The Psychologist September 2011

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the

psychologist vol 24 no 9

september 2011

The shock of the old A special issue reconnecting with Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies, 50 years on

Incorporating Psychologist Appointments ÂŁ5 or free to members of The British Psychological Society

letters 626 news 632 big picture centre careers 696

towards healthier meetings 668 defending A-level psychology 674 school students and work 676 the realities of studying psychology 706

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The British Psychological Society Contact The British Psychological Society St Andrews House 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR tel 0116 254 9568 fax 0116 227 1314

Welcome to The Psychologist, 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’.

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Associate Editors Articles Vaughan Bell, Kate Cavanagh, Harriet Gross, Marc Jones, Rebecca Knibb, Charlie Lewis, Wendy Morgan, Tom Stafford, Miles Thomas, Monica Whitty, Jill Wilkinson, Barry Winter Conferences Sarah Haywood, Alana James International Nigel Foreman, Asifa Majid Interviews Nigel Hunt, Lance Workman History of Psychology Julie Perks

The Psychologist and Digest Policy Committee David Lavallee (Chair), Phil Banyard, Nik Chmiel, Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Jeremy Horwood, Catherine Loveday, Victoria Mason, Stephen McGlynn, Sheelagh Strawbridge, Henck van Bilsen, Peter Wright, and Associate Editors

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september 2011

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the

psychologist vol 24 no 9

september 2011

THE ISSUE

news, digest, media and conference reports 632 nudging behaviour change; CFS/ME; inattentional blindness; national well-being; selections from the Research Digest; phone-hacking scandal; European Congress of Psychology; Division of Counselling Psychology conference; and more

‘We will pay you $4.00 for one hour of your time. Persons needed for a study of memory.’ So began, fifty years ago, what became arguably the most famous (and, for some, the most infamous) experiments in psychology’s history: Milgram’s obedience studies. Their shock waves spread through psychology and beyond, and this month Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher lead a special feature reconnecting with Milgram’s vision for social psychology and society. We hear from Stanley Milgram’s widow, Alexandra Milgram, on the man, his passions and motivations. Jerry Burger updates Milgram’s enduring legacy, including some interesting partial replications. Finally, we move beyond psychology to hear from film scholar Kathryn Millard and historian Richard Overy.

It is perhaps apt that Milgram, such a staple of student learning in psychology, should feature so heavily in this particular issue, which is also being received in print and electronic form by thousands of new undergraduates. Welcome, and I urge you to find much more support for your studies via www.bps.org.uk, including our own archive at www.thepsychologist.org.uk and the Research Digest blog at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog.

Dr Jon Sutton

CREDIT

letters 626 accessing Society reports; men in psychology; Dorothy Bishop column; and more

The shock of the old Stephen D. Reicher and S. Alexander Haslam introduce a special feature that reconnects 650 with Milgram’s vision The man, his passions and motivations 652 Stanley Milgram’s widow, Alexandra Milgram, with her personal take Alive and well after all these years Jerry Burger updates an enduring legacy

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The window in the laboratory Film scholar Kathryn Millard on Milgram as a filmmaker

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662 Milgram and the historians Historian Richard Overy talks to Stephen D. Reicher and S. Alexander Haslam

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book reviews

Towards healthier meetings Sick of meetings? Jon Sutton and Abi Millar look to psychology for a cure

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Defending the honour of psychology A-level Matt Jarvis considers rigour and skills

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School students and work Alex Fradera talks to Jim McKechnie

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the new psychology of leadership, human attention in digital environments, and more society

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introducing Carole Allan in her first President’s column; vote on subscription fees; new radio series; events and more

696 careers and psychologist appointments we seek advice for undergraduates from Dorothy Miell and Darren Van Laar; featured job; how to advertise; and all the latest jobs new voices students give their views on how their expectations of studying psychology matched the realities

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one on one …with Essi Viding

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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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LETTERS

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Erecting economic barricades?

There is no shortage of reviews and books about conditions such as bipolar disorder, but they are usually locked

behind academic paywalls or published in increasingly expensive academic books.

In contrast, there is a genuine lack of high-quality, independent information that is available to all.

Stigma and ignorance are still common, and the BPS should be at the forefront of fighting that. Erecting economic barricades just ensures that those most in need of such information won’t be able to access it.

TIM SANDERS

I was interested to note that the BPS’s new (and I have to say, excellent) report Understanding Bipolar Disorder was being advertised as free to download until 12 August at which point the public will be charged to read it. I was subsequently surprised to see that past reports are now only available through the BPS online shop.

While I understand that these reports are costly to produce, if there’s one thing I want the BPS to do without charging, it is to provide the public with accurate and up-to-date information about psychological matters and, particularly, mental illness, in line with the Society’s aims.

Vaughan Bell Médicos Sin Fronteras, Colombia Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London

Response from Graham Powell, Chair

Wish I wasn’t here?

contribute

Christian Jarrett’s article ‘Wish you were here?’ (August 2011) provides an interesting review of the psychology of holidays. However, the research findings presented, although sensible in interpretations and implications, seem to give a somewhat narrow and culturally biased perspective on holidays.

For example, holiday motivation comes from the anticipated positive benefits of the experience, but this can vary from extreme hedonistic desires to escapism from a stressful lifestyle or environment, that is ‘I really wish I wasn’t here’. Obviously, where the purpose of a holiday is for a concrete experience (e.g. a specific activity or site visit), then it’s simple realisation is likely to lead to a positive experience. In contrast, where the holiday acts as a short-term substitute for

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

a strongly yearned alternative lifestyle, then the holiday benefits can be expected to be shortlived, and the peak experiences of the holiday exaggerated.

The research to date does not seem to consider the personal motivations (and life situations) of individuals and the subsequent influences of these on the holiday experience. Jarrett touches on this issue through the example of ‘coming back to a pile of work’, but I’d like to argue that in

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

some cases more significant concerns may exist, especially in times of economic hardship or in situations of severely unfulfilled life expectations.

A second point is the cultural bias towards the holiday experience.

Societal influences (e.g. through the media and peer influences) can hype up the value and benefits of a holiday, and perhaps even force an expectation for a positive recollection of experiences. In other words, even a mediocre holiday could then be rationalised as a good experience and a the

psychologist vol 24 no 8

august 2011

Wish you were here?

Christian Jarrett on the psychology of holidays

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

not permit the publication of every letter received.

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

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letters

Appealling to men of the Publications and Communications Board: Thank you for your positive comments about this excellent report. It has been available as a free download for a fairly extended initial period during a lot of publicity, and I am now happy to announce that it will remain free to all for the time being.

However, this report may be an exception as a popular and public-facing report which, as you say, seems squarely within our charitable objectives to provide reliable information on. You have raised an important point as to whether charging non-members for such resources contradicts our primary charter objective of diffusing a knowledge of psychology.

Our resources are not unlimited and so we often do have to charge; we cannot fully subsidise all of our activities. But this is a complex debate, and I will take your feedback to the Publications and Communications Board so that we can take it into account in setting future pricing policy.

subconscious way of meeting cultural norms. Do the residents of a country blessed with, say, an environment and lifestyle for regular leisure and authentic escape from the humdrum of work life perceive the two-week holiday spurt in the same way as others? (And I am projecting a little here by implying that life in London does not meet such criteria for many of its residents!) In a similar manner, does the effectiveness of the weekend as a rejuvenator influence the subsequent benefits and fade-out of the formal holiday?

The short-lived effects of a holiday may be an argument for more holidays, but in some cases, a more fundamental review of the individual’s quality of life may be needed. Like many other healthpromoting factors, steady consumption that is implicit within the day-to-day life of the individual, may ultimately be better than the infrequent bingeing of UK and other European cultures.

Esat Alpay London

Having just analysed qualitative data from females can be observed in other an HEA funded mini project entitled countries where psychology is popular ‘Exploring male (dis)engagement in (e.g. Harton and Lyons, 2003) This is an psychology’, Marc Smith’s article ‘Failing issue which is further reaching than the boys, failing psychology’ in the May UK. edition resonated. Our study, which We wonder, having listened to the involved focus groups with males views of some of the males that this article studying for their A2 levels about their refers to, if the responsibility to address perceptions of psychology as a discipline this issue runs deeper. We were struck by and a potential university and career how confused the narratives of the males choice, was motivated by many of the in our study were. Even those who were statistics about gender imbalances the studying the discipline found it hard to article highlighted. Of the 35 males who offer a coherent account of what a took part in our study (around half of psychologist was. What messages are whom were actually taking A2 being given by those bodies promoting Psychology) only 4 wished to continue and developing the discipline? The with the discipline at recently published university. Of those 3 ‘The Future of were taking Undergraduate psychology as part of a Psychology in the joint honour’s subject.

United Kingdom’ Discussions with the (2011) jointly males supported some funded by the British of the ideas referred to Psychological in Marc’s article: they Society, the saw psychology as a Association of Heads ‘sort of science’ often of Psychology aligned with biology, Departments and the rather than subjects Higher Education which they perceived Psychology Network as more ‘mainstream’ informs us that the science, namely two strengths of the chemistry and physics. discipline are that ‘it is Feelings and emotions – ‘more They perceived the an extraordinary suited to females’? subject matter of heterogeneous discipline’ psychology as more and ‘can lead to a range suited to females, suggesting that it was of psychology-based professions…’ whilst about ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’. One affording an opportunity to ‘look outside participant even going as far as to state the formal discipline for a career path’ ‘there’s no point a male doing it’. Finally, (p5).Psychology here seems to be accounts of the career opportunities positioned as all things to all men. Clearly afforded by a degree in the discipline were it is not appealing to many men! Is it time often seen as too specific, and typically to rethink how we are promoting a related to mental health and clinical fields. subject which the QAA (2007) described Others struggled to be able to see what as the most popular scientific discipline at the longer term prospects of such a under graduate level if we are to subject could be. encourage males to take psychology Where we diverge from the sentiments seriously?

Jenny Mercer & Paul Sander of Marc’s article, which seemed to place much emphasis on the apparent ‘failing’ of UWIC Cardiff boys with the teaching of Psychology at A level, is that we feel this is a larger References problem. The figure Marc cited of 30 per Harton, H.C. & Lyons, P.C. (2003) Gender, empathy and cent of the staff not having psychology the choice of psychology major. Teaching of degrees leaves the fact unacknowledged Psychology, 30 p19–24 that a large majority of 70 per cent do QAA subject benchmarks (2007) Psychology. The Quality actually have the gold standard Assurance Agency for Higher Education scientifically based first degree in Trapp, A., Banister, P., Ellis, J. et al (2011) The Future of psychology. Also his line of reasoning Undergraduate Psychology in the United Kingdom. positions the problem to be addressed at York: Higher Education Academy Psychology the foot of the British education system, Network yet the gender imbalance in favour of

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letters

Status of counselling psychology As a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, I empathised greatly with Catherine Coe’s letter (August 2011) regarding the lack of respect afforded to our counselling psychology, both by the BPS and by some members of the Division of Clinical Psychology. When the HPC took charge of statutory registration a couple of years ago, the BPS sent out a bright glossy booklet encouraging us to maintain our links with the BPS for ‘Chartership’ and other benefits. A page was devoted to the usual crowd of psychology disciplines. Not once was there any mention of counselling psychology.

Having just completed my doctorate at the time, I felt thoroughly insulted by this. It

is very disappointing to hear that in Applied Psychology (ed.

Davey, G., 2011), published by BPS Blackwell, again we have been ignored.

I think the problem is three-fold. Firstly, as pointed out by Catherine, clinical psychology is funded by the NHS (and thus invites more applications) while counselling psychology is selffunded. My applied training cost me in the region of £30,000 (fees, travel, books and external courses). I wonder how many students would opt for clinical psychology if they were faced with this fee. We are inevitably the smaller party, but that does not make us ‘lesser’ in any way.

Secondly, there is a problem with the language.

‘Clinical’ suggests something pretentiously medical.

‘Counselling’ suggests something weak, along the lines of tea and sympathy.

Nothing could be further from the truth for either subdiscipline, but unfortunately this is a common misinterpretation.

It is interesting that the taught courses are so similar.

The main difference lies in the philosophical basis underpinning the subdisciplines. The clinical course is based on a medicalised view of the person, while the counselling course is based on a holistic and humanistic underpinning.

no 59

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3 Send your entry (photocopies accepted) marked ‘prize crossword’, to the Leicester office (see inside front cover) deadline 10 october 2011. Winner of prize crossword no 58 Laura Spear, Basingstoke no 58 solution Across 1 Cognitive theory, 9 Ranking, 10 Skinner, 11 Burn, 12 Care, 13 Hobo, 16 Lactate, 17 Ensue, 19 Urban, 21 Electra, 24 Plum, 25 Acre, 26 Saga, 29 Synapse, 30 Proviso, 31 Aversion therapy. Down 1 Cerebellum, 2 Generic, 3 Iris, 4 Ingrates, 5 Easter, 6 Heightened, 7 Omnibus, 8 Yore, 14 Magnum opus, 15 Defamatory, 18 Decrepit, 20 Balance, 22 Tsarina, 23 Make do, 27 Asia, 28 Dose.

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letters

FORUM SURVIVAL GUIDE considerations of human suffering. I believe that both disciplines have their place and significance.

Thirdly, counselling psychologists often do not help themselves. Having graduated, they often drop the ‘counselling’ in their title and try to pass themselves off as clinical psychologists, or at least do not correct people when misidentification occurs. I know of some people who have gone on to do a top-up year to get the clinical title. It is sad that they feel they need this, and I think they have missed the point.

If we really are the third largest Division, then it is time for the BPS to promote our

work professionally and seriously. This means making sure we are always included in their literature about applied psychology and that we are generally given appropriate recognition. I know that Barbara Douglas (previous Chair of DCoP) has been working tirelessly on this point, and it is a relief to know that she is taking such an influential and important position in the BPS as Chair of the Representative Council. It is also time for counselling psychologists to splash out their titles, proudly, at every opportunity.

Joanna Nowill Chartered Counselling Psychologist Cheltenham

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Prozac, say, replaced trepans instead (14) Awkward for one taking exercise around Tyneside (5) Endlessly notice cars transporting opiates (9) Appetite in chap’s mind? (5,3) Ring for king’s mistress (5) Emotional state of daughter is low at first (4) Hurried to accept account set at intervals (6) Song heard – not for her! (3) Love article following dimwit (3) Shortly included lines put into cipher (6) Captain of sub rejected sign (4) Afford relief (5) Planner reconciled switching extreme characters (8) Tough request to secure right developer of simple memory task (9) Time spent with one companion in Paradise (5) Behaviourist’s conditioning makes anger nil, cryptically?

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Piaget’s term for early thought patterns in soul belief? (7) Getting started on the hole (6,3) Party not finishing late for old person (6) Reportedly indulge endangered species (5) Lug line for nobleman (4) Built up shareholdings? (7) Green one in part of church (5) Security of psychiatric hospital once (6) Drug a police department (4) Speaker’s stowed in settlement (4) Little people distribute much oil around peacekeepers (9) Preoccupy former pupil at half of meetings (6) Triangle might be unbroken (7) Manage to elevate Carol to caring profession (7) It’s said in Paris on having the woman hesitate (6) Number employed in region of field (5) Scarce bird seen on course (5) Monetary unit applied to variable tax (4)

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

A Handbook of Skills and Methods in Behavioural Research is not the place you’d expect to find something to make you smile, but many years ago one of my graduate students pointed me to a wickedly funny piece by Ray Hodgson and Stephen Rollnick. Their ‘laws’ on how to survive in research still apply and are as pertinent to the older, seasoned researcher as to the intended readership of the ‘young, lively, questioning researcher who has great expectations but a lack of practical experience’: Law 1. Getting started will take at least as long as the data collection The barriers are various: perhaps the most salient for the newcomer is dithering induced by fear of committing to a non-optimal design. Another is having too many people involved; this just multiplies the dithering, as each person tries to include additional measures or graft on subsidiary projects. It’s vital to have someone who will take control for decision-making.

Law 2. The number of available subjects will be one tenth of your first estimate Quite simply, ‘as soon as somebody starts to research a particular condition, people with that condition leave the district’.

It’s totally true and totally mysterious.

Law 3. Completion of a research project will take twice as long as your last estimate and three times as long as your first estimate This may be moderated by whether you are a pessimist or optimist, but no true pessimist would ever embark on a research project.

Law 4. A research project will change twice in the middle Expect the unexpected, and for any changes to require fresh and timeconsuming ethical approval.

Law 5. The help provided by other people has a half-life of two weeks Yes, yes, yes. Never do a study that depends on the kindness of strangers.

Law 6. The tedium of research is directly proportional to its objectivity You really do need to know this when you start out in research. If you detest mundane, repetitive activities, try another career.

Law 7. The effort of writing up is an exponential function of the time since the data were collected Hodgson and Rollnick reckon that data that sit in a filing cabinet for four years will never escape: to stand any chance, you need to document thoroughly every step of the research collection and data coding. Commonly, the failure to write up is because the results are deemed uninteresting. This has the unfortunate effect of distorting the research literature, as null results are left in the file drawer. I’d like to see journal editors adopting a policy of determining ‘publishability’ of a paper on the basis of Introduction and Methods alone.

Yet another reason for failure to publish is researchers who bite off more than they can chew. We need to move away from a system whereby the rewards for researchers are proportional to the amount of grant income they receive, to one that rewards thrift.

There is a limit to how much research someone can do and do well.

Law 8. Evidence is never enough Hodgson and Rollnick note that research that conflicts with the prevailing view is likely to be ignored, but that’s not the only problem. You have to sell your science: learn to write accessibly, get out there and give talks, start a blog, and, most important of all, focus on problems that are important.

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

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NEWS

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Call for more behaviour expertise The Lords Science and Technology Committee has questioned whether the UK government’s mechanisms for receiving and evaluating social science advice are ‘fit for purpose’ and has called for the appointment of a Chief Social Scientist.

The recommendations come in a new report Behaviour Change, which outlines the findings from a year-long inquiry into the evidence for nonregulatory ‘nudge-based’ and regulatory interventions for changing people’s behaviour. Nudges are premised on changing the environment and circumstances under which people make decisions, rather than on crude tax or reward measures. The principle was

popularised in the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.

The report also urges chief scientific advisers in government departments to liaise with leading behavioural scientists, especially since it was found that some departments currently have no behaviour change expertise. The Government Economic Service and the Government Social Research Service, which are currently responsible for disseminating social science advice and evidence to policy makers, were also criticised for being ineffectual.

The report concludes that there is not enough evidence showing how the science of persuasion and influence can be used in the real world to affect the

behaviour of an entire population.

Nudges and other behaviour change measures are unlikely to work in isolation, the report says. The government is urged to commission and fund more research into applied behaviour research. And specifically on the issue of obesity, the inquiry found the government’s Public Health Responsibility Deal Network to be inadequate for dealing with the scale and seriousness of the problem. (The scheme involves the government working with businesses and other organisations to agree ‘pledges for action’ to improve public health.)

The Lords Science and Technology Committee chair, Baroness Neuberger,

Mind elsewhere The notion that we can look, yet not see, because our attention is directed elsewhere, is well-established in psychology. Known as ‘inattentional blindness’, the phenomenon may explain why, one winter night in 1995, Boston police officer Kenny Conley ran straight past the brutal beating of an undercover officer by his colleagues. Colney was in pursuit of a suspect and claimed not to have seen the fight, but he wasn’t believed and was convicted of perjury (later cleared on a technicality).

Now Christopher Chabris at Union College, New York and his colleagues – the same team behind the famous invisible gorilla experiment – have tested the plausibility of

Colney’s claim by recruiting dozens of participants and having them chase a researcher across campus whilst concurrently tasked with counting the number of times the researcher touched his head. At night, just seven of 20 participants (35 per cent) noticed a noisy fight involving three people that took place eight metres off the path. This proportion grew to 56 per cent in the day, but dropped back to 42 per cent (also in the day) when the counting task was made more demanding. ‘These results demonstrate that under real-world conditions approximating those experienced by Kenny Conley, people can fail to notice a nearby fight,’ Chabris and his colleagues said (Perception: tinyurl.com/6zwqbb9). CJ

MORE NEWS, INCLUDING RIOT ANALYSIS Other news is available online via www.thepsychologist.org.uk, including a report on a neurosciences and music conference by Cara Featherstone, and another view of the Division of Counselling Psychology Annual Conference (see p.646) from Helen Nicholas.

The Research Digest blog also has links to comment on the recent riots, collated as we went to press: see http://tinyurl.com/3fslf6l and follow @researchdigest, @BPSofficial and @psychmag.

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Psychologist and BPS member Professor Francesca Happé has been awarded this year’s Rosalind Franklin Medal by the Royal Society for her outstanding contribution to science.

The medal is of silver gilt and is accompanied by a grant of £30,000, part of which is to be used to help raise the profile of women in science. Happé, who’s based at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, will also be invited to give an award lecture at the Royal Society. Professor Happé conducts research into autism and Asperger’s syndrome and is a previous winner of the British Psychological Society’s Spearman Medal, which recognises outstanding early career psychology research.

Happé told The Psychologist: ‘I’m really delighted and honoured to have received this award. One of the privileges of my job is to work with and mentor exceptional female scientists. My own supervisor, Uta Frith, made clear that being a scientist is quite compatible with being a mother.

Bringing up my three children alongside my research career has been a challenge – women often feel they are failing in both arenas – but I have been tremendously lucky in my colleagues and work environment.’

The award will support Happé’s proposed Rosalind Franklin project; to create a series of small picture books for primary-school children, telling the story of real women scientists in a lively and engaging way. CJ

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said: ‘Changing the behaviour of a population is likely to take time, perhaps a generation or more, and politicians usually look for quick win solutions. The government needs to be braver about mixing and matching policy measures, using both incentives and disincentives to bring about change.

They must also get much better at evaluating the measures they put in place.

In order to help people live healthier and happier lives, we need to understand much more about what sorts of policies will have an effect on how people behave. And the best way to do this is through research, proper evaluation of policies and the provision of well-informed and independent scientific advice.’

The British Psychological Society was among several organisations that

submitted evidence to the inquiry. The Chartered Psychologist and BPS Fellow Professor Charles Abraham acted as specialist adviser. And several psychologists were also invited to attend hearings, including: Professor Theresa Marteau, Professor Susan Michie, Professor Marie Johnston, and Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh. CJ I See tinyurl.com/3v328nj for the report and further information

Chronic consensus or controversy?

Experts from five continents have agreed upon on a new set of ‘International Consensus Criteria’ for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME; also referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome or CFS), which they hope will improve clinical diagnosis and research into the condition.

