The Psychologist September 2015

the

psychologist vol 28 no 9

september 2015 www.thepsychologist.org.uk

The transition to school Claire Hughes asks what matters and why

letters 690 news 698 careers 758 reviews 770

from adversity to buoyancy 718 do schools need lessons on motivation? 722 why do we ‘like’ social media? 724 looking back: the Geel question 776

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

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Cover John Harris reportdigital.co.uk

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From adversity to buoyancy Marc Smith reconceptualises academic resilience in schools

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New voices: Do schools need lessons on motivation?

Laura Oxley on reward and punishment in the classroom

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Why do we ‘like’ social media?

Ciarán Mc Mahon considers the psychology behind Facebook and more

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...reports news 698 mindfulness trial; British Academy Fellows; reports from the 30th annual conference of the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group; and the European Congress of Psychology

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.

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The best choice?

730 Katherine Woolf, Henry Potts, Josh Stott, Chris McManus, Amanda Williams and Katrina Scior on selection into the healthcare professions

August 2015 issue 50,016 dispatched Printed by Warners Midlands plc on 100 per cent recycled paper. Please re-use or recycle.

The transition to school Claire Hughes asks what matters and why

society 740 President’s column; Presidents’ Award; 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 Matt Connolly Interviews Gail Kinman Reviews Kate Johnstone Viewpoints Catherine Loveday International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus

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psychologist vol 28 no 9

september 2015

the issue ...debates letters 690 where is psychology’s non-stick frying pan?; clinical supply and demand; people who are ‘not in education, employment or training’; transpersonal psychology; and more

...digests the ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ state; drawing cancer; dehumanisation; selective mutism; and more, in the latest from our free Research Digest (www.bps.org.uk/digest) 708

...meets interview Lance Workman talks to Richard Stephens about the Open University, consciousness, happiness, and more

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careers 758 we meet Camilla Sanger, and Tina Rae talks about her work as an educational and child psychologist; and Mike Aitken Deakin welcomes new undergraduates to their psychology degree one on one with Peter Olusoga (Senior Lecturer in Sports Psychology at Sheffield Hallam University)

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...reviews memory and music at the proms – Daniel Levitin’s lecture reviewed

by Susan Hallam; Girls with Autism; Fake It Til You Make It; Amy; plus book reviews 770

Nothing brings a lump to your throat quite like your offspring donning their uniform and heading off to primary school for the first time (or, as with my own son recently, the last time). They seem so small, and we feel apprehensive on their behalf. So what can parents and teachers do to ease that transition? Claire Hughes looks at the evidence on p.714.

Elsewhere, there’s more for teachers as we embark on a new school year – Marc Smith on resilience, a ‘Big Picture’ on playgrounds, and our ‘New voices’ article tackles reward and punishment in the classroom.

A different journey begins for the thousands of new psychology undergraduates who will be receiving this issue free. We hope the resources at http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk and www.bps.org.uk/digest will guide you through your studies, and that you will consider joining the British Psychological Society (www.bps.org.uk/join). Follow us on Twitter @psychmag for all the latest, and find us on Facebook (speaking of which, hope you ‘Like’ p.724).

Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag

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...looks back The Geel question For centuries, a little Belgian town has treated the mentally ill. Why are its medieval methods so successful? Mike Jay investigates.

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

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Seven years ago Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our archive, including Phineas Gage – unravelling the myth

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Big picture centre-page pull-out gaining insights into the world of playgrounds, with Jenny Gibson

LETTERS

Where is our non-stick frying pan?

contribute

THE PSYCHOLOGIST NEEDS YOU! Letters These pages are central to The Psychologist’s role as a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and we welcome your contributions.

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

Letters over 500 words are less likely to be published.

The editor reserves the right to edit or publish extracts from letters. Letters to the editor are not normally acknowledged, and space does not permit the publication of every letter received.

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predicted by the theory. The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted by theory in the 1960s, as a crucial test of the Standard Model of particle physics. It was finally confirmed to exist in 2013.

What psychological theory produces predictions that can be tested in this way? Or to be even more challenging, what collection of ideas in psychology have we got that we can call a testable theory? What is psychology’s Big Bang?

When it comes to knowledge in psychology we are not so much uncovering it as inventing it. We appear to use the basic methods of science by observing and categorising behaviour in much the same way as biologists or medics. But there’s a difference, and nowhere is this difference more obvious than in diagnosis. To diagnose chickenpox we look for three symptoms: fever, itchy spots and loss of appetite. That’s it. But if we want to diagnose PTSD we look for any of 19 symptoms arranged in four categories.

To make the diagnosis of PTSD you have to judge the patient to have at least eight of these symptoms across the four categories.

In other words two people might have not a single symptom in common but still be said to have the same condition. There are, in fact, 636,120 ways to get a diagnosis of PTSD (Galatzer-Levy & Bryant, 2013). We are not discovering disorders, we are inventing them, and this process gives us the various conduct disorders, phase of life problem, sibling relational problem and many others as we slowly but surely pathologise all human behaviour.

So, it’s not looking good for theory. Maybe we have transformational products: things that we have invented that have changed lives? If you search the internet for the greatest scientific inventions you get suggestions such as penicillin, TIM SANDERS

If you were asked to list the top five achievements in psychology, what would you say? Be honest, you’d probably splutter for a bit and then try to divert the question. I’ve sprung this on colleagues and they have come up with suggestions like attachment theory, the multi-stage memory model or even CBT. I don’t consider this an impressive list. In fact, to me it suggests a horrible truth – for all the bluster about science, all the fancy equipment and million pound research grants, we haven’t discovered any great new understandings or technologies about our core subject – ourselves.

Yes, we have produced studies and papers that cite and excite our colleagues. When spun in the right way, psychology can light up the sofa of The One Show or the Today studio. But does any of it amount to any more than a hill of beans? A standard definition of psychology is ‘the scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour’. So what are the headline discoveries about people, mind and behaviour? And do these findings match up to the discoveries of the other sciences?

Look at physics. It has split the atom, it has gravity, it has quantum theory, the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs boson. It has the Big Bang theory, which offers an explanation of how the universe was formed.

Chemistry has the periodic table of elements, a classification of all substances in the universe. Biology has evolution, a robust theory of how we came to be here. I could go on.

‘Psychology is a young science’, we say by way of excuse for the lack of great findings. But 150 years is not that young. There are younger sciences that have more to show: electronics has the microchip, genetics has mapped out the human genome.

The central issue concerns how we develop knowledge in psychology. To start with, other sciences have testable theories; psychology has testable hypotheses. What’s the difference?

Einstein’s theory of general relativity was first presented in 1915 and then spectacularly tested in 1919 when light was shown to bend round the sun during a solar eclipse to the amount

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telephones, batteries, frozen peas, lasers, pianos, radar, the internet itself and my favourite, the non-stick frying pan. In none of the lists did I find one invention that you could claim as psychological. I’m not asking for an invention with the impact of antibiotics, contraceptives, the aeroplane, the combustion engine… but surely we have something to match the non-stick frying pan?

This isn’t to say that psychologists have nothing to show for their efforts. But it is surely a concern that for every CBT we have a recovered memory therapy, for every attribution theory we have a mass IQ testing supporting eugenicist theories and actions.

This is not a treatise of despair, however, because I think that psychology does contribute to our everyday life – just not in the manner of the other sciences. In his challenging talk to the APA in 1969 George Miller seemed to come to the same conclusion. He argued that we are looking in the wrong place if we are waiting for the great discoveries and applications to appear. He suggested that the revolution will come in how we think of ourselves: ‘I believe that the real impact of psychology will be felt, not through the technological products it places in the hands of powerful men, but through its effects on the public at large, through a new and different public conception of what is humanly possible and humanly desirable’ (Miller, 1969, p.1066).

The brilliance of psychology is that it provides a secular explanation for our existence, our feelings, thoughts and behaviour. It is an extension of the Enlightenment, rolling back the fog of superstition, mysticism and religion to provide understandings about ourselves that do not rely on supernatural beings and events. And as the country becomes more and more psychologically literate these understandings have become part of the way we explain the world.

So it’s great that when there is an atrocity or a hate crime it is psychologists who are commonly asked to comment, rather than bishops. We might have very little to say or do, but at least we are looking to ourselves for answers. But I still call on you all: please, just show me our non-stick frying pan.

Phil Banyard Nottingham Trent University References Galatzer-Levy, I.R. & Bryant, R.A. (2013). 636,120 ways to have posttraumatic stress disorder. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(6), 651–662.

Miller, G. (1969). Psychology as a means of promoting human welfare. American Psychologist, 24, 1063–1075.

MINDFUL READING Psychologists are increasingly appreciating the value of mindfulness-based approaches in psychotherapy. However, its philosophy, principles and practices are controversial. For those who are interested to participate in the ongoing discussion on mindfulness a monthly Mindfulness Reading Group (MRG) meetings will be held at BPS London office at 12:00–13:30 on 12 October 2015. If you wish to join the Mindfulness Interest Group email-list and/or simply keep in touch, please contact me.

The meeting is open to both BPS members and non-members.

Dr Ho Law drholaw@gmail.com

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

A need in NEETs Young people who are ‘Not in Education, Employment or Training’ (NEET) are at high risk of developing longer-term mental health and/or behavioural problems, and this is a hot political issue in Europe (see 2012 European Foundation report at tinyurl.com/phll4fa). Most people know that unemployment is linked to anxiety and depression, but it is often assumed that this is a fairly transient condition (Weich & Lewis, 1998). A longer lasting impact has been shown to occur in the children of unemployed parents (Office for National Statistics 2004), but so far this has not been connected with becoming NEET. Schoon et al. (2012) reviewed the literature on the intergenerational transmission of unemployment and concluded that although the academic prospects of the child are largely dependent upon a family’s socio-economic circumstances, these factors cannot on their own explain why adolescents become NEET. Anger (2012) has suggested that the intergenerational transmission of personality could also impact on the child’s economic prospects, and recent data I have looked at seem to confirm this is the case for NEETs. A post-hoc analysis of Rentfrow et al.’s (2015) self-selected online sample (N = 386,375) showed that on average all the big five personality traits of 18- to 24-year-old NEETs (N = 2426) in England were significantly different from the norms for their age.

