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psychologist vol 28 no 10
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Out of this world A special feature takes psychology into alien territory
letters 782 news 788 careers 840 looking back 816
what would you say to an alien? 800 psychology in deep space 804 eye on fiction: the alien in us all 808 close encounters 812
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Contact The British Psychological Society St Andrews House 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR 0116 254 9568 mail@bps.org.uk www.bps.org.uk
the psychologist... ...meets
The Psychologist www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.psychapp.co.uk psychologist@bps.org.uk tinyurl.com/thepsychomag @psychmag
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What would you say to an alien? Jon Sutton talks to Douglas Vakoch, clinical psychologist and Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
...features
Research Digest www.bps.org.uk/digest www.twitter.com/researchdigest
Psychology in deep space 804 Nick Kanas considers issues and countermeasures
Advertising Reach 50,000 psychologists at very reasonable rates. Display Aaron Hinchcliffe 020 7880 7661 aaron.hinchcliffe@redactive.co.uk Recruitment (in print and online at www.psychapp.co.uk) Giorgio Romano 020 7880 7556 giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk September 2015 issue 53,489 dispatched Printed by Warners Midlands plc on 100 per cent recycled paper. Please re-use or recycle. ISSN 0952-8229 © 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. The publishers have endeavoured to trace the copyright holders of all illustrations. If we have unwittingly infringed copyright, we will be pleased, on being satisfied as to the owner’s title, to pay an appropriate fee.
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Eye on fiction: The alien in us all 808 We asked for your favourite alien entity, and what their depiction says about our own psychology Close encounters of the psychological kind 812 Christopher C. French considers explanations of UFO sightings, alien encounters and even abductions
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...looks back Encountering extraterrestrial intelligence Albert Harrison looks to lessons from history
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7 years ago Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our archive, including (December 2008) ‘New horizons’
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, Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Matt Connolly Interviews Gail Kinman Reviews Kate Johnstone Viewpoints Catherine Loveday International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus
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the issue ...features New voices: The flat landscape Clementine Edwards considers emotional deficits in schizophrenia, in the latest of our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices)
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...reports news 788 Cheltenham Literature Festival; malnourishment; good childhood; hearing voices; A-level psychology; fear in organisations; psychological terms to avoid; and more society President’s column; what ‘good’ looks like for children; PsyPAG; and more
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...debates letters psychology’s non-stick frying pan: the debate continues; confidence intervals; ADHD; the real world column on ‘migrants’; and more
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...digests what happened when psychologists tried to replicate 100 previously published findings?; political skills in the workplace; what is it like to be a refugee with psychosis?; ‘interpersonal gazing’; and what do long distance runners think about?; in the latest from our free Research Digest (see www.bps.org.uk/digest) 794
...meets careers we meet Doyin Atewologun, and psychology graduate Melanthe Grand interviews her mother, Chartered Psychologist and novelist Voula Grand
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one on one with Jo Silvester, Professor of Organisational Psychology
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In 1948 British astronomer Fred Hoyle wrote: ‘Once a photograph of the earth, taken from outside, is available… a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.’ For some time I have wanted to lift The Psychologist free from earthly shackles, pausing to look back at our blue planet before forging ahead to the stars in search of powerful new ideas. This, finally, is an ‘out of this world’ issue. We meet a clinical psychologist who is Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Frankly, that would be enough. But we also have close encounters, aliens in fiction, psychology in deep space and lessons from historical hoaxes. This might be one of our more ‘out there’ editions, but I am convinced it’s grounded in serious and sensible science. I’m also hopeful you will humour me at https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ aliens-are-coming-look-busy – if we had credible warning of an imminent alien invasion, how would humanity – and psychologists – react? Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag
...reviews Oliver Sacks – an extraordinary life; the Wiley Handbook of Genius; How to Have a Better Brain; the Amazing World of M.C. Escher; People, Places and Things at the National Theatre; Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Uta Frith on her involvement with Horizon’s ‘A Monster in My Mind’; and more 850
The Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Phil Banyard, Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Peter Olusoga, Tony Wainwright, Peter Wright
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Big picture centre-page pull-out motion illusions in static patterns: images and words from research by Johannes Zanker
NEWS
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Inquisitive thinking at Cheltenham Alastair Campbell will be among the authors interviewed by eminent figures in psychology and neuroscience at BPSsupported events at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. We spoke to some of the speakers as well as the psychologists who will be interviewing them. Campbell, the former Director of Communications for Tony Blair, will be interviewed by Vincent Walsh (University College London) about his new book Winners and how they succeed. Campbell told The Psychologist that he had a great fascination with the workings of the human mind. He said he had been previously inspired after speaking with a psychiatrist at a National Theatre event. He said: ‘One of my favourite parts of the book actually came by chance from a similar kind of event when I shared a platform at the National Theatre with an American-Iranian psychiatrist called Alastair Campbell Nassir Ghaemi. We were there to talk about power and madness before a performance of King Lear, but he was fascinating about what in the book I describe as the positive side to what we would term mental illness. Those people and those qualities that sometimes drive them beyond what we would consider normal but in a way that does real good for the world. Churchill. Darwin. Lincoln. Martin Luther King. So who knows – maybe Vincent Walsh will end up in the paperback if he comes out with some interesting insights.’ Professor Walsh, who will also be interviewing journalist Matthew Syed in the same session, said he was hoping to ask both questions around the philosophy of winners – whether
they are born or made and what winning means in different contexts. He added: ‘I’ll be probing them both on specific examples they use in their books. I’ll ask what makes a winner, whether winning is always essential and how important it is to lose. I’ll also be talking about how people build resilience to deal with inevitable failures people meet with when they try and get the best out of themselves.’ Professor Kevin Dutton (University of Oxford), will be interviewing journalist Åsne Seierstad whose book One of Us explores Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer who killed 77 people in two terrorist attacks. Dutton said he was hoping to speak to Seierstad about several main areas, including a general view of who Anders Breivik is, whether he is sane, what triggered his murderous spree and what similarities he shows with other mass murderers. When asked what psychology can bring to such an event, Dutton said: ‘For a long time I’ve been of the opinion that us psychologists got on to the science of the brain pretty late. Right back to the Ancient Greeks and medieval poetry there’s Åsne Seierstad a lot of psychology there, but it’s just not written in a psychological form. We add a bit of science to insights which have already been put out there by the poets, writers and philosophers of yesteryear. In my chat with Åsne I hope to carry on that tradition, sit down together, work as a team and put science and art literature together and form an offender profile of sorts.’ Rory O’Connor (University of Glasgow) said he thought it was very important for those from the arts and sciences to come together at events such as the Cheltenham Literature Festival not only to share with each other but to reach the general public. He added: ‘If you work in an area like suicide
Understanding malnourishment A psychologist will be part of a team working in The Gambia to extend a project that was the first functional imaging study of infants in Africa. The longitudinal project named BRIGHT (BRain Imaging for Global HealTh) and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will look at whether malnutrition leads to atypical brain development and cognitive changes across the first two years of life. Sarah Lloyd-Fox, a Research Fellow at Birkbeck University of London’s Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, has spent much of her career optimising an imaging technique, fNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy), for the study of infant cognition. Recently her work has turned to the use and transportation of fNIRS into rural communities in the
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developing world. After a successful pilot project the multidisciplinary group, led by Professor Clare Elwell (UCL, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering), Dr Sophie Moore (Cambridge, Human Nutrition Research) and Dr Lloyd-Fox, will now follow 200 children in The Gambia from birth, using fNIRS and a multitude of cognitive tasks. The fNIRS technology to be used in The Gambia, and also on a control group of 50 infants in Cambridge, uses a headband that emits and detects noninvasive near infrared light. This light travels through the skin and skull, but is reflected differently depending on oxygen level, therefore brain activity, in that area. Dr Lloyd-Fox said: ‘It’s often said that the first 1000 days of an infant’s life, from conception, are the most important. This
work in The Gambia will allow us to see, from the earliest possible point, how these children develop and any deviations from normal developmental patterns. We don’t know whether malnutrition affects brain development in a global manner or whether some parts of the brain are susceptible to underdevelopment.’ Malnutrition before the age of two can have far-reaching effects, extending into adulthood. Dr Moore said: ‘Nutritional deficiencies in low-income countries impair the growth and development of
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and self-harm, it is vitally important that we go beyond our ivory towers to communicate the science, the evidence-based practice, and also dispel the many myths that exist, in my case, around suicide.’ Professor O’Connor will be interviewing journalist and author Matt Haig about his extraordinarily popular book Reasons to Stay Alive, which discusses his own personal experiences with suicidal thoughts and attempts. When asked what psychologists can bring to interviews with authors, O’Connor said: ‘As psychologists we try to understand mind and behaviour – so I’ll attempt to bring that inquisitive thinking to the interview. I’ll also take a life-course approach and explore the emergence of his mental health problems, the moment when, aged 24, he was on the brink of suicide, his subsequent recovery and his fear of becoming unwell again. As I was reading his book, lots of things struck me as interesting and intriguing, so hopefully some of the questions that I plan to ask will resonate with other readers at Cheltenham.’ ER I To find out more about the events at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, which runs from 2 to 11 October, see tinyurl.com/kwwsxlb
BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
children and contribute to almost half of all child deaths worldwide’. Of the 200 Gambian infants potentially involved with the study, Lloyd-
DBS checks and mental health Many people applying to work or volunteer with children or in health care face background checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS – previously CRB). A review last year raised concerns that irrelevant information about people being detained under the Mental Health Act was being released and having a negative impact on the employment prospects of such people. Now new guidelines call for a number of factors must be taken into account before an individual’s mental health crisis is revealed. The guidelines point out that detention by the police under the Mental Health Act ‘does not constitute a criminal investigation and should therefore be treated with great caution when considering relevance for disclosure’. They point out that if a person showed a risk of harming others during their detention this may be disclosed if it is relevant, and how long ago an incident happened should also be taken into account before including such information on criminal record certificates. If a mental health crisis is disclosed during a DBS check the Home Office guidelines recommend the certificate should give enough information as to why this may be relevant to the employer or voluntary organisation. Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, said having a mental health problem or having been detained under the Mental Health Act should not necessarily be a red flag in the case of DBS checks. However, he added, there was still room to go further: ‘For example, people should automatically be allowed to make representations about the current state of their mental health if concerns are raised. At the moment it is left to the discretion of the chief police officer to give someone that opportunity. In a society where stigma about mental ill health is still rife, we need all the checks and balances possible to negate any fears and preconceived ideas about the one in four of us who experience mental health problems every year.’ ER
Fox said up to 20 per cent could be severely malnourished. Therefore in the project they will be able to trace both typical and compromised development in these infants from birth. Brain activity during social cognition, attention and memory tasks will be measured with fNIRS along with functional connectivity to see how well the brain is communicating across regions. The families will also take part in a number of general behavioural cognitive tests and questionnaires to help the research group to understand the interplay between nutrition, brain function and other environmental factors. One of the benefits of fNIRS, Lloyd-
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Fox said, was that it allowed researchers to measure infant development in an objective manner, and to potentially look more closely at individual differences rather than global effects across groups. She will spend her time between the UK and The Gambia, while researchers at the Medical Research Council International Nutrition Unit in Keneba will carry out testing in the country. Principal investigator Professor Clare Elwell said: ‘Extending this work to a long-term study gives us a unique chance to understanding how infants are affected by growing up in extreme poverty and to guide interventions to give these children the best chance of healthy and productive lives.’ ER I For more information see the project website www.globalfnirs.org
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‘We can make changes – we just need to be brave’ A group of psychologists successfully walked 100 miles between Leicester and London to highlight the impact of austerity on mental health. Their journey caught the attention of both local and national media as well as many members of the general public. Dr Ste Weatherhead, who organised Walk the Talk, and his group visited food banks and homeless shelters along the route and collected the stories of those who had been hit hard by austerity measures and welfare reform. The group’s aim was to highlight three areas in particular: the benefits system, homelessness and food poverty, and at each of the food banks and shelters they visited they took video or audio recordings of people’s stories and how their mental health has been affected by such cuts. Along their route, Weatherhead said, he was struck by how their cause had caught the imagination of the general public as well as professionals, the media and politicians. He added: ‘We had lots of people stop us in the streets to say hi and make points of support for what we were doing. One lady met us at one of our scheduled stops and brought us cakes.
A guy came and said he wanted had affected him. He to join in but due to mobility added: ‘In the food banks problems he couldn’t walk far. and shelters we visited, However he did take our bags people were losing hope. in his car for 10 miles of the They said they didn’t think journey, this made such a huge the systems were going to difference to our energy and our change. They got some walking speed. hope from what we did.’ The group were interviewed He told the story of #w walkthe etalk2 2015 #walkthetalk2015 by The Guardian, the Mirror, one woman he met whose BBC Radio Leicester, BBC partner of 11 years had Northampton, and the BBC passed away: ‘Her mental World Service, as well as RT TV. health really suffered and she ended up Weatherhead said he was overwhelmed on the streets and needed benefits, but to be joined by dozens of supporters on I’ve heard so many times that there are the London section of their walk. simply too many hoops for people to He added: ‘As psychologists, our job jump through and they lose hope. is in part to show we are listening to what Speaking of the future, Weatherhead people are saying. Hitting the streets in added: ‘This isn’t about one person and this way, really did that. It took active one mission. Now we need other people, listening to a new level, and made us very professional bodies and organisations to visible in showing our connection with take new approaches, be brave and step important issues, our desire to be with outside their comfort zone in order to people in calling for change, our belief show they want to make a positive in the possibility of change, and our impact. We can make changes, we just willingness to actively make that change need to be brave.’ happen.’ To see the media coverage garnered by The stark reality of life for people the walk and to find out more about their using food banks and struggling with cause see their website their mental health, Weatherhead said, walkthetalk2015.org. ER
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If we are to care for individuals, we must care for society and promote social justice. Our actions, words and policies must hold psychological wellbeing at their centre.
Psychological health and wellbeing are largely dependent on social circumstances. We must reduce poverty and social inequality.
Seeking closure on ‘closure’ A list of 50 words and phrases to be avoided when writing about psychology was recently published, leading to much debate among academics and science journalists. The article, in Frontiers in Psychology, includes misleading terms, misused or ambiguous terms, oxymorons and pleonasms – where more words than necessary are used to convey meaning. The authors, who include Scott Lilienfeld, (Emory University), state the terms included should be avoided or used sparingly. They suggested that, as the field of psychology is often full of ambiguous terms and concepts, the use of language should be all the
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more rigorous and clear to limit potential misunderstanding. In the inaccurate or misleading terms section of the article, the authors warn against calling drugs such as SSRIs or tricyclics ‘antidepressant medication’. They write that there is no evidence to suggest these drugs are any more useful in the treatment of depression than for other conditions, including anxiety disorders or bulimia nervosa. Among the five ‘frequently misused terms’ listed is fetish. The authors suggest this should only be used, as initially intended, to describe sexual arousal from inanimate
objects or non-genital body parts and should not be used simply to describe general preferences for objects, ideas or people. Secondly, closure, they write, should be used in its original gestalt context as a way to describe a tendency to see incomplete figures as wholes rather than a feeling of resolution following trauma. The use of medical model is listed in the article’s ‘ambiguous terms’ section, as many authors who use it think it always means the same thing, although it has a huge number of possible meanings. For example, the authors write, it has been used to describe an emphasis on an underlying disease rather than
presenting signs or symptoms, the assumption that psychological issues are better treated with medication than psychotherapy and the belief that mentally ill people who act irresponsibly are not fully at fault for such behaviour. Although it may be argued that the changing usage of these words is part of the natural evolution of language, the authors do claim some terms are just plain wrong: for example, the term hierarchical stepwise regression when hierarchical and stepwise regression are entirely separate processes. They also suggest the use of the term biological and environmental influences is unnecessarily wordy when
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Not such a good childhood? Children in England show some of the lowest levels of happiness in England were more than twice as likely as boys to say they with their school lives, compared with 14 other countries were unhappy with their bodies, and perhaps surprisingly this surveyed by the Children’s Society. Bullying seems a particular gender difference was not found in many other countries. problem, with more than half a million 10- and 12-year-olds The Children’s Society have urged the government to make it having been physically bullied each month. a legal requirement for schools in England to provide counselling The Good Childhood Report surveyed 53,000 children aged to pupils to bring it in line with Wales and Northern Ireland. 10 and 12 in Algeria, Poland, England, Colombia, Turkey, Spain, ‘We would like to see independent and qualified counselling Estonia, Germany, Nepal, Norway, South Africa, Ethiopia, professionals available in all schools to support young people Romania, Israel and South Korea. with low wellbeing and those who have Children in England were found to be emotional needs. The provision of schoolunhappier with their school lives than based counselling should be flexible and those in 11 other countries – only faring should take into account local demand, better than children in Germany, South demographics and existing structures and Korea and Estonia. In terms of happiness services in the local area. Young people should with life in general, they only fared better also have the ability to self-refer to a school than those in South Korea. counsellor to make it easier for them to get This work, which marks a decade of help when they need it.’ the society’s work on children’s wellbeing Dr Sue Whitcombe, Communications Lead in collaboration with the University of for the British Psychological Society Division York, also found that more than a third of Counselling Psychology, has worked in (38 per cent) of 10- and 12-year-olds in schools with children, young people and The G ood C England had been physically bullied in school staff. She said the trends highlighted Repo hildhood rt 201 the last month, and half (50 per cent) had in the report were concerning, but added 5 felt excluded. Children in England who ‘they are unlikely to come as a surprise to were bullied frequently were six times those who work with children and young more likely to have low wellbeing in people on a daily basis’. Dr Whitcombe told general. us that although there is increasingly a focus As well as showing unhappiness with on programmes in schools to increase wellbeing, school life, the study showed that there were concerns among practitioners about children in England were notably dissatisfied with their delays and extended waiting times for therapy when referrals appearance and body confidence. Girls in England ranked are made to CAMHS services. She added: ‘It is important to grasp bottom in terms of happiness with their body confidence, that staff wellbeing is a key factor in whole school functioning appearance and self-confidence compared with girls in every and individual pupil experience. Some of our colleagues are now other country surveyed, with the exception of South Korea. Girls engaged to provide therapeutic support or professional supervision to staff in schools. Counselling psychologist colleagues are employed or contracted to provide a range of services for which our relational approaches and understanding of system dynamics are particularly beneficial.’ Chartered Psychologist Marc Smith, who is also a teacher and PhD student at the University of York, said in a blog for the environmental influences alone Huffington Post that during 10 years of teaching he had seen academic literature.’ encompasses all the effects on growing numbers of young people suffering anxiety and stress In reply to Bell’s article, a living being from the related to exam pressure. He added: ‘While we all want our Lilienfeld said the list was moment it is conceived. young people to do well, our measure of success is a rather not intended as a ‘ban list’ of Vaughan Bell, writing narrow one, being based almost entirely on exam grades… The terms, but as a guide to use on his Mindhacks blog, said: Children’s Society call for counselling to be more widely available them with more clarity. He ‘Some of the recommendations wrote: ‘We are lobbying for and programmes to promote positive mental health in schools are certainly laudable and positive steps… but as the emphasis are essentially based on the considerably greater clarity on high-stakes testing and material success increases, such premise that you “shouldn’t in the use of certain terms, interventions will need to run even faster to catch up.’ ER use the term except for how especially those that are often I For the full Good Childhood Report see: tinyurl.com/oynsee9; to it was first defined or defined used loosely or sloppily in the read Marc Smith’s Huffington Post blog see tinyurl.com/p6pyx8g where we think is the psychological and psychiatric and for his article on academic resilience in schools from The authoritative source”. This is literatures. When we suggest Psychologist see tinyurl.com/ovmjzwv just daft advice. Terms evolve “avoiding the use of a term,” we over time. Definitions shift typically mean avoiding the use and change. The article of that term in certain ways recommends against using and in certain contexts.’ ER Visit http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk for much more news, I The Frontiers article is at “fetish” except for in its including the latest on the American Psychological Association tinyurl.com/opyyb3x; DSM-5 definition, despite the stance on interrogation and a report from an event bringing Mindhacks and Lilienfeld fact this is different to how together psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioural therapy. response (in comments) it’s used commonly and how tinyurl.com/pxqnzkh it’s widely used in other The sub
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The well-bei Good Chi ldho ng of children od 201 5 in the UK
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Video games and aggression A report from a task force of the American Psychological Association has found that although violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players, there is insufficient evidence to link such games with actual criminal violence. The APA Task Force on Violent Media carried out a review of research literature published between 2005 and 2013, which included four meta-analyses that reviewed more than 150 research reports published before 2009. The group then conducted a systematic evidence review and a quantitative review of the literature published between 2009 and 2013. A consistent relationship was found between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behaviour, empathy and sensitivity to aggression. Mark Appelbaum, who chaired the task force, said in a statement that there was very limited research into whether these violent games lead to acts of criminal violence, while the link between violence in video games and increased aggression in players is well established.
AWARD FOR BULLYING RESEARCH Emeritus Professor Peter Smith (Goldsmiths, University of London) has been given an award for his extensive research on bullying. He has published numerous papers comparing the incidence and characteristics of bullying and cyberbullying across different countries in Europe and in Western and Asian countries. Smith received the William Thierry Preyer Award for Excellence in Research on Human Development at the European Conference for Developmental Psychology in Braga, Portugal.