Writing in the Journal of Internal Medicine in July (tinyurl.com/44tvs6v), the 25 co-authors said: ‘The primary goal of this consensus report is to establish a more selective set of clinical criteria that would identify patients who have neuroimmune exhaustion with a pathological low-threshold of fatigability and symptom flare in response to exertion. This will enable like patients to be diagnosed and enrolled in research studies internationally under a case definition that is acceptable to physicians and researchers around the world.’

The new criteria are the latest in a series of attempts to nail down the hallmarks of ME/CFS. For example, last year saw a revision to narrow down the Canadian Case Definition, originally published in 2003, which has proved popular with many researchers. Bruce Carruthers, a psychiatrist in private practice in Vancouver, who was lead author on those 2003 criteria is also coeditor of the new International Consensus Criteria.

A key departure from its forerunners by the new International Criteria is that symptoms and signs need not have been present for six months before a diagnosis can be made. ‘No other disease criteria require that diagnoses be withheld until after the patient has suffered with the affliction for six months,’ the authors said.

However, the cardinal symptom remains ‘Post-Exertional Neuroimmune

Exhaustion’ – a he’d been the target of profound loss of intimidating letters, energy following e-mails and phone calls. exertion, and ‘Sadly some of the impaired recovery. motivation seems to come Also, the patient from people who believe must have at least that any connection with one symptom in psychiatry is tantamount each of the to saying there is nothing following categories: wrong with you, go away, neurocognitive you’re not really ill,’ he impairments (e.g. told the BBC. pain); immune, Chartered psychologist Patients ‘angry’ that medical gastro-intestinal and and BPS fellow Dr Ellen world ‘trivialised’ the illness genito-urinary Goudsmit has ME and impairments (e.g. researches the condition. She food sensitivities); and energy production/ had first-hand experience of the animosity transportation impairments (e.g. laboured that often confronts scientists working in breathing). the field – including two complaints made The new criteria also urge that the about her to the BPS and a court case, CFS label be dropped. ‘Using “fatigue” which she won. But she says it’s not just as a name of a disease gives it exclusive a reaction against a psychological emphasis and has been the most interpretation of the illness. ‘All those who confusing and misused criterion,’ argue have harassed and threatened me during Carruthers and his colleagues. ‘Fatigue in the past ten years have known that I was other conditions is usually proportional to a patient and were well aware of my criticisms of psychiatric theories about effort or duration with a quick recovery, ME,’ she says. ‘However, patients had and will recur to the same extent with the become increasingly angry at the way the same effort or duration that same or next medical world had trivialised the illness day. The pathological low threshold of and hyped the benefits of psychiatric fatigability of ME described in the interventions like CBT,’ she explained, following criteria often occurs with ‘and that created a fertile ground for minimal physical or mental exertion, conspiracy theories and abusive e-mails.’ and with reduced ability to undertake Goudsmit herself became a target after the same activity within the same or challenging factual errors in posts on the several days.’ internet. ‘Those responsible are a small Publication of the new diagnostic group, most don’t have ME themselves, criteria coincided with reports by the but they’ve alienated a lot of experienced BBC and elsewhere of a hate campaign experts who didn’t want to risk being in being waged against scientists the firing line and retired. In my view, the investigating the psychology of ME/CFS (tinyurl.com/43gdktg). Psychiatrist Simon real victims of the conspiracy theorists have been people with ME.’ CJ Wessely at the Institute of Psychiatry said

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FREE E-BOOKS OCR, the A-level exam board, has collaborated with the publishers OUP and Hodder Education to provide free e-books for A-level teachers and students from September this year. Interested parties will need to be an approved OCR centre to access the e-books.

I See tinyurl.com/3cpvf4r for information.

WILEY PRIZE The developmental psychologist Professor Michael Tomasello (Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center, Leipzig) is the recipient of this year’s Wiley Prize in Psychology, awarded by the British Academy in partnership with Wiley-Blackwell. The £5000 prize for ‘lifetime achievement by an outstanding international scholar’, is in recognition of Tomasello’s work identifying the unique cognitive and cultural processes that distinguish humans from their nearest primate relatives, the great apes.

UCL AWAITS MAYOR Plans for a new neuroscience research centre to be built at UCL have come a step closer following a vote of approval by the London Borough of Camden. The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre is a partnership between the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, and scientists at the new facility will use state-of-the-art biological and behavioural techniques, supported by computational modelling, to investigate how brain circuits process information to create neural representations and guide behaviour.

The centre is due to be completed in 2014 subject to referral to the Mayor.

HAUSER RESIGNS Marc Hauser, the once-lauded animal cognition expert, has resigned his position as professor of psychology at Harvard University. His decision follows a year’s leave imposed on him after he was found guilty last autumn of scientific misconduct. That charge led to one of his papers being retracted, one corrected and one queried, due to missing data. A replication by Hauser and his colleague Justin Wood of that last paper was published earlier this year (tinyurl.com/5ul8b4r), but confusion remains over which findings from Hauser’s lab can be trusted and which are suspect. This is especially the case since Hauser was renowned for demonstrating in monkeys cognitive abilities previously considered by others to be unique to great apes. CJ

What matters to people…

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published the results of its nationwide investigation into what matters to people for their well-being. The project was launched last year after the UK government requested that the ONS start measuring the nation’s well-being alongside traditional economic measures such as GDP. From Nov 2010 to April this year, the ONS surveyed 5401 people, asking them to indicate, from a set list of items, what mattered to them. This part of the programme is focused on what the ONS termed ‘objective well-being’. Results here showed that 89 per cent agreed that health was important; the same proportion recognised relationships; 86 per cent ticked job satisfaction or economic security; and 73 per cent highlighted the importance of the environment.

Based on feedback, the ONS drafted a second modified version of the questionnaire. A further 2206 respondents

recorded similar answers although relationships was now the most highly selected item.

Other questions were: ‘What should measures of national wellbeing be used for?’ and ‘How should measures of national wellbeing be presented?’

Further openended feedback on what matters to people was gathered at 175 events at which the ONS spoke to over 7000 people. Their comments can be accessed at tinyurl.com/3vgqpam (pdf).

The report cautions that ‘It was not a statistical exercise and so the findings are

For more cerebral Christmas TV Psychology will be beamed into millions of homes this December with the announcement that Bruce Hood, Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre, is to present this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on the topic ‘Meet your brain’. The RI said Professor Hood ‘will explore how our brains work and just what makes us truly human.

He will explain how you create your own version of reality, what makes your brain decide what information to trust and what to ignore (without you even knowing!) and why you are programmed to read other people’s minds.’

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have run since 1825 and been televised since 1966. Hood follows in the footsteps of the eminent psychologists Frederic Bartlett (1948) and Richard Gregory (1967). This year’s lectures will be broadcast on BBC4 in late December. CJ I Bruce Hood will feature in our ‘One on one’ section in the December issue. To suggest other suitable candidates, contact the editor on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk.

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not necessarily representative of the UK population as a whole.’

National Statistician Jil Matheson said: ‘This not just about holding a debate, it is about finding robust ways to measure how society is doing, to complement GDP and other measures of economic growth.

As we work up measures of national wellbeing and progress, we will continue to share our ideas. It is essential that the set of measures of well-being is relevant and well based in what matters to people, both as individuals and for the UK as a whole.’

For the measurement of subjective well-being, or how people feel, new documents published by the ONS reveal they’ve drawn largely on recommendations made by the economists Paul Dolan and Lord Richard Layard (both at LSE), Robert Metcalfe (at the University of Oxford), and the psychologist Felicia Huppert (Cambridge University). Further psychological input came from Peter Kinderman, Chair of the BPS Division of Clinical Psychology, and Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, both of whom were members of the Measuring National Well-being Technical Advisory Group; and from Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel-winning psychologist, who was on the Measuring National Well-being Advisory Forum.

Based on this advice, the ONS compiled four experimental questions designed to tap evaluative, experience and eudemonic aspects of subject well-being: ‘Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?’ These questions

were added to the ONS household surveys (completed by approximately 200,000 people) and its monthly opinions survey from April this year, with initial annual results due in July 2012. Later this year there are also plans to use the monthly opinions survey to test questions about people’s views of their community, including issues related to trust and belonging.

The ONS is also looking at the way questions are delivered (e.g. interview vs. self-completion).

The Psychologist asked Emeritus Professor Peter Warr, a happiness researcher at Sheffield University’s Institute of Work Psychology, what he thinks of the ONS well-being programme so far. He told us that ‘it’s definitely moving in the right direction.

The so-called “national debate” about the sources of well-being (“what matters to you”) produced findings that won’t surprise psychologists working in this area, but the process of involving the public no doubt helped to increase awareness and may also have boosted commitment.’

Warr is pleased that the experimental measures of subjective well-being include personal meaningfulness, in addition to positive and negative feelings that are activated (‘happy’ and ‘anxious’), as well as a question about being merely ‘satisfied’. ‘But it’s puzzling,’ he said, ‘that different time-frames are used for different questions – “nowadays”, “yesterday” and an unspecified duration. That means that the items can’t properly be aggregated as well as treated separately.’

‘There’s always a problem that subsamples within a large group, as in “national” well-being, can differ widely between each other, so that an overall figure can’t represent every sub-group or region,’ he added. ‘Of course, that’s also the case for an economic index like GDP, which is nevertheless widely cited and discussed. And it’s far from clear how well-being scores can be used to adjust national policies, but it’s certainly worth trying. In terms of research and knowledge, the provision of nationwide data (linked to demographic and other variables) will be enormously valuable.’ CJ I For the full list of ONS well-being documents, see: www.ons.gov.uk/wellbeing. The NE of England Branch of the BPS is holding its annual conference on 21 October in York on the topic of Work, Life, Happiness and Deviance.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

FUNDING NEWS The ESRC has announced the first call of the new Centres and Large Grant Competition 2011–12. This provides funding for experienced researchers requiring long-term support for research groups, interinstitutional research networks, linkedproject programmes, medium-to-large surveys, other infrastructure or methodological developments, or any related larger-scale projects. It provides grants of between £2m and £5m. The deadline for outline proposals is 13 October 2011.

I tinyurl.com/3b6lovl The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) funds projects that address educational disadvantage, specifically innovative projects that have a measurable impact on attainment. Projects must be focused on children eligible for free school meals in targeted schools. Applications are accepted from registered charities, not-for-profit organisations, schools and universities.

Applications can be submitted at any time.

The smallest grant made by the Foundation is usually in the order of £50,000.

I tinyurl.com/3vpqvhg The European Commission, under the Framework Programme 7: Security is offering research grants to investigate evacuation systems for large crowds, including unpredictable behaviour (SEC2012.4.2-2) and psychosocial support in crisis management (SEC-2012.4.1-2). Deadline for applications: 23 November 2011.

I tinyurl.com/3soy39h Funding is also available from the EC to support Starting Independent Researchers (ERC-2012-StG). Grants are available in the domains of Life Sciences (deadline for applications 9 November 2011) and Social Sciences and Humanities (deadline for applications 24 November 2011).

I tinyurl.com/44aqfga The Great Britain China Centre has grants available for British postgraduate students to give conference papers in China or to travel to China to pursue essential doctoral research. Applications are not accepted from students requiring funding for the first year of a PhD or postgraduate taught course.

Grants are usually between £1500 and £2000.

Applications deadline: 24 October 2011.

I tinyurl.com/6eawytd

info

national results in

For more, see www.bps.org.uk/funds Funding bodies should e-mail news to Elizabeth Beech on elibee@bps.org.uk for possible inclusion

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How punishment can help boost memory A well-established finding in psychology is that successfully retrieving information from memory serves to consolidate the storage of that information. Each time your brain’s filing clerk tracks down the right information, the more likely he is to find it another time. Psychologists call this the testing effect – practising retrieval of information is far more effective than simply re-studying that same material.

Can this benefit of testing be enhanced? Yes it can. A new study has provided the first ever demonstration of how to enhance the memory consolidation that occurs after correctly answering a test question. Bridgid Finn and Henry Roediger’s important and somewhat surprising new finding is that following a correct answer with an aversive stimulus serves to enhance the consolidation of that memory. It’s like punishing the filing clerk after each correct retrieval makes them even more accurate in the future.

Forty undergrads studied multiple lists of 10 word-pairs, each featuring a Swahili word and its English translation. After each list of 10, they were tested. Presented with the Swahili, they had to answer with the English. Here’s the important bit. If they answered correctly, one of three things happened immediately: a blank screen appeared; a neutral picture appeared (e.g. a fork); or a negative, aversive picture appeared (e.g. a dead cat).

After this pattern of study period and test had been followed for 10 lists of 10 word-pairs, the participants were then given a jumbo test of all 100 Swahili words. Here’s the key result: for those items answered correctly in the earlier mini-tests, it was those that were followed by a nasty picture that were most likely to be accurately recalled in the final jumbo test. Earlier correct answers that had been followed by a neutral pic or blank screen were not so well remembered in the final, jumbo test (and performance was equivalent across the blank/neutral conditions).

‘These data are the first to show that arousal following successful retrieval of information enhances later recall of that information,’ the researchers said.

A follow-up study was similar to the first but this time correct answers in the initial mini-tests were followed by neutral or aversive pictures that appeared two seconds later, as opposed to appearing immediately as they did in the first study. This was to see if there was In the June issue of a narrow window beyond which a negative stimulus wouldn’t any longer Psychological Science enhance the consolidating effect of correct retrieval. The results were just the same as for the first study, so even two seconds later, a nasty picture is still able to enhance the memory consolidating effect of a correct retrieval. Future studies are needed to test just how long after a correct retrieval this process is still effective, and to see if positive images exert a similar benefit.

Finally, the researchers looked to see whether the presentation of a negative pic has its memory-enhancing effect after items are merely studied, as opposed to recalled. A similar protocol with Swahili–English word pairs was followed as before, but this time, instead of mini-tests after each set of 10 word pairs, the participants were simply given the pairs to study again, with each pair followed by either a blank screen, neutral picture or nasty picture. This time, there was no benefit of the negative pics. In fact, there was a trend for pairs to be recalled less often if they’d been followed by a nasty pic in the earlier study phase.

Why should negative images boost the consolidating effects of answering a test item correctly?

Finn and Roediger aren’t sure but think it has to do with links between the amygdala, which is involved in fear learning, and the hippocampus – a brain area involved in long-term memory storage. This is a rather vague account and doesn’t explain why aversive stimuli only enhance memory after correct retrieval, not further study. By way of further context, a 2006 study showed the presentation of aversive images after to-be-learned stimuli was beneficial during the initial study of that material.

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Laughing at oneself In the June issue of Emotion To be capable of laughing at oneself is usually considered a mark of good character and the foundation of a robust sense of humour. Yet this is a behaviour that’s barely been touched on by psychologists. Opinions have been expressed – for example, La Fave and his colleagues thought that laughing at oneself was never genuine and couldn’t be a truly happy event. But for largely practical reasons, experiments on the topic are non-existent. Now Ursula Beermann (University of California, Berkeley) and Willibald Ruch have shown one way to do it.

Sixty-seven undergrads rated their own ability to laugh at themselves and they nominated one or two peers to provide third-party ratings of the same. Sneakily, whilst the participants filled out these and other questionnaires at a computer, a screen camera took pictures of them. A little later the participants were asked to rate distorted pictures of the faces of unfamiliar men and women. To their surprise, included in the selection were the sneaky photos taken earlier of themselves. These photos of the participants had also been distorted to be, for example, stretched wide as if looking in a spoon (the Mac ‘Photobooth’ software was used to create these effects).

The participants were filmed while they rated the photos so the researchers could later analyse the footage to see whether the participants laughed at the distorted images of themselves. Ekman’s Facial

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Does crying really make you feel better?

In the August issue of Journal of Research in Personality Action Coding system, which focuses on the flexing of specific facial muscles, was used to decode the participants’ facial expressions, and in particular to look for signs of genuine ‘Duchenne smiles’, which are symmetrical and involve creasing of the muscles around the eyes. Signs of laughter were also noted.

The findings seemed to validate the new methodological approach. Although 80 per cent of participants flashed a genuine smile at least once on seeing their own distorted image, it was those who claimed to be able to laugh at themselves, and whose peers agreed with this verdict, who showed more frequent and intense smiling and laughter in response to the distorted selfimages, and fewer signs of fake smiles or negative emotion. On the other hand, there was no correlation between participants’ ability to laugh at themselves (based on self- and peer-report) and the amount of laughter triggered by distorted images of other people’s faces.

This suggests that proclivity for laughing at oneself really is a distinct trait, separate from a general readiness to laugh.

Finally, those participants who laughed more at themselves tended to have more cheerful, less serious dispositions and to be in a better mood on the day of testing. ‘[T]he current study succeeded in providing the first empirical evidence on the phenomenon of laughing at oneself,’ the researchers said.

A popular idea is that crying is cathartic – that the tears of sadness wash away life’s woes like detritus carried off in the tide. This has been supported by retrospective surveys that ask people how they felt after previous bouts of crying. Lab studies, by contrast, which involve participants watching weepy movies, have found crying to have no such benefit. Both approaches, however, are seriously flawed. Findings from the retrospective approach are prone to memory distortion and people’s answers are likely influenced by the popular cathartic idea. Lab studies, meanwhile, suffer from a lack of realism.

A superior method is to have participants complete a daily crying diary for an extended period of time, to be completed each night – soon enough to reduce memory distortions, but not too intrusive to interfere with the behaviour under observation. Believe it or not, just one diary study of crying has been conducted before. Now Lauren Bylsma and

her colleagues have performed the second, involving 97 female undergrads who completed a crying diary, including questions about daily mood and crying context, for between 40 and 73 days. In all, 1004 crying episodes were documented, and all participants cried at least once. Most bouts of crying were triggered by conflict; the next most common reason was loss, followed by personal failing.

Bylsma’s headline finding is that crying mostly had little positive benefit, at least not on overall daily mood. Not only did crying episodes tend to be preceded by two days of lower daily mood, they were also associated with lower daily mood on the day of crying and lower daily mood on two successive days afterwards. For mood in the specific moments after crying, the results were more encouraging. Most often mood was reported as unchanged (60.8 per cent), but 30 per cent of sessions were associated with a positive mood change, while 8.8 per cent led to a deterioration in mood.

Other findings included: more intense (but not longer) crying episodes were associated with more positive mood outcomes, as were crying episodes that followed a feeling of inadequacy and that triggered a positive change in the situation. Also, crying in the company of one other person was associated more often with positive mood change than was crying alone or in the company of multiple people. Conflict tears tended not to be associated with a positive mood change, undermining the idea that tears can defuse social tensions.

The study has its limitations – for example, the mood scale only had a threepoint range, and it’s a shame that men weren’t included too.

But the researchers emphasise that theirs was ‘the first extended examination of the relationship between crying and mood using detailed contextual information from multiple crying episodes and, as such, represents an important step towards understanding this striking human behaviour.’

The material in this section is taken from the Society’s Research Digest blog at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog, and is written by its editor Dr Christian Jarrett.

Visit the blog for full coverage including references and links, additional current reports, an archive, comment and more.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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When the hacks go hacking Mark Sergeant on phone hacking, Schadenfreude and ethics ne story that has dominated the UK media in the last few months is the O alleged widespread phone hacking at the

contribute

News of the World. On a pretty much daily basis there have been fresh revelations about the number and type of individuals who may have been targeted, ranging from celebrities to politicians, sports stars to victims of crimes or their families.

A number of editors, high-profile executives and police officers have been called to answer questions in front of MPs, and there have been a number of arrests and resignations associated with the phone-hacking scandal.

For most people, being hacked would, quite simply, mean an invasion of their personal lives. The idea of a complete stranger being able to browse through phone messages, let alone other forms of personal communication such as e-mails and letters, would be seen as a violation of privacy. However, if hacking is conducted on behalf of a news organisation then this personal information could potentially be seen by millions of complete strangers. Even among celebrities, who may be familiar with details of their personal lives appearing in the media, this is likely to be seen as an extreme violation of their privacy that cannot be justified by their high profile with the public. As the actor Hugh Grant, who claims to have been a victim of the hacking, remarked, ‘It’s back to the old cliché of what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest. A lot of it is of interest to the public but none of it is in the public interest.’

Possibly one of the most distressing impacts of the whole affair was on the parents of Milly Dowler, the schoolgirl murdered in 2002. It is alleged that individuals working for the News of the World had listened to voicemail messages on her phone and then deleted some

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The Media page is coordinated by the Society’s Media and Press Committee, with the aim of

when the memory had become full. This activity on her phone would have given Milly Dowler’s family false hope that she was still alive.

Many have questioned how those in the media could have become involved in the unpleasant practice of phone hacking in the first place.

Furthermore, despite the allegations first coming to light in 2005, and resulting in convictions and imprisonments in 2007, how could the phone hacking have continued for so long? Professor Rex Wright, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, stated on the ScienceDaily website (tinyurl.com/3o8h3gu): ‘People might have felt that this was a small price to pay for a very lucrative activity. They also might have believed the odds of getting caught twice were small, especially if police officials were turning a blind eye.

They might have had some arrangement with officials that allowed them to continue if they had resignations and convictions on occasion.’

In the past the News of the World had a tendency to report on the indiscretions of various celebrities and political figures.

Often these revelations caused embarrassment to the individuals in question, leading readers to possibly experience varying degrees of Schadenfreude. Although there’s no direct English translation, Emily Anthes quite aptly defined it as ‘that small, private rush of glee in response to someone else’s misfortune’ (tinyurl.com/324reu3).

promoting and discussing psychology in the media. If you would like to contribute, please contact the ‘Media’

page coordinating editor, Ceri Parsons (Chair, Media and Press Committee), on ceri.parsons@staffs.ac.uk

In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, many people have experienced Schadenfreude as a result of Rupert Murdoch’s recent troubles, particularly following his questioning by a committee of MPs, during which he had a pie made of shaving foam thrown at him by Jonathan May-Bowles (tinyurl.com/3qx84l7).

Research by psychologist Wilco van Dijk of Leiden University (tinyurl.com/3pxnfmd) suggests that individuals experience greater Schadenfreude when high-achieving individuals, such as the multi-billionaire and highly influential media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, are seen to experience problems.

Is hacking ever justifiable though?

A tabloid journalist, who blogs under the name Fleet Street Fox (www.fleetstreetfox.com) raised a hypothetical question: If you knew there was a voicemail on Rebekah Brooks’s mobile that clearly implicated high-profile individuals in the phone-hacking allegations, would you hack into her phone to get that message?

Fleet Street Fox is quite upfront about what she’d do: ‘I’d hack the phone. You’d probably hack the phone.