Furthermore, there were significant differences in their personality traits across seven self-reported income brackets. In the lowest income bracket (< £10k) Neuroticism was higher and Extraversion and Conscientiousness were lower than in all the other income levels. This is of interest because Neuroticism predicts later mental illness, substance misuse, and poor job performance (Ozer & Benet-Martinez, 2006), whereas Extraversion and Conscientiousness are considered to be protective factors (Cambell-Sillsa et al., 2006).

Thus, there is good reason to believe that intergenerational transmission of personality and socio-economic prospects coalesce in the context of parental unemployment to create the longer-lasting mental health problems that are seen in the NEET populations (e.g. Serbin & Karp, 2004). While it is hoped that these findings will inspire local governments to take action on this most pernicious of public health problems, it is concerning to think that national governments will lose interest once the youth employment figures start to improve.

Stephen Adshead RNMH University of Essex References Anger, S. (2012). Intergenerational transmission of cognitive and noncognitive skills. In J. Ermisch, M. Jäntti & T. Smeeding (Eds.) From parents to children (pp.393–421).

New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Campbell-Sillsa, L., Cohana, S.L. & Steina, M.B. (2006). Relationship of resilience to personality, coping, and psychiatric symptoms in young adults. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44, 585–599.

Office for National Statistics (2004). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain, 2004: A summary report. Available at tinyurl.com/l4dg5q5 (05/2015) Ozer, D.J. & Benet-Martínez, V. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 401–421.

Rentfrow, P.J., Jokela, M. & Lamb, M.E. (2015). Regional personality differences in Great Britain. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0122245.

Schoon, I., Barnes, M., Brown, V. et al. (2012). Intergenerational transmission of worklessness. Institute of Education & National Centre for Social Research.

Serbin, L.A. & Karp, J. (2004). The intergenerational transfer of psychosocial risk.

Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 333–363.

Weich, S. & Lewis, G. (1998). Poverty, unemployment, and common mental disorders.

British Medical Journal, 317(7151), 115–119.

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Psychological support – bridging the gap I am writing in response to Fiona Sweeney’s article, on her role in a street triage team (Careers, August 2015).

The innovative efforts of the street triage scheme are addressing a need that was previously overlooked: a lack of trained psychological support for those must vulnerable and distressed.

I believe, that over the next few years, this scheme will become a substantial area of care for individuals suffering from poor mental health.

My concern, and the reasoning behind this letter, is that there appears to be a lack of psychological support in areas much more relevant to the care of service users. This

conclusion stems from my experiences during several occupational placements.

I have previously worked in a number of different healthcare settings, with multidisciplinary teams in both in- and out-patient services, where I have found trained clinical psychologists are few and far between. This absence suggests that psychological support is not a priority in terms of managing the care of each service user.

However, whilst working recently in an outpatient service, I was surprised by the amount of time that was spent, during clinics, discussing service user anxiety. Other healthcare

professionals are having to address these concerns, and, as with police officers, these individuals have only basic psychological training.

This is not to say that they cannot deal successfully with emotional and psychological difficulties; I was impressed by how many adopted a personcentred approach during appointments with service users.

However, one must wonder whether the attention given to any psychological issues, in turn, takes away the focus from the medical or physical difficulties the patient originally came to

clinic to address? It is of general knowledge that care staff within the NHS are under significant time constraints.

Therefore, their areas of

Autism training and conferences 2015 Women and girls on the autism spectrum

Autism and relationships, puberty, sex and sexuality

29 September 2015 – Falkirk, Scotland

13 October 2015 – Birmingham

We examine the unique challenges facing women and girls with autism, including first-hand accounts from women on the spectrum about the issues surrounding day-to-day living, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed.

Learn tools and strategies to help you talk confidently about relationships with children and adults with autism. Also featuring interactive seminars on keeping safe, sexual health, puberty and the legal framework for teachers.

Challenging behaviour in people with autism

Pathological Demand Avoidance syndrome

10 November 2015 – Exeter

26 November 2015 – Peterborough

Presenting the latest research and best practice in understanding and responding to challenging behaviour in children and adults with autism.

Information on PDA is extremely limited; this conference provides a rare opportunity to learn about the disorder and hear experts in the field discussing the latest strategies.

Training in diagnosis and assessment Understanding the autism spectrum using the DISCO framework This is an accredited four-day training course in the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO) framework focused on assessment and diagnosis.

Specialist psychological assessment This one-day course is designed for applied psychologists who wish to extend their skills and explore the complexities of assessment for individuals with autism.

For dates and more information on diagnosis and assessment courses, visit www.autism.org.uk/lornawingcentreBPS

For more information please visit: www.autism.org.uk/conferences2015BPS The National Autistic Society, a charity registered in England and Wales (269425) and in Scotland (SC039427)

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A new scholasticism with an old soul

expertise should take priority, but this is not always the case. Service users will take the time during clinic to address their primary concerns, and in some cases these are psychological, therefore the professional must meet this need. It is asking too much of professionals to address their own concerns with service users, and cover the psychological and emotional difficulties they may be experiencing, within a half-hour clinic appointment.

Therefore, I argue that each team, in each department of the NHS, needs a dedicated psychologist. It is not the case that every service user seen will require ongoing psychological support, however, what should be in place is the option to meet with a professional who is trained and equipped to deal with any concerns, should the service user and family need it.

This then brings us back to a question that has been asked numerous times: why, when there are so many individuals eager to become clinical psychologists, are there not enough job positions to

offer? There is a torrent of prospective psychology students that universities are churning out each year who are excellent candidates for clinical training, but there seems to be some discrepancy between this supply of individuals and the demand for psychological support.

The current state of affairs seems to be that graduates, like Fiona, are having to become much more creative with their career choices if they want to succeed in the field of clinical psychology.

I myself am a recent psychology graduate and I commend Fiona for her move into street triage.

Fiona has managed to overcome the obstacles associated with a career in the NHS, by working in a profession that diverts the attention back to patient care.

For the service user looking for psychological support, it seems the responsibility will have to fall to healthcare professionals, like lowintensity support, until the NHS can bridge the gap between supply and demand.

Hope Brennan Glasgow

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

In January of last year I graduated with a master’s in transpersonal psychology (hereafter TP) only to have become thoroughly disillusioned with the field as a result. For the heights TP professes to investigate are merely secular theoretical constructs in place of the hitherto religious (predominantly Christian) pronouncements on matters spiritual. Friedman (2009) has noted the xenophilia within TP, or, the privileging of exotic traditions over those more closer to home. Indeed, in our crippled culture, TP naturally looks to the East for stable, embedded spiritualities, and, even worse, believes they can be easily transposed into our midst. Carl Jung, who studied comparative religion extensively, cautioned that he did not think Westerners could fully appropriate Eastern religious endeavours because of the inherent cultural differences. In fact, Friedman (2005) relays a relevant insightful personal anecdote of how he once expressed his interest in Zen meditation to a Japanese colleague who then promptly laughed in his face at the Western drive towards solitary spirituality – a concept unthinkable in the actual Japanese context. Many have subsequently written on the cult of self-possession within contemporary religious alternatives and TP’s harshest criticism is that it has fallen into the trap of psychology as religion (Vitz, 1994). Combine our cultural moment of rampant individualism with Eastern practices of self-deification and we see why Friedman (2009) went on to develop a concern for the field’s tendency towards proliferating narcissism.

The alternatives to our culture’s national theism, particularly emphasised within TP – as found in the likes of Ferrer (2009), etc. – furthermore propagate a philosophia perennis, which is to say one of relativism. This is so taken for granted that I thought I would look deeper into how we got to such a place whereby the once perceived spark of divine intelligence within us was so undervalued in its ability to render real truths in the search for the sacred that one accepts a postmodern uncertainty over the history of our land. After all, this has led to rather embarrassing encouragements of Carl Jung did not think Westerners fideism, of the New Age romanticised could fully appropriate Eastern kind, whereupon one has the uneasy religious endeavours sense that imagination is inseparable from assent; or, as Faber (1996) explains in the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, ‘New Age thinking is a regression to primary narcissism in which the adult is returned to an infantile state of omnipotence, magical wish fulfilment and merger with the mother[/Gaia]’ (p.608).

I subsequently hunted in the opposite direction and struck upon how Catholicism has a particularly rich tradition of faith combined with reason even in the area of psychology. Going right back to the days of psychology’s designation as within philosophy’s remit, Catholicism carved out a school of thought based on traditional philosophy under the banner of ‘Neoscholasticism’. The goal of the Neoscholastics was to integrate the conviction of the soul with the scientific study of the human mind. In fact Kugelmann (2005) lays out how in the same year Wundt opened his psychological institute – 1879 – Pope Leo XIII issued a mandate for all Catholics to study Thomistic philosophy of being. It is St Thomas’s equation of the soul

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with the intelligence that inspired my coining of the phrase ‘desouling’ for our breakdown in penetrative thinking in the above areas. Neoscholasticism, for many myriad reasons lost its soul (cf. Kugelmann, 2005 for full details) around about the 1960s when TP precisely took off.

While I have the privilege of seeing retrospectively that Neoscholastic philosophy simultaneously underappreciated the role of culture (because it was more overtly Christian then anyway) and the individual (or rather personality), I found its grounding in a workable philosophy of being the cornerstone of my proposal that scholastic spiritual elaborations of our intelligence cannot go far wrong. Those who search for the ghost in the machine must encourage the division of labour between ontology and science as TP adopted doing; whereas the Thomistic rational soul is at least both empirical and preservative in the face of those such as Dennett (1991), who delight in exposing possible material causes for key but suspect fixtures in transpersonal theory – like consciousness, for example. Our wisdom tradition, however, has a reasoned argument for assent to the once great province of psychology itself – the soul.

Perhaps if we recover this one element we can prevent the slipping into uncertainty that categorises a lot of the confusion modern seekers after the truth encounter in our day?

Faber, M.D. (1996). Narcissism. In D.A. Leeming, K. Madden & S. Marlan (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion (pp.607–609). New York: Springer.

Ferrer, J.N. (2009). The plurality of religions and the spirit of pluralism. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 28(1), 139–151.

Friedman, H.L. (2005). Problems of romanticism in transpersonal psychology: A case study of aikido. The Humanistic Psychologist, 33(1), 3–24.

Friedman, H.L. (2009). Xenophilia as a cultural trap. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 28(1), 107–111.