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The report stated: ‘No single risk factor consistently leads a person to act aggressively or violently. Rather, it is the accumulation of risk factors that tends to lead to aggressive or violent behavior. The research reviewed here demonstrates that violent video game use is one such risk factor.’ In light of the group’s conclusions the APA has called on the industry to design video games that include increased parental control over the amount of violence the games contain. The APA’s Council of Representatives adopted a resolution at its meeting in Toronto to encourage the Entertainment Software Rating Board to refine its video game rating system to reflect the levels and characteristics of violence in games. The resolution also urged game developers to design games that are appropriate to users’ age and psychological development. The report pointed out limitations in the research, including a failure to look for any differences in outcomes between boys and girls who play violent video games; a lack of studies that have examined the effects of violent video game play on children younger than 10; and not enough research examining the games’ effects over the course of children’s development. Appelbaum added: ‘We know that there are numerous risk factors for
aggressive behaviour. What researchers need to do now is conduct studies that look at the effects of video game play in people at risk for aggression or violence due to a combination of risk factors. For example, how do depression or delinquency interact with violent video game use? While there is some variation among the individual studies, a strong and consistent general pattern has emerged from many years of research that provides confidence in our general conclusions.’ In 2013 around 230 media scholars, psychologists and criminologists signed an open letter to the APA expressing concern over the generalisation of findings in lab-based studies onto the general population, as well as the use of meta-analyses which can be misleading. They wrote: ‘As a simple matter, boys both consume more violent media and are more aggressive, so small correlations may reflect gender effects. Naturally, other variables may well explain small correlations as well. From our observation, considerable research data bears this belief out.’ ER I For Christopher Ferguson’s discussion in The Psychologist on whether video game violence is bad see tinyurl.com/ozupg5r; see tinyurl.com/nzmj3o4 for a news article from The Psychologist on the changing face of attitudes towards video games
It’s a jungle out there Fear within organisations has been in the news of late, following a New York Times exposé of online retailer Amazon’s treatment of its staff (tinyurl.com/o2vdvtf), and publication of a report, commissioned by employment law specialists Slater and Gordon, showing 37 per cent of 2000 people surveyed had experienced bullying at work (see tinyurl.com/ngqnxk5). But is fear in organisations a growing phenomenon, or are we simply more willing to speak out about these issues in our culture of online naming and shaming? And do psychologists have a role in tackling fear? Joan Kingsley, a consultant
clinical and organisational psychotherapist and author of The Fear-Free Organization: Vital Insights from Neuroscience to Transform your Business Culture, said: ‘It is easy to make assumptions that a business that promotes such high values on customer needs, such as Amazon, is following the same ethos with its employees. So readers were rather surprised to read about management tactics producing extreme levels of fear that are reportedly running rampant. The article vividly illustrates a bruising workplace culture, but unfortunately fear-based management strategies are the rule of the day in far too many organisations.’
Kingsley said that prior to labour laws workers had no bargaining power, compensation was low, hours were long, jobs were scarce and unemployment was high. She said: ‘Management styles may have evolved but what hasn’t changed is the use of fear by leaders and managers to keep order and to motivate. The use of fear as a management tool means a person’s energy is entirely diverted from thriving to surviving. Leaders and managers would do well to educate themselves and all employees about the devastating impact of fearbased strategies.’ Psychologists can help
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Boost for research A multidisciplinary, five-year project that aims to research and explore voice-hearing has received £2.75 million from the Wellcome Trust. Hearing the Voice involves experts from cognitive neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, English literature, theology and the medical humanities, led by psychologist Charles Fernyhough (Durham University). This funding is one of the first of the Trust’s Social Science Collaborative Awards; a second was given to the Centre for the History of the Emotions (Queen Mary, University of London). Hearing the Voice, which started in 2012, will now be expanded to help the research team continue their work with local clinicians, mental health professionals, voice-hearers and other ‘experts by experience’. Professor Fernyhough said the group’s research so far had revealed voice-hearing to be a complex, varied experience with rich significances across cultures and historical periods. He said of the future of the project: ‘We’ll be asking about the varied sensory experiences that accompany voice-hearing and how they help us to understand it as a communicative act. We’re looking at how voices relate to autobiographical memory, imagination and creativity, and continuing with our examination of the links between voice-hearing
individuals to deal with stress, anxiety and fear, but can they also help managers to learn about the role emotions play in day-to-day life at the office? Kingsley concluded: ‘Leaders and managers who are emotionally savvy develop insight. Empathy for others is built on knowing oneself. Empathic leadership will have zero tolerance for bullying, aggression and undermining behaviours.’ Dr Sheila Keegan, a Chartered Psychologist and author of The Psychology of Fear in Organisations, said that although fear had always been a factor in organisations, there was strong evidence that levels of fear, across the globe had
and inner speech, including pioneering new approaches to studying their neural bases.’ On the collaboration between such a diverse group of researchers, Fernyhough said the thing that helped them work together was their drive towards the same end – to understand voicehearing by speaking to people who have experienced it. He said the funding would be essential in helping the group engage with the public. ‘A big part of our work involves trying to change perceptions about voice-hearing and reduce the stigma associated with it. In the next five years we will be working on major exhibitions, publications and artistic initiatives that will, we hope, help to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions that surround hearing voices,’ he said. Dan O’Connor, Head of Humanities and Social Science at the Wellcome Trust, added: ‘We are absolutely delighted to be able to support these two genuinely innovative and exciting research visions. These are some of the largest research awards ever made to the humanities in the UK, almost unique in their scale and scope. Both hold out the promise of making genuinely ground breaking changes in both our understanding of, and approaches to, the diverse spectrum of human experience.’ ER
increased considerably. She added: ‘There are many reasons posited for this, including job insecurity, zero-hours contracts, rapid turnaround of staff and undercutting by foreign workers.’ Keegan said the key to tackling fear was for organisations to develop greater levels of trust throughout the whole company. She added: ‘This is not an easy task, especially where suspicion between senior managers and other groups of staff has been built up over years. It may involve encouraging a staff member to embark on a project they are particularly enthused by,
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in the knowledge that the outcome may not be positive, but the staff member has learnt a great deal of general information and learning en route.’ According to Keegan, many organisations deal with their staff in mechanistic ways. ‘For example, senior managers are removed from workers on the floor with limited connections between staff in different departments. Building trust and connection helps to build strong, self-sufficient workforces. There is a good deal of scope for psychologists within organisations, working at senior levels to help build resilience, empathy and group cohesion.’ ER
A-LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY The number of young people studying psychology at AS- and A-level has increased, while there has been a 10 per cent drop in entrants for Scottish Highers in the subject. After a small decrease in psychology at AS- and A-level last year, in 2015 there was a 4 per cent increase in those taking A-level (the total was 57,014) and a 2 per cent increase in those taking AS-level
psychology this year (up to 103,476). The pass rate for both has also increased from last year, reaching 71 per cent achieving A* to C at A-level and 53.7 per cent achieving the same at AS-level. Psychology is still the fourth most popular A-level behind maths, English and biology, but candidate numbers in chemistry and history both continue to rise. In Scotland there was a 10 per cent decrease in students taking a psychology Scottish Higher, from 3479 to 3175, the pass rate also decreased by 1 per cent to 74 per cent. BPS Policy Advisor for Psychology Education, Kelly Auty, said: ‘The overall trend of a growth in the numbers of students taking psychology at pre-tertiary level is encouraging, although the situation in Scotland is obviously a cause for concern and we will be looking at factors that may be influencing that. The next issue the Society will be keeping a watching brief on is the implementation of A-level reform and whether the decoupling of AS- from A-level will have an impact on psychology.’
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When psychologists tried to replicate 100 previously published findings After some high-profile and at times acrimonious failures to replicate past landmark findings, psychology as a discipline and scientific community has led the way in trying to find out more about why some scientific findings reproduce and others don’t, including instituting reporting practices to improve the reliability of future results. Much of this endeavour is thanks to the Center for Open Science, co-founded by the University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek. In August the Center published its latest large-scale project: an attempt by 270 psychologists to replicate findings from 100 psychology studies published in 2008 in three prestigious journals that cover cognitive and social psychology: Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. The Reproducibility Project is designed to estimate the ‘reproducibility’ of psychological findings and complements the
In Science To hear about what it was like to take part in the project, and for links to further coverage, see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ reproducibility-project-disaster-or-triumph-psychology
Many Labs Replication Project, which published its initial results last year. The new effort aimed to replicate many different prior results to try to establish the distinguishing features of replicable versus unreliable findings – in this sense it was broad and shallow and looking for general rules that apply across the fields studied. By contrast, the Many Labs Project involved many different teams all attempting to replicate a smaller number of past findings – in that sense it was narrow and deep, providing more detailed insights into specific psychological phenomena. The headline result from the new Reproducibility Project report is that whereas 97 per cent of the original results showed a statistically significant effect, this was reproduced in only 36 per cent of the replication attempts. Some replications found the opposite effect to the one they were trying to recreate. This is despite the fact that the Project went to great lengths to make the replication attempts true to the original studies, including consulting with the original authors.
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Just because a finding doesn’t replicate doesn’t mean the original result was false – there are many possible reasons for a replication failure, including unknown or unavoidable deviations from the original methodology. Overall, however, the results of the Project are likely indications of the biases that researchers and journals show towards producing and publishing positive findings. For example, a survey published a few years ago revealed the questionable practices many researchers use to achieve positive results, and it’s well known that journals are less likely to publish negative results. The Project found that studies that initially reported weaker or more surprising results were less likely to replicate. In contrast, the expertise of the original research team or replication research team was not related to the chances of replication success. Meanwhile, social psychology replications were less than half as likely to achieve a significant finding compared with cognitive psychology replication attempts, but in terms of declines in size of effect both fields showed the same average reduction from original study to replication attempt, to less than half (cognitive psychology studies started out with larger effects, and this is why more of the replications in this area retained statistical significance). Among the studies that failed to replicate was research on loneliness increasing supernatural beliefs; on conceptual fluency increasing a preference for concrete descriptions (e.g. if I prime you with the name of a city, that increases your conceptual fluency for the city, which supposedly makes you prefer concrete descriptions of that city); and links between people’s racial prejudice and their response times to pictures showing people from different ethnic groups alongside guns. A full list of the findings that the researchers attempted to replicate can be found on the Reproducibility Project website (as can all the data and replication analyses: see https://osf.io/ezcuj). This may sound like a disappointing development for psychology, but in fact really the opposite is true. Through the Reproducibility Project, psychology and psychologists are blazing a trail, helping shed light on a problem that afflicts all of science, not just psychology. The Project, which was backed by the Association for Psychological Science (publisher of the journal Psychological Science), is a model of constructive collaboration showing how original authors and the authors of replication attempts can work together to further their field. In fact, some investigators on the Project were in the position of being both an original author and a replication researcher. ‘The present results suggest there is room to improve reproducibility in psychology,’ the authors of the Reproducibility Project concluded. But they added: ‘Any temptation to interpret these results as a defeat for psychology, or science more generally, must contend with the fact that this project demonstrates science behaving as it should’ – that is, being constantly sceptical of its own explanatory claims and striving for improvement. ‘This isn’t a pessimistic story’, added Brian Nosek in a press conference for the new results. ‘The project shows science demonstrating an essential quality, self-correction – a community of researchers volunteered their time to contribute to a large project for which they would receive little individual credit.’ CJ
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Having strong political skills can be a drawback in the workplace
What is it like to be a refugee with psychosis? In Psychosis
In Journal of Applied Psychology We’re in the midst of a ‘migrant crisis’ as tens of thousands of brave, desperate people seek new lives in Europe, risking life and limb to get here. Amidst the tragedy and controversy, the continued plight of those people who actually make it to relative safety is often forgotten. Unsurprisingly, given all they’ve endured, refugees often have serious mental health problems, including hallucinations. As an indicator, research published in 2011 reported that 80 per cent of 130 young Somali refugees surveyed in Minnesota had symptoms of psychosis. Now a timely, heart-rending study published in Psychosis has reported the results of in-depth interviews with seven African refugees or asylum seekers in the UK (aged 26 to 43; one woman), all of whom reported experiencing symptoms of psychosis. The researchers’ aim was to gain insight into the ‘lived experience’ of their participants. This is the first time the firsthand perspective of refugees with psychosis has been documented. ‘Such information is crucial for understanding and working with such clients,’ the researchers said. Clinical psychologist John Rhodes and his colleagues analysed the interview transcripts and identified six key, recurring themes in their participants’ accounts. The first was bleak agitated immobility – the participants’ sense that their lives were going nowhere. One participant likened the feeling to being in a never-ending race. Similarly, Amine (aged 43) said: ‘I feel like I’m finished. There’s no life, there's no future, there’s no anything any more. I think everything is going to become like darkness.’ The second theme was trauma-related voices and visions. These tended to be the sounds or sights of lost relatives or attackers from the past. Belvie (aged 30, female) heard voices of a past torturer, and
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the torture itself also had a voice: ‘Some voice I have it’s like from the past. But some of them are not from the past. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s like a voice of the thing that was done to me when I was back home, when I was tortured. Sometimes I hear the voice of that person.’ Reflecting on the nature of such symptoms, the researchers see them as distinct from the flashbacks associated with post-traumatic stress (PTSD). ‘The traumarelated intrusions did not appear to be relived experiences in the classic “PTSD” sense,’ they explained, ‘but rather to be engrossing and believable perceptions “flavoured” by past trauma.’ Such experiences do not fit well with conventional Western psychiatric categories, they argued. Rather than interpreting their participants’ Calais refugee camp hallucinations as indicative of schizophrenia or PTSD, they suggest a neutral description: ‘complex trauma with perceptual disturbance’. The participants also described their powerful feelings of fear and mistrust. Belvie feared a man on a bus was planning to kill her just because he looked at her. All the participants also had a sense of a broken self. ‘My emotional state has changed and my personality has changed… I really haven’t been alright,’ said Frederic (aged 39). They also described the pain of losing everything. ‘The degree of loss for these participants is difficult for us to understand,’ the researchers said. ‘They have lost their worlds. A new location or role does not replace “home”, that place of familiarity and warmth.’ Consistent with
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If you overheard someone at work refer to you as ‘a real political operator’, would you feel complimented, or alarmed? The latter turns out to be a sensible reaction, as new research suggests that supervisors and colleagues have less faith in the performance of the highly politically skilled. Study authors Ingo Zettler and Jonas Lang noted a conundrum in their field: researchers treat political skill as a uniform good, the more the better, yet a metaanalysis found a spotty relationship between more political skill and improved outcomes like job performance. Might deft politicking, however well intentioned, create suspicions in co-workers? Once others lose trust in a politically focused performer, their ability to get things done is stymied. Or perhaps habitually working the angles leads highly skilled individuals to make like Machiavelli and potentially do harm. Zettler and Lang predicted that thanks to these reasons, those who live and breathe political approaches would actually do worse at their jobs compared with those merely competent in political skill. This prediction was confirmed in two studies. The first, involving on-the-job apprentices, found that the relationship between selfratings of political skill and supervisors’ ratings of their job performance was positively correlated, but only up to a point. Beyond a political skill score of 3.5 on a five-point scale, supervisor ratings flatlined and then began dropping. The second study found the same overall pattern in employees with longer work experience, each rated by a supervisor and also a colleague. This study also found that this ‘curvilinear relationship’ between political skill and job performance (whereby intermediates in political skill outperformed low- and high-skilled participants) – was most pronounced when the rater was not personally close to the participant. Savviness and bluntness alike can be forgiven by close colleagues – ‘that’s just how Chris gets things done’ – but others are less trusting. These are cross-sectional studies, so we can’t confirm cause and effect. And we should also take into account that political skill is judged quite differently in people in other parts of an organisation that weren’t studied here, such as in leadership circles. But this research is a preliminary validation of a new idea gaining currency in organisational research – that you can have ‘too much of a good thing’ – that even traits considered universally positive can in excess have negative consequences. AF
The material in this section is taken from the Society’s Research Digest blog at www.bps.org.uk/digest, and is written by its editor Dr Christian Jarrett and contributor Dr Alex Fradera. Visit the blog for full coverage, additional current reports, an archive, comment, our brand new podcast, and to book your place at our blog’s 10th birthday party, on 9 December in London. Only a few places remaining! Subscribe to the fortnightly e-mail, friend, follow and more via www.bps.org.uk/digest
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this, many of the painful feelings described by the interviewees, such as there being no future, were the same regardless of whether they’d be granted asylum (as four of them had) or whether they were still waiting to hear about their status. The final theme concerned the attraction of death. Several of the participants described past suicide attempts and the unbearable strain of life. ‘The worst part,’ said Sando (aged 26), ‘is I keep harming myself… and you know knocking my head to the wall, kinda too much stuff in there, you know, I just want to open my head and finish with this.’ Yet, the participants also expressed optimism. The researchers described the participants’ wish to die ‘held in tension with their wish to live and build a purposeful and worthwhile life’. This final theme is important for clinical services, the researchers said, which ‘need to recognise that while many [refugees] speak of building a new life, there is an attraction to suicide as escape’. CJ
Weird things start to happen when you stare into someone’s eyes for 10 minutes In Psychiatry Research A psychologist based in Italy says he has found a simple way to induce in healthy people an altered state of consciousness – simply get two individuals to look into each other’s eyes for 10 minutes while they are sitting in a dimly lit room. The sensations that ensue resemble mild ‘dissociation’ – a rather vague psychological term for when people lose their normal connection with reality. It can include feeling like the world is unreal, memory loss, and odd perceptual experiences, such as seeing the world in black and white. Giovanni Caputo recruited 20 young adults (15 women) to form pairs. Each pair sat in chairs opposite each other, one metre apart, in a large, dimly lit room. Specifically, the lighting level was 0.8 lx, which Caputo says ‘allowed detailed perception of the fine face traits but attenuated colour
LINK FEAST How Reliable Are Psychology Studies? Findings from the Reproducibility Project have sent shockwaves through psychology. At The Atlantic, Ed Yong provides commentary and reflection. www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/08/psychology-studies-reliabilityreproducability-nosek/402466 On My Radar: Steven Pinker’s Cultural Highlights The psychologist and popular science author on data graphics, spectacular planet photography and the ambitious comedy of Amy Schumer. www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/aug/23/on-my-radar-steven-pinkerpsychologist-author How to Have a Better Brain New BBC Radio 4 series of short programmes on ways to look after the health of your brain. See reviews (p.850) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067gcj6 What It’s Like to Have ADHD As a Grown Woman ‘Having ADHD is challenging regardless of gender but in a world predisposed to undermining women, not having your shit together can feel like a dereliction of feminine duty,’ writes Rae Jacobson at NY Mag's The Cut. http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/what-its-like-to-have-adhd-as-a-grownwoman.html Identity Is Lost Without a Moral Compass ‘Research on neurodegenerative diseases suggests that, more than anything else, moral traits like kindness and integrity define who we are,’ writes Nathan Collins at the Pacific Standard. www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/identity-is-lost-without-a-moral-compass How Autistic People Helped Shape the Modern World Carl Zimmer interviews Steve Silberman for WIRED about his new book, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. www.wired.com/2015/08/neurotribes-with-steve-silberman
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perception’. The participants’ task was simply to stare into each other's eyes for 10 minutes, all the while maintaining a neutral facial expression. A control group also sat in a dimly lit room in pairs, but their chairs faced the wall and they stared at the wall. Beforehand both groups were told that the study was going to involve a ‘meditative experience with eyes open’. When the 10 minutes were over the participants filled out three questionnaires: the first was an 18-item test of dissociative states; the other two asked questions about their experience of the other person’s face (or their own face in the control group). The participants in the eye-staring group said they’d had a compelling experience unlike anything they’d felt before. They also scored higher on all three questionnaires than the control group. On the dissociative states test, they gave the strongest ratings to items related to reduced colour intensity, sounds seeming quieter or louder than expected, becoming spaced out, and time seeming to drag on. On the strange-face questionnaire, 90 per cent of the eye-staring group agreed that they’d seen some deformed facial traits, 75 per cent said they’d seen a monster, 50 per cent said they saw aspects of their own face in their partner’s face, and 15 per cent said they’d seen a relative’s face. Caputo thinks the facial hallucinations are a kind of rebound effect, as the participants in the eye-staring group returned to ‘reality’ after dissociating. This is largely speculation and he admits that the study should be considered preliminary. I’d also highlight that while it’s true the eyestaring group scored higher than controls on dissociative states, they didn’t score any of the items on the scale higher than 2.45, on average, on a five-point scale (where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 5 would be ‘extremely’). We don’t know what the crucial elements of the eye-staring exercise were for inducing the described effects (nor why they had these effects). We can infer that low lighting was not the only important element because the control group sat in the same dim room. Other clues come from prior research finding that simply staring at a dot on the wall for a prolonged duration can induce dissociative-like states, as can staring at one’s own face in the mirror. However, comparing the questionnaire scores in the current study with those reported in his past research, Caputo says that what he calls ‘interpersonal gazing’ has a more powerful dissociative effect than staring into a mirror. CJ
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What do long-distance runners think about? In International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology Marathon runners are on the road for hours at a time, what on earth goes through their minds? Past investigations have relied on asking runners to remember what they were thinking, but of course that is an unreliable method. Now Ashley Samson and her team have conducted the first ever ‘think aloud’ investigation of longdistance runners, which involves them verbalising ‘everything that passes through your head’. The researchers recruited 10 amateur long-distance runners (four women) with an average age of 41, all with a habit of running long-distance at least three times a week. All were in training for a halfmarathon or longer distance. The runners were given some practice recording their thoughts while on a treadmill. Then they were given the equipment and asked to record their thoughts while out on a real run of at least seven miles. The researchers ended up with over 18 hours of recordings to analyse, with the runners’ thoughts falling into three distinct categories. The majority (40 per cent) of thoughts pertained to pace and distance, showing just how important it is even in a non-competition context for long-distance runners to continually calculate their optimum speed, considering their energy levels and the distance left to cover. This category included thoughts to do with monitoring pace (e.g. ‘downhill, don’t kill yourself, just cruise’); strategies to maintain pace, such as correcting form (e.g. ‘lean and steady, make it a long stride, lean and steady’); and thoughts about altering pace (e.g. ‘6.50 mile that’s alright ... 2 miles to go ... 6.20 that's better’). Making up 32 per cent of all thoughts, the next major category was, perhaps unsurprisingly, pain and discomfort. This included thoughts about injuries (e.g. ‘My hips are a little tight. I’m stiff, my feet, my ankles, just
killing me this morning’); about the causes of pain and discomfort (e.g. ‘Hill, you’re a bitch ... it's long and hot’); and thoughts about coping, including motivational strategies (e.g. ‘neck and shoulder relax’; ‘that sucked but it’s going to be an awesome run on the way back’). The final category, making up 28 per cent of all thoughts, pertained to thoughts directed outwards to the environment. This included thoughts about geography, especially those nasty hills, and the weather (e.g. ‘I need it to start raining’); admiration for scenery (e.g. ‘it's so beautiful, the ocean, the mountains’); thoughts about wildlife (e.g. ‘hope I don’t see any snakes’), and finally, thoughts about traffic and other runners and cyclists (e.g. ‘this is such a fucking busy street. I hate it’; ‘ton of bikes out now ... I've been passed by 20 of them’). If you were wondering whether long-distance runners use the time to solve life’s dilemmas – relationship troubles or metaphysical conundrums, say – it seems not, at least not in this sample of runners anyway. They’re too busy focusing on their performance, bodily sensations and surroundings. Of course, it’s likely the participants censored some of their thoughts, so we can’t know for sure. This is the first time longdistance runners’ thoughts have been recorded live, and the researchers said there were some specific insights that could be useful to sports psychologists. For example, they noted that nearly all the runners recorded thoughts near the beginning of the run that suggested they were finding it difficult, but things nearly always seemed to get easier as the run progressed. From a practical perspective, it would be interesting if future research using this methodology could identify specific thoughts or thought styles that tend to correlate with better pacing and performance. CJ
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DIGEST DIGESTED Full reports are available at www.bps.org.uk/digest You might want to avoid pulling a ‘duck face’ the next time you take a selfie. Research with users of the Chinese Sina Weibo microblogging website found that people who posed with their lips pouted in this exaggerated fashion were judged to be more neurotic and less conscientious than others. Computers in Human Behavior People who think they have expert knowledge in a given field are particularly prone to ‘over-claiming’ in that area – that is, saying they are familiar with impossible words or concepts that don’t really exist. Psychological Science A comparison of five-month-olds’ sitting ability across six cultures revealed some striking differences. For example, none of the Italian infants studied showed independent sitting compared with 92 per cent of the Cameroonian infants. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology Free personality tests based on the Big Five factors of personality are more reliable than proprietary versions. That’s according to an assessment of the tests’ ‘internal consistency’. Researchers say the reason could be that users of paid-for tests are usually prohibited from changing them, thus preventing any chance of refinement. Journal of Psychology Gay people’s ‘coming out’ experiences are related to their psychological wellbeing 10 or more years later. Specifically, participants who recalled more negative reactions from a friend or family member tended to be less happy in the present day, an association that was mediated by their having weaker feelings of autonomy in their relationship with that person. Self and Identity Taking part in a brain-scan experiment appears to change how children think about brains and minds. Eight-year-old children who’d had their own brain scanned two years earlier were more likely than controls to say that dreaming and imagination require both the mind and the brain. Trends in Neuroscience and Education Teenagers are the most prolific liars, while young adults (aged 18 to 29) are the most skilled. That’s according to a test and survey conducted with members of the public aged up to 77 years who visited a science museum in Amsterdam. Acta Psychologica
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What would you say to an alien? Jon Sutton talks to Douglas Vakoch, clinical psychologist and Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
ou’re the only social scientist Y employed by a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) organisation. Your job title is ‘Director of Interstellar Message Composition’. That has to be both the coolest and oddest role I have ever heard of. It’s interesting, the whole venture is a leap that many psychologists will feel very uncomfortable with. Since psychology separated from philosophy at the end of the 19th century, we have prided ourselves in being an empirical science. What could be less empirical than speculation about the nature of an extraterrestrial intelligence that we do not even know exists? And yet, I would argue, the contributions of psychologists can help provide a foundation that substantially increases the chances that SETI scientists can find and ultimately even communicate with intelligent life in the cosmos, if in fact it exists.