Heck, Jeremy Paxman, Alan Rusbridger, Woodward and bloody Bernstein would all hack that phone. And if you think it’s all right to hack Rebekah Brooks’ phone then there are other circumstances in which it’s also right. To catch a dodgy politician, expose corruption at the heart of FIFA, locate someone the cops can’t find.’ In other words, hacking could, theoretically, be defended if it’s in the public interest; the ends (exposing illegal acts and corruption) justifying the means.

At this point I’m strangely reminded of some of the classic ‘ethically problematic’ studies in psychology, such as those of Milgram and Zimbardo for two reasons. The first is that such studies are often used to debate research ethics with students; whether the ends (the extra insight gained about the way our minds work) ever justifies the means (causing distress to participants). When considering this issue though, it should obviously be pointed out though that academic research and journalism have very different means and ends.

The second reason I’m reminded of the Milgram and Zimbardo studies is that they showed us people can engage in unethical behaviours when their actions are either endorsed by those in a position of authority or they’re normalised by the culture in which individuals operate.

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2011 Psychology got you thinking? Kick start your future at our psychology4students event Giving A-level and 1st year undergraduate students a glimpse into the exciting world of Psychology.

NORTH – Wednesday 23rd November 2011 University of Central Lancashire, Preston ■

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Charlie Frowd, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Central Lancashire Constructing the face of a criminal?

Mark A Wetherell, Senior Lecturer Psychobiology, Northumbria University Stress: Mechanisms, measurements and manipulations Deborah Riby, Lecturer, Newcastle University Looking at faces: Evidence from Autism Spectrum Disorder and Williams syndrome Rhiannon Turner, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology, University of Leeds Reducing prejudice via direct, extended, and imagined contact Peter Thompson, Senior Lecturer, University of York Illusions in the lab and in the real world

SOUTH – Thursday 1st December 2011 Watford Colosseum, Hertfordshire ■

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Paul Gardner, Principal Teaching Fellow, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews Love and attraction Alison Lee, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Bath Spa University Neuropsychology: A single case study Peter Lovatt, Principal lecturer in Psychology, University of Hertfordshire The psychology of dance, hormones and thinking Rob Yeung, Corporate Psychologist at consultancy Talentspace The psychology of success: What makes certain people so successful?

Katie Slocombe, Lecturer, University of York Evolution of language: what do chimps have to say?

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It’s just £16 (including lunch) and for every 10 places you book you will receive a FREE tutor place For the latest news please visit: NORTH – www.bps.org.uk/p4sn SOUTH – www.bps.org.uk/p4ss t: +44 (0)116 2529555 e: p4s@bps.org.uk

‘big picture’ pull-out www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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Wax head c.1930 Photo by Jennie Hills of the Science Museum, London This life-sized wax head, now in storage at London’s Science Museum, was made in the 1920s or 1930s for an exhibit on 19th-century asylums at a London medical museum.

Philip Loring, British Psychological Society Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum, says, ‘To an audience of the 1930s, this face, with its glass eyes and real hair, must have evoked the deranged, disheveled, often violent madwoman who haunted the edges of many Victorian novels.’

Compare this excerpt from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), where the heroine gets her first good look at the ‘maniac’ in the attic:

What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell… but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face… The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors.

This and many other artefacts from the history of psychology can be seen on Brought to Life (www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ broughttolife.aspx), the Science Museum’s history of medicine website, in the section on Mental Health and Illness.

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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The shock of the old Stephen D. Reicher and S. Alexander Haslam introduce a special feature which reconnects with Milgram’s vision for social psychology

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resources

Thomas Blass presents Stanley Milgram: www.stanleymilgram.com Obedience – Then and now. Special section, American Psychologist, January 2009: tinyurl.com/3spx5tv

references

Stanley Milgram had an epic vision for social psychology: to create strong experimental contexts that would demonstrate the power of the social world to shape individual behaviour. Consistent with this goal, variants of the obedience paradigm reveal participants’ propensity to show not only total obedience but also total disobedience. This article argues that the key remaining task for researchers is to explain this variation, but that to do this we need to reconnect with the richness of Milgram’s data and ideas.

This theme is echoed and elaborated in other contributions to this special feature. Alexandra Milgram tells us about the passions that motivated her husband’s life and work; Jerry Burger discusses his replication of the Milgram studies; film scholar Kathryn Millard explores an overlooked side of Milgram; and historian Richard Overy considers the impact of Milgram’s ideas on our understanding of destructive obedience in, and after, the Second World War.

Adorno, T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. & Sanford, R.N. (1950). The authoritarian personality.

New York: Harper.

Asch, S.E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193, 31–35.

Blass, T. (2004). The man who shocked the world. New York: Basic Books.

Burger, J. (2009). Replicating Milgram.

American Psychologist, 64, 1–11.

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he year is 1961. The Bay of Pigs invasion is launched. The ANC begins its armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Patrice Lumumba is murdered in the Congo.

Freedom Riders are firebombed in Alabama. Homosexuality is still a crime in the UK. Yuri Gagarin breaks free of our earthly shackles. Colour television is first demonstrated in the UK – but neither flavoured crisps nor sunscreen factors has yet been introduced.

Who would want to go back? We seem to have progressed so far, both socially and technologically, over the ensuing halfcentury.

But not in every way.

In 1961 Stanley Milgram conducted his famous ‘obedience to authority’ experiments at Yale University (Milgram, 1963). These studies are so well known to us that they hardly need describing. Even those who have never studied psychology and who cannot recall Milgram’s name still know of ‘those studies’ in which people gave apparently lethal shocks to a learner when told to do so by an experimenter. As a result, his work has spilled over from the world of science into the world of popular culture – notably when William Shatner of Star Trek fame played a Milgram-like figure in a TV dramatisation of the obedience studies. His ideas frame popular understanding of one of the most pressing issues of our age: how can humans act with such inhumanity to their fellow beings? To cite one of the other greats of post-war social psychology, Muzafer Sherif: ‘Milgram’s obedience experiment is the single greatest contribution to human

Kimmell, A.J. (2011). Deception in psychological research – A necessary evil? The Psychologist, 24, 580–585.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.

Milgram, S. (1965). Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority. Human Relations, 18, 57–76.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York:

knowledge ever made by the field of social psychology, perhaps psychology in general’ (Takooshian, 2000, p.10).

Sherif is perhaps being modest here, for his Boys’ Camp studies (Sherif, 1956) conducted between 1949 and 1954 inaugurated what might be regarded as a heroic age of social psychology – of which Milgram’s studies were, perhaps, the most outstanding example. Before Sherif, the firm assumption was that those who did monstrous things must themselves be monsters. As the world sought to assimilate the emerging evidence of the Holocaust, it was easiest to believe that those who kill and maim and torture must have something about them which marks them as different from decent folk. More specifically, research concentrated on the pathologies of an authoritarian personality – suggesting that tyranny and oppression were the preserve of those people who crave order, who defer to authority, and who are highly punitive towards those who deviate from the norm (Adorno et al., 1950).

What Sherif did was to challenge such individualistic accounts by revealing the consequences of varying the social setting.

However, he didn’t content himself with pallid and trivial interventions that hardly engage the subject. Rather, he conceived of things on an epic scale. He took control of a whole social world – the world of the American adolescent summer school – for an extended period and then examined the consequences of systematic variations in the organisation of that social world. First, he divided people into different groups in which they worked and played and ate and slept 24 hours a day. Then he put the groups in competition against each other, and finally he, contrived to make them cooperate.

What emerged with great force and clarity from the Boys’ Camp studies was that when you are able to vary the worlds in which people live you can transform the ways in which they behave. There is an emblematic moment in the early studies, when the competition and conflict was at its height, where Sherif remarks

Harper & Row. Reicher, S.D. & Haslam, S.A. (2011). After shock? British Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 163–169.

Russell, N.J.C. (2010). The making of an (in)famous experiment. The Psychologist, 23, 780–783.

Russell, N.J.C. (2011). Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments: Origins and early evolution. British Journal of Social Psychology, 50,

140–162.

Sherif, M. (1956). Experiments in group conflict. Scientific American, 195, 54–58.

Takooshian, H. (2000). How Stanley Milgram taught about obedience and social influence. In Blass, T. (ed.)

Obedience to authority (pp.9-21). New York: Taylor & Francis.

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that, had an outside observer entered at they struggle over whether to heed the this point, he would have regarded the words of the experimenter or the cries of boys (who were chosen for being the the learner, it is hard to tear oneself away. ‘cream of the crop’ in their communities) Milgram’s studies endure as great drama as as vicious and disturbed youngsters. There well as great science. is a forceful analogy here. For psychology At first, Milgram doubted that is often like that outside observer who – anyone would follow the experimenter’s failing to take account of context and instructions up to the maximum shock history – provides individualising and level of 450 volts. When he described the pathologising accounts of social processes. set-up to panels of psychiatrists, college Stanley Milgram had the same students, and middle-class adults, not ambition and vision as Sherif and the one person out of 110 predicted that same sense of the epic. In his postdoctoral they themselves would go all the way. research he had worked with Solomon On average they thought that they would Asch on the topic of conformity (Asch’s go up to a point between 120 volts and line-judgement studies, of course, being 135 volts. Then, when he conducted pilot also classics in social psychology: e.g. see studies on Yale students and found that Asch, 1955). But Milgram was dissatisfied most did actually go on until the bitter with studies that looked at the effects of end, he dismissed that as saying something peer judgement on estimates of line length. He wanted to look at the types of behaviour that motivated research on conformity in the first place.

Milgram, born in 1933, was of Jewish background. Even as a young child he was aware of what the Nazis were doing.

He later acknowledged how the Holocaust shaped not only his interest in obedience but also the way he examined it. For him, what conformity meant was going along with others in harming, even killing, innocent people. He set out to devise a paradigm that would allow him to Milgram’s ideas frame popular understanding of investigate when, how and how humans can sometimes act with inhumanity why this happens.

The obedience paradigm was the outcome. In this, Milgram, like Sherif, created a whole about the privileged upper-class ‘Yalies’. new social world for his participants. His However, when he found repeatedly that studies were like pieces of theatre in which ordinary Americans from many walks of the participants were unwitting actors. life did likewise, he began to take note.

As recently documented by Nestar Russell Milgram finally realised that he had (2011; see also his ‘Looking back’ piece unearthed the ‘phenomenon of great in the September 2010 issue of The consequence’ of which he had always Psychologist: www.bps.org.uk/nestar), dreamed (Blass, 2004).

Milgram put great efforts into the set What Milgram had shown, like Sherif, (much care was put into designing the was the power of context. In ways even shock machine as a huge, intimidating more dramatic than his predecessor, and imposing piece of equipment), he Milgram had demonstrated how far one put great effort into the actors (spending can transform human behaviour when considerable time carefully recruiting his one is in a position to transform the social confederates), and he put much effort relations in which we are enmeshed. into the script (the prompts used by the Indeed, what is often under-appreciated experimenter were carefully designed as is the extent to which Milgram then were the reactions of the ‘learner’ who examined precisely what sort of situations supposedly received the shocks). The increase or decrease conformity – ultimate effect was as compelling for the producing both obedience and viewer as for the participant. Milgram disobedience (Milgram, 1965). In all, made a film of the studies with the he conducted nearly 40 versions of the simple title Obedience. Watch it. As the paradigm (the exact number depends participants agonise over what to do, as upon how many pilots are counted as

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actual studies; over 20 are described in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority) in which the level of conformity varied from 100 per cent to 0 per cent.

So what is it about context, then, that explains this extreme variation in responses? This, of course is the critical question (Reicher & Haslam, 2011). But it is also the blind spot in Milgram’s work – or perhaps, more accurately, in the way Milgram’s work has been represented and appropriated. In his early papers, Milgram provides many rich insights into this question. But the explanation that came to predominate (and that occupies a central place in his 1974 book) rather ironically ignores these questions. This suggests that, when confronted with an authority figure people withdraw into an ‘agentic’ state in which they concentrate on how well they obey and ignore what it is that they are obeying. Their focus is on being good followers, not good people – and it is this that allows great evil to be done.

The main problem with this account, is that the studies themselves provide no real evidence of such an agentic state.It doesn’t tally with how people behave in the sessions and it certainly can’t explain differences between different versions of the study. Even Milgram’s fervent admirers (and we are amongst them) are unconvinced by the ‘agentic state’ explanation. The general consensus seems to be that we are left with a compelling phenomenon that lacks a compelling explanation.

That is why it is so important to continue along the path that Milgram started. After all, the phenomenon of human inhumanity hasn’t gone away. The sombre roll call in the years since 1961 – Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan, Syria – makes that abundantly clear. We need to understand precisely how context impacts on psychological processes in order to understand – and try to reduce the likelihood of – atrocity.

But there is an obvious problem.

Ethics.

The great field studies of Milgram, and then Zimbardo, were harbingers of their demise. The very power of what they produced raised questions about our right to inflict such experiences upon people in the name of scientific progress. In many ways, history has been unkind to Milgram on this score (see also Kimmel, in last month’s issue of The Psychologist). He was in fact a pioneer in ethical procedures. He was the first to develop structured debriefings. He was the first to follow his participants and provide systematic data on the impact of participation in his studies. What is more, he argues convincingly that the impact was

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overwhelmingly positive and that there is obedience paradigm is open for business little evidence of any harm. Nonetheless, once more. the route to tyranny often derives from the What we need, though, are not simply sense that we have the right to use others ethical solutions. We need to rediscover in order to further our own the vision, ambition and notions of what is good. epic sense of scale that Quite rightly, ethical Milgram embodied. We standards have become need to go back to that “the obedience tighter over recent decades. heroic era of great field paradigm is open for As a result, the Milgram studies where researchers business once more” studies in their original were able to manipulate form would not be whole social worlds. For two acceptable science today. things are certain.

However, this is not the end of the First, if we do so, we will see again story. Creative ways have been found to (and perhaps understand more) how social overcome ethical concerns. One involves context impacts on human behaviour and the use of virtual reality paradigms.

Another involves replicating the studies Stephen D. Reicher only up to the 150-volt point (since what is Professor of Social people do at this point predicts very well Psychology at the University how they would respond subsequently; of St Andrews Burger, 2009, and in this issue). Thus, sdr@st-andrews.ac.uk following a major debate in American Psychologist last year, it seems that – with sufficient care and creativity – the

The man, his passions and motivations Stanley Milgram’s widow, Alexandra Milgram, with her personal take on his life

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tanley Milgram pursued every interest with motivation and great passion. Even interests that began when he was a youngster continued throughout his life. As a result of his intense personality, people reacted strongly to him.

During Stanley’s boyhood growing up in the Bronx, he was very aware of his Jewish parents listening to the horrors of the news on the radio during World War II. Stanley’s great interest in the news was born at this time and persisted for the rest of his life. In fact, in middle age he described himself as a ‘news addict’.

Stanley had an interest in opera: he enjoyed listening with his father to the famous soprano Jeanette McDonald.

At James Monroe High School Stanley belonged to the drama club and took part in preparing sets for school productions.

I recall Stanley mentioning how he particularly enjoyed working on the set of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Rudigore.

The skills he developed while working on

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the sets served Stanley well in later years when he designed and set up his experiments.

At 19 Stanley spent the summer improving his French in Paris at the Sorbonne University. He also claimed that having a French girlfriend was a fun way to greatly improve his spoken French.

This first time in Europe turned out to be a wonderful experience for Stanley, culminating in travelling on a motorbike from Paris to Spain, and then on to Italy.

His love of travel, and especially in France, was born at this time, and remained with him for his entire life.

Continuing with his interest in the news, Stanley majored in political science at Queens College. Originally planning to enter the Foreign Service, he applied to the School of International Affairs at Columbia University – and was accepted. Then during his last semester at Queens College, a dean listened to a speech Stanley gave.

Afterwards the dean asked Stanley if he had considered attending the Social

how what we do is as much a consequence of what lies outside us as what lies within our brains.

Second, if we fail to do so, and if we close off exploration of the importance of social variability, we will inevitably lay too much emphasis on other forms of variability. In other words, social psychology will become – or, perhaps, remain – sorely unbalanced.

Not everything has been progress since 1961. In some areas of psychology – as in society and technology – we have clearly made massive strides forward. But, with Milgram as a guide, there are ways in which we need to go back to go forward.

S. Alexander Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Exeter a.haslam@exeter.ac.uk

Relations Department at Harvard University. Since Stanley had never heard of the Department, he sent for their catalogue.

After reading about the Department, which included courses in social psychology, social anthropology, sociology, etc., Stanley decided to change his plans and apply to the Social Relations Department at Harvard to obtain a PhD in social psychology. He was rejected. During an interview at Harvard, Stanley was informed that the Social Relations Department could not accept him because he had never taken a single psychology course. Stanley could not accept ‘no’. He was then told that if he took psychology courses during the summer, Harvard would accept him as a non-matriculating student in September. That summer he worked very diligently taking nine psychology courses at three different colleges – Hunter, Brooklyn and NYU. He did well enough in the fall semester at Harvard to be able to continue as a matriculating student.

During his years at Harvard, Stanley became interested in cross-cultural research. He did his thesis on conformity in Oslo and Paris, based on research he conducted in both cities. The research was complicated – being conducted in foreign countries, using foreign languages, with various regulations. However Stanley’s enthusiasm to do this difficult crosscultural research motivated him to persist with it until it was completed.

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Besides being very involved in his psychology courses at Harvard, Stanley was also interested in musicals. After he became friendly with Victor Ziskind, another Harvard student, they both decided to collaborate on a musical based on the O. Henry short story ‘The Gift of the Magi’. Victor wrote the music and Stanley the libretto. After finishing work on the musical, they prepared a demo and made an appointment with producers in New York. While they were waiting to see the producers, Stanley and Victor were taken aback when the producers rushed in and exclaimed with great excitement that they just heard a marvellous musical by Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story! Needless to say, Stanley and Victor’s musical never was produced.

Later in life Stanley collaborated with another musician on a musical based on the famous story ‘The Man Without a Country’. Sadly, it had the same fate as ‘The Gift of the Magi’.

After graduating from Harvard, Stanley accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Yale University. He was aware that it was important for him to do research and to publish the results. He wanted to do something important. Before he even started at Yale, he conceived of and developed his ideas to do his experiments on obedience to authority. This was an outgrowth of his early interest in the Holocaust. He wondered, in a civilised country like Germany that had produced great scientists and artists, how the German government could find all the people needed to press the levers in all of the concentration camps during World War II to exterminate thousands of people.

It was not just one ‘crazy’ man.

After the obedience experiments were described to 40 psychiatrists at Yale, they uniformly stated that only a small number of participants would continue to the end – most would break off early. Stanley first conducted a pilot study using Yale students. He was surprised to see most of the students continue shocking the victims until they reached the end of the shock generator – 450 volts, beyond ‘DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK’. He thought that it was simply the Yale students who behaved this way.

Stanley applied for and received a grant from the National Science Foundation.

This permitted him to carry out the obedience experiments with men 20–50 years old who were not students. Stanley noted that 65 per cent of participants continued until they reached the end of the shock generator, 450 volts, in the first condition. He then performed the experiment varying the conditions. Stanley found it difficult to design conditions that led to the majority of the participants stopping before they reached the end. The condition that had most of the participants breaking off was the one in which the teacher had to hold the learner’s hand down on a plate to receive a shock. Stanley concluded that if the results of an experiment are different than what was anticipated, we have learned something new. This was certainly the case with the obedience experiments.

Although Stanley originally conceived of doing the obedience experiments in Germany after they were conducted in America, as a cross-cultural experiment, he never did. As most of the American participants continued pressing down the levers until they reached the end, this was the result he expected if the obedience experiments were carried out in Germany.

Fortunately, there was some grant money available to film one of the conditions of the obedience experiment so that others could observe the behaviour of the participants. Stanley was involved in the filmmaking and looked forward to doing more filming in the future. He took some courses in filmmaking, as well as reading extensively on it, and actually purchased a 16 mm camera. His student Harry From had been a filmmaker in Romania and suggested to Stanley that they collaborate on a film based on his article ‘The experience of living in cities’.

Stanley entered into this project with great enthusiasm. The resulting film, The City and the Self, won prizes.

Stanley’s interest in politics was an influence in his Lost Letter Studies done in New Haven to determine the sentiment of the residents towards communism in the 1960s, and in Asia to find out how the overseas Chinese felt about mainland China.

Stanley was a family man. He was very fond of my mother, his mother-in-law.

Once when she visited us, my mother

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asked Stanley why young people do not get up in a bus or subway to give their seat to a white-haired lady. He asked her if she ever requested a seat. My mother looked at Stanley in shock – that he could ask such a question. The next week when Stanley returned to his course in experimental social psychology, he designed the Subway Study in which the students were divided into pairs. They would then enter a subway car and one of the students of each pair would ask a seated person, ‘Excuse me, may I have your seat?’ The other student recorded what happened. Stanley was surprised that most of the seated people got up for the student who requested the seat. Stanley also tried to ask for a seat in the New York subway. He found it difficult to bring himself to request a seated person to get up and give him their seat. He found it easier if he feigned illness.

Stanley’s passion for travel continued, and the two of us travelled around South America for our honeymoon. Often we spent summers with our children exploring some area of France or the Caribbean in the winter. Eventually Stanley conducted studies on psychological maps of Paris and New York.

These were his favourite cities. He received a Guggenheim grant to conduct his research in Paris. He also received assistance from his colleague Serge Moscovici to obtain an office and assistants in Paris. After many months there, Stanley noted that the French assistants were often taking vacations, so he engaged his two children, six and eight years old, to come to his rescue. They stuffed, sealed and stamped envelopes inviting people to participate in the Paris study. In this experiment Stanley asked the participants to draw their city, indicate where the rich live, where it is most frightening to go, to indicate their favourite walk, etc.

Eventually the psychological map of Paris study was conducted.

As I have described, Stanley’s motivations and passions led him to conduct his varied and unique experiments in social psychology as well as to produce psychology films. He was often bubbling with ideas. I also think of Stanley as a loving, caring family man. He is greatly missed by those who knew him.

Alexandra Milgram is a retired social worker and widow of Stanley Milgram a.milgram@verizon.net

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Alive and well after all these years Jerry M. Burger updates the enduring legacy of the Milgram Obedience Studies

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questions

After all these years, why are we still intrigued by Milgram’s findings?

resources

Blass, T. (2004). The man who shocked the world: The life and legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York: Basic Books.

Burger, J.M. (2009). Replicating Milgram.

American Psychologist, 64, 1–11.

Burger, J.M., Girgis, Z.M. & Manning, C. C. (in press). In their own words: Explaining obedience to authority through an examination of participants’ comments. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

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Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies remain an important part of the discipline. Five decades after they were conducted, the key question persists – Why were so many ordinary citizens willing to deliver what they must have perceived to be excruciating if not lethal electric shocks to another individual? Recent methodological developments are helping investigators address this question.

