The Psychologist July 2015

psy 07_15 pOFC_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:24 Page 1

the

psychologist vol 28 no 7

july 2015 www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Beyond the ‘average adolescent’ Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s keynote opens our coverage from the Society’s Annual Conference

letters 514 news 522 careers 586 looking back 600

it’s not just cricket 552 the monster mind 560 reaching out to the ‘Untouchables’ 564 new voices 570

psy 07_15 p513 contents_Layout 1 15/06/2015 17:10 Page 1

Contact The British Psychological Society St Andrews House 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR 0116 254 9568 mail@bps.org.uk www.bps.org.uk

the psychologist... ...features

The Psychologist www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.psychapp.co.uk psychologist@bps.org.uk

Beyond the ‘average’ adolescent 534 Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s keynote kicks off our extensive coverage from the Society’s Annual Conference, held in Liverpool in May. You can find more reports at http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk

tinyurl.com/thepsychomag @psychmag Advertising Reach 50,000 psychologists at very reasonable rates.

Display Aaron Hinchcliffe 020 7880 7661 aaron.hinchcliffe@redactive.co.uk Recruitment (in print and online at www.psychapp.co.uk) Giorgio Romano 020 7880 7556 giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk

It’s not just cricket 552 As the Ashes comes to England, Jamie Barker and Matt Slater consider the psychology at play 534 The monster mind Jonathan Myers considers why we see monsters, and what form they take

Reaching out to the ‘Untouchables’ 564 Paul Ghuman gives a psychological perspective on Dalit resistance and identity

June issue 47,604 dispatched

New voices: Helpful categorisation or limiting label?

Caitlin Cherry with the latest in our series

Printed by Warners Midlands plc on 100 per cent recycled paper. Please re-use or recycle.

552

The publishers have endeavoured to trace the copyright holders of all illustrations. If we have unwittingly infringed copyright, we will be pleased, on being satisfied as to the owner’s title, to pay an appropriate fee.

570

...reports

ISSN 0952-8229

© Copyright for all published material is held by the British Psychological Society unless specifically stated otherwise. As the Society is a party to the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) agreement, articles in The Psychologist may be copied by libraries and other organisations under the terms of their own CLA licences (www.cla.co.uk). Permission must be obtained from the British Psychological Society for any other use beyond fair dealing authorised by copyright legislation. For further information about copyright and obtaining permissions, e-mail permissions@bps.org.uk.

560

news Queen’s speech; citations; Pint of Science; gay marriage; and more

522

society 574 President’s column; Work Capability Assessment; Walk the Talk; and more The Psychologist is the monthly publication of The British Psychological Society. It provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’.

Managing Editor Jon Sutton Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Production Mike Thompson

Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera

Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, Charlie Lewis, Wendy Morgan, Paul Redford, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Nathalie Chernoff Interviews Gail Kinman Reviews Kate Johnstone Viewpoints Catherine Loveday International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus

psy 07_15 p513 contents_Layout 1 15/06/2015 17:11 Page 137

the

psychologist vol 28 no 7

july 2015

the issue ...debates letters for mindful teaching of mindfulness; EU referendum; educational psychology trainees; the two-fold nature of autism; therapist self-disclosure; who teaches the teachers?; and more

514

...digests why it’s a mistake to seek control of your life through solitude; is CBT for depression losing its efficacy?; metalheads from the 80s are thriving; why do children stick their tongues out when they are concentrating?; and more, in the latest from our free Research Digest (see www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog)

528

528

...meets news five minutes with newly-elected MP psychologist Lisa Cameron

527

interview with clinical psychologist Fleur-Michelle Coiffait

572

careers we meet Susan Golombok, and hear from Sangita Bhandari on her work with a UK education charity in Nepal

586

one on one with Willem Kuyken, University of Oxford

604

...reviews Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art, at the British Museum; Fiona Neill’s The Good Girl reviewed ahead of her appearance with Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore as part of ‘The Psychologist presents…’ at Latitude Festival; The Aging Mind; The Enfield Haunting; Every Brilliant Thing; and more

Later this month I will be hosting a discussion at Latitude Festival.

‘Being young never gets old – teenagers debunked’ is the title, and between the two participants – Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (see p.534) and author Fiona Neill (see p.595) – I have become convinced that despite the particular neurological challenges they face, teenagers aren’t all that different from grown-ups, that stereotypes surrounding them are as old as the hills, and that we need to look beyond the ‘average adolescent’.

Why are we doing the event?

I would like to reach out beyond the ‘average reader’, to engage new, large and diverse audiences.

But we must never lose sight of our core readership, the Society members. Feedback has been very positive lately, but are we living in an echo chamber? We will be looking at ways to assess your engagement with the publication, in print and online, but in the meantime just get in touch. The Psychologist is your baby, not mine: is it developing well?

Is it ‘beyond average’? Can you feel proud of it?

Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag

594

...looks back What passes between client and therapist?

600 Stephanie Cobb with three perspectives on transference and countertransference

The Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Phil Banyard, Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Tony Wainwright, Peter Wright

21 years ago Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our archive, including disastrous decisions!

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Big picture centre-page pull-out a lonely disorder: image by Brad Fox and words by Rob Willson

psy 07_15 p520_521 ads_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:42 Page 521

THE

SET IN HENHAM PARK SUFFOLK

10TH EDITION

16TH - 19TH JULY 2015

FESTIVAL

CARIBOU / JAMES BLAKE / MANIC STREET PREACHERS

ALAN DAVIES / JON RICHARDSON / JASON MANFORD / JACK DEE’S HELP DESK NINA CONTI / ROB DELANEY / KATHERINE RYAN / SARA PASCOE / TIM KEY / MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE KNEEHIGH / PAINES PLOUGH / NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE / RUBY WAX: SANE NEW WORLD OPERA NORTH / UNDER MILK WOOD / NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY AND THE PORTRAIT CHOIR SIMON ARMITAGE / DR JOHN COOPER CLARKE / MICHAEL ROSEN / BLAKE MORRISON ALEXANDER MCQUEEN : SAVAGE BEAUTY / MATT HAIG / HANIF KUREISHI / PATRICK BARKHAM

THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND WELLCOME TRUST PRESENT FIONA NEILL

AND

PROFESSOR SARAH-JAYNE BLAKEMORE IN CONVERSATION

CHAIRED BY DR JON SUTTON, THE PSYCHOLOGIST ‘BEING YOUNG NEVER GETS OLD - TEENAGERS DEBUNKED’ PLUS MANY MORE MUSIC AND ARTS ACTS ACROSS THE WEEKEND MUSIC M USIC / C COMEDY O MEDY / T THEATRE HEAT A RE / DA DANCE NCE O ON NT THE HE WAT WATERFRONT ERFRONT / F FILM ILM / POETRY POETR / L LITERATURE LITERA ITERATURE / CA C CABARET BARET / S SCIENCE CIENCE / A AR ART RT / L LAKE AKE S SWIMMING WIMMING / SOLAS SOLA

FOR F O R LINE-UP L I N E- UP VISIT V IS IT WWW.LATITUDEFESTIVAL.CO.UK W WW.LATITUDEFESTIVAL.C ATITUDEFES VAL.CO CO.U K | TICKETS FROM F R O M SEETICKETS.COM SEETICKET E E T I C K E TS . C O M / 0871 0 8 7 1 231 2 3 1 0846 0846

CALLS CA LLS C COST O ST 110P 0 P PL PPLUS LU S N NETWORK E T WO R K CHARGES. H A R G E S . BILL B I L L SUBJECT U B J E C T TO T CHANGE HANGE

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

521

psy 07_15 p550_551 ads_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:49 Page 551

Psychology heaven and hell

Celebrating a decade of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog

Wednesday 9 December 7-10pm Senate House, London

#digestblog10 For further information and booking

www.bps.org.uk/digest/10

Introduction Dr Jon Sutton (Managing Editor, The Psychologist) Methods Dr Christian Jarrett (Editor, Research Digest) Results Professor Andy Field (University of Sussex) Discussion Professor Uta Frith (University College London) Conclusion Wine and nibbles Supported by

www.psypress.com

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

551

NEWS

psy 07_15 p522_527 news_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:43 Page 522

Will proposed legislation ‘end brain research’?

The new Conservative government’s legislation plans for the year were unveiled during the Queen’s Speech to Parliament in May. Several of the bills involved psychological issues, including the Policing and Criminal Justice Bill, which would, among other things, ban the use of police cells for detaining mentally ill people under the Mental Health Act. However the Psychoactive Substances Bill in particular has sparked an interesting and developing debate. This legislation would lead to a ban on so-called ‘legal highs’, which would ban trade in ‘any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect’ (although the bill adds that ‘substances such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, food and medicinal products would be excluded from the scope of the offence’).

Professor David Nutt, former government chief drugs adviser, spoke to The Guardian about his concerns over the new legislation and said it could lead to the pre-emptive ban of potentially useful substances (tinyurl.com/poq78aq). He stated: ‘It’s going to end brain research in this country. It will be disastrous. The ban on legal highs has been very destructive to research into Parkinson’s and into anti-smoking drugs.’ Nutt said the only drug for Parkinson’s is a cathinone (a class of drugs including mephedrone which was banned in 2010), and that we had already seen a ‘massive impediment to research of interesting compounds by current law’.

Not everyone is in agreement that the legislation will have such a disastrous effect. Parkinson’s UK denied Nutt’s claim, with a spokesperson telling The Guardian: ‘There are a number of Parkinson’s drugs of different classes. We have never heard of Parkinson’s drugs from the cathinone class.’ And John Williams, Head of Science Strategy, Performance and Impact at the Wellcome Trust, took to Twitter to warn: ‘Overstated

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY PRIZE OPPORTUNITIES The Encephalitis Society is offering two awards of interest to neuropsychology students. The Professor Barbara Wilson, OBE Neuropsychology Essay Prize is offered for the best student (postgraduate) essay on any aspect of the neuropsychology of encephalitis. Winner prize: £500 and an elective onto The Encephalitis Society Professional Advisory Panel for one year. Runner-up prize: £250. The Johnny Sutton Student Travel Bursary is awarded for the best student (undergraduate and postgraduate) travel project with relevance to encephalitis. Winner prize: £500.

The deadline for entries is 1 October 2015. The winners will be announced at The Encephalitis Society’s Professional Seminar on 7 December 2015.

I For further information on criteria and submission go to www.encephalitis.info

522

commentary harms ability to have a grown up debate; foghorn negotiations unhelpful in shaping policy.’

James Rucker, a lecturer in psychiatry at King’s College London, argued in the British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2902) that psychedelic drugs should be legally reclassified so that researchers can investigate their therapeutic potential. ‘Hundreds of papers, involving tens of thousands of patients, presented evidence for their use as psychotherapeutic catalysts of mentally beneficial change.’ He told The Guardian the government was repeating the mistakes of history, warning that the new law ‘centres around the selfreinforcing fallacy of legally defining a drug as having no accepted medical use without the evidence that there really is no medical use for it… UK pharmaceutical research into psychiatric disorders has rapidly diminished over the last decade or so anyway, and this regulation will not help. We derive no benefit from this approach. It stymies research and we are unlikely to be able to discover which of these new psychoactive substances might have medical benefits.’

The government has claimed, in the form of a statement from Mike Penning, Minister of State at the Home Office, that ‘this new legislation will not stop any legitimate scientific research on such substances’.

In any case, there seems little prospect of a U-turn on the bill, with Penning announcing that the ‘landmark’ bill will ‘fundamentally change the way we tackle new psychoactive substances – and put an end to the game of cat and mouse in which new drugs appear on the market more quickly than government can identify and ban them. The blanket ban will give police and other law enforcement agencies greater powers to tackle the reckless trade in psychoactive substances, instead of having to take a substanceby-substance approach.’

But others question the practicalities of this. Writing on the Mindhacks blog (tinyurl.com/ot4pugu) psychologist Dr Vaughan Bell said that within the Home Secretary’s letter which accompanied the proposed changes lay a ‘little pharmacological gem’. He said the list of banned drugs had become so long the government had banned: ‘[any] substance [that] produces a psychoactive effect in a person if, by stimulating or depressing the person’s central nervous system, it affects the person’s mental functioning or emotional state’. Bell pointed out that as new drugs are arriving on the scene at around the rate of one per week if police are confronted with an unknown white powder, the only reliable way to identify it as psychoactive is to take it – as it is difficult to predict what a drug will do to the brain from its chemical structure.

He wrote: ‘Interestingly, this means both the manufacturers of new psychoactive compounds and the UK government will have the same problem. Because you can’t do a chemical test on a new drug and say for sure it’s psychoactive, and animal tests won’t give you a definite answer, someone has to take it to find out. Grey market labs in China and Eastern Europe solve this problem by, well, getting someone to take the drugs.

Christ knows what the Government are going to do.’ ER I Read what other experts think of the Psychoactive Substances Bill – tinyurl.com/o5s976f. The Bill was debated in the Lords on 9 June: tinyurl.com/ookpla2

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p522_527 news_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:43 Page 523

news

An opera that started as a collaboration between composer and psychiatrist, and presents the electric tale of a madness shared by two, comes to the UK next month. Its creator, Emily Hall, has also drawn on the talents of the Icelander Sjón, who has written songs for Björk. The performance at Spitalfields Music Festival was its London premiere.

The tale, produced with the Mahogany Opera Group, centres around the rare psychiatric condition ‘folie à deux’, from which it also takes its title. This condition involves two people who begin to share the same delusion. In this case a happy couple’s lives are taken over by an electricity pylon – the man begins to believe it has a special hold over him, and his partner starts to think the same.

The ethereal lyrics will be complemented by a specially-built electromagnetic harp which emits the haunting hum of the pylon, the third character in the production, using so-called e-bows on resonating strings. The final production includes six songs, performed by Swedish voice artist Sofia Jernberg and Icelandic tenor Finnur Bjarnason, accompanied by acoustic harp as well as the electromagnetic harp.

Composer of the piece, Emily Hall, said the idea for the production came out of a conversation she had with her friend, the psychiatrist Lisa Conlan. She said she became fascinated with the condition and she and Lisa began to plan out the framework of the opera together.

She added: ‘We began doing workshops with the Mahogany Opera Group, and it just felt like folie à deux was a really strong basis for an opera. Sjón came up with the idea of using an electricity pylon as central to the delusion and it seemed to have such strong aesthetic and sonic possibilities.’

Lisa Conlan, who works with the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, has been involved throughout the creation of the production as a psychiatric adviser and collaborator, as well as a fascinated onlooker. ‘The composition of these beautiful sounds always seems like a miracle to me,’ she told us. ‘But then I suppose the things

JOHAN PERSSON

Folie à deux

I speak about may seem the same to some people.’ Lisa mentioned folie à deux to Emily when she knew her friend was looking for new inspiration: she said she realised the scope and possibilities such a condition created for an artist.

She added: ‘It just struck me as idea you could do so much with. It’s a condition that, although you don’t see very often in clinical practice, you hear about. Patients have told me about members of families developing the same symptoms.’ Dr Conlan said being so closely involved with the production had been ‘amazing’: ‘It’s been especially fascinating as someone from such a different background. I have no real formal understanding of music so it’s been a privilege,’ she said. ER

A cite more surprising A new study of more than one million journal abstracts has revealed, despite often-heard suggestions to the contrary, that articles with longer abstracts with long sentences are cited more often. The report, published in PLoS Computational Biology, also found those articles that used more adjectives and adverbs in abstracts had more citations.

Cody Weinberger (University of Chicago), and colleagues, examined 10 tips often given to scientific researchers and asked whether following these tips actually led to more eventual citations.

The list included tips such as, keep it concise, keep it short and keep it simple. Their results revealed an unexpected finding: that around half of the tips given to academic writers about clarity and brevity are

associated with a significant decrease in citations.

Another often-cited tip is to use the present tense.

Weinberger found that this was only useful in psychology and biology, while having a negative impact in chemistry and physics. Matching keywords to words in the abstract also led to negative results while emphasising the importance and novelty of the article had positive effects.

The authors concluded in their discussion that these results may reflect the fact that scientists have different preferences for what they would like to read versus what they are going to cite. They wrote: ‘Despite the fact that anybody in their right mind would prefer to read short, simple, and well-written prose with few abstruse terms, when

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

building an argument and writing a paper, the limiting step is the ability to find the right article.’

They suggested that a more likely explanation for their findings are that when searching for articles scientists rely heavily on search engines, where longer and more specific abstracts are favoured – longer prose is simply more available for search.

Editor of the British Psychological Society Research Digest Blog Dr Christian Jarrett said the headline result of the research, that studies with longer abstracts get cited more often, did appear to contradict the received wisdom that it is better to write as succinctly as possible.

He added: ‘Despite the promotion of the study as overturning most science

writing advice, other findings from the research don’t seem that surprising – such as that signalling the novelty and importance of the work and using pleasant, active and easy to imagine words is associated with more citations.’

Dr Jarrett added: ‘Because this research used scholarly citations as its outcome measure, it’s arguably more about the way scientists communicate with each other.

It would be interesting to see if and how the writing style used in scientific papers is related to their influence on mainstream culture.’ ER I To read the research paper visit tinyurl.com/olcqn8s; for Simon Oxenham and Jon Sutton’s in-depth feature on bad writing from the March 2015 issue, see tinyurl.com/pmxoeaf

523

psy 07_15 p522_527 news_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:43 Page 524

news

Quenching a thirst for knowledge Ella Rhodes reports from a Pint of Science Festival event held in Birmingham in May A group of science lectures held in pubs across UK cities included three nights of psychology and neurobiology talks in Birmingham. The Pint of Science Festival takes place in nine countries and 50 cities across the same three nights, and on the second evening the audience heard two talks on animals and children.

Jackie Chappell, from the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham, began by outlining what creativity means from an animal research perspective, saying it involves looking into how animals use their brains to adapt to their environment. Chappell went on to say that testing animal creativity can be problematic: the usual approach is to give an animal a problem to solve that they have not encountered before and that will test their creativity rather than simply showing that an animal can learn with enough training and exposure.

New Caledonian Crows have been widely studied for their use of tools in the wild, and Chappell described an experimental study showing they can be flexible in their thinking. One female crow was given a clear cylinder containing a small bucket of food as well as a straight and hooked piece of wire.

However when the male crow stole the hook, Betty, as she was called, simply picked up the straight wire and bent it

524

into a new hook.

Dr Chappell said: ‘This crow had seen a hook and used a hook, but she had never seen one made.

She created a new tool manufacture technique.’

Not only can animals use inanimate objects as tools, orangutans have been observed using their own young to help them retrieve food from hard-toreach places. In another study bonobos and orang-utans were presented with a seethrough box containing eight paddles which the animal could turn to make food fall through a hole at the bottom: there were several other places the food could fall where the ape would not be able to retrieve it. In one condition of the study, which tested advanced planning, all paddles were placed on the diagonal – the animal would need to plan ahead before

moving any paddles to ensure the food fell into the correct hole. On this advance planning task only one of the participants performed above chance. In another condition all the paddles were straight, so if the monkey turned the wrong paddle it would simply fall onto the shelf below. The apes performed much more reliably in this condition.

Dr Chappell concluded her fascinating talk by saying that animals could be very creative and flexible in their thinking; however, proving this could be difficult. She also said that although advanced planning could be difficult for animals, humans can struggle with this at times as well.

Next, Sarah Beck, from the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, spoke about imagination in children, its purpose and whether children can use it in the same way as adults. Children, she said, have some of the most active imaginations of any age group, which can be seen in their imaginary friends and pretend play.

Much of Beck’s work has been into counterfactual thinking, the process by which adults imagine how the current world might be different if we had made different choices. At what point do children begin to use counterfactual thinking? Beck told children a scenario – that after their mother has taken some chocolate from the cupboard to use in baking a cake, she puts it in a drawer.

The children were then asked where the chocolate would be if she had not baked the cake.

While four- and five-year-olds find this task easy, three-year-olds will say the chocolate will be in the drawer. Beck asked why younger children might find this task so difficult, and she used another task to test this. In this other experiment children are presented with a bear puppet and dragon puppet and told to do what the bear says but ignore the

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p522_527 news_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:44 Page 525

news

dragon’s instructions. Again, three-yearolds find this very hard.

Children who struggle on the puppet task find the counterfactual thinking task hard too. Beck suggested their difficulty may be due to a lack of inhibition and on the first task being able to inhibit their knowledge that the chocolate ended up in the drawer. She concluded that while children have very good and expansive imaginations they are less good at using their imaginations to solve tasks and think about alternative worlds. She said: ‘Children are both brilliant and rubbish at using their imagination.’