reading
I imagine that so far the search has been dominated by astronomers, computer scientists, engineers? Yes, but other disciplines have made a growing contribution, particularly archaeologists and anthropologists, perhaps because their mindset matches that of the SETI scientist. Like astronomers who attempt to find, reconstruct and understand other civilisations distant from us in space, archaeologists piece together temporally distant civilisations and their lost
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languages and cultures. Similarly, anthropologists are trained to encounter radically different cultures and perspectives – that’s the kind of openness required of astronomers searching for intelligence of a form they cannot quite imagine.
was the third, consisting of those who believed that extraterrestrial life may well exist, but who doubted that UFOs provide evidence of them. These respondents Bainbridge labelled ‘allopatrists’, drawing on a term from population genetics to refer to gene pools that are geographically separated. These questionnaire-takers seemed aware of the immense distance between stars, and thus the unlikelihood of face-to-face contact, but kept open the prospects of intelligence somewhere. Allopatrists were less religious than average, and whereas less than half of ufophiles had graduated from college, over 70 per cent of allopatrists had.
Is that kind of information any practical use to you in your role? Most past studies of beliefs about extraterrestrial life have focused on UFOs, which makes their results less relevant for And psychology is well placed to contact at interstellar distance. In join in? standard SETI scenarios, civilisations are Yes. Consider the expertise of separated by trillions of miles, providing psychologists, not the labels by which a buffer that can shield respondents from the work we need to do is categorised. fears of the impact of direct alien contact. I don’t artificially separate But some research, relevant work of other for example by scholars because their PhDs Pettinico, posited “What if aliens are like are in sociology or cognitive contact through cats – they know we’re science or musicology, a signal sent at here, they don’t care?” rather than psychology… interstellar distances. I just ask that psychologists Educational level collectively ask what their predicted likely response profession can contribute to a broader to detection: those with a college understanding of life in the cosmos. education were two and a half times less likely to say they would be afraid and I firmly believe intelligent life is out nervous than were those with a high there, but I am very sceptical that it school degree or less. Among those who has visited us. Is that a common view already believed that life beyond Earth is amongst scientists? likely to exist, fully 90 per cent would Well, that’s interesting. A survey by advocate sending a reply. So studies like Bainbridge a few years ago suggested this help us anticipate who will be in three groups. ‘Geocentrists’ rejected the favour of sending a reply to possibility of either extraterrestrial extraterrestrials, and who will be intelligence on distant planets or as opposed. visitors to Earth. The ‘ufophiles’ thought So if we do respond, you’re the guy UFOs were from other planets, and thus, that speaks for Earth? Tough gig! also believed that other planets must be Yes, and in fact Pettinico’s survey revealed populated. The most interesting group
To find out more and to watch Doug’s TEDx talk ‘What would you say to an extraterrestrial?’, see www.seti.org/users/douglas-vakoch Vakoch, D.A. & Dowd, M.F. (Eds.) (2015). The Drake equation: Estimating the prevalence of extraterrestrial life through the ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vakoch, D.A. (Ed.) (2014). Archaeology, anthropology, and interstellar communication. Washington, DC: NASA. Vakoch, D.A. (Ed.) (2014). Extraterrestrial altruism: Evolution and ethics in the cosmos. Heidelberg: Springer. Vakoch, D.A., Lower, T.A., Niles, B.A. et al. (2013). What should we say to
extraterrestrial intelligence? An analysis of responses to ‘Earth Speaks’. Acta Astronautica, 86, 136–148. Vakoch, D.A. & Harrison, A.H. (Eds.) (2011). Civilizations beyond earth: Extraterrestrial life and society. New York: Berghahn Books. Vakoch, D.A. (2011). A narratological approach to interpreting and designing interstellar messages. Acta Astronautica, 68, 520–534. Vakoch, D.A. (2011). What does it mean to be human? Reflections on the portrayal of pain in interstellar messages. Acta Astronautica, 68, 445–450. Baird, J. (1982). Human pattern detection and recognition in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 20(2), 74–76.
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something else interesting about that. Only half of the respondents answered positively to the question ‘If beings from another planet sent a message to us through deep space, do you think we would be able to figure out what they were saying?’. When SETI first began, its proponents typically held hope that mathematics and science would provide a universal language, capable of bridging the gap between civilisations. More recent scholarship is sympathetic to the many challenges that must be overcome to create an intelligible message.
extraterrestrials is not simply to tell them about ourselves, but to teach them something new, it could be in our approach to death that we have the most to teach. Such a species, with replaceable parts, may cease to comprehend death – or at least, to treat it very different than does a species with an expected lifetime of less than a century. The dread of an existential psychologist comes to the fore… Since Freud we have become accustomed to psychologists helping us get in touch with aspects of ourselves we have sealed off. Within the realm of clinical psychology, we continue to focus on the hidden, the obscured, even as we shift from the more mechanistic models of cognitive psychology. An alien species may find our unacceptable beliefs and desires as fascinating as we psychologists always have. SETH SHOSTAK
Setting that considerable challenge aside for a moment, what kind of things would we say? Most often messages to extraterrestrial audiences have focused on human strengths. Take the Voyager spacecraft’s interstellar message – in over 100 pictures of life on Earth, with an emphasis on human presence, there were no depictions of war, poverty or disease. But it is precisely an emphasis on our vulnerabilities that may be of most interest to extraterrestrials. We will not be the most intelligent beings in the galaxy, if we make contact. Humans have had the capacity to communicate with radio for less than a century – a blip in the 13-billion-year history of our galaxy. If extraterrestrial civilisations seeking contact are comparably young technologically, the chances that their century of communicability and that of humankind will coincide are nil. The only way we will make contact, on purely statistical grounds, is if extraterrestrials have been around much longer than humankind. Perhaps it is not the beauty of our symphonies that will set us apart from extraterrestrials, nor our moral perfection – living true to our ideals of altruism. If we wish to convey what it is about us that is distinctive, it may be our weakness, our fears, our unknowing – and yet a willingness to forge ahead to attempt contact in spite of this. Perhaps we will be the intelligent species that has the most exquisite balance of joy and sorrow of any civilisation in the Milky Way. And it is the fundamental facts of human existence such as these that might best be explained to other civilisations, and here that psychology may be of greatest help.
So all you need to do is get agreement on the fundamentals of human existence! I know, easy, right?! Many SETI scientists have assumed that we should speak as one Earth. Consider, for example, the New Horizons Message Initiative, called One World. But in truth, we humans inhabit many different worlds. And whereas many subfields of psychology seek to identify truths that hold across cultures, others place an emphasis on the diversity of our experience and understanding. But the fundamental point here is that I’m suggesting a big shift in what we look to communicate. The usual presupposition is that the best possibility
for a language to be understood by extraterrestrials is one of based on maths and science. Those are the prerequisites to creating the technologies needed for interstellar communication. But if we only explain what we and the extraterrestrials already have in common, what’s the point? Once we have communicated basic principles of mathematics, physics, and chemistry, how might we go on to talk about what makes us distinctively human? Isn’t it endlessly more fascinating to consider how we might portray an aspect of our species that may seem quintessentially human – our sense of beauty, say? Perhaps we would look to communicate the Fibonacci sequence, how certain proportions are deemed beautiful. Or the cognitive structures of music perception. What if any intelligence is so alien, say silicon-based artificial intelligence? Then if our goal in sending a message to
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And ‘fascinating’ them is important? Of course! How do you intrigue an alien? My wife and I have two cats. What if aliens are like them – they know we’re here, but they don’t care? What’s the ‘interstellar yarn’ that will make them respond?
Brilliant! Maybe we need to become more alien to communicate with aliens? Exactly! Yet to do that we need to understand our own psychology and its limitations. As we ponder the messages we would send to other worlds, we evoke images and sounds that characterise life on our world. And yet, what if the denizens of other worlds don’t rely on the same senses? As we consider the proportion of our cerebral cortexes devoted to processing various sensory modalities, we see a much greater percentage devoted to processing visual and auditory information than our other senses. How then can we imagine what it’s like to experience the world as anything but seeing, hearing creatures? Here we can look to comparative psychology, in order to become more open to non-human ways of messaging. You’re the Principal Investigator on ‘Earth Speaks’ (see www.earthspeaks.seti.org). Tell me about that. People from around the world are invited to submit pictures, sounds and text messages that they would want to send to
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other worlds. The project aims to foster a dialogue about what we should say to extraterrestrial intelligence, as well as whether or not we should be sending intentional messages. It differs from previous efforts to collect messages to extraterrestrials, in that it looks to identify and ‘tag’ the major themes that people address in their messages. By tracking demographic variables for each The Allen Telescope Array is a ‘Large Number of Small Dishes’ (LNSD) array for SETI projects person submitting a message, we will be able to identify that humans are especially good at commonalities and differences in message programme would benefit greatly by identifying signals of a form that cannot content that are related to such factors as using organisational psychology to be anticipated. Automated computer nationality, age and gender. So that takes understand and assist multigenerational programs are limited to the use of the pressure off me a little: rather than crews in their search. Investigating the algorithms that detect clearly defined trying to identify a unified ‘Message from mindset of the explorer. Considering signals. That remains the case today. Earth’, this draws on a dialogic model for exactly what we mean by ‘intelligence’ interstellar message design to provide a in the ‘search for extraterrestrial So what can people do in practical more broadly representative view of our intelligence’. But perhaps the biggest terms? species. Psychology is vital here in the question is to step right back to our In an effort to get human help in finding lexical analysis, in interpreting the themes motivations for making contact, and hard-to-characterise signals, the SETI – for example, in terms of Maslow’s whether we dare. Religion, fear, risk Institute launched a web-based project hierarchy – and in cross-cultural and responsibility… these are huge called SETILive, inviting lay citizen understanding – for example, how psychological questions, and unless we scientists to scan visually screen shots a Maori or someone from Papua New face them head on, we risk cutting off made from live SETI observations. But Guinea depicts a human being, visually promising new ways of making contact. we have no confirmed signal from an and in descriptive terms, can be very And do we dare not to? Ecopsychology extraterrestrial civilisation; at best, we different from the Western view which is important in learning how we can face have archived examples of false alarms has dominated efforts so far. our own challenges, to sustain ourselves, that could not be confirmed by follow-up but we need to ensure our focus is dual – What does the future hold for you and observations. So a major challenge is to inward and outward. your role? find motivated participants who are Oh, infinite possibilities! The most Finally, I have to ask, what do you think willing to visually scan screenshot after contentious question in SETI right now are our chances of detecting life out screenshot, even though they may never is whether we should transmit powerful, there? Is it just a case of pointing the find a signal from ET. SETI would profit information-rich signals to possible electromagnetic telescopes to the sky from the input of learning theorists, as we extraterrestrials even before we know for and waiting for the computers to beep? plan how to create an experimental task sure they’re out there. This is a strategy No – humans have a real role to play. that would be engaging for participants, called ‘active SETI’, and no less a From the outset of SETI, a major even if they aren’t able to find a signal luminary than Stephen Hawking has constraint in the search has been the from another civilization. We could warned that it could attract the attention processing of the electromagnetic signals intersperse the screenshots coming in live of hostile aliens, so Hawking says we entering the telescope, looking for with periodic archived screenshots of should avoid targeting other stars with something that stands out from the signals such as those created by powerful transmissions. I take the cosmic background radiation as distinctly spacecraft. In effect, we’re creating a opposite view. I’m a strong advocate artificial. As signal cosmic slot machine – using processing has an intermittent reinforcement of active SETI, and I’d argue that any improved into the schedule that gives periodic civilisation with the ability to travel to “Tonight could be the 21st century, small payoffs could be enough Earth to do us harm could already pick night that we discover an billions of radio to sustain the hope of someday up our accidental leakage radiation. We extraterrestrial” channels can be hitting the jackpot. don’t expose ourselves to any increased analysed for each As we are speaking, the risk of alien invasion by sending an star by computer, telescopes are searching. Tonight intentional signal, letting them know we and as SETI searches became increasingly could be the night that we discover an want to make contact. But fear is getting automated in the 1980s the human eye extraterrestrial. And if we do, in the way of people objectively was eclipsed as a signal detector in favour psychologists should be right in there evaluating the merits of this new search of computer algorithms that could detect determining how we respond, and also strategy – fear of annihilation by aliens, faint signals. Yet as early as 1982, ensuring that the decisions aren’t just or for SETI scientists who understand psychologist John C. Baird and colleagues made by a handful of astronomers… that interstellar space provides a natural tested human participants’ abilities to people all around the world have a buffer, fear of losing public support and detect signals of the sort that could be responsibility to consider what they funding by doing something that’s received in a SETI experiment, and noted would say to an alien. controversial. A sustained active SETI
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Psychology heaven and hell
Celebrating a decade of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog
Wednesday 9 December 7-10pm Senate House, London
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Introduction Dr Jon Sutton (Managing Editor, The Psychologist) Methods Dr Christian Jarrett (Editor, Research Digest) Results Professor Andy Field (University of Sussex) Discussion Professor Uta Frith (University College London) Conclusion Wine and nibbles Supported by
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Psychology in deep space Nick Kanas considers issues and countermeasures
What has on-orbit research told us about psychological and interpersonal issues in space?
resources
What psychosocial challenges will we face during future interplanetary and interstellar missions?
Kanas, N. [2015]. Humans in space: The psychological hurdles. Switzerland: Springer. http://nickkanas.com
Boyd, J.E., Kanas, N.A., Salnitskiy, V.P. et al. (2009). Cultural differences in crewmembers and mission control personnel during two space station programs. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 80, 1–9. Gushin, V.I. (2003). Problems of distant communication of isolated small groups. Human Physiology, 29, 548–555. Gushin, V.I., Zaprisa, N.S., Kolinitchenko, T.B. et al. (1997). Content analysis of
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ntil now, manned space missions have ventured no further than the Moon, and the longest that a person has been in space has been 14 months. Using current propulsion technology, a round trip mission to Mars will take 2½ years, and expeditions to the outer planets will take between 4½ years (for Jupiter) to 26.3 years (Neptune) (Kanas, 2011). If we are able to develop advanced propulsion systems that allow us to travel at 10 to 20 per cent the speed of light, one-way expeditions to the stars would still take decades to centuries to accomplish. This would likely involve putting the crewmembers in suspended animation or using multi-generational crews. Space missions are stressful (Kanas, 2015). Periods of monotony alternate with periods of frenetic activity, the body must adapt to the novel conditions of microgravity, and potential danger in the vacuum of space is always present. People on long, isolated missions beyond the Earth’s neighbourhood will encounter additional psychological and interpersonal stressors, and it is important to develop strategies to cope. But before discussing countermeasures for dealing with such long-duration manned space missions, let’s examine what we currently know from research done close to home.
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Manned space missions involve a number of psychological and interpersonal stressors. Dealing with these becomes a major issue if we are going to venture forth to the planets and beyond. This article reviews what we know about psychosocial issues from on-orbit research and discusses future challenges beyond the Earth’s neighbourhood.
On-orbit psychological research My colleagues and I conducted two international NASA-funded studies of psychological and interpersonal issues affecting crewmembers and mission
the crew communication with external communicants under prolonged isolation. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 68, 1093–1098. Ihle, E.C., Ritsher, J.B. & Kanas, N. (2006). Positive psychological outcomes of spaceflight: An empirical study. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 77, 93–101. Kanas, N. [2015]. Humans in space: The
control personnel during on-orbit missions to the Mir and the International Space Stations (Boyd et al., 2009; Kanas et al., 2000, 2001, 2007). A total of 30 astronauts and cosmonauts and 186 American and Russian mission control personnel were studied, who participated in space missions lasting from four to seven months. We found no significant changes in levels of crewmember mood and group interpersonal climate over time. However, there was significant evidence for the displacement of negative emotions outwardly, with crewmembers perceiving lack of support from mission control. Crew cohesion correlated positively with the supportive role of the mission commander. Using similar methodology, these findings have been replicated in a space station simulation study in Beijing (Wang & Wu, 2015). In our two studies, crewmembers scored higher in terms of experience with other cultures as compared with mission control personnel. Americans reported significantly more work pressure than Russians in both studies, and less tension during International Space Station (ISS) missions. Other investigators also have studied orbiting crewmembers. Gushin and his colleagues found that space crews showed decreases in the scope and content of their communications and a tendency to filter what they said to outside personnel, which the investigators called ‘psychological closing’. Crewmembers also interacted more with some individuals than others in mission control. This was felt to be due to a process of withdrawal and ‘autonomisation’, where isolated crewmembers became more egocentric and perceived some outsiders as opponents (Gushin, 2003; Gushin et al., 1997). Tomi and her colleagues surveyed 75 astronauts and cosmonauts and 106 mission control personnel in order to assess intercultural issues that could lead to problems during space missions. Both subject groups rated coordination conflicts between space organisations
psychological hurdles. Switzerland: Springer. Kanas, N. (2011). From Earth’s orbit to the outer planets and beyond: Psychological issues in space. Acta Astronautica, 68, 576–581. Kanas, N. (2014). The Protos mandate: A scientific novel. Switzerland: Springer. Kanas, N. & Manzey, D. (2008). Space psychology and psychiatry (2nd edn). El Segundo, CA: Microcosm Press;
and Dordrecht: Springer. Kanas, N.A., Salnitskiy, V.P., Boyd, J.E. et al. (2007). Crewmember and mission control personnel interactions during International Space Station Missions. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 78, 601–607. Kanas, N., Salnitskiy, V., Grund, E.M. et al. (2000). Interpersonal and cultural issues involving crews and ground personnel during Shuttle/Mir space
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involved with the missions as the biggest problem, followed by miscommunications due to simple misunderstandings. Other difficulties related to differences in language and work management styles, and communication problems between mission control personnel and their support teams (Tomi et al., 2007). Others have surveyed cosmonauts in order to gain their perspective on psychological issues during an expedition to Mars. Factors seen as potentially causing problems included isolation and monotony, distance-related communication delays with the Earth, differences in management style among the involved space agencies, and cultural problems resulting from the international makeup of the crew (Nechaev et al., 2007). Sandal and Manzey conducted a survey of 576 employees of the European Space Agency in order to assess important cultural issues that could impact on performance. They found a positive link between experience with other cultures and ability to work with fellow employees (Sandal & Manzey, 2009). Finally, Stuster performed a content analysis of personal journals from 10 ISS astronauts. He found that 88 per cent of the entries dealt with the following content categories: Work, Outside Communications, Adjustment, Group Interaction, Recreation/Leisure, Equipment, Events, Organisation/ Management, Sleep, and Food. Despite a 20 per cent increase in interpersonal problems during the second half of the missions (such as conflicts with crewmates), the astronauts reported that their life in space was not as difficult as they had expected prior to launch (Stuster, 2010).