In addition, half a century of social psychological research identifies several aspects of the situation Milgram created that made it difficult for his participants to do anything but follow the experimenter’s instructions.

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities.

Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193–209.

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Burger, J.M. (1999). The foot-in-the-door compliance procedure: A multipleprocess analysis and review.

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What do five decades of research tell us about why so many of Milgram’s participants continued to press the shock levers?

n 7 August 1961 a man whose name remains unknown entered the basement laboratory in LinslyChittenden Hall on Yale University’s Old Campus and became the first participant in what is arguably the most famous experiment in psychology. That experiment, which would run until May the following year, was designed by a 27year-old assistant professor whose name, half a century later, is very well-known inside and outside academic circles.

Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974) conducted a series of studies in which participants were instructed, under the guise of a memory experiment, to deliver what they believed to be excruciating if not dangerous electric shocks to another individual. The purpose was to see how long participants would continue with the procedures despite hearing screams of protest from the man supposedly receiving the shocks on the other side of the wall.

The unexpected and disturbing finding was that two out of three participants in the basic version of the experiment continued to administer the shocks long after it was apparent that the man being shocked had likely suffered serious physical harm.

Upon publication, Milgram’s obedience studies received a considerable amount of attention. Many found the notion that an experimenter could encourage average citizens to deliver potentially lethal shocks to another individual unsettling. And the implications of the findings for understanding seemingly inexplicable behaviours like atrocities and genocide – a connection Milgram often promoted –

Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 303–325.

Burger, J.M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?

American Psychologist, 64, 1–11.

Burger, J.M., Girgis, Z.M., & Manning, C.C. (2011). In their own words: Explaining obedience to authority through an examination of participants’ comments. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

added to the fascination. But perhaps more impressive than the immediate reaction to Milgram’s experiments is the fact that decades later people are still talking about them. No social psychology class or textbook today would be complete without a discussion of the obedience studies.

From a personal standpoint, no work I have conducted has come close to generating the number of conversations, e-mail messages, media interviews, requests to speak, requests to write, etc. as did my partial replication of Milgram’s experiment a few years ago (Burger, 2009).

After all these years, Milgram’s work is alive and well. Why? I can identify two reasons. First, after a long period in which ethical concerns kept Milgram’s procedures off-limits to researchers, some recent efforts to replicate Milgram’s studies using modified procedures have proven fruitful.

Guidelines and procedures put in place during the decade following Milgram’s work effectively prevented researchers from conducting a full replication of the experiments. These developments appropriately protected the welfare of research participants, but they also meant that countless questions about Milgram’s findings could not be tested directly.

However, recently some investigators have gotten around these limitations by placing participants in a virtual-reality situation that resembles Milgram’s experimental setting (Cheetham et al., 2009; Dambrun & Vatine, 2010). Participants in these studies are presented with visual and audio stimuli giving the impression that they are in the same situation as Milgram’s original participants.

In addition to virtual reality procedures, I recently conducted a partial replication of the obedience studies that allowed for meaningful comparisons with Milgram’s original procedures while protecting the well-being of the participants (Burger, 2009). A close examination of Milgram’s results shows that the way participants responded when first hearing the learner’s protests (at the 150-volt level) was a strong indicator of

doi: 10.1177/1948550610397632 Cheetham, M., Pedroni, A.F., Angus, A. et al. (2009). Virtual Milgram: Empathic concern or personal distress?

Evidence from functional MRI and dispositional measures. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, 3, ArtlD 29.

Cialdini, R.B., Reno, R.R. & Kallgren, C.A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public

places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1015–1026.

Dambrun, M. & Vatine, E. (2010).

Reopening the study of extreme social behaviors: Obedience to authority within an immersive video environment. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 760-773.

Gilbert, D.T., Pelham, B.W. & Krull, D.S. (1988). On cognitive busyness: When person perceivers meet persons

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whether they would follow the experimenter’s instructions all the way to the highest shock level. If participants in the basic version of Milgram’s study (Experiment 5) did not stop after pressing the 150-volt lever, there was a 79 per cent chance that they would continue to the end of the shock generator. By stopping the study at this crucial early juncture, I could make reasonable estimates of what participants would have done if they had been allowed to continue with the full procedure. In short, the partial replication procedure and the use of virtual reality provide possible avenues for addressing some of the untested hypotheses that have intrigued social psychologists for decades.

Second, I believe the enduring fascination with Milgram’s work is also driven by an ongoing desire to understand why so many of his participants continued to press the levers all the way to the end of the shock generator. Part of this interest stems from the important issues to which Milgram’s findings have been applied. The possibility of using our findings to prevent future atrocities is certainly important. But part of the interest comes from the fact that, for many observers, Milgram’s initial

Recently conducted partial replication of the obedience studies

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Gilbert, S.J. (1981). Another look at the Milgram obedience studies: The role of the graduated series of shocks.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7, 690–695.

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explanations for his results come up short.

Today we know a lot more about basic psychological processes than we did when Milgram conducted his famous studies.

For the past several decades, researchers have relied on that knowledge to develop a far better understanding of what led so many participants to press so many shock levers all those years ago.

In many ways, social psychology was still in its infancy when the obedience studies began in 1961. It would be years before researchers would investigate psychological reactance, peripheral routes of persuasion, implicit attitudes, attribution errors, bystander intervention, self-schemas or groupthink. The best research in the field at that time was published in a journal shared with clinical psychology. Hence, Milgram’s (1963) initial report of his findings was published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

Milgram thus had a limited body of research to draw upon when he set about trying to explain the psychological processes underlying the phenomena he uncovered. He described participants falling into an ‘agentic state’, a kind of altered state of consciousness in which ‘the individual no longer views himself as responsible for his own actions but defines himself as an instrument for carrying out the wishes of others’ (Milgram, 1974, p.134).

Few serious researchers talk about an agentic state these days. Instead, most investigators attribute the participants’ behaviour to situational variables embedded in the experimental setting.

Following this approach, I have compiled a nonexhaustive list of four features Milgram built into his procedures that made it difficult for participants to do anything but go along with the experimenter’s instructions. These

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Aggression and its escalation.

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Latane, B. & Darley, J.M. (1970). The

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four are: the use of small increments; diffused or missing responsibility; placing participants in a novel situation; and the limited amount of time participants had to act. As I explain below, each of these explanations derives in part from research published since Milgram conducted his studies. It is probably a tribute to Milgram’s genius that he seems to have intuitively anticipated many of the elements necessary to generate high rates of obedience in the experimental situation he created.

Small increments Milgram instructed his participants to give the learner a mild 15-volt shock for the first mistake on the memory test and to deliver increasingly stronger electric shocks for each successive mistake. The shock levers increased in strength in 15volt increments, i.e. 15 volts, 30 volts, 45 volts, etc. all the way to 450 volts. But what would have happened if Milgram had asked his participants to start with the 450-volt lever, i.e. the one placed beyond the DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK label and identified only with three red Xs? My guess is that few, if any, would have pressed the lever. A wealth of research conducted in the past five decades tells us that getting people to respond to a small request is an effective first step toward changing attitudes and behaviours. Pressing the first lever on the shock generator made it easier for participants to press the second lever, which made it easier to press the next lever, etc.

At least two processes contribute to this effect. One is the oft-demonstrated need for consistency (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2007). The other is a selfperception process (Bem, 1972). That is, as they proceeded through the experiment, participants may have come to see themselves as the kind of person who chooses to deliver electric shocks in this setting or the kind of person who goes along with the experimenter’s instructions despite the learner’s protests. This change

unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row. Morelli, M. (1983). Milgram’s dilemma of obedience. Metaphilosophy, 14,

183–189.

Packer, D.J. (2008). Identifying systematic disobedience in Milgram’s obedience experiments: A meta-analytic review.

Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 301–304.

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in self-perception then could have influenced subsequent decisions on whether to press the next lever. In this way, the procedure Milgram developed resembles the well-known ‘foot-in-thedoor’ effect (Burger, 1999).

In support of this interpretation, Gilbert (1981) noted that participants were most likely to stop their participation at certain points in the procedure. In particular, participants were most likely stop after pressing the 150-volt lever, i.e. the first time they heard the learner’s protests and demands to be released.

Gilbert argued that the learner’s reaction represents a qualitative (rather than quantitative) change in the nature of the request. Continuing the procedure after hearing the protests may have been seen by some participants as a different act than they performed before the protests, a perception that allowed them to end their participation. Packer (2008) argued that participants must decide at the 150-volt point whether the learner’s right to be released is more important than the experimenter’s desire to continue the experiment. Once the decision is made that the learner’s rights do not override the experimenter’s preferences, each successive press of the lever reinforces that position.

opportunity to embrace something akin to the ‘just following orders’ defence often invoked by those accused of crimes against humanity.

This perception was made even easier for participants who specifically asked the experimenter who was responsible for any harm that came to the learner.

The experimenter replied that he, the experimenter, was responsible.

We now know that people are more likely to engage in antisocial and aggressive behaviours when they are released from responsibility for their actions (Jaffee et al., 1981). Bandura (1999) has identified this absence of personal responsibility as a cause of moral disengagement that contributes to ‘the perpetuation of inhumanities’. Indeed, people are often motivated to attribute responsibility to others. Most famously, individuals are not likely to help someone in need as long as they can diffuse responsibility for taking Diffused or missing action to the people around them (Latane responsibility & Darley, 1970).

If the shocks had been real and the To examine the role of personal learner’s suffering were genuine, who responsibility in Milgram’s experiment, would have been responsible for any I recently coded transcripts from my physical harm the learner may have replication (Burger et al., 2011). Judges suffered? When I present this question identified instances in which participants to my students, many spontaneously made see the issue in blackcomments indicating that and-white terms. The they felt personally “participants typically teacher, they say, has responsible for the had little or no a choice. If he does learner’s suffering. Among information about what not stop, he must the participants who others might do” accept responsibility ended the study early, for his actions.

66.7 per cent made at least However, I argue that one comment during the the answer was not so clear for session suggesting that they felt Milgram’s participants, who literally responsible for the welfare of the learner. found themselves sitting between the In contrast, only 12.2 per cent of the protesting learner and the encouraging participants who followed the experimenter. Participants could easily experimenter’s instructions to the end have convinced themselves that the of the study expressed this sentiment. experimenter was responsible for the consequences of the shocks. They might A novel situation also have assigned responsibility to the In all likelihood, Milgram’s participants principal investigator who designed the found themselves in a situation unlike experiment or to the university that any they had ever experienced and one apparently had sanctioned the for which they had no preconceived ideas experiment. about what they should or should not do.

Milgram created a situation that made Like most people who find themselves in it easy for participants to diffuse or deny novel settings, the participants probably responsibility for the consequences of their started a desperate search for information actions. In this way, he gave participants an

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to help them figure out how they were supposed to act. Where do people look for this information? Often they rely on the behaviour of others to tell them what they are supposed to do. If everyone else is doing something, it probably is the right course of action (Cialdini et al., 1990). In other cases, people turn to someone who knows more about the situation than they do. That is, if there is an expert nearby, people use that person as a source of information for how they are supposed to act.

In the basic version of Milgram’s experiment, there were no other participants in the room and thus no norm information to be found. However, in one variation, participants observed two other ‘participants’ who dramatically refuse to press more levers (after 150 volts and 210 volts). The experimenter then turned to the real participant and asked him to continue. In this version of the experiment, only 10 per cent continued to the 450-volt lever. On the other hand, I included a condition in my replication in which participants saw one ‘participant’ rather quietly refuse to go beyond the 90 volt lever. I found no significant decline in obedience in this condition.

Although Milgram’s participants typically had little or no information about what others might do in this novel situation, they did have someone who was a bit of an expert in the room. The experimenter knew all about the study and had presumably seen numerous participants and learners in this situation before. His words and actions told participants essentially that ‘nothing is wrong here; continuing the shocks is the right thing to do’. In other words,

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participants may have gone along with the experimenter’s instructions not because he held a position of power, but because they were relying on his expertise (Morelli, 1983).

Little time to respond It wasn’t until we started practising the procedures for my replication of Milgram’s studies that I realised what a difficult task the participant had been given. The teacher’s role required him or her to find and read the correct test item, note the learner’s response, determine whether the response was correct and inform the learner, give the correct response for incorrect answers, find the next shock lever, announce the strength of the shock, administer the shock, and then repeat the process. Any pauses or delays were met immediately by the experimenter with prods to continue or instructions of what to do next (e.g.

‘The next word is...’). From the outset, participants were instructed to move the process along ‘at a brisk pace’.

The brisk pace not only kept things

moving, it also prevented Milgram’s participants from stopping to ponder whether they should end the study or continue with the next item. What would have happened if, after first hearing the learner’s protests, the experimenter had given the teacher a few minutes to decide what he wanted to do? My guess is that significantly fewer participants would have opted to continue. People who insist they would never have gone along with the experimenter’s instructions fail to recognise that participants did not have the benefit of putting the question they were facing in perspective and considering the arguments on both sides. We now know that demands for our attention make it difficult to engage in this kind of cognitive processing. Researchers find that giving participants distracting tasks interferes with their ability to evaluate the quality of arguments (Harkins & Petty, 1981) or to make accurate attributions for other people’s behaviour (Gilbert et al., 1988).

Participants in these settings typically attend to the most salient information (e.g. an expert telling them it is OK to continue) and rely on cognitive shortcuts or heuristics to guide their behaviour.

Particularly in the early stages of Milgram’s

study, this kind of information processing likely made it easy for participants to start down the slippery slope of doing what the experimenter told them.

No end to Milgram’s influence In sum, the quest to understand why average citizens would administer what they must have perceived as potentially dangerous electric shocks to another person is as strong today as it was when Milgram first reported his findings.

Moreover, recent innovations have provided researchers with some new tools with which to address many of the unanswered questions generated by the original obedience studies. It seems unlikely that we will see the end to Milgram’s influence on the field any time soon.

Jerry Burger is Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University, California jburger@scu.edu

North East of England Branch Presents its Fourth Annual Conference on the 21st October 2011 at the Park Inn,York

Work, Life, Happiness, Deviance – Linking Occupational and Forensic Psychology KEYNOTES CONFIRMED Happiness, jobs and everyday life: A research review Peter Warr & Angela Carter (presenter) University of Sheffield & A personal reflection on forensic psychology, or as they say sex, violence, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and Man United!

Mike Berry, Research Institute for Health and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University Bursary Information A limited number of bursaries are available for students, the unwaged and the low waged. Proof will be required.

If you wish to apply for one of the bursaries please e-mail Simon Whitaker: s.whitaker@hud.ac.uk stating in about 100 words why you would like a bursary.

Please view the website for further details or to see how to submit an interactive poster for the conference, visit: www.bps.org.uk/neeb2011

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ARTICLE

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The window in the laboratory Film scholar Kathryn Millard looks at Stanley Milgram as filmmaker

I

question

Has the dominance of recorded media skewed our understanding of Milgram’s ‘obedience to authority’ experiments?

resources

Milgram, S. (2010). The image freezing machine. In S. Milgram (T. Blass, Ed.) The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments (3rd edn) (pp.379–390). London: Pinter & Martin.

references

In his ‘obedience to authority’ experiments, Stanley Milgram took on the dual roles of scientific investigator and documentary filmmaker. Given his deep and abiding interest in the arts, especially film and photography, this is perhaps not surprising.

Indeed, Milgram used visual media as a tool of investigation and dissemination throughout his career. In 1965 he presented his film Obedience as visual evidence in support of his ‘obedience to authority’ paradigm. Until recently the film was viewed as the simple, artless record of an experiment.

Yet it is far from straightforward or objective documentation; the film was scripted, shot and edited to create a particular visual narrative of obedience. This article examines the construction of Stanley Milgram’s documentary Obedience.

Aristotle (1996). Poetics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Blass T. (2004). The man who shocked the world. New York: Basic Books.

McCarthy, A. (2008). Stanley Milgram, Allen Funt and me. In S. Murray & L. Ouellette (Eds.) Reality TV: Remaking television culture (pp.23–43). New York: NYU Press.

Milgram, A. (2000). My personal view of Stanley Milgram. In T. Blass (Ed.)

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t’s 2009. A gameshow studio audience clap hands and shout ‘Punishment!’

We cut to 1965 and grainy black and white. An obedient participant in Milgram’s Obedience (1965) pushes the lever to inflict an electric shock. Then back to the studio where a participant in the French reality show Game of Death faces a shock-machine that looks like it came straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. In a scene from the 2006 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room we cut to another subject in Obedience. As he pushes the lever, cars smash into each other on a Los Angeles freeway. The shock-waves of Obedience are still being felt decades after Stanley Milgram’s experimental trials and the film that authored his findings.

Obedience is one of the most influential educational documentaries ever produced: broadcast numerous times on television, screened almost continuously in lecture halls, and the inspiration for numerous plays, novels, fiction films and TV adaptations. In recent years, clips from the film have been used to support the theses of a number of high-profile television documentaries. Typically, they report the best-known findings of Milgram’s obedience paradigm (what has come to be known as the baseline condition) in which 65 per cent of people will inflict harmful shocks on another human being when requested to do so by a legitimate authority.

Whilst Milgram’s experimental work as a social psychologist is much discussed, his body of work as a dramatist and filmmaker is relatively unacknowledged. In

Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (pp.1–7). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Rowe.

Milgram, S. (2010). The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments.

(T. Blass T., Ed., 3rd edn). London: Pinter and Martin.

Milgram, S. & Sabini, J. (1979). Candid

particular, his best-known film Obedience is usually described as observational footage of a scientific experiment and is rarely discussed in the light of its writer and director’s aesthetic choices. This is largely because observational documentary filmmaking is typically thought of as unmediated recordings of real events that provide us with a ‘window on the world’.

While I think there are good reasons to question Obedience’s status as the literal record of a scientific experiment, it is strikingly successful as a hybrid, a work which combines drama and documentary, the scripted and the real. Milgram himself termed it a laboratory drama.

The scenario A deep interest in film, music and the arts permeates Stanley Milgram’s writings.

Alexandra Milgram has described her husband’s passion for music, the visual arts, opera and film and his later collaborations with filmmaker Harry From (A. Milgram, 2000, and this issue).

He described his studies on conformity and obedience, for example, as ‘variations’ on those of Solomon Asch, ‘variations in the musical sense of the term, the way Brahms wrote variations on Haydn’ (S. Milgram, 2010, p.196). Milgram’s interest was in ‘detailed filmic documentation of behavior enacted under the illusion of being ephemeral and unobserved’ (S. Milgram, 2010, p.332).

Milgram’s skill as a dramatist is evident in the scenario which underlies his ‘obedience to authority’ experiments and film. He wrote that his aim was to combine elements of science and art. Indeed, he traced the beginnings of his ‘Obedience to Authority’ scenario to a short story he wrote as an undergraduate. The story concerned two men told by a clerk that their execution had been scheduled for that day and offered two alternative methods. One entered into negotiation about the means of execution, the other simply left (Milgram 2010). Milgram described the experimental scenario he devised as a relatively simple one: ‘a person

camera. Society, 16, 72–75.

Reicher, S.D. & Haslam, S.A. (2011). After shock: Towards a social identity explanation for the Milgram ‘obedience’ studies. British Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 163–169.

Russell, N.J.C. (2011). Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments: Origins and early evolution. British Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 140–162.

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comes to a laboratory and is asked to carry out a series of acts that come increasingly into conflict with his conscience’ (S. Milgram, 1974, p.3). Yet within a short time, people experience such strain that they sweat, tremble, groan, laugh nervously, turn away or resolutely fold their arms. This is the stuff of drama, it makes compelling viewing. It was carefully modulated – since too little conflict would not provide the tragic tension that fuels drama (Reicher & Haslam, 2011; Russell, 2011). And as Aristotle wrote, it is tragedy – and Obedience provides us with a tragic plot – that leads to maximum emotional catharsis for audiences, allowing us to feel pity and fear for ‘someone like us’ (Aristotle, 1996 version).

As Milgram observed, the dilemma of whether to obey orders that are in conflict with one’s conscience had been argued by

bottom line was a commercial one while social psychologists aimed to illuminate aspects human behaviour that mattered.

As Milgram wrote: ‘Candid Camera shares with social psychology the observation of behavior within constructed situations, but social psychologists make use of experimental variation, in which one systematically alters the situation to find the cause of behavior. Moreover, an experiment must have a certain degree of precision and control’ (S. Milgram & Sabini, 1979, p.74)

Production

Obedience was shot over a weekend in May 1962 at the conclusion of several years of trials and official experiments.

Milgram staged a version especially for the camera, running a variation he called Condition 25. In his narration for the film, he states ‘The victim’s protests could be heard through the walls of the laboratory.

This condition is depicted in the present film’. The non-professional actors that the psychologist cast as Experimenter and Learner were wellacquainted with their roles; not only had they rehearsed for two weeks before the commencement of the Milgram’s documentaries and thoughtful writings on film, official ‘obedience to television and photography point to the value of narrative authority’ trials in 1961, and audio-visual methods of research but they had been performing the same roles in a scenario staged with Plato and dramatised since Antoigne. approximately a thousand participants.

Milgram’s achievement was to transpose Obedience was shot on 16mm black and this drama into a laboratory setting where white film through a window in the it could be systematically studied. His laboratory. For the audience, it replicates ‘obedience to authority’ scenario was partly the position of observing from behind a inspired by the work of Allen Funt, the one-way mirror, as did Milgram as founder of Candid Camera who was investigator. The camera was in a interested in the dilemmas of ordinary relatively fixed position, without much citizens. However, Obedience is both like latitude for re-framing, close-ups, or and unlike Candid Camera. The longsubjective points of view. As the audience running and popular television series we watch the participants experience placed people in surprising situations and considerable discomfort. Indeed, to some filmed the – usually comic – results. As an extent we are complicit, unable to call a experimental social psychologist, Milgram halt to proceedings. shared the Candid Camera producers’ Milgram was awarded a National interest in constructing and filming Science Foundation grant in 1963 to write situations from everyday life. This allowed up the findings of the Obedience trials and him to observe how people actually the grant included an allocation to edit his behaved, rather than how they thought or raw footage into an educational hoped they might behave. But the documentary. He employed Christopher similarities ended there. Candid Camera’s Johnson, a postgraduate interested in

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filmmaking, to make notes on the film rushes and how they might be edited (McCarthy, 2008).

Post-production Johnson’s notes focus on the performances of the subjects and the best examples of obedient and disobedient subjects. His comments included, for example: ‘On this first defiant subject – his performance is fair – not terribly interesting – not terribly dull.’ He approved of the degree of tension captured on film and suggested that the shock machine needed to loom large in order to show how difficult it was to break-off the experiment. Johnson was critical of Milgram’s on-camera performance as he debriefed the subjects.