On the final day of the Pint of Science Festival Tony Belli, a trained neurosurgeon and Reader in Neurotrauma (University of Birmingham) spoke about some startling research into concussion in sport. He said research into the longerterm effects of sport concussions has become of huge interest, particularly in American football.

One of the main issues with concussions is that many athletes do not realise they have sustained one: they expect to lose consciousness but this is not always a result of being concussed, Professor Belli said. He went on to say that, worryingly, concussions are increasing year on year and the most dangerous sport for them is cycling.

However, he insisted that there was no need for mass panic or for people to give up sport completely. The number of catastrophic injuries in sport is small, and one solution is to approach the treatment of concussions with more care. Belli said it was difficult for club doctors to spot concussions and a vast majority are not reported or not recognised as concussion. Some of this lack of reporting may be due to an athlete’s fear of losing playing time, and in some sports there is a culture of ‘bravery’ and returning to play as soon as possible. However, official advice is that adults should not return to play until at least six days after concussion, and children at least three weeks. Of all concussions around 80 to 90 per cent get better very quickly but 2 to 4 per cent will never get fully better.

Belli also spoke about the worrying role of multiple concussions in neurodegeneration. In mice it has been shown that multiple concussions leads to the accumulation of proteins that are seen in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Neurodegenerative conditions are also seen appearing in much younger professional American football players than in the general population.

However Belli was quick to point out that, in general, these players live longer than the general population, showing there is no need to give up an active lifestyle for fear of concussion. He added: ‘A lot of this sounds alarming, but people get a lot of benefits from an active lifestyle but at the same time we can mitigate the effects of traumatic brain injury.’ He added that it was important to be more aware of concussions and to train people to recognise if they have sustained one and to monitor the effects of concussion more closely.

Appropriately enough, the final talk in the Pint of Science Festival Beautiful Minds section was from Ian Mitchell (University of Birmingham) around the effects of alcohol on the brain. He began by speaking about the well-known acute effects of alcohol, caused by a one-night binge, which are reversible. However, he

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

said, with repeated large doses of alcohol the chronic effects can lead to loss of brain volume, psychiatric problems and stroke.

Dr Mitchell said alcohol, being one of the three most commonly used drugs (along with caffeine and nicotine), is the most dangerous from a neurological perspective. He then went on to explain how alcohol works on an area associated with reward – the ventral tegmental area, as well as reducing responses to fear due to its action on the amygdala.

Interestingly, alcohol also affects the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for executive functions such as planning and organising as well as inhibition of certain behaviours in a social context. Mitchell then tested the, presumably slightly tipsy, audience on their executive function using a sentence completion test. Half the audience were told to complete the sentence in the conventional way while the other half were asked to come up with a novel way to finish the sentence.

‘He would often stop at the pub on his way home from work and enjoy a pint of…’ The novel group found it very difficult to inhibit the conventional response, ‘beer’, and come up with a different ending to the sentence – Mitchell explained while under the influence of alcohol it is harder to ignore the almost automatic response to finishing the sentence, a failure of inhibition.

Next under discussion was the ‘beer goggles’ effect. Mitchell said by having participants rate pictures of faces for attractiveness while drunk and sober we can see people are seen as around 10 per cent more attractive when an observer is drunk. However, interestingly, this effect only applies to a person’s own racial ingroup.

Of course, the effects of alcohol even in the short term can be worrying.

Theory of mind, or the ability to understand the intentions or emotions of other people, is badly affected by drink. Indeed, some of Mitchell’s own test subjects who drank three bottles of wine each a night had deficits in this area comparable to those caused by dementia.

Mitchell pointed out that the potential for misunderstandings when lacking theory of mind were numerous and could be quite concerning. He concluded that alcohol was a friend on one level – it makes people friendlier with their ingroup and reduces fear and anxiety. However, it can be a foe – it makes us less attracted to outgroups, and can increase aggression in people who have a predisposition for aggression.

525

psy 07_15 p522_527 news_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:44 Page 526

news

Ireland’s gay marriage referendum

PETITION TO LOG BIRTH MARKS A health psychologist has been involved in launching an online petition calling for earlier recognition and recording of a marker of what she describes as possibly the ‘most common rare genetic disorder’. Light-brown ‘café au lait’ patches (CALs) are a phenotypic marker of the neurogenetic condition neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), which cause tumours to grow on nerve endings and affects around one in 3000 people.

The condition can also lead to a wide variety of psychological and physical complications including learning difficulties, autism spectrum disorders, bone problems and disfigurement.

Despite CALs being an obvious marker, late diagnosis is sometimes due to lack of knowledge of the condition.

Chartered Psychologist Dr Carly Jim (Manchester Metropolitan University), whose own daughter Ellie has the condition, said many health professionals have never heard of NF1, and CALs are often seen as bruises. She said this misdiagnosis of the marks has led to cases of parents being accused of child abuse.

Dr Jim and her friend Vanessa Martin, whose child also has NF1, launched a petition to incorporate a body map into the child health record (red book) which, she said, would serve as a flag if CALs are identified and ensure referral to the appropriate services.

Jim said Vanessa Martin had worked diligently to have the campaign recognised and it has been debated in the House of Lords. Jim’s own research as a health psychologist has looked into the condition, and she said: ‘I provided her [Vanessa] with a letter detailing the issues for her to use as part of her pack to Parliament. I have also been consistently supporting her in an advisory role using my extensive knowledge of the condition and my research and psychological background.’ ER I To sign the petition visit tinyurl.com/nvzvlke; to visit the Neuro Foundation website see tinyurl.com/q3mh9xh

526

BRIAN LAWLESS/PA WIRE

In a historic move Irish citizens voted only repealed the Victorian law against to legalise gay marriage in the first sodomy in 1993 the country’s attitudes referendum of its kind. The largely towards gay marriage have been Catholic country, which legalised sodomy ‘transformed’ over the past two decades. just 22 years ago, is just one of many Professor Hegarty said that social countries where a shift in attitudes psychologists were very aware that for towards LGBT people can be seen.

Peter Hegarty (University of Surrey) is a researcher in gender and sexuality, history of psychology and social psychology. He is also a former chair of the BPS Psychology of Sexualities Section. He said as he has been in a civil partnership for six years and is an Irish citizen, the referendum was particularly important to him, he added: ‘It’s been In Dublin crowds celebrated the historic vote fantastic for Ireland in a number of ways.’

He outlined some of the reasons prejudices towards the LGBT attitude change to happen personal community seem to be shifting and gave contact with a discriminated-against examples of the yes campaign’s use of group was vital. ‘Over the last 25 years social psychology in the run-up to the we’ve seen a real shift when carrying out referendum. He said that although Ireland surveys of heterosexual people. These

days people are far more likely to say they know someone who is lesbian, gay or bisexual, and this is true in lots of places.

This is really important for changing attitudes towards gay rights and marriage,’ he said.

Ireland’s population is relatively small and extremely interconnected culturally, Hegarty said this may be another reason that attitudes have taken a dramatic shift. He added that the yes campaign encouraged people to open up a dialogue about gay marriage among their friends and older relatives, to make the conversation and topic more accessible.

One of the most notable aims of the yes campaign was to challenge heteronormativity – or the belief that heterosexual relationships are the only ‘normal’ or acceptable kind of relationship. Hegarty gave examples of two videos in particular which challenged this idea.

One, called Sinead’s Hand, shows a man wandering the streets of Ireland knocking on the door of each house and asking whether he can have Sinead’s hand in marriage. The video ends with the caption ‘How would you feel if you had to ask 4 million people to get married?’

In the second video a taxi driver is shown on a hidden camera ranting to real customers about heterosexual couples, how they breed too much and how he would not accept one in his cab. Hegarty said: ‘These videos were all about turning the lens around. And it’s wonderful to see that there’s some really good social psychology being used on the ground and effecting social change. The Irish yes campaign was really smart about challenging heteronormativity at an almost cognitive level.’

The BPS Psychology of Sexualities Section is involved in a great deal of social and attitudinal change work including the signing of a memorandum against conversion therapy earlier this year. In a previous life, as the Lesbian and Gay Psychology Section, its members were involved in writing a statement in the Kitzinger Wilkinson case in the supreme court – in which Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson attempted to have their marriage, which took place in British Columbia, recognised as a marriage in England. ER I Sinead’s Hand video: tinyurl.com/mqlwcp4; Heterophobic Taxi Driver video: tinyurl.com/qhsb2tt

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p522_527 news_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:44 Page 527

news

5 minutes with…

Dr Lisa Cameron, newly elected Scottish National Party MP for the constituency of East Kilbride, Strathaven & Lesmahagow What’s your background in psychology? I trained as a clinical psychologist and then went on to specialise in forensic and clinical psychology. I have worked at the high secure unit (State Hospital) as a consultant and in the forensic service at NHS GG& Clyde. I am an accredited risk assessor with the Risk Management Authority (Scotland) and with the Scottish Court service in relation to provision of evidence and expert reports in cases of historical abuse.

I have a BA Hons Psychology (Strathclyde University), MSc Psychology & Health (Stirling University) and DClinPsy (Glasgow University).

How did you move from that into parliament? I became interested more avidly in politics during the Scottish Referendum debate. We had a local group of Psychologists for Yes and I was active in the local community in relation to the Yes campaign more generally. I am a member of the Scottish National Party, and was a trade union representative with Unite for 14 years. I have a long-held interest in social justice, inequality and issues of discrimination. I moved into Parliament as an MP this year as you know after the general election campaign in my hometown of East Kilbride.

Scottish voters were keen to elect people who were not career politicians but those who brought valuable experience from other realms including the NHS. Will you be trying to take psychological evidence into policy? How else might you use your background in your new role? It is important to consider the role of psychology in health,

education and occupational aspects of policy. As a scientist practitioner we have a unique ability to critique research papers/policies and to apply them to practice. I hope to utilise these skills in committee work and in questioning the government and holding them to account.

What are you expecting psychologically from your socialisation as an MP? Much of politics is fundamentally psychology in my view. As psychologists, we have an ability to analyse situations, appraise individuals’/parties’ motives and personality drivers and to think through issues of social influence.

In relation to socialisation as an MP, Westminster is truly unique and it is important to maintain a sense of self outwith politics so that one does not become institutionalised or lose touch with constituents and the reasons that you were elected.

It is about serving other people, a privilege and responsibility in my view and therefore a sense of integrity is fundamental. As psychologists we can analyse our own reactions (and others) and are aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy balance and family contact. I hope that my skills will help me both to adapt and to buffer the stresses of parliamentary life.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

LESIONS IN THE LANDSCAPE A collaboration between artist, neuropsychologists and patient which explores the devastating impacts of amnesia, drawing parallels between the sudden evacuation of St Kilda, comes to Liverpool this autumn. Lesions in the Landscape, by Danish-born artist Shona Illingworth, is a new multi-screen installation that explores amnesia as well as the erasing of individual and cultural memory.

Illingworth has looked at the all-encompassing effects of amnesia on one woman, Claire, with help from neuropsychologists Martin A. Conway (City University) and Catherine Loveday (University of Westminster). Illingworth has worked with and filmed Claire, who, following a trauma to her brain can no longer remember most of her past, create new memories or recognise anyone – not even herself.

However a new sensory-operated camera worn around her neck can help her access some memories from recent events in bursts of intense recollection.

Dr Loveday, who had been working clinically for eight years with Claire (see ‘Big Picture’, February 2011: tinyurl.com/bigpicfeb11), said she had learned more about amnesia during her involvement with Illingworth’s work than she had in 20 years of clinical and scientific work. She said: ‘Shona is known for producing artwork that presents people’s experience in a sensitive but raw and very evocative way, and in this work she wanted to find ways people could connect like this with the experience of amnesia. Being involved with this project has made me a really big fan of multidisciplinary collaborations – it has changed the way I work with Claire clinically. Shona asks Claire really interesting, searching questions and encourages her to use alternative artistic means to express her memories in a different way.’

Illingworth saw a parallel between the sudden end to Claire’s access to her memories and the evacuation of the inhabitants of the remote Scottish archipelago of St Kilda on 29 August 1930, ending over 2000 years of continuous habitation. She saw that both marked an abrupt and irreversible lesion in a cultural landscape.

For her project, Illingworth took Claire to St Kilda, where she filmed her, and the installation presents three video projections along with an array of 20 loud speakers, which aims to create a fully immersive sound environment of voice, engineered and ambient sounds. Illingworth has aimed to create a layered composition where the sounds of thousands of calling gannets is underscored by intermittent sounds of EEG signals that capture the landscape of Claire’s amnesia.

Loveday said: ‘In this work we all very much see Claire as a vital part of the team, she was there sharing her knowledge with us about the experience of living with amnesia. We all have some expertise, but only Claire really knows what having amnesia feels like. I really hope Shona’s work will help people to connect with the experience of amnesia in a completely different way.’

Alongside the installation an ongoing series of Amnesia Forums will examine the politics of memory, amnesia and cultural erasure through discussion between artists, scientists, writers and researchers. This feeds directly into the Amnesia Museum, a growing body of work that maps out the landscape of amnesia. It draws together film, photography, drawings and documents, as well as a 32speaker sonification of Claire’s EEG and neuropsychological diagrams describing the impact of the lesion on her memory.

After premiering at FACT in Liverpool from September 17 until November 22, Lesions in the Landscape will tour to the UNSW Galleries in Sydney, Australia, the Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Gallery in the Outer Hebrides and finally to Dilston Grove & CGP Gallery in London. An accompanying book will be published in the autumn of 2016. ER

527

DIGEST

psy 07_15 p528_531 newsdigest_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:45 Page 528

Why it’s a mistake to seek control of your life through solitude The true story of Christopher McCandless, dramatised in the 2007 film Into the Wild, is a search for radical independence that culminates in McCandless’s solitary existence in the wilds of Alaska. It speaks to a powerful belief: to feel you control your life, stand

In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology alone. But new research suggests otherwise: to feel control, stand together.

If committing to a group feels like surrendering control, reasoned Katharine Greenaway and her collaborators, we might expect some impact on wellbeing, as humans and animals alike thrive from autonomy and are distressed when they lose it. But group membership is robustly associated with life satisfaction, and while other researchers have sought to explain this as owing to social support or boosts to self-esteem, Greenaway’s team suspected that identifying with a group actually makes people feel more in control. After all, personal control means more than not being interfered with, it includes the capacity to do what matters.

Greenaway’s team predicted that merely identifying as part of a group may make people feel more capable.

To test this, they collected data shortly after the 2012 US election, asking 129 American adults who they voted for, how strongly they identified with that

528

candidate’s party and how much control they felt they had over their own lives.

After Obama’s victory, Obama voters who had a stronger bond with his Democratic party felt more in control of their lives.

Little surprise perhaps: their man had won. But voters with a strong Republican identity also experienced a post-election increase in their sense of personal control. Although the Republicans had a case to feel disempowered, simply being in bed with something bigger made them feel more capable than voters with a weaker collective identity.

Another much larger study looked at how 62,000 people across 47 countries identified with their local community, national group, or as part of the human race. Whichever level the researchers looked at, feeling part of a group was associated with feeling more personal control, and this effect was associated with higher levels of wellbeing.

Finally, an experiment involving 300 American adults showed that momentary manipulations of how we feel towards a larger group influences feelings of personal control and wellbeing. Half the participants were led to connect with their national identity by asking them to assess statements about America that were either positive and reasonable (therefore easy to endorse) or negative and unreasonable. These participants went on to report significantly greater feelings of personal control and greater life satisfaction in that moment. They also reported lower depression in the past week suggesting either that the effect can time-travel, or that their view of the past was coloured by a rush of national pride.

The notion of individualism is actually a fairly recent development for humanity, an exquisitely social species that owes its success to our capacity to collaborate and coordinate actions (this may even be the reason we developed conscious awareness). This new research suggests our group identities are a continued source of our sense of agency and control. A life alone on the Alaskan tundra may offer many things, but we can find our own forms of freedom right here among the people we know. AF

Is CBT for depression losing its efficacy?

In Psychological Bulletin Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has many advantages for treating depression.

Among them, the fact that it’s easy to standardise, it’s intuitive and it can deliver results relatively quickly (think weeks, not years as some other therapies demand). For many people with depression, it’s also far more acceptable than the prospect of taking mind-altering drugs. But now the bad news: CBT’s efficacy seems to be declining.

That’s the suggestion of a new metaanalysis (tinyurl.com/nnjv4py) that has looked at outcome data from 70 studies published between 1977 and 2014 and involving more than 2426 people diagnosed with depression (unipolar depression, not bipolar). Across studies, 31 per cent of the participants were male; the average age of participants was 41.

To allow comparison over time, Tom Johnsen and Oddgeir Friborg chose to focus only on studies that used the Beck Depression Inventory or the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale – two popular measures that involve the patient or therapist, respectively, providing scores of the patient’s depression. Looking at the effect of CBT on adults’ depression scores using either of these scales (i.e. by comparing scores pre- vs. post-therapy), the researchers found a linear and steady reduction in the therapy’s apparent efficacy over time. Simply put, CBT doesn’t seem to be helping reduce depression symptoms as much today as it used to when it was first developed in the 1970s.

This main finding held true even when the researchers focused on certain types of study – such as analysing only those that involved a control group. The finding can’t be explained by a general change in people’s ability to recover from depression: there was no comparable decline in change scores among participants in control groups who didn’t receive CBT. Nor is it the case that recent studies, more than older studies, tended to involve depressed patients who also had other mental health problems (in fact the opposite is true).

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p528_531 newsdigest_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:45 Page 529

digest

Changes in therapist competence (e.g. their level of training) also can’t explain the declining trend in CBT efficacy. And to debunk one last potential explanation, the researchers point out that the decline in

efficacy was actually steeper for trials involving manualised CBT – so it’s not the case that more modern trials have simply become sloppier in their CBT methods.

So, why is CBT apparently losing its power to help people with depression?

Johnsen and Friborg can only speculate.

One suggestion they have is that CBT is somehow losing its placebo effect over time: ‘In the initial phase of the cognitive era, CBT was frequently portrayed as the gold standard for the treatment of many

disorders. In recent times, however, an increasing number of studies…have not found this method to be superior to other techniques. Coupled with the increasing availability of such information to the public, including the Internet, it is not inconceivable that patients’ hope and faith in the efficacy of CBT has decreased somewhat, in recent decades. Moreover, whether widespread knowledge of the present meta-analysis results might worsen the situation, remains an open question.’ CJ

Metalheads from the 80s are thriving In Self and Identity If you sell your soul to heavy metal do you pay for it later in life?

During the 1980s, waves of adolescents found solace in this most notorious of extreme music subcultures, alarming their parents as well as authority figures including the US surgeon general and the campaigner and Second Lady Tipper Gore. But a new survey suggests that in 2015, the teenage metalheads from the 80s are doing all right.

This matters because early research seemed to back the prevailing panic: metalheads were fatalistic, cynical, manipulative, and struggled at school. It would become clear that this account failed to consider that many fans were misfits with complicated home lives before metal entered the picture, and ignored clusters of very high-functioning metalheads drawn to the music by its complexity. But even later researchers were reluctant to endorse heavy metal, optimistic only that fans will eventually ‘outgrow the subculture’.

The current research, spearheaded by Humbolt State University’s Tasha Howe, recruited metalheads active in the 1980s by using Facebook. These were 99 fans, together with about 20 musicians and a similar number of groupies. Compared to a control group of a similar age (into pop, new wave, or soft rock), the heavy metal groupies and fans (but not musicians) reported more adverse childhood experiences, fitting with the idea that people are often drawn to the difficult themes and tone of metal because of real-life discord; the groupies were particularly prone to suicidal tendencies.

Considering their early difficult circumstances, how did the heavy-metal groups fare psychologically over time? Much as their non-metal peers did. Based on the recently taken measures, no differences were found compared with controls in adult attachment, the Big Five personality traits, or hypomania. A statistical technique called Bayes factors can show how likely it is that the null hypothesis was true, meaning the lack of effect is because there really is no difference between groups rather than because of small samples.

The Bayes factors confirmed that for most of these individual differences, the case for ‘no difference’ was solid.

And how do they feel? Presently, the metalheads feel as content in life as their ‘norm’ peers. Furthermore, they recalled being significantly happier in youth, with only one third expressing regrets, versus half of the control group. Furthermore, the controls were the group with the highest incidence of undertaking counselling for emotional problems. This gives credence to what many metal fans believe: that the music offers catharsis and the scene an outlet for the emotional challenges of adolescence.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

On the whole, the heavy metal musicians did better than most other groups in the study (the heavy metal fans and non-metal control participants), suggesting they were a high-functioning group – able to master complex musicianship and make a career out of the thing they most loved. The big risk factor for them was unprotected sex – one third had contracted an STD, unsurprising seeing as they averaged over 300 partners each over their lifetimes.