Treasuring the Earth from space Travelling in space also can be a positive experience. Some astronauts and cosmonauts have reported transcendental experiences, religious insights, or a better sense of the unity of mankind as a result
missions. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 71(9 Suppl.), A11–A16. Kanas, N., Salnitskiy, V., Weiss, D.S. et al. (2001). Crewmember and ground personnel interactions over time during Shuttle/Mir space missions. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 72, 453–461. Kelly, A.D. & Kanas, N. (1992). Crewmember communication in
of viewing the Earth below and the every respondent reported at least some cosmos beyond (Kanas, 2015). In his positive change as a result of his or her diary, cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev stated experience. A cluster analysis of the that photographing the Earth from the questionnaire responses found eight Salyut 7 space station was a restful and subscale categories: Perceptions of Earth, stress-reducing experience (Lebedev, Perceptions of Space, New Possibilities, 1988). Appreciation of Life, Personal Strength, Extending pioneering research Changes in Daily Life, Relating on positive factors begun in to Others, and Spiritual the early 1990s, Change. The only Suedfeld and his subscale to show a colleagues content significant change analysed the was Perceptions published of Earth, and memoirs of observing our 125 space home planet travellers. from space As a result sometimes of being in led to space, lifestyle astronauts alterations and after the cosmonauts space reported traveller more returned Universalism home. For (i.e. a greater example, three appreciation for of the subscale other people and items (‘I realized nature), Spirituality how much I treasure and Power the Earth,’ ‘I learned (Suedfeld et al., to appreciate the ‘Once a photograph of the earth, taken from 2010). These fragility of the Earth,’ outside, is available… a new idea as powerful and ‘I gained a changes likely as any in history will be let loose.’ – Fred reflected seeing stronger appreciation Hoyle, 1948 the Earth as a of the Earth’s beauty’) beautiful, fragile were significantly orb in infinite associated with the space, with no obvious political behavioural item ‘I increased my boundaries separating its inhabitants. involvement in environmental causes’ In a survey of 54 astronauts and after returning (Ihle et al., 2006). cosmonauts who had flown in space, Alan Kelly and I found that our subjects rated Missions to other planets the positive excitement related to their Although seeing the beautiful Earth and mission as being one of the strongest communicating with family and friends factors enhancing communication within on the ground can be positive the crew and between the crewmembers experiences, there seems little doubt that and mission control personnel on the living with the same people in space for ground (Kelly & Kanas, 1992, 1993). months on end can lead to interpersonal In a follow-up study, my colleagues and problems that are difficult to express I surveyed 39 astronauts and cosmonauts openly, given that one must depend on who had flown in space. We found that
space. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 63, 721–726. Kelly, A.D. & Kanas, N. (1993). Communication between space crews and ground personnel. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 64, 779–800. Lebedev, V. (1988). Diary of a cosmonaut. College Station, TX: Phytoresource Research Information Service. Moore, J.H. (2003). Kin-based crews for
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interstellar multi-generational space travel. In Y. Kondo, F.C. Bruhweiler, J. Moore & C. Sheffield (Eds.) Interstellar travel and multi-generation space ships (pp.80–88). Burlington, Ontario: Apogee Books. Nechaev, A.P., Polyakov, V.V. & Morukov, B.V. (2007). Martian manned mission: What cosmonauts think about this. Acta Astronautica, 60, 351–353. Sandal, G.M. & Manzey, D. (2009). Cross-
cultural issues in space operations. Acta Astronautica, 65, 1520–1529. Stuster, J. (2010). Behavioral issues associated with long-duration space expeditions. Houston, TX: NASA/Johnson Space Center. Suedfeld, P., Legkaia, K. & Brcic, J. (2010). Changes in the hierarchy of value references associated with flying in space. Journal of Personality, 78, 1–25.
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these same people for support and assistance in accomplishing mission goals. A supportive commander becomes vital for crew cohesion, and in multinational crews, cultural differences (both national and organisational) can produce stress. Intra-crew tensions may be displaced to people in mission control, which negatively affects crew–ground communication. It is important for crewmembers to learn strategies of coping with psychological problems before they can fester and lead to withdrawal and additional difficulties with their crewmates and with mission control. Given these psychosocial issues affecting crewmembers during on-orbit missions, what can we say about potential problems on space missions beyond the Earth’s neighbourhood? Interplanetary expeditions will include many of the same stressors as missions close to home: microgravity, danger, isolation, confinement, separation from family and friends, and a limited social environment. However, there will be additional stressors that will affect humans travelling to the distant reaches of the solar system. The crew will experience a severe sense of isolation and separation from Earth, with no hope of evacuation or assistance from the ground during emergencies. The tremendous distances involved will increase the average two-way communication times with Earth from 25 minutes (Mars) to 500 minutes (Neptune) (Kanas, 2011). Consequently, the crewmembers will be much more autonomous from mission control than during near-Earth missions, and they will need to plan their schedules and deal with problems themselves. Finally, no human being has ever experienced the Earth as an insignificant dot in the heavens, the so-called ‘Earthout-of-view phenomenon’ (Kanas, 2015; Kanas & Manzey, 2008). Since gazing at the Earth has been rated as a major positive factor of being in space, the absence of this experience during an expeditionary mission on crewmember psychology may result in increased
Tomi, L., Kealey, D., Lange, M. et al. (2007, 21 May). Cross-cultural training requirements for long-duration space missions. Paper delivered at the Human Interactions in Space Symposium, Beijing, China. Wang, Y. & Wu, R. [2015]. Time effects, displacement, and leadership roles on a lunar space station analogue. Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, 86, 819-823.
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homesickness, depression, and other unpleasant psychological problems due to the profound sense of truly being isolated in the heavens.
Coping with long-duration interplanetary space missions In dealing with these issues, it is possible to conceptualise countermeasures around four areas: crew selection, pre-flight orientation and training, in-flight monitoring and support, and post-mission readaptation to Earth (Kanas, 2015). Crew selection should include people who are comfortable in working alone on a task when necessary as well as interacting with their crewmates around social events, such as meals and celebrations. Commanders should be selected who not only are task-oriented, but also psychologically sensitive and supportive of the needs of the crew. Before launch, crewmembers and mission control personnel should receive psychosocial education training aimed at recognising and dealing with important psychological and interpersonal issues that might arise during the mission. Topic areas should include: ways to work and interact productively during isolated and confined conditions; recognising and dealing with intrapsychic and interpersonal problems; understanding cultural differences as manifested by verbal and non-verbal behaviour; and coping with increased autonomy and dependence on local resources. During the mission, the crew should receive computer-based psychosocial education training refresher courses to remind them of key issues discussed prior to launch. Crewmembers need to plan time for ‘bull sessions’ to discuss personal and interpersonal issues and stressors before they fester and become problematic. Strategies should be developed to allow space travellers to communicate efficiently with people on Earth during distance-related time delays. These might include writing e-mail messages that append suggested responses at the end, to which the recipient may reply in order to minimise timeconsuming back-and-forth interactions. A virtual reality system or an on-board telescope with which to see the Earth in real time may help the crewmembers deal with feelings around separation from their home planet. Families at home need to be supported during the mission, both informally (peer-led groups) and formally (counselling or psychotherapy). Post-mission readaptation debriefings and supportive strategies should be employed to help returning crewmembers
The psychology of Frank M. Robinson’s The Oceans are Wide is a novella published in Science Stories in April 1954 (reprinted in Starships edited by Isaac Asimov et al., Fawcett Crest/Ballantine Books, 1983). In this story, starship governance is through a hereditary board of executives whose chairman is dying and whose son is illequipped to take over, due to his more passive personality and the plotting of competitive family members. With the assistance of a Machiavellian-like Predict, the son grows up to become the chairman and ultimately the new Predict, as he outwits his former mentor. The story involves father–son and mentor–student conflicts, within an interesting sociological description of life on a multigenerational starship. Brian Aldiss’ Non-Stop, published in 1958 (available from Overlook Press, 2005), has its protagonist as part of a primordial tribe living in a jungle-like setting. As he and his colleagues are exploring their environment, they encounter other people and discover that they all are inhabiting a giant starship that is returning from a planet around the star Procyon, where 23 generations earlier the ship’s populace had suffered from a pandemic. The story contains numerous surprises about the true mission, and psychoanalytic theory and terminology is used throughout to describe the rituals and interactions of the starship inhabitants. In Gregory Benford’s Redeemer, a short story published in Analog Science
and their families readjust to life together on Earth. These strategies should include protected private time and methods of dealing with the fame and glory that will result from highly visible space missions, such as the first expedition to Mars.
Interstellar travel During multi-year missions to the fringes of the solar system (such as to the outer planets, the Kuiper Belt, or the Oort Cloud), or beyond to the stars, the long distances involved will make travel using current propulsion systems highly unlikely. New propulsion systems and the possibility of putting the crewmembers in suspended animation will need to be considered. Both strategies present technical problems that are beyond the scope of this article, and the interested reader is referred to the discussion in the scientific appendix to my interstellar science fiction novel The Protos Mandate (Kanas, 2014).
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f interstellar travel in fiction
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Fiction/Science Fact in 1979 (reprinted in Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science edited by G. Benford & G. Zebrowski, Harcourt, 2000) a man travelling in a faster-than-light space ship overtakes an interstellar starship launched 75 years earlier that is travelling at sub-light speed. The slower vehicle contains thousands of future colonists in suspended animation, a small maintenance crew that is awake, and a cache of frozen DNA that the man intends to capture to replenish radiation-damaged DNA back home that was affected by a devastating war. The psychological twist is that on the slower starship he encounters his greatgrandmother. In Ship of Fools, written by Richard Paul Russo (Ace Books, 2001), a huge multigenerational starship with several thousand inhabitants has a class system of ‘topsiders’, who hold positions of power, and ‘downsiders’, who perform the more menial duties on the ship. There also is a clerical group led by a bishop who wields significant power. The plot involves the relationship of the crewmembers with each other, including their anxieties and intrigues. In Ken MacLeod’s Learning the World (Tor Books, Tom Doherty Associates, 2005), there are two worlds to be learned. One involves the society on board a giant starship with a complicated social system composed of three groups: a young space-borne group of individuals who are bred genetically to
Another scenario that has been advocated for interstellar expeditions has been the use of giant self-contained multi-generational starships. Moore has discussed some of the practical issues of such a mission involving a crew of 150–180 people on a 200-year expedition to Alpha Centauri. Based on his computer models, he has suggested several social engineering principles to maintain a stable population that would not tax the limited food, water, and on-board space resources. These strategies include beginning the mission with a crew of childless married couples, who would be required to postpone parenthood until their 30s and would limit the number of children they have to conform to the population needs of the mission. This cycle would be repeated for subsequent generations. The result would be the production of well-defined demographic echelons of roughly equal numbers over time, with people clustering into age groups some 30 years apart. The older
colonise newly discovered worlds; the crew, whose members are adapted for permanent life on the ship; and the founder generation, composed of people born hundreds of years earlier at the time of the settlement of the last star system. The other world to be learned is a planet that is the first ever to be discovered with intelligent life. A number of psychological and ethical issues are raised as these two groups discover each other, with surprising changes occurring to both societies. In Ben Bova’s short story A Country for Old Men (published in Going Interstellar by L. Johnson & J. McDevitt, Baen Publishing, 2012) the crewmembers heading for a distant
members would rear the younger ones and serve as teachers and advisers. People in the middle echelon would perform the routine maintenance activities. As a result, the social network and use of resources would remain stable across generations (Moore, 2003). Such a scenario raises a number of psychological and sociological questions. Who would be selected for such a mission? How many extended family members would be allowed to start the journey? How much cultural and religious diversity could be tolerated? How would a diverse enough gene pool be assured to minimise the appearance of dangerous recessives and maximise the stability of future generations? What kind of governance system would be used? How will the starship populace accept such social engineering? Will later generations view these echelons as a normal part of life, or will they rebel against such a regulated system? The launch generation likely will reminisce
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star realise that they are entering an area of low interstellar hydrogen, which is needed to fuel their starship. The chief executive wants to divert around the low hydrogen region, but he is met with resistance from the central computer. Complicating his actions are the facts that he is depressed over the death of his wife and is aware that given his age, he will die before the completion of the decades-long mission. In Stephen Baxter’s short story StarCall (published in Starship Century edited by J. Benford & G. Benford, Microwave Sciences and Lucky Bat Books, 2013), a sentient computer probe named Sannah III has been launched on a long mission to Alpha Centauri. For public relations purposes, several hundred children have been selected to speak with the probe every 10 years. The story follows the communications between Sannah III and a British boy named Paul over six decades. During this time, both human and robot experience numerous developmental changes, some of which take place in a similar manner that reflects complementary changes in their environments. Finally, my own novel The Protos Mandate (which along with my other novel The New Martians was published in 2014 as part of Springer’s ‘Science and Fiction’ series) explores the vicissitudes of a crew undertaking the first interstellar expedition. The story deals with the building and launching of the giant starship, problems facing the multigenerational crewmembers during their 107-year mission, and surprises they face after reaching their destination. A referenced appendix explains the science behind the story.
about life on Earth, and later generations may want to return to the home planet. Alternatively, they may wish to continue travelling indefinitely in space in their familiar and comfortable starship rather than deal with the unknowns of a new world (Kanas, 2014). As can be seen, travel to distant stars presents a number of psychosocial issues that will test human adaptability and resources. Hopefully, by the time such missions are planned, we will have had enough experience with interplanetary travel to enable starship crews to deal effectively with the new psychological and sociological challenges. Nick Kanas MD is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco nick.kanas@ucsf.edu http://nickkanas.com
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The alien in us all We asked for your favourite alien entity, and what their depiction says about our own psychology
Beyond the Borg Alan Redman, Occupational Psychologist, Criterion Partnership
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Chaudhuri, S. (2014). Cinema of the Dark Side. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gelman, S.A. (2004). Psychological essentialism in children. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(9), 404–409. Gelman, S.A. & Wellman, H.M. (1991). Insides and essences. Cognition, 38(3), 213–244. Keil, F. (1989). Concepts, kinds, and cognitive development. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press. Levine, J. (1983). Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 354–361. Newman, G.E. & Bloom, P. (2012). Art and authenticity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3), 558. Newman, G.E., Diesendruck, G. & Bloom, P. (2011). Celebrity contagion and the value of objects. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(2), 215–228.
THE KOBAL COLLECTION/PARAMOUNT TELEVISION
f I’m going to out myself as a science fiction fan in front of the rest of my profession I might as well do it properly. That means turning to what is arguably the nerdier end of the SF canon: Star Trek. Despite its recent sexy reboot, Star Trek has never developed the same patina of cool as Star Wars, but it does try harder to hold a mirror up to the human condition through the melting pot of alien races that make up the Federation and its foes. While the Klingons, Vulcans, and Romulans all offer a lens on humanity, as a psychologist I believe it is the Borg who provide a richer metaphor for many of humanity’s more defining psychological characteristics. Created for the 1990s Captain Picard era Star Trek, the Borg became the defining nemesis for the Enterprise and her crew. The Borg are a race of cybernetic organisms, bodies augmented by technology and emotions suppressed. The Borg are aggressively expansionist
and cannot be negotiated or reasoned with (‘resistance is futile’). So far, so Cybermen, but the Borg added darker qualities than the Dr Who enemy. Rather than invade and occupy, the Borg would forcibly assimilate other races in a quest to attain physical, technological and ideological perfection. Individuals from other races would be subjected to a terrifying assimilation process, involving the replacement of body parts with Borg implants and the erasure of all individuality. The outcome of assimilation was that the individual
became another drone connected to the Borg hive mind (the Collective). All independent thought and emotions removed. At a sociological level the Borg touched upon contemporary anxieties such as the loss of cultural distinctiveness in the drive towards globalisation. At an individual level the Borg resonate with psychological concepts such as deindividuation, social identity and groupthink. Narratives featuring Borg assimilation survivors would focus on the PTSD effects suffered by those rescued from the Collective. The Collective nature of the Borg, with every individual interconnected and all thoughts shared, represents the apex of group cohesiveness. The pooling of intellectual resources and the elimination of dissent in favour of harmony and single-minded purpose gave the Borg the edge over their human adversaries, whose fundamental flaw was intra-personal conflict and the cult of the individual. The terror of assimilation, beyond the physical depredations, was the loss of self, the repression of personality and powerlessness to break free from the tyranny of the group. As an occupational psychologist, when I first encountered the Borg I was fascinated with the way it chimed with contemporary organisational theory. The Borg modelled key 1990s organisation design (OD) themes, such as flat organisations, team-based processes and the removal of hierarchies. The Borg were able to harness the power of their collective organisation to adapt quickly to any new threat or technology they encountered. This mirrors concepts being promoted in OD at the time around the learning organisation and change management. This adaptability gave the Borg another advantage over humanity, which was stuck with the unfashionable command and control model. As the Klingons represented the Western cold-war anxiety about the Soviet bloc, the Borg articulated late 20thcentury fears about the superiority of Asian economic and leadership models. Borg decision making operated in an analogous manner to the Japanese ringi system, where decisions are made consensually by the entire workforce. Many Western manufacturing facilities were assimilated into these new ways of working while the Enterprise continued its fictional fight with the Borg to preserve humanity’s culture, individuality and ways of thinking. It is not clear whether the Star Trek writing team had any interactions with the British Psychological Society.
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Catherine Pugh, University of Essex graduate The 1997 film Starship Troopers, directed by Paul Verhoeven, follows the fascist Federation military as they fight an interplanetary war against giant insectoids known as ‘Bugs’. Although the Bugs appear as the monstrous Other, the film suggests that humans are equally complicit in their brutality. The line between humankind and Bugs becomes increasingly blurred, highlighted by Carl (Neil Patrick Harris). An affable character to start, his behaviour becomes increasingly less human. He shows little empathy, even towards childhood friends, declaring coldly: ‘We’re in this for the species, boys and girls. It’s simple numbers. They have more. And every day I have to make decisions that send hundreds of people like you to their deaths.’ In Carl’s final appearances he has prematurely aged and is notably less healthy, giving him the sharper, more shell-like look of the Bugs. Different types of Bugs appear throughout, utilising the features of
cockroaches, beetles and praying mantises. They are designed to elicit fear and disgust, especially the Brain Bug. Despite its intelligence and sentience, it is essentially no more than a mound of flesh, reminiscent of both brain and mollusc. Shohini Chaudhuri argues that while the science-fiction tradition of portraying aliens as insectoids aims to evoke dread, it also ‘reflects on processes of dehumanisation that enable others to be oppressed and destroyed more easily, recalling the Nazi’s characterisation of Jews as vermin and Hutus’ labelling of Tutsis as cockroaches’ (Chaudhuri, 2014, p.137). The film’s strong use of fascist mise-enscène and lack of anthropomorphic features in the aliens support this theory. Starship Troopers establishes alien and humankind as the same, both capable of terrible atrocities. It is strongly insinuated that humans started the war by invading |a planet already colonised by Bugs. The revelation that the Brain Bug experiences fear not only elicits ecstatic cheering from the crowd but a final Federation
THE KOBAL COLLECTION/COLUMBIA TRISTAR
Not so alien?
propaganda announcement delights in presenting its torture. The Brain Bug is brutal in its methods, sucking out human brains to gain intelligence, but the film asks if this is really any different to earlier images of scientists experimenting on the most efficient ways to kill the Arachnids. Despite humankind’s efforts to distance themselves from the Bugs, ultimately, as a General in the film points out: ‘They’re just like us… They want to know us so they can kill us.’
