. (2001). Does multiple categorization reduce intergroup bias? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 76–89. Deschamps, J-C.(1977). Effects of crossing category membership on quantitative judgment. European Journal of Social Psychology, 7, 517–521. Gaertner, S.L. & Dovidio, J.F. (2000). Reducing intergroup bias:The
common in-group identity model. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Hewstone, M., Islam, M.R. & Judd, C.M. (1993). Models of crossed categorization and intergroup relations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 779–793. Isen,A.M., Niedenthal, P.M. & Cantor, N. (1992).An influence of positive affect on social categorization. Motivation and Emotion, 16, 65–78. LeVine, R.A. & Campbell, D.T. (1972). Ethnocentrism:Theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes and group behavior. New York:Wiley. Park, B. & Rothbart, M. (1982). Perceptions of out-group homogeneity and levels of social categorization: Memory for the subordinate attributes of in-group and out-group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 1051–1068. Perdue, C.W., Dovidio, J.F., Gurtman, M.B. & Tyler, R.B. (1990).‘Us’ and ‘them’: Social categorization and the process of intergroup bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 475–486. Tajfel, H. (1969). Cognitive aspects of prejudice. Journal of Social Issues, 25, 79–97. Tajfel, H., Flament, C., Billig, M. & Bundy, R.F. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149–178.
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Being a man – putting life before death Martin Seager and David Wilkins address the need for this special feature on male psychology hy a special feature of The Psychologist on male psychology? It would perhaps be better – especially at the centenary of the First World War in which so many young men gave their lives – to turn this question around and ask why there has not been one before. There are two reasons why this might be the case: I Men have traditionally been considered the ‘dominant’ sex, and so it might be presumed that they have no gender issues or needs and that maleness is somehow the ‘norm’ (Addis, 2008); I There are pressures on men to appear ‘strong’ and invulnerable (Gilmore, 1990; Levant, 2007; Mahalik et al., 2003).
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Despite the fact that providers of public health and care services are under a statutory duty to tackle gender inequalities, it is still often overlooked that gender inequalities affect men as well as women. This introduction to the special feature first explores some possible reasons for this male ‘gender-blindness’ and sets out some basic facts about health inequalities relating to men. After highlighting the need to research and develop male-friendly services that are tailored in particular to male patterns of emotional communication and help-seeking behaviour, the special feature editors introduce the collection of articles that follow.
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Do higher suicide rates, higher addiction rates, higher rates of homelessness, and higher incarceration rates mean that we are failing adequately to support men who are in psychological distress?
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resources
Why are men poorer users of psychological services? Is it up to men to change their attitudes, or is it up to service providers to adapt what they offer to better meet male need?
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Support a Male Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society: https://response.questback.com/british psychologicalsociety/malepsychsection
Addis, M. (2008). Gender and depression in men. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice, 15, 153–168. Cochrane, S. & Rabinowitz, F. (2000). Men and depression. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Connell, R. (2005). Masculinities (2nd edn). Cambridge: Polity. Crisis (2011). The hidden truth about homelessness, experiences of single homelessness in England. London:
This means that there may be an equal covert pressure in our society not to write about or study the male gender too closely. As psychologists, it is, however, our role to study the full spectrum of the human condition and to replace prejudice in all its forms with the light of understanding. Here is a simple vignette: In the corner of a railway station waiting room a young woman is sitting alone. Tears are rolling down her face. At first there is embarrassment among those who notice the young woman’s distress, but after a minute or two a fellow passenger goes over to ask if she can help. Soon the young woman is telling this sympathetic stranger her sad story.
Author. Department of Health (2012). Statistics from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System: Vol. 1. The Numbers. London: Author. Gilmore, D. (1990). Manhood in the making. Yale: Yale University Press. Good, G.E. & Brooks, G.R. (2005). The new handbook of psychotherapy and counselling for men. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
On the platform outside the waiting room, a young man is half drunk. He sits on a bench staring at the place between his feet where some empty beer cans lie. Occasionally he shakes his head. Travellers waiting for the train prefer to stand rather than to sit alongside him. Eventually the man is approached by railway staff who politely ask him to leave the station. The man nods to indicate his willingness, gets slowly to his feet and goes on his way.
Does this story have a ring of truth? Does it tell us something about actual gender difference, hidden perceptions about gender, or both? The truth is that we don’t entirely know, but as psychologists we should be leading the way in finding out. Sadly, until now, most enlightenment about the male gender has come not from the world of science but from the arts: from novelists, film makers, playwrights and even comedians. One thing we do know, however, is that many men avoid seeking help in all its forms and men are more likely to ‘act out’ rather than reflect on their distress (Cochrane & Rabinowitz, 2000; Connell, 2005). But why should this be the case, and what can be done about it?