By sampling only current Facebook users we can’t get a complete picture: whether metal increased the risk of premature death, for instance. But the research suggests that the typical fan wasn’t harmed by big hair, blast beats and guitar solos; on the contrary, for many young people, the moshpit was exactly where they needed to be. AF 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 and contributor Dr Alex Fradera.

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

Subscribe to the fortnightly e-mail, friend, follow and more via www.bps.org.uk/digest

529

psy 07_15 p528_531 newsdigest_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:45 Page 530

digest

Have you heard…

Why do children stick their tongues out when they’re concentrating?

In Cognition Have you ever watched a young child perform a delicate task with their hands and noticed how they stick out their tongue at the same time? A new study is the first to systematically investigate this behaviour in four-year-olds. This isn't just a cute quirk of

childhood, the findings suggest, rather the behaviour fits the theory that spoken language originally evolved from gestures.

Gillian Forrester and Alina Rodriguez videoed 14 four-year-olds (eight boys), all right-handed, as they completed a number

LINK FEAST IQ Tests Have Been Unfairly Maligned Intelligent words on intelligence from psychologist (and previous Digest guest blogger) Stuart Ritchie. tinyurl.com/pklepsp The Search For the Perfect Office (audio) Claudia Hammond presents this documentary for BBC Radio 4. tinyurl.com/q9mu44v

The new podcast from The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest Listen via www.bps.org.uk/digest

Quiet Revolution The quiet people are making a noise as Susan Cain launches her mission ‘to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of us all’. www.quietrev.com Researchers Find Missing Link Between the Brain and Immune System Neuroscientists herald a game-changing discovery. tinyurl.com/p5y7ly2 How a Graduate Student Reluctantly Uncovered a Huge Scientific Fraud Jesse Singal with an in-depth look at the LaCour research scandal. tinyurl.com/nmfelt2 Who Are You Now? At this new blog from the Headway charity, brain injury survivors tell their own stories. http://whoareyounow.org

530

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p528_531 newsdigest_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:45 Page 531

digest

of tasks in their own homes.

The tasks were designed to involve either very fine hand control (e.g. playing with miniature dolls or opening padlocks with keys), less fine control (e.g. a game of knock and tap, in which the child does the opposite to the researcher, be that knocking or tapping the table with their right hand), or no hand control (remembering a story).

The researchers studied the videos looking for how often the children stuck out their tongues during these different games, and whether they stuck them out towards the left or right side of their mouths.

All the children stuck out their tongues during the games and tasks, which supports past research with five- to eightyear-olds that suggested this is a common behaviour. But crucially, the children stuck out their tongues more during some tasks than others, and most of all in the knock and tap game. This goes against expectations (the researchers thought the fine motor control games would provoke the most tongue protrusions), but Forrester and Rodriguez argue their surprise finding makes sense in terms of the evolutionary history of language. They explain the knock and tap game involves rapid turn-taking, hand gesturing and structure rules – what you could think of as ‘the foundational components of a communication system’ or the rudiments of language.

This fits with another result, which is that most of the kids’ tongue protrusions tended to be biased to the right, suggestive of control by the left brain hemisphere. The left side of the brain is the side that’s more dominant for language in nearly all righthanders, so again we have a suggestion that children’s gestural activities are accompanied by tongue protrusions because of the tongue and hands sharing a link with language and communication. The researchers think that adults (presumably excluding Miley Cyrus) suppress their own tongue protrusions because of the cultural connotations of sticking out your tongue.

Taken together with past research that’s shown an overlap in the brain areas involved in speech and hand control, the researchers propose their new findings support the idea that the same communication system involves both the hand and the mouth, and that ‘hand and tongue actions possess a reciprocal relationship such that when structured sequences of hand actions are performed they are accompanied by spontaneous and synchronous tongue action’. CJ

DIGEST DIGESTED Full reports are available at www.bps.org.uk/digest Chacma baboons within a troop spend more of their time with baboons that they resemble, choosing to associate with those of a similar age, status, and even personality. Alecia Carter and colleagues included measures of boldness and the propensity to either generate or exploit social information. Royal Society Open Science Psychologists in Canada think they’ve identified an entirely new memory syndrome in healthy people characterised by a specific inability to relive their past. The three individuals currently described have no history of brain damage or illness and have experienced no known recent psychological trauma or disturbance. Take part in a survey at www.deficientautobiographicalmemory.com. Neuropsychologia

People underestimate how much fun they’ll have partaking in entertaining activities in public alone. Journal of Consumer Research Our jumpiness at night is not just because it is dark.

Yadan Li and colleagues found that women rated scary pictures and sounds as more scary than the women tested in the daytime, regardless of whether they were tested in darkness or light.

International Journal of Psychophysiology Staking a claim during the early stages of idea development – ‘although I am asking you for your input, I consider this to be my proposal, not yours’ – can be counterproductive, as it cools the enthusiasm others have for making it better. Journal of Applied Psychology

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

531

CONFERENCE

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 534

Beyond the average adolescent Ella Rhodes reports on Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s opening address at the Society’s Annual Conference in Liverpool.

Find even more coverage on our website.

Some look back on their teenage years with a sense of pride, at their rebellious nature, others cringe at the thought.

Although we have our own personal experience of passing through that stage, teens are so often misunderstood and regarded with considerable wariness.

Shakespeare once wrote: ‘I would there were no age between sixteen and threeand-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.’

In opening the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (University College London) sought to provide a more tolerant and evidence-based perspective on adolescent development, looking to the teenage brain to partially explain this age group’s risky behaviour.

Professor Blakemore told the gathered audience how she became interested in teen brain development – through working with people with schizophrenia. Testing patients in a hospital outside Versailles during a postdoc, Blakemore realised that

534

all of them reported onset of the condition at the end of adolescence. Why should this devastating and florid illness remain almost dormant during childhood and the teenage years? Unlike other developmental disorders such as autism and ADHD, ‘schizophrenia waits, and shows itself at the end of adolescence’. But it’s not alone in that: Blakemore showed that 75 per cent of adult mental disorder has the onset before the age of 24, and mostly during adolescence. Blakemore thought the answers might lie in the typical development of the teenage brain.

Although often adolescence is described as starting with puberty and ending when a person gains a stable independent role in society, there are massive cultural differences in when this may occur. In some cultures people marry and start having children very young, whereas in the West many people continue to live with their parents and study until their 20s or 30s. But Blakemore argues that adolescence is, in fact, a distinct biological period that presents itself across cultures and in every one of us. Typical adolescent

behaviours, including heightened risktaking, peer influence, impulsivity and selfconsciousness, can be seen across cultures and even across species. Adolescent rats show increased risk-taking and increased exploration, during this period, and even drink more alcohol when in the company of other adolescent rats!

On a more sombre note, Blakemore pointed out that adolescent risk-taking has a real effect on teenage mortality rates, with accidents related to risky behaviours being the leading cause of death of people in that period of life. But why do adolescents generally take more risks? And in what circumstances? Blakemore outlined Larry Steinberg’s research, which took three age groups, 13–16, 17–24 and 25 and over, and asked them to play a driving video game.

Somewhat surprisingly the adolescents took around the same number of risks – jumping lights, speeding, etc. – as the adults and young adults. So in optimal circumstances, where the adolescents can concentrate on the task in hand, the stereotypical view is not borne out by the research. However, when the groups were

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 535

annual conference

watched doing the task by a couple of friends, the number of risks that adolescents took tripled and the number of risks the young adults took doubled.

The adults were unaffected. ‘The critical factor is peer influence,’ Blakemore said.

This fits our real-world picture of when teenagers start to take risks, such as smoking: it’s when they’re with others. And data from British car insurance companies show that adolescents have more accidents if they have a similar-aged passenger in the car, whereas in adults the pattern is reversed. What could it be about peer influence that has an effect on risk-taking?

Blakemore suggested that adolescents have a vested interest in being accepted by their peer group, ‘probably for evolutionary reasons’ – they need to become independent from their families.

In research with Catherine Sebastian, Blakemore showed the emotional side of this peer influence. Using a simple gamebased paradigm of social exclusion, they found that adolescents reacted to apparent social exclusion with a significantly greater drop in mood than adults did. ‘This

perhaps explains how perfectly intelligent, rational adolescents make risky decisions… the social factor weighs in particularly heavily on the see-saw of decision making.’

Imagine a 13-year-old girl whose friends all smoke, and they offer her a cigarette. Is it more risky to say yes to a cigarette, knowing the health risks of smoking, or to say no and risk being socially ostracised?

‘These decisions are not so crazy if we think about them in the context of the importance of their peer group,’ Blakemore concluded.

Referring to research she conducted at the Science Museum, Blakemore explained that adolescents don’t judge situations or decisions as objectively less risky – they do not feel invincible – they are just particularly influenced by the risk perceptions of other teenagers and less so by adults. ‘It always surprises me that health doesn’t just focus on social norms and peer effects,’ Blakemore mused. Find the most popular kid in a class and educate them about various risky behaviours, she said: research suggests that the perceptions of the whole class can then change towards the views of that cool child.

But what about the neuroscience behind this behaviour? Blakemore pointed out that, until recently, it was unclear at what point the brain stopped developing.

MRI and fMRI data has taken us far closer to understanding, showing that brain development continues throughout adolescence and even into the 20s and 30s.

The prefrontal cortex has a role in the assessment of risks and impulsivity, and Jay Giedd’s work has shown that the grey matter volume in this area peaks in late childhood and early adolescence, followed by a significant decline during adolescence.

What does this correspond to? Blakemore discussed ‘synaptic pruning’, a ‘moulding of the brain during adolescence’ that is heavily dependent on the environment as one factor.

Turning to ‘theory of mind’, the ability to infer the mental states of others, Blakemore outlined MRI data showing that each of the four areas within the so-called ‘social brain network’ parallel the increase in grey-matter volume in childhood and decrease during adolescence seen in the prefrontal cortex. Yet nine developmental fMRI studies show that medial prefrontal cortex activity in social cognition tasks is higher in adolescents than in adults.

Blakemore feels this may reflect a different cognitive strategy for adolescents in this kind of perspective-taking task. She also pointed to a potential mismatch between the maturity of the emotion-led limbic system and the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex to explain the greater propensity for adolescents to take risks.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Blakemore closed her talk with a startling example of how looking solely at average data can give us a false picture of brain development in adolescence – showing the huge differences among individuals in their brain development during this period. She concluded that individual differences should be the subject of further investigation, particularly looking into how genetics, culture, a person’s environment and social group affect brain development. ‘It’s the individual differences that are going to be more meaningful and interesting than the averages.’

THE

SET IN HENHAM PARK SUFFOLK

10TH EDITION

16TH - 19TH JULY 2015

FESTIVAL

CARIBOU / JAMES BLAKE / MANIC STREET PREACHERS

ALAN DAVIES / JON RICHARDSON / JASON MANFORD / JACK DEE’S HELP DESK NINA CONTI / ROB DELANEY / KATHERINE RYAN / SARA PASCOE / TIM KEY / MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE KNEEHIGH / PAINES PLOUGH / NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE / RUBY WAX: SANE NEW WORLD OPERA NORTH / UNDER MILK WOOD / NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY AND THE PORTRAIT CHOIR SIMON ARMITAGE / DR JOHN COOPER CLARKE / MICHAEL ROSEN / BLAKE MORRISON ALEXANDER MCQUEEN : SAVAGE BEAUTY / MATT HAIG / HANIF KUREISHI / PATRICK BARKHAM

THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND WELLCOME TRUST PRESENT FIONA NEILL

AND

PROFESSOR SARAH-JAYNE BLAKEMORE IN CONVERSATION

CHAIRED BY DR JON SUTTON, THE PSYCHOLOGIST ‘BEING YOUNG NEVER GETS OLD - TEENAGERS DEBUNKED’

/ COMEDY / THEATRE / DANCE ON THE WATERFRONT / FILM / POETRY / LITERATURE / CABARET / SCIENCE / ART / LAKE SWIMMING / SOLAS

THE PSYCHOLOGIST AT LATITUDE FESTIVAL F

Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore will make another appearance in July, taking part in the first ever ‘The Psychologist presents…’ at Latitude Festival. She is joined by author Fiona Neill for a discussion in the Literary Arena titled ‘Being Young Never Gets Old – Teenagers Debunked’. Our editor Dr Jon Sutton acts as host.

Fiona Neill is a Times columnist whose new novel, The Good Girl, is described as ‘a compelling portrait of a modern family dealing with a rocky marriage, a troublesome elderly parent and two teenagers exploring their sexuality’.

The Latitude Festival, which celebrates its 10th birthday this year, draws a crowd of around 40,000 to Henham Park in Suffolk for three days of music, comedy and the arts.

The festival takes place 16–19 July, with The Psychologist session on the Saturday morning. Visit www.latitudefestival.com for full line-up, information and tickets.

535

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 536

annual conference

Long-term impact of the New Zealand earthquakes – lessons for Nepal?

Research on the long-term impact of the New Zealand earthquakes has strong potential to help inform responses to the recent earthquake in Nepal. Sarb Johal, from the Joint Centre for Disaster Research Centre at Massey University, presented two linked papers that explored the long-term recovery processes for healthcare providers and the communities they serve in the aftermath of the earthquakes that occurred in 2010/11 in Christchurch – New Zealand’s third most populous city. The earthquake in February 2011, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale followed by a series of significant aftershocks, resulted in 185 fatalities and more than 7500 serious injuries. Altogether, around 92,000 people were exposed to violent ground shaking. Dr Johal presented data from interviews conducted with doctors and nurses from a range of specialities to explore their personal experiences, and those of their patients, two years following the earthquakes.

The first paper drew on interviews with eight general practitioners (GPs) to explore their perceptions of the impact of the earthquakes on primary-care clinic patients. Although most survivors were able to adjust over time, some (especially those who failed to receive appropriate support following the earthquake), experienced long-term stress reactions, such as loss of control and agency and feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Many patients presented to seek reassurance that the feelings they were continuing to experience were ‘normal’. Secondary stressors, such as insurance and housing issues, also contributed to distress, and patients commonly requested social advocacy.

Patients also presented symptoms stemming from overcrowding and loss of recreation and green space. Initially community spirit was high, but levels of support tended to dissipate over time (although it was still required). Particular problems were experienced by vulnerable groups, such as children and elderly people. Dr Johal described the case of one small child who was still too scared to sleep alone two years after the earthquake.

Interestingly, people with pre-existing

536

mental health problems generally appeared to cope well. The impact of the earthquakes on GPs themselves was inconsistent. Some experienced a loss of role as their premises had been destroyed,

or the population they served had been relocated, while others had a drastically increased workload.

The second paper explored the impact of the earthquakes on the wellbeing of nurses working in different specialities.

Dr Johal explained that compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and burnout were common reactions, particularly in nurses who were living away from home and lacked social support. Many felt unable to sustain the high level of empathy required in their role, but found it difficult to maintain the boundaries necessary to protect themselves against

emotional exhaustion. Nurses’ workloads and working hours as well as the need for flexibility in role typically increased in response to managing the needs of patients and trying to maintain essential healthcare services.

The earthquakes had a significant impact on the professional and personal lives of GPs and nurses.

Many felt pressure from the dual challenges of personal and work demands while delivering essential health services after a major disaster. Sometimes the needs of patients and the community were put before those of family. The high workload meant that many healthcare providers had little opportunity to reflect on their experiences, even though many had been personally affected. Both doctors and nurses typically felt the need to role-model successful coping and resilience to their patients.

Although counselling was offered, some sought external support, as being seen to be failing to cope was stigmatised. In general, doctors were more aware of their personal stress reactions and the need to engage in self-care than nurses.

Important lessons can be learnt from this research for helping manage the shortand long-term impact of major disasters on survivors and those who care for them. The findings can inform the development of disaster education, preparation and planning resources for healthcare professionals. Particular emphasis should be placed on the need to maintain formal and informal support several years after such events. A key issue that emerged from this research and many other studies is the urgent need to destigmatise help-seeking by healthcare providers, as well as highlighting the importance of effective self-care strategies and the need to provide opportunities for reflection at different time points. GK

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 537

annual conference

DIVERSITY IS GOOD FOR OUR MINDS With the UK Independence Party and its anti-immigration message attracting millions of votes in the recent UK general election, you can’t find a much more topical subject for psychology research than social and cultural diversity.

Professor Richard Crisp from Aston University used his keynote talk to explain that exposure to diversity is good for our minds. For example, if you expose people to counterstereotypes (such as a female mechanic), they tend to exhibit greater creativity afterwards, such as by drawing more quirky aliens.

Exposure to diversity has these effects, Crisp explained, because it exercises the mind’s ‘inhibitory muscle’. This makes us better able to resist jumping to conclusions and

assumptions, something the social mind tends to do as a way to make sense of a complex world.

The trouble is, the pattern-seeking social mind doesn’t want diversity, Crisp said, even though it’s good for it. It’s just like the way many of us are averse to exercise even though we know its benefits. We need a helping hand, an equivalent of a personal trainer.

One way, Crisp said, is to use ‘imagined contact’, which is to ask people to imagine having positive

encounters with outsiders, such as people from a different religious or ethnic group. One study found that after imagining a positive meeting with a Muslim stranger (versus any stranger or a trip to a forest), participants subsequently felt more confident about their ability to mix with Muslims and had stronger intentions to meet up with Muslims. ‘Over 70 studies with more than 5000 participants now show the benefits of imagined contact,’ Crisp said.

Taking questions from the audience, Crisp said he and his colleagues are now starting to gather supportive evidence, for the benefits of diversity and imagined contact, from field experiments.

‘Would he talk to Nigel Farage?’ another member of the audience asked. ‘He might avoid me,’ said Crisp with a smile. CJ

Are you looking at me, Jimmy?

We (hopefully) respond differently to an angry face staring us in the eyes than a happy face; being able to read others’ emotional expressions helps us to understand their social intent. Margaret Jackson (University of Aberdeen) and colleagues from the University of Stirling and the University of Kyoto compared how visual working memory for faces was affected by the emotional expression shown (happy or angry) and eye gaze (averted or direct) in Scottish and Japanese participants. For the Scottish group, memory was significantly enhanced for happy but not angry faces when eye gaze was averted – regardless of whether the faces were Caucasian or Japanese. For the Japanese group there was no effect of gaze direction at all for

Japanese faces, but for Caucasian faces memory was significantly decreased for angry faces with averted eyes.

This difference could be due to participants’ understanding of display rules: in Western cultures direct eye gaze is usually preferred whereas in Eastern cultures averted eye gaze is respectful.

For the Scottish group a happy face with averted gaze goes against the norm, perhaps muddying the perceived social intent and leading to enhanced encoding.

Jackson speculated that the Japanese group could be showing an adaptive interaction due to their understanding that direct eye contact is usually favoured in Western cultures; an averted gaze could reduce the threat signal perceived in angry Caucasian faces leading to reduced encoding. AJ

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

A CONSISTENTLY PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH Receiving the Society’s Book Award for 2013’s Psychology, Mental Health and Distress, Dave Harper (University of East London) described how he had been inspired by the many teachers who wanted to cover alternatives to psychiatric diagnostic frameworks yet found most textbooks entirely structured by them.

‘The perspective of mental health was missing,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit like perceptual psychologists having their books structured by optometrists.’

Harper noted that criticism of diagnosis became less of a fringe concern during the time he and his co-authors (John Cromby and Paula Reavey) were writing the book.

There was a ‘forthright’ BPS response to DSM-5, along with new guidelines of diagnosis from the Division of Clinical Psychology, and a growing service-user movement. ‘So there was a whole range of things we felt needed to be flagged up to students, including the challenges raised by critiques of diagnosis: history, culture and causality.’

Taking the baton, John Cromby emphasised how culture shapes experience by supplying knowledge, categories, rules, values, norms, ethics, practices and meanings. Consider the work of Sing Lee showing how cases of self-starvation in Hong Kong and China – which used to be characterised more by a lack of appetite than a desire to be thin – have increasingly come to resemble Western anorexia.

Concluding with how their book has been received, Paula Reavey said that she felt ‘some people can reach a certain point and then not fully take it on board.’ What is it the authors are looking for? ‘For students to take some kind of empathy about what it’s like to be distressed; to think closely about evidence and causality; to take a consistently psychological approach.’ JS

537

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 538

annual conference

Reproducing an impact One evening in the hotel bar at this conference, the conversation turned to that perennial bit of soul-searching psychologists seem so fond of: ‘What has psychology actually done?’ Is our subject punching well below its weight in terms of demonstrable, useful contributions to the world? Fresh from watching her impressive presentation, my first witness for the defence in the face of this accusatory onslaught was Professor Susan Golombok (Director, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge).