Snatching the essence
You look across the room to your loved one and, though they look and act normally, you are convinced they’re an impostor! This plot has terrified audiences for decades, famously explored in the classic novel The Body Snatchers (1954) by Jack Finney. In it, an alien species floats to earth undetected, duplicates the bodies of sleeping people, and masquerades as authentic citizens. Horrifyingly, the replicants are indistinguishable. The plot, while entertaining, reveals some startling aspects of the human mind. The idea of body snatching is unnerving because it capitalises on a very important psychological phenomenon. Despite perfect replication, we feel that the original person has something that the replicant
does not. Consciousness? A unique ‘self’? A soul? Why do we think such things exist? The sense that the original is unique and immutable – this psychological essentialism – is a robust feature of the human mind. Psychological essentialism is the idea that other people have an essential quality, some underlying nature, that is unobservable but central to them (Gelman 2004). Psychological essentialism has been revealed by a number of different studies. For instance, seven-year-olds who are told that a raccoon was transformed into a skunk (with a haircut, dye, and smelly stuff) insist that the raccoon is still a raccoon (Keil, 1989). Indeed, children think a turtle is still a turtle without its shell (but a hollow shell is not a turtle; Gelman & Wellman, 1991). This suggests that despite transformations in
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with a celebrity more than a duplicate watch that had not (Newman et al., 2011), and people are willing to pay more for an original artwork than an exact duplicate (Newman & Bloom, 2012). Together, these findings suggest that we believe people, animals and artefacts, carry with them some sort of essence that is special, unique and meaningful. Regardless of whether people do have essences, psychological essentialism has many benefits, including allowing us to make inferences about those around us (Gelman, 2004); imagine how hard it would be to talk to someone if you thought they were a new person every time you met them! Either way, psychological research suggests that body snatching frightens us because there is a psychological premium on the original.
ALLIED ARTISTS/THE KOBAL COLLECTION
Dr Heath Matheson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania
appearance, children think the animal retains some sort of essential nature. And essences extend to objects, too. In one study, people wanted to wear a watch that came into contact
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Bridging the gap
Adorable killers Dr Ellen Migo, Postdoctoral Research Worker, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London
THE KOBAL COLLECTION/LUCASFILM/20TH CENTURY FOX
Picking my favourite alien race is remarkably tricky. Obviously the alien I would most like to have a drink with was an easy choice (Londo Mollari for what it’s worth, at least before the darkness of the Shadow War; as an aside, on this issue Sheldon could not be more wrong about Babylon 5). After much thought I have chosen the Ewoks. The original Star Wars movies are my favourite films, and I’m sure I’m also influenced by their short-lived mid-80s cartoon show. The question then is, why? Why do these little walking teddy-bears have a special place in so many people’s hearts? One explanation is that my love of the Ewoks is analogous to our (and maybe especially academics’) love of cats (have a look at #AcademicsWithCats). They’re furry, difficult to understand and can look adorable. They’re also adept killers when needed. Much as I remember them for being cuddly and curious, the Ewoks also tried to cook and eat Han, Luke and Chewbacca when they first met them. They live under a tribal system, and while their technology is primitive, it is very effective. They’re smart little creatures, who can apparently ride speeder-bikes with no training, as well make large traps and have their own hang gliders. My cat is less advanced, but can look adorable just before (and indeed after) dragging a dead bird into the house. The relationship between the Empire and the Ewoks mirrors so many human conquests. The invading force subjugates the local population who rise up against them. We feel for the Ewoks; we want them to win their freedom. The Ewoks expose why armies struggle to overcome guerrilla warfare; they are easy to underestimate and can use what they know about the terrain to their advantage. The Ewoks’ help allows the Rebels to win the Battle of Endor and destroy the Death Star. It’s also interesting that the word ‘Ewoks’ is not mentioned at all in the Return of the Jedi. Without the closing credits, we might not have a name for the species that helped to take down the evil Imperial Empire. This may have been a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, but how often does our own history favour those telling it, pushing out the contributions of those less able to spread the story themselves.
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Dr Tom Stafford, University of Sheffield Greg Egan writes novels full of complex maths and the far future. The effect is a kind of existential vertigo about what it means to be human and what it could mean to be human. In his Diaspora the human species has lived so long, and merged so successfully with computers, that we have spread to explore hugely different environments, diverging as different species – aliens to ourselves – ‘developing new ways of mapping the physical world into the minds, and adding specialised neural structures to handle the new categories’. In the novel, the central characters realise they need to talk to these off-shoot human species to warn them about an impending disaster (a lifeending blast of neutron energy from an exploding star, as you’d expect). The problem is that some human species live in such a different world, have been separate from the rest of humanity for so long, that communication with them is impossible. It isn’t just that they speak different languages, but that the methods of communicating and the underlying concepts they use are so radically divergent that they can’t even begin to recognise the need to communicate. This is exciting because it reminds me that our psychology is based on a particular way of being in the world. Jakob von Uexküll called this an ‘umwelt’, or lifeworld. The important thing is that other animals don’t just think differently from us. It isn’t just that dogs, say, don’t understand mathematics, but there is a more profound difference: that the categories dogs use to carve up the world cut across those we use. Wittgenstein said ‘If a lion could talk, we could not understand him’ and I take this to be expressing the same thought – communication requires a shared world, a
shared frame of reference. A concrete, but fundamental, example is research on infant cognition which shows that human babies are primed to understand what adults do as attempts as communication. This readiness allows them to make sense of what people mean, even if they don’t use the right words (or if the words are completely novel to the baby). Communication is only possible because the two parties have from the beginning a shared understanding about how communication is done (and assume communicating is one of the things the other is likely to do). In the novel, the communication with the aliens is made by Bridgers – humans who alter themselves into intermediate species that exist in a manner that is in between standard humans and the human-aliens they are trying to connect to. Through a chain of ‘Bridgers’ they are able, at last, to speak to about the urgent need to evacuate earth (but, ironically, not to be believed). The problems we face as individuals and as a society are less spectacular, but can be as urgent. When different groups, ideologies or individuals can’t agree, I sometimes fancifully wonder if part of the problem is the different life-world the two inhabit, and if – instead of more shouting at each other – communication would be best made by finding people who inhabit intermediate umwelts and so could bridge between the different minds.
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Solaris and ‘The Other’ Dr Ian Hocking, Canterbury Christ Church University Solaristics, wrote Muntius, is a substitute for religion in the space age. (Lem, Solaris)
For me, the 1961 science fiction classic Solaris by Stanislaw Lem is forever associated with J.S. Bach’s church cantata Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, which plays throughout the 1972 film adaptation directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The organ gives an ecclesiastic feel to the slow-moving shots of Kelvin, the psychologist hero, as he walks around the lake of his childhood home before leaving Earth for Solaris Station on a mission to discover the fate of the scientists aboard. The lake and its forest is ancient. The depiction of Kelvin is stark: he is dissociated, depressed. There is no lake in the book. Lem’s Solaris begins in outer space as Kelvin’s shuttle docks with Solaris Station. Kelvin, I’m sorry. It’s nothing, you know, just the surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.
Anti-gravity generators keep Solaris Station floating above a planet whose ocean may, or may not, be sentient. The struggle to understand this ocean began a century before with a mystery about the planet’s orbit. According to physical law, the orbit should be elliptical, not circular. A discipline called solaristics has sprung up, but it hasn’t got much further than description. Just as some claim that our psychological literature excludes something essential of what psychology
should be – the qualia of being (Levine, 1983) – solaristics misses something essential of Solaris. Gravinsky’s compendium, which was most often used in school as a simple crib, was an alphabetically arranged collection of solaristic hypotheses, from Abiological to Zoo-degenerative.
On board the station, Kelvin finds chaos. He looks for a scientist called Gibarian, who had once been an instructor at Kelvin’s university. Gibarian is dead and his colleagues are making no sense. Kelvin soon learns that there are visitors on the station. They are not human. They are manifestations of guilt and trauma; patterns pulled from human minds by something connected with the ocean below, or perhaps the ocean itself. One of these manifestations looks like a woman whom Kelvin failed to help. She killed herself not long after her marriage – to Kelvin. It was Harey, in a white summer dress. Her legs were crossed, she was barefoot, her dark hair was tied back; the sheer material was taut over her breasts.
This version of Harey walks and talks like
the original. Kelvin tries to hate it but he can’t. Slowly, it remembers the suicide of the original. ‘Kris, I have the feeling that something has happened.’ She broke off. I waited, the turned-off razor in my hand.
The aliens of Solaris do not have pointy ears, American accents, or trundle about with sink-plunger attachments. They are so utterly different that there is no basis for common understanding. The science of Solaristics cannot even settle the question of whether the aliens are alive or an inanimate, but active, element of the planet’s geology. The geology of Solaris might think the same about us. What, as literature, is Solaris about? The failure to communicate, both between intelligences and within minds. We never find out whether this failure is deliberate on the part of Solaris. In the 2015 BBC television documentary Bitter Lake, Adam Curtis argues that the stories we are told – about why we go to war, how we divide the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and ‘us’ and ‘them’ – no longer make sense, and with this obfuscation comes control. Does the ocean on Solaris control the humans on Solaris Station? Humanity wants to make sense of Solaris, but physics can’t help. Kelvin wants to make sense of Harey, but psychology can’t help. What’s left is the essence of the alien: otherness.
What’s your favourite alien, and what does its depiction tell us about our own psychology? Join the conversation on the web version of this article at http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk or connect on Twitter @psychmag
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Close encounters of the psychological kind Christopher C. French considers explanations of UFO sightings, alien encounters and even abductions
questions
In recent years astronomers have discovered an ever-increasing number of earth-like planets, fuelling speculation that we may not be alone in the universe. Many members of the public are already convinced that not only is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but also that aliens visit our planet regularly. Indeed, many claim to have had personal experiences that prove that this is so. Are there plausible alternative explanations for such claims?
resources
French, C.C. & Stone, A. (2014). Anomalistic psychology: Exploring paranormal belief and experience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit: www.gold.ac.uk/apru
references
Some attempts to estimate the number of intelligent civilisations that might live in our galaxy, such as the famous Drake equation, imply that such civilisations might be surprisingly common. Physicist Enrico Fermi asked the question, ‘Why, if this is so, is there little convincing evidence of contact from such civilisations?’ How might you answer this question?
Appelle, S. (1996). The abduction experience. Journal of UFO Studies, 6, 29–79. Appelle, S., Lynn, S.J., Newman, L. & Maktaris, A. (2014). Alien abduction experiences. In E. Cardeña, S.J. Lynn, & S. Krippner (Eds.) Varieties of anomalous experience (2nd edn, pp.213–240). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Baker, R.A. (1992). Hidden memories:
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t is a pretty safe bet that virtually every reader of this article has heard of, and possibly even seen, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster UFO movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, I suspect that most readers are not entirely sure what the film’s title really means. In fact, it refers to J. Allen Hynek’s The first kind classificatory system for alleged alien A simple sighting of a UFO with no other contact of various kinds. Hynek was an supporting evidence is referred to as a American astronomer who acted as a close encounter of the first kind (CE1). scientific adviser to the US Air Force Ever since human beings first looked up on a number of high-profile projects at the sky, they have seen objects that investigating UFOs beginning back in they could not identify – literally the 1940s. He began as a sceptic and unidentified flying objects. In modern debunker – but ended up as a strong times, however, the acronym UFO has defender of both the so-called become synonymous in many people’s ‘extraterrestrial (ET) hypothesis’ and the even more controversial ‘extradimensional minds to that of ET. A moment’s reflection will reveal that this is a huge (ED) hypothesis’ as possible explanations inferential leap. for such reports. Specifically, close Our readers will be well aware that encounters of the third kind (CE3s) refers to alleged encounters that involve actual human–alien interaction. Opinion polls routinely show that many members of the general public also believe in the ET hypothesis. To give but one typical example, a 2013 HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1000 US adults (tinyurl.com/moa2ez6) found that half believed there is life on other planets, 38 per cent believed there is intelligent life on other planets, and a quarter believed that aliens have visited the earth. It is important to note in this context that right back to Carl Sagan, many scientists involved in the SETI (Search for How are we to explain the numerous reports of Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Project UFO sightings? have fully accepted the possibility of
I
What are the possible implications for our view of ourselves and our place in the universe if contact is ever made with an advanced extraterrestrial civilisation?
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe but are far from convinced that alien visitation of our home planet has ever happened. Even if our own galaxy is teeming with life, it may well be the case that the vast interstellar distances between inhabited planets is such that any direct human–alien contact is simply not possible. If indeed the earth has never been visited by ET, how are we to explain the numerous reports of UFO sightings and even alien contact and abduction that have taken place in the last 60 years or so, and arguably even before that? I will argue that psychology provides plausible counter-explanations for close encounters of all kinds.
Voices and visions from within. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. Bartholomew, R.E. & Howard, G.S. (1998). UFOs and alien contact. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. Blackmore, S. (1994). Alien abduction. New Scientist, 144, 29–31. Brookesmith, P. (1995). UFO: The complete sightings catalogue. London: Blandford. Brookesmith, P. (1996). UFO: The government files. London: Blandford.
Brookesmith, P. (1998). Alien abductions. New York: Barnes & Noble. Clancy, S.A. (2005). Abducted. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clancy, S.A., McNally, R.J., Schacter, D.L. et al. (2002). Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 455–461. Clarke, D. (2012). The UFO files. London: Bloomsbury.
Clarke, D. & Roberts, A. (1990). Phantoms of the sky. London: Robert Hale. Deese, J. (1959). On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 17–22. Devereux, P. & Brookesmith, P. (1997). UFOs and ufology. London: Blandford. Frazier, K., Karr, B. & Nickell, J. (Eds.) (1997). The UFO invasion. Amherst,
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NY: Prometheus. French, C.C. (2001). Alien abductions. In R. Roberts & D. Groome (Eds.) Parapsychology (pp.102–116). London: Arnold. French, C.C. (2003). Fantastic memories. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10, 153–174. French, C.C. & Santomauro, J. (2007). Something wicked this way comes: Causes and interpretations of sleep
Roberts, 1990; Frazier et al., 1997; Klass, 1983; Randles et al., 2000; Sheaffer, 1998; Watson, 2013).
The second kind A sighting that appears to be supported by physical evidence is referred to as a close encounter of the second kind (CE2). Such evidence is typically in the form of a photographic record, but these cases also include sightings accompanied by radar readings or else indentations and/or raised radiation levels at alleged landing sights. The old adage ‘The camera never lies’ has never been true and has never been less true than it is in our modern digital age. Ever since the earliest days of photography, cameras have been used to fake paranormal phenomena, such as apparently capturing ghostly images of the deceased (Nickell, 1994). With software such as Photoshop, it has never been easier to produce hoax photographs of all kinds. Many classic photographs of flying saucers have been shown to be deliberate hoaxes (see, for example, Hines, 2003; Hoggart & Hutchinson, 1995; Korff, 1995). In other cases, photographs or videos are simply sincerely misinterpreted natural or manmade phenomena. Mundane explanations can also often be provided for other types of physical evidence. For example, radar readings can sometimes be misleading. False positives, sometimes referred to as angels, can be caused by flocks of birds or unusual atmospheric conditions. This was particularly a problem for pre-1960s systems, which may explain why reports of UFOs detected on radar are much rarer these days (Clarke, 2012). The problems of interpreting other types of physical evidence are nicely illustrated by the notorious case of the alleged UFO landing in Rendlesham Forest in 1980, often referred to as ‘Britain’s Roswell’. One aspect of this complex case was the claim that both indentations in the ground and raised
paralysis. In S. Della Sala (Ed.) Tall tales about the mind and brain (pp.380–398). Oxford: Oxford University Press. French, C.C., Santomauro, J., Hamilton, V. et al. (2008). Psychological aspects of the alien contact experience. Cortex, 44, 1387–1395. French, C.C. & Stone, A. (2014). Anomalistic psychology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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CREDIT
both perception and memory are constructive processes greatly affected by the top-down influences of the observer’s pre-existing beliefs and expectations. UFOs are typically observed unexpectedly under less than ideal viewing conditions, often at night. It is precisely under such viewing conditions that top-down influences will have their strongest effect upon the perceptions of the viewer. Thus, details may be perceived (e.g. aliens peering back at the observer through windows) that were not actually present at all. It should also be borne in mind that there are typically few, if any, cues to size, distance and speed in the sky. An object that is small, near and slowmoving will produce the same image on the retina as one that is large, far away and fast-moving. It may initially seem incredible that people could misperceive a wide variety of stimuli (such as bright stars and planets, meteors, weather balloons, aircraft seen from unusual angles, laser displays and Chinese lanterns) as alien spaceships, but even the most fervent proponents of the ET hypothesis accept that over 95 per cent of all reported sightings can be explained in such terms. The reason we can often be sure that such explanations are correct is because the precise time and direction of the sighting exactly corresponds to a known event occurring in that part of the sky. However, proponents of the ET hypothesis insist that unless such explanations can be provided for 100 per cent of all reported sightings, the ET hypothesis is supported. Is this reasonable? Of course not. Just as the police cannot solve all of the crimes they investigate, sometimes there is simply not enough evidence to allow for a definitive explanation of a sighting. Even those who could be thought of as professional observers, such as pilots, astronomers, military personnel, and police officers, are not immune to such misperceptions – as illustrated in several well-documented cases (see e.g. Bartholomew & Howard, 1998; Brookesmith, 1995, 1996; Clarke &
radiation levels were found at the alleged UFO landing site. In fact, the indentations were in all probability made by rabbits and the reported raised radiation levels were actually not particularly high and were based upon the use of inappropriate technology by inexperienced personnel (Randles et al., 2000). Confirmation bias on the part of both witnesses and some investigators leads to the interpretation of any apparent anomaly, no matter how minor, being interpreted as support for the ET hypothesis.
The third kind As stated, the title of Spielberg’s influential film refers to actual direct contact between aliens and humans. In 1952, George Adamski claimed to have met a rather attractive female Venusian in the Californian desert (Bartholomew & Howard, 1998). He even claimed that he had been taken for a ride in her spaceship, and wrote several bestselling books recounting his adventures. Adamski was just one of several so-called contactees in this era who made such claims, often involving the contactee in the transmission of important messages from the aliens to humanity warning of the dangers of, say, nuclear war or pollution. The claims themselves became more elaborate as time went by, but the accounts were generally positive in tone and the aliens clearly viewed humanity benevolently. The contactees were not taken seriously even by the ufologists of the day, who preferred instead to concentrate on what they perceived to be more reliable reports of CE1s. However, things were soon to take a more sinister turn and an additional category was added to Hynek’s original tripartite scheme.
The fourth kind One of the earliest cases of alleged human abduction by aliens, referred to as a close encounter of the fourth kind (CE4), was that of Brazilian farmer Antonio Villas
Goodman, G.S., Quas, J.A. & Redlich, A.D. (1998). The ethics of conducting ‘false memory’ research with children. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 12, 207–217. Hines, T. (2003). Pseudoscience and the paranormal (2nd edn). Amherst, NY: Prometheus. Hoggart, S. & Hutchinson, M. (1995). Bizarre beliefs. London: Richard Cohen Books.
Holden, K.J. & French, C.C. (2002). Alien abduction experiences. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 7, 163–178. Hopkins, B. (1987). Intruders: The incredible visitations at Copley Woods. New York: Random House. Klass, P.J. (1983). UFOs: The public deceived. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. Klass, P.J. (1989). UFO abductions: A dangerous game. Updated edition. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
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Boas who claimed that in 1957 he was dragged into a spaceship by aliens and forced to have sex with an attractive female alien (who made barking sounds during intercourse). The first alien abduction claim to receive worldwide media attention was that of Betty and Barney Hill. The Hills claimed that in September 1961 they had spotted a UFO while driving from Montreal to New Hampshire and that they had arrived home much later than expected, unable to account for a full two hours. Betty then started having dreams about being taken on board a spaceship by aliens and being medically examined. Years later, the couple consulted Dr Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist, with respect to problems in their marriage. They were regressed back to that fateful night in 1961 and apparently recovered detailed memories of their car being stopped by aliens at a roadblock and both being taken on board an alien craft and being medically examined. Although there is little reason to doubt the Hills’ sincerity, there is every reason to doubt the accuracy of their account (see Klass, 1989, for a detailed critique). It is worth noting that Dr Simon did not believe the account produced during hypnotic regression (Klass, 1989), and it is now generally accepted that hypnotic regression, far from being a useful technique to recover true memories, is very likely to result in false memories (Baker, 1992; Spanos, 1996). However, at the time this account was taken much more seriously in many quarters than previous tales from contactees and many of the features reported – a UFO sighting, ‘missing time’, memories being ‘recovered’ through dreams and hypnotic regression – have recurred routinely in subsequent alien abduction accounts. In 1987 two bestselling books served to raise public awareness of such claims even higher: Communion by Whitley Strieber and Intruders by Budd Hopkins. The first, from the pen of a successful horror fiction writer, was the allegedly true story of his own terrifying abduction
Korff, K.K. (1995). The Billy Meier story: Spaceships of the Pleiades. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. Lawson, A.H. (1984). Perinatal imagery in UFO abduction reports. Journal of Psychohistory, 12, 211–239. Mack, J.E. (1994). Abduction. New York: Scribner. McNally, R.J. (2012). Explaining ‘memories’ of space alien abduction and past lives. Journal of Experimental
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experiences. The second, by a New York artist turned ufologist, described his own research with abductees, often involving the use of hypnotic regression. Hopkins claimed that his evidence showed that the aliens were engaged in a sinister crossbreeding project with the intention of producing human-alien hybrids. Much to the surprise of many, in 1994, Professor John Mack, a psychiatrist at Harvard University and a Pulitzer Prize winner, published a book on alien abduction claiming that ‘these accounts are not hallucinations, not dreams, but real experiences’. Although many psychologists and psychiatrists would disagree with Mack’s conclusions, there is little doubt that alien abduction claims constitute an intriguing phenomenon in need of explanation. It is certainly the case that speculation on this topic far outweighs actual empirical evidence, yet there is enough of the latter to support plausible psychological explanations for the majority of alien abduction and contact claims without any need to involve ET. We should be very wary, however, of proposing any kind of ‘one size fits all’ blanket explanation for such a rich and multifaceted phenomenon: for the interested reader there are numerous detailed reviews covering a wide range of psychological factors (e.g. Appelle, 1996; Appelle et al., 2014; Baker, 1992; Bartholomew & Howard, 1998; Blackmore, 1994; Brookesmith, 1998; Devereux & Brookesmith, 1997; French, 2001; Holden & French, 2002; Newman & Baumeister, 1996, 1998; Randle et al., 1999; Rutkowski, 2000; Showalter, 1997; Spanos, 1996). There is little doubt that deliberate hoaxes do occur (e.g., Klass, 1989; Korff, 1995), and sometimes people suffering from serious psychopathology will make claims. Yet there is also general agreement amongst both proponents and opponents of the ET hypothesis that the vast majority of those claiming alien abduction experiences are sane, sincere people who genuinely believe they have
Psychopathology, 3, 2–16. Newman, L.S. & Baumeister, R.F. (1996). Toward an explanation of the UFO abduction phenomenon. Psychological Inquiry, 7, 99–126. Newman, L.S. & Baumeister, R.F. (1998). Abducted by aliens. In S.J. Lynn & K.M. McConkey (Eds.) Truth in memory (pp.284–303). New York: Guilford Press. Nickell, J. (1994). Camera clues. Lexington,
Alien abduction claims constitute an intriguing phenomenon in need of explanation
experienced alien contact (French & Stone, 2014). How are we to account for this? The most obvious explanation is that they are suffering from false memories, and there is increasing evidence to support such a claim (e.g. Clancy, 2005; French, 2003; French & Stone, 2014; McNally, 2012). A number of individual difference variables, such as dissociativity, absorption, and fantasy-proneness, have been shown to be positively correlated with both susceptibility to false memories and the tendency to report ostensibly paranormal experiences of all kinds (French, 2003). Several studies (reviewed by French & Stone, 2014) demonstrate that those claiming alien contact tend to score higher on such variables in comparison to control groups. Another approach is to compare susceptibility to false memories in groups of individuals with conscious memories of being abducted by aliens, those who believe they have been abducted by aliens but cannot remember the experience, and others who do not believe they have been abducted by aliens. The Deese–Roediger– McDermott (DRM) task (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) presents series of associated words but with a critical lure word missing (e.g. the words snore, dream, snooze, blanket, pillow, bed might be presented but the word sleep is
KY: Kentucky University Press. Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Merckelbach, H. & Wade, K.A. (2009). Abducted by a UFO. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 115–125. Randle, K.D., Estes, R. & Cone, W.P. (1999). The abduction enigma. New York: Forge. Randles, J., Roberts, A. & Clarke, J. (2000). The UFOs that never were. London: London House.