Why study the male gender? Leaving aside the fact that males account for one half of the human population, the answer to this question should be clear from the following statistics: I Men represent a large majority of all suicides across the world (see tinyurl.com/3cusfc); I Men represent a large majority of those with major addiction problems in the UK (DH, 2012); I Men represent a significant majority of single homeless people in England (Crisis, 2011); I Men represent 95 per cent of the prison population (Wilkins, 2010),
Levant, R.F., Smalley, K.B., Aupont, M. et al. (2007). Initial validation of the male role norms inventory-revised (MRNI-R). Journal of Men's Studies, 15, 83–100. Mahalik, J.R., Locke, B.D., Ludlow, L.H. et al. (2003). Development of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 4, 3–25. Office for National Statistics (1998).
Psychiatric morbidity among prisoners. London: Author. Wilkins, D. (2010). Untold problems: A review of the essential issues in the mental health of boys and men. London: Men’s Health Forum.
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and a significant majority of prisoners have very serious mental health problems (ONS, 1998).
physical and mental health, and the psychological challenge that cancer may make to the sense of self. Next, Dr Linda Morison, Dr Christina Trigeorgis and Dr Mary John examine the very interesting question of whether men’s attitudes to psychological services are influenced by the fact that the majority of psychologists are female (less than a quarter of psychology graduates are men). At the same time of course, the great majority of senior managers making decisions on policy and commissioning are
BELINDA LAWLEY
These facts alone show us that whilst many men may want to appear invulnerable, something very different is going on behind the scenes. The collection of articles in this issue reflects the fact that there is at least now some emerging public recognition of the need to examine these underlying themes. The success of the inaugural three-day ‘Being a Man’ Festival at the South Bank Centre in London in February also exemplifies people’s new willingness to discuss what was previously almost a taboo subject. How to find ways of reaching men in distress was high on the agenda, and several active campaigners on male health issues were among the speakers (including one of us, David Wilkins). In the articles that follow some of the issues associated with male psychology and male help-seeking behaviours are explored. All illuminate, in The success of the ‘Being a Man’ Festival exemplifies different ways, how health people’s new willingness to discuss what was services might evolve on the previously almost a taboo subject assumption that there is a need to offer men with health problems the same gendersensitive commitment that we presently male. Does either of these factors have an offer women (Good & Brooks, 2005; impact on the kinds of services that are Wilkins, 2010). provided? They also raise the very Next up in this special feature, Dr challenging question of whether there is Jennie Williams, Dr David Stephenson and ‘some fundamental contradiction between Dr Frank Keating show the complexity of how psychological therapy is traditionally socialised power relationships and explore practised and traditional masculinity, and the impact of social and racial inequalities whether or how psychological on male mental health. They identify a interventions can be adapted to reach out number of ways in which the lived to those who conform strongly to experience of being male both increases traditional masculine norms’. the risk of some mental health problems Following on from this idea, Dr Roger and militates against the likelihood of Kingerlee, Dr Duncan Precious, Dr Luke getting appropriate and timely help. It also Sullivan and Dr John Barry begin by uses a variety of examples to remind us of examining the evidence base in relation the important point that all men are not to male mental health. Their view is that the same. we are by no means doing as well as we In their article, Dr Peter Branney, Dr might. The NHS exists to save lives, Karl Witty and Dr Ian Eardley explore the but if we consider the preponderance of psychological trauma of cancer in men. male deaths from suicide we can see that The cancer they choose to look at is not we are letting down those men in greatest just any cancer – it is penile cancer, a rare need of support. The authors show us form of the disease that strikes very that, although the academic evidence base directly at the most basic biological about ‘what works’ with men is not strong, manifestation of masculinity. The authors there are some thriving examples of local also look at breast cancer in men. This good practice. They also point to some disease threatens masculinity in a different intriguing evidence that suggests that way. Has the patient developed a ‘woman’s the outcomes of some psychotherapeutic disease’? This article is an opportunity to interventions may differ between men and think about the relationship between women.
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Finally, some startling evidence that our cultural attitudes to gender differences are not necessarily fixed for all time is offered by Dr Ali Haggett’s historical perspective paper. Dr Haggett tells us that in the 18th century the word ‘manly’ would generally be taken to mean ‘virtuous and wise’, not strong and dominant as it tends to mean today – and there was no stigma during that period against men in being ‘sensitive’. By the time of the First World War, ‘shell shock’ was identified as a psychological (rather than a physical) condition and it was commonly believed that it was an indication of ‘weakness’ to suffer from this terrible affliction. Evidence from the years following the Second World War suggests that this belief was still ingrained. Arguably, we are still struggling with these difficulties today despite our much more developed understanding of PTSD. The conclusion of Roger Kingerlee and his co-authors is one that serves well for this entire collection of articles: Now – perhaps more than ever – we need to provide and promote psychological interventions and services that, drawing on existing scientific and epidemiological evidence, tackle the stigma associated with male help-seeking, engage men more effectively in treatment and, above all, at critical points in their existence, help them put life before death.
Having read all the articles in this collection, it is hoped that you will agree that there is a need for a Male Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society to further our understanding of these issues. If so, you are invited to register your interest (see ‘Resources’, opposite). A conference to discuss many of these issues relating to male psychology will take place at UCL on 20 June. If you are interested in attending, please visit www.malepsychology.org.uk.