Golombok, whose new book is titled Modern Families: Parents and Children in New Family Forms, has made a real, tangible difference in our understanding and acceptance of families that did not exist or were hidden from society until the latter part of 20th century. It is now possible for children to have five parents: sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate mother, and two social parents (mum and dad, or mum and mum, or dad and dad). Back in 1978, the first children born through donor insemination were met with headlines such as ‘Ban these babies!’

(London Evening News). British politician Rhodes Boyson urged: ‘This evil must stop for the sake of the potential children and society, which both have enough problems without the extension of this horrific practice.’

Against this backdrop of moral outrage, Professor Golombok set out to add a dash of objectivity to the debate. What are these modern families really like? Does the parenting differ? What are the psychological consequences?

Golombok recognised the opportunity for natural experiments on different patterns of family structures.

She focused on assistedreproduction families, and families with two same-sex parents. In a UK longitudinal study of families with children born through surrogacy, donor insemination, egg donation or natural conception, Golombok assessed parenting and child development at one, two, three, seven, 10 and 14 years of age.

At age one, parents of children born

through the assisted techniques showed greater psychological wellbeing and adaptation to parenthood than did the natural-conception parents. There was greater emotional involvement with the child, arguably over-involvement. At age one, 56 per cent of egg donation and 46

Presidential Address – supporting our diverse membership

538

The Address also highlighted some of the achievements for the Society and for the discipline in the dissemination of psychology. To name just a few: the high uptake of psychology at undergraduate level, career development support through the Psychology Postgraduates Affairs Group, large-scale delivery of psychology education through means such as MOOCs, TEDx talks, and iTunes U courses, public engagement events, PsychSource, and the new BPS Impact Portal.

One area where room for improvement was seen was the Society’s support for diversity. Miell was only the 15th female President out of 80, though 10 of these have been in the last 15 years. More widely, women now make up around 60 per cent of academic staff in psychology, yet around 70 per cent of senior roles are held by men. The BPS now places greater emphasis upon supporting diversity when accrediting undergraduate degrees, but Miell hinted that perhaps more could be done in the way of mentoring or fellowship schemes. AJ TONY DALE

In this year’s Presidential Address, Professor Dorothy Miell celebrated the 50-year anniversary of the Society being awarded its Royal Charter. The Charter was important in defining how the Society would support the discipline and its members – setting out the rules, the grades of membership and how the BPS would be governed.

It marked the growth of the BPS since the first meeting in 1901 of 10 founding members. Miell reflected upon one of the founding aims – to further cooperation amongst different areas of psychology, something which the Society continues to strive for.

This linked with a recurrent theme across the conference – the review of the member networks structure. The number of Sections has proliferated since they were first introduced by Charles Myers in the early part of the 20th century, and the member network structure now serves over 50,000 members. The current structure of Divisions, Sections, Branches and Special Groups appears to some to be overly complex and not best suited to that original aim of promoting cooperation across fields. Details of the review can be found at www.bps.org.uk/membernetworkreview.

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 539

annual conference

per cent of donor insemination parents planned to disclose the genetic/gestational origins to their child, but by age of 10 only 47 and 29 per cent respectively actually had.

Golombok suggests that parents should disclose origins to their children early. Importantly, she’s arguing from an evidence-base: in her research, those told when young do not appear to be distressed. At age seven, non-disclosing mothers showed higher levels of emotional distress than disclosing mothers, and also less positive mother–child interaction.

What will happen when families with donor-conceived offspring search for their donor relations? This becomes an issue in the UK in 2023, when children born to sperm donors who turn 18 will have the right to find out about their biological parent. It’s already possible in the US, since donors have a unique ID number. The Donor Sibling Registry has 46,000 members, and children searching it tend to find around five half

siblings. However, many find more than 10 and there are some ‘sibling constellations’ of way more than 100. Golombok said that most searching the registry were more interested in forming a relationship with donor siblings than with the donor. ‘What really surprised me was just how strongly I felt towards them. It changed my concept of “family”,’ said one. Golombok pointed out that family relationships based on genetic connections between children are being formed across multiple family units.

Switching back to her early work, Golombok recounted how children were taken away from married lesbian women in the 1970s due to fears of teasing, or atypical gender development. Her systematic studies of post-divorce lesbian mothers found no differences in quality of parenting. Children of lesbian mothers did not differ from children of heterosexual mothers in either psychological problems or problems with peers. Boys were no less masculine, girls no less feminine. But, said the critics, only school-aged children were studied: did problems develop later? No: Golombok’s work with Fiona Tasker in

1997 found no difference in the quality of the relationship with mother or father in adulthood, and no difference in psychological wellbeing in adulthood.

They were more likely to have experimented with same-sex relationships in adolescence, but as adults, most identified as heterosexual.

Golombok’s research has clearly played a role in countering false beliefs, in tackling public attitudes that may have been based on prejudice and assumption. There’s still work to do though: low-level stigmatisation still exists, such as the use of the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative term in schools.

Concluding, Golombok reminded the audience that family structure matters less for children than the quality of family relationships. Children are most likely to flourish in warm, supportive, stable families, whatever their structure, and are likely to experience problems in the opposite families, whatever their structure.

It feels like it shouldn’t need saying, but it did and still does. Psychology said it, and of that we can all be proud. JS

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DEBT – AVOIDING THE UNAVOIDABLE Around 8.8 million people in the UK are currently in serious debt (which is 20 per cent of the adult population). Debt despair can lead to serious mental health problems and is an independent predictor of suicide, but people who are in debt frequently ignore the early warning signs with potentially serious consequences. The scale of the problem is well illustrated by statistics published by the Money Advice Service in 2013 indicating that only 17 per cent of people who are seriously in debt are seeking help. Ben Harkin from the University of Sheffield emphasised the role that psychology can play in identifying the factors that influence indebtedness, with strong potential to encourage people to tackle their problems early on.

Dr Harkin explained that many psychological factors have

been examined as predictors of debt problems, but few firm conclusions have been reached and no clear conceptual model has emerged. He argued that it is crucial to develop valid measures to distinguish debtors from non-debtors and provided

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

an overview of several studies with this aim. One study utilised discriminant function analysis to identify the psychological factors that predict receipt (vs. nonreceipt) of a Warning of Court Action, using a range of established and novel measures.

The findings indicated that avoidance is a key issue, with people in serious debt commonly engaging in magical thinking, e.g. ‘If I don’t think about the debt-related problem, then it does not exist’. In other words, my debt is not a problem but thinking about it is!

The findings of a further study that utilised a novel word association task also revealed that debtors tended to associate financial cues (such as debt, saving, spending, banks and credit cards) with negative associations and outcomes.

In contrast, non-debtors made significantly more positive associations with these financial cues. Dr Harkin discussed how this research can inform interventions that can be used in debt-help agencies, such as the Citizens Advice Debt Unit and Credit Unions, to help people tackle debt at an early stage. GK

539

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 540

annual conference

Happiness in Bolton Is it easier to be happy in Bolton or Blackpool? A 1938 survey in the former set out to find out about its residents’ perceptions of happiness. More than 75 years later, in 2014, Sandie McHugh (University of Bolton) and her colleagues gave people in the town a similar questionnaire to see if their thoughts on happiness had shifted over the decades.

The original survey was one of the first social studies into happiness; it was distributed to readers of the Bolton Evening News and asked Bolton people to rank 10 factors, including items such as ‘more pleasure’, ‘more beauty’ and ‘more religion’, in order of which were most important to happiness. It also asked people if they felt luck had anything to do with happiness, whether they were happier at the weekends or during weekdays and whether it was easier to be happy in Bolton or Blackpool.

McHugh and her colleagues teamed up with the same newspaper, now the Bolton News, last year to re-run the survey.

Almost 490 people responded to the questions, which had been modified slightly to be better understood by a modern audience – for example in the

ranking task, the item ‘more authority’ was changed to ‘more leadership’.

In comparison to the 1938 survey results the 2014 respondents placed good humour and leisure in the top three most important factors for happiness where in the 1930s leisure was ranked eighth and humour fourth. The most notable shift was the importance of religion, placed third in 1938 and 10th in the modern day.

McHugh explained that the face of Bolton had changed immeasurably since the thirties, with greater levels of unemployment than 2014 and a much more unstable political climate. However Bolton in the thirties had many more forms of entertainment nearby with 300 pubs, 47 cinemas and 200 churches compared with 113 pubs, two cinemas and 81 places of worship today. This may go some way to explaining responses to the 1938 question ‘Are you happiest in Blackpool or Bolton?’ where 75 per cent answered Bolton. A similar question in 2014 asked people if they were happier on holiday from Bolton or in Bolton, and only 39 per cent answered ‘in Bolton’.

One opinion which remained unchanged, however, centred around wealth. The 2014 respondents were asked

That’s entertainment at Bolton Lads and Girls Club

whether they felt wealth was related to happiness and 77 per cent said they did not. Bolton residents in the 1930s similarly did not see material wealth as being linked to being happy – despite being poorer than the current day residents.

Concluding her talk, McHugh looked at the definitions of happiness given by both groups: many people from both years described it as a state of mind. Frank, one of the 1930s participants, described it as: ‘a satisfied and contented state of mind, usually personified in a smiling disposition and a cheery voice,’ which seems a timeless conclusion. ER

Laughter – the shortest distance between us Professor Sophie Scott (University College London) is becoming the Queen of Laughter, which is not a bad title to have. Not only is she doing a great job of redressing the negative balance in psychological research into emotions – lots of papers on fear, not so much on laughter – she’s funny to boot.

Scott is convinced you can have a meaningful science of laughter. Her interest began while working with Andy Calder and Andy Young in the Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge.

Working with faces, she realised the basic emotions they were working with were extraordinarily negative. She contacted the godfather of basic emotion research, Paul Ekman, who replied that there would be more positive expressions – triumph, amusement, relief, contentment, physical pleasure. He suggested that those candidate basic positive emotions might all share a smile (in static photos) but could be distinguished with other cues, such as body posture and voice.

Videos from Scott’s research with the Himba tribe in Namibia (done by Disa Sauter and Frank Eisner) showed that laughter was recognised cross-culturally, as were vocal expressions of fear, sadness, anger, surprise and disgust (which Ekman’s work had shown to be universally recognised from the face). None of the other positive vocal emotions were cross-culturally recognised, in our study. Whereas British people quite often produce a cheering or ‘woo hoo!’ sound for triumph, the Himba sound

540

was something else altogether.

Scott also demonstrated how laughter is only made possible by breath control, in turn reliant on the amazing neural control that humans have over their rib cage (as much as you have over fingers). Involuntary laughter will stop you speaking, breathing… ‘It is trying to kill you,’ Scott warned.

Laughter is also very social: an ‘invitation to playfulness’ in the words of Jaak Panksepp. Robert Provine has shown that people laugh most in conversation, and with people they know.

Scott showed that there is much less activation of the brain’s ‘mirror systems’ in response to disgust than with laughter or triumph.

Scott’s talk was packed with interesting facts about laughter.

People without exception underestimate how much they laugh.

The ability to tell the difference between real and faked laughs improves with age, peaking in late 30s. But laughter is less contagious as we age.

Concluding with a wince-inducing home video, Scott showed how laughter quickly changes an embarrassing, painful situation into something that is the ‘shortest distance between us’. Scott is turning laughter into the shortest distance between psychologists and a very large audience: read more in our April 2013 issue, along with an audio interview (tinyurl.com/p8vqp9z), and watch her hugely popular TED video at tinyurl.com/nd5stmm. JS

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 541

annual conference

Is text messaging better than church bells?

The methods used to alert members of the public in the UK to civil emergencies vary by location. Systems currently used include door knocking, landline phone calls, PA systems, loudhailers and even church bells. The ability to provide warnings at the earliest opportunity can enable people to take positive action to reduce the human impact of emergency public health threats. It is particularly important to get alert messages out to members of the public who are ‘on the move.’ Ninety-two per cent of the UK population possess mobile phones, so there is strong potential for issuing speedy, precisely targeted alerts by text about large-scale emergencies such as floods, terrorism and the deliberate release of hazardous materials.

Nonetheless, getting it right is not an easy task. Messages need to be intrusive, inclusive, brief, unambiguous and action focused – often when little is known about the severity of the situation.

Emma Jones from Public Health England (tinyurl.com/op2x9wx) presented the findings of trials conducted in three UK locations by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, with support from mobile phone companies. The trials explored the views of members of the public towards text message alerts and the likely behaviour responses. The trials were conducted in Glasgow (representing an urban environment with high population density and good phone coverage) and Suffolk (representing a rural area with patchy phone coverage).

The third trial was conducted at the Emergency Planning College, in order to test both SMS and cell broadcast technologies.

Members of the public were initially informed about the trials through a public information campaign, letting them know that they would receive test messages.

Evaluation of the public response was conducted via a series of focus groups, an online survey and a short telephone survey. Feedback from people involved in the trial indicated that more than one in seven read the messages as soon as they received them, despite the fact that more than half (58 per cent) thought the messages were spam. Overall, however, public acceptance of the proposed text message alerting system was high.

Findings from the focus groups

What’s the best system to alert members of the public to civil emergencies?

identified six themes: intentions to comply (i.e. to follow or ignore advice); trust (was the messenger trustworthy?); perceptions and expectations (expectations of the behaviour of others); communication and information needs (additional sources of information); practicalities (what if people had their

phone switched off?) and criticisms of and compliments for the method, which have provided information that can be used to increase compliance with health advice. Dr Jones particularly emphasised the importance of increasing public trust in the messages and making them explicitly action-focused. GK

HUMANITARIAN AID Aid workers can play a vital role in supporting people affected by crises, yet can often be in bad shape themselves and go into likely traumatic situations. As part of the Crisis, Disaster and Trauma Psychology Section’s symposium, Mark Snelling from InterHealth Worldwide provided a look at the charity’s work in supporting humanitarian workers.

Snelling reflected that the recent Ebola crisis seemed to be particularly difficult for volunteers to deal with, and outlined the integrated care perspective which InterHealth took in providing them with psychosocial support.

A crucial aspect of their support process was a

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

resilience risk assessment before the work began, completed by the humanitarian workers themselves as a reflexive tool.

This informed discussion between the worker and InterHealth, to identify if they were in sufficiently good shape to attend the crisis and what level of support might be needed. During their work they could receive ‘psychological first aid’, for example through Skype sessions, and upon return were offered a confidential review meeting.

An evaluation of the

approach is still to come, but feedback indicated that the psychological support before, during and after was valued by this uniquely vulnerable population. AJ

541

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 542

annual conference

Applying social psychology to contemporary society This symposium, convened by Dr Abigail Locke of the University of Huddersfield, included four engaging papers that discussed the application of social psychology to a wide range of issues in contemporary society.

The first paper, presented by Dr Carrie Childs of the University of Derby, used conversation analysis to examine how police officers disclose personal information to build rapport and trust during interviews with children who have reported alleged sexual abuse. Data obtained from anonymised recordings of 29 police witness interviews provided examples of the ways that such disclosures are used to help children clarify information that was initially misunderstood by the interviewer, as well as providing them with a safe space to disclose painful or embarrassing information. The importance of police disclosing personal information that is appropriate to the context, such as saying they feel nervous during the rapport-building phase of the interview, was also emphasised. Dr Childs explained that conversation analysis has strong potential to inform police training in interviewing vulnerable witnesses, as it can identify where interactions go wrong and how to put them right.

Donna Peach of the University of Salford used pluralistic qualitative methodology to explore the personal experiences faced by people who are considering adopting a child. The number of children who are not adopted has recently quadrupled, so insight into the factors that encourage people to follow through with the adoption process is crucial. Analysis of

interviews with 21 potential adopters yielded several themes that reflect the complex and dichotomous existence of prospective adopters and revealed the cultural myths that prevent people from opting in. Examples include wishing to be a parent while not wanting to adopt a particular type of child (e.g. an older child or one with disabilities) and believing that an adult life without children is unfulfilled despite the existence of powerful role models to the contrary. Some women did not have fertility problems, but wanted to adopt as they did not wish to be pregnant or to give birth themselves. Peach explained that she was initially concerned about gaining access to enough participants, but the response to her request via Twitter was overwhelming. Clearly, prospective adopters want their stories to be heard.

Dr Jane Montague of the University of Derby focused on the ways in which breast cancer surgery is constructed in the UK media. Recent statistics indicate that less than 20 per cent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer opt for reconstruction. The popular media convey powerful messages about the experiences of women with breast cancer and the barriers against and benefits of reconstruction. An ethnomethodological approach was used to analyse 73 articles published in the UK popular press during Breast Cancer Awareness Month (in 2013) that focused on women’s mastectomy, reconstruction and non-reconstruction decisions and experiences. Findings suggest that articles are typically

Thinking in public This is the first time the Society’s Public Engagement Award has been given to a blog, and despite Dr Tom Stafford (pictured, on the right) and Dr Vaughan Bell’s (left) modest reflections that this is the ‘Award for People with Short Attention Spans who like Writing Things on the Internet’, the unanimous feeling around the conference was that the recognition was richly deserved.

Tom began with how the pair came to write together.

I was touched to get a nod – Tom started writing about research in our pages – particularly as I like to think The Psychologist/Research Digest and Mind Hacks have gone on to enjoy a Messi/ Ronaldo-type relationship, pushing each other to ever-

542

greater heights. Maybe that’s just in my head, but at the very least two contributors to the original Mind Hacks book and to the blog in its early days – Dr Christian Jarrett and Dr Alex Fradera – have gone on to success with our Research Digest blog.

It was interesting to hear how that book and the blog were born out of tech culture: hackers like to take things apart, understand a system, use that understanding to do ingenious things. And it is a sharing culture – you find something out, you share it.

‘The internet was exciting then, not the bane of our lives or a distraction,’ Tom said. ‘“Thinking in public” interested me.’

The original focus was things you could try in the

comfort of your own house, to understand and repurpose.

‘Everything that we say about psychology should be able to be turned into a demo,’ Tom said. ‘That’s the great gift of psychology to us as communicators.’ And what communicators they are,

embellishing a simple demonstration of the brain’s blind spot with a description of the eye as ‘a bit of your brain which protrudes so people can see it – a machine, made of meat, that runs on blood.’

A decade on, and

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 543

annual conference

SUBJECTS TO PARTICIPANTS

constructed around three main themes: who she is, what she did and why she did it. Autobiographical details such as age, occupation and parental status (e.g. young mother of three small children are usually provided in the first sentence); the emotions surrounding the diagnosis and the decisions that have been, or are yet to be, made (e.g. horror, terror, devastation and being overjoyed when surgery is successful); and the protagonist’s personal approach to dealing with her situation (i.e. accepting or delaying further surgery). Whether they had decided to have breast reconstruction or not, the women in the articles were constructed as positive fighters who battled through and refused to be broken by their disease.

The final paper, by Abigail Locke of the University of Huddersfield, drew on data from a series of unstructured interviews with stay-at-home fathers to explore how they define their primary caregiving role. Estimates of the number of stay-athome dads in the UK vary, but some sources estimate as many as one-in-seven. The majority of participants were ‘full-time’ stay-athome fathers, whereas others were engaged in part-time paid work. Fathers tended to define themselves gender-neutrally as ‘parents’ and their nurturing role as ‘parenting’ rather than ‘fathering’. Fatherhood tended to be seen as a biological act which was separate from their nurturing fathering role. The personal gains experienced by fathers in ‘being there’ for their children and providing them with care and time were strongly emphasised. GK

In the second year of its relaunch by the Ethics Committee, the Award for Promoting Equality of Opportunity was conferred upon Til Wykes (King’s College London and NIHR) for her achievements in participatory research with mental health service users. Wykes reflected that progress in participatory research has been made really just over the last decade. It was only in 2002 that she co-authored the first paper on this topic, in the British Journal of Psychiatry. You may find a lot of hits if you search the literature for participatory research, but there’s still very little being conducted within mental health.

Participatory research with service users is more than just asking for users’ opinions on research. Doing it well requires building structures to enable involvement at every step, such as electronic patient information systems that allow for two-way communication.

Everyone involved needs to have the right information about how the participatory research process works – the research process is no longer under the researchers’ sole ownership. Wykes gave examples of involving service users at every step; from finding out what users’ priorities are for what research to conduct, involving users in the design and methods, to choosing outcome measures that are clinically valid from the perspective of users.