Roediger, H.L., III, & McDermott, K.B. (1995). Creating false memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803–814. Rutkowski, C. (2000). Abductions and aliens. London: Fusion Press. Santomauro, J. & French, C.C. (2009). Terror in the night. The Psychologist, 22, 672–675. Sheaffer, R. (1998). UFO sightings: The
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not). The number of critical lure words reported is an indication of susceptibility to false memories. Clancy et al. (2002) reported that a group with conscious memories of alien abduction demonstrated the greatest susceptibility and a group who did not believe themselves to have ever been abducted demonstrated the least. It should be noted, however, that we have found that although individuals reporting alien contact scored higher than a control group on dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief and experience, self-reported psychic ability, fantasy proneness, and tendency to hallucinate, there was no difference in scores on the DRM task (French et al., 2008). What about this interesting category of claimants who believe that they have experienced alien contact even though they cannot actually remember it? They typically do so because they have had one or more anomalous experiences that have led them to suspect that they may have had such contact but that the aliens have then wiped their memories for the rest of the event. Such ideas are widely believed within the ufological community. These experiences include seeing a UFO, having a ‘missing time’ experience, or finding puzzling scars on one’s body, all of which in fact could have quite mundane explanations (French & Stone, 2014) – but perhaps the single most common cause of such suspicions is sleep paralysis (French & Santomauro, 2007; Santomauro & French, 2009). Sleep paralysis is very common amongst the general population and consists of a temporary paralysis occurring just as one is about to fall asleep or as one wakes up. It typically lasts a few seconds and is a little disconcerting, but nothing more. However, in a minority of cases it can include a variety of other features that can result in a truly terrifying experience. These include a strong sense of an evil presence and difficulty breathing due to a feeling of pressure on the chest. Hallucinations may also be experienced
evidence. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. Showalter, E. (1997). Hystories: Hysterical epidemics and modern culture. London: Picador. Spanos, N.P. (1996). Multiple identities and false memories. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Strieber, W. (1987). Communion: A true story. New York: Morrow. Watson, N. (2013). UFO investigations manual. Yeovil: Haynes.
‘Abducting’ children Otgaar et al. (2009) demonstrated that a considerable number of young children (aged either 7–8 or 11–12) readily accepted the suggestion that they themselves had been abducted by aliens at the age of four, especially if they were told that the researchers had been informed of this event by the child’s mother and the child was shown a fake newspaper report suggesting that such abductions were fairly commonplace. The children were only classified as having false memories of the event if they provided additional details of their memory of the event. This is an important study, being one of only two (the other being that of Lawson, 1984) that have attempted to directly implant false memories of alien abduction. However, implanting such false memories, especially in children, clearly raises some serious ethical issues. The only details provided by Otgaar et al. of the debriefing procedures used in this study are that the children ‘were debriefed using ethical guidelines for false memory research with children (Goodman, Quas, & Redlich, 1998)’ (p.120). This is somewhat ironic given that one of the recommendations for ethical false memory research with children stated by Goodman et al. is as follows: ‘Although often there is little room for extraneous detail in scholarly reports, providing readers with the procedures used for debriefing is important in controversial areas of research’ (p.215).
including seeing lights moving around the room or grotesque figures, hearing voices, footsteps or mechanical sounds, and feeling that one is being dragged out of bed. We have a reasonably good understanding of what causes sleep paralysis in terms of a disruption to the normal sleep cycle. During rapid eyemovement (REM) sleep, the phase of sleep typically associated with vivid dreams, the muscles of the body are actually paralysed, presumably to prevent the sleeper from acting out the actions of the dream. However, the mechanisms controlling the sleep cycle can sometimes go slightly awry. To put it simply, it is as though the brain has woken up but the body has not. This can result in terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis during which the sufferer is aware of their surroundings but cannot move – and creepy dream imagery is seeping through into wakeful consciousness. Whatever the cause of the original suspicion that one may have experienced alien contact, the next step for many is to seek the services of a hypnotherapist in order to ‘recover’ the memories of the rest of the episode. It is worth noting here that whether one is attempting to recover memories of alien abduction, past lives, or ritualised Satanic abuse, the same techniques are used and typically deliver exactly the type of memories that were anticipated. The available evidence strongly suggests that these are false memories (French & Stone, 2014). It is interesting to note that when Lawson (1984) hypnotised eight volunteers with minimal prior knowledge of UFOs, none of whom believed they had ever been abducted by aliens, and asked them to
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simply imagine that they had indeed been abducted, the accounts they produced were remarkably similar to those produced by people who claimed that they really had been abducted, even down to the level of minor details.
The truth is in there Arthur C. Clarke famously said: ‘Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.’ More recently, Stephen Hawking has warned against trying to make contact with any alien civilisations in case they respond by conquering and colonising our home planet. However, human curiosity is such that we cannot help but yearn to know whether we are alone in the cosmos or not. Indeed, Hawking himself has backed an ambitious $100 million programme to scan the skies searching for evidence of ET – listening but not sending out any signals to give away the location of our planet. Should we ever prove that there are other intelligent civilisations, our understanding of our place in the universe will be transformed dramatically. For now though, the evidence relating to alleged close encounters would suggest, with apologies to The X-Files, that the truth is not ‘out there’ but within our own heads. Christopher C. French is at the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London C.French@gold.ac.uk
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Encountering extraterrestrial intelligence Albert A. Harrison looks for lessons from history
ow can researchers educate their in New Jersey, vanquishing the militia, guesses about human responses and advancing inexorably on Manhattan. to extraterrestrial life? The analysis People were frightened, and newspapers of precedents and prototypes is one had a field day claiming that widespread prominent strategy. panic resulted. The broadcast inspired one Prototypes are situations and of the earliest field studies in social events that with varying degrees of psychology (Cantril, 1940). convincingness approximate different Yet newspaper accounts of the War contact scenarios, and models based of the Worlds incident were overstated on them point researchers in promising (Harrison, 1997). Most listeners did not directions. As American astronomer and take the broadcast at face value, and author Steven J. Dick (2013, p.227) some, alarmed by the opening lines, points out, analogues offer both ‘promise conducted reality checks and were and perils’, depending on the relieved to degree of correspondence discover, for between the prototype and the example, that “Are sailing ships on the target event. He adds that other stations horizon a new kind of fish, prototypes should not be as were maintaining swimming gods, or broad and sweeping as to be their normal floating houses?” meaningless, nor so specific as programming. to generate false expectations Given perceptions that the prototype will of the situation, some precisely mirror the target event. The illustrations of panic were descriptions use of precedents and prototypes is not of reasonable self-protective and even unusual in psychology: research in altruistic actions: extricating a fiancée Antarctica and other spaceflight-analogous from the danger zone, sealing doors and environments has advanced our windows to retard the seepage of poison understanding of psychosocial adaptation gas, and reporting to armories for duty. to spaceflight, despite differences between Decades later, a conceptual replication the two environments (Bishop, 2013). based on a fictionalised account of a reactor meltdown in Denmark frightened about eight percent of the listening The instant crisis model audience and about one percent Without doubt, the best-known prototype responded behaviorally (Rosengren et al., for contact is Orson Welles’ War of the 1975). Nobody panicked, but media Worlds broadcast on Halloween of 1938. accounts spread the impression that panic This theatrical radio play was presented as was intense and widespread and that the a live news broadcast of Martians landing police became dysfunctional.
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Bainbridge, W.S. (2011). Cultural beliefs about extraterrestrial intelligence. In D.A. Vakoch and A.A. Harrison [Eds.] Civilizations beyond Earth: Extraterrestrial life and society. (pp.118–140). New York: Berghahn. Baird, J. (1987). The inner limits of outer space. Hanover, NH: The University Press of New England. Bishop, S.L. (2013). From Earth analogues to space: Learning how to boldly go.
In D.A. Vakoch (Ed.) On orbit and beyond: psychological perspectives on human spaceflight (pp.25–50) Berlin: Springer Verlag. Cantril, H. (1940). The invasion from Mars: A study in the psychology of panic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Colavito, J. (2005). The cult of alien gods: H.P. Lovecraft and extraterrestrial pop culture. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
There had been earlier prototypes, such as a masterful hoax by the New York Sun in 1835 that convinced readers that civilised bat-like humanoids were cavorting amidst pleasant surroundings on the Moon (Goodman, 2008) and motivated illusions of artificial canals on Mars (Sheehan, 1988). But Welles’ broadcast was fresh in mind in when a report was prepared by the Brookings Institution for the US Congress on the peaceful uses of outer space (Committee on Science and Astronautics, 1961). Although the report focused on topics such as communications and weather satellites and space probes, it also made brief reference to the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence. Panelists could imagine ‘our’ astronauts meeting ‘their’ astronauts, but also acknowledged that contact could come about through microwave observation. The report expressed apprehensions about public reactions and urged further studies of how events unfold when different cultures first meet one another.
The culture encounter model Under the culture encounter model the arrival of Europeans in the New World, the rapid spread of colonialism throughout the world, and the relentless subjugation of Native American Indians become prototypes for understanding reactions to extraterrestrials. Because extraterrestrial civilisations are expected to be vastly older than our own, they are granted technological (but not necessarily moral) superiority. As history shows technological inequality poses a risk of subjugation, exploitation, dehumanisation and traumatisation. James F. Strange describes how technologically disadvantaged cultures are likely to respond to first contact (Strange, 2007). Initially, indigenous people are likely to be baffled and confused, because the indigenous peoples have no idea what they are seeing. Are sailing ships on the horizon a new kind of fish, swimming gods, or floating houses? Curiosity is
Books. Committee on Science and Astronautics (1961). Proposed studies on the implications of peaceful space activities for human affairs. Prepared for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the Brookings Institution and presented to the US House of Representatives, Eighty Seventh Congress (24 March 1961). Dagnall, N., Drinkwater, K. & Parker, A.
(2011). Alien visitation, extraterrestrial life, and paranormal beliefs. Journal of Scientific Exploration 25(4), 699–720. Dick, S.J. (2013). The societal impact of extraterrestrial life. In D.A. Vakoch (Ed.) Astrobiology, history and psychology (pp.227–256). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Goodman, M. (2008). The sun and the moon. New York: Basic Books.
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useful, because it helps them learn more. Soon they begin responding to the visitors on the basis of assigned identities. That is, they think about the visitors in terms of entities that they have encountered, cultural stories, and myths. They may wonder if they are witnessing the arrival of demons or the return of the gods. In first encounters assigned identities are mistaken identities, since they are based on familiar ideas and imagination rather than reliable knowledge. Once assigned identities are formed they are supported
by selective perception and biased assimilation. Biases and inaccuracies in standard versions of history are a significant problem for this model. Many standard history texts have been written to flatter leaders, and build national morale by denigrating opponents (Restall, 2003). The influences of allies, turncoats and lucky breaks tend to get lost; deceitful behaviours and atrocities are ignored or downplayed; and the true cost of victory is hidden. Still, a skilled ethnographer focusing on a geographically and temporally limited and carefully defined first encounter could carry this model forward. From a risk analysis and disaster management perspective it would be premature to discard this model (Neal, 2014), yet it is often downplayed because astronomers consider physical contact unlikely.
The Information diffusion model
I Albert A. Harrison was a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, who explored the societal ramifications of astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). We were sad to hear that he passed away shortly after submitting this article, which we publish here unedited in his honour. See www.seti.org/setiinstitute/al-harrison-1949-2015 for more information.
Harrison, A.A. (1997). After contact: the human response to extraterrestrial life. New York: Plenum. Harrison, A.A. (2007). Starstruck: Cosmic visions in science, religion, and folklore. New York: Berghahn. Harrison, A.A. (2011). Fear, pandemonium, equanimity and delight: Human responses to extraterrestrial life. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A,
The information diffusion model is based on the dispersal of ideas over time and across cultures (Dick, 2013). Sample prototypes include the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions, the exportation of the Arabic numerical system to Europe (Dick, 2013), the ‘diffusion of AfricanAmerican musical influences and slang language into dominant American culture’ (Strange, 2007, p.239), and the spread of literacy and popular interest in science in late Tsarist Russia. History provides
369, 656–668. Harrison, A.A. & Elms, A.C. (1990). Psychology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Behavioral Science, 35, 207–216. Janoff-Bullman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new theory of trauma. New York: Free Press. Koltko-Rivera, M.E. (2004). The psychology of worldviews. Review of General Psychology, 8, 3–58.
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a rich source of research material. The emphasis is less on instantaneous impact than on the long-term infiltration and assimilation of ideas into the receiving culture. It could take centuries before the full impact of contact is known.
The SETI model There are at least three close approximations of SETI detections. The first two prototypes, from 1965 and 1967 respectively, were the discovery of quasars and pulsars. In each case, unexpected findings led to speculation that they were intelligently controlled interstellar beacons. In the discovery of pulsars, four similar highly perplexing objects were found and labeled LGM-1 to LGM-4, with LGM standing for Little Green Men (Penny, 2013). These appellations turned from funny to worrisome as the extraterrestrial hypotheses remained standing while competing hypotheses fell. One researcher considered burning the results; perhaps later, when people were better prepared, another astronomer would rediscover these beacons and reveal their true nature to the public (Penny, 2013). Both quasars and pulsars are natural objects, but internal discussions on how to manage the developing situation informed broader discussions of how to manage the verification and news of an actual detection (Penny, 2013). In late 1998, on his Coast to Coast talk radio show, commentator Art Bell announced that an anonymous amateur astronomer had intercepted an extraterrestrial transmission. The story was picked up by the BBC and gained international attention. Scientists, including Seth Shostak, strongly suspected that the detection was a hoax, and attempts to confirm the discovery failed (Shostak, 2009). The story persisted (dwindling in importance) for several days before it was refuted. Afterwards, Shostak expressed vexation and gratitude, the latter because it ‘added a modicum of real experience to the
Neal, M. (2014). Preparing for extraterrestrial contact. Risk Management, 16(2), 63–87. Penny, A.J. (2013). The SETI episode in the 1967 discovery of pulsars. European Physical Journal H, 38, 535–547. Restall, M. (2003). Seven myths of the Spanish conquest. New York: Oxford University Press. Rosengren, K.W., Arvidson, P. &
Sturveson, D. (1975). The Barseback ‘panic’: A radio programme as a negative summary event. Acta Sociologica, 18, 303–321. Sheehan, W. (1988). Planets and perception: Telescopic views and interpretations 1809– 1909. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Shostak S. (2009). Confessions of an alien hunter: A scientist’ s search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Washington,
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endless theorizing about what would happen in the case of a “hit”’ (Shostak, 2009, pp.245–246). There are several reasons to expect that reactions to an orthodox SETI detection – that is, of a carrier wave or ‘dial tone’ – will be muted (Harrison, 2011). However, conditions could change rapidly if a specific message was ascribed to the transmission, and the media and interpretation industries gained momentum.
Culture and worldviews as organising concepts Historians and anthropologists have led the way in most discussions of the effects of the discovery of extraterrestrials on humans. There are many topics in psychology that could contribute to the overall endeavour: anthropomorphic, ethnocentric and egocentric thinking; Psychologists’ interests need no longer be limited to purported alien encounters and attribution of motives and intentions; abduction experiences, conspiracy thinking, and flying saucer religions person perception; paranoia and pronoia; defense mechanisms, intergroup relations; Anthropologists rally around ‘culture’ rumour transmission, and much more worldview defenses lead to a variety of as an organising concept for their work. (Baird 1987; Harrison, 1997, 2007; psychological and social pathologies, from Human encounters with aliens can be Harrison & Elms, 1990; Neal, 2014). simple denial to schizophrenia, from own construed as meetings of radically The current lack of involvement on the group favouritism to war. Real or ascribed different cultures, perhaps leading to part of a profession that once fought to alien worldviews could threaten our ‘culture shock on steroids’. Psychologists distinguish itself from religion and the foundational beliefs about physical, social, might consider worldviews as an occult is understandable. Today, and psychological realities. organising concept, researchers separate What might be the effects on human not in the common openness to the possibility worldviews if their technology seemed vaguely descriptive of extraterrestrial life, which liked magic, if their science contradicted “Human encounters with sense of the word but is not paranormal, from the our science, if their philosophy aliens can be construed as a psychological belief that they are here, undermined our religious beliefs, if their as meetings of radically construct with which is paranormal in the morality struck us as abhorrent, or if different cultures” structural and sense that it is intermingled everything they said or did seemed dynamic properties that with other paranormal nonsensical? What if, to borrow from are amenable to empirical beliefs (such as astrology science fiction and horror writer H.P. research (Koltko-Rivera, 2004). In and reincarnation), magical thinking, Lovecraft, we inferred that the universe is psychology, worldviews are cognitive and deficient reality testing (Bainbridge, not as nicely organised as we like to think frameworks that structure our 2011; Dagnall et al., 2011). Psychologists’ (Colavito, 2005)? The mind does not do understanding of reality and give us the interests need no longer be limited to well under prolonged conditions of tools we need to navigate in an uncertain purported alien encounters and abduction uncertainty and confusion. Of course, and potentially dangerous environment experiences, conspiracy thinking, and extraterrestrials and humans could have (Janoff-Bullman, 1992; Zimbardo, 1999). flying saucer religions. Today it is compatible or even synergistic ideas They set and enforce standards of truth perfectly acceptable for psychologists to (Dick, 2013). Still, psychological and falsehood, frame questions and think about imaginary beings – or at least, worldview theory and research, pegged answers, and influence reality testing. to a few distinctive scenarios such as how other people think about them and Worldviews rest on self-serving prototypes described above, might ease the possible consequences of this. assumptions that create the illusion us into a post-contact era. of living in a safe, understandable, and If and when the extraterrestrial manageable world where we can feel good intelligence is discovered there may be about ourselves (Janoff-Bullman, 1992). few details about what has been found: DC: National Geographic. Threats come from people who are not who they are, what they want, and what Strange, J.F. (2007). Observations from ‘like us’, information that runs contrary the discovery means for us. To satisfy our archaeology and religious studies to our understanding about how things curiosity and control anxiety we are likely on first contact and ETI evidence. In work, and from traumatic and anomalous to draw on preconceptions, expectations, D.G. Tumminia (Ed.) Alien worlds (pp.239–248). Syracuse NY: experiences (Zimbardo, 1999). attitudes and prejudices, and then seek Syracuse University Press. Discontinuity Theory (Zimbardo, 1999) validation from like-minded others. Zimbardo, P.G. (1999). Discontinuity and the Shattered Assumptions Theory of Looking to ‘inner space’ is likely to be as theory. Advances in Experimental Trauma (Janoff-Bullman, 1992) identify important as turning our gaze to outer Social Psychology, 32, 345–486. threats to worldviews and how the space, and problems that result will be activation and failure of ego and largely of our own making.
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‘I’m lucky that I’ve always known what I wanted to do’ Ian Florance interviews Doyin Atewologun
r Doyin Atewologun originally suggested an article on the Division of Occupational Psychology’s (DOP) Leadership Development Programme, but her work with the British Psychological Society also involves the Diversity and Inclusion at Work Working Group. We settled down to talk about these and other topics in a pleasant coffee shop on the Mile End Road.