Martin Seager is Honorary Consultant Psychologist with the Central London Samaritans mjfjseager@tiscali.co.uk
David Wilkins is Policy Officer for the Men’s Health Forum david.wilkins@menshealth forum.org.uk
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Engaging with the emotional lives of men Roger Kingerlee, Duncan Precious, Luke Sullivan and John Barry consider the design of male-specific services and interventions
Given that men experience and express their psychological needs differently, it is welcome that some innovators are starting to design services specifically to meet their needs. Below we provide some examples from a range of recently developed male-specific services that stretch the boundaries of the traditional ‘talking therapy’ model.
Reaching out to men in need
Is ‘beta bias’ responsible for gender blindness to men’s mental health problems?
resources
Do males and females access and engage in psychological help in the same ways? If not, is a one-size-fits-all psychological approach to the sexes sufficient?
www.mensmindsmatter.com Blazina, C., & Shen-Miller, D.S. (2011). An international psychology of men: Theoretical advances, case studies, and clinical innovations. Routledge Series on Counseling and Psychotherapy with Boys and Men, Vol. 7. New York & Hove: Routledge.
Andrews, G., Cuijpers, P., Craske, M. et al. (2010). Computer therapy for the anxiety and depressive disorders is effective, acceptable, and practical health care: A meta-analysis. PLoS ONE, 5(10), e131196. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013196 Benenson, J.F. & Koulnazarian, M. (2008). Sex differences in helpseeking appear in early childhood. British Journal of Developmental
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t seems probable that significantly poorer health outcomes in men must have some basis in meaningful sex and gender differences. There is evidence, for example, that males have different experiences of being parented (Diamond, 2004; Pollack, 1995), and show different behaviours under stress (Kolves et al., 2010) compared to females. Gender for males, as for females, helps to shape life experience and behaviour, impacting most strikingly upon help-seeking and engagement with health services (Sullivan 2011; Sullivan et al., 2014). Sex differences in help-seeking are shown to emerge by around age six (Benenson & Koulnazarian, 2008). By the time of adulthood such differences may crystallise into recognisable patterns of avoidance, both in relation to help-seeking and psychotherapy (Sullivan et al., 2014). Males tend to externalise distress more than females and are more likely to be destructively violent to themselves or others (Logan et al., 2008). In England and Wales men produce around 80 per cent of antisocial behaviour (UK Government, 2012). Consequently, men’s distress may lead to incarceration rather than psychotherapy (Men’s Minds Matter, 2013). Yet even when men do seek help there is evidence that less extreme forms of male distress may routinely go unrecognised (Swami, 2012), because men, and those around them, effectively abandon psychological reflection (Kingerlee, 2012). Consequently, men’s psychological needs may go unmet until extreme behaviours come to the attention of the authorities.
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If the principal function of health services is to keep people alive and well, then the disproportionately high male suicide rate alone suggests that the needs of men are not being optimally served. Picking up on the theme set out by Linda Morison and colleagues in the previous article of this special feature, it is argued that health services for men can be improved if gender awareness is incorporated into their design, promotion, and implementation.
Psychology, 26(2), 163–170. Bigos, K.L., Pollock, B.G., Stankevich, B.A. & Bies, R.R. (2009). Sex differences in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antidepressants: An updated review. Gender Medicine, 6, 522–543. Burns, J.M., Webb, M., Durkin, L.A. & Hickie, I.B. (2010). Reach Out Central: A serious game designed to engage young men to improve
Little is yet known about how to motivate men to make more use of health services, but some work is starting in this area. Charity campaigns In the UK the charities Mind and Samaritans have run campaigns highlighting men’s difficulties in helpseeking and other issues, but the impact of such interventions is still too early to assess. Action research and community psychology approaches These methods aim to empower marginalised groups in generating change and opportunity with some promising results for male populations. For example, the ‘Men’s Sheds’ organisation in Australia has helped to engage isolated older men in communal activity through furniture restoration; this is now also being established in the UK. There is also a scheme in Brighton (UK) called ‘A Band of Brothers’, where older males mentor troubled younger men. This scheme has been so effective that strong links have been forged between local youth, probation and police services (www.abandofbrothers.org.uk). One of us (DP) set up a men’s mental health group in Newmarket with the aim of reducing the barriers to men accessing appropriate mental health services. The initial focus was to gain an understanding of the local issues affecting men and their mental health and then to establish the support of local charities and key stakeholders. Newmarket is renowned as the UK home of horseracing. The
mental health and well-being. Medical Journal of Australia, 192(11), Supplement, S27–S30. Diamond, R. (1998). Stepping outside and not knowing: Community psychology and enduring mental health problems. Clinical Psychology Forum, 122. Diamond, M.J. (2004). The shaping of masculinity. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85, 359–380.