Has work in this field had tangible impact upon research? Wykes presented findings from a review published in 2013 of clinical research trials on the MHRN database, which covered 374 studies since 2004. Service-user involvement had increased over time, and was associated with markers of study success (recruiting to time and to targets). Wykes emphasised that gaining and working to keep the trust of service users is crucial for participatory research to be effective. Researchers should also trust that the process can lead to more successful research. AJ

TONY DALE

mindhacks.com has had its 5000th post. ‘It’s been amazing fun,’ admitted Tom: ‘taking this specialist interest and trying to reveal the magician’s tricks of the discipline.’ Both are keen to remind the audience that in 2002 there were no psychology blogs:

now there are a host of them. ‘To see that grow up, to be part of a collection of people,’ is an obvious source of pride for Tom. Talking the audience through some of the ‘greatest hits’, Vaughan demonstrated the different roles of a blog. For example, the history of ‘New Southgate’ as an area in London was almost investigative reporting, a fascinating look at how mental illness and stigma has changed the geography of London. Some posts might be serving a simpler role of curation: ‘I’ve seen this, you might like it’ (memorably so in the case of a ‘telenovela’ called La Mujer Perfecta, featuring a character with autism, which

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Vaughan said sounded like it would be horrendous but ended up being lauded by Latin American autism advocacy groups). ‘Finding a good curator on the internet is a wonderful thing,’ Vaughan said, and his many Twitter followers would no doubt agree.

As the illuminating and amusing anecdotes come thick and fast (Professor Peter Redgrave and the ferret racing springs to mind), Vaughan and Tom both make important points about the use of blogging as a platform for ‘thinking in public’. Blogging allows different voices and levels of nuance not commonly found in most media reporting: it’s a valuable conversation we can be part of.

Vaughan admitted that a

lot of people, including former employers, have questioned the value of his efforts. But I think this may be changing rapidly, as there is increasing emphasis in the REF on the fairly nebulous concept of impact, and as writing on personal blogs now tends to lead to opportunities in more mainstream media. As Vaughan pointed out, it’s also the case that debate and theoretical advances in psychology and science in general are increasingly happening online.

The pair ended with an empowering take home message: ‘Each one of you has probably got those 5000 posts inside you. Make use of the resources on the internet, but put your own thoughts online too.’ JS

543

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 544

annual conference

Citizens at war: air raids, terrorism and Professor Edgar Jones (Kings College London), a historian of psychology and psychiatry, opened this fascinating talk with an iconic wartime picture of St Paul’s Cathedral standing unharmed amidst the burning City of London. Yet the photograph is actually a composite of three images. Jones asked to what extent our knowledge about citizen responses to air raids in WWII is a myth, and what the reality tells us about mental health.

Studying civilians during wartime is particularly interesting as it can give us an idea of how normal people deal with stress and trauma. Before the war there was a general opinion, influenced by Wilfred Trotter, a professor of surgery, that significant threats to life or independence made people pull together but only in groups that were closely bonded and disciplined. There was a view that more diverse or disparate groups would react with panic in such situations, and would require the military or the emergency services to manage them.

Psychiatrists fed into this view at the outbreak of World War II, suggesting a network of special psychiatric hospitals be set up on the outskirts of highly populated areas to cope with the predicted influx of psychiatric patients.

Yet historians cannot agree what actually happened among civilians in the face of air raids during the war.

Some say morale was sustained and people got on with their lives as best they could, whereas another group argue there was large-scale fear, break-downs and mass panic. Jones said that because the Second World War continued for so long it is always possible to find examples of each of these reactions.

The Ramsgate railway tunnels are one example of people, seemingly, being unable to cope. Thousands of people lived in squalid conditions inside the tunnels to escape extensive bombing in the area and many refused to leave.

The authorities were concerned this was lowering morale and so brought in troops to clear people out. Great resilience in the face of disaster was also seen, such as in Bank Underground Station where a bomb on the main concourse sent a devastating blast straight down the escalators.

However a Hungarian doctor, Z.A. Leitner, who happened to be in the station, went along the platform treating 40 passengers. He said he did not find a single hysterical or shouting patient.

The idea of Blitz Spirit, Jones said,

was perpetuated by the 1940 film London Can Take It!, which presents British civilians as a hardy bunch and an army in their own right, protecting the city and battling through the air raids.

This was largely used to convince the Americans of our national resilience.

However scientist and anthropologist Tom Harrison criticised this and argued that, if people looked under the surface, there were numerous cases of people suffering breakdowns and exhibiting psychosomatic disorders.

However, Jones said, researchers J.D. Bernal and Solly Zuckerman looked into the impact of air raids on morale in

Better living through fashion ‘Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.’ Coco Chanel

What does psychology have to contribute to the fashion industry? At the start of her thought-provoking workshop in Liverpool, Dr Carolyn Mair (Reader in Psychology at the London College of Fashion) drew upon the famous Chanel quote to highlight the pervasive nature of fashion in our everyday lives. Employing around one million people in the UK and with a turnover of more than £25 billion a year, the fashion industry can dictate not only the clothes that we wear, but also the way in which we perceive ourselves and others. A clear example of this comes from the images of models that are used in advertising, and the messages that are used to sell clothes and beauty products.

However, despite this potentially powerful

544

influence, the field of fashion psychology is relatively new.

Dr Mair was clear to focus on the many positive aspects of the fashion industry during the workshop. Creativity and innovation drive the industry forward and engage many people in fulfilling and absorbing careers. However, Dr Mair argues that there are numerous aspects of the fashion industry that have a negative impact on people’s lives, and this is where psychology has an important role to play.

Three of the issues described at the workshop were around the human cost of cheap fashion, body-image representation, and anti-ageing products.

Clothing is cheaper and more readily available than ever before, with high street clothing shops seeming to cater for our need for reward. Delegates discussed the short-term buzz they gained from purchasing a new item to wear (perhaps for a party, night out, or even a conference). But do we consider the

human impact of the availability of such ‘disposable’ clothing? In April 2013 Rana Plaza, a factory in Bangladesh producing garments for shops such a Primark and Matalan, collapsed killing 1134 people.

Inadequate safety standards were blamed, after warnings to evacuate the building when cracks appeared were ignored.

Despite widespread shock and condemnation of working conditions, it appears that little has changed to improve the lives of workers [tinyurl.com/pfpqfzz].

During the workshop, delegates and facilitators discussed whether attempting to connect consumers with the people who manufacture our cheap clothing would alter our desire for new products.

If this changed perceptions and purchasing habits, then what impact might this have on the workers who depend on our desire?

Another key issue raised in the workshop concerned the impact of imagery and advertising on consumers.

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 545

annual conference

the crowd Birmingham, which was economically thriving, compared to Hull, which was economically suffering. In Hull they found 53 per cent of the 700-strong sample suffered no symptoms with 20 per cent of men and 53 per cent of women showing a slight to moderate neuroses.

They concluded morale was higher than anticipated and found little evidence of panic in Birmingham.

Jones also pointed out that while the air raids killed almost 30,000 people in London this equates to only 0.3 per cent of the population. Across other heavily bombed cities the number of people killed did not exceed 0.6 per cent of the population (Coventry). In Coventry there were reports of panic on one particularly heavy night of bombing, but the chances of being killed in an air raid were mathematically slim. But the allies learned from this evidence and delivered attacks of great intensity. In Hamburg air raids killed almost 6 per cent of the city’s population.

Could the British culture of stoicism mean that people were just keeping their distress to themselves? Jones pointed out that the middle-aged and older population during WWII would have lived through the First World War and may have been

setting an example for the rest of the population, demonstrating the stiff upper lip shown throughout the earlier war.

However this restrained response to psychological trauma could convert into physical symptoms – indeed, there was a rise in psychosomatic illness, particularly peptic ulcers.

Jones concluded that there was no real evidence for a total collapse in morale during World War II, though there was a rise in incidence of psychosomatic illness, particularly among people who were exposed to the greatest risk such as those in the emergency services. So, how did people cope? Jones said people coped largely by engaging with the defence of the country. There were volunteering opportunities within the fire service, police and Home Guard which may well have offered people a sense of control which would be psychologically useful.

What relevance may all this hold for the people of today? Jones said that these days we are encouraged to be emotionally intelligent rather than stoical, and in the 1940s there was a greater emphasis on social support even in cities and urban environments. We can see the differences in responses from the government too: Jones used the example of the ‘Go in, stay

in tune in’ leaflet which was distributed by the Home Office in 2004 which gives people advice in the case of any kind of disaster. It encourages people to stay at home whereas in World War II civilians were encouraged to carry on as normal.

Jones then went on to give conflicting examples of civilian resilience in modern times. Using the example of the five Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, Jones pointed out that the ratio of people who sought care after the incident compared to those who actually needed it was 450 to 1, suggesting a level of panic. Also during the 1991 Gulf War eight people died as a result of missiles from Iraq, but of those six occurred due to misuse of gas masks causing them to suffocate (the victims even included the medically trained).

However, in contrast, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks civilians left the buildings in an orderly way and showed altruistic behaviour throughout. Could this be because an earlier terrorist attack on the towers had resulted in enhanced security and evacuation procedures?

Jones concluded by saying that we know very little about the longer-term effects the extensive air raids in WWII actually had on civilians – how did people manage when peace returned? ER

Dr Mair demonstrated the adopted by the eurocentric bias in the industry. modelling industry with Why do we prize reference to the famous the appearance of fashion magazine Vogue. youth so much, such In 123 years of that the ‘anti-ageing publication, just 14 (<1 industry’ is worth per cent) cover photos billions of pounds per depicted models from year? In stark black or minority ethnic contemplation, it may groups. Furthermore, the seem slightly bizarre almost ubiquitous use of to think that we can tall, thin, and able-bodied halt the natural Coco Chanel in 1920 models means that for physical changes that most of us, our body shape accompany the ageing and size is unrepresented in the mass process. However, many women (in media. Research has shown that this fuels particular, although men are not immune) body dissatisfaction in women, and this seek to ‘hide’ grey hairs, or ‘reduce’ can contribute to mental and physical wrinkles, sometimes beginning this health issues (Grabe, Ward & Hyde, inexorable relationship during their 2008). Delegates agreed that a wider twenties. Dr Mair’s research has explored representation of body shape, size, race this phenomenon, and she seeks to and ability would be a positive move, but challenge the industry norm that ageing were unsure of whether this would be should be concealed. During the

workshop, delegates considered whether Western cultures could learn to celebrate the signs of ageing, rather than stigmatise them.

I attended this workshop alongside some of my undergraduate students, and we came away with our interest piqued in an area where we had scarcely considered the application of psychology before. Dr Mair now aims to build a network of psychologists who might be interested in working on addressing the issues raised in the workshop. Her goal is to draw up an action plan for using psychology to enhance wellbeing through the vehicle of fashion. ED

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

I For more on Dr Mair’s work, see The Psychologist archive (tinyurl.com/q3h5cfx) Reference Grabe, S., Ward, L. M. & Hyde, J. S. (2008). The role of the media in body image concerns among women: A meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies. Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), 460.

545

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 546

annual conference

A discourse around death

546

focuses on people living with heart failure, a life-limiting condition, and she spoke about the depression commonly experienced by people at the end of their lives. She said that depression was the strongest predictor of short-term decline of people with life-limiting conditions.

Dr Stocker also outlined the importance of support for carers, describing them as an ‘often-neglected group’. She said that there is a particular burden on carers due to the change in the emotional context of their relationship

TONY DALE

On the second day of the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference an eminent panel held a moving and enlightening discussion around death, dying, end of life and palliative care. The speakers discussed patient needs at the end of life, the psychological problems that can arise at this time, making decisions about care before the end of life and the role for psychologists in palliative care.

Professor Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, consultant in palliative medicine and independent crossbench peer in the House of Lords, gave an impassioned talk about what was important to patients at the end of their lives. She talked through some of the most common fears raised by patients from the Choice in End of Life Care Programme Board review, commissioned to provide the government with information on improving palliative care.

One of these was a desire to have involvement and control over decisions made about their care. Finlay pointed out that patients often say they want clear, truthful messages from doctors and clinical teams. She said many patients fear medical staff will give up on them too soon. ‘People want access to the right services when they need them… a disease does not respect the clock or calendar, and it is unacceptable to wait even an hour for pain relief,’ she said.

Finlay also pointed out that patients needed support with their physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs. She said that in communicating with patients it was vitally important for clinicians to go beyond listening with their ears, to ‘use your eyes to pick up on non-verbal cues, listen with undivided attention and listen with your heart. Patients pick up that you are listening with your heart.’

Baroness Finlay moved on to criticise the Assisted Dying Bill, saying it was a euphemism for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. She said that pro-assisted dying groups say that people die anyway once treatment is stopped. She said: ‘You stop an intervention because it’s not achieving its goal, sometimes you stop treatment and people get better. Most of the time we agonise over it, but they die when they were going to die. It’s different to giving someone drugs to bring about their death.’

Dr Rachel Stocker (Durham University), who wrote a Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) note on palliative and end-of-life care last year, was next to speak. Her research

with the patient, and Stocker emphasised the crucial importance of early diagnosis and treatment of depression for carers and patients alike.

Celia Kitzinger, Professor at the University of York and co-director of the Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre, gave a moving and personal talk about advance decisions – a written record of a person’s healthcare preferences that is written and signed before a person loses the capacity to make those decisions. Professor Kitzinger said that particularly in disorders of consciousness, which includes long-term coma after serious brain injuries, people are affected suddenly, and many young people are also affected probably before they have had chance to think about the end-of-life care they would want.

Kitzinger outlined several cases of people who remained in comas for many years, including Tony Bland, who was injured at the Hillsborough disaster and remained in a coma for three years. She said that as long as a person has mental capacity they are able to make their own treatment choices and refuse treatment if they wish. However, in the circumstance that mental capacity is lost an advance decision can be used to guide medical professionals. If no advance decision is in place, decisions will be made by a doctor

or clinical team, on the basis of a patient’s ‘perceived best interests’.

Kitzinger also outlined some issues with advance decisions and concerns over their use. Some people worry they will not be available when they are needed and whether they will be respected by doctors or simply ignored. She added that psychologists could play a role in helping people to explore treatment options when making advance decisions in the context of their own values and relationships. She said that her own mother had an advance decision in place and said it was wonderful for her family to know her preferences when the end of her life came about earlier this year.

Dr Elaine McWilliams, a consultant clinical psychologist and Chair of the BPS End-of-Life Care Working Party, said many of the patients she sees are having their first experience of depression, panic attacks, anxiety and fear at the end of their lives. She said if these things are not attended to in a timely fashion it can lead to more expensive care for patients as well as increasing distress in both patients and carers.

According to McWilliams, the role of psychologists in palliative care is often overlooked. Psychology is a broad area, and she asked whether psychologists in such circumstances are often invisible – patients do not realise they need a psychologist until they have had experience of one. She emphasised the importance of more research in this area: ‘I advocate that psychology is in everything to do with palliative and endof-life care. Psychologists can lead and inspire good psychological care, this is one of the roles of psychologists in the same way as those who research good medicine. We do not have to be the ones to deliver, but good psychological research informs good psychological care.’

McWilliams said a particular area of interest for research is something she calls the ‘uncertain reprieve’, when a person is receiving end-of-life care and unexpectedly improves and begins receiving palliative care again. She said this can pose serious psychological challenges both to patients and carers and can include post-traumatic stress–type symptoms. She said: ‘This is an informative and rich research area. What patients tell you is it’s like coming back from the dead, and they can tell you what it is really like to receive end-of-life care.’

Carers and relatives, she said, in these situations have often been feeling pre-

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 547

annual conference

Rosy outlook Ninety-five per cent of academics think they are in the top 5 per cent of performers in their field. They’re not the only ones with a rosy outlook – on nearly any measure, such as chances of divorce, or chances of having gifted kids – most people are ridiculously overly optimistic.

Tali Sharot of University College London, winner in the popular science category in the BPS Book Awards for The Optimism Bias – Why We’re Wired to Look on the Bright Side, told the conference about her attempts to understand how people sustain this optimism in the light of feedback from reality. She’s found that people make large adjustments to their beliefs in light of good news, but only minor adjustments in the wake of negative information.

This sounds unhelpful, but we might

have evolved this way so that we don’t get too stressed. And when danger looms, the bias changes. Make people stressed by giving them a surprise presentation, Sharot has shown, and now their update bias disappears and they take on negative information more readily.

Sharot has also studied how the update bias differs across the lifespan (it is weakest in mid-life when people are usually at their most stressed), and she’s uncovered the brain regions that are involved (the left inferior frontal gyrus is especially important).

This is an impressive body of research conducted at different levels from behavioural to neural, and, as Sharot explained, it also has real-life significance, such as helping to explain the role of overconfidence in market bubbles, and conversely, how and why people can overreact in times of apparent danger, such as in the wake of terror threats. CJ TONY DALE

bereavement and grief, and after an uncertain reprieve can experience a wide range of psychological symptoms themselves.

Finally, Simon Chapman, Director of Policy, Intelligence and Parliamentary Affairs, for the National Council for Palliative Care and the Dying Matters Coalition showed a campaign video from the coalition. He emphasised that people often shy away from speaking about death; despite meticulously planning every other large life event, many people do not have funeral plans or end-of-life treatment plans in place. He said death was the ‘last great taboo’ in our society.

This could be down to fear, Chapman said, a poll found that around 60 to 80 per cent of people have real fears around dying and death, whereas only 40 per cent have fears about money and other economic problems. He said that encouraging a discourse around death may help to remove some of this fear as well as ensuring our loved ones have the death they wanted. ER

Mind the gap The last time you saw someone running for a train, did they seem to be carefully deciding where to place their feet on the platform, how best to avoid suitcases, how not to run into the small child in the way? Or did it seem to be an instinctive process that didn’t actually look like decision making at all? If you had to compare that with the last series of decisions you made at work, which would seem easiest?

In the Outstanding Doctoral Research Award talk, Andreas Jarvstad (University of Bristol) decried the socalled ‘perception–cognition gap’ – the argument that people are really good at making sensory decisions such as where to place our feet but not so good at cognitive decisions. In one of the studies from his PhD at the University of Cardiff participants

completed a classic decisionmaking task involving choosing between a high amount of money that was less probable and a low amount that was more probable.

However, Jarvstad had the same participants also complete a mental-arithmetic

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

task and a perceptuo-motor task, where they had to point at targets. If the perceptioncognition gap was real then you would expect people to do well in both the pointing and arithmetic tasks, but not the decision-making task.

What he found was that

the gap could be made to appear or disappear depending upon how you analysed the performance data. Typically the cognitive task would be looked at in terms of efficiency – the proportion of money earned relative to a hypothetical optimal participant who always made the right choice. This sets high performance standards not usually set for the other types of tasks. An alternative approach is to look for deviations from what is rationally optimal to do for each task – comparing best-fit parameters for each task.

People actually over-weight low probabilities in each type of task, it is just that this question is only usually asked of cognitive decision-making tasks. Analysed in this way people do equally well, or badly, across perception and cognitive tasks. AJ

547

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 548

annual conference

Vicarious trauma Vicarious trauma occurs when people hear firsthand experiences of trauma and have similar symptoms to people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People working in crisis situations may have symptoms that are nearly identical to people who were exposed to the trauma firsthand.

Dr Pam Ramsden (University of Bradford) referred to research in the early 2000s that revealed that people who had watched more coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks had more substantial stress reactions than those who watched less. Another study found the hours of TV coverage of the attacks was a strong predictor of acute stress disorder, PTSD and PTSD symptoms.

In her own work Ramsden looked at

a non-clinical population of people who had no firsthand experience of trauma, but used a clinical measure for PTSD and a vicarious trauma measure in relation to the following events; 9/11, the murder of Lee Rigby, and Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

Scores on the vicarious trauma measure indicated that almost 20 per cent of participants were in distress. More than half of the participants said they still think about the Lee Rigby murder and disappearance of Madeleine McCann, 46

per cent still thought about 9/11. Ramsden said 22 per cent of the people she studied were significantly affected by media events and scored highly on measures of PTSD. The participants were also given a personality questionnaire, and Ramsden found the best predictor of vicarious trauma was extroversion. She concluded that although vicarious PTSD is not recognised in the general population it could play a role in mental health problems – people need to ‘connect the dots’. ER

Cleaning up with spillover The role of psychologists in encouraging people to consider climate change in their behaviour was the subject of a symposium on the first day of the conference, hosted by the British Psychological Society’s Behaviour Change Advisory Group.

Lorraine Whitmarsh (Cardiff University) said individuals had a big role to play in climate change, but so far policies have led to limited

success in leading people to change their carbon consumption habits. She said policies focusing on changing one behaviour at a time could be making problems worse – if a person is encouraged to better insulate their home, they may subsequently spend the money saved on energy on a long-haul flight to an exotic destination.