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‘I’ve always known what I wanted to do – work with and understand people. When I was 11 or 12 my aunt told me that that was exactly what she did – she was a child psychologist working at a school. It made me very proud to be affiliated with such an encouraging and thoughtful profession.’ Like a lot of Nigerian children with her background, Doyin was sent to the UK to do her A-levels. ‘The aim was to be an international student dividing time between the UK and Nigeria. My cousins were returning to the UK at the same time, and I ended up living with them and my aunt in Northampton.’ Doyin made an early decision to be an occupational psychologist. ‘At the time I would have said I wanted to work with “normal” people rather than the ill or with children. Anyway, after A-levels I took a year out and worked in HR in Benin. I had done some research, so my psychology degree at Birmingham didn’t surprise me as it does some students – it certainly interested me as I discovered the reality of areas such as neuropsychology.’ Doyin then took another gap year working for what is now Connexions. ‘I deferred a place at Nottingham on an Occupational Psychology MSc to get the ESRC funding I’d qualified for with a first class degree. Nottingham had a good reputation but the classes felt too big for me. This made it difficult to connect with a wider group although I made friends there. Students should see their degree and postgraduate years
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as an opportunity to set up a peer network which can be useful throughout their careers.’ Did you want to be an applied or an academic psychologist? ‘It sounds funny now but I didn’t really see academics as true occupational psychologists. In my eyes, occupational psychologists were people who worked for consultancies and testing companies. But we were warned that the job market was going to be difficult – 9/11 happened a couple of weeks before we started the course. Once I’d finished the MSc I set about finding a job in a fairly organised, energetic way.’ She searched for jobs in the West Midlands, using BPS resources to find addresses and firing off letters to everyone she could think of. ‘I came to appreciate the value and skills of cold calling. Looking back I’m really touched by the number of people who sent me encouraging replies, telling me not to get put off but to persevere. I’ve kept those letters, and it made me very proud to be affiliated with such an encouraging and thoughtful profession.’ Doyin was finally made an informal offer of a job by a very major company she really wanted to work for. ‘They told me to hang on as there were “some things going on”. I’m afraid I’m still waiting. Then I was offered a job by OPP, the test publisher and consultancy who, among other things, are Europe’s distributors of the most widely used personality test in the world. I loved that job. Nowadays different individuals tend to specialise in either training or consultancy – I did both, which had positive implications for chartership and for my credibility. For instance, it meant that during training I could talk about my own experiences.’ Reflecting on her move into work, Doyin thinks ‘I could have been more commercially astute. I sometimes think a hybrid MBA and Occupational Psychology course would help newly qualified psychologists become effective quickly in the real world of work.’ Doyin’s interest in diversity and her PhD in the area started in her early years
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in work. ‘For a long time I worked with very few black or Asian colleagues, and there was very little talk about diversity. I became aware that the same behaviours from different people would be rated differently by different bosses as well as by raters in assessment centres. I got fascinated with diversity as an issue and this tied in with authentic leadership, which was of huge interest at the time. It struck me that asking people to be themselves, to be authentic, was tenable if their identities aligned with society’s expectations. But what if the “authentic you” isn’t actually what people expect to see in leadership roles?’ Doyin’s PhD looked at the effect of micro-behaviours on minority ethnic leaders’ work identities. ‘OPP gave me huge support, and because I was working in training and consultancy I was able to work very flexibly alongside studying. I suppose I had early experience of a portfolio career. I finished the PhD in January 2012 and entered a whole new world of researching leadership and diversity.’ Surprisingly, given her earlier views, Doyin’s more recent career has been as an academic. ‘Not deliberately – I had
received a lot of positive feedback about some of my academic skills like writing and presenting abstract information in an accessible way, so I was warming to it. And, soon after completing my PhD, I was offered a maternity cover job at City University, then another, and then I moved on to Queen Mary, University of London where I am now. I still do a little consultancy – as an associate for companies and some off my own bat.’ The diversity group has grown ‘with the support of the Society. But I’m surprised that this sort of work is only just beginning. At the moment our mission is very much to link diversity practitioners with academic research but, as well as this external communications role, we have an internal marketing mission – to make the Society itself more aware of and more responsive to diversity issues, like coaching minority clients, gathering evidence for interventions that work for heterogeneous groups, and training occupational psychologists.’ Doyin is also involved in the DOP Leadership Development Programme, which for the last three years has aimed at providing potential DOP committee members with the knowledge, skills and
attributes needed to become effective leaders. ‘I was on the first programme and volunteered to evaluate it, working with a team of volunteers. It’s taught me a lot about logistics, project management and motivating others. I think the course has helped participants to be more realistic through understanding the structure of the Society. The Society is run, to a great extent, by volunteers, and members’ fees are not thrown about. It takes longer to get things done than one might want but that’s understandable – everyone has their day job.’ You seem to get involved a lot with the Society. Would you like to do more? ‘The thought fills me with foreboding since I have enough to do! But I suppose if you complain you need to step up to the mark.’ Have you got any advice for someone starting in psychology now? ‘Make good friends on your course. Volunteer for the DOP. Do your research and really try to understand what sort of roles there are out there. And be careful about going into HR. It’s a different identity and you’d do better to get experience as a locum, associate or volunteer within our profession.’
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‘As with fairy tales, you used to ask me to tell you the famous studies over and over’ Psychology graduate Melanthe Grand interviews her mother, Chartered Psychologist and novelist Voula Grand y mother, Voula Grand, is a Chartered Psychologist and novelist. Her professional practice focuses on the development of leaders in global corporations. She has 30 years’ experience working with teams and individuals using a range of psychological techniques to enhance performance. Voula has been a member of the British Psychological Society since her student days and is now an Associate Fellow. Her first novel, Honor’s Shadow, about the psychology of betrayal and revenge, was published by Karnac in 2011. Voula is one of the authors of the BPS Book of the Year The Psychology Book published by DK in 2013. She writes a blog discussing aspects of writing and psychology. She is also mother to my 28-year-old brother Thibault, and three adult stepchildren, I studied psychology at the University of York and am now studying for an MA in integrative child psychotherapy at the Institute of Arts in Therapy and Education. I have an interest in the application of the arts for children with special needs, and I write a blog about my relationship with one boy with autism. I work part-time for my mother’s company as an assistant psychologist.
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Our editor is working on a feature ‘growing up with a psychologist’. If you are the child of a psychologist, with a view on how this may have affected your upbringing, he would like to hear from you. Or perhaps as a psychologist you are aware of how that knowledge is affecting your own parenting? E-mail jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
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Here, I interview my mother about the impact that the study and practice of psychology has had on her life, in mothering, business and writing. When you look back on being a mother, how do you think your knowledge of psychology had an effect on your parenting? I studied social psychology at LSE, back in the early eighties. I was fascinated by Ainsworth’s work on attachment and the Strange Situation studies. At the time, that was very new material; now, it’s being applied in all sorts of interesting ways. When I went back to work after Thibault was born in 1986, I had to arrange childcare. Because of the attachment studies, I was keen that my brand new baby should have a third attachment figure in his life, especially as he didn’t have a grandmother. So I chose a childminder; then, when you came along, we had a nanny. I believed then, and still believe now, that this is the best option for secure attachment. Though you told me recently, from your studies, that a child only needs a ‘good enough mother’ a third of the time, so maybe I was overly cautious back then. But we had an amazing nanny, Alice who stayed with us for 15 years, having two children of her own along the way. Alice was very talented, and loved you two as though you were her own. She still does. I also appreciated how skilled she was with me. Some mothers may feel some envy towards their nanny, but Alice was exceptionally sensitive to this, and deferred to me as your mother. She and I became like sisters. For you two, as long as I, Dad or Alice were there, you were
happy and loved. I will be grateful to her for her contribution to your upbringing for ever. And in the years that we were growing up, how do you think you differed to mothers who weren’t also psychologists? My mother was a reading addict, and reading stories was a lovely part of my relationship with her. Instinctively, I read to you and Thibault from the very beginning, all the traditional fairy tales as well as the modern stories. The Hungry Caterpillar was a favourite. As you got older, and during long drives to our holiday home in France, I started to tell you about Zimbardo’s prison, Harlow’s monkeys, Milgram’s shock experiment. As you had done with the fairy tales, you both used to ask me to tell you the famous psychological studies over and over again, you were fascinated. So I think you both grew up very psychologically minded. Every birthday, I would give you a development theme for the year. When you were six, I suggested you develop your ‘ignoring skills’ when you were going through a hard time with your brother. I know you think that was a mistake. Maybe that was me applying some business psychology to my mothering – they were almost like yearly appraisals. I remember you used to talk to us about Greek mythology and philosophy as well as psychology. There was a strong emphasis on talking openly in our family. How did you go about cultivating this?
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I was raised in a Greek community in Wales, and my dad used to tell me stories about the Greek gods. As a small child I believed his story that we were directly descended from the gods of Olympus, and that was why we had blue eyes and fair hair. I still treasure a book of Greek myths that my father won as a school prize. I was very keen that we communicated very openly as a family, though I’m not sure where that desire came from. I remember when you were little Thibault giving you some worldweary advice: ‘Don’t ask Mum any questions about sex, because she will answer them.’ I wanted us to be able to speak freely about anything that we would want to, especially the most difficult things. When Thibault went into the army in 2003 and served three tours of duty, I was very keen to be able to listen to him in a way that would be helpful. So I learned about PTSD and how to help veterans after experiences in war zones. He had a very difficult tour in Afghanistan in the summer of 2009. When he came back, I hope it helped that he could talk to me about his experiences, and I didn’t react with shock or horror, that I could listen and accept such very extreme events I knew I wanted to raise you both to be hopeful, optimistic and resilient – what parent wouldn’t – and you are, but maybe you were just born that way. I also remember you encouraging us to follow whatever path it was that we wanted, and I suppose looking up to you when I was younger, you were a very good example of doing this – writing a novel, for example. Do you think your knowledge of psychology has an influence on this? My mother wasn’t a psychologist, she was an artist. She was great at encouraging me and my siblings to pursue our hobbies and interests. That seems to me to be a core parental responsibility, and looking back I can see that I was always alert to what you both enjoyed and were drawn to. I suppose it is a psychological thing, but for me it was a mother thing. Thibault was focused on an Army career from a very young age, and I didn’t discourage him (even though I wanted to). Your early ambition was to be an art teacher, but when I went to Thibault’s school to do a careers talk on psychology, you came with me. It was after that you said that you wanted to go into psychology. Now here you are combining psychology and art in psychotherapy using the arts. Psychology has been a passion in my life and it has been a great joy to share that with you.
I was so inspired after that talk, and being so excited for a career in it. How did you start your career in psychology? My career in psychology had very unconventional beginnings. I left home after O-levels at 17 and worked for 10 years in a variety of business environments. I decided to go to university when I was 27. As I hadn’t done A-levels, I did the very first access course in the UK – the Fresh Horizons course at the City Lit in London. I wanted to study English literature, so that I could become a novelist. But a fellow student brought back the syllabus for social psychology at LSE and I changed my mind, applied and got a place to study there. Standing on the steps of LSE at the start of my degree programme was one of the most proud and thrilling moments of my life. And after your degree? Because of my work experience, and having grown up in a business family, I never doubted that I would work in business. I started work as an assessment psychologist in the early 1990s. Back then, executive coaching was just beginning as a mechanism for executive education, and I was fascinated. I started my own practice, Grand Shearman Consulting, in 1991, to coach individuals and teams. Through that work I became intrigued by the power of human emotions to help or hinder people’s development, so I became deeply interested in the explosion of research on emotional intelligence work that started around that time. How do you apply psychology to businesses now? Now I describe myself as a leadership expert. One of the projects I am involved with at the moment, with one of my colleagues, is a comprehensive, in-depth leadership programme, REAL: Resilient, Energised and Authentic Leadership. Resilient leadership is a hot topic at the moment, as corporate life is now tougher than I’ve ever known it, mainly because of the challenges of global economics. I work with individuals and teams still, focusing on the deeper dynamics that underlie work performance and success. What theories do you draw on for your work? The corporate world is very interested in the new field of positive psychology developed by Martin Seligman, and I have trained in some of his methods. Identifying strengths, focusing on what you are good at, developing resilient
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thinking skills, all these form a solid foundation for optimal performance of corporate executives. I am fascinated by the new findings coming out of neuroscience, and how such insights can be applied to leadership. I also draw on psychodynamics – in particular how we unconsciously project family dynamics on to the work ‘family’ to re-create familiar patterns of relating in our working relationships. I have never been wedded to one theoretical perspective. I like to choose what is appropriate for each individual or team. Change is generally hard and slow, so it’s important to seek out ways that might be faster and easier for any given individual. The answer will differ widely from one person to another, so it is important to have an extensive tool kit. As the saying goes: ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. Having said all that, I am a Jungian at heart. I love his work, particularly on dreams. Jung is very poetic in the way that he expresses things, and I find his writings profoundly moving. My first novel, Honor’s Shadow, drew upon his theories of the shadow personality. I love his comment on the task of mid-life – to turn the self inside out, and show the shadow to the light. And how have you applied this psychology background to your novel writing? I always had the ambition to write novels, from a very early age. On my 50th birthday, I decided I should shut up about it or get on with it. So I got on with it and enrolled on an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck. As a result of my life and work experience, I will never run out of material for fiction. I like to write about psychological topics: in the end, all writers are trying to be psychologists. A book of fiction is psychology in action. I like to write about dilemmas rather than problems. A dilemma has two (or more) choices and neither is perfect; so choosing the least bad is the challenge, and this is where my interest lies. Finally what is your favourite book? The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing, because it explains one of the worst dilemmas I can think of – what to do when a family is disturbed by the birth of a child with extreme special needs. I Voula’s professional website: www.grandshearman.com; writer’s site and blog: www.voulagrand.com Melanthe’s blog can be found at https://mysonnydays.wordpress.com
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Everyday genius Genius implies someone with a mystical quality who can change the world, inducing awe. Kell and Lubinsky suggest fewer than 400 could be recognised over 2800 years, while Murray in his lively run through the history of ideas points out their Eurocentrism and early input by gods. They make a tricky psychological sample. Studies are retrospective and subjective whether by biographers or the genius’ own reports (e.g. Crick & Watson on Franklin), and of course no matched controls. Any study of genius is N = 1. Simonton’s 29 finely edited scholarly collection works around ideas of genius. Some chapters explain specific domains, such a music and literature. Belief is part of the job description. But the more one knows of these humans, the more fallible and less mystical they seem. Problem is, if you cannot convince the right people you’ve changed the world, your rose will blush unseen. With the recent communications explosion your chances appear to be improved but they are also as cynically diminished. Much of this collection is concerned with creativity. Weinstein agrees with Einstein that ordinary creative thinking, little-c, is the basis of all big-C. For Winner the gifted child never gets to big-C, because practised expertise gets in the way, and, for sure, savants don’t either. Where Galton concluded that only white men could reach genius, evidence of interacting genetic and environmental influences is scientifically provided by Johnson and Bouchard. The Wiley Intelligence, they write, has to be correlated with creative Handbook of genius to acquire and use essential domain specific Genius knowledge. Dean Keith Wild emotions are popularly associated with genius, Simonton (Ed.) whether depressed Plath, obsessional Mondrian, psychopathic Picasso, alcoholic Dylan Thomas or buttoned-up Emily Dickinson. A touch of megalomania helps. Andreason reluctantly concludes that the jury on bipolar disorder and genius is still out. Genius is not the sum of its interacting parts, but its product. Cognitive disinhibition and neuronal development are discussed, while Sternberg proposes that geniuses learn their skills incrementally, and themselves appear in clumps. Damian and Simonton describe hardship and diverse childhood experiences as common denominators, high in ‘latent inhibition, blind variation and selective retention’. Yet practical materials are as essential for production as the personal qualities of an efficient working memory. I presume there are limits to a genius’s early suffering. Can anything more be said on genius after this cornucopia of psychological science and anecdote? Yes. The rising Tiger Economies and other areas of the world are scarcely mentioned. There is also relatively little concern with psychological barriers, such as gender and religion. What about the long-term effects of hot-housing? It would be helpful to have drawn guidelines on how to enable genius. Geniuses are assumed to be beneficial, whereas the brilliant rise of a dictator or a Machiavelli can similarly affect the world. Sheer luck is barely mentioned, such as Chain and Florey dusting off Fleming’s neglected paper on penicillin. The mystery still remains why few can light up inspiration to genius while others of apparently equal potential and opportunity cannot. For example, not one of Terman’s Californian 1500 child ‘geniuses’ gained a Nobel prize or equivalent. No thousands of hours of diligent practice can turn the humdrum novelist into an untutored Dickens who makes the reader’s heart leap. As a reference on genius in the Western world, this handbook is excellent. But it may provide an epitaph to current thinking on the subject, implicit in Simonton’s end piece ‘Does scientific genius have a future?’. Popular interest in how the world can be changed is already fading from focus on magical individuals to teamwork and massive budgets. Less Einstein and more Silicon Valley. I Wiley Blackwell; 2014; Hardback £120.00 Reviewed by Professor Joan Freeman who is at Middlesex University
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Worth remembering How to Have a Better Brain BBC Radio 4 In this short series on BBC Radio 4, journalist, broadcaster and psychology graduate Sian Williams considers different ways in which memory can be improved, or how to have a ‘better brain’. Each of the programmes focuses on one particular aspect of lifestyle that can affect memory: exercise, relaxation, stimulation, sleep and diet. Under each of these heading, Williams looks at the evidence for different techniques that might improve, or at least maintain, memory function. For example, in the programme on exercise, Williams attempts to memorise a list of unconnected words sitting down, and another list when walking around. Her later recall of the second list is more successful. In each episode, Williams visits neuropsychologist Dr Catherine Loveday [University of Westminster and Chair of the Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee] and her mother Scilla [pictured above], a former consultant psychiatrist, who has accelerated memory loss. These discussions are especially illuminating, and touching. Loveday applies her knowledge to create a lifestyle for Scilla that will help support and maintain her memory. For example one of the most successful techniques is Scilla’s nightly habit of writing down the day’s activities, and re-reading the previous day’s entry, as a way of consolidating her memory. At only 15 minutes long, each programme can only be a whistle-stop tour of the latest research in that area. But as a resource for anyone who is looking for some practical advice to give a friend or relative who is worried about their memory – or if you are worried about your own – this is a great listen. I All five episodes of How to Have a Better Brain are available on demand at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067gcj6 Reviewed by Kate Johnstone who is Associate Editor (Reviews)
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Challenging current ideas Tales from the Madhouse: An Insider Critique of Psychiatric Services Gary Sidley
On the Move – A Life Oliver Sacks On the Move, published a few months before his death in August, describes Oliver Sacks’s life in a beautifully engaging, lively and sincere style enabling the reader to understand the real author behind celebrated works such as Hallucinations, Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Although this might not be considered a psychology-related book, it is a revealing work that expresses Sacks’s curiosity for understanding the fragile and enigmatic human mind, the passion for his job and the numerous challenges he has faced throughout his private life and career. Within this collection of memories together with illustrative photos, Oliver Sacks can be perceived as a multidimensional and evolving character: He is not simply a neurologist who wrote books but a trustworthy doctor who not only does his best to treat his patients but also creates an emotional attachment with them. Through a clear, touching and uplifting style, the reader can empathise with him, with his feelings, dreams and ambitions. His hobbies and passions, such as the love for motorcycles, snorkelling and travelling, are revealed alongside episodes from his private life, including family issues, friendships and relationships. The puzzling ways in which the human mind operates are also a recurring theme. Letters from patients, students and colleagues, meetings and conferences, the making of documentaries and movies are included in these pages and a feeling of hugeness pervades the readers when they realise how much Sacks’s contribution in the field of neurology and also neuropsychology has helped in the improvement of diagnoses of several relatively unknown disorders and conditions that would become the main thread of his work. This is a remarkable autobiography about one extraordinary life. I Picador; 2015; Hb £20.00 Reviewed by Sara Pisani who is an undergraduate at City University For our September 2013 interview, plus links to Oliver Sacks’s work and other tributes, see http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ten-bestoliver-sacks-1933-2015
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implications this has for service users, particularly in terms of the recovery model and enabling people to feel empowered and motivated to make changes. It outlines the benefits of allowing people to feel in control of their recovery rather than adopting an expert/patient approach – an area that is starting to change in current practice but still has a way to go. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone working in mental health as a way to challenge some of the current ideas and assumptions in working with those experiencing emotional distress, and to work towards an alternative approach that moves away from biological psychiatry and towards a more compassionate response in order to instil hope and motivation with the aim of promoting recovery. I PCCS Books; 2015; Pb £18.00 Reviewed by Helen Crocker who is a psychological wellbeing practitioner
For more reviews, including The Autistic Gardner, 45 Years, and Tom Farsides on the new Peter Singer book The most good you can do: How effective altruism is changing ideas about living ethically, visit http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/reviews just in
An extraordinary life
This book gives an informative insight into psychiatric services, providing a brief overview and critique of the history of psychiatric practices, helpfully supported by more recent clinical vignettes and anecdotes from the author to illustrate some of the pitfalls in how mental illness was, and is still, viewed. It raises some interesting points regarding the treatment of psychiatric patients by staff and how this may be interpreted as discrimination, feeding into the ‘them and us’ stereotype and increasing stigma in mental health. The author incorporates up-to-date evidence and research to back up points made, and opens up the debate between nature and nurture in looking at biogenetic vs. psychosocial explanations for the development of mental disorders. This thought-provoking book also highlights issues surrounding the use of medication as a way to manage mental illness, and the