Gould, M.S., Munfakh, J.L., Lubell, K. et al. (2002). Seeking help from the internet during adolescence. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 41, 1182–1189. Kingerlee, R. (2012). Conceptualizing men: A transdiagnostic model of male distress. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 85(1), 83–100. Kiresuk, T.J., Smith, A. & Cardillo, J.E.
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horseracing industry has an insular, traditional and masculine culture and some parallels can be drawn with military life. It attracts young men and women from disadvantaged areas, demands long hours, offers low pay and has endemic problems with substance misuse and gambling. Tragically, there continues to be a relatively high suicide rate in men within the local horseracing industry. An eight-week men’s mental health course was offered to local men aged 18 and over. The course was part therapeutic, part educational, part debate forum and part mutual support group. In order to engage a broader range of men including those who might not normally access mainstream services, the course was conducted during the evening in a local community centre. Advertisements
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community psychology framework (see Diamond, 1998), it also drew on ‘common sense’ and the lived experiences of members. At the outset, participants selected the topics they wanted to focus on. Interestingly, the ‘difficult’ emotions (such as anger, anxiety and sadness) were a popular choice. Each individual had the opportunity to discuss difficulties and share personal experiences. Then the group worked together to make sense of their difficulties, using group members’ knowledge, combined with psychological principles and theories. It was noticeable that the group process enabled members to develop meaningful relationships quite rapidly (see Yalom, 2005). All who completed the course gave positive feedback. Qualitative feedback included ‘self-understanding’, ‘helping others’, ‘sharing common experiences with likeminded people’, ‘being part of a non-stigmatising group’, ‘learning and consolidating ways of improving mental and emotional health’, ‘expressing difficult emotions’ and ‘making friends’. Quantitative feedback was obtained by using goal attainment scaling (Kiresuk et al., 1994). Goal attainment was rated at: 52 per cent ‘much more than expected’, 32 per cent ‘more than expected’, 16 per cent ‘as expected’ and 0 per cent ‘less than expected’. Finally, a main aim of the course was that members would plan and follow up with a social Men’s psychological needs may go unmet until extreme action that would improve behaviours come to the attention of the authorities their lives: the course members did indeed choose to continue to meet up and were put in local newspapers and posters support each other. It also felt liberating as were placed in pubs, gyms and working a male psychologist to be giving attention men’s clubs. to the emotional lives of other men, and Whilst the course adopted a preconceptions about the difficulties of
(1994). Goal attainment scaling. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kolves, K., Ide, N. & De Leo, D. (2010). Suicidal ideation and behaviour in the aftermath of marital separation: Gender differences. Journal of Affective Disorders, 120(1), 48-53. Levant, R.F., Good, G.E., Cook, S. et al. (2006). Validation of the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale. Psychology of
Men and Masculinity, 7, 212–224. Levant, R.F., Hayden, E.W., Halter, M.J. & Williams, C.M. (2009). The efficacy of alexithymia reduction treatment: A pilot study. Journal of Men’s Studies, 17(1), 75–84. Logan, J., Hill, H.A., Black, M.L. et al. (2008). Characteristics of perpetrators in homicide-followedby-suicide incidents. American Journal of Epidemiology,
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such a group proved to be unfounded. The compassion and understanding that these men showed one another, and the respect that they showed for the whole group process, was overwhelming. These approaches demonstrate how the mould of mainstream mental health provision can be broken to reach a broader range of men. Could inaccurate preconceptions, reflecting wider social stereotypes and dominant notions of masculinity, be preventing other mental health professionals from delivering malespecific interventions?
Indirect interventions Another effective way of helping men access psychological interventions is to combine them with sporting activities. In this way, barriers to male-helpseeking – including the perceived social threat associated with being in need of help – can be reduced. An excellent example here is an integrated exercise/CBT intervention with young men in Dublin (McGale et al., 2011). In this randomised controlled trial, 104 men between the ages of 18 and 40 were recruited via local advertisements. Participants were allocated for a 10-week period to one of three groups: (a) an Individual Exercise (IE) group, involving aerobic and resistance training, (b) a Back of the Net (BTN) group involving football (chosen as an integrated team sport), plus training in CBT concepts and techniques like goal-setting, problem-solving, and resilience; and (c) a control group, who did no exercise during the study. Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained, and the results were encouraging. There were significant decreases – evident from five weeks into the study – in depressive symptoms, with pre- to post-depression scores falling by 52 per cent in the IE condition and 45 per cent in the BTN condition (McGale et al., 2011). Moreover, the IE group showed significantly greater perceived social support than the team-based BTN group at eight-week follow up – a surprising finding
168(9),1056–1064. McGale, N., McArdle, S. & Gaffney, P. (2011). Exploring the effectiveness of an integrated exercise/CBT intervention for young men's mental health. British Journal of Health Psychology, 16, 457–471. Men’s Minds Matter (2013). The psychological wellbeing of men. Retrieved 24 March 2014 from www.mensmindsmatter.com/mens-
psychological-well-being.html Parker, G., Blanch, B. & Crawford, J. (2011). Does gender influence response to different psychotherapies in those with unipolar depression? Journal of Affective Disorders, 130, 17–20. Peterson, B., Boivin, J., Norré, J. et al. (2012). An introduction to infertility counseling: a guide for mental health and medical professionals. Journal of
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that may be explained by greater individual contact in the IE group. Above all, as the authors say, significant gains in men’s psychological health occurred via an intervention that, by combining sport and psychotherapy, neatly side-stepped male concerns around formal help-seeking.