However, Whitmarsh added, if people change one environmental behaviour this

AVOIDING THE EFFECTS OF OSTRACISM Generally it is sensible to avoid things that cause us pain and threaten our survival. Experiential avoidance (EA) refers to such an adaptive response to unwanted psychological events, such as negative feelings or memories.

Daniel Waldeck (University of Chichester) explored the use of EA in response to perceived ostracism, noting that in the past being excluded from our social group was a serious threat to survival as it affected access to resources, shelter and protection. In a sample of over 200 people aged between 18 and 88 years, high levels of EA were associated with greater perceived ostracism but also with greater distress measured a week later. It appears that low use of EA may actually better support recovery from the effects of ostracism. AJ

548

may theoretically lead them to be more conscious about the environment in other behaviours, an effect known as behavioural spillover. But what conditions are needed for this to occur? It seems that people need to change internal attributions of such behaviour, and there’s also evidence that the first behaviour someone changes should be a harder-tochange one. Then the person may be more inclined to do easier things later down the line. Clusters of behaviour also emerge – for example, people who compost waste food seemed more likely to also recycle and reuse. Such patterns suggest that behavioural spillover is more likely to happen within groups rather than between them.

One study looked at the effects of the carrier bag charge introduced in Wales.

Whitmarsh said that six months after the charge was introduced there was a significant increase in the numbers of people taking their own bags to the shops.

However as the policy did not try to encourage people to

think about other green behaviours, there was not an increase in other types of environmentally friendly behaviour. The policy did lead to people seeing themselves as more waste-conscious though – Whitmarsh suggested that this shift in identity could mean more behaviours may begin to change over time.

Cathy Davidoff, a clinical psychologist and member of Change4Chalfont, then gave a firsthand account of how her village is trying to encourage a greener approach to life.

The group has been involved in a wide range of activities, including the planting of a community orchard and the use of thermal cameras to see actual heat loss from houses.

This resulted in a second event where these homeowners were told how to make their homes more energy efficient. Davidoff said it had been useful to ask people to make small commitments to the charity, for example attending the home energy efficiency event, as it made them more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviours later. ER

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p534_549 confs_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:47 Page 549

annual conference

I don’t want to spoil the party… …but ‘Everything you know about psychology is wrong’, according to the title of Dr Philip Banyard’s magical mystery tour through myths in psychology, education, and methods. Dr Banyard’s keynote in the student stream at the Annual Conference was an entertaining and thoughtprovoking call to action, which served to question our overreliance on the usual suspects in our teaching.

Portraying Milgram and Zimbardo as the ‘Two Ronnies’ of psychology, Banyard described how psychology students across the universe are inducted into our discipline via such studies, carefully crafting almost identical essays to all who have gone before them. Is it time for a revolution? Banyard (Nottingham Trent University) argues that there’s a place for

‘classics’, but we should question assumptions about their influence and status.

As teachers, we often feel as though we work eight days a week marking, preparing our lectures, or giving our students the help they need.

However, putting yourself through this misery may be of little benefit when it comes to getting better student feedback. A study conducted

by Dr Banyard and his colleagues suggests that it’s only love that matters.

Feedback does not appear to be related to the quality of the learning experience that you deliver, but to how your students feel about you.

Perhaps it is worth thinking of a few jokes, or handing out small amounts of money to get those ratings up!

Banyard also entertained us with evidence of brain

YOUR REPORTERS activity shown on an image taken from a dead salmon, to illustrate the foibles of scanning methods. He argued that, although these techniques are here, there and everywhere, we should be wary of being impressed by fancy equipment. Could brain scanning be the new phrenology?

Despite the title of the talk, Dr Banyard’s overarching message to students was not to run for your life, and pick another subject, but to be sceptical and think for yourself when you learn about something new. As educators, we may also need to get back to basics and the value of our current teaching in order to move on from what we did yesterday, ensuring that the real excitement and value of psychology can be conveyed to our students. ED

Dr Emma L. Davies – Oxford Brookes University Professor Gail Kinman – University of Bedfordshire Dr Alana James – Royal Holloway, University of London Dr Christian Jarrett – Research Digest Editor Ella Rhodes – Journalist Dr Jon Sutton – Managing Editor For additional reports, see thepsychologist.bps.org.uk.

For information on next year’s event, to be held in Nottingham next April, see www.bps.org.uk/ac2016 As this year’s event was in Liverpool, which remains Beatles crazy, Emma Davies took up our challenge of shoehorning Beatles lyrics/song titles into the report to the left.

How many can you spot? There’s a prize on offer… let us know on Twitter @psychmag.

Now for something completely different…

The morning after the gala dinner at my 16th Annual Conference, it’s fair to say I was in the mood for something different.

I certainly got it in this symposium, on sport and adventure activity to support military personnel and veterans recovering from trauma or injury.

The work described was interesting enough, beginning with Suzanne Peacock and David Carless from Leeds Beckett University describing their work with The Battle Back Centre for wounded, injured and sick service personnel. For many attending this residential course, the physical and psychological challenges on offer represented the first time they felt genuine support: ‘Once they get you home to safety, you are forgotten about’, one soldier commented. Those taking part had expected the course would be ‘just military’, with a non-negotiable, controlling environment; or ‘soft’, with lots of ‘group hugging’. What they in fact discovered was a place that opened doors to new possibilities for the future, for

people who had until then felt ‘just nowhere’.

But what really made this symposium stand out was the psychologists’ ‘longterm commitment to exploring data through a range of creative processes’.

There was a story of surfing and PTSD, performed by Nick Caddick (Loughborough University) based on his interviews with people taking part in Cornwall-based Surf Action. The aim was to ‘evoke the world intensely’, and it certainly did that. Then there was a play, with songs, performed by Carless along with Kitrina Douglas. I was gripped; Carless was overcome by emotion at the end. He was truly embodying the stories of his participants.

To me, this was a real eye-opener.

The speakers described informal moments with their participants, sitting quietly, sometimes with the tape recorder on, sometimes not… how do they then present that person’s story in a sensitive way? I’ll admit, I’ve sat through plenty of

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

conference presentations where all the researchers have done is slap those words on a PowerPoint slide, read it out, job done. This was something else entirely, showing theory and research findings in an evocative fashion. Importantly, it was a form of knowledge translation, creating a text that audiences outside academia can engage with.

It’s well worth seeking out some of their work and performances on YouTube.

Douglas is a former professional golfer, and a very talented musician to boot.

The piece on identity development and interpretive privilege is beautiful, as are ‘Across the Tamar’ and ‘Gwithian Sands’ which explore the lives, physical activity and experiences of women over 60 living in Cornwall. Or there’s a documentary with Carless on song-writing, sexuality, same-sex attraction and growing up in the hegemonically masculine world of sport.

In sum, this was a wake-up call for me, and I hope it can be for others as well. JS

549

ARTICLE

psy 07_15 p552_557 barker_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:50 Page 552

It’s not just cricket As the 2015 Ashes series comes to England, Jamie Barker and Matt Slater consider the psychology at play I think ability is a 10 to 20 per cent requirement, you need 80 to 90 per cent mental strength.

Glenn McGrath, former Australian cricketer

questions

Cricket is a sport that brings with it many psychological challenges and demands that players must deal with to be successful. As the 2015 Ashes series is almost with us, what are the main psychological factors that players are likely to encounter? And what psychological techniques are there available to sport and exercise psychologists to promote effective player thinking, behaviour, and performance?

As you tune into this summer’s Ashes series, perhaps this article will give you a greater consideration of the psychology behind one of sport’s greatest contests.

Cricket is a game that obviously requires talent, but when talent is equal, as it so often is, the formula for success comes from strength of mind.

Steve Waugh, former Australian captain

I

What are the main psychological factors cricketers are likely to face?

What are the most effective psychological techniques cricketers can draw upon?

resources

Bell., J.J., Hardy, L. & Beattie, S. (2013).

Enhancing mental toughness and performance under pressure in elite young cricketers. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 2(4), 281–297.

Cotterill, S.C. & Barker, J.B. (2013). The psychology of cricket: Developing mental toughness. London: Bennion Kearny.

references

How do sport and exercise psychologists determine the mental health of cricketers?

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.

Barker, J.B., Evans, A.E., Coffee, P. et al.

(2014). Consulting on tour: A dualphase personal-disclosure mutualsharing intervention and group functioning in elite youth cricket. The Sport Psychologist, 28, 186–197.

Barker, J.B. & Jones, M.V. (2006). Using hypnosis, technique refinement and

552

n July and August the England and Australian men’s cricket teams will go head to head in a five-match test series for the honour of winning the prestigious Ashes. It’s a long-standing and fierce rivalry (see box), and one that seems to grow in psychological significance with each meeting.

Cricket is a unique sport on many levels. On the one hand it is a team game played by 11 individuals who combine to form an effective fielding unit, where thinking and acting as one is the ultimate aim (similar to sports such as football, rugby, and basketball). On the other hand cricket is an individual sport with the batter playing, in some senses, for themselves and their own individual performance. At the same time, though, cricket is also a contest between two individuals where the batter and bowler spar and joust to try and get the upper hand in an attempt to land the knockout blow. Cricket also has many different formats and can be played over many days, over one day (40 or 50 overs), or

self-modeling to enhance selfefficacy: A case study in cricket. The Sport Psychologist, 20, 94–110.

Barker, J.B. & Jones, M.V. (2008). The effects of hypnosis on self-efficacy, affect, and sport performance: A case study from professional English soccer. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2, 127–147.

Barker, J.B., Jones, M.V. & Greenlees, I. (2010). Assessing the immediate and

over just a few hours (in the case of T20 cricket). The constraints of the game, including the long duration, breaks in play for drinks, lunch, tea, and of course weather, all create a series of obstacles that successful players need to respond effectively to.

In sum, arguably the biggest challenge to a cricketer is not the learning of the skills – most players have reasonable techniques. Instead, the biggest challenge is being able to deal with the many psychological factors that can affect thinking and, ultimately, performance during a game. So let’s explore what performance-related psychological factors will be at play for England and Australian players during the 2015 Ashes series.

Self-efficacy (confidence) When you have it (confidence) you feel like you’re never going to lose it, when you haven’t got it, you feel like you’re never going to get it.

Matthew Hayden, former Australian cricketer

Due to the many uncontrollable factors in cricket (e.g. playing conditions, umpiring decisions) and the fact that statistically cricketers fail more times than they succeed, the ability for cricketers to regulate and maintain self-efficacy is crucial for success (Bull et al., 2005).

When out in the middle, a batsman’s efficacy can change from situation to situation as they are faced with different bowlers, playing conditions and match situations. It is important players have an awareness of how self-efficacy is influenced, and their most important sources of self-efficacy information. They must develop strategies to regulate selfefficacy throughout a game, test series, and season.

Empirically, data indicate self-efficacy to be a strong and consistent predictor of individual athletic performance (e.g. Kane et al., 1996; Treasure et al., 1996). Selfefficacy levels are proposed to impact sport performance by determining levels

maintained effects of hypnosis on self-efficacy and soccer wall-volley performance. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 32, 243–252.

Beilock, S. (2011). Choke: What the secrets of the brain reveal about getting it right when you have to. New York: Free Press.

Bull, S., Shambrook, C., James, W. & Brooks, J. (2005). Towards an understanding of mental toughness

in elite English cricketers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 209–227.

Brearley, M. (2001). The art of captaincy.

London: Channel 4.

Clark, S.E. & Ste-Marie, D.M. (2007).

Investigating the impact of self-as-amodel interventions on children’s self-regulation of learning and swimming performance. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 577–596.

Cotterill, S.T. (2010). Pre-performance

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p552_557 barker_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:50 Page 553

cricket and the Ashes

of motivation that will be reflected in the challenges individuals undertake, the effort they expend, and their levels of perseverance (Bandura, 1997). Selfefficacy judgements have also been shown to influence certain thought patterns (e.g. goal intentions, worries, causal attributions) and emotional reactions (e.g. pride, shame, happiness, sadness) that influence motivation.

Typically, people exhibiting high self-efficacy work harder, persist in the task longer and achieve at a higher level over and above those who doubt their own capabilities.

Because self-efficacy is important for success, a variety of psychological strategies (i.e. modelling, feedback, imagery, self-talk and hypnosis) have been used by sport psychologists to engender athletes’ regulation of self-efficacy levels (Short & RossStewart, 2009). Typically, these strategies are suggested to be effective by influencing one or more sources of self-efficacy information (as outlined in Bandura’s taxonomy), which in turn influence expectations and then behaviour. To illustrate, observing competent models successfully perform actions, or the self-modelling of actions, influences self-efficacy by conveying information about the sequence of actions one should use to succeed (e.g. Bandura, 1997; Clark & Ste-Marie, 2007). Self-modelling in cricket may involve a player recording their own performance (either in practice or competition) as they successfully

routines in sport: Current understanding and future directions.

International Review of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 3, 132–153.

Cotterill, S.T. (2011). Experiences of developing pre-performance routines with elite cricket players. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 2, 81–91.

Cotterill, S.C. & Barker, J.B. (2013). The psychology of cricket: Developing mental toughness. London: Bennion

A special rivalry Competing for the Ashes urn dates back to August 1882 and England’s infamous defeat to Australia at The Oval. The Sporting Times ran a mock obituary outlining the ‘Death of English Cricket’, finishing with ‘The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia’. England set sail to Australia several weeks later, with captain Ivo Bligh given the responsibility of leading England. While he was playing at a social match at Rupertswood Estate, a group of ladies presented him with the four-inch urn, believed to have a burned bail inside, as a symbol of the Ashes of English cricket.

To this day The Ashes test series remains one of the most prestigious competitions in cricket. The ferocity and intensity of the rivalry is unique, with many cultural and sporting differences contributing. Although the game was invented in England, development of the Australian national cricket academy and the quality of the domestic league have been a breeding ground for elite talent. And while Australia is still part of the Commonwealth and the UK the mother country, any sporting contest is an opportunity to put one over on the ‘old enemy’ and provide further evidence for independence and autonomy.

This summer, the psychological readiness of the England team will arguably take on even more significance following the crushing 5–0 defeat they suffered in the last Ashes contest in Australia, a series that included challenges such as batsman Jonathan Trott returning home due to a ‘stress-related illness’, spin-bowler Graeme Swann retiring from cricket midway through the series, and Kevin Pietersen’s alleged constant disapproval of the team’s management and leadership style. In comparison, the Australian team are likely to approach the series with renewed confidence following their first Ashes victory since 2007. Extra poignancy will be added as the Australian team will be without their much respected batsman Philip Hughes, who tragically lost his life after being hit on the head during a domestic game in November 2014. A challenge for the Australian players will be regulating any thoughts, feelings, and emotions relating to his loss in order to perform effectively.

complete a series of cricket tasks or skills (e.g. playing a particular shot or taking a catch in the slips). The player subsequently views the recording as part of their preparation for games to boost their efficacy by providing key past experience and modelling experiences information (see Barker & Jones, 2006).

Before the Trent Bridge Test, he had

Kearny.

Escarti, A. & Guzman, J.F. (1999). Effects of feedback on self-efficacy, performance and choice in an athletic task. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 11, 83–96.

Frith, D. (2011, 15 November). Cricket has its dark secrets, its skeletons.

The Independent. Retrieved from www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket /david-frith-cricket-has-its-dark-

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

had 10 days without an innings in the middle, so he spent an hour watching his big score at Lord’s ‘to get the blood flowing, and rekindle good memories’. In the bus back from the ground to hotel at the close of play, the whole squad watched a video of personal highlights during the day’s play. Smith thinks this works well,

secrets-its-skeletons-6262322.html Hammond, D.C. (1990). Hypnotic suggestions and metaphors. New York: Norton.

Hanton, S. & Jones, G. (1999). The effects of a multimodal intervention program on performers: II. Training the butterflies to fly in formation. The Sport Psychologist, 13, 22–41.

Hartland, J. (1971). Medical and dental hypnosis and its clinical applications.

Eastbourne: Bailliere Tindall.

Hill, A.P., Hall, H.K., Appleton, P.R. & Kozub, S.R. (2008). Perfectionism and burnout in junior elite soccer players: The mediating influence of unconditional self-acceptance.

Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9, 630–644.

Jones, M.V., Mace, R.D., Bray, S.R. et al.

(2002). The impact of motivational imagery on the emotional state and

553

psy 07_15 p552_557 barker_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:50 Page 554

cricket and the Ashes

even with those who have had a bad day; they try always to find something good for everyone.

Mike Brearley, writing about Graeme Smith, former South Africa cricket captain

Research has also examined the impact of feedback on self-efficacy. For example, Escarti and Guzman (1999) used manipulated feedback and estimates of self-efficacy relative to an athletic task, finding that performance feedback was significantly related to increased selfefficacy, performance and task choice.

Self-efficacy can also be maintained via images and imagery of successful performance (e.g. Jones et al., 2002). To illustrate, players may use imagery prior to batting, following the call from the captain to loosen up prior to a bowling spell, or in the days leading up to an important game.

Further, research has outlined the positive contribution made by self-talk on efficacy expectations (Hanton & Jones, 1999). For example, in a sample of elite swimmers, self-talk altered perceptions of anxiety responses, increased levels of selfefficacy, and improved performance (Hanton & Jones, 1999). When used properly, positive self-talk can direct attention to task relevant cues (i.e. ‘watch the ball’), raise efficacy and prevent the possible debilitating consequences of selfdoubt (often due to negative self-talk).

Finally, we have recently explored the use of hypnosis, including the use of egostrengthening suggestions (Hartland, 1971) to facilitate self-efficacy beliefs in athletes. The concept of ‘egostrengthening’ involves helping participants to enhance feelings of selfefficacy, self-worth and to minimise anxiety and worrying. The essence of this approach is to repeat suggestions of confidence and belief over and over so that the suggestions take hold in the person’s subconscious mind and exert an automatic influence on feelings, thoughts and behaviour (Hammond, 1990). Across a series of studies using both idiographic

self-efficacy levels of novice climbers. Journal of Sport Behaviour, 25, 57–73.

Kane, T.D., Marks, M.A., Zaccaro, S.J. & Blair, V. (1996). Self-efficacy, personal goals and wrestlers’ self-regulation.

Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 18, 36–48.

Muller, A. (2013, 4 August). Suffering in silence: What makes depression so prevalent among cricketers? New

554

and nomothetic designs we have demonstrated substantial increases in athletes’ self-efficacy and performance (see Barker & Jones, 2006, 2008, Barker et al., 2010).

In relation to cricket, we explored the effects of a multimodel intervention on the self-efficacy of a male cricket leg-spin bowler (Barker & Jones, 2006). The intervention comprised: I hypnosis and selfhypnosis procedures (10 hypnosis sessions were delivered including cricketspecific egostrengthening suggestions and selfhypnosis; a pre-performance routine was developed for the cricketer to use the night before, and on the morning before each match); I refinement of the bowler’s technique, focusing on the run-up, head position and follow-through; and I self-modelling through the use of an edited highlights reel.

Overall, the results revealed a substantial difference between pre- and postintervention self-efficacy levels, with this positive change being maintained in the long-term follow-up data. Importantly, bowling performance also improved across the post-intervention phases.

We should note that the use of hypnosis in cricket is not a recent occurrence. Former England fast bowler Bob Willis once remarked: ‘I’d played one of the self-hypnosis tapes to myself and was in the optimum state of readiness’ (prior to taking 8 for 43 against Australia in the Headingly Test in 1981).

Interestingly Sir Ian Botham once

Statesman. Retrieved from tinyurl.com/mt8vbv2 Short, S. & Ross-Stewart, L. (2009). A review of self-efficacy based interventions. In S.D. Mellalieu & S. Hanton (Eds.) Advances in applied sport psychology (pp.221–280).

Abingdon: Routledge.

Slater, M.J., Coffee, P., Barker, J.B. & Evans, A.L. (2014). Promoting shared meanings in group memberships: A

claimed, as a dismissal of sport psychology, that it ‘did not help Bob Willis take “8 for” at Headingly’!

Concentration The key to concentration is filling your mind with what you need to do to ensure a successful action, for me to bat there must be nothing but the ball in my mind, this occupies my thoughts before every shot.

Justin Langer, former Australian cricketer

Given the start-stop nature of cricket, the potentially long durations involved, and the many internal and external distractions (e.g. player self-talk, scoreboard, spectators, the opposition), cricketers need to be proficient in regulating their concentration to be successful (Bull et al., 2005). The current England test captain Alastair Cook has reflected many times in the media that his ability to bat for prolonged periods of time (and deal with distractions) is

social identity approach to leadership in sport. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 15(5), 672–685.