‘I don’t like Milgram’s appearance in the interview. Though some of the remarks are fair.’ Later, Johnson notes: ‘Milgram’s questions generally good – except, of course, when he is seen.’ The 45-minute film was completed in 1965, suggesting an extended editing period for an educational documentary. Ultimately, Milgram narrated the film but did not include any footage of himself on screen.

The credits for Obedience play an important role in its presentation as scientific evidence. The film opens with a black and white graphic of overlapping circles and a super-imposed title: ‘Research carried out at Yale University under grants from the National Science Foundation.’

The next presentation credit reads ‘Chief Investigator: Stanley Milgram’. Although Milgram did not credit himself as writer or director, he clearly performed both roles, devising the scenario and overseeing all creative aspects of the production from scripting through to post-production.

Yet, the sole presentation credit of ‘Chief Investigator: Stanley Milgram’, confers the documentary with much more authority.

Milgram, too, initially drafted the following for the film’s end credits: ‘In the interests of coherence, the experiment has been greatly condensed and some staged material has been included. The performances of the subjects, however, are spontaneous and unrehearsed.’ He later dropped the reference to staged material.

Nestar Russell, who traced the origins and early evolution of Milgram’s experiments, pointed to Milgram’s gradual realisation of the importance of developing an experiment that would produce an eyecatching result in its first official publication (Russell, 2011, and see www.bps.org.uk/nestar). Milgram’s aim was to produce maximum obedience, and the baseline condition is the only one he chose to film. Obedience briefly discusses other

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experimental conditions – noting that in one condition, 90 per cent of subjects disobeyed – through a montage of stills and narration. However, this sequence has very little impact in comparison to the live action footage.

more traditional instructional films than Obedience and are used primarily in educational settings. Their reconstructions of landmark studies such as Asch’s conformity experiment, however, have proved a valuable resource for film and programme makers ever since.

Experiment as laboratory drama In the late 1970s, Milgram argued that all social psychology experiments have a dramatic component: ‘In the best experiments the subjects are brought into a dramaturgical situation in which the script is only partly written; it is the subject’s actions that complete the script, providing the information sought by the investigator’ (S. Milgram, 2010, p.182).

Obedience was Milgram’s first film. He went on to write and produce a series of five social psychology documentaries in collaboration with his former postgraduate student Harry From. The latter had trained as a filmmaker in Israel and Budapest before undertaking doctoral work in social psychology (Blass, 2004). The programmes focused on topics such as the city and the self, conformity and independence, aggression and non-verbal behaviour.

While the films are well produced and edited and move at a brisk pace, they are

After-images Obedience provided the vision for Milgram’s attempts to explain his findings. Indeed, in the popular imagination, Obedience and the ‘obedience to authority’ trials have become conflated and are now one and the same, despite the fact that the film only provides substantial documentation of one condition out of more than 20 that were investigated. Milgram’s documentaries and thoughtful writings on film, television and photography point to the value of narrative and audio-visual methods of research. The Obedience footage, however, does not support his claim that people ‘mindlessly follow authority’. On the contrary, it provides detailed audio-visual evidence that people experience considerable strain and anguish in following orders that conflict with their own consciences.

Obedience is as much art as science, as much drama as experiment. It was carefully art-directed, scripted, shot and edited to accentuate dramatic tension within a seemingly neutral setting. These are compelling images constructed by an accomplished dramatist and filmmaker.

They provide not so much a window on the world as a window on Milgram’s laboratory and post-World War II America.

Milgram constructed his film as a visual narrative of obedience. But Obedience also provides us with filmed records of human behaviour that, as Milgram himself claimed, could be constantly re-analysed and reinterpreted. Stripped of their narration track and all the other postproduction devices, these images tell a different story. They tell a story as much about disobedience as obedience, as much about resistance as conformity.

Kathryn Millard is an independent filmmaker and is Research Director at the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University kathryn.millard@mq.edu.au

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Language and communication using all the senses

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INTERVIEW

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Milgram and the historians Richard Overy, Professor of History at the University of Exeter, in conversation with Stephen Reicher and Alex Haslam

general, what influence has Stanley IthenMilgram’s work on obedience had on work of historians, particularly in relation to study of the Holocaust?

Once historians began to look seriously at issues of perpetration in the Holocaust, and wider perpetration of National Socialist terror, the Milgram experiments became of special importance. This was partly because historians generally lacked the tools to be able to interpret social psychological situations effectively, having focused for a long time on the construction of rational narratives about social behaviour under fascism (function of capitalism in crisis, popular ideological appeal of ultra-nationalism, Hitler as charismatic leader). It was also partly to do with the shift from a focus on leaders and institutions to a greater interest in wider German society.

reading

Did the question become how ordinary Germans could be induced to take part in atrocious acts?

Yes – they generally had no previous experience of such acts, and they were in defiance of established moral codes.

It was this difficulty that Milgram seemed to answer and the simplicity of a crude situational explanation was very seductive. Christopher Browning’s 1992 work on Police Battalion 101 and the ‘final solution’ in Poland did not rely entirely on Milgram, but it created a paradigm for understanding atrocity which relied heavily on situational psychology. This view of perpetrator behaviour has been repeated often since and is a stock-in-trade of most student

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Browning, C. (1992). Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland.

London: Penguin.

Herf, J. (2006). The Jewish enemy: Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust. Harvard, CT: Harvard University Press.

Overy, R. (2004). The dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. London: W.W. Norton.

analyses of how ordinary Germans could become extraordinary killers.

Though there is now much more critical social psychology available, Milgram’s surviving influence relies on his challenging question: What can explain the willingness of ‘ordinary people’ to do exceptional violence when ordered or asked to do so? The strength of this appeal lies in the apparent difference between organised mass murder, with its own internal rationality, and the spasms of ethnic violence in eastern Europe during the war and its aftermath, which appear to need much less psychological explanation.

How important is the link between Milgram’s studies and Judith Arendt’s analysis of prominent Nazi Adolf Eichmann – notably her concept of ‘the banality of evil’?

For historians, the link between Milgram and Arendt is not immediately obvious. Milgram’s surviving explanatory power relies on his focus on a cohort of individuals who mostly obeyed lifethreatening orders in a situation where their choice seemed more circumscribed than it actually was. Arendt has been used sparingly by historians, partly because of strong objection to the idea that the evils perpetrated by the Third Reich were in any sense ‘banal’, or that those Germans who ordered and organised the Holocaust could be remotely regarded as simple pen-pushers, a mere ‘transport official’ as Eichmann characterised himself.

So the ‘Eichmann-men’, in the Gestapo department that masterminded the death-camps, were not ‘ordinary men’ in any sense?

Well, many had a visceral anti-Semitism, or were sufficiently unscrupulous and ambitious to use Jewish deaths to help their own career. Milgram makes much more sense for Browning’s group of overage reserve policemen from Hamburg, some of whom might have been persuaded that this was a shrewd career move, some of whom may have had an intense hatred for the Jews, but for most of whom the mass murders seem to have been an unpleasant day’s work. These are people who did not regard themselves in any sense as evil, though what they did clearly violated what ethical norms they had hitherto lived by. They did obey orders, and the amount of latitude they had in standing aside – and a handful did on most occasions – was clearly limited.

Arendt picked one individual, but Browning and most of the perpetrator historians who have followed him have been more interested in group psychology, since perpetrators always operated as a small community whose narrow moral universe could temporarily permit them to do things they would not otherwise have done. Although Milgram’s cohort did not act together, the results suggest

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a collective explanation for a common psychological reaction.

What would you say is the current view of Milgram and Arendt and of their contribution to historical understanding?

Neither Milgram nor Arendt is used uncritically by historians and neither is regarded today as a key figure in current historical understanding. Most historians who work on topics most likely to be influenced by Milgram are aware of the methodological flaws and the need to reconcile dispositional and situational factors in any explanation of perpetrator behaviour. Milgram’s surviving influence rests on the fact that his arguments are the base from which historians set out to explore more complex socialpsychological terrain. This is evident in the recent work of Hans Welzer or Olaf Jensen, where the purpose is to take

Milgram as a possible starting point and then to posit more compelling answers to what happens when atrocity is being committed. It is also evident in the recent revival of interest in ideology and how it is communicated. The common discourses to which many perpetrators were subject, as Jeffrey Herf has argued in his recent study of anti-Semitic propaganda, challenges the view that

situational explanations can ever be sufficient.

The growing interest in the ‘moral history’ of the Third Reich, captured in the work of Claudia Koonz or my own work on comparative dictatorships, also explores the way in which irrational discourses on exclusion and social stigmatisation can create closed moral universes in which the irrational suddenly becomes rational, the immoral becomes moral. These dispositional factors clearly change the focus Richard Overy of explanation for perpetration.

How can psychology contribute to our understanding of the Holocaust, and do we need to move on from Milgram in order to exploit psychology more effectively?

Many recent studies of perpetration in the Holocaust have relied on social psychological explanation to help elucidate not only the behaviour of the ‘ordinary men’ involved but to try to come to terms with the wider question of how collective behaviour (exclusion, discrimination, genocide) might be explained in social-psychological terms.

The focus on what the psychologist Hans Askenasy once called ‘collective madness’ can be explained in straightforward historical terms – the charismatic appeal of Hitler, for example – but it is evident that the mechanisms which permit an educated and technically advanced population to endorse and, in some cases, actively participate in genocide are beyond conventional historical explanation.

The obedience tests are perhaps, from this point of view, of limited use.

The cohort was collective only in the sense that they had all volunteered, and the environment in which obedience was tested was artificial. The exploration of what binds small groups together; of their perception of the victims, or of the behaviour of the victims themselves – all too often confined in historical narratives to an entirely passive role; of the symbiosis between disposition and situation; of the cognitive processes

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involved; all these require more sophisticated social psychological explanation. From the historian’s point of view this is a potentially frustrating project, since the subjects are in most cases now dead and the surviving record patchy [although see tinyurl.com/josephdimow for one such account].

Projecting socialpsychological experiments backwards on to historical actors carries with it a whole range of obvious methodological problems.

Do you see a place for a constructive dialogue between historians and psychologists around the sort of issues Milgram addressed – and, if so, what form should this take?

It is evident that some kind of dialogue between psychology and history is desirable to get closer to an understanding of a range of issues connected to the perpetration of atrocity and its wider social endorsement. The issue of obedience is at least a starting point, although its limitations are evident.

There is much historians can learn from current psychology about how extreme collective violence, or coercive behaviour, or the definition of ‘the other’, is explained in psychological terms. There are things that historians could also supply to the psychologist, since the full array of historical factors that influence a particular situation or which contrive a particular disposition makes each case of atrocious behaviour unique.

What historians really need to do is to construct a set of questions to which they feel conventional historical narrative has failed to supply a convincing answer, and to throw those open to psychologists to suggest ways in which these questions might be answered using a different science. Some years ago the historian Michael Geyer suggested that historians do not explain violence well (though there is current fashion for describing it in graphic detail). The history of emotions is currently a growing subject of study, but this is unthinkable without some kind of dialogue with psychology.

Yet this recent fashion has not really addressed the issues of hatred or prejudice or the disturbing exhilaration of extreme violence that Geyer was talking about. These are critical issues to be able to understand in a world where collective violence and prejudice still function.

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Towards healthier meetings Sick of meetings? Jon Sutton and Abi Millar look to psychology for a cure

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or many employees, meetings are an important part of their work diary. They can provide leaders with a way to communicate their vision, serve as a cornerstone of democracy and help organisations respond to the challenges they face. Yet as valuable and inspirational as a good meeting can be, even those who love their jobs often say that meetings send them spiralling into frustration and torpor. The Dutch even have a word for this: vergaderziekte, or meeting sickness.

Despite meetings being a source of grumbles around water-coolers the world over, psychology has perhaps been late to the table. ‘Psychology has been silent on this key aspect of worklife up until the last decade,’ says Joseph Allen (Creighton University). ‘Meetings are a “taken-forgranted” work activity. We simply keep having them and therefore it rarely dawned on employees and researchers

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Arkesteijn, H., Rooij, J.D., Van Eekhout, M., et al (2005). Virtual meetings with hundreds of managers. Group Decision and Negotiation, 13, 211–221.

Baxter, J. (2011). Survival or success?: A critical exploration of the use of ‘double-voiced discourse’ by women business leaders in the UK. Discourse & Communication, 4, 2.

Bluedorn, A.C., Turban, D.B. & Love, M. S. (1999). The effects of stand-up and

that we should figure out how to make them better.’

Psychologist Robert Perkins (Mercer University, Atlanta) tells us that he believes meetings have real positive potential, ‘if only because they are so universally wasteful of time and talent and usually badly led. But in an actual situation there is so much happening it’s hard for psychology to get a net over it.’

So can we manage to find a cure for meeting sickness? Is the popular view of meetings justified, and can psychology provide the science behind making them better?

with bad leadership, badly defined goals, no real agenda and lots of people speaking out of turn for self-validation. In my humble opinion, 90 per cent of the time in today’s corporate world calling a meeting is an abuse of power.’

What’s worse, the amount of time in meetings seems to be on the up.

In a survey of business leaders (see tinyurl.com/6kldp5c), 72 per cent of business leaders reported spending more time in meetings than they did five years ago, and almost half expected time in meetings to increase in the future.

‘To a large extent, the increases can be explained by changes in organisations,’ Steven Rogelberg says. ‘Today’s organisations are flatter and less hierarchical; they make use of selfdirected teams; they rely on empowerment; and they pursue improvement initiatives. The assumption is that employees have information and other resources that the organisation needs to tap – that important ideas and innovation can emerge through employee interaction. The meeting is often the vehicle of choice.’

Enter psychology Terrible and toxic?

Anyone who has sat in a meeting doodling on a pad or turning purple with rage will find considerable support for their animosity across the internet. Take software entrepreneur Jason Fried’s TED talk, ‘Why work doesn’t happen at work’ (see tinyurl.com/friedmeet).

‘Meetings are just terrible, toxic, poisonous things… We all know this to be true,’ Fried says. ‘Don’t go to meetings,’ a senior manager at the Crown Prosecution Service told The Guardian last year. ‘No successful decision has ever been made in a meeting.’ An American blogger known as the Jackal maintains that ‘A person with the power to call a meeting often does so to display that power.

Generally speaking, these meetings are a complete and utter waste of time,

sit-down meeting formats on meeting outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 277–285.

Brandon, M., Epskamp, E., de Groot, T. et al. (2011). The effects of visual feedback on social behavior during decision making meetings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6772, 219–228.

Cohen, M.A., Rogelberg, S.A., Allen, J.A. & Luong, A. (2011). Meeting design

If this vehicle is on the right course, then surely meetings are a necessary evil, no matter how much people may begrudge their time in meetings. But do they work, in terms of increased productivity, better decision making and job satisfaction?

There is a range of relevant research in psychology that should be applied to the study of meetings. Psychologists continue to study issues of attention (e.g. multitasking and attending to multiple stimuli), leadership, persuasion, group dynamics, negotiation, creativity (i.e. brainstorming in the meeting context), and a host of occupational topics (strategy, personnel selection, etc.).

According to Joseph Allen, ‘All of these literatures and so many more could inform the study of meetings’.

Some of this research has implications for meetings that are not entirely

characteristics and attendee perceptions of staff/team meeting quality. Group Dynamics, 15, 90–104.

Kohn, N.W. & Smith, S.M. (2010).

Collaborative fixation: Effects of others’ ideas on brainstorming.

Applied Cognitive Psychology. doi: 10.1002/acp.1699 Kohn, N., Paulus, P. & Choi, Y. (2011).

Building on the ideas of others: An examination of the idea combination

process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.01.004 Leach, D.J., Rogelberg, S.G., Warr, P.B. & Burnfield, J.L. (2009). Perceived meeting effectiveness: The role of design characteristics. Journal of Business Psychology, 24, 65–76.

Littlepage, G.E. & Poole, J.R. (1993). Time allocation in decision making groups.

Journal of Social Behaviour and

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favourable. Consider a study led by Nicholas Kohn and published last year, looking at group brainstorming sessions.

From the point of view of According to Peter Warr (University of Sheffield), ‘Meetings vary so widely that different writers most managers, these are a are commonly discussing different topics with the same overall label. Literature in the area is thus good way to get the creative extremely diverse and often non-cumulative.’ juices flowing; a testament to There may be another reason meetings have slipped down psychology’s agenda. ‘There’s a whole the much-touted ‘wisdom of body of research on group dynamics that covers all types of group interactions,’ says Joseph Allen crowds’. Kohn’s team, (Creighton University). ‘It could be assumed by some that these researchers have already discovered however, came to a surprising and studied all that is related to meetings. However, though meetings conclusion. They found that are groups, not all those who attend a meeting would claim to be group brainstorming may members of a group beyond that interaction, so much of the groups actually impede creativity, research does not easily apply to the meetings context.’ forcing ideas down an Why is there not more research? ‘Excellent question,’ replies artificially narrowed channel.

Robert Perkins (Mercer University). ‘There are at least three types of ‘Fixation to other people's meetings. Information sharing meetings are a bore and could in most ideas can occur cases be replaced with memos via e-mail. Problem solving and decision unconsciously’, said Kohn, making is the tough work of executives. Get it right and your company ‘and lead to you suggesting thrives – get it wrong and you're road-kill. A third type is the rally. It’s ideas that mimic your an emotional activity to whip up enthusiasm – like a national or global brainstorming partners.’ sales meeting. My view is that the important ones are the problem and If you want to foster true decision ones and that those meetings are a giant, buzzing confusion – imaginative diversity, it may even the good ones. Picture eight super-bright executives in heated be better to set people out debate about issues that the researcher knows little about, their on working alone. However, dialogue filled with jargon and abbreviations. A simulation study could a 2011 follow-up by Kohn simplify the problems and structure lines of analysis, and I believe and colleagues suggested that that's a logical next step.’ collaborative group work has Warr certainly sees the potential for diverse research, focusing on a role to play when you get to different types of meeting (scheduled vs. unscheduled, action-oriented the stage of combining ideas vs. discussion only, etc.), with different research outcomes (e.g. to form new creative emphasis on process or outcomes), and with different styles of concepts. Groups of three research (quantitative vs. ethnographic, participant report vs. researcher observation, etc.). Perkins participants who worked suggests ‘using videos to preserve meetings and analyse behaviours more carefully and accurately, collaboratively came up with and MBA students as stand-ins for executive teams’. He concludes: ‘I see the future as bright.’ combined ideas (for how to improve their university) that were judged more useful, feasible and high-impact than between levels of tiredness, perceived did participants who worked on the ‘despite the fact that meetings may help workload and the number of meetings same problem alone. to achieve work-related goals, having too attended.

But what about research specifically many meetings and spending too much However, Rogelberg does suggest that on meetings? Psychology has been time in meetings per day may have the relationship between the demands of surprisingly quiet (see box, ‘Putting negative effects on the individual’. This attending meetings and job satisfaction meetings on the agenda’), but again the conclusion was based on a survey of 37 depends on an individual’s level of conclusions should worry those who volunteers, who filled in a diary ‘accomplishment striving’. ‘People with make heavy use of meetings in their throughout a working week. They a strong desire to accomplish work goals organisation. For example, a 2005 study answered questions after each meeting tend to report poorer job satisfaction as

by Alexandra Luong and Steven and at the end of each working day. It the number of meetings they attend Rogelberg, from the Universities of turned out that meetings were largely increases; those who are less goalMinnesota Duluth and North Carolina perceived as a ‘hassle or interruption’, oriented indicate that attending more at Charlotte respectively, proposed that and that there was a strong correlation meetings was actually desirable (perhaps for social reasons or to provide structure to an unstructured day).’ Interestingly, Rogelberg has also found that most Perkins, R.D. (2009). How executive Personality, 8, 663–672. people who complain publicly about coaching can change leader behavior Luong, A. & Rogelberg, S.G. (2005). meetings actually offer private accounts and improve meeting effectiveness: Meetings and more meetings: The that are quite favourable.

An exploratory study. Consulting relationship between meeting load

Putting meetings on the agenda

and the daily well-being of employees.

Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. doi: 10.1037/1089-2699.9.1.58 Nixon, C.T. & Littlepage, G.E. (1992).

Impact of meeting procedures on meeting effectiveness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 6, 361–369.

Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 61, 298–318.

Rogerson-Revell, P. (2007). Humour in business: A double-edged sword A study of humour and style shifting in intercultural business meetings.

Journal of Pragmatics, 39(1), 4–28.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Fewer meetings?

According to Jason Fried: ‘If you do have a meeting coming up, if you have the power, just cancel it… you’ll find out that everything will be just fine.’ Fried votes for

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trying out ‘No Talk Thursday’, in a bid to show the boss how productive you can be when nobody is breathing down your neck. ‘A tremendous amount of work actually gets done when nobody talks to each other. Giving somebody four hours of uninterrupted time is the best gift you can give at work.’

However, psychologists don’t necessarily agree. ‘Some people need to conduct more meetings, not fewer,’ says management trainer and chartered psychologist Beverley Stone. ‘If they let their team carry on regardless, everybody ignores the real issues.’ Meetings can gel the team, clear up any obstacles, and provide a useful forum for airing gripes.

From Stone’s experience, when meetings fail it is most likely down to an unhealthy group dynamic. ‘It’s not teamwork that people dislike,’ she says. ‘It’s the fact that the wrong people get their way whereas other people don’t have their voice.

People become half a person because of their fears of saying what they actually mean.’

Joseph Allen doubts whether the number of meetings that occur in organisations will decrease in the longterm. ‘Meetings are such useful tools that can be applied to so many issues in organisations. Some even argue that meetings are synonymous with the process of organising. Given the complexity of the work environment and the ever-growing complexity of the world market, I imagine that meetings will always be an essential part of organisational life. They key is to make the meetings we have better, eliminate the poorly run meetings, and hopefully bring about positive changes in organisational functioning more generally.’

Allen’s colleague, Steven Rogelberg, agrees. ‘Successful organisations do not treat meetings as a necessary evil. Instead, they view them as a strategic resource and seek out ways to get the most from them… they use them to solve problems and build more competitive organisations. Major improvements do not occur overnight, but gradually – one meeting at a time.

Improving just one meeting per week can lead to significant benefits for the organisation while also contributing to the health and motivation of employees.’

Know when a meeting is necessary ‘The first principle of management of meetings’, according to Steven Rogelberg, ‘is knowing when other approaches will work just as well or better. Organisations should have some general guidelines – you call a meeting when unresolved issues are inhibiting the progress of interdependent projects, or when a compelling agenda exists that requires full group input.