Internet-based services Young males are a high-risk group for suicide but also widely use the internet – including for support (Gould et al., 2002; Strasburger et al., 2010). Evidence for the general value of computer-based interventions is beginning to accumulate (e.g. Andrews et al., 2010). Consequently, internet-based services that target young men are starting to emerge. For example, in Australia between 2003 and 2006, Reach Out Central (ROC: http://roc.reachout.com.au/flash) was developed as a ‘serious’ computer game that could help change health-related behaviours (Burns et al., 2010). The design of ROC incorporated various elements, including cognitive behaviour therapy. The game was highly marketed and included young men in its target audience. Focusing on such themes as depression, alcohol use and loss, ROC aimed to help players build skills in communication, problem-solving and optimism, in a virtual but realistic setting (Burns et al., 2010). The results of the intervention were mixed. On the one hand, site uptake figures were quite high. ROC was launched in September 2007, and there were 76,045 website visits, with 10,542 new members joining Reach Out. Moreover, 52 per cent of new members were male. As Burns et al. (2010) say, the advertising campaign was effective. On the other hand, while ROC initially attracted young men, it did not keep them engaged, nor did it significantly impact their symptomology. A single-group, quasiexperimental design with repeated measures of well-being, stigma, and helpseeking (pre-game, post-game, and twomonth follow-up) showed that female
Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, 29(3), 243–248. Pollack, W.S. (1995). No man is an island: Toward a new psychoanalytic psychology of men. In R. Levant & W. Pollack (Eds.) A new psychology of men (pp.68–90). New York: Basic Books. Shandley, K., Austin, D., Klein, B. & Kyrios, M. (2010). An evaluation of ‘Reach Out Central’. Health
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Reliance on overt help-seeking and on individual face-to-face encounters involving direct emotional disclosure can unintentionally present barriers to men
players became less distressed, and improved in the areas of life-satisfaction, problem-solving and help-seeking. However, there were no significant changes for male players, whose recruitment to the study was lower, and attrition rate from the study was relatively high. Only 88 of the 266 participants (33 per cent) were male; and 22 dropped out before twomonth follow-up (Shandley et al., 2010). The ROC game, however, underlines the potential of the internet in reaching younger males – something also recognised in Ireland, where a similar game targeting young men was launched in autumn 2012 (www.workoutapp.ie).
Male-specific psychotherapies Although it is known that men and women can respond differentially to medications such as antidepressants (Bigos et al., 2009), sex differences in the efficacy of psychotherapies have seldom been investigated. What data there is, however, is striking. For example, within
Education Research, 25(4), 563–574. Strasburger, V.C., Jordan, A.B. & Donnerstein, E. et al. (2010). Health effects of media on children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 125(4), 756–757. Sullivan, L. (2011). Men, masculinity and male gender role socialisation. Doctoral thesis, Canterbury Christ Church University. Available at http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/1019
the field of infertility counselling it is established that it is ‘essential that infertility counselors be aware of how men and women experience infertility differently’ (Peterson et al., 2012: p.245). In a review of studies of CBT for depression, Parker et al. (2011) found a sex difference in treatment response in a third of the studies, though the reasons for these differences remain unclear and require further investigation. Some clinicians have targeted psychotherapeutic interventions at key aspects of male psychology. One such psychotherapy, developed in the United States, is alexithymia reduction treatment (ART) (Levant et al., 2009). The designers of the treatment argue that male socialisation leads men to develop fewer emotional skills, including being less able to identify and articulate their feelings. Some men may be, in other words, ‘alexithymic’, and most studies of nonclinical populations, at least, suggest that men tend to be more ‘alexithymic’ than women (Levant et al., 2006). As Levant et
9 Sullivan, L., Camic, P. & Brown, J. (2014). Masculinity, alexithymia and fear of intimacy as predictors of UK men’s attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help. British Journal of Health Psychology [Advance online publication]. doi:10.1111/bjhp.12089 Swami, V. (2012). Mental health literacy of depression. PloS ONE, 7(11),
e49779. UK Government (2012). Anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) statistics – England and Wales 2012. Available at tinyurl.com/nn95bj2 Yalom, I.V. (2005). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (5th edn). Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.