Kugelmann, R. (2005). Neoscholastic psychology revisited. History of Psychology, 8(2), 131–175.

Vitz, P. (1994). Psychology as religion: The cult of self-worship (2nd edn). Carlisle: Paternoster Press.

obituary

Sabrina Halliday (1955–2015) The recent passing of Sabrina Halliday (married name, Levy) was shocking – she was such a vital person and her ‘to do’ list was in no sense complete.

Sabrina started life and graduated in Northern Ireland, moving to do research/

David Bench MSc University of Northampton Alumnus References Dennett, D.C. (1991). Consciousness explained. London: Back Bay Books.

prize crossword The winner will receive a £50 BPS Blackwell Book Token.

If it’s you, perhaps you’ll spend it on something like this...

Evolutionary Psychology: A Critical Introduction by Viren Swami brings together seminal work in the field and explores the ways in which evolutionary psychological research can illuminate our understanding of human behaviours and nature.

Price £33.99 ISBN 978 1 4051 9122 7 Visit www.bpsblackwell.co.uk

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teaching at Leeds, including ‘De-institutionalisation – Moving Children with Mental Handicaps from Long Stay Hospital to Community Care’ in the mid-1980s. Children hospitalised for being learning disabled!? Services were so

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Send your entry (photocopies accepted) marked ‘prize crossword’, to the Leicester office (see inside front cover) deadline 12 october 2015. Winner of prize crossword no 82 Jordan Smith, Lincolnshire no 82 solution Across 1 Stroop effect, 9 Malleable, 10 Shako, 11 Nectar, 12 Absinthe, 13 Incite, 15 Scornful, 18 Stressed, 20 Reason, 22 Trimaran, 23 Update, 26 Brand, 27 Maharishi, 28 Conditioning.

Down 1 Semantics, 2 Relic, 3 Operant, 4 Elba, 5 Feedback, 6 Cashier, 7 Cast-offs, 8 Dose, 14 Carnival, 16 Lingering, 17 Becalmed, 19 Stand to, 21 Esparto, 22 Toby, 24 Assai, 25 Shot.

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was expressed generally in active support for antiapartheid, feminist politics and the charity Shelter. She also trained in family therapy, a natural development for her belief in collaboration and relationships.

She pioneered a ‘Life Span’ family therapy clinic and she helped raise the profile of systemic approaches in work with people with learning disabilities and their support network. In 2002 she moved to Somerset LD services where she continued to work effectively in a range of roles – management, clinical, teaching and research. Much of this was innovative (dementia screening, rapid intervention team, health psychology, etc.) and courageous – for example, she set up and chaired a ‘Good Practice Panel’ which successfully considered the difficult ethical and legal

different… Sabrina’s commitment, clear thinking and resourceful approach ensured this project was key to the start of ‘normalisation’ for the local Service.

Training as a clinical psychologist enabled more involvement in making change happen for individuals. Her instinct for equal opportunity and equal value led to respected inter-agency and multidisciplinary input and

issues of complex, challenging presentations.

In 2010 a health scare prompted retirement and return to Northern Ireland to give more time to her family including her mother, husband Dave, brother and sisters and her beloved daughter Amy, whose upbringing reflected the essence of Sabrina’s approach in life: serving ,valuing, enjoying and facilitating fulfilment in others.

To the end Sabrina was modest about herself, but she positively glowed with humanity. She set herself and others high standards and occasionally her frustration with those who fell short, stirred that glow into a shower of sparks, but for the majority she was a much-loved and trusted team player with an infectious chuckle.

More recently, Sabrina had re-awoken her professional

energy and started to do some clinical work in Ireland. No doubt, even in that short time, she will have made a difference.

Sabrina would have been the first to acknowledge that any human system requires a complex and varied mix of individuals (i.e. diversity is not only politically correct, it is socially essential), but there is also little doubt that there would be more happiness and less trouble in the world (and the NHS!) if more were like her. Thank you, Sabrina, you will not be forgotten.

Judy Fox Somerset Partnership, Clinical Psychologist – Retired Lorna Robbins Clinical Psychologist – ALD Psychology Lead, Somerset Partnership Maggie Potts Manager and Clinical Psychologist, Leeds ALD Service

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Former PM's slump leads to clinical disorder? (5,10) Unlike cheese not down to score (5,2) Archaic exclamation about drink that's knocked back is a giveaway (7) Former pupil's extremely opaque source of notes (4) Cut down moorland (4) Partner no longer having appeal is shown the door (4) Settled ways to perform international duties? (7) Confection filling staff yard (5) Sleep disorder? Shucks! (5) Grass and ecstasy tablets provide endless rave with love (7) Keeping hold of love is girl's aim (4) Tailless snake recalled in Scandinavian book (4) First of olive oil put back in stew (4) Have a ball on unclosed luggage conveyance (7) Clout in design of block print (7) A blip, or cryptically, does it reveal mental illness? (7,8)

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Little may be seen through this instrument (10) Fervent leader replaced by Jack Green (7) Smooth ladies' man (4) Some cafes press out strong brew (8) Draw unfinished hotel (6) See poet try to adapt to simplified generalisation (10) Accepted barrister to sum up?

(2,5) Left a long time over holiday (4) Fuddy-duddy to whip up oil, say (6,4) With typo, ruined grocer's flier (10) Naked girl reported in capital (3,5) He got ripped for part of selfserving exercise (3,4) Put new strings in part of orchestra accepting resin (7) Face different directions during swerve (6) One regarded with contempt in south, caught sailor (4) Intelligence from home and foreign office (4)

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Dennis Bromley (1924–2015) Dennis Bromley, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, died on 27 April 2015. He spent his entire academic career at Liverpool University and became Head of Department in 1974. His prolific research produced books including The Psychology of Human Ageing in 1966, Personality Description in Ordinary Language in 1977, Behavioural Gerontology in 1990 and Reputation, Image and Impression Management in 1993. There were also journal articles and chapters in several text books on ageing.

In 1968/9 Dennis took sabbatical leave to work in the Jewish Geriatric Centre in Philadelphia. In 1979/80 he again took sabbatical leave to work in the University of Calgary and the Fanning Centre.

Dennis enjoyed his academic persona and was first and foremost a scholarly person with a strong belief in learning.

He always maintained his interest in flying after time in the RAF before university. He was a keen member of the University Air Squadron and gained his private pilot’s licence after he retired. He maintained an extraordinary level of fitness in the University Sports Centre and by jogging in local parks and home environs. The fact that he lived to the age of 91 is testimony to this.

Dennis died after only two days in hospital after a long period of physical and mental decline. He leaves his wife Roma and their son Damian, and also his daughter Ruth from a previous marriage.

Roma Bromley Liverpool

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4th Annual Military Psychology Conference

Resilience Through Change The Ark Conference Centre, Basingstoke Tuesday 3 November 2015 Professor Sir Simon Wessely Director King’s College London’s Centre for Military Health Research; President, Royal Institute of Psychiatrists Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes Director, Institute for Veterans and Families Studies, Anglia Ruskin University; President, British Psychological Society This very successful annual conference continues to bring together experts working within and with its partner professions in the field of Military Psychology. The British Armed Forces are facing continuing flux in their involvement in challenges around the world, and how they operate with their partners within defence and security. These challenges are also experienced by families of serving military personnel, reservists and veterans.

This 4th Military Psychology Conference will address the current models of resilience and whether they are fit for purpose and how in practice resilience develops in individuals, teams and groups. As ever, the conference also provides a personal reflection to help inform the work of practitioners and policy makers.

This Conference is preceded by a workshop; Normalising trauma? – A possible model of psycho education for military families led by Lynne Hipkin. Please note if you wish to attend this workshop you would need to book separately. Further details and fees can be found via www.kc-jones.co.uk/militaryworkshops2015 Conference fees Wessex Branch Member £105 + VAT = £126. BPS Members: £125 + VAT = £150 Non-members: £162.50 + VAT = £195. (see website for other membership categories) Poster submissions still may be accepted Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail to wellbeing@kc-jones.co.uk Please visit the event website (see below) for further information Sponsorship and exhibition opportunities are available Please visit the website for further information

This event is organised by BPS Wessex Branch and administered by KC Jones conference&events Ltd, 01332 227775.

For further information, please go to: www.kc-jones.co.uk/military2015

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NEWS

Mindfulness on trial The potential benefits of mindfulness have barely left the scientific or public consciousness in recent years (see http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/mindful-moment). Now, in the first large randomised control trial of mindfulness, a Wellcome Trust study will aim to look into its effect on the mental health of thousands of teenagers.

Teams from the University of Oxford, University College London and the Cambridge MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in collaboration with the University of Exeter will spend the next seven years looking into the effects of mindfulness training compared with teaching as normal. Seventy-six schools, involving nearly 6000 students aged 11 to 14, are due to participate. The three-part, £6.4 million study, will also include experimental research to assess whether mindfulness improves the mental resilience of teenagers, and an evaluation of the most effective way to train teachers to deliver mindfulness classes to students. The trial will involve training students in over 10 lessons within a school term. The work is scheduled to start in 2016 and will run for five years, including a follow-up period of two years for each student.

The teenage years present a multitude of challenges and change to young people and can be a very vulnerable time for the onset of mental illness; more than 75 per cent of mental disorders begin before the age of 24 and half by the age of 15 (see http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/teenagers-debunked for a full transcript of our recent session on the topic at Latitude Festival). The researchers will also look into secondary

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outcomes of mindfulness training including peer relationships, anxiety, student attainment and teacher wellbeing.

In the second, lab-based, part of the study researchers from UCL and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit are testing exactly how mindfulness affects wellbeing and whether mindfulness training is more beneficial at some stages of adolescence than others.

Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (UCL), whose work has looked extensively at the teenage brain, said it was becoming clear that the early teenage years were crucial for development of the brain. She added: ‘Alongside the trial in schools, we are trying to find out experimentally whether mindfulness improves cognitive and emotional resilience in young people.

Using experimental tasks in the lab, we will study whether mindfulness affects how young people think and feel and make decisions under stressful or emotional conditions. We are trying to establish whether mindfulness training, compared with a control intervention, has different effects at different stages of development, and therefore if there is a “best” time for teenagers to be trained in the technique.’