Totterdell, P. (2000). Catching moods and hitting runs: Mood linkage and subjective performance in professional sport teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 848–859.

Treasure, D.S., Monson, J. & Lox, C.L. (1996). Relationship between self-

efficacy, wrestling performance and affect prior to competition. The Sport Psychologist, 10, 73–83.

Turner, M.J. (2014). Smarter thinking in sport. The Psychologist, 27(8), 596–599.

Turner, M.J. & Barker, J.B. (2013a).

Examining the use of rationalemotive behavior therapy (REBT) on irrational beliefs and anxiety in elite youth cricketers. Journal of Applied

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p552_557 barker_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:50 Page 555

S&G/S&G AND BARRATTS/EMPICS SPORT

cricket and the Ashes

refocus (recognising as humans we cannot focus with the same intensity all of the time). The individual components of the routine are actually not that important, although it does help if these components relate to what a player is about to do (execute their skills).

At the same time we need to remember that we do not want players to be having technical thoughts, as this will ultimately stop efficient skill execution and encourage possible choking responses (e.g. paralysis by analysis; see Beilock, 2011). The ideal approach would be to develop consistent thoughts that link with the behaviours that already exist as part of a players preparations.

So it could be that a very simple mental routine would involve saying ‘stance, balance, prepare, watch the ball’ (Cotterill, 2011).

Emotional control mainly due to his experiences of belonging to a school choir from an early age, which required him to spend long hours rehearsing and focusing on the words and chords.

One of the notorious aspects of the Ashes is the ‘sledging’ that will go on between players, aimed at provoking a poor decision or a loss of emotional control. In the 2013/14 Ashes series the Australian captain Michael Clarke was heard on the stump microphone saying to James Anderson (an England bowler) between deliveries ‘get ready for a broken fucking arm’ , in an attempt to unsettle the player. To maintain concentration in the face of this, watch out for players using pre-performance routines (Cotterill, 2010) before each delivery: the batter checking their gloves or tapping their bat at the crease, the bowler spinning the ball from one hand to another, or always turning the same way at the end of their run up, the wicketkeeper checking their gloves in a specific order before then crouching. Routines offer a natural ‘trigger’ to either begin focusing, or to

Sport Psychology, 25(1), 133–147 Turner, M.J. & Barker, J.B. (2013b).

Resilience: Lessons from the 2012 Olympic Games. Reflective Practice, 14(5), 622–631.

Turner, M.J., Slater, M.J. & Barker, J.B. (2014). Not the end of the world: The effects of rational emotive behavior therapy on the irrational beliefs of elite academy athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26(2),

It’s a mix of high skill levels and being clear mentally, strong minded. With the noise and pressure it’s about how you control your emotions.

Ashley Giles, former England cricketer …if someone says something, you want to reply, but you realise he is trying to get importance out of picking a fight with you. So then I think, I look and I move. Normally we react emotionally, so I try to keep my emotions in check. I can't do it every time. This is something I have changed about myself, because in the past I would always react. Then I figured that not saying anything can sometimes be more powerful than talking.

Yuvraj Singh, former Indian cricketer

In the sport of cricket players and coaches sign up to experience a vast spectrum of feelings, from the abundance of joy and happiness gleaned from an important match victory, through the terrorising anxiety when preparing for a cup final, to disappointment and dejection following

144–156 Uphill, M., McCarthy, P.J. & Jones, M.V. (2009). Getting a grip on emotion regulation in sport: Conceptual foundations and practical application.

In S.D. Mellalieu & S. Hanton (Eds.) Advances in applied sport psychology (pp.162–194). Abingdon: Routledge.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

a defeat. To optimise performance it is crucial for players to make the most effective use of their emotions.

Alastair Cook provides an interesting example here. Coupled with incredible focus is the England captain’s impressive consistency and apparent stability of his emotions when he bats. To illustrate, after Cook led England to victory against India in December 2012, teammate Graham Onions commented how Cook is not a man to show a lot of emotion.

A consistent emotional state (e.g. remaining relaxed when he plays and misses), is likely to play a large part in Alastair Cook’s consistent performances.

It’s important for players to enjoy the highs of cricket (e.g. scoring a century) and draw confidence from these successes, but of parallel importance is letting mistakes or adverse situations pass without influencing how players feel (Cotterill & Barker, 2013). Indeed, research has asserted the importance of emotional regulation for sport performance (see Uphill et al., 2009).

Being able to regulate expectations, the irrational beliefs and subsequent emotions players experience has been the core of our recent research in sport using rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) (Turner, 2014; Turner & Barker, 2013a; Turner et al., 2014). For example, we examined the efficacy of REBT (comprising three counselling sessions and two homework assignments) in decreasing irrational beliefs and cognitiveanxiety in four elite youth cricketers (Turner & Barker, 2013a). Visual and statistical analyses indicated that the REBT intervention reduced irrational belief and cognitive-anxiety in all four.

Moreover, social validation data from the players, parents, and the coach further supported the quantitative data in that players were less anxious, had greater emotional control, and had a more effective perspective about the game of cricket.

The mood and emotions at a team level also affect cricket performance. To illustrate ‘emotional contagion’ in cricket, data were collected from players across two professional teams using pocket computers to provide ratings of their moods and performances three times a day for four days during a competitive match between the teams (Totterdell, 2000). Analysis revealed significant associations between the average of teammates’ happy moods and the players’ own moods and performances. Moreover, mood linkage was greater for players who were older, more committed to the team, and more susceptible to emotional contagion. These data imply that the

555

psy 07_15 p552_557 barker_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:50 Page 556

cricket and the Ashes

moods players display in the inner sanctum of a cricket pavilion can have a substantial effect on performance.

Therefore, coaches, players and sport psychologists may consider developing an open and honest team environment where players are encouraged to share personal stories about success, confidence and values in order to foster positive emotional responses and enhance resilience (Barker et al., 2014; Turner & Barker, 2013b).

Leadership – the cricket captain A captain must make every decision before he knows what its effect will be, and he must carry the full responsibility, not whether his decision will be right or wrong, but whether it brings success.

Don Bradman, former Australian cricketer

The role of the captain in cricket is one that carries many challenges in comparison to other sports. Captains are involved in selection, making decisions on the order of play (e.g. whether to bat first following the toss, the batting order), and determining the strategy and tactics of the team including field settings and bowling changes. To achieve all of these requirements the captain needs to be an Don Bradman effective leader, able to manage all the different characters and personalities that make up their team, and handle the media to boot. The captain also needs to be able to inspire the team to follow them, and in many cases look to lead from the front (Brearley, 2001; Cotterill & Barker, 2013). Individuals that emerge as effective leaders may be those that create a strong team identity (see Slater et al., 2014). In other words, the success of both captains in the forthcoming Ashes series may be influenced by the creation of a distinct, unique and connected cricket team with players who rather than thinking ‘I’ and ‘me’, think ‘we’ and ‘us’.

While taking care of the many team issues, the captain must also look to maintain their own preparation and

556

performance standards. When the captain is a top-order batsman, as may well be the case in the coming Ashes series, it is common for opposition bowlers to target them early on in a series in an attempt to reduce their personal batting confidence but also the confidence of the team. Little wonder, then, that anecdotal reports in the media indicate that taking on the captain role can have both positive and negative effects on maintaining personal performance standards – some thrive under the pressure, whilst others suffer, due partly to increasing associated roles and responsibility (Cotterill & Barker, 2013).

Success may come at a price I considered hurting myself just to show people how much pain I was in. If you’ve got a broken leg you've got a cast on your leg, people can see you’ve got a problem but when you’ve got mental problems there is nothing evident to people to show you need help.

Marcus Trescothick former England cricketer

Along with the typical performancerelated psychological factors that are likely to be prevalent during the Ashes, more recently a series of high-profile individuals within cricket have reported mental health issues, including depression and burnout.

Athletic burnout has been reported in the sport psychology literature to be related to athlete maladaptive perfectionistic beliefs and coach-created ego-orientated performance climates (e.g.

Hill et al., 2008). Being an international cricketer may initially seem like a dream job for most – travelling the world and playing a sport one loves – but for some it can become the stuff of nightmares.

Many players describe the challenges of life as internationals to include: the constant feelings of guilt from balancing forging a professional career with family commitments; the stress of being away from home for prolonged periods of time; the burden of fulfilling media and sponsor obligations; and the increasing pressures to maintain performance standards. Indeed, a number of years ago Stuart Broad (a current England player) recalled in the media how he wouldn’t be seeing his home again for close to six months due to his training and playing commitments for England that particular winter and that living out of a suitcase wasn’t all it was cracked up to be! We also know that from recent anecdotal accounts that the life of an international

cricketer can be very different to the ‘bed of roses’ that is often portrayed in the media and by ex-players, and that playing at the highest level becomes too much for some.

For example, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Yardy both suffered severe depression, forcing Trescothick to retire from international cricket and Yardy to return home from the 2011 Cricket World Cup in India. More recently, Jonathan Trott infamously returned from the 2013/14 Ashes series in Australia, allegedly suffering from a ‘stress-related illness’ he later described as burnout.

Alarmingly, cricket has also been posited as a sport with one of the highest suicide rates (Frith, 2011).

Why should this be the case? Possible reasons include the long periods of time spent away from home, with some players spending as much as half the year away on tour, and a lot of regular idle time spent in between games. Further, the numerous extraneous variables (e.g. weather, pitch conditions, umpiring decisions) can render players powerless in determining their own success (Muller, 2013; see also the column from former professional cricketer turned sport psychologist Alastair Storrie in this publication: tinyurl.com/kbpoego).

Summary The game of cricket – and in particular the Ashes – offers many mental challenges for players. Sport psychology is therefore recognised as an integral part of a players’ development to optimise performance along with establishing positive mental health. The 2015 Ashes series will undoubtedly provide many on-field psychological head-to-head confrontations and turning points.

As sport psychologists we look forward to watching, and we hope we have convinced some of you that there is more to this game than meets the eye.

Jamie Barker is lead sport psychologist with Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and an Associate Professor at Staffordshire University J.B.Barker@staffs.ac.uk Matt Slater is lead sport psychologist with Leicestershire County Cricket Club and a Lecturer at Staffordshire University m.slater@staffs.ac.uk

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 pi_iv bigpic_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:20 Page i

Annual Conference 2016 East Midlands Conference Centre 26–28 April This year the conference themes are: G Faces G Ageing G Impact G Wellbeing The 2016 conference website is now live.

More details about the conference themes and keynote speakers will be available shortly.

Submissions open on 1 August.

www.bps.org.uk/ac2016 ‘big picture’ pull-out www.thepsychologist.org.uk

i

Brad Fox contacted The Psychologist with this photo he had taken. ‘This image, for me, is a representation of the loneliness that my cousin feels – an effect of my Aunt’s obsessive compulsive disorder and depression.

I feel that their relationship has been deeply affected by this… even though they live together they are becoming a lot more lonely. They are in the middle of decorating her bedroom, which has taken a very long time to do, I would say at least 8–10 months. Her loneliness is characterised by a small chair that sits in the corner of her room.’

We contacted Rob Willson, co-author of Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He spoke with Brad about his situation, and then commented: ‘This image is a stark representation of the impact that OCD can have on people’s lives. Despite the immense sense of responsibility for preventing harm felt by those with OCD, it is not unusual to see aspects of the home neglected. This can happen as the individual’s life becomes consumed with “safety strategies” such as avoidance and compulsions – washing, ordering, or checking. Trying too hard to be “sure” that harm has been prevented or to make things “feel right” becomes a vicious cycle and maintains the disorder.’

Rob said the psychological treatment of choice is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), typically with a strong emphasis on deliberate exposure and response prevention. ‘It can be beneficial to help people with OCD to help the person re-appraise their inflated sense of responsibility and to normalise their intrusive thoughts, images, doubts or impulses.’

I Consent was obtained from all parties in this account.

For further resources, see www.ocdaction.org.uk and www.ocduk.org

Image by Brad Fox with comments from Rob Willson

A lonely disorder

BIG PICTURE

psy 07_15 pi_iv bigpic_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:20 Page ii

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

psy 07_15 pi_iv bigpic_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:20 Page iii

ARTICLE

psy 07_15 p560_563 myers_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:53 Page 560

The monster mind Enlisting the help of Godzilla and a few of its friends, Jonathan Myers considers why we see monsters and what form they take

What’s the benefit to us if our brains are wired to see monsters?

resources

Why does the monster – in a variety of forms – remain a part of human culture?

ffytche, D.H. (2007). Visual hallucinatory syndromes: Past, present, and future.

Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 9(2), 173–189.

Harris, P.L., Brown, E., Marriott, C. et al.

(1991), Monsters, ghosts and witches: Testing the limits of the fantasy – reality distinction in young children.

British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 105–123.

Asma, S.T. (2009). On monsters: An unnatural history of our worst fears.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Bourchier, A. & Davis, A. (2002).

Children’s understanding of the pretence–reality distinction: A review of current theory and evidence.

Developmental Science 5(4), 397–426.

Brainerd, C.J. & Rayna, V.F. (1998).

Fuzzy-trace theory and children’s false memories. Journal of

560

ove them or hate them, monsters keep coming back to frighten us.

We tell each other stories, share them online, watch scary movies and TV programmes. Monsters loom large in our consciousness; and literally too when you consider the recent Godzilla movie. At 150 metres this latest incarnation of the prehistoric sea monster was approximately 40 per cent the height of New York’s Empire State Building. The creature started out much smaller, at around 50 metres in 1954 (see tinyurl.com/pr368qb). That’s a threefold increase in 60 years. For evolution to accomplish the same thing would take millennia.

For a psychologist it’s fascinating to consider explanations for the popularity and increasing scale of such beasts.

Largely these centre on an existential event that might well affect all of us in some terrible way. We’re potentially under threat these days – or so we’re told – to a far greater extent than ever before, whether it’s from global warming, solar flares, nuclear devastation caused by a rogue regime, or any other large-scale catastrophe. Could it be that the bigger the threat, the bigger the monsters we create?

There’s clearly historical precedent that some form of cognitive externalisation of this type is the case – from the monstrous Grendel of the ancient Beowulf epic to the terrifying creatures depicted in our modern-day fantasies (Asma, 2009), or the enormous shape-changing metallic aliens of the successful Transformers movie franchise.

L

references

questions

The monster rises… it’s there, right there in front of you! Or is it?

A range of cognitive and perceptual factors are hard at work, causing you to see monsters, ghosts and ghouls where none truly exist. And the familiar can become weird too, with even natural creatures observed taking on odd shapes, gigantic proportions, or with their features altered, just scaring the wits out of you!

Something imagined or real may kick-start your perception of monsters. Yet, surprisingly, it’s all the result of a normal process essential to the operation of your brain, how it handles the stimulation it needs, while also providing the capacity to keep you safe and away from danger.

Experimental Child Psychology, 71, 81–129.

Caputo, G.B. (2010). Strange-face-in-themirror illusion. Perception, 39(7), 1007–1008.

Cavanagh, P. (1991). What’s up in top down processing. In A. Gorea (Ed.) Representations of vision: Trends and tacit assumptions in vision research.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Big, scary, and often even extremely ugly, it’s possible we may use the monster in all its forms as a means to crystallise our fears. But there’s more to it. Research during the last few years, and particularly from the fields of perception and anomalistic and developmental psychology, suggests that we actually seem to be wired to see monsters.

Monsters on the brain One of the most bizarre demonstrations of our brain’s disposition to see fiendish creatures was discovered by researchers at the University of Queensland. They found that pairs of faces flashed at around four to five a second caused the observer to see the faces morph into grotesque images. If a person has a large forehead it

Craddick, R.A. (1963). Size of Halloween witch drawings prior to, on, and after Halloween. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 16, 235–238.

Geiger, J. (2009). The Third Man factor: Surviving the impossible. Edinburgh: Canongate.

Hafed, Z.M. & Clark, J.J. (2002).

Microsaccades as an overt measure of covert attention shifts. Vision Research, 42, 2533–2545.

Harding, J.R. (1996). The case of the haunted scrotum. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 89(10), 600.

Kemp, S. & Young, A.W. (2003). A case of paraprosopia and its treatment.

Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 8(1), 43–56.

Kounios, J. & Beeman, M. (2009). The Aha! moment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(4), 210–216.

LoBue, V. & DeLoache, J.S. (2008).

Detecting the snake in the grass:

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p560_563 myers_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:53 Page 561

monsters

TOHO/THE KOBAL COLLECTION

becomes even larger, a small chin gets smaller, noses that are slightly bent become even more bent and crooked, the faces all becoming caricatures of themselves. It is known as the flashed face effect (Tangen et al., 2011), and it’s quite astounding when you see it. The latest offering of this illusion on the web (tinyurl.com/ohpx9al) has celebrities turning into extremely ugly monsters before your very eyes!

Our visual system, it appears, tries to encode one face relative to the other. But trying to do two at the same time creates interference when the brain comes to sort out the incoming sensory data into a coherent picture, and in this way exaggerating the features.

Characteristics of the eye like the scotoma or ‘blindspot’ only add to strange

Attention to fear-relevant stimuli by adults and young children.

Psychological Science, 19, 3, 284–289.

Masataka, N., Hayakawa, S. & Kawai, N. (2010). Human young children as well as adults demonstrate ‘superior’ rapid detection when typical striking posture is displayed by the snake.

PloS ONE, 5, e15122.

Morris, J.S., DeGelder, B., Weiskrantz, L. & Dolan, R.J. (2001). Differential

found. If you were a right testis, would perceptions, making you believe – like you want to share the scrotum with the ghoul from The Legend of Sleepy that? (Harding, 1996) Hollow – heads have gone missing from torsos (see it for yourself at What the patient made of it all isn’t tinyurl.com/mf48bq). Yet it is faces that have a particular resonance for our brains. reported but clearly Dr Harding saw the humour in this very strange scan.

So much so, in fact, that we are prone to Another primary aspect of visual see faces when no such face is actually processing is, of course, size perception. there. This tendency, known as pareidolia, But this too can suffer from inaccuracy. encompasses any false perception of an Imagine you’re in a boat. You might think image due to having a heightened a creature you see is further away than it sensitivity to perceiving patterns in actually is. Research bears out this strange otherwise random sensory information. inability of people to judge where a It is core to our make-up and believed creature actually is, even when looking necessary for our survival (see Sagan, straight at it. Contrary to expectation, the 1965), and for this reason it is designed reported distance in the majority of to activate on very little data. sightings of apparently unknown, large, But though the human brain may marine animals or ‘sea monsters’, by use a simple face-patterning method as witnesses in a boat or in the water, were a warning device – the amygdala at a close range of less than 200 metres responding more readily to faces with (Paxton, 2009). emotionally charged characteristics Because an animal is in reality closer, (Morris et al., 2001) – there’s also a lot of there should be more chance of more complex interaction in the cognitive identifying its features correctly. But this processing of the incoming information isn’t necessarily the case. Size perception (Palermo & Rhodes, 2006). Furthermore, of spiders by arachnophobics, for if the image you see suggests a face yet is example, shows that fear plays an not quite right, distorted, it jars your important role, where the greater the fear sense of what a face should be, tripping a the bigger the spider (Vasey et al., 2012)! whole range of associations from memory.

An early study puts Aliens, skulls, evil-looking a rather nice spin ghouls, all have been on this, observed by people on a “Could it be that the bigger demonstrating that variety of surfaces and the threat, the bigger the children’s drawings substances, including the monsters we create?” of witches were gigantic face on Mars larger after Halloween (tinyurl.com/kaxbxdg), a compared to before demon behind the sofa (Craddick, 1963). Granted, this may have (tinyurl.com/7yxxtng), even a haunted more to do with excitement than fear. scrotum (tinyurl.com/nq3vl2k): A 45-year-old man was referred for Alternatively, there may be some other investigation for an undescended factor that blocks the person’s ability to right testis by computer tomography analyse size and what they’re seeing as … the right testis was not identified familiar from facts held in memory. This but the left side of the scrotum might be due to, say, standing on a hill seemed to be occupied by a (Stefanucci et al., 2005), whether they’re screaming ghost-like apparition. able to determine the contour or edge of By chance the distribution of normal what they’re observing (Cavanagh, 1991), anatomical structures within the left or their brain’s ‘Gestalt’ tendency to fill in side of the scrotum had combined to gaps, to make a perception whole. produce this image. What of the Perceptual issues like these could explain undescended right testis? None was many sightings of the Loch Ness monster,

extrageniculostriate and amygdala responses to presentation of emotional faces in a cortically blind field. Brain, 124(6), 1241–1252.