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al. (2009) note, alexithymia could be considered to be an aspect of ‘normative’ or traditional masculinity and as such poses a major barrier to men seeking therapy, getting benefits from therapy and achieving general relationship satisfaction. ART involves men being guided through in-session and homework exercises aimed at increasing their emotional skills. In a small pilot study, Levant et al. (2009) hypothesised that ART would lower scores on alexithymia, reduce endorsement of traditional masculine ideology and increase willingness to seek psychological help. There were six participants in the treatment group, aged 18–33 years, with an average age of 24. The six-session, manualised intervention included: (1) male emotion socialisation; (2) developing a vocabulary for emotions; (3)learning to read the emotions of others; (4) keeping an emotional response log; (5) practice; and (6) moving to deeper issues. The results were promising. The experimental group showed significant reductions in normative male alexithymia and in the endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology. The treatment as usual group did not show these changes.
However, neither group showed significant change in help-seeking. As Levant et al. (2009) admit, there were significant methodological limitations to their study over and above the small sample. Nevertheless, the fact that significant changes of this kind were found does hold some clinical promise for the future.
Conclusion Traditional models of mental healthcare, with their heavy and implicit reliance on
overt help-seeking and on individual faceto-face encounters involving direct emotional disclosure, can unintentionally present barriers to men. Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to provide and promote psychological interventions and services that, drawing on existing scientific and epidemiological evidence, tackle the stigma associated with helpseeking, engage men more effectively in treatment and, above all, at critical points in their existence, help men put life before death.
Roger Kingerlee is Principal Clinical Psychologist with the Norfolk and Suffolk Partnership Trust roger.kingerlee@nsft.nhs.uk
Luke Sullivan is Clinical Psychologist with the Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health Trust Luke@mensmindsmatter.com
Duncan Precious is Clinical Psychologist with the Royal Army Medical Corps at Catterick Garrison duncanprecious@hotmail.co .uk
John Barry is a Chartered Psychologist and Research Co-ordinator with the University College London Medical School john.barry@ucl.ac.uk
ACT for Young People
Build your skills to create extraordinary young lives 22 & 23 September 2014 | Central London location This two-day workshop will help you extend your ACT skills so you can use ACT experiential techniques confidently and dynamically with young people aged 12 to 24 years.
You will learn: How to use ACT principles while also considering the developmental stage of young people aged 12 to 24. We will focus on skills that are easily presented to a young person.
This is the workshop that will help you to have fun using ACT with young people.
• • •
Over two days we will introduce participants to many exercises that have been shown to work well with young people, and teach you how to approach ACT with young people. The workshop is fun and creative. We focus on getting experiential about ACT rather than talking at young people.
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Who is this for: This workshop is suitable for all professionals who work with young people,, including psychologists, counsellors, social workers, teachers etc.
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How to adapt the six core principles of ACT into exercises for young people Developmental considerations when using ACT techniques ACT ways of talking collaboratively with young people and creating an experiential space for behaviour change How to create your own ACT exercises for young people using readily available resources How to help young people connect mindfully in sessions How to create mindful exercises that young people can use at in their lives
Early bird rate: £199 (ends 3rd August) | Late rate: £239. For more details go to: www.contextualconsulting.co.uk
The Trainer: Louise Hayes, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, The University of Melbourne and Private Practice Louise is a world expert in ACT for young people and the co-author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into your Life for Teenagers: A Guide to Living an Extraordinary Life, the first ACT book for adolescents. Louise is an academic, clinical psychologist and peer reviewed ACT trainer. She has developed ACT with young people and found it is energising, engaging and makes therapy a shared journey in development. She completed one of the first research trials using ACT for adolescents, she has an active research program in schools, therapy settings, and online. Louise also works in private practice with young people. Find out more at www.actforadolescents.com or www.louisehayes.com.au
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Filming trauma Edgar Jones explores the making of an innovative film designed to show the treatment of soldiers suffering from shell shock
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National Hospital in Queen’s Square and Hurst at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley secured funding. The illustrations in his textbook, War Neuroses and Shell Shock, suggest that Frederick Mott at the Maudsley neurological wing may also have commissioned a film of patients. Pathé cameramen, based at their Wardour Street Studios, were contracted to shoot the films, though the subject matter and editing remained in the hands of the clinicians. At first, Hurst followed the pre-war
British Pathé
hell shock, the iconic illness of the First World War, has found an enduring place in British culture. The most dramatic representation of shell shock comes from the film War Neuroses, made by Arthur Hurst in 1917–18 (tinyurl.com/pm3zxqo: see also Jones, 2012). His depiction of the disorder through bizarre or disturbing movement disorders is repeatedly shown in television documentaries. So established have these images become that it is difficult to conceive of shell shock in terms other than distressing gaits, facial spasm and uncontrollable tremor. Yet recent research of random samples of case notes and war pension files showed that these presentations were untypical of the disorder (Jones & Wessely, 2005). Shell shock was characterised by an inability to function, fatigue, bodily aches and pains, together with cognitive deficits, nightmares and difficulty sleeping. So what were Hurst’s motives in making the film and the treatment claims?