Organisations need to determine who actually needs to be there, who does not, and how they will keep interested parties who do not attend appraised of what is happening.’

Consider the scheduling carefully Meetings take you away from the work you are doing. ‘Meetings aren’t work,’ says Jason Fried. ‘Meetings are places to go and talk about work that you’re supposed to be doing later.’ He draws an analogy between work and sleep, in the sense that both happen in phases. To get to the really deep phases of either one, you have to work your way through all the early ones. And should something interrupt you – an alarm clock, say, or a meeting – it is really hard to pick up where you left off.

If you’re after a specific time, apparently Tuesday at 3pm is good (see tinyurl.com/5sjgb8n).

Don’t be ruled by time slots The essayist and programmer Paul Graham thinks that managers live their lives by the sort of schedule that is carved by Outlook, or in archaic terms the appointments diary, into discrete hour-long blocks. ‘When you use time that way,’ he writes, ‘it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone.

Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done.’ For ‘makers’, by contrast – anyone who is being paid to be

productive – an hour block is barely long enough to get their teeth into a problem, let alone to ruminate, digest it, and cough up a creative solution. Graham claims that one hour-long meeting, by virtue of a ‘cascading effect’, ‘can sometimes affect a whole day’.

In general, then, keep them short.

Take minutes, waste hours, goes the saying. A one-hour meeting is only a onehour meeting if there is one person at it: productivity guru Merlin Mann tells of a company CTO who insisted on holding a four-hour conference call with a 30strong engineering department, equating to 120 working hours (see tinyurl.com/38n8zyk). You can even buy a special office clock, Bring TIM!, that tallies the money spent in long meetings.

Simply enter the number of people in the room, input an average hourly wage, and press the illuminated start button.

The agenda is vital In a 1992 study, the first on meetings published in a psychology journal, Carol Nixon and Glenn Littlepage sent out questionnaires in a bid to find out what enabled ‘meeting effectiveness’. Through an analysis of their subjects’ ‘goal attainment’ and ‘decision satisfaction’, Nixon and Littlepage concluded that a good meeting will have – amongst other characteristics – clear, well-defined goals, and ‘agenda integrity’. Theoretical opinion, Nixon and Littlepage conceded, was divided with regard to some of the specifics. ‘Agenda integrity’ was particularly contentious. Might strict adherence to a predefined plan simply make a meeting seem wooden? Another Littlepage study found that decisionmaking groups, left to their own devices, ‘do not allocate time in a purely rational manner’. It appears that people tend to assign weight to various items based not on how important they are, but on where they are in the agenda. Perhaps as a result of this, Angela Carter (University of Sheffield) recommends that agendas should be discussed at the beginning, and areas of importance dealt with first.

Ten tonics So what is psychology’s prescription for healthier meetings? Here we present 10 tonics, based on the psychological literature.

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Do managers live their lives in discrete hour-long blocks?

Find a role model ‘Chairing meetings takes practice and skill,’ says Angela Carter. ‘I would suggest finding a role model and watch how they work.’

A 2009 study by Robert Perkins did just this, using an observation and executive coaching approach to discover the

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study by Bluedorn et al. (1999), sitdown meetings were 34 per cent longer than standup meetings, but they produced no better decisions than stand-up meetings.

The use of new technology could be considered here.

Don’t just sit there For example, have What if you don’t you thought of feel able to hold your using a digital own in this kind of ‘Social Mirror’ environment, if you to provide visual struggle to get feedback on involved? Involvement social behaviour? is particularly A recent study important, given doing just this Stand up for shorter meetings research by Desmond (Brandon et al., 2011) Leach (University of suggested that the Leeds) and colleagues Social Mirror led to (2009) which found that attendee changes in the social behaviour of the involvement had a direct effect on participant, particularly in terms of perceptions of effectiveness, but also reaching agreement. accounted for much of the relationship Use humour wisely between design characteristics According to a study by Rogerson-Revell (punctuality, facilities, etc.) and (2007), humour is one of several effectiveness. interactive strategies that mark a shift in Beverley Stone thinks that, if you are meetings from formality to informality. feeling disengaged within a meeting, the ‘These style shifts and the humour within onus is on you to change those feelings. them can be used strategically to show ‘Quite honestly,’ she says, ‘when I see solidarity and power, particularly by the people looking glazed and bored, my dominant “in-group” of Western, male feeling is to help them understand that participants… humour acts as a “doubletheir colleagues feel insulted; that this edged sword” being used to both positive is disrespectful. In a team, it’s your and negative effect: facilitating, on the one responsibility to look at the whole hand, collaboration and inclusion and, on organisation. It’s your responsibility to the other, collusion and exclusion.’ be engaged.’

There are also other issues with Denise Taylor, a chartered humour if you are a woman. Judith psychologist and careers coach, agrees: Baxter (2011) undertook an 18-month ‘If you’re feeling disengaged in the study into the speaking patterns of men meeting, it may be that you don’t and women at meetings in seven major understand the subject, which is the well-known companies, including two in fault of the manager, or it could be the FTSE-100. The research found that because of stuff in your personal or work women, often heavily outnumbered on life, in which case you should probably these boards, were four times more likely never have gone. People blame others than men to be self-deprecating, use because that’s the easy option. I tell humour and speak indirectly or people to go back tomorrow, and actually apologetically when broaching difficult try to like something. Sometimes it is subjects with board members in order to somebody else, but sometimes it is you.’ avoid conflict. When employed effectively, this ‘double voice discourse’ could be a Meet by design useful tool to manipulate those around Don’t just meet anywhere and anytime: them, Baxter claims, but self-deprecation design the meeting effectively. Temporal, and an apologetic style were risky because physical, procedural and attendee design striking a wrong note could lead to characteristics all significantly predict appearing defensive and weak. perceptions of meeting quality (Cohen et al., 2011): food, noise level, lighting, etc. are all important. But there’s always scope Make an event of it to try something new; for example, in a Perhaps safer than humour is making the importance of ‘a spirit of rough fun’ amongst expert leaders, alongside diligent preparation. ‘Expert leaders conducted lively meetings, filled with spirited debate in which a wide diversity of opinions was assertively voiced and defended.’

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

meeting a social occasion. According to Angela Carter, ‘my experience of working across Europe tells me that time taken to meet, socialise and catch up with the other delegates before they have the meeting will pay benefits in productivity. I suggest a dinner the night before the meeting, or lunch.’

Assess your meetings To increase the effectiveness of a meeting, attendees should periodically critique it for what can be improved – if not for the remainder of the current meeting, then for the next one. ‘Among other things,’ Rogelberg says, ‘they should examine the pace and flow, and revisit the ground rules and their effectiveness.’

Any other business?

Meetings are bound to become possible in a variety of forms. Even back in 2005, Arkesteijn et al. were using an online ‘Group Support System’ in a distributed meeting with hundreds of bank managers, finding that this contributed to reducing the lead-time of a decision of hundreds of managers from an estimated six months to four weeks, while at the same time increasing the involvement of the managers. Technology continues to develop, but meetings are probably here to stay.

With that in mind, those working in the field are keen to get plenty of psychologists round the table to research them. ‘Meetings can and should be studied from many different psychological perspectives including social, cognitive, occupational, health, and so on,’ says Joseph Allen. ‘In meetings, all sorts of social psychological phenomena occur – social loafing, bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, etc. – and these things are likely to impact meeting attendees’ attitudes and behaviours both inside and outside the meeting context. There are a host of legitimate reasons why a specific psychology of meetings should be developed, but this should only be done from multiple perspectives and potentially across disciplines – psychology, communication, sociology, and business working together to make meetings healthier.’

I Dr Jon Sutton is managing editor of The Psychologist I Abi Millar is a science journalism postgraduate at City University

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Defending the honour of psychology A-level Matt Jarvis considers rigour and transferable skills

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LAURA RUDD

ver the last decade the growth of psychology in schools and colleges – in particular at A-level – has been phenomenal. Around 55,000 students completed psychology A-level in 2010 with almost 82,000 completing AS-level.

These numbers are particularly impressive given that psychology is so underrepresented in the secondary curriculum (Rowley & Dalgarno, 2010). However, like any high-profile success story, psychology A-level is now ‘there to be shot at’.

Questions about the rigour of ‘newfangled’ subjects like psychology are nothing new. In the early 2000s John Dunford, then General Secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, spoke of the ‘hidden scandal of A-levels’, singling out psychology as a subject I that did not compare in difficulty to maths or the physical sciences.

Arguments in defence of the rigour of psychology were swiftly marshalled (see for example Jarvis, 2004; Morris, 2003), and for a time attacks on psychology receded.

The debate has recently been reignited, however, with some elements of the press picking up on the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College classification of A-levels as Category A: ‘generally suitable’ (for study at Trinity), Category B: ‘more limited suitability’, and Category C: ‘suitable only as a fourth subject’.

Psychology appears in the ‘more limited suitability’ category, and the Telegraph’s education correspondent claimed that

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Betts, L., Elder, T., Hartley, J. & Blurton, A. (2008). Predicting university performance in psychology: The role of previous performance and discipline-specific knowledge.

Educational Studies, 34, 543–556.

Coe, R., Searle, J., Barmby, P. et al.

(2008). Relative difficulty of examinations in different subjects.

Durham: CEM Centre.

Jarvis, M. (2004). The rigour and appeal of

‘thousands of teenagers are effectively being shut out of prestigious institutions after taking subjects such as media studies, dance and psychology in the sixth form’ (Paton, 2011).

Had the bad publicity been confined to the right-wing press we could perhaps have ignored it. However, the factoid that psychology is a ‘banned A-level’ has ‘gone viral’. Posts appeared on influential

“…as reflective practitioners, we should look beyond self-defence to what lessons can be learned from debates like this” Matt Jarvis leads the Psychology PGCE at Keele University matt.jarvis2@btinternet.com

websites, including mumsnet and thestudentroom, to the effect that students taking psychology A-level are barred from entry to top universities.

Given that mumsnet is an important influence on parental opinions about education, and that thestudentroom has similar status amongst students, we can take it that the reputation of psychology A-level has taken a knock. If this leads to a reduction in the numbers of able students opting to study psychology in the sixth form there will be a knock-on

psychology A-level. Education Today 54, 24–28.

Jarvis, M. (2011). Teaching 14–19 psychology. London: Routledge.

Laurent, O. (2011, February).

Photography: A ‘soft subject?’ British Journal of Photography. tinyurl.com/3ohrdqj McGuinness, C. (Ed). (2003) Post-16 qualifications in psychology. Leicester: British Psychological Society.

effect for the whole profession.

The British Journal of Photography has responded to the identification of photography as a ‘soft’ A-level with a vigorous rebuttal (Laurent, 2011), equipping photographers with arguments to defend their subject at A-level. As psychologists we can similarly respond – provided we have the necessary data – tackling the argument on at least two levels. First, what have the aforementioned ‘prestigious institutions’ actually said about psychology? Second, what sources of evidence can we bring to the debate on the rigour of psychology A-level and what do they have to tell us?

What do ‘prestigious’ universities really think of psychology?

If there are indeed ‘banned subjects’ amongst elite universities, then students most certainly have a right to know.

However, looking beyond the hyperbole, what has actually been said in relation to psychology is actually quite mild. Much of the recent publicity has been triggered by the Trinity College classification, and the first thing to stand out is that psychology falls in Category B. Given that there are 20 subjects listed in Category C, including Accounting, Computing, Environmental Science and more, it seems decidedly harsh for the Telegraph to single out psychology as one of just three subjects in a piece containing terms such as ‘banned’ and ‘substandard’. To give further context to the Trinity College list, representatives of Trinity College have been clear that their classification is not based on the difficulty of A-level subjects but on their ability to prepare students for a degree at Cambridge. In this they have taken into account the potential for each subject to develop transferable skills like essay writing.

Seen in that light the list no longer seems so damning.

In response to requests for clarity from many quarters including the government, the Russell Group, which represents 20 elite UK universities, has

Morris, P. (2003). Not the soft option. The Psychologist, 16, 510–511.

Paton, G. (2011). Willetts: Universities should reveal A-level blacklists. The Telegraph. tinyurl.com/359pfbb Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2008). Inter-subject comparability studies. London: QCA. tinyurl.com/3q2oqfh Rowley, M. & Dalgarno, L. (2010). A-level psychology teachers: Who are they

and what do they think about psychology as a subject and a discipline? Psychology Teaching Review, 16(2), 54–66.

Russell Group (2011). Informed choices: A Russell Group guide to making decisions about post-16 education.

London: Russell Group.

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issued guidance on the usefulness of a range of A-level subjects (Russell Group, 2011).

The tone of this document is appropriately measured (if conservative), and there is no mention of ‘banned subjects’, although prospective students are cautioned about taking exclusively vocational subjects at level 3.

Psychology is flagged as a ‘useful’ subject in relation to a range of degree subjects including psychology, nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, speech therapy and sociology. We might take issue with the omission of psychology in relation to teacher training and the natural and medical sciences, but overall the Russell Group guidance is certainly not antipsychology.

Evidence for the rigour of psychology A-level The second question concerns the actual rigour of psychology A-level. There are procedures for comparing the relative difficulty of A-level subjects, though none of these is without controversy. The Curriculum Evaluation & Management (CEM) Centre at Durham University monitors relative achievements in different A-levels. When GCSE scores are controlled for, A-level outcomes as measured by UCAS points can be compared by subject. The last two published comparisons in 2002 and 2008 both placed psychology around the centre of ranked subjects.

The 2002 CEM figures suggest that psychology is more rigorous than history, geography or English A-level, though less so than maths or the traditional sciences.

2008 figures rank psychology in the ‘difficult half’ of A-levels, at 16th of 33 subjects, below history, maths and the three traditional sciences but above English, geography and law (Coe et al., 2008). It is interesting to note that in spite of this, history and geography made it into Trinity College’s ‘Category A’.

CEM analyses are certainly the most statistically sophisticated to date, the latest figures being arrived at through Rasch modelling. However, their validity depends on the assumption that relative outcomes at A-level are principally a product of subject difficulty. In fact

inequitable ‘killjoy’ position that psychology (unlike traditional subjects) has to justify its existence by being the toughest A-level.

Lessons from the debate

differential attainment across subjects may owe as much to aptitudes and motivation as it does subject difficulty.

This is hard to unpick from the data but the fact that general studies, which is generally disliked by students and widely delivered as a bolt-on to student programmes, emerges from the 2002 figures as the ‘hardest’ subject (the 5th hardest in 2008) suggests that differential motivation is likely to be a contributing factor. Survey findings that the majority of students rate psychology as their hardest but most interesting subject (McGuinness, 2003) support this interpretation and suggest that CEM analyses may underestimate the rigour of psychology.

When it comes to judging standards across subjects, there are alternatives to mathematical modelling. One such is the intersubject comparability method used by the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA). This involves a panel of experts reviewing the demands of A-level assessment and comparing marked scripts across different subjects. QCA (2008) reported on an intersubject comparability study of psychology, biology and sociology, concluding that standards in the three subjects were comparable and that any apparent disparities were due to different assessment methods.

Judging the relative difficulty of subjects at any level is notoriously difficult, and there is no universally accepted protocol. However, Rasch modelling, intersubject comparability and student surveys all place psychology at least in the more rigorous half of A-level subjects. All the available data thus supports a more than acceptable level of rigour. To criticise psychology for falling near the middle of the subject range for difficulty would be to adopt an

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Suggestions that elite universities dislike psychology A-level and that psychology is generally less rigorous than other A-levels can be firmly refuted. However, as reflective practitioners, we should look beyond self-defence to what lessons can be learned from debates like this. For example, by omitting psychology from their Category A subjects, Trinity College suggest that psychology A-level does not foster transferable writing skills as well as some other subjects. In this they may well be correct. Successive curriculum changes have reduced the assessment of extended prose in psychology A-level, while school league tables have led to teachers focusing more strategically on preparing students for the ways they will be assessed at the expense of non-assessed transferable skills. The role of essay-writing in psychology A-level has diminished greatly since 2000 and report-writing has disappeared altogether since 2008 (Jarvis, 2011).

Thus whilst a strong case can be made for the general rigour of psychology A-level, the same can not necessarily be said for its suitability as preparation for studying at university, even studying psychology. One professor I spoke to bemoaned the difficulties in teaching students ‘acculturated into A-level’, and this sort of anecdote is perhaps supported by the evidence: for example, Betts et al.

(2008) demonstrate that neither having A-level psychology nor achieving highly in it conveys any advantage for degree performance.

Conclusions Analyses of the relative difficulty of A-level subjects have been favourable to psychology, and psychology A-level is actively recommended by the Russell Group as helpful for many degree subjects. Thus we can be quite confident in saying that recent media comments are unfounded, and it is important that we actively do so. However, the recent debate about ‘easy A-levels’ provides an opportunity to reflect on the recent developments in psychology A-level, and it seems that as we enter the consultation period for the next A-level revisions there is a case for looking beyond debates over content towards opportunities to foster better development of meaningful academic skills.

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INTERVIEW

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School students and work Alex Fradera, editor of the Society’s new Occupational Digest (see www.occdigest.org.uk), talks to Jim McKechnie

ould you first outline some C fundamentals – what is the legal status for young people in work?

There are actually two groups we need to consider here. Children under the age of 16 are covered by a set of legislation called the Children and Young Persons Act, which has been on the books since 1933. It’s pretty bureaucratic and outdated, focusing on prescribing what jobs this age group can and can’t do, and carries with it the idea that they shouldn’t carry much responsibility.

Conversely, once a young person is 16 – or more precisely, once they have finished the year of school in which they turned 16 – this is the end of their compulsory education period. They receive a National Insurance number, and in the eyes of the law are like any other adult with respect to employment.

developmental processes. The way in which we see it is that any adult job has good and bad features to it, so this is likely to be true for young people too.

What’s a good example of that?

Take the number of hours worked – our research suggests a complex relationship with educational attainment. Students working excessive hours – more than 15

Your research group explores the balance model of employment and education. What is that about?

It essentially argues that employment during school years can bring advantages and Professor Jim McKechnie, Social Sciences disadvantages. There are Department, University of the West of Scotland other approaches – the zero-sum model argues that any time spent working is time that could hours a week – have negative be spent on school work, and thus is consequences in academic attainment. detrimental. But clearly, the children But those working five to six hours could be spending their time on all sorts a week do better educationally than of activities – they could be on Xbox – students who have never worked. Of so we’re not persuaded of this. course, we have to establish the causality, Another alternative is the but it’s clear that working isn’t necessarily developmental model, which argues that a bad thing for schooling. part-time work when young can aid

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Beyond the hours worked, are there types of job that are less worthwhile – too menial, perhaps?

We need to be cautious and not look at these jobs through adult eyes. The least demanding jobs are those in delivery – not a lot of contact with individuals, not much decision making. But at the same time, those jobs tend to be taken by people who’ve never worked before as a first way in to having a job.

As an early experience, it might be demanding to them, as they’ve never had to get up early before, they’ve never had to be reliable. And typically, people who start part-time in delivery work go through a sort of career path of part-time jobs, with an ‘arc of demand’ increasing as they move forward.

What are the typical jobs that school students are involved in?

Some people believe this work is by definition low value and menial. But our own research suggests it involves a range of roles across the service sector – the majority in retail and catering, but also delivery, labouring, office work, caring and cleaning. These are real jobs, not children’s jobs, and initial research suggests they provide some genuine learning opportunities. For instance, in our study, over 80 per cent of roles involved cooperating with other staff members, over 70 per cent dealing with customers and over 20 per cent had some kind of supervisory role.

That last detail is particularly fascinating – do we have any sense of what these supervisory responsibilities look like?

One example we have is of an individual entering work in a shoe shop at the age of 14 who gained sufficient expertise in technology and methods that by 16 they were used to dealing with and training new employees.

Now, we know the value of peer-topeer tutoring in education, so why not take that model and apply it to business situations? You could imagine having a young person showing others the ropes may be better than a more managerial approach, and avoids potential culture clashes.

Could you talk about how employers are involved?

Well, they tend to seek school-age employees on the basis of flexibility, rather than cheapness – wages are typically standard, especially for post-16s.

Some recognise ‘a breath of fresh air’ that a young person brings into a workplace.

For example, they see them as more

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enthusiastic compared to the adult parttime employees they have.

Employers are very variable in how they treat young employees still. at school. One response to this would be to recognise good employers in some way.

For instance, training provided is very variable.

Those employers who do train see the young people as an investment for the future – ‘I get a good quality employee for a relatively low cost.’

In this sense, it resembles the impetus for many graduate programmes.

Yes – and moreover, when these employees move on typically they introduce their friends as a ‘next generation’ for the business; a free screening process for the employer.

There is a growing recognition among employers that this young group of people are a valuable support system for their business, but it would benefit employers to pay more attention in some cases. It would be worthwhile for better, more organised employers to introduce contracts when workers hit 16 to ensure they get time off for exam prep, to restrict hours so it doesn’t clash with education; to say ‘we acknowledge we get the flexibility, so we give something back’.

How about the young people themselves – how can they get more from these early work experiences?

There’s a major challenge for young workers themselves, as they tend to undervalue the experience, and don’t see the full scope of what they’re doing.

In education, we use personal development planning to foster selfreflection on academic work. Should we extend this to work experience too?

There is a tension, however. When you talk to young people, one of the major benefits they see in paid work is a growth in their independence and autonomy – a consistent finding in the evidence base. If you try to educationalise that experience, you may be undermining one of its most valuable benefits! If you have to justify to the teacher what you’ve learned from work, it becomes just another kind of coursework.

Our cautious position would be to start out with those pupils who want to embark on an educationalisation or

recognition of the process – such as a module that involves self-reflection on work experience – rather than mandating it for all pupils. Schools should certainly develop an awareness of it; in particular,

it may be a way to help with those at risk of falling into the NEET category – Not in Employment, Education or Training.

Many young people struggling at school may have part-time jobs that they are getting more from.

Another benefit would be to educate young people in how to balance work and education in a better way. To share with them that a risk factor is working too many hours, not whether you work at all, opening up more options for the individual who is currently struggling.

Unfortunately, schools tend to see it as an either/or model.

How does voluntary work fit into this?

Our research group is only just beginning to look at unpaid work outside family.

There is some evidence to suggest that there is an ‘active student profile’ – those students with a part-time job also tend to be those who are more socially active and involved in unpaid voluntary work. We’re not sure what the causality is, but there may be something about simply being involved in working that opens up the idea of being involved in unpaid work. Or unpaid work makes you more confident to enter a paid work experience. Perhaps unpaid work makes it more likely to be in a demanding paid job. This is something that needs to be untangled – we simply don’t know enough about it at the moment.

Internships have been a topic of

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

interest recently. Are there any parallels in your work?