Ohman, A., Flykt, A. & Esteves, F. (2001).

Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(3), 466–478.

Ohman, A. & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Psychological Review, 108, 483–522.

Palermo, R. & Rhodes, G. (2006). Are you always on my mind? A review of how face perception and attention interact. Neuropsychologia 45, 75–92.

Paxton, C.G.M. (2009). The plural of ‘anecdote’ can be ‘data’: Statistical analysis of viewing distances in reports of unidentified large marine animals 1758–2000. Journal of Zoology, 279, 381–387.

Piaget, J. (1970). Main trends in psychology. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Pritchard, R.M. (1961). Stabilized images on the retina. Scientific American, 204, 72–78.

Sagan, C. (1965). The demon-haunted world – Science as a candle in the dark. New York: Random House.

Sharon, T. & Woolley, J.D. (2004). Do monsters dream? Young children’s

561

psy 07_15 p560_563 myers_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:53 Page 562

monsters

NIGHT OF THE LEPUS/MGM/THE KOBAL COLLECTION

where really all that’s being seen may be Perception though consists of both making new associations and novel formations of logs or swimming otters. external sensory input, bottom-up, and linkages, so promoting the chances of Size perception, however, is not only also internal cognition and memory innovative thought to deal with new about perceptual and cognitive error, or acting on it, top-down. And just as vision problems. indeed fear. Godzilla may look very much largely shuts off during saccadic Your brain is designed to be inwardlike a giant dinosaur – as intended by its movements so you’re not aware of the looking in this way. Seeing the occasional creator Ishiro Honda (Smith, 2002) – but blur (see the stopped clock illusion: monster is perhaps the price you pay for it has another important characteristic. As tinyurl.com/82pbn4o), the visual cortex your ability to have insight and be a huge beast tossing immense skyscrapers enhances its top-down tendency by creative. of steel and concrete aside as if they were disengaging during insightful thought. made of cardboard, Godzilla creates awe Gamma wave production – reflecting Help, the monster’s got me! in the viewer. In an experiment to study increased attention to problem solving – And it is quite a price. This top-down, awe, subjects were asked to stare at a is immediately preceded by the firing of inward-looking tendency of the brain seven-metre-high Tyrannosaurus rex alpha waves, suggestive of a waking results in stimulation being generated dinosaur skeleton for one minute. A restful state (Kounios & Beeman, 2009). internally from its imaginative content, second group were asked to stare at an This ‘brain blink’ is necessary so that the and evoked through several powerful empty hall. Those who stared at the brain is able to draw as much as it can though very strange perceptual means. dinosaur were more likely than the other from around its extensive neural Sleep paralysis (see group to see themselves as connected to networks without being distracted, tinyurl.com/luxy8gq) is an something beyond their experience causing some of immediate concerns, to the most startling monster something bigger than hallucinations. And many of themselves (Shiota et al., them – including devils, 2007). And when people feel succubae, witches, vaporous part of a greater whole that dark intruders and little green changes how they interact with men – have found expression the world and the people in folklore as well as modern around them, as well as fantasies. It occurs essentially altering the values they hold. because part of you wakes up Studies like this begin to and part doesn’t. You continue shed light on why our minds to be in a state of REM-induced are geared to see monsters in sleep paralysis, and an element the way they do. And why, for of your dream state remains example, these great creatures present as you regain are such a recurring theme of consciousness. Research bears children’s toys, as well as why this out, with alpha waves a similar kind of overwhelming suggesting a wakefulness state feeling of awe is promoted combined with the experience when we look at the Grand of the normal paralysis that Canyon or down on our Earth sleep brings to the body from space, as astronauts (Takeuchi et al., 1992). And report experiencing (Suedfeld in those reporting visual et al., 2010) Something hallucinations, their alpha changes in our perspective; waves during sleep paralysis it’s meant to. The brain wants were interrupted by beta waves, sensory stimulation, new suggesting that something had thoughts to exercise it – even caught their attention. In this from TV and movies – but inward-looking state, the brain with an inherent richness of is likely to be creating some overwhelmingly strong The human brain is wired to see features – for example, long powerfully scary images as its content, this is like having a teeth or fangs, claws and squirminess focus. banquet as opposed to a meal.

understanding of the fantasy/reality distinction. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22, 293–310.

Shiota, M.N., Keltner. D. & Mossman, A. (2007). The nature of awe: Elicitors, appraisals and effects on self concept. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 944–963.

Siegel, R.K. (1984). Hostage hallucinations: Visual imagery

562

induced by isolation and lifethreatening stress. Journal of Nervous Mental Disorders. 172(5).

264–272.

Smith, B.R. (2002). Green scales and hot breath: Godzilla! Again! Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 22(1/2), 11–18.

Stefanucci, J.K., Proffitt, D.R., Banton, T. & Epstein, W. (2005). Distances appear different on hills. Perception

and Psychophysics, 67(6), 1052–1060.

Suedfeld, P.K., Legkaia, K. & Brcic, J. (2010). Changes in the value hierarchy of value references associated with flying in space.

Journal of Personality, 78, 1411–1446.

Takeuchi, T., Miyasita, A., Sasaki, Y. et al.

(1992). Isolated sleep paralysis elicited by sleep interruption. Sleep, 15, 217–225.

Tangen, J.M., Murphy, S.C. & Thompson,

M.B. (2011). Flashed face distortion effect: Grotesque faces from relative spaces. Perception, 40, 628–630.

Vasey, M.W., Vilensky, R., Heath, J.H. et al. (2012). It was as big as my head, I swear! Biased spider size estimation in spider phobia. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26, 20–24.

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p560_563 myers_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:53 Page 563

monsters

Staring too can be associated with some very odd effects. The Bloody Mary illusion is quite well-known amongst teenagers, who often dare one another to go through the ritual in a darkened room that makes her appear from a mirror (spin around while saying her name three times, then stare at the mirror). Yet it’s your brain that’s the cause, and you’re not seeing malevolent spirits. In an experiment to test this, participants were asked to do nothing more than look closely in a mirror for 10 minutes in a dimly lit room and describe what they saw (Caputo, 2010). None of the subjects were given any hint or information about what they might experience. Two thirds of the participants reported seeing huge deformations of their own face. Nearly half described seeing ‘fantastical’ or ‘monstrous’ beings! A few reported seeing faces of parents, ancestors, and strangers, including women and children. Every one of them saw someone or something in the mirror other than themselves! Many of them also reported feeling that the other someone was watching them, with several becoming extremely scared as they believed the face in the mirror was angry at them too.

Without some level of eye movement you stop perceiving external images. Even tiny movements of the eyes have benefits in this context, helping to provide ongoing stimulation to the brain’s visual centre and stopping you going blind (Pritchard, 1961; Hafed & Clark. 2002).

Micro-movements, microsaccades, are occurring all the time, producing a kind of baseline stimulation for your eyes.

Intense staring overrides this; when your eyes can’t provide the stimulation, your brain tries to compensate and makes some up.

Lack of external stimulation is a key extraneous factor that helps create the hallucinatory monster. For example, the sensed presence is a dissociative effect that can occur when people are isolated – such as walking through the Arctic alone or in hostage situations. Often it is innocuous – the presence of another person, though not real, providing a supporting role in their survival (Geiger, 2009) – but at other times, much like the intruder of sleep paralysis, horrific presences can be seen (Siegel, 1984).

In many of these instances, however, there is violence occurring, which is a possible contributory factor in what creatures are observed.

A similar effect is caused when external stimulation ceases through vision loss due to illness. In an extreme form of Charles Bonnet syndrome monsters are seen that are reminiscent of our most

(LoBue & DeLoache, 2008). Similar enduring horror fantasies. Sufferers are experiments additionally show that not delusional, yet may describe snakes identification times are faster when coming up from the ground or floating, snakes are depicted ready to attack as disembodied heads that wriggle into their opposed to being depicted at rest field of vision at random times. These (Masataka et al., 2010) and that the often have wide, unblinking eyes, fear response for snakes and spiders prominent teeth, and features like those compared to, say, mushrooms, extends of a hideous stone gargoyle (see into adulthood (Ohman et al., 2001). tinyurl.com/kjcuafw).

What this points to is a neurocognitive When the neurological wiring goes template, but rather than a range of wrong, one rare condition, often animals loaded into that associated with template the suggestion is schizophrenia, stands that the human brain is out. In paraprosopia “Our imaginative wired to see features – for the person sees facial prowess begins its example, long teeth or transformations (see expansion in childhood” fangs, claws and Kemp & Young, 2003). squirminess. It is in fact the And like Bruce Banner case that people can be taught to turning into the Hulk, associate an electric shock and the fear it Dr Jekyll becoming Mr Hyde and promotes equally with pictures of snakes not a few actors changing into and spiders or pictures of flowers and werewolves, the paraprosopic sees mushrooms – but the effect lasts much a complex bit-by-bit transformation longer with the snakes and spiders of a face they’re looking at.

(Masataka et al., 2010; Ohman & Mineka, 2001). In evolutionary terms we therefore Monsters in the cupboard have the ability built-in to identify a It is the normal childhood brain that whole range of dangers in our underpins much of the process of surroundings, and apply them to novel monster perception. Our imaginative situations too. But just as these features prowess begins its expansion in are characteristic of snakes and other wild childhood, of course, but the brain is beasts, they are also characteristic of developing in other cognitive ways too, monsters. giving rise to a number of nightmarish You may be bleary-eyed from effects that children experience (while pacifying your child in the middle of the often giving parents sleepless nights as night and checking under the bed and in well). cupboards for the umpteenth time for Several developmental theories hiding trolls and goblins, but between bear this out, including the change from evolving cognitive processes and concrete to abstract thinking (Piaget, templates there’s clearly a lot interacting 1970), fantasy versus reality appreciation in children’s brains. Any night terrors are (Sharon & Woolley, 2004), verbatim likely to be a way for the immature mind versus gist understanding underlying how to come to terms with, and integrate, this memories are recalled or creating ‘pseudoexternal and internal experience. memories’ (Brainerd & Rayna, 1998), and reality–pretence distinctions (Bourchier & Conclusion Davis, 2002). Yet what is apparent from Those memories created as a child stay the research is that the cognitive with us into later life, informing our processes involved are not clear-cut, nor perceptions about scary creatures. And does it appear to be a simple matter of wired in the way you are there’s a great giving children the time to develop new deal of psychology involved in the abilities. Indeed, young children appear perception of monsters – something often to have many capabilities and understand forgotten when hunters or TV shows go a considerable amount about what’s real searching for Bigfoot and Nessie. So spare and what isn’t. Rather than being about a thought for your brain next time you acquiring new abilities, many of the see a monster! cognitive structures that develop to support monster perception, it seems, are already in place.

Jonathan Myers And it’s not just these structures. is a psychologist When three-year olds are shown a series specialising in behavioural of pictures, all of caterpillars except one finance which is of a snake, the time they take jm@psychonomics.com to identify the snake is faster than if the pictures are largely of snakes and they are asked to identify the single caterpillar

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

563

psy 07_15 p568_569 ads_Layout 1 15/06/2015 15:55 Page 568

Your psychologist Your choice

Are you a Society member looking to read The Psychologist on tablet, smartphone or e-reader?

Log in via tinyurl.com/yourpsych to access your options or scan

568

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 pi_iv bigpic_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:20 Page iv

Research. Digested.

Free.

www.bps.org.uk/digest ‘Easy to access and free, and a mine of useful information for my work: what more could I want?

I only wish I’d found this years ago!’

Dr Jennifer Wild, Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry ‘The selection of papers suits my eclectic mind perfectly, and the quality and clarity of the synopses is uniformly excellent.’

Professor Guy Claxton, University of Bristol

iv

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

NEW VOICES

psy 07_15 p570_571 new voices cherry_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:03 Page 570

Helpful categorisation or limiting label?

Caitlin Cherry with the latest in our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices for more information)

SFJ, INTP? Maybe ISJF? When this the Universities of California, Michigan string of letters catches your eye you and Florida, Isobel moulded the theories may feel the thrill of familiarity or into a questionnaire; the ‘Indicator’ was you may remain bemused. ‘Like MMR?’, created in 1942. Henry Chauncey, the one of my friends enquired. ‘No’, I replied, head of the Educational Testing Service, ‘I’ll explain’.

Some months ago my brother came home with more than a little to say. Surprising for a 14-year-old!

His idle conversation lingered in the air whilst my family gave assuring nods and half answers.

However, the thing that struck us was his absolute enchantment with the ‘MBTI’ test, which he had been introduced to at school. My parents revealed that they had taken it through work and that it had enhanced their understanding of themselves and others. This spurred me on to try the online version. I gave the required ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses to the 72 questions and awaited my result.

The test is a self-report questionnaire; the participant must We defined, simplified and eroded our personalities choose their answer as truthfully down to four letters (to themselves) as possible. The questions are not explicit; they ask how you deal with certain situations. published the first questionnaire in 1943, The responses are analysed as to whether Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP, you are extraverted/introverted (E/I), if www.cpp.com) took this over in 1975. you use sensing/iNtuition (S/N) to gather They currently make approximately £20 information, whether you instinctively million from the two million people who feel/think (F/T) your way to a decision, take the test each year. Oxford Psychology or if you like to live your life in a decisive Press distributes the test in 14 different or spontaneous way, that is you languages and supports research into its judge/perceive (J/P). The combination, validity. Isabel Myers and Dr Mary for example ESFJ, determines your innate McCaulley founded the Centre for behavioural tendencies or personality Applications of Psychological Type predispositions. There are a total of 16 (CAPT, www.capt.org) as a research combinations; they are not unique to you, laboratory and after Myers’ death in 1980, but connect you to others who tend to McCaulley updated the MBTI Manual, behave in a similar way. with the second and last editions being The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator published in 1985 and 1998 respectively.

(MBTI) is one of the world’s most widely Only certified experts are allowed to used personality questionnaires. The handle the questionnaire. The main instrument was developed by Katharine distributors train people to administer Cook Briggs (1875–1968) and refined by it and give feedback. Indeed, the feedback her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, after is probably more useful than knowledge she saw similarities in Jung’s Psychological of the ‘combination’. CPP offers two Types. With the help of professors from questionnaires, one with 93 items the

E

570

other with 144. After both, candidates are given a report to support their communication, stress management, decision making and team dynamics. My parents had both taken the licensed test at work and received feedback from trained counsellors. I engaged in an online test, a clone of the licensed questionnaires.

These vary in size from 10–72 questions and offer no interpretation of the result.

So there it began; my quest for more information, about me and my ‘result’ as an unequivocal ‘INFP’. I roamed the internet from the ‘portrait page’ to the ‘MBTI boards’, read up on other ‘INFPs’ thoughts and feelings and matched them to my own. It was as if I had been diagnosed with a rare, unfamiliar condition and I had to find out everything about it as quickly as possible. To my shock, on reading the descriptions of an INFP, I appeared to meet its ‘requirements’. Being 16, I faced the same issues of most at that age – I was a teenager! It is almost universally accepted among Western cultures that this stage of development is about ‘finding yourself’, and I felt for the first time that I had indeed found myself. I fitted into a category, into society. The sense of belonging was overwhelming.

My days were then spent convincing others to take the internet tests. Those who did, and who were of a similar age to me, were clearly captivated. We shared notes and matched experiences; many hours of valuable study time were consumed!

We were engaged by our label, our status and the newfound understanding of our characters to the point where we defined, simplified and eroded our personalities down to four letters. We did not stop to consider that we may have been ‘mislabelled’, if this was really a ‘fad’ or whether the MBTI was a valid, reliable or predictive tool.

Had I looked thoroughly at the evidence it would have revealed that the licensed test had a questionable scientific base and its use of bimodal, overlapping categories had limited its use in contemporary research (for discussions see tinyurl.com/pyh7r29 and tinyurl.com/ptc59s2).

In retrospect the most foolish thing I did was to try to force myself into ‘the category’. I enjoyed the idea that I was an idealist, a dreamer, who used their heartfelt emotions and carefully considered principles to guide them, the person who would fight for a just cause.

The P confirmed and justified my untidy room! As one of the rarer types I think I may have aspired to be an INFP because

vol 28 no 7

july 2015

psy 07_15 p570_571 new voices cherry_Layout 1 15/06/2015 16:03 Page 571

it generated a sense of belonging to a small but elusive group, countering the loneliness a teenager can feel (only 3 per cent of the population have an INFP combination compared with other types with up to 15 per cent prevalence).

However, there were aspects of the INFP personality that unsettled me. My portrait page stated that I couldn't deal with ‘hard facts or logic’. I knew and had evidence that I could. I excelled in my science subjects at GCSE. I love science, for the very reason that it relies on facts, yet at the same time it evolves. However, I fought to stay in the category that I had been allocated to. The excuse ‘I'm an INFP’ often tumbled out of my mouth as I was explaining the change in my behaviour, interests and potential job choices.

Within weeks my parents sat me down to find out what was going on.

I was reluctant to admit it, but after some reflection I realised that I had let myself fall under a spell that had stopped me enjoying the things that I usually relish.

After studying the boards again, it became clear that others, outside my peer group, had also become attached to the MBTI. I banned every crumb of it from my computer. I made an effort to go out with my friends, something I had stopped doing due to my misinterpretation of the word ‘introversion’, which, much to my humiliation, had rendered me into a hermit-like state. I went for runs.

I worked harder with facts. I had more fun and accepted myself more easily.

I also reviewed the uncertified ‘internet clones’ of the test and recognised that they were particularly destructive.

So grew my sub-thought, why had I tried to change, so desperately, to fit in to the category? As humans we seek to understand others and importantly ourselves, to frame where we stand. This need is heightened by teenage insecurity and lack of experience. The understanding we seek often requires simplification as we struggle to grasp the complex and interrelated concepts of personality and neurophysiology. Whilst modern technology such as the MRI, PET and fMRI scans have helped us to understand autism and defined functional areas of the brain (e.g. frontal lobe for high order thinking), it has not yet revealed how personality is determined or developed. Perhaps it will always be a mystery? Hence, in our need to simplify we use labels and categories to organise and translate our thoughts, to help make the concepts clearer. This is just what the MBTI seeks to do.

However, whilst labels are used in most professions they have their

limitations. In fashion, labels define and categorise people into those who can and cannot afford them or are beautiful, talented or young enough to wear such brands. The media enhance this distinction; people buy the label not the clothes. ‘Labelling’ is also significant in wider society. The class system has, for many centuries, defined a person’s position and worth, which in turn has restricted them from fulfilling their true potential. The four-letter MBTI combination that the ‘internet clone tests’ generate can also become a label – one that we wear like our clothes, except that it is more personal. Just like a prisoner’s identity tag, this label can dehumanise us.

These online tests are not a valid or reliable representation of you as a human, or your or others’ complex personalities or potential. The ‘type’ is not specific to you, it has limited relevance to you. It is just a label, an oversimplified, maybe not even accurate, explanation of how you prefer to perceive the world. So given these caveats, I would question whether there should be universal, open access to cloned questionnaires on the web, particularly for children and teenagers who, without appropriate guidance, could be vulnerable and misinterpret the MBTI findings.

Oversimplifying a concept to categorise, organise, understand and communicate it, is something we should only do if we respect the limitations it brings, as we may overlook important aspects of the issue – in this case our unique selves! It is in our nature to organise but we should refrain from attributing superfluous, superior or predictive value to some and not other categories. We should certainly not force ourselves into a single type. I am free to say that there are aspects of me that do not match ‘INFP’. Sometimes I’m not kind and considerate, sometimes I do like moderated conflict and debate and I can deal with logic but, like many INFP’s, I do love to write, have strong values and seek harmony.

So, my message is this. Do not let any MBTI-style test you stumble across online define you. If you use them make sure you challenge and question the results to help you develop. Like all typologies they have limitations in the way that our personalities, actions and words do not.

Caitlin Cherry is a Junior Sixth student at Manchester High School for Girls caitlincherry@gmail.com

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Calling all new voices When someone is making waves in psychology in years to come, we want to be able to say they published their first piece in The Psychologist. Our ’new voices’ section will give space to new talent and original perspectives.

We are looking for soleauthored pieces by those who have not had a full article published in The Psychologist before. The only other criteria will be that the articles should engage and inform our large and diverse audience, be written exclusively for The Psychologist, and be no more than 1800 words.

The emphasis is on unearthing new writing talent, within and about psychology.

The successful authors will reach an audience of 50,000 psychologists in print, and many more online.

So get writing! Discuss ideas or submit your work to jon.sutton@bps.org.uk. And if you are one of our more senior readers, perhaps you know of someone who would be ideal for ‘new voices’: do let us know.

571