convention of medical film: patients or body parts depicted against a plain background. These sequences were used to illustrate his lectures at Guy’s Hospital. As his knowledge of the medium developed, Hurst included shots of soldiers before and after treatment to demonstrate the effectiveness of his interventions (Shephard, 2000). Intertitles were used to provide patient histories and diagnostic terms, and most importantly to record the speed of cure. For example, Private Richards, shown with an abnormal gait at 2pm, was described as ‘cured’ by 3pm. Private Bradshaw who had suffered from functional paraplegia for 18 months, was ‘cured after a quarter of an hour’s suggestion and re-education’. Similarly, a ‘hysterical contracture of [the] hand persisting 35 months after [a] wound near elbow’ was apparently ‘cured after half an hour’s treatment’. In August 1918 Hurst and his deputy J.L.M. Symns declared in the Lancet, ‘we are now disappointed if complete recovery does not occur within 24 hours of
The making of a film
references
In the aftermath of the battle of the Somme, shell shock became a medical emergency. The scale of psychiatric casualties was such that it threatened to undermine the fighting strength of the British Expeditionary Force. In 1916 the Medical Research Committee (MRC) offered grants to doctors to film the disorder to aid research and promote successful treatments. Doctors at the
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Douthwaite, A.H. (1971). Selected writings of Sir Arthur Hurst. Medical History, 15(3), 314. Hurst, A.F. (1939). Treatment of psychological casualties during war. British Medical Journal, 2, 663. Hurst, A.F. (1941). Obituary T.A. Ross. British Medical Journal, 1, 463–464. Hurst, A.F. (1949). A twentieth century physician, being the reminiscences of Sir Arthur Hurst. London: Edward
Private Richards, shown with an abnormal gait at 2pm, was described as ‘cured’ by 3pm
Arnold. Hurst, A.F. & Symns, J.L.M. (1918). The rapid cure of hysterical symptoms in soldiers. Lancet, 2, 139–141. Jones, E. & Wessely, S. (2005). War syndromes: The impact of culture on medically unexplained symptoms. Medical History, 49, 55–78. Jones, E. (2012). War Neuroses and Arthur Hurst. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 67(3),
345–373. London, W.S. (1919). Seale Hayne Military Hospital, the wonders of neurology. War Pensions Gazette, 27, 335–336. Lumsden, T. (1918). Treatment of war neuroses. Lancet, 2, 219. Mott, F.W. (1918). War psycho-neurosis (I). Neurasthenia. Lancet, 1, 127–129. Ross, T.A. (1941). Lectures on war neuroses. London: Edward Arnold. Ross, T.A. (1944). Anxiety neuroses of war.
In A.F. Hurst (Ed.) Medical diseases of war (pp.149–174). London: Edward Arnold. Tippet, J.A. (1939). Psychological casualties in war. British Medical Journal, 2, 742. Shephard, B. (2000). A war of nerves. London: Jonathan Cape. Wright, M.B. (1939). Treatment of psychological casualties during war. British Medical Journal, 2, 615–617.
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commencing treatment, even in cases particularly concerned and visited Hurst which have been in other hospitals for at Seale Hayne. Myers thought that over a year’ (Hurst & Symns, 1918, Hurst’s team of doctors lacked clinical p.140). understanding and recommended that When Hurst transferred his patients Captain R.G. Gordon, a physician who from the shell-shock wards at Netley to had worked at Maghull, be transferred a newly built agricultural college at Seale there to give weekly lectures on Hayne, near Newton Abbot, not only did psychological medicine. he have greater autonomy but also wider So how was the film made? Recent opportunities to demonstrate the study has shown that some of the beforeeffectiveness of his methods. Recovered and-after sequences involved resoldiers were filmed undertaking enactment of symptoms (Jones, 2012). occupational therapy: cultivating fields, Sergeant Bissett, for example, was shown, picking fruit, looking after cattle and according to the caption in September poultry, basket making 1917, bent over, only able and firing pottery in a to hobble with the aid of kiln. Having been the two sticks. In the next “…in the case of functional director and producer scene, dated November nervous disorders, ‘cures of the film, Hurst shot 1917, he was shown were the result of faith a final sequence walking almost normally. and hope’” entitled ‘the Battle of However, the background Seale Hayne’, in which to both shots showed an his patients paraded in identical group of nurses and battledress with weapons and took part column of smoke coming out of the in mock combat complete with smoke chimneys of the distant huts. This bombs and a stretcher party. What had demonstrates that both episodes were begun as illustrative material for lectures filmed at the same time: Bissett had been ended as a mini movie designed to show asked to re-enact his movement disorder the rehabilitation of shell-shocked for the camera. servicemen. Hurst was consistently vague in his publications about treatments. A visit made by William London for the War Controversy Pensions Gazette in 1919 was no less By autumn 1917, when Hurst began illuminating. Apart from reporting the to experiment with the use of film, rapid cure of soldiers who were mute or considerable research had been conducted paralysed, nothing specific was written into shell shock and its treatment. Two about the nature of the treatment. Whilst centres of excellence existed: the the mystery can never be fully solved, Maudsley led by Frederick Mott and there is telling evidence. The timing of Maghull Red Cross Military Hospital the ‘cures’ in 1917–18 may explain why under R.G. Rows. Mott favoured a some cases of chronic invalidity improved science-based approach, whereas Maghull or recovered. ‘The best tonic’, Mott doctors drew inspiration from observed, could be