In the third strand of the study, researchers at the Universities of Oxford and Exeter are assessing how best to train teachers to deliver mindfulness to their students. The study involves 200 teachers and is evaluating different training methods (intensive mindfulness short course versus guided self-help mindfulness training and web-learning) and how easily and cost effectively teacher training can be scaled up. ER

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BRITISH ACADEMY FELLOWSHIPS The British Academy has elected four psychologists among 65 new Fellows – 42 UK Fellows, 20 Corresponding Fellows and three Honorary Fellows (the latter including poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and former Chief Executive of the British Library, Dame Lynne Brindley). The latest election of 42 UK Fellows takes the total number of living Fellows to more than 1000 for the first time.

Professor Stephen Reicher (University of St Andrews) was one of the psychologists who was newly elected as a Fellow. Reicher’s work has focused largely on the relationship between social identities and collective mobilisation, with emphasis on topics such as crowd behaviour, nationalism and national identity, leadership and mass social influence, conformity and obedience, and the psychology of tyranny.

Among his achievements, Reicher has published more than 200 academic articles and chapters, and is the author of nine books, most recently The New Psychology of Leadership.

He has also advised the UK and Scottish governments and his work on crowd dynamics has transformed public order policing in the UK and across much of Europe.

Professor Reicher said: ‘One of the great paradoxes of academic life is that achievement is always collective, but reward is

always individual.

In my work, I have always benefited from wonderful PhD students, collaborators and colleagues. I find it impossible to define where my contribution begins and theirs ends.

‘So, delighted as I am to be given this Fellowship, I see this less as a personal accolade than recognition for our way of doing psychology which is socially engaged, which challenges the idea that human nature limits the worlds we can create, and which focuses on the collective processes that can bring about social change.

Also, like Groucho Marx, I do feel that any association that would have me as a member can't be all that it’s cracked up to be’.

The second British psychologist to be elected was Professor Nicholas Tarrier (University of Manchester).

His work has looked into the psychological and psychosocial mechanisms underlying mental health problems, particularly schizophrenia, psychoses and post-traumatic stress disorder and the development and evaluation of psychological treatments for these problems.

Also named as a fellow was emeritus Professor of Psychology Janette Atkinson for her work on models of visual brain development, underlying visual, spatial

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and social cognition in both typical and at-risk infants and children, including those with very premature birth and Williams Syndrome.

Atkinson said she was very pleased at her election and added: ‘I see this honour as reflecting not only my own leadership role, but also the work of my team in the Visual Development Unit and all my collaborators around the world who have helped in the progress of our basic developmental research and in translating these findings into educational and clinical areas.

I believe that my election, with others, reflects the Academy’s recognition of the diverse interdisciplinary range of modern psychology, as well as a gratifying appreciation of the gender balance of our discipline.’

Finally, from across the pond, Professor Elizabeth Spelke (Harvard University) was made a Corresponding Fellow thanks to her work in cognitive development looking at the nature and origins of knowledge of material objects, animate beings, number, geometry, and the social world.

Lord Stern, President of the British Academy, said: ‘Our fellows play a vital role in the work of the Academy; encouraging younger researchers, engaging in public discussion of the great issues and ideas of our time, and contributing to policy reports. Their collective work and expertise are testament to why research in the humanities and social sciences is vital for our understanding of the world and humanity.’

SUPPORT FOR SURGERY An organisation representing plastic surgeons has called for greater psychological support for its patients after reconstructive treatment. More than 90 per cent in a survey of 100 members of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons, said having specialist psychological assessment and treatment was important to their patient group.

Two thirds of those surveyed also reported seeing patients in need of psychological support every week, while 27 per cent felt waiting times for psychological help were unacceptable.

Jo Tedstone, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the BPS, runs a psycho-oncology service at King’s Mill Hospital, Mansfield.

She said psychological support for physical health problems was an area that was often forgotten. ‘There is plenty of evidence that providing these services improves patients’ mood and quality of life as well as reducing overall healthcare costs. Illnesses that require reconstructive plastic surgery can have a huge impact on dayto-day life of the patient and their family. Many people need psychological support to rebuild their lives. However, at the moment simply not enough people get the help they need.’ ER

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The 30th Annual PsyPAG Conference This year’s Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group (PsyPAG) conference, held in Glasgow in July, not only attracted more delegates than ever before – over 200 – but also more presenters. The full and varied programme of symposia and posters was a real testament to the breadth and range of postgraduate psychology in the UK. The first day was filled with highlights. Professor Daryl O’Connor spoke on behalf of the Society’s Research Board, and our first keynote speaker, Professor Richard Wiseman, grabbed the audience’s attention by opening with a magic trick.

On Wednesday Glasgow City Council provided a Civic Reception at Glasgow City Chambers for a truly memorable evening. Addresses by The Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sadie Doherty, and BPS President Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes really added to the sense of occasion.

The sessions on Thursday and Friday were just as successful as the first day and we were pleased to welcome Dr Rachael Jack and Professor Padraic Monaghan to the conference as keynotes. The conference dinner on the Thursday

evening was also a massive success, with many of the delegates trying ceilidh dancing for the first time.

Overall, this event was a fantastic demonstration of everything PsyPAG has to offer. The environment at the conference was enthusiastic and supportive and the social events provided postgraduate students the opportunity to network and relax. Throughout the conference there was a sense of pride in the achievements of PsyPAG over the last

30 years. The Twitter hashtag #PsyPAG2015 attracted a huge volume of attention – almost 1000 tweets during the conference alone.

It was a real privilege to host the 30th Anniversary PsyPAG Conference, and we hope to build on this success in the coming years.

Niamh Friel, Jason Bohan, Stephanie Boyle, Ben Dunn, Gemma Learmonth, Kieran O’Shea and Yulia Revina (Members of PsyPAG organising committee)

Takete or maluma?

Professor Padraic Monaghan (Lancaster University) opened his keynote speech on sound symbolism with this interesting question. If we are shown a spiky shape or a more rounded shape, we are more likely to give the latter the title of maluma. Why is this and how much meaning can we retrieve from the sounds within words?

During his brilliant talk Monaghan spoke about the aspects of meaning held within phonoaesthemes, clusters of letters which present a certain meaning, for example the ‘gl’ in words relating to light, such as glimmer, glisten and gleam, as well as the ‘sn’ in nose-related words, snout, sniff, sneeze, and, yes, snot.

These parts of language do not always express the same meanings – the sound symbolism relationship is not perfect.

However even in other languages we may not understand, we can often tell which words mean whether something is large or small, for example the word ‘big’ in Finnish is suuri, in Polish duza, and Japanese oogata – Monaghan said there is a sound correspondence in languages which can sometimes express size.

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Sound symbolism may also be more prevalent in other languages. He pointed to the example of ideophones in Japanese: there are thousands of words in the language which express very particular types of movement, for example ‘buruburu’ which expresses trembling or shaking. Monaghan also said some researchers have suggested sound symbolism makes learning a language easier, or even that it makes language acquisition possible in the first place.

However within linguistics there is a largely anti sound-symbolism feeling.

Many argue that there are many long words for small things, small words for big things, and the relationship between sound and meaning is an arbitrary one.

Monaghan and his team have looked at all monosyllabic English words, finding a small but significant effect suggesting that some of the monosyllabic words had sounds that related to their meaning.

They also looked into whether there is a sound–meaning link across 69 different languages, finding that there was sound symbolism in all other languages tested

(apart from Georgian), but no more than seen in English.

So does sound symbolism make language-learning easier? While previous experiments have been forced-choice between two novel words to name a given object, Monaghan required participants to learn new sound-symbolic names for different objects. They were good at using sound-symbolism to categorise objects (rounded or spiky shapes) but could not use the information for better learning of the more fine-tuned individual words (e.g. to define between two spiky shapes).

Monaghan suggested, if sound symbolism could help us to learn basic categories for objects then it could well be useful in acquiring language in the first place. He looked at the age of acquisition of certain words and the amount of sound finding that the earlier words we acquire are more sound symbolic than we would expect by chance. Monaghan concluded that sound symbolism is prevalent, it has only a small effect, but can be helpful in learning categories of objects, and in some of the earliest words we learn. ER

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Facing up to expression Are facial expressions truly universal?

This fascinating question, and many others, have been tackled by Dr Rachael Jack (University of Glasgow) and her team using some unique technology.

In the past it was believed that the six facial expressions of happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, disgust and anger could be recognised across the world. However, it emerged in the late 1960s that while Westerners have a high level of accuracy distinguishing these, people from East Asian cultures often confuse fear with confusion and disgust with anger.

Dr Jack and her team hoped to find out why this might be, starting investigations using eye tracking technology. While Westerners fixated across the whole of a face when distinguishing facial expressions, East Asians tended to focus more on the upper half of the face, particularly the eyes.

Jack also gave some interesting anecdotal evidence, that in texts and online Westerners use the smiley face :) where the mouth is varied to suit the expression, however in East Asian smiley faces such as: ^.^ – the eyes are varied to illustrate expression and the mouth is altered very little.

In her later work, Jack used a unique computer platform to present participants with 3D images of faces showing randomised facial expressions. These images were created using the Facial

Action Coding System, which identifies the 40 specific muscles used in making facial expressions. Specially trained people who are able to move all of these 40 muscles individually were scanned and recorded, therefore allowing the team to generate images of faces with random combinations of each of these movements.

In this later experiment a set of three action movements were randomly selected and combined together and presented as one face; the participant then had to select an emotion category for that face. Dr Jack found that East Asians tend to use the eyes more to signal emotion; for example, in the East Asian results the stimuli most correlated with anger and disgust looked very different in the eyes, when compared with the Caucasian stimuli where the two emotions look similar in the eyes yet the mouths are very different.

Jack has also used these stimuli to investigate the face as a social tool, asking how much information people glean from facial movements as opposed to the natural morphology of the face. She used the stimuli described above to model the dynamic facial expressions that indicate dominance, attractiveness and trustworthiness. Dynamics emerge as more important: if a person who is rated as looking untrustworthy pulls a trustworthy face, they are then rated as being as trustworthy as the most trustworthy face. ER

Magic and dreams Many psychologists will know Professor Richard Wiseman from his regular mentions in the media – he is the UK’s only Professor in the Public Understanding of Psychology, based at the University of Hertfordshire. But you may not know that Wiseman began his working life as a magician, before going on to take his degree and PhD in psychology, ultimately pursuing an academic career in the field.