Sample titles just in: Offenders, Deviants or Patients? An Introduction to Clinical Criminology Herschel Prins Sexuality in Adolescence: The Digital Generation Meredith Temple-Smith, Susan Moore & Doreen Rosenthal Reflections on the Aesthetic Experience John D. Greenwood For a full list of books available for review and information on reviewing for The Psychologist, see www.bps.org.uk/books Send books for potential review to The Psychologist, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester LE1 7DR
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An unflinching and addictive performance People, Places and Things The National Theatre People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan opens with a period scene of a woman’s disintegration, which feels familiar. It soon becomes apparent that it is Chekhov’s The Seagull, and we are watching Nina, but along with the familiarity is a sense that something is out of kilter. We realise that we are watching a play within a play, and it is not Nina’s disintegration we are witnessing, but the actress who plays Nina. Cut to a white medical setting where Nina, as she refers to herself, is checking in to a rehab facility. Dark humour masks the desperation of her situation as she instructs her mother over the telephone to get rid of all the drink and drugs at her flat. She is assessed by a doctor, and refuses to give her real name – in fact we never really know who she is right until the end of the play. Stunning stage direction follows in which Nina (Denise Gough, who gives a stand-out and exhausting performance of anger, energy and emotion throughout the play) goes through detox from drugs and alcohol. First the walls begin to break down, and then Nina after Nina appear from the same bed, tortured and writhing, one soiling herself, one ripping pages out of a book, in scenes reminiscent of descriptions detox patients give of delirium tremens. We move to group therapy, the therapy of choice in Addiction, where Nina is now Emma. Various stages of therapy are played out in a kaleidoscope of switching characters and timeframes around Emma like piggy in the middle. It culminates in a furious scene where Emma refuses to accept that it is she who is broken, rather it is the world which needs fixing. Gough is extraordinary here. An angry, cynical polemic is delivered by a woman who has no idea who she is or what she feels, her emptiness highlighted by her profession – she acts because she has no identity, no personality, and can feel no truth unless she speaks the fictional words of others. When that fails, drugs and alcohol are her truth. In the second half Emma is now Sarah, and checking back into rehab after a major relapse. Sarah is ready to do the work Nina and Emma could not do, and she moves towards some sort of resolution. Group therapy provides a safe space for her to rehearse how she will make amends to her family, and she is able to graduate from the treatment programme and return home. Some details in the play did not ring true, mainly in the portrayal of the therapist. Few therapists would use the word ‘addict’, with all its pejorative undertones. Even fewer would break good practice and safeguarding protocols at the insistence of a client. It may make good theatre to allow things to kick off in group therapy, but it’s rarely what would happen. It would be too easy for me as an addiction researcher to get hung up on things which weren’t quite right, rather than focusing on the play as a whole, and the performances within it. I applaud the play for not flinching from the ambiguity of addiction, and for not serving up feel-good clichés, nor the simplistic alternative of despair and despondency. In the final scene we witness just how much damage Nina/Emma/Sarah/whoever has done to her family, and her mother’s need to sabotage her daughter in return is one of the most powerful scenes I can recall in any play. The treatment programme in the play is based on the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step model with its central tenet of spirituality, but there is no spiritual awakening for our protagonist. People, Places and Things is a very good play indeed. I Reviewed by Dr Sally Marlow who is at the National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience King’s College London See www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/people-places-and-things
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Enduring fascination The Amazing World of M.C. Escher Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh As a graduate student in the 1960s I found Escher prints on the walls of many of my contemporaries, and indeed in chemistry, physics, mathematics and other science labs. This was in contrast to the Brueghels, the Leonardos and the Impressionists which adorned the walls of my friends in the arts and humanities. This quiet and unassuming Dutchman, whose work is regarded as little more than a sideshow by art historians, continues to have enormous cultural impact through films, advertising, computer games and even Lego. Apparently there is only a single
work of Escher hanging a in a British gallery, and this exhibition of over 100 prints is the largest ever display of his works in the UK. Escher has a rather unique connection with the British Psychological Society in that a paper published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1958 (see tinyurl.com/pvvq8z6) so excited his interest that it led to correspondence with the authors (the mathematicians Lionel and Roger Penrose) and was the direct inspiration for several of his works. Roger Penrose had encountered the art of Escher while attending
Identity, race and belonging Labels Edinburgh Fringe Festival ‘Where are you from?’ To some, these four words are rife with baggage, hidden meanings, judgement, and a sense of questioning of one’s authentic sense of self. Joe Sellman-Leava and the Worklight Theatre’s production of Labels, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, seeks to tackle and deconstruct this seemingly innocuous question and the meaning it presents to those from immigrant, and particularly ethnic minority, backgrounds. Mr Sellman-Leava’s play is a one-man show in which he, quite realistically, embodies various personalities to showcase the current political discourse surrounding immigration, interwoven with his own personal experience of being an individual of bi-racial descent, born to a white British mother and a Ugandan Asian father. His personal narrative is often striking and realistically depicts the nuances and tightropes
walked by ethnic minorities in Britain, from the construction of a surname, to systemic discrimination as experienced in the labour market, to even facing racist comments on dating applications such as Tinder! Interacting with the audience, Sellman-Leava gets them to ‘step
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DRAWING HANDS, 1948 BY M.C. ESCHER. COLLECTION GEMEENTEMUSEUM DEN HAAG © 2015 THE M.C. ESCHER COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WWW.MCESCHER.COM
a conference in Amsterdam, and was particularly excited by the prints ‘House of Stairs’ and ‘Relativity’. Penrose started to design his own ‘problem pictures’, as he called them, and the BJP paper ‘Impossible objects’ featured a perspective drawing of a ‘tri-bar’ familiar to thousands of psychology students through Richard Gregory’s book Eye and Brain. Escher wrote to the Penroses enclosing a print of his ‘Belvedere’ which he had created years before he read the
in the shoes’ of his various characters. Between his personal narrative, he alludes to the historical narrative of British immigration policy, channelling Enoch Powell and his famous 1968 ‘rivers of blood speech’, Idi Amin, David Cameron and Ed Miliband reflecting on the migrant boat crisis, and quotes from celebrities such as Jeremy Clarkson. Whilst his narrative is framed through the lens of the British Asian experience, his performance is accessible and relatable to all audiences, who get a glimpse of how, despite the purported view of tolerance of British society, racism continues to be systemically entrenched. There’s much social psychology in how Labels seeks to deconstruct the prevalent notion of what it means to be British – is it a race-bound construct, or can answers such as ‘I’m from Devon/Cheltenham’ from an ethnic minority be accepted at face value? Labels alludes to group processes involved in Other-isation – whereby even an ethnic name can be seen to influence job prospects, and potentially stir up feelings of disenfranchisement. Notions of authenticity and of multiple identities come into play – particularly when Sellman-Leava
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BJP article and at the bottom of which there is a man holding a cube with similar pedigree to the impossible triangle. Escher also sent the Penroses a copy of his lithograph ‘Ascending and Descending’, inspired by the endless staircase depicted in the Penrose article, together with ‘Waterfall’, a reworking of the tri-bar form into a viaduct
articulates repeated experiences of his encountering ‘But you ain’t British, mate, you’re Asian’, despite him being bi-racial and growing up in a middle-class British family. Moscovici’s social representation theory comes to light in his examples – representations of a particular ethnic group are perpetuated and become accepted as ‘authentic’. Labels astutely raises the issue of the ‘politics of representation’ – if negative stereotypes of immigrants continue to run rampant, and acceptance into the larger British mainstream is denied, can ethnic ghetto-isation be surprising? Labels cleverly uses political and personal narratives to enable questions and conversations – if we can identify with SellmanLeava’s own story at a human level, why then are we immune to those ‘other’ migrants who are dying on boats to reach safe havens? With immigration a current hot topic, Labels forces us to examine whether we are merely paying lip service to multiculturalism when confronted with our own social representations as to who can really be ‘British’. I Reviewed by Karim Mitha who is at the University of Edinburgh
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with a continuously flowing stream of water. This terrific exhibition will delight fans of science fiction and of computer graphics as well being of particular interest to psychologists. Judging by the footfall in the Edinburgh gallery, Escher’s amazing craftsmanship is evident to all, and continues to have an enduring fascination. The exhibition notes and catalogue indicate an intriguing disparity between his work and his reserved and very private
personality. He cut a rather lone furrow in his time, with no connection whatsoever with the flourishing contemporary surrealist movement in art. It is ironic that such a private man became the godfather of psychedelic art, and who turned down offers from Mick Jagger to design a record cover [see tinyurl.com/o28s5rx], and who ignored a request by Stanley Kubrick to work on a film exploring the fourth dimension! I The exhibition is moving to the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London from 14 October to 17 January Reviewed by Peter Wright
The Sick of the Fringe Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Sick of the (Edinburgh) Fringe, supported by the Wellcome Trust, aims to ‘inspire collaboration between science and the arts’. Organiser and compere Brian Lobel, who does shows about his own health issues, has spoken of creating a ‘space for shared vulnerability’, and it is certainly good to see room for difficult stories around medicine, mental and physical wellbeing and how they are expressed at the Fringe. This is its first year, and it has ambitious aims to be open and inquiring, to follow as well as lead. Inevitably this means it is also confusing and contradictory. The title implies issues of health and sickness, and yet this is not the stated aim. I came as a psychotherapist and the first discussion about depression and Bryony Kimmings’ show Fake It ‘Til You Make It (reviewed in the September issue) seemed familiar territory. The second was Simon McBurney discussing his oneman show, ending with an extended riff on the need for changing consciousness of climate change, very similar to that of John Burnside at the Book Festival. I also attended Sir Colin Blakemore’s talk on perception, and Liz Carr’s brilliant discussion about disability and assisted suicide. I was enchanted, inspired and challenged by all the events. I was also confused: I like to understand the narrative and comfortably land at the end. However, I know that is unrealistic, and usually means that uncertainties have been missed, and valuable loops and byways not explored. By the end, I was no clearer about where the programme was leading, but I had enjoyed myself very much and had great conversations. Most powerfully I’m reminded of the importance of awareness of the needs of the environment we live in. Burnside and McBurney, both passionately concerned at our slide into over-consumption and degradation of the oceans in particular, left me wondering how the world of the arts can help us to take this seriously, both in our own lives and as political animals. Finally, as a psychotherapist, I wanted to join in with what I know of the body–mind connection, as it felt so different from the world of theatre. Can psychotherapy join this discussion, addressing health, wellbeing and the life and death questions raised here? I Reviewed by Cathie Wright, Edinburgh
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Understanding OCD A Monster in My Mind BBC Two (Horizon series) Uta Frith on why she was pleased to be asked to be involved
When I was a young student in Saarbrücken, Germany in the early 1960s, I was quite undecided what I should study. I went to many different lectures, with no idea what subject to specialise in. One day my decision was suddenly made for me. For a psychiatry lecture, which psychologists as well as medical students could attend, the professor had brought along one of his patients who suffered from OCD. The patient impressed me hugely. He spoke in a strikingly rational way about how he was obsessed by an absurdly irrational fear. He was convinced that, if he did not rid himself of germs, there was a real chance that he could infect members of his family through wounds they might have
accidentally acquired. It was a monstrous fear that haunted him all his waking hours, and that no amount of washing could rid him of. Like most people I had thought that being obsessive and compulsive was merely a quirky personality characteristic, and quite a common one. I imagined that I too was a bit obsessive. I can remember that, as a child I sometimes had the urge to touch every fence post, and I am still strongly drawn to straightening picture frames when they hang askew. But that was a long way from the case that I witnessed. It made me realise that OCD is a harrowing mental illness. But this was also very different from what I had imagined mental illness to be.
An ideal resource Psychology of Physical Activity: Determinants, Well-being and Interventions (3rd edn) Stuart Biddle, Nanette Mutrie & Trish Gorely Given the high level of author expertise in this textbook, I was very eager to get stuck in. The breadth and depth of topics covered is comprehensive and of note from the outset. With insights drawn from epidemiology, health psychology, public health, medicine and exercise science, much more than a purely psychological perspective can be gained from reading. As well as discussion of key theoretical models, this book also integrates practical resources and guidance on physical activity assessment tools. The range of international intervention examples across school, workplace, primary healthcare and beyond ensure there are ideas of relevance to a wide readership. An important addition to this edition is a section devoted to sedentary behaviour: the ‘new kid on the block’ of activity research. Addressed at the end of the book with accompanying epidemiological and intervention evidence, this sets the scene for future research trends in the field. Another important change in this edition is the discussion of physical activity interventions. This is now framed around behaviour change models and techniques, clearly reflecting a shift in theoretical models over recent years. Discussion of interventions also gives a useful focus on process evaluations: promoting assessment of why not simply whether a physical activity intervention works or not. A new companion website with question bank, PowerPoint slides and additional learning activities make this an ideal resource for physical activity teaching. I have no doubt that as with previous editions, this version will be a widely recommended text for students, researchers and health professionals interested in physical activity promotion. Even if you just have an interest in the activity choices of yourself, friends or family, this is a great book to get you well informed. I Routledge; 2015; Pb £45.00 Reviewed by Emma Norris who is a PhD student at University College London
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I had observed some schizophrenic patients who were utterly convinced that their irrational thoughts were nothing but the bare truth. By contrast, the patient’s account of himself was incredibly rational. His monster had only grown stronger over the years; he knew the cleaning procedures he imposed on himself were hopelessly ineffective and only ever gave him a few moments’ relief, yet he could not stop them. From then on I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a researcher and find out what makes the mind behave in such a strangely contradictory way. How could your own mind keep you in thrall of some unimaginable fear when you knew that the fear was irrational? This was like creating your own nightmare and never
Clarifying diagnostic obfuscations Disruptive Mood: Irritability in Children and Adolescents Argyris Stringaris & Eric Taylor While irritability and tantrums are a hallmark of early childhood, they are of concern when they assume chronic or intense proportions. Disruptive Mood situates irritability within the context of child psychopathology. The book is a useful guide for clinicians who have to make black-or-white diagnostic decisions based on symptoms that range anywhere on a spectrum of greys. Further, diagnoses is also complicated by the fact that irritability can be a diagnosis in and of itself as in disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, or it can be one of several symptoms of a disorder like the manic phase in bipolar disorder or depression. Other conditions, like ADHD, which do not include irritability in their diagnostic criteria, may be accompanied by irritability. Finally, certain organic conditions, like epilepsy, may result in irritability. The authors have done a fine job of clarifying these diagnostic
obfuscations. In addition to exploring neuroscientific models of anger and irritability, the book also offers practical guidelines on how to manage these negative emotions in various psychological conditions. The strategies covered include pharmacological interventions to CBT to parent training programmes. While the book is a good resource for those who work in the field of paediatric mental health, the reader should be forewarned that it takes the DSM-5 as the gold standard of psychiatric diagnoses. For those who are sceptical of some of the classifications of DSM-5, this book does not offer a critique or alternative to current psychiatric models. I Oxford; 2015; Pb £24.99 Reviewed by Aruna Sankaranarayanan who is Director of PRAYATNA, a centre for children with learning difficulties in India
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being able to escape from it. I started to read avidly about mental illness and found that the then available methods of treatment, ranging from lobotomy, electroshock, psychoactive drugs to psychoanalysis, were spectacularly unsuccessful. But then, in the psychology department I heard about a new way of treating mental illness that was being developed in London’s Maudsley Hospital. I knew I had to go there and learn more about it. The revolutionary new way was called ‘behaviour therapy’, and OCD, together with other anxiety disorders, was a showcase for its success. By good fortune I was accepted on a course in what was then called ‘abnormal psychology’. I had already decided to do a PhD on OCD, but fate intervened. During my rotation on the course I met children with autism. This diverted my interest from OCD (although autism too is often associated with obsessions and compulsions). From time to time I have wondered wistfully what progress had been made in our understanding of OCD. This was why I was extremely excited to be asked to present this documentary. It gave me a chance to catch up on new developments and it immediately rekindled my earliest interests in the mind and brain. One particularly gratifying experience during filming was that I was able to visit Isaac Marks, who had been one of the pioneers of behaviour therapy at the Maudsley when I was a student. It was fascinating to hear him reminisce about his first attempts to apply the insights he had gained from an animal learning experiment he had watched in the US. Remarkably, later on during the filming, I saw a version of this same experiment
being carried out with humans in the brain scanner at Cambridge’s Addenbrookes’ Hospital. I was also excited to meet David Adams, whose insightful account of his own OCD in his book The Man Who Couldn’ t Stop is better than any textbook. I discovered that the leading OCD researchers are on the way to finding the brain abnormality that can explain the cruel tricks that OCD plays on the mind. Trevor Robbins and his group in Cambridge have identified a critical neural circuit, connecting two major brain regions. One is the orbitofrontal cortex, known to be concerned with achieving valued goals. The other is mid-brain region, the basal ganglia. This is known to be associated with our ability to acquire automatic habits. According to Robbins, in the case of OCD the habit system has gained dominance over the goal-directed system, just as it does in drug addiction. It’s an ancient system that serves as a precaution against invisible threats, such as contamination and predator attack, but in OCD it seems that this system cannot be turned off. The potential threat is ever present. There is no way to obtain certainty that it has disappeared. I was also struck by the ‘hyperresponsibility’ of the patients: their family, even the world at large will be catastrophically affected if they fail to carry out precautionary rituals. Why? I couldn’t let go of this question. We know little about how we control our own thoughts. Fortunately, most of us are under the illusion that unwanted thoughts are not caused by us, but by ‘our brain’. We can dismiss them, and then we do not feel responsible for them. People with OCD don’t have this luxury. The unwanted thoughts intrude on their full consciousness, creating the illusion that they did cause them, and therefore that they are responsible. By the end of the filming I was convinced that OCD provides an amazing example of how our common understanding of mental illness has gradually changed over the last 50 years. Today we have much more awareness of mental illness and put less blame on those who are affected. Professional help is available. There are also excellent support networks that inform and inspire. Exciting advances are being made about the abnormal functioning of particular brain circuits, but that’s only the start. To understand how brain and mind relate to each other is a hugely complex enterprise. We have hardly embarked on it.
Have you heard…
The new podcast from The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest Listen via www.bps.org.uk/digest
I BBC resource: www.bbc.co.uk/guides/ z2vxp39 More behind the scenes: www.slam.nhs.uk/media/our-blog/ behind-the-scenes-making-a-bbcdocumentary-on-ocd
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
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that the power of the ‘expert’ is easy to abuse.
… with Jo Silvester
‘Nothing you learn is ever redundant’ One moment that changed the course of your career It would have to be a press interview at the BPS Centenary Conference in 2001, which led to the newspapers picking up on my research about diversity and selection. I received a letter from Christina Dykes, who was then Director of Candidates for the Conservative Party. Christina invited me along to discuss how they could develop a fairer and more objective process for approving prospective parliamentary candidates. I got to redesign the Party’s procedures based on best practice from occupational psychology. In the 2005 general election we captured the first empirical evidence that critical thinking ability impacts on electoral performance (i.e. the percentage swing in votes achieved by a candidate). The work led on to many other projects, including redesigning selection procedures for the
coming soon
Jo Silvester is Professor of Organisational Psychology, Cass Business School, City University London
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Liberal Democrat Party and implementing 360-degree review for candidates in the 2010 general election. One essential characteristic for a politician For the past decade Maddy Wyatt and I have collected self-report data from many hundreds of politicians. We now have good evidence (empirical and qualitative) that three qualities emerge consistently as important: ‘analytical skills’ (i.e. cognitive ability), ‘resilience’, and ‘relating to others’. ‘Communicating vision’ and ‘developing support’ were also key to performance for political candidates, and local politicians identified integrity as important (strangely this did not emerge for national politicians). If I had to say which I thought was key to getting elected, I’d say ‘communicating vision’ – voters need to know what politicians believe and what they think is important. One book that you think all psychologists should read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, because it reminds us
Attachment – beyond interpersonal relationships, and much more... I Contribute: reach 50,000 colleagues, with something to suit all. See www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute or talk to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 I Comment: email the editor, the Leicester office, or tweet @psychmag. I To advertise: Reach a large and professional audience at bargain rates: see details on inside front cover.
One great thing that psychology has achieved I’d say ‘reach’. I’ve been visiting university open days with my daughters, and several of their friends have joined me for work experience. It’s easy to forget how much psychology inspires interest among young people. I know some people worry about the popularity of psychology – that it may somehow lead to a ‘dumbing
of occupational psychology to business schools where journals are given a greater REF weighting compared to psychology. One cultural recommendation Doctor Who. One alternative career path My PhD investigated parental attributions in child abuse, and I won a place to train as a clinical psychologist, but I decided I wasn’t cut out to work full-time in the area. I now come across writing about abuse and power in political contexts – I guess nothing you learn is ever redundant. One nugget of advice for aspiring psychologists Don’t be afraid to take risks and challenge current paradigms. There are only so many ways you can test a theory – focus on creating your own.
down’ of the discipline – but this energy and enthusiasm can only be positive. One challenge psychology faces I think a major challenge for the discipline is the need to reconcile divisions between research and practice, and between pure and applied research. University appointments are driven by a need for applicants to have 4* publications for the REF. In psychology most 4* journals are not concerned with applied areas, and the knockon effect is a reluctance to appoint staff to teach applied postgraduate courses without such publications; even if they have extensive expertise as practitioners and professionals. This perhaps leads to the steady migration
One hero from psychology past or present Donald Broadbent because he helped me jumpstart my car when I was an undergraduate student at a BPS conference. Here was one of the great minds of cognitive psychology asking me about what I wanted to do as a future psychologist. My heroes are those people who have achieved success, whilst avoiding the traps of hubris, who still have the humanity and interest to encourage lesser mortals along the way. One psychological superpower I’d like to have I’d like to be able to understand my dog. One inspiration My mother (a teacher) was fond of quoting Piaget: ‘play is work you enjoy doing’. More answers online at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
vol 28 no 10
october 2015