In this field, the closest we come to internships is school work experience, and there are a few ways this can interact with paid work.

The first is that the paid work can be used as the work experience, where the young person gets paid to go in for a whole week, supervised by the school. The other approach, which has some parallels to the intern situation, is where a placement for work experience can convert into paid work.

Now, this is a very different educational experience to interning, but there may be resemblances in how they open up a job market for young people. But as to the extent to which this is explicitly sought for the kinds of reasons that internships are? I don’t think it’s reached that level of awareness.

How would you like to see the world of psychology participating in this discussion?

From an occupational psychology perspective, to ask whether or not we can look at this age group of workers in terms of well-researched features, such as job satisfaction, quality of employment experiences, engagement, even issues like stress. There is an array of tools out there but they’ve been designed for adult populations. Given that an estimated 1.1–1.7m under-16s contribute to the economy through part-time jobs, and given we’re talking about our future workforce here, this would be valuable research.

Moreover, developmental psychology needs to realise that this is a typical feature of the adolescent experience in the UK. So we should bring employment into the study of young people, and young people into the study of work.

Exactly, many areas of psychology are ready to gain insights from paying more attention to this area. This group needs some time under the spotlight.

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The British Psychological Society

President’s column Carole Allan

President Dr Carole Allan

Contact Carole Allan via the Society’s Leicester office, or e-mail: thepresident@bps.org.uk

President Elect Dr Peter Banister Vice President Dr Gerry Mulhern Honorary General Secretary Professor Pam Maras Honorary Treasurer Dr Richard Mallows Chair, Membership Standards Board Dr Peter Banister Chair, Psychology Education Board Professor Dorothy Miell Chair, Research Board Professor Judi Ellis Chair, Publications and Communications Board Dr Graham Powell Chair, Professional Practice Board Vacant The Society has offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and London, as well as the main office in Leicester. All enquiries should be addressed to the Leicester office (see inside front cover for address).

The British Psychological Society was founded in 1901, and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1965. Its object is ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied and especially to promote the efficiency and usefulness of Members of the Society by setting up a high standard of professional education and knowledge’.

Extract from The Charter

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would like to begin my first column by and Special Groups of Psychologists come remembering Noel Sheehy, who should have together to work on our common purpose: to taken over as President in June. Noel was increase the influence of psychological science Professor of Psychology in Liverpool John and the practical applications of psychology for Moores University when he died tragically early the public good. I firmly believe we can only do in May. Paying tribute in The Psychologist (July this by fostering close collaborations and links 2011) Antony Chapman described Noel as a between Divisions, Special Groups and Sections. ‘terrific team player and team leader and a I would also support further reforms of our magnificent communicator, and he was adept at fellowship grade and the need for Divisions to creating and maintaining successful partnerships fully realise benefit from the post-HPC across disciplines, across commercial and public environment. health sectors and across EU member states’.

I would like to extend a special welcome to Clearly a class act and it is to the Society’s the thousands of new undergraduates who will detriment that we will not have him as be receiving a free copy of this month’s issue. It President. is never too early to be thinking about jobs and I would also like to pay tribute to Gerry careers. The Society’s website (www.bps.org.uk) Mulhern, who is stepping down as President. is a valuable source of information. Many His year was undertaken with his particular Psychology students enter University intending brand of energy, charm and wit, and it has been to become professional psychologists and about one of consolidation. The Society has 20 per cent go on to do so. maintained its improved financial position and Established career paths within Psychology more importantly maintained its membership include: clinical, counselling, educational, numbers, in face of statutory registration and forensic, health, neuropsychology, occupational, the economic down turn. Gerry has argued that sports and exercise and teaching and research. we need to become a more Students who pursue careers modern, outward looking within these established areas organisation and during his must pursue postgraduate study “The Society can period of office work on the in order to qualify. Competition only flourish with the website is coming to fruition, our for post graduate places can be full engagement of policy and parliamentary work is tough. For many programmes, as its members” being reviewed and he has been well as a good honours degree, instrumental in focusing on our relevant experience is required and international profile and the need many students begin undertaking to enhance this. voluntary roles and seeking work experience I recently attended a seminar arranged by early in their undergraduate careers. the Scottish Branch and hosted by one of the six I would also recommend a very useful Scottish MEP’s. She highlighted that most public publication – ‘Psychology Student Employability health legislation comes from the European Guide: The Higher Education Psychology Union and this is where we should focus some Network’ (the PDF can be downloaded from of our energies and influence. tinyurl.com/psychemploy). This guide addresses My working life has been spent in the NHS some issues related to careers in psychology and in Scotland in a variety of clinical, training and includes discussion of emerging and growing managerial roles. I have firsthand experience of psychology areas and also careers where the impact that the economic situation is having Psychology is simply a component part. on education and the public services. I have The Society can only flourish with the full particular interests in postgraduate training, the engagement of its members, and students are a recognition and development of professional key resource. I would urge you to become fully qualifications and ‘fitness to practice’ issues. We involved with the Society, it can be a rewarding live in an increasingly competitive environment and valuable activity. and it is important that we are able to evidence I am looking forward to the forthcoming our competencies, look at our commonalities year and would like to thank those who have and build on these. sent their good wishes. I would be pleased to I have enjoyed my time as Chair of the hear from members about their concerns and Professional Practice Board, where the Divisions views: e-mail thepresident@bps.org.uk.

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Vote on membership subscriptions Our Society is, like many other charities, dealing with an exciting yet challenging future. Over the past two years there have been a number of service improvements that have benefited both Society members and the general public. Continual development is essential to ensure that the Society remains the authoritative voice of psychology in the United Kingdom and that our members benefit.

It is well known that financially these are difficult times for many organisations with inflation running at close to 5 per cent. In 2008 the membership accepted a three-year plan for subscriptions, whereby there was an initial increase of £4 in 2008, followed by an increase in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) in 2009 and 2010. This maintained the purchasing power of your subscriptions.

As this agreement has run out, it is proposed that the link between the RPI and subscriptions be maintained in 2012 to provide stable funding with a 5 per cent increase on all subscription rates for 2012 making the graduate rate £119 (an increase of less than 10p per week) from January 2012. Where appropriate other subscription rates will be adjusted accordingly and direct debit discounts will

still apply.

A proposed Schedule of Subscriptions has been prepared and included below.

In accordance with statutes 13(2), 14 and 17(4) of the Society, a vote will take place at a Special General Meeting at noon on Friday 16 September 2011 at St Andrews House, 48, Princess Road East, Leicester LE1 7DR to agree the Schedule of Membership subscriptions for 2012.

Resolution That the Schedule of Subscriptions be amended to increase all subscriptions by 5 per cent (RPI) in 2012.

NOTE: No other business or votes will take place at the meeting.

We would like to remind you that in the UK your membership subscription and other fees can be set off against your taxable income irrespective of whether you are employed or self employed (see: www.hmrc.gov.uk/list3/list3.htm).

BA/BPS Lecture This year’s joint British Academy and British Psychological Society Lecture will be on ‘The resilient brain: Cognition and ageing’. It will be delivered by Professor Lorraine Tyler, a Chartered Psychologist and Fellow of the Society from the University of Cambridge.

A common view is that normal ageing involves widespread changes in the brain, and these are thought to lead to problems with a variety of everyday cognitive functions, like memory and problem solving. However, Professor Tyler will argue that this belief is starting to be challenged and a more positive one is emerging. This new view does not see ageing as an inexorable and progressive

decline in neural and cognitive fitness. Instead, it concentrates on what is preserved as we age and tries to understand the brain mechanisms by which cognitive functions can be preserved in spite of extensive changes in brain tissue.

Professor Tyler heads a university-wide consortium, funded by the BBSRC, to study the relationship between brain function and cognition across the adult lifespan. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1995.

The lecture takes place at 6pm on Thursday 22 September at the British Academy, Carlton House Terrace, London.

I For more information, see www.bps.org.uk/sharingour science

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Non-Direct Direct Debit rate Debit Rate Honorary Member

£0.00

£0.00

Chartered Member

£119.00

£115.00

Graduate Member Graduate Member Rule 15(i) previously 20(a) Graduate Member Rule 15(ii) previously 20(b) Student Member (no taxable income) Affiliate subscriber

£119.00

£115.00

£60.00

£56.00

£31.00

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Subscriber

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e-subscriber

£10.00

£10.00

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Rule 22 - previously R27a (financial hardship) at Rule 15(i) rate Rule 22 - previously R27b (financial hardship) at Rule 15(ii) rate Rule 21 - previously R26a (retired, 30 years membership) Rule 21 - previously R26b (retired, less than 30 years membership)

Society vacancies Professional Practice Board Cross-Divisional Working Group on Behaviour Change

Panel of experts See advert p.664 Contact Nigel Atter nigel.atter@bps.org.uk Closing date 30 September 2011 Committee on Test Standards

Chair of the CTS See advert p.664 Contact Mala Pancholi mala.pancholi@bps.org.uk Closing date 29 September 2011

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CONSULTATIONS NEWS July was a very busy month, with 17 consultations circulated to the membership – the highest amount this year. Seven responses were submitted during June, involving 23 members from 17 member network groups. As always, we are extremely grateful for the time and expertise of all who took part. Brief points from the seven responses are below, and full details of these and all consultations, including downloadable copies of consultation papers and the Society’s responses, are available at www.bps.org.uk/consult.

Sickle Cell Acute Episode: Scope consultation (NICE) A range of strategies used as part of cognitive behaviour therapy to help manage pain and the related anxiety during an acute sickle crisis were noted in the Society’s response as being worthy of inclusion in the forthcoming guidance. The potential of hypnosis to aid in the management of pain was also raised.

Consultation on Updating the Guidance on Health and Character (HPC) Although the draft guidance was clear in some areas, the Society raised concerns around (i) a presumption that declaration is the same as insight; (ii) that registrants are allowed to wait until renewal before declaring changes to their health; and (iii) the timescales relating to registration panel hearings.

Broadcasting the history of the brain Society member Dr Geoff Bunn will be presenting a 10-part series on BBC Radio 4 on the social history of the brain during November. The series, entitled A History of the Brain, forms part of Radio 4’s two-week Brain Season. The programmes will be broadcast at 1.45pm Monday to Friday from 7 November, with an omnibus edition on the Friday at 9pm.

Geoff Bunn, a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, is Chair of the Society’s History & Philosophy of Psychology Section and was the BPS Centenary Fellow at the Science Museum from 1998 to 2001. He was invited to write and present the series earlier this year, and recording took place in August.

We intend to publish a full interview with Geoff in the November issue to coincide with the broadcasts.

Safe and Sustainable – A New Vision for Children's Congenital Heart Services in England (NHS Specialised Services) The planned increases in clinical psychology services for children with congenital cardiac conditions was welcomed but the aim of ensuring local service provision by clinical psychologists with appropriate expertise was viewed as difficult to achieve given the small number of such psychologists and the current financial climate.

Obesity – Working with Local Communities: Consultation on the evidence (NICE) The statement suggesting the presence of ‘broad agreement that causes of obesity are complicated’ was questioned, as members working in this area observe that there is still individualised blame for being overweight/obese. Questions regarding workplace environment, dissemination, innovation and creativity were also raised.

End of Life Care for Adults: Draft Quality Standard (NICE) Suggestions for ways in which the draft quality standard might be improved included the need for clear stipulation of outcome measures for the psychological component and the need to address the psychological impact of the communication of bad news.

Service User Experience in Adult Mental Health: Guidance and Quality Standard (NICE) The importance of listening to the service user was stressed, together with the use of training, where necessary, to change professionals’ attitudes so that service users are treated with the same level of respect as anyone else.

The Löfstedt Review: An Independent Review of Health and Safety Legislation – Call for evidence (Department for Work & Pensions) The response pointed the DWP in the direction of the Society’s information sheet Psychological Well-being at Work and recommended a simplified form of health and safety regulations.

The preparation and submission of the Society’s responses to consultations on public policy is coordinated by the Consultation Response Team (CRT). All those holding at least graduate membership are eligible to contribute and all interest is warmly welcomed: please contact the CRT for further information (consult@bps.org.uk; 0116 252 9508) or visit our website (www.bps.org.uk/consult).

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Member milestone Society member Trude Holmes reached the milestone of her 100th birthday in June, at Greyfriars Court in Lewes.

Trude, who has been a Society member since 1947, was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and remembers mourning the death of Emperor Franz Josef when she was only five years old. She has vivid recollections of her schooldays and the exciting intellectual climate of Vienna in the post-war years. She was fascinated by languages and travelled to Hungary, Italy, France and Britain in the late 1920s and early 30s. People, and especially children, have always been her main interest, however. She managed to

complete a PhD in Child Psychology in Vienna University before the arrival of the Nazis brought her world crashing down.

She escaped to England, though sadly her parents, Olga and Berthold Falk, did not.

Life as a children’s nanny after her arrival in September 1938 was a struggle. Later she managed to train as a teacher and taught languages at the Perse School in Cambridge before becoming a much respected Educational Psychologist in Chelmsford.

She loved this job and remained in it until her retirement in 1975, which saw marriage to Geoffrey and a new and very happy phase of her life.

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Psychology4students event ‘Love and attraction’, ‘How e-fits help to identify offenders’ and ‘Psychology of dance’ are just some of the hot topics being discussed at the Society’s annual ‘Psychology4students’ event on Wednesday 23 November at the University of Central Lancashire and Thursday 1 December at Watford Colosseum.

This year will see the launch of an interactive demonstration fair. Taking

place over an extended lunch break, local universities and Divisions of the Society will showcase their current research, get the students involved and be available for questions.

As well as five keynote talks by established UK psychologists, attendees will have the opportunity to take part in a selection of mini-workshops including ‘revision techniques’.

Delegates will also have the opportunity

to speak to local university students to find out ‘What’s it really like at university?’

Tickets are only £16 (including a packed lunch). There is one free tutor place for every 10 places booked.

I For more information about the programme and how to book please visit www.bps.org.uk/p4sn (North), www.bps.org.uk/p4ss (South) or e-mail p4s@bps.org.uk

Lifetimes of achievement Emeritus Professor John Radford from the University of East London and Dr Richard Latto from the University of Liverpool are to share a new annual award from the Society’s Psychology Education Board. The Board’s Lifetime Achievement Award has been instituted to recognise unusually significant and sustained contributions to psychology education over the course of a career. It is being made for the first time in 2011.

John Radford was responsible for creating a psychology department at West Ham College of Technology – as the University of East London was then called. This was a major innovation for the non-university higher education, but the department (now the School of Psychology) has since grown into one of the largest in the country.

From 1968 John steered psychology to approval as an A-level subject; the syllabus emphasised the scientific nature of the discipline, with a substantial practical element. His work has led to psychology becoming one of the most popular pre-tertiary examination subjects, with over 100,000 students a year now taking courses in the subject.

John has served on many of the Society’s boards and committees and has published extensively on psychology education. In the late 1960s he initiated a seminar group for teachers of psychology.

From this, together with the late James Breese, he formed, and chaired for several years, the Association for the Teaching of Psychology.

He also initiated and chaired a group of teachers of psychology within the British Psychological Society. This became established as a Special Group of the Society before being superseded by the

Society’s Division for Teachers and Researchers in Psychology.

Dr Richard Latto has made major contributions to the discipline of psychology, both at the University of Liverpool and nationally. He took the Liverpool department from a small, informally run grouping to a large, highly regarded department.

Richard has also maintained an active research career. His MRC-funded research has concentrated on visual processes, first in monkeys and later in humans, particularly ‘blindsight’ – the ability to respond to visual stimuli after cortical visual areas of the brain have been damaged without conscious awareness of these stimuli.

As a Trustee of the British Psychological Society, and a Chair of its

Education Board, Richard was centrally involved in the radical revision of its accreditation procedures and criteria for over 100 UK institutions currently offering undergraduate programmes in psychology, which took effect in this academic year. As Chair of the Board he also led the successful campaign to persuade the Training and Development Agency for Schools to fund earmarked places for psychology graduates to train as psychology teachers. Richard’s roles in the QAA have also had significant impact on the teaching and quality of undergraduate programmes in the UK. Through his roles in the Science Council and the Campaign for Science and Engineering, he has been particularly influential in arguing the case that psychology, as taught in the UK, is a central scientific discipline.

SOCIETY NOTICES British Academy/British Psychological Society Annual Lecture See p.639 British Science Festival See p.648 Annual Conference 2012 See p.649 North East of England Branch Annual Conference See p.657 Welsh Branch Conference See p.661 Dvivison of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference See p.661 psychology4students events See p.i Book Award See p.681 BPS conferences See p.690 Learning Centre raising awareness of adult autism See p.690 Learning Centre courses and events See p.691

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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Setting out on the journey Ian Florance seeks advice for undergraduates from Dorothy Miell and Darren Van Laar

B

jobs online

ack in October 1994 The Psychologist had a ‘Student issue’.

Darren Van Laar, who wrote an article for that issue and is interviewed below, alerted us to this fact and commented: ‘I used to give that issue out all the time to undergraduates when I was giving careers advice.’ There have been others over the years: for example, see www.bps.org.uk/studentgift. This month’s issue is being distributed to thousands of new psychology undergraduates, and they are our focus this month – it is never too early to start planning your career in psychology!

www.psychapp.co.uk is now open to all.

Advertisers can now reach beyond the prime audience of Society members that they reach in print, to include the many other suitably qualified individuals online.

Society members have the added benefit of being able to sign up for suitable e-mail and RSS alerts, and we are looking to add more

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The career choices available to undergraduates are wider than ever.

Equally, the routes to practising as a psychologist are more varied and, in some cases, more complex than they were 17 years ago. This month we interviewed two experienced psychologists, Darren Van Laar and Dorothy Miell, to draw on their experience in this area. We’ve summarised their key advice overleaf for easy reference.

Social Sciences, and developed courses in advanced social psychology and introductory psychology, among a number of others. I’ve become interested in collaborative working, and particularly in the way people communicate together when working on creative projects such as music making.’

One of the themes that Dorothy stresses is the importance and richness of interdisciplinary working for psychologists. ‘Psychology sits in the Humanities and Social Science College in Edinburgh and staff’s research links strongly to disciplines not only across this College but also in the other two Colleges as well – that is, in medicine and science.

I’m really interested in this type of multidisciplinary working because it helps us address contemporary global challenges – and undergraduates should see such links and developments as exciting opportunities for their future working.’

An interdisciplinary approach Dorothy Miell is a Professor of Social Psychology, Vice Principal of the University of Edinburgh and Head of the College of Humanities and Social Science there. She is also Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Psychology Education Board (PEB), which advises the Society’s trustees on all levels of psychology education. Her own experience of training in and practising psychology has given her a very strong belief in the discipline’s strengths and how it is developing: a view that may increasingly inform psychology teaching and that students entering universities may well find attractive.

‘I’m a social psychologist by background, interested in patterns of communication in both children’s and adults’ relationships,’ Dorothy says. ‘I worked at the Open University for a long time – as lecturer, Professor, and Dean of

Getting involved with the Society ‘I’ve been actively involved in the BPS for a long while. I’ve been a member of the Social and Developmental Psychology Sections for many years, and the first thing I did with the Society was help organise a postgraduate conference 30 years ago. I got involved in a number of areas, including being a member of the Books and Special Projects group and the Admissions Committee. After a gap, I joined the Graduate Qualification and Accreditation Committee (GQAC) and really enjoyed learning more about the many degree courses universities around the country were offering. This led on to my application to Chair the Psychology Education Board. I see the Society’s role as working in partnership with departments to help them develop their teaching to offer the best possible experience to students of psychology, and to contribute to improving communication about psychology to the public. This involves, among other things, creating materials for the Society and departments to use at

member-only benefits as the site develops over the coming years. Please let the Managing Editor know what features you would appreciate, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk.

Please help us to spread the word. Recruiters can post online from just £750, and at no extra cost when placing an ad in print.

For more information, see p.700.

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science fairs. We’re focused on supporting psychological education at all levels, including schools. We’re also looking at surveying the employment destinations of graduates over the long term, which will help enhance the advice that we can give to prospective students in the future.’

FEATURED JOB Job Title: Lead Clinician for the Psychotherapy Service Employer: The Brandon Centre n a way, this position is the final piece of our jigsaw,’ says Geoffrey Baruch, Director of the Brandon Centre.

‘We've grown a lot in recent years and have restructured so we have four basic areas of activity: contraception and sexual health; multisystemic therapy; psychotherapy and administration. All of these have a lead clinician or manager except for psychotherapy. It’s a new role, funded by the City Bridge Trust.’

The Brandon Centre is a charitable organisation which was founded in 1968 as a contraceptive service for young people aged 12 to 25 and now provides a wider range of services to 12 to 21 year olds. ‘But the ethos is still the same. For instance, our frontline staff are critical to creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere for often extremely anxious and suspicious young people. We try to be as accessible as possible. Client feedback constantly stresses how important this is. We work very hard to engage our clients within the context of offering professional services. Whoever takes on this role “We work very hard to will need to embrace this culture.’ It engage our clients within fits that the centre undertook the the context of offering first UK evaluation of multisystemic professional services” therapy which involves client families in programmes.

What sort of experience and knowledge are you looking for? ‘As the advertisement states we’d consider people with a D Clin Psych but they’ll need to have experience on top of that. The components of the job include management: the team includes six therapists and two trainees seeing 300 young people and delivering 5000 sessions a year. But this is not just a management role. The lead clinician is exactly that and we’d look for experience working with young people: it’s also likely we’ll be involved in IAPT initiatives. We’ve undertaken systematic evaluation of our work since 1993 and we need someone committed to that way of working and who can introduce new evidence-based therapies so an interest in applied research is also important. And, in addition, we want to offer clinical experience to more high quality trainees.’

Is there a funding or contract generation component to the role? ‘It would be very good to have someone who can contribute here’.

And what’s special about working at the Brandon Centre? ‘The mix of different people and professions. We couldn’t operate if they were in silos so this person must be able to relate to others in the organisation and welcome the dynamism that creates.‘ It sounds like a lot of work. ‘It is, but if you take the job, you’ll get a lot of support. That’s also part of our ethos.’

‘I

Psychological literacy Dorothy was involved in a retreat in late 2010 on the Future of Undergraduate Psychology in the UK which was a joint project of the British Psychological Society, the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network and the Association of Heads of Psychology Departments (see tinyurl.com/3tk3tls). ‘Our discussions were informed in part by a study of American psychology education by Diane Halpern. She stressed the concept of psychological literacy and the idea that students should learn to apply their psychological literacy throughout their lives. Psychology is obviously a specific set of skills, a set of knowledge and range of theoretical approaches as well as an applied practice, but the psychological literacy approach suggests something wider. If you think about the complex world we live in, this is a more helpful way for students to see psychology – as diverse, ethical and socially responsible.