offered from late 1917 anthropology and psychological texts. and was the assurance on admission that Each hospital had several years of ‘under the new system of [medical] accumulated expertise, and their doctors categories they cannot be found fit for were agreed that chronic or severe cases service for six months, and probably that invalided to the UK were difficult to treat. they [shell-shocked patients] will not be When Hurst published claims of dramatic sent on general service again’ (Mott, cures supported by film appearing to 1918, p.128). However, the assurance show their complete recovery, that the invalided soldier was unlikely experienced shell-shock doctors were to return to front-line service was taken aback. Hurst himself was a general increasingly broken as manpower physician with a pre-war interest in demands took precedence over individual neurology and so was considered soldiers’ well-being. something of a newcomer to the field. As hospitalised servicemen How could he have achieved these increasingly doubted the promises made remarkable results? Thomas Lumsden to them, the authorities surreptitiously wrote to the Lancet in August 1918 to introduced a further regulatory change suggest that a follow-up study be in spring 1918. Captain T.A. Ross, who undertaken at six months and a year to worked at Springfield War Hospital in establish whether the cures really were Wandsworth, recalled the visit of a permanent (Lumsden, 1918). Charles medical general to the shell-shock wards. Myers, appointed by the War Office to The officer authorised Ross to discharge oversee the management of psychiatric from the army as many functional patients in UK military hospitals, was nervous cases as he could, ‘though we
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must not say he said so’ (Ross, 1944, 169). By this time, the difficulty of returning chronic cases to full duty had been recognised and it was considered better to discharge them to productive employment and free their beds for the wounded. Interestingly, Ross’s account comes from a chapter in Hurst’s textbook, Medical Diseases of War. A likely explanation, therefore, is that Hurst was also offering to discharge soldiers if they said they felt better. Ross assured service patients that if they recovered ‘it was 100 to 1 that they would get out [of the army]. In marked contrast with previous cases, where I had not been able to say this, my arguments were grasped with ease and these patients soon got well’ (Ross, 1941, p.71). Writing an obituary for Ross, Hurst argued that a doctor had to convey a sense of conviction when proposing a treatment because, in the case of functional nervous disorders, ‘cures were the result of faith and hope’ (Hurst, 1941, p.463).
Impact of War Neuroses War Neuroses exercised a lasting impact – not only on representations of shell shock, but also raising expectations about the outcomes of treatment. The film appeared to provide conclusive evidence that Hurst’s interventions worked. On the outbreak of the Second World War and the prospect of an epidemic of psychiatric casualties, some doctors suggested that the film be shown again to avoid the chronic invalidity of the First World War. However, Maurice Wright challenged the value of rapid methods arguing that they led to ‘very frequent relapses’ (Wright, 1939, p.615). This prompted Hurst to write to the British Medical Journal in September to defend his claims: ‘our psychotherapy consisted of simple explanation, persuasion and re-education, and it almost invariably resulted in the complete disappearance at a single sitting of the hysterical symptoms even when they had been present for a year or more’ (Hurst, 1939, 663). Dr John Tippet, who had worked as a psychotherapist at specialist units set up by the Ministry of Pensions immediately after the war, questioned the permanence of rapid cures for chronic patients: ‘I worked in four different “shell-shock” hospitals, and relapsed Seale Hayne patients were admitted to all of them, and were generally found to have no insight into their condition’ (Tippet, 1939, p.742). Persuasion and re-education were standard treatments practised throughout the UK, but Hurst never provided an explanation as to why he was successful
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where others failed. Furthermore, he made no mention of the film in his 1949 autobiography. As well as funding War Neuroses, in 1918 the MRC provided clerical assistance to explore the ‘after-histories’ of
Hurst’s patients to establish how permanent the cures were. Whether this research was completed remains unclear, but the fact that no follow-up study was published fuelled the controversy surrounding the claims. British Pathé
Bissett had been asked to re-enact his movement disorder for the camera
After the war, Hurst returned to Guy’s Hospital where he built up a reputation as a gastroenterologist. Although a talented and charismatic physician, a long-time colleague, Arthur Douthwaite, observed one flaw in his personality: ‘his brilliant and versatile mind did not, however, include the power of critical appraisal of his sometimes hastily conceived theories’ (Douthwaite, 1971, p.314). Hurst had been precociously successful before the First World War and was aged 37 when put in charge of the neurology wards at Netley. Finding himself working on an important and high-profile disorder, his entrepreneurial flair was engaged, and once he had transferred to Seale Hayne there was no one to apply caution to his clinical ambition. However, Hurst may have learned a lesson from the shellshock episode as the treatment programmes he offered for peptic ulcer during the Second World War had a more measured and achievable quality. I Professor Edgar Jones is at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. edgar.jones@kcl.ac.uk
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