Wiseman spoke of his early career experiences, one of which was coming up with the best idea for an experiment that could be done live on TV. Wiseman won the opportunity to test a hypothesis related to the psychology of lying, attracting a 41,474-strong group of participants. This was a time before reality TV was commonplace and before Big Data became ubiquitous. The study, showing

that it is easier to tell if someone is lying if you disregard the visual cues and just close your eyes, was published in Nature.

More recent work demonstrated the impact of so-called ‘change blindness’, which reveals that in certain contexts, despite thinking you are looking carefully at visual cues, having your eyes wide open generally doesn’t help you to see what is going on right in front of you. This fact is visually expressed in his colour changing card trick (tinyurl.com/9rsejv).

Finally, Professor Wiseman talked about one of his most recent projects, Dream On, which invites us to be part of the world’s largest dream experiment (see tinyurl.com/owpf2eh). It was launched at the 2012 Edinburgh International Science Festival and over 13 million dream reports have already been submitted.

Dr Renée Bleau (University of Glasgow)

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Men rate women as more attractive when they appeared on a ‘short-term’ dating site (such as Tinder) in comparison with the same picture on a ‘long-term’ site (like e-Harmony). The reverse pattern is found in women. Jack Livingston Woodward (University of Glasgow) pondered whether his findings were proof of an evolutionary theory of mating – men may hope to reproduce more often with more diverse mates, while women may look for more nurturing partners with more resources.

Queen Margaret University student Hope Christie compared participants’ reactions to real footage of the aftermath of road accidents, a scary game and Stanley Kubrick movie The Shining. She found, although fictional, the game and film caused physiological responses and emotional reactions, but the road traffic footage, also used in prior experiments into trauma, left participants more interested than scared.

All caused some intrusive thoughts but these faded quickly; Hope concluded these types of stimuli might not be best for looking into trauma.

Could the energy drinks children consume be linked to their behaviour and achievement at school? Gareth Richards (Cardiff University) looked into surveys of more than 2000 children involved in the Cornish Academies Project. High amounts of caffeinated soft drinks and chewing gum were related to low attendance, low achievement in English and maths, and higher levels of detention.

Stephanie Powell (University of Sheffield) found that if children are shown a high number of different ways to play with a novel object they, in turn, develop a higher number of their own novel uses or ways of playing with the toy rather than being restricted to imitating the original actions.

Natalie Bowling (Goldsmiths University of London) showed participants a scale of computer-generated images; on one end a doll’s face, morphing across the scale into a human face. She found that female stimuli were seen as less animate than males and happy faces were more quickly rated as animate than neutral ones. Male faces were rated as more alive, more likely to have a mind and more likely to feel pain.

Harriet Smith (Nottingham Trent University) said evolutionary psychology would suggest we might be able to learn about a person’s age, height, weight and even attractiveness from their voice. She found that people could match faces to voices, better than chance, even if the face was a static image.

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14th European Congress of Psychology Ella Rhodes reports from Milan

The ‘nowness’ of PTSD Receiving the Wilhelm Wundt–William James award for her extensive and internationally recognised work in developing therapy for people suffering with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Professor Anke Ehlers (University of Oxford) spoke about the rationale behind the treatment.

Following a traumatic event, people who develop PTSD will often re-experience brief parts of the event. These episodes are more than mere memories and are usually accompanied by very strong emotions, as well as a feeling that the event is happening again – they have a sense of ‘nowness’ which is absent from normal memories. Ehlers also explained that these intrusive memories can be triggered by a wide range of stimuli and, although rare, some people experience

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dissociative flashbacks where they feel as if they are actually re-living an event and lose all sense of current reality.

Ehlers and her colleague Professor David Clark proposed a model of PTSD, where people with persistent PTSD symptoms perceive a power threat accompanied by strong emotions and arousal symptoms. The two sources of this threat are negative appraisals of the trauma and the nature of the memory.

Compared with survivors of trauma who don’t develop PTSD, those who do tend to find their intrusive memories are triggered more easily and they have a sense of ‘nowness’ rather than simply a similarity to a usual remembered event. Ehlers explained that triggers of these memories do not often have a meaningful association with the trauma.

Parts of therapy for PTSD are based on the idea that certain memory processes may be involved. There may be a strong perceptual priming during a traumatic event, making a seemingly neutral stimulus an eventual trigger for intrusive memories. Ehlers gave the example of one patient who was stabbed in an assault. His intrusive memories were once triggered while attending an art exhibition by a certain quality of light playing over glass.

Ehlers tested this idea and found when pictures of neutral objects are presented during a traumatic story (in the form of a slide show of pictures), these are more easy to recognise when participants are later presented with blurred images of these objects. The therapeutic technique which emerged from this and similar findings

is to conduct ‘stimuli discrimination training’ with PTSD sufferers. A therapist will work through a person’s triggers and train people to focus on the difference between that trigger, for example a neutral object or even sensory event, and the actual trauma itself.

Ehlers and her team also hypothesised that the autobiographical memory that comes back to be reexperienced by someone with PTSD is disjointed from other autobiographical memories: they are retrieved without context. She gave the example that many people during a traumatic event feel like they are about to die, and, although they did not die, when reexperiencing event they again feel very strongly they will die. She suggested that these re-lived moments remain threatening because the

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Beating tax aversion takes trust

meaning of the event hasn’t been updated.

Therefore another part of therapy for PTSD is to update these trauma memories.

A therapist will identify the worst moments of a trauma and the idiosyncratic meaning attached to these (e.g. the thought a person is going to die or was to blame for the trauma) and then look for information that updates the meaning of these memories.

Ehlers concluded her talk by presenting data that demonstrated the effectiveness of such therapeutic techniques for people with PTSD. She said very few people drop out from such therapy and it can be used for adults, children and people who have experienced multiple traumas.

Ehlers hopes to expand her work to deliver her treatments over the internet, thus helping people globally.

What role do power and trust play in how we could tackle tax avoidance and the roles of power and trust? Erich Kirchler (University of Vienna) argued that tax avoidance – large corporations using loopholes in laws of certain countries to shift profit – is a far larger problem than tax evasion. ‘We need more to educate and empower people to establish a sense of wrongdoing,’ he said.

Professor Kirchler added that despite large benefits to tax avoidance it comes with reputational costs and can be associated with a decline in a company’s stock market value. While audits and fines have their place in motivating compliance, there are other factors – including the psychological – at play.

Kirchler pointed to studies of attitudes towards tax revealing that if people are asked whether they would drive for 30 minutes to purchase a television with an 8 per cent tax discount compared with being asked if they would drive 30 minutes to purchase a television with a 9 per cent non-tax-related discount, a majority will say yes to the former option but no to the latter.

Kirchler said: ‘Something is going wrong here, audits and fines might be necessary but they’re not the whole story.’ He suggested that since we live in a social system a better way to encourage positive interactions between people and institutions was to look at the roles of trust and power.

In his Slippery Slope Framework Kirchler distinguishes between voluntary compliance with taxes or compliance that is forced, and he looked at how the perceived power of and trust in institutions affects compliance. He said an authority’s power comes from its capacity to

punish tax evaders while trust in an institution is related to transparency.

In a cross-cultural study Kirchler and his colleagues asked more than 14,000 people in 44 countries whether trust or power were more important in their intended compliance to pay taxes. He found that high levels of both power and trust together lead to higher intended compliance with taxes across countries.

With this main finding aside, Kirchler and his colleagues found a second surprising effect.

When comparing countries, he saw that in some (e.g. India, Iran and Pakistan) high trust and low power leads to more intended compliance, whereas in others (e.g. South Korea, Japan and the UK) high power and low trust leads to more compliance.

Kirchler said he was initially puzzled by this effect and speculated that in many European countries trust in institutions is quite high and people would accept it if they manifested more power. He said we could learn from social psychology, which suggests that it is important for institutions to build trust first followed by power. Whereas in other countries trust is lacking in institutions and this could be why people in these countries would comply more if trust was higher.

Kirchler concluded that though audits and fines are needed, they should be carefully applied. Both power and trust are needed to encourage compliance but power needs a legitimate and trustworthy basis to be effective.

‘We should invest in people’s representations of the public, the state and taxes and we might think about changing the paradigm which emphasises cooperative relationships.’

Evil and heroism explained Professor Philip Zimbardo (Harvard University) the researcher behind the (in)famous Stanford prison experiment of the early 1970s, gave the closing keynote of the conference around the themes of evil and heroism.

He began by admitting that growing up in the Bronx he had friends who got in with the wrong crowd, giving into temptation and carrying out

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‘evil deeds’ for money while others resisted.

He said this experience led him to ask questions about the nature of evil, and what separated those who took the different routes. Professor Zimbardo outlined the psychological definition of evil, which involves exercising power to hurt people psychologically. At the level of nations, this involves

committing crimes against humanity; in corporations it comes from allowing fraud, corruption and bullying.

Although psychologists began by exploring the nature of evil at an individual level, Zimbardo said it took psychologists like himself to point out that people are always in a social context and always have an audience. He concluded that psychologists

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must take into account an individual and their situation.

So what is the recipe for turning ordinary people evil?

The biggest factor, according to Zimbardo, is dehumanisation – thinking of others as less than human.

He also pointed to diffusion of responsibility, obedience to authority, group pressure, moral disengagement and anonymity as factors.

After a brief summary of his Stanford prison experiment, where college students were assigned as guards or prisoners in a fake prison setting with many

guards then treating the prisoners inhumanely, Zimbardo said he had concluded that anyone is capable of good or bad if a situation induces it.

On the flip side, Zimbardo asked, what are the conditions necessary for ordinary people to do good things? Although there is little research in this area, he suggested courage mindfulness, empathy, morality and compassion – but said sometimes these don’t lead to action. Therefore Zimbardo refers to heroism as the part of compassion that causes people to act.

He outlined two types of ‘hero’; those who are heroic when immediately reacting to a situation and those who are heroic after reflection (e.g. the Enron whistleblowers).

He suggested that while many children are exposed to superheroes as a role-model for doing good, a better role model would be ordinary people carrying out heroic acts.

Zimbardo then spoke of the creation of his Heroic Imagination Project – a nonprofit educational programme that is run in schools to teach children how to take heroic

action and act in a prosocial way. The lessons taught are based on challenging mindsets, situation blindness, bystander effect, peer pressure/conformity/adaptive attributions and stereotype threat, prejudice and intergroup conflict.

There are activities around each theme, all of which end with the suggestion that the children spread the word about what the have learned.

The project is now being taught in around 1000 schools in Hungary alone to change attitudes and encourage prosocial behaviour.

Does religion breed personal values?

‘Does it matter if you’re a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew or a Muslim? Is religion enough to account for individual differences?’ So began Professor Shalom Schwartz (University of Jerusalem) in his fascinating talk, aimed at convincing the audience that religion doesn’t matter for individuals’ personal values. Schwartz added: ‘I’m talking about religion as a cause in leading to people having one set of value priorities – not about religiosity. That does matter; people who are highly religious have different values than those who are secular. ’ In his investigations Schwartz used data from the European Social Survey, which was conducted between 2002 and 2012 over 36 countries and involved face-to-face interviews with more than 250,000 people between 15 and 102 years old. The survey included 21 questions that were intended to measure 10 values, which Schwartz condensed into six categories, including selfconformity and tradition, self-direction and need for stimulation.

Religion accounts for very little variance in Schwartz found some marked individual values differences between religions and their values, including high levels of conformity and tradition within Muslim people but low levels in the non-religious when looking at each group individually and Jews. The highest levels of hedonism we see some large differences; for were found in Jewish people and the nonexample, the Protestant group were much religious, with the lowest levels seen in older on average, the Jewish people had Eastern Orthodoxy. comparatively higher levels of education Schwartz said that almost every and the Eastern Orthodox group possible between-group comparison he contained more females. found was significant; but was religion Schwartz said it was vital to control actually the main factor in these personal for these variables, and when doing so values differences? Schwartz said that almost all of the variance in personal

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values seems to be due to individual characteristics. Another potential confounding variable is a person’s country of origin: religious groups within the same country are much more similar to each other; Schwartz suggested being of a certain religion in a country where that religion is in the minority could impact on personal values. For example, Muslim people’s values stood out most when they were in a minority and were ‘grounded in anxiety and self-protection’.

Schwartz concluded: ‘People say without religion people tend to be selfinterested. But that doesn’t seem to be terribly important for what people are.

Non-religious people were just as high as Protestants in concern for others and just as low in concern for the self and taking advantage of others.’ He also pointed out that identifying with a religion was not important for benevolence and that religion accounts for very little variance in individual values.

Schwartz did point out that his study was limited by its focus on Western monotheistic religions and only looked at European countries. He also said that we should consider that each religious group would probably differ in its values and it may be that certain people with certain values are drawn to particular religions or being non-religious. He added that many psychologists had completely ignored the fact that most people in Europe identify as non-religious. In the future, Schwartz said, he hoped to look at the values of people who were once religious but no longer are.

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The psychobiology of stress Some fascinating insights into stress and the potential for later illness, as well as stress in stimulated life-threatening situations, were discussed at a British Psychological Society–funded symposium.

Members of the Psychobiology Section drew in scores on a hot and humid day.

Dr Mark Wetherell (Northumbria University) opened with his work on the effects of anticipation of a forthcoming demanding situation on cortisol. He began by explaining the role of cortisol in maintaining the fight or flight response, and its longer-term role in sleep–wake regulation and glucose metabolism.

Cortisol has an immediate peak after waking, the cortisol awakening response (CAR). This response, if reduced, is related to burnout and exhaustion, and if exaggerated can be the result of increased job and life stress. If a person has a demanding event ahead of them, this anticipation (even if the event is positive) can lead to an exaggerated CAR. In his own work at the Northumbria Centre for Sleep Research – which is laid out to look like a comfortable twobedroom apartment in an attempt to increase ecological validity – Wetherell has looked to assess this effect of anticipated demand. In one study participants entered into either a sleep or stress study and measured their cortisol, general wellbeing, wake–sleep patterns over a 14-day baseline assessment before attending the lab. In the stress condition they were told that the following day they would do a range of demanding tests each hour throughout the day until bedtime. In the sleep study they were told they could spend the day in the lab and watch TV and relax. He found those in the stress study were more tense and physically aroused compared with their 14-day baseline. The stress group also had greater secretion of cortisol during CAR and a greater CAR peak.

Angela Clow (University of Westminster) continued by speaking about the individual difference of attachment style in predicting cortisol responses. She explained that the stress and cortisol systems could become dysregulated over time if a person is repeatedly exposed to stress, and that our responses or evaluation of stressful situations have a bearing on how we cope with them. Just as exaggerated stress responses can predict morbidity in later life, having close attachments can also predict life-course morbidity. The insecure-anxious attachment style, which

manifests itself in a fear of rejection and high desire of company, is associated generally with more health problems across the lifespan.

With this as a starting point Clow looked into the stress responses of students to a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test, where six participants were confronted with a non-empathetic and powerful panel of people and asked to give a two-minute speech and then do mental arithmetic. Those with an anxious style attachment had a higher peak in cortisol levels than those with a secure attachment style. Clow concluded that an anxious attachment style could be a surprising and significant individual difference factor predicting future vulnerability to ill health.

Dr Michael Smith (Northumbria University) has been looking into the sometimes controversial link between Type D personalities, physiological symptoms and dysregulated reactions to stress. He began by explaining a Type D personality is categorised as a person having high levels of negative affectivity (being worried, irritable or unhappy) and social inhibition (high levels of inhibition, being closed and reserved). Early studies in this area have found that people with this personality type are more likely to have recurrent heart attacks after an initial heart attack.

However, the area has been heavily criticised, with many studies failing to be replicated. Smith pointed out that some have argued abandoning Type D research would be premature, as it can be useful in predicting cardiovascular outcomes.

In one study Smith and his colleagues worked with 77 people who were asked to carry out a multitasking stressor experiment where four tasks must be completed at the same time, each requiring a different response while blood pressure and heart rate are monitored.

He found, surprisingly, that at most points during the task Type D people showed reduced blood pressure reactivity.

He explained, though, that blunted cardiovascular activity is related to poor health outcomes too. A further study found a similar blunted response in Type D people to mental arithmetic.

Another psychobiological reaction seen in Type D personalities, Smith explained, is cortisol levels. Previous research has found Type D coronary patients have an elevated CAR and a greater cortisol secretion throughout the day. In his own work Smith found

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no relationship between this personality type and cortisol levels, but in Type D participants aged 26 to 44 he observed higher social inhibition and higher levels of cortisol during CAR than in other age groups, along with higher levels of cortisol throughout the day. He concluded: ‘With repeated stresses physical systems become stressed and respond in an aberrant way. Personality might be another individual difference factor that’s important in terms of demands on the physiological system.’

Finally Sarita Robinson (University of Central Lancashire) spoke about the psychobiology of facing simulated lifethreatening situations, its impact on cognition and the potential for nutritional interventions to help dampen these effects. Dr Robinson has carried out work at a nautical college where participants have to escape from a helicopter cockpit that is submerged underwater and rotated 180 degrees. She said there is a peak in cortisol around 30 minutes following the exercise, although participants feel relaxed by this point. In terms of cognition, participants have no working memory problems before the exercise but straight after do show some problems with this.

Some of Robinson’s participants are also tested for cortisol levels and cognition after completing a simulated fire fighting search and rescue. During this work she came across the idea of ‘cognitive collapse’, where survivors of an emergency feel cognitively capable during the event, but following a stressful event cognitive ability seems to fall away. Robinson began to look at whether drinking an energy drink prior to the fire search and rescue exercise would help prevent this cognitive collapse. She found a high glucose drink did help with memory performance and mood, while both high caffeine and high glucose drinks helped with information processing. A further study looked to asses whether chewing gum, either regular gum or that containing caffeine or Ltheanine (an amino acid found in tea and thought to aid relaxation), would help with cognitive collapse. No effect was found of chewing gum on stress or cortisol levels, while caffeine gum had some effect on visual declarative memory.

She concluded that some interventions should be considered for the time after an emergency or life-endangering situation, and that interventions such as chewing gum – which have had good effects in the lab – may not be useful in real-life stressful situations.

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Being together apart Three researchers who have looked into the use of forums in supporting people with a chronic illness gave talks about the challenges of psychologists working with technology, the difficulty of being a forum moderator and the use of forums more generally as support networks.

Jeff Gavin (University of Bath) began the discussion by explaining that, with the NHS under intense strain, more research is being aimed at how technology may help people self-manage their own chronic conditions. While much work looking into forums is done retrospectively the researchers wanted to create a forum from scratch aimed at people with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS).

Dr Gavin explained that CRPS is an incurable disorder that leaves sufferers with debilitating pain. It is a difficult condition to diagnose and can be extremely isolating. The study aimed not only to create a conventional forum but also, following this, to encourage users of that forum to contribute to a wiki page on CRPS to give a patient perspective of the condition – this unique idea would allow the researchers to see discussions among the authors who were creating the page.

The original forum was set up and monitored for six months, and in that time there were 62 members and more than 200 posts. However, Gavin said there had been some key challenges within the study. These included working with web developers to produce a user-friendly and

attractive site, and regaining momentum after a hacker created several fake profiles on the site causing it to be shut for several days. Gavin also outlined an interesting ethical dilemma faced when one of the forum users seemed to be struggling with symptoms of depression. One researcher wondered whether it would be ethical to intervene, a second suggested setting up a fake profile on the forum to offer help that way, the third researcher disagreed with the ethics of this and suggested asking another of the group members to offer some support. Eventually it turned out this person had received much support on other social networks.

In conclusion, Gavin said there was an issue with the lack of participant engagement, particularly with the intended wiki task. None of the forum users wanted to write about their condition publically. As a result the research team created a series of leaflets about CRPS from what they thought was the forum users’ point of view. He said this should perhaps tell researchers to stick to studying existing technology and familiar mediums for communication.

Neil Coulson (University of Nottingham) gave an interesting talk into his work with forum moderators, those who help to run and offer support to people using the sites. Dr Coulson said moderators, who are usually also patients themselves, were an incredibly important group who have been under-studied, and

he asked what psychologists could do to support them.

One study looked into 59 moderators across six online communities (all for physical and mental health problems) to see what they do. Two thirds of messages sent by moderators in this study were aimed to support other members, doing things with a supportive intention, offering advice, validating feelings and telling them not to feel alone.

Coulson and his team also conducted extensive face-to-face interviews with 33 moderators across 24 online support groups. He found three major themes; emergence, empowerment and nurturing.

Emergence is the first step of most moderators – in setting up online communities due to a lack of support outside of the internet, he found a want to care for others as a big drive for this.

Empowerment, Coulson explained, involved a moderator’s experience of learning and growth and turning the challenging experience of having a medical condition into something positive. He pointed out the difficulty of serving that dual function of helping

GRASPING THE ORGANISATION OF THE BRAIN How are objects represented in the brain? Eminent cognitive neuroscientist Alfonso Caramazza (Harvard University) argued that it is on the basis of both ‘domains’ and ‘attributes’, and he backed up this view with neuropsychological evidence.

Professor Caramazza described patients with agnosia, a difficulty in recognising objects, and apraxia, who have trouble with actions related to objects.

Patients with selective impairments of certain parts of cognition about objects give some proof that the brain must be organised in a certain way.

For example, some patients

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struggle with identifying an object’s attributes; Caramazza pointed to patient WC who performed only at chance when asked which two objects (out of a piano, pen and typewriter) matched in the manner in which one uses them (piano and typewriter). They were able, however, to say which matched in function (pen and typewriter): Caramazza said this shows we have separate object knowledge in the brain, part dealing with function and part dealing with the manipulation of objects.

Some patients are impaired in their knowledge of object domains; for example patient EW

showed a selective difficulty in naming animals (animate objects) but performed normally naming inanimate objects. The visual system within the brain, Caramazza pointed out, is organised by categories; there is an area for faces, animals, bodies, body parts, trees and buildings. However the major organisation of the brain is complex and is seemingly split into three domains; animate, inanimate, and big vs. small objects. There are peaks of preference for each of these in certain areas of the brain.

Caramazza suggested that this organisation by size serves a vital

function – small things are graspable while things that are large can be used for navigational purposes.

In terms of the development of highly specialised areas for objects, size and function, Caramazza asked how these develop and whether they are truly ‘visual’ areas. It seems, thanks to recent research, that even the congenitally blind have brains organised for inanimate, animate, small and large objects.

Caramazza concluded that brain organisation does not arise due to visual experience but must be a result of evolutionary pressures to organise the brain.

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others while helping the self and said engaging with an online group helped people to learn more about their conditions as well as accessing a ‘communal brain’ or resource hub. Finally Coulson explained nurturing, and asked what it takes to nurture a forum and be a moderator. He said there was some tension between living with a disease and devoting a lot of attention to helping others, and that moderators felt a strong need to set clear boundaries. The notion of self-care also came out: moderators spoke about having ‘armour’ to deal with spam and trolls.

Coulson concluded that we need moderators but that there was an argument for moderator training to develop the skills and resilience needed to carry out the role.

Finally, Professor Karen Rodham (Staffordshire University) described examining a forum from its birth. She said this gives researchers much scope to assess how themes, cultures and quirks develop. When first using the CRPS forum, Rodham found that people tended to use their real names and speak about their journey to diagnosis, contact with health professionals, and their hobbies.

There is much misdiagnosis with CRPS, treatment is often simply aimed at alleviating symptoms, and people may find the right medication through trial and error. Rodham therefore suggested this standard introductory format served to establish an individual’s credentials as an authentic member of the community and someone with a right to join.

Rodham has also examined the type of language used on pro-anorexia websites. She found many of the troubling symptoms (such as hair loss) are framed in a positive light, and that some members encourage others to actively hide the fact they were anorexic, using sinister language that suggested telling others would lead to disaster.

Across forums common themes occur, with sites often starting with a positive outlook but over time turning negative.

Rodham said that although venting can be helpful and positive, there is a danger that forums turn into a collective rant.

The growing feeling on some forums that only a person with a particular condition could understand their pain, can lead to greater isolation in the real world.

Rodham concluded that health professionals should be armed with quality sites and good information, and harness the positivity of forums to complement face-to-face interactions.

PSYCHOLOGY AT LATITUDE FESTIVAL The Psychologist made a successful first appearance at a major UK festival in July. ‘The Psychologist and Wellcome Trust presents…’ slot at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk paired Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (University College London) with author Fiona Neill, for a discussion in the Literary Arena chaired by our editor Dr Jon Sutton.

The arena was full for ‘Being Young Never Gets Old – Teenagers Debunked’. Our editor reports: ‘We were thrilled to peep out from backstage to see so many people. The session went very well, the audience questions were fantastic and we received lots of positive feedback both on site and on social media. Professor Blakemore was interviewed on BBC 6Music and there was coverage in The Guardian. And it was nice to be in the programme and on the t-shirts! All in all, I think it was a great way to reach a large and different audience.’

A full transcript is at https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/teenagers-debunked. We are now looking into potentially repeating the session at a literature festival, and will be discussing options for Latitude Festival 2016 later in the year.

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Why words get stuck on the tip of your tongue, and how to stop it recurring Someone in a tip-of-the-tongue state will invariably writhe about as if in some physical discomfort. ‘I know it, I know it, hang on...’ they will say. Finger snapping and glances to the ceiling might follow, before a final grunt of frustrated submission – ‘No, it’s gone.’

Psychologists studying this phenomenon say it occurs when

In Cognition there is a disconnect between a word’s concept and its lexical representation. A successful utterance requires these two steps to be bridged, but in the tip-of-the-tongue state, only the concept is activated (and possibly a letter or two) while the complete translation into letters and sounds fails. What’s more, new research shows the very act of being in this state makes it more likely that it will recur.

Maria D’Angelo and Karin Humphreys provoked their participants into experiencing tip-of-the-tongue states by presenting them with the definitions for rare words (e.g. ‘What do you call an instrument for performing calculations by sliding beads along rods or grooves?’). Sometimes the students knew the word straight-off, other times they said they simply didn’t know, but occasionally – and these were the important trials – they said they definitely knew the word, but couldn’t quite spit it out.

The researchers quickly (after 10 or 30 seconds) put the students out of this last, uncomfortable tip-of-the-tongue state by telling them the answer. However, a key finding was that being in a tip-of-the-tongue state for a particular word on one

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occasion increased the likelihood of being in that state again for the same word on later re-testing, whether that second test came five minutes, 48 hours or one week later (thus replicating and extending previous research by the same lab). This recurrence is despite the fact of having been told the word after the initial tip-of-the-tongue state.

This suggests the state involves an unhelpful learning process. Imagine a hiker who is lost en route to his destination – this is your brain trying to find the path between word concept and letters and sounds. The findings suggest that walking the wrong route once actually makes it more likely you’ll get lost again as you unintentionally come to learn the wrong way to your destination.

Consistent with this account, spending more time deliberately but unsuccessfully attempting to resolve a tipof-the-tongue state made it even more likely that it will recur (but note, contrary to the researchers’ prior work, this time this effect was only found when participants put a lot of unsuccessful effort into resolving the tip-of-the-tongue state).

In real life, this means that if you’re hopping about in a frustrated tip-of-the-tongue state and I tell you the word you’re hunting for, I won’t have done you any favours – next time you need that word, you’re likely to get stuck again.

The researchers believe this is because although I’ve told you the word, you haven’t arrived at it through your own wordsearching processes. To follow the hiking analogy, it’s a bit like I’ve picked you up by car and fast-tracked you to your destination – by doing so, I will have done nothing to teach you the correct route.

So, is there anything you can do to help a person in a tipof-the-tongue state? A clue comes from the fact that when the students in these experiments spontaneously resolved a tip-of-the-tongue state (i.e. they finally managed to find the word before the researchers told it to them), they were subsequently far less likely to get stuck again. Such spontaneous resolutions suggest that the word-search process has managed to resolve itself and when this happens, the correct concept–word connection is usually remembered. This is like the lost hiker managing to find his own way to the destination and remembering the route for future use.

The way to help someone in a tip-of-the-tongue state, then, is to nudge them towards a spontaneous resolution. When the researchers helped their student participants resolve a tip-oftongue state by giving them the first few letters of the solution, this prevented the state from recurring on later testing. Point the hiker in the right direction and if he finds the right way himself, he will remember the correct route in future. This nicely complements an established phenomenon from research on word learning known as the generation effect: that is, generating words from clues (such as a word stem) leads to better memory for those words than being told them whole.

‘These findings may have potential applications for both educational, and therapeutic settings, in which a student or a patient with neurological damage is trying to retrieve a difficult item,’ the researchers concluded. CJ

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Drawing cancer

New method reveals our ‘blatant dehumanisation’ of minority groups

In Psychology and Health

In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Early diagnosis of cancer can save lives, yet so many people wait before reporting important symptoms. A pilot study uses an unusual approach to explaining why, by asking skin cancer patients to draw their melanomas.

Suzanne Scott at King’s College, London and her colleagues recruited 63 skin cancer patients (average age 64), around half of whom had a thinner melanoma, and half a thicker melanoma (prognosis is poorer for the latter group). Four of the patients had had their melanomas spotted opportunistically by a clinician; the others had waited between 1 week and 303 weeks before reporting their first symptoms.

All were asked to produce annotated drawings of their melanoma as it looked when they first noticed it, and how it changed over time. Fifty-three of the patients agreed (three had their wife or daughter produce the drawings), while four were unwilling or unable to do the drawing.

Overall, this suggests that the idea of drawing their symptoms is acceptable and practical for most patients. Men tended to produce more drawings than women. In all, 137 drawings were produced by 53 patients.

The researchers said the level of detail produced shows that most patients tend to pay attention to their skin changes, but that they often don’t act on the changes. This implies that public health interventions need to do more to educate people about the meaning of their skin changes and when it is appropriate to seek help.

Another key finding was that patients’ drawings correlated in size with their actual melanomas (as measured in histology photos), and yet there was no correlation between size of drawings and the time taken to seek medical help. The researchers said this further suggests that it is likely that it is patients’ interpretations of the meaning of their symptoms, rather than their perception of the physical nature of the symptoms per se, that explains their decisions as to whether or not to seek help.

It’s also notable that patients often depicted changes in size and colour in their drawings (two key diagnostic features), but other important factors including shape and border irregularity were rarely depicted.

The study is limited by the small sample size and the reliance on asking patients to remember how they had perceived their melanomas. Nevertheless, the researchers concluded that ‘patient drawings add a deeper understanding of patient perception of their lesion… [and] can facilitate discussion of symptoms perception and appraisal.’ CJ

The scale seems particularly useful Ghanaian footballer Emmanuel Frimpong’s when the in-group feels under direct threat match in Russia recently ended nastily: of violence. In the two weeks following the ‘When the match was stopped,’ he said, Boston Marathon bombing, US participants ‘the fans started shouting “monkey” at me.’ showed significantly higher Arabic Redefining human beings as animals in this dehumanisation on the Ascent scale than in way, or as vermin, or insects, is no small data collected two months before. This was thing; time and again it has augured the again a strong predictor of many of the worst that our species has to offer. measures described above and of In the wake of the Holocaust, early eliminativist attitudes such as agreeing with researchers sought to understand blatant a tweet that all Muslims should be wiped off dehumanisation, such as people’s greater the face of the earth. A similar result was willingness to apply an electric shock to obtained with a British sample following the subjects who were depicted as inhuman. murder by Islamic converts of the off-duty More recently, researchers have turned to studying ‘infrahumanisation’: a more subtle variant where certain groups are assumed to be less prone to embarrassment, compassion or other more sophisticated human emotions. But blatant dehumanisation is still with us, and a new paper suggests that by measuring it we can better predict people’s intentions (especially when they’re feeling threatened) towards degraded minority groups.

Across several online surveys, hundreds of US and British participants were asked a host of attitudinal questions and asked to rate different ethnic groups on how evolved they were, using a graphic British soldier Lee Rigby: dehumanisation of depicting the famous ‘Ascent of Man’.

Muslims was high, and this time correlated By setting a slider somewhere between the with support for drone strikes, punitive two ends, participants were free to consign treatment of the perpetrators, and ethnic groups to being less than human. aggressive counterterrorism policy against Initial results found US citizens Arabs and Muslims. dehumanise Arabs and Muslims the most, In this paper’s initial surveys, the so the paper focuses on these groups, measures of more subtle dehumanisation although a similar, weaker pattern of results was also for the other groups, such as South (infrahumanisation) had offered some explanatory value, sometimes overlapping Korean or Mexican people. with the Ascent scale results, sometimes Where the US participants placed complementing them. This was much the Arabs on the Ascent scale turned out less so in these last two post-crisis to be revealing of their wider attitudes: it correlated with their desire for The material in this section is taken from the Society’s reducing Arab Research Digest blog at www.bps.org.uk/digest, and is immigration, lack written by its editor Dr Christian Jarrett and of sympathy towards contributor Dr Alex Fradera. an unjustly treated delinquent teen of Arab ethnicity, and endorsement of acts of violence, such as advocating torture or bombing an entire Arab country (this was true even after controlling for measures of infrahumanisation).

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situations. Pre versus post Boston Marathon, the participants’ subtle dehumanisation scores didn’t budge, failing to reflect the overt changes in attitudes evinced by the participants (on immigration etc.), or the hostile advocacy of the US-Boston participants and the UK-Rigby participants.

This is not to say that measures of infrahumanisation are redundant – they capture a different aspect of ‘Othering’, one that could occur in low-stakes, everyday interactions. But this more subtle dehumanisation appears to shift more slowly – perhaps through the drip-drip of culture – whereas blatant dehumanisation, as measured by the Ascent scale, seems to better capture our states of mind in volatile contexts. In an age where nationalism and ethnic identity are returning to the political centre stage – from the rise of the European far-right to the emergence of the so-called Islamic State which treats those unlike themselves as non-human – it’s important that we are able to measure and understand this treatment of ‘the other’. AF

Experiences of adults with ‘selective mutism’, in their own words In Qualitative Research in Psychology Some people have a condition that means in most situations, they can’t speak. There’s nothing wrong with their tongue or vocal chords , and they don't have ‘aphasia’ which is when brain damage affects speech. Yet most of them time, they feel completely unable to speak.

In 1934 the term ‘elective mutism’ was coined to describe this condition based on the idea that people fitting the diagnosis were choosing to remain silent. But the favoured term, at least in the UK, has since changed to ‘selective mutism’ to reflect the fact that for many, their inability to talk in some situations does not feel like a choice.

For instance, someone with selective mutism might talk perfectly normally when home alone with their parents or other close family, but find themselves totally incapable of speech in public or at school or work.

LINK FEAST Why Do Babies Laugh Out Loud?

‘Babies can’t possibly get a joke, so what causes their giggles? The answer might reveal a lot about the making of our minds,’ says Tom Stafford at BBC Future. www.bbc.com/future/story/20150728-why-do-babieslaugh-out-loud The Virtues of Cold Blood (audio) Sam Harris interviews psychologist Paul Bloom about the limitations of empathy as a guide to moral reasoning. www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-virtues-of-cold-blood Making Friends in New Places The first three weeks are crucial, says Nicholas A. Christakis at the New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/making-friends-in-newplaces.html Experimental Psychology: The Anatomy of Obedience Brendan Maher at Nature reviews two films probing notorious US psychological experiments. www.nature.com/nature/journal/v523/n7561/full/523408a.html Are You a Head Person or a Heart Person?

At New York magazine, Digest editor Christian Jarrett looked at research that says your answer to this question is telling. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/07/are-you-head-person-or-heartperson.html Facing Shadows (YouTube video) In April 2015 seven young people who had been to a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) for help with their depression came together, with the aim of making a short, animated film about what it is like to suffer from depression as a teenager. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdmRPKUhNEY

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Psychologists have struggled to explain selective mutism – some have suggested it is an extreme manifestation of social anxiety; others point to links with autism. What has been almost completely missing from the literature so far has been the perspective of people with selective mutism. Helping to fill that gap, a new study presents the experience of five people with the condition, in their own words. Four of the participants were interviewed at length using instant messenger (a text-based way to converse) on Skype, and the fifth ‘participant’ was the study co-author Aaron Walker, a prize-winning psychology student who has largely overcome his selective mutism and who provides his own reflections from diary extracts.

Analysing the interview transcripts, Walker and his colleague Jane Tobbell identified several key themes, some of which challenge the idea that people with mutism are choosing to stay silent. One theme was the participants’ sense of separation from their mutism, as if it was not a part of their true identity. Hannah, aged 26, was diagnosed at age 17 and has since then only been able to speak verbally with her parents. She described this sense of dissociation: ‘It isn't me. I know who I am and I’m not shy or quiet, maybe that makes it harder. When I’m with my parents I can be myself but around everyone else it’s like it [selective mutism] takes over. I can get the words in my head but something won’t let me say them and the harder I try the more of a failure I feel like when I can’t.’

The participants also described how their silence became self-fulfilling as others came to expect them to be voiceless. Sam, 21, has had selective mutism since the age of eight and is only able to speak to his parents and close friends whom he knew before that age. He put it like this: ‘When I was at secondary school, because no one expected me to say anything it became kind of impossible to say anything, like, other kids just avoided me. Even the teachers would treat me differently. In History class the teacher would just skip past me when we had to read things out. On one hand it helped, I wouldn’t have been able to talk anyway.’

The researchers said examples like this show how selective mutism is maintained not only through the behaviour of the person with mutism, but also through the expectations and behaviours of others. Not surprisingly, this leads to extreme feelings of isolation for people with mutism. Ben, 30, has had selective mutism since early

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DIGEST DIGESTED Full reports are available at www.bps.org.uk/digest A survey of the UK autism community has uncovered a plurality of views on the most appropriate way to refer to the condition. So-called autism-first terminology, as in ‘autistic person’, is favoured by autistic people, while researchers prefer person-first terminology, as in ‘people with autism’. Autism The smell of fish improves people’s reasoning skills.

Researchers found that people exposed to the smell of fish were less prone to a trick question (‘How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?’) and less vulnerable to the confirmation bias.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology ‘…stuck outside looking in’ childhood and he painted a vivid picture of his loneliness: ‘It's like that scene from Scrooge where he looks through the window and he can see people having fun being together. I'll always be stuck outside looking in.’

The final theme related to the participants’ feelings of regret for a wasted life, their lament for the ‘normal life’ they had missed out on. Lily, 23, was diagnosed at the age of 12. She said: ‘A lot of the time I worry about things I haven't done, that I should have.’ [Interviewer: What kind of things?]. ‘All the things normal people do.

I could have gone to university, I always did well at school. But it was different there, teachers knew about my problem. Maybe I’d have been able to get a job and be in a relationship. A lot of the time I imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t have selective mutism.’

On a more positive note, Walker [the co-author with selective mutism] said that he had managed to achieve some kind of normality. Not only can he give lectures, which once would have ‘seemed unimaginable’, but, he added, ‘even small everyday things such as asking for a train ticket or ordering a meal are reminders that selective mutism can be overcome’.

This study helps us understand the lives of people with selective mutism, thereby making a valuable addition to a scholarly literature that is dominated by the perspectives of parents, teachers and clinicians. While it’s not clear how representative the findings are of other people’s experiences with the condition (a contrasting 2007 interview-based study talked of people with mutism being ‘strong willed’ and having a ‘conscious determination not to speak’), Walker and Tobbell make a powerful point: ‘…this study’, they said, ‘has demonstrated that there are ways to hear the voices of those with selective mutism, if we are willing to listen’. CJ

An intervention designed to reduce sexism among male undergraduates has met with mixed results. The procedure involves participants in a group challenging sexist remarks. Overall, participants’ sexist attitudes were reduced, but the exercise had no impact on rape-related attitudes or on beliefs how many other men endorse sexist attitudes. Gender Issues Researchers have uncovered bi-directional influences between personality and loneliness. Specifically, people who scored higher in neuroticism in their twenties tended to be lonelier in midlife; and people who felt less well and lonelier in their twenties tended in mid-life to score higher on neuroticism, but lower on extraversion and conscientiousness. Journal of Personality The reason why sensory metaphors are so popular is that they are easier to remember than their non-metaphorical equivalents. What’s more, an analysis of sensory metaphors used in millions of books published since 1800 found that those that sustained their popularity were easier for contemporary students to remember. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Women rate men as more attractive when they’re pictured alongside a handsome son, as compared with when they’re pictured alongside a less attractive son. It’s argued that the presence of the handsome son is taken as a sign that the father has good genes, thus increasing his appeal as a mate. Archives of Sexual Behaviour

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A survey of undergraduate drinkers has uncovered a preliminary taxonomy of drunken personality types: ‘Hemingways’