I’m not suggesting we move way from knowledge and skills. They’re critical.

But viewing psychology in this way emphasises the wider impact that the study of psychology can have for graduates and how they can offer very sought-after qualities.’

Themes that developed in the retreat inform the recommendations in the box overleaf. ‘We stressed the importance of placements and that we might be more flexible about what counts as a relevant placement for psychology students. We also stressed that psychology is a science.

Graduates need to learn that conclusions should be supported by valid evidence.

Evidence-based practice is central to most psychological applications and should be more central to other roles It’s important that students and the wider public understand this.’

This is a compelling vision, integrated from Dorothy’s very varied experience.

And the subtext is that new undergraduates as much as experienced academics have a role in forwarding it.

In so doing, they’ll learn skills that will make them even more employable…

Employability …and the employability of psychology graduates is something Darren Van Laar,

You can find this job on p.701, and with many others on www.psychapp.co.uk.

The site provides a valuable resource to Society members and employers alike.

Non-members can view vacancies, but only members can set up job alerts.

Director of the Graduate School at the University of Portsmouth, knows a lot about. In 2007 he and Julie Udell looked at first destinations of psychology graduates and investigated the career trajectories of year 2000 graduates seven years on. The government requires universities to follow up gradates six months after their graduation: ‘But that’s not that useful. After only six months some people will be backpacking; others working in bars and saving up for further study. If you’re going on to further study

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

you might be doing internships or voluntary work. In the first two or three years graduates change jobs three to four times – by seven years they’ll probably be embarked on a career.’ Darren’s report and presentations based on it provide some descriptive statistics. Psychology was the fastest-growing degree course in the UK in 2006, and employment rates for graduates between 1995 and 2005 rose from 57 per cent to 61 per cent. In this cohort there was a wide range of first jobs from care assistants to roles in marketing,

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sales and advertising, and 40 per cent were in roles that might lead indirectly to a professional psychology qualification.

‘About 10 per cent of psychology graduates join the Society and are still members after seven years.’ Darren’s research highlighted a further issue of importance to graduates. ‘If you’re looking for a job it’s clear that the three best sources of useful information are www.bps.org.uk, the internet and work colleagues.’

Darren’s views don’t just stem from this quantitative research. He took his first degree at Manchester Polytechnic,

then took an MSc in computer sciences at York. ‘My PhD was in the use of colour in computing. It was sponsored by the IT industry and was basically a combination of applied art and design, psychology, economics and engineering, which I went on to use in making recommendations for the huge numbers of screens in power plants.’ This is a perfect example of Dorothy Miell’s point about how interdisciplinary working moves psychology into areas you couldn’t predict!

Moving to Portsmouth he worked as a lecturer and also as director of the

graduate school. ‘My first administration role was as careers officer in the department. I held a drop-in surgery.

I did this for 10 years and it grabbed my interest in the whole area. There’s now a requirement for careers and employability to be embedded in undergraduate courses, and at Portsmouth we introduced a 10-credit unit called Occupational Choice, which is obligatory.

Most psychology students say they want to be a psychologist – especially clinical or forensic psychologists at the start of their course. By the end they say many other things. Only 5 per cent of graduates

Key advice for undergraduates Ian Florance summarises the advice from Dorothy Miell and Darren Van Laar 1. Don’t stick to the textbooks. Read widely! In particular, read around disciplines that border on psychology (philosophy, sciences, social sciences, business, and others). Also learn about the history of psychology and its development (for example, see the ‘Looking back’ articles in The Psychologist each month and at www.bps.org.uk/lookback). Having a view of where psychology comes from and its context will help you develop your own views. It will also open up more possible career options when you realise what areas psychology has impacted on and grown out of.

2. Physician, heal thyself! Apply what you learn to your own learning and career choice. How does psychology illuminate your own thinking, behaviour and relationships with others? Employers (including for more general roles) really value psychologists’ thinking skills and ‘meta-thinking’ – their ability to think about thinking. Graduate recruiters also increasingly look at graduate social skills in addition to their ability and knowledge.

Inter- and intra-personal emotional intelligence are valued commodities in all sorts of organisations. Fast-track graduate recruitment schemes look for candidates who can show evidence of people skills.

3. Get a job (or jobs). Psychology students have very high levels of employability but it is competitive out there, not least because psychology study is a growing area. Take every opportunity to get internships and work experience. If the job is not psychology-related then try to apply psychology in it. Some universities offer

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routes to these placements. There will often be lots of local jobs and/or volunteering opportunities available through your university or student association.

4. Take the initiative. Don’t wait for job adverts or advice from the university. If you want to get some job experience, write to local companies, ring their HR departments or MDs. You’ll get rebuffed, but you’ll occasionally get real interest and people impressed by your initiative.

5. Think local, act local. There are almost certainly local networks and groupings of psychology students and practising psychologists in your area. The Society website (www.bps.org.uk) can introduce you to local networks in its ‘Networks and communities’ section. You will get useful feedback from the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group (PsyPAG) and Student Members Group (SMG), when you’re considering options for further education and training. Groups of local practising psychologists might be very happy for you to attend meetings, and you’ll get fascinating advice from those who are actually doing a particular kind of job.

People often say that their courses do not prepare them for the reality of the world of work: practitioners can make up for this

lack. You might even find a mentor or facilitator who takes a particular interest in your career. Interviews in this section often show the importance of this role.

6. The skills you didn’t know you had.

Psychology students learn broader transferable skills than almost any other undergraduate group, including: teamwork, structuring an argument, report writing, statistical techniques, creativity, problem solving, research skills, time management and varying immersion in IT. Managers need to understand ‘how people work’ and psychology students have a head start in this area.

7. The approach you didn’t know you had. Students tend not to realise the importance of the professional ethos they learn on their courses. Psychology training stresses ethics, social responsibility and appreciation of the importance of equality and diversity. Students are also taught to observe limits and avoid over-claiming.

Employers (as has been emphasised in recent interviews for this section) recognise these as real strengths of those trained in psychology.

8. Your Society can help you! The BPS generally and the Psychology Education Board (PEB) of the Society in particular can offer a number of systems and publications that can supply help and

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end up applying for clinical psychology like economic, consumer and sports courses, and the earlier students realise psychology offer new careers. I’d suggest this, the sooner they can either begin to that students need to think more about prepare for the rigours of applying for entrepreneurial skills. A lot of a clinical place or, psychologists do set up more often, begin to their own business or think concretely about become self-employed, “just about every job suitable what they need to do even if they’ve started for a general graduate will to prepare for work in out in public sector other areas. It allows employment, so time be done best by a more time for genuine spent understanding psychology graduate” choice. A good business will be time percentage go into well spent.’ teaching or areas like And Darren emphasises human resource work. New fields the need to get CVs and applications

advice for students. PEB has just approved the terms of reference for a standing committee of students and already offers prizes (e.g. for the highest scoring finalyear student on each accredited degree course, for the best Psychology Teacher).

Psych-Talk is a magazine written by students for students. See the latest issue via tinyurl.com/42ocvo4.

Go to www.bps.org.uk/careers and you’ll find it packed with useful advice and information about career choices, and www.psychapp.co.uk has the latest jobs.

Bookmark the sites early in your degree and go back to them frequently. The world of work is changing fast, as is the world of psychology.

9. ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’ Most students will change their minds about their ultimate career aims during the course of a degree. Don’t decide too early and cut off options. Half way through the course, either search for, or give yourself a reality check. Are you really committed, enthusiastic and ‘good’ enough to commit to a long-term Chartership route ?

10. Admit your ignorance. There are some things you simply can’t learn in a threeyear psychology degree (though four-year degrees make it somewhat easier to do this). Don’t go into job interviews assuming you have nothing to learn. It will look arrogant.

11. Get connected: The world of work is increasingly using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as a major means of communication. The latter, in particular, is a very rich resource with discussion groups on every topic imaginable, many of which feature questions from students about how to get a job. Time spent on such sites will help you whether you’re searching for your career or an interim placement but it’s

important to remember that a professional online forum will have its own strict etiquette.

12. Don’t be afraid to advertise yourself. All of the above would be irrelevant unless you get your CVs and application letters right.

Tailor each application to the particular job you’re applying for. Don’t use a standard version. And anything you’ve done during your course or in your work/volunteering could be useful evidence that you can offer the employer. Many employers want your individuality and passions to shine through.

There are lots of resources on the web and many books on how to approach applying for a job and interview technique. Read some. Your psychology training will provide you with some techniques: applying for and winning a job is a piece of applied psychology. But don’t assume you know everything: this is an area with a highly developed etiquette and also ‘fashions’ in areas such as CV design.

13. Are you an Alan Sugar? Many psychologists set up their own businesses or become self-employed, either initially or after a period in private or public sector employment. It may seem irrelevant to the main areas of a course but time spent studying the basics of business is time well spent.

14. To boldly go… Newer psychological applications and their formalisation into divisions or special interest groups are opening up new career paths, as this careers section has shown over the last five years. Examples include sport, coaching, economic, consumer and marketing psychology, among others.

15. Join the Society! Consider getting the weight of the Society behind your studying and career journey. See www.bps.org.uk/join for more details.

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

right. ‘I can’t stress too strongly how counterproductive it is to send out a standard letter and CV. The employer will sift through them and will want to see someone who is interested in a particular job rather than any job. That’s another reason why getting experience is so important. An unusual job, a show of initiative can make you stand out in the crowd.

A comment at the end of one of Darren’s presentations is a useful way to end: ‘…just about every job suitable for a general graduate will be done best by a psychology graduate.’

Supporting your studies The Society has a range of resources available to help students through their degree and prepare them for the world of work.

The Research Digest blog at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog is the current holder of ‘Best blog’ in the international Research Blogging Awards, and it’s a great way to keep up with the latest research and get an idea of how psychology is put into practice. Via the blog you can subscribe by RSS or e-mail, become a fan at Facebook and follow on Twitter @researchdigest.

The Psychologist is sent to members of the Society each month. A valuable archive, stretching back to 1998, is available along with other features at www.thepsychologist.org.uk and open access samples are available at www.issuu.com/thepsychologist.

Follow The Psychologist on Twitter @psychmag.

Society members can access all Society’s journals free via tinyurl.com/bpsjournals There are many more benefits for members of the Society: see www.bps.org.uk/membership and follow the Society’s official Twitter feed @bpsofficial.

Students who are not earning a taxable income can join the Society for just £21. See www.bps.org.uk/join.

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Studying psychology – expectations and realities Laurie Hannigan with the latest in our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices for more information)

B

iologist Thomas Huxley once antecedents of all manner of human described science as ‘simply behaviours. Secondly, I wanted to common sense at its best’. When reconcile my casual interest in philosophy I made the decision to study psychology with the inclination towards science I had at university, I could only guess at the developed in school. Finally, I was extent to which this aphorism would hold impressed by the research-led nature of true for the science of the mind. With no the majority of top psychology courses formal experience of studying the subject, on offer and was eagerly anticipating my expectations of the course were far becoming involved in a field of such from concrete. Still, influenced by a relative youth and vibrancy. Given the combination of careers advice, mediarelative ambiguity of these initial driven public perception and scattergun expectations, it is perhaps unsurprising popular science reading, I that I consider them inevitably carried some to have been easily met preconceived ideas about what and broadly surpassed. studying psychology might be like.

Consequently, I’m keen Now, with the benefit of hindsight, to focus on the aspects I’m able to make the comparison of my experience that between these ideas and the reality were wholly of my experience – the results of unexpected. which give an interesting insight During my first into the more unpredictable year, I became slightly benefits of psychological study. concerned by the At the start of my apparent preoccupation undergraduate degree, I was with justifying Is psychology a acutely aware that I had a very psychology’s scientific science? limited knowledge of psychology. status, something that While the popular psychology recurred throughout section of the local bookshop had served lectures and textbooks. Undoubtedly, to further pique my burgeoning interest, psychology has had to fight hard to attain I was under no illusions that it had an equal empirical footing with its older, readied me for exposure to the discipline more established counterparts and resist as it exists in an academic domain. My being grouped, usually pejoratively, with expectations of what the course would the social sciences. However, the entail, therefore, were rather vague and defensiveness with which this issue was simplistic. First and foremost, of course, repeatedly and zealously dealt seemed, I was interested in learning about the to me, to reflect a lingering sense of vulnerability in a field that had become hypersensitive to charges of being unscientific. In the intervening months Laurie Hannigan’s essay was the winning and years, I have realised the great entry in the Higher Education Academy’s disservice that this dichotomised annual student essay award, and is reprinted distinction – ‘scientific’ versus here with their kind permission. For the ‘unscientific’ – really does to the field. runners up, and previous winners, see Certainly, I have seen that psychological tinyurl.com/heaessays. research is fundamentally capable of Kris Henderson and Laura Oxley wrote employing thoroughly scientific their contributions after being invited via methodologies and producing empirically Twitter. For updates from The Psychologist, sound results. However, it can also seek follow us @psychmag. For much more deeper insights, use philosophical psychology from the Society, follow conjecture to generate hypotheses, @BPSofficial and @researchdigest. explore cultural differences, make case

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studies of individuals, and all of this across a vast range of subdisciplines. The net result of this diversity, in academic terms, has been a more varied and fulfilling experience than I ever could have anticipated.

If the sheer breadth of the content of my psychology course has exceeded my expectations, then it’s fair to say that I have also been surprised by some of the skills I have learned during my degree.

I can remember, prior to choosing the course, being informed that psychology offers ‘transferable skills’, though precisely what these were remained something of a mystery at the time. Since then, I have certainly seen improvement in concrete academic skills, such as presenting, researching and writing, undoubtedly as a result of high-quality academic guidance. What I have gained as a direct result of studying psychology, I would argue, is even more important.

In the latter part of my degree, the one thing that has been stressed relentlessly, across all modules, is the importance of taking a critical approach to research literature. Gradually, this has instilled a deep reluctance to take information at face value, and has led me to adopt instead the mentality of clinically and systematically evaluating whether and why a given conclusion is valid.

For example, in the first semester of my second year, I opted to take a seminar course on visual cognition and language processing. It was made clear early on that the material covered would depend on the direction of the in-class discussion and the extent of our wider reading. Four weeks into the semester, we had covered only a tiny fraction of the available research findings, with entire sessions sometimes being devoted to single papers or theories. However, this was not due to a lack of engagement or preparation; on the contrary, such was the alacrity with which we cross-examined and debated each claim and counter-claim, rarely was anything ever considered to be resolved to our satisfaction. To my mind, this example illustrates one of the most positive aspects of my experience of studying psychology. Studying this subject at degree level is not simply a matter of rote-learning facts. Instead, by engaging in discussion around current, cutting-edge research and questioning why such ‘facts’ are held to be so, I have seen changes not only in what I know but also in how I think. Experiences such as these have provided me with a way of considering information that extends far beyond the evaluation of scientific literature and is, perhaps, a truly transferable skill.

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The experience of studying psychology at university has given me the opportunity to discover and discuss what we understand about human behaviour; what we have yet to understand and what is necessary to bridge the gap between the two. This much, perhaps, I had anticipated before I began. But, more than this, I have been introduced to a discipline that balances scientific rigour with an extraordinary flexibility of approach, enabling the investigation of a vast range of issues. More significantly still, I have learned a new style of thinking: appraising information critically; exploring thoroughly the legitimacy of claims and conclusions; and assessing methodically the validity of experimental data. Arguably, what I have learned from my experience is ‘simply common sense at its best’.

Laurie Hannigan is a third-year BSc Psychology student in the School of Psychology, University of Southampton

The greatest puzzle As I approach my second year studying the fascinating scientific discipline of psychology, I still find myself asking the same question: Why do people behave the way they do? Even now, I still do not know the answer – not because psychology cannot answer this question, but because everybody is unique and different.

I was surprised to find that psychology was in fact a scientific discipline. It is all about numbers, statistics, studies, research, trials, tests, science and evidence. I must admit, I did start my degree with the notion of psychology as just commonsense theory – I did not anticipate for one moment that my studies would be scientific. I remember reading a quote from the American psychologist with the unfortunate name of Edwin Boring, who wrote that the ‘most important and greatest puzzle’ we face as humans is ourselves. This is just one reason why I chose to study psychology.

It is a regular occurrence to be confronted by so many different ideas and theories, all of which are science and

evidence based. I have always been intrigued by the mind and how it works; what makes us who we are and why we behave the way we do. Psychology enables us to question more. Stephen Fry once said that the rest of society finds it easy to wrinkle their noses, cross over, or block their ears when confronted with an illness of the mind and of the mood, despite reaching out with such sympathy towards diseases of the liver or other organs that don’t affect who we are and how we feel in quite such devastating complexity. This is true in so many cases.

Studying psychology has more than matched my expectations. In reality it has enabled me to understand human behaviour; the mind and the brain, well beyond my expectations. If like me, you have a curious mind then psychology is definitely for you – and like the proverb: curiosity killed the cat.

In psychology, satisfaction brought it back.

I Kris Henderson is with the Open University and is a student member of the British Psychological Society

An incredible diversity

T

he reality of studying psychology differs from what I initially expected when I started out along this path.

One of the main things that I have become more aware of is the incredible diversity within the subject. I have found that studying psychology can range from studying genetics within the area of individual differences to studying impression formation in social psychology.

The range of research areas within this one subject is one of the things I particularly enjoy about it.

I first became interested in studying psychology through working in education as a teaching assistant. I wanted to find out more about the underlying reasons behind conditions such as Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. I arranged a meeting with one of the educational psychologists in the local area team who told me more about their role and the type of work they did on a daily basis.

I found this fascinating and began to research the training needed to become an educational psychologist.

Despite having chatted to an

educational psychologist about their role, I still retained the impression that educational psychology would involve working directly with individual children.

Whilst studying for my undergraduate degree I attended an open day for the educational psychology training course run at the University of Sheffield. It was at this point that I discovered that working with individual children was not a large part of the educational psychologist’s role, but that it actually consisted more of assessment and consulting with other professionals. Although this was different from my initial expectations, I still decided that I wanted to pursue a career in psychology further.

I completed my undergraduate degree, which included some psychology, with the Open University whilst working in education in various roles. To continue my journey towards becoming an educational psychologist, I had to take a BPS conversion course. I started studying part time for a MEd in Psychology and Education at the University of Cambridge in October last year. I expected that

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Working with individual children is not a large part of the educational psychologist’s role

studying psychology at a postgraduate level would be far more challenging than the psychology modules I had studied at undergraduate level, and I have found that in this regard the course has met my expectations! But it has also exceeded my expectations in terms of strengthening my interest and motivation in the subject of psychology, as I have started to become more involved in planning and conducting my own research.

I Laura Oxley is on a MEd Psychology and Education at the University of Cambridge

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homage to the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.

One hero or heroine from psychology past or present In the interest of equality, I will pick both a hero and a heroine: Robert Plomin and Uta Frith. Both are amazing researchers who have been trailblazers in their fields and both are incredibly generous mentors for the next generation of researchers.

…with Essi Viding University College London, Psychology and Language Sciences; Spearman Medal winner 2011

One little known fact about psychopathy It is not untreatable. There is now data from juvenile settings that is very promising with regard to treatment outcome. The challenge is to figure out what drives behavioural change and get better and more effective in delivering treatment.

One thing that you would change about psychology Nothing. This is a diverse field doing some of the most exciting science around.

coming soon

resource

One challenge you think psychology faces Translating basic science into practice, particularly in a way that fully utilises findings from different traditions of

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psychology and different methodological approaches.

One nugget of advice for aspiring psychologists Don’t take the review process personally. You have to be able to eat humble pie in the face of constructive criticism and to be bold enough to ignore the less constructive sort.

determine whether a gene is expressed or not, and how gene expression in response to environmental influences may vary between individuals who have different genotypes.

One way genetic research in psychology is developing Researchers are really starting to crack the mechanisms of gene–environment interplay, which is exciting. Some of the coolest work at the moment is done by people working on Essi Viding epigenetics, such as Jon Mill at the Institute e.viding@ucl.ac.uk of Psychiatry. He is looking at how One cultural environmental influences can recommendation Hefner, for music and lyrics.

Viding, E., Blair, J.R., Moffitt, T.E. & Plomin, R. (2005). Evidence for substantial genetic risk for psychopathy in 7–year–olds. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46, 592–597. ‘It was the first to demonstrate heritability difference for psychopathic vs. non–psychopathic antisocial behaviour.’

One alternative career path you may have chosen Architect. In fact, I seriously considered it before applying to do psychology. My son’s second name is Alvar in

Articles on longevity, thought suppression, workaholism, mindfulness and much more...

I The Psychologist is your publication. Send your comments and suggestions to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk I To advertise in The Psychologist or at www.psychapp.co.uk: giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk, +44 (0)20 7880 7556

contribute

One book that you think all psychologists should read Michael Rutter’s Genes and Behaviour. It eloquently and effortlessly gives a comprehensive overview of behaviour genetics.

One psychological superpower you'd like to have It would be handy to be able to crank out complex stats without a computer.

One great thing that psychology has achieved Innovative social psychology research that has explored the effects of cultural stereotypes on behaviour. Cordelia Fine has done a magnificent job in overviewing some of this research in her book Delusions of Gender, which debunks many of the sex difference stereotypes that we seem to hold so dear.

One problem that psychology should deal with It is frustrating to see so many excellent female scientists and practitioners not progressing to the more senior roles in their profession. I am confident that better mentoring arrangements would go a substantial way towards solving this problem, as would formal institutional arrangements such as organising lectures and meetings at child-friendly hours/dates.

More online at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Think you can do better? Want to see your area of psychology represented more?

See the inside front cover for how you can contribute and reach 48,000 colleagues into the bargain, or just e–mail your suggestions to jon.sutton@bps.org.uk

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observatory Event title: The psychological science Organisation: University of Glasgow Start Date: 14/09/2011 End Date: 15/09/2011 time: 16:00 experience Time of Event: Start time: 10:00 - End gical research.View demonstrations and holo psyc e edg ingcutt nce erie Exp y: Event Summar gical studies. take part in some contemporary psycholo psychological effects. It's your chance to Event Title: Going for gold ish Psychological Society Organisation: University of Stirling/Brit Date of Event: Start Date: 12/09/2011 End Date: 12/09/2011 time: 12:00 over 90 per Time of Event: Start time: 10:00 - End the lives of most people in the UK, with in role nt orta imp an s play rt Spo y: Event Summar 2012 Olympic and g a sport spectator. Preparations for the cent either participating in sport or bein t of public interest. fron fore performance in the g rtin spo e plac don Lon in held be to Paralympic Games into the psychology of sport.

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The British Psychological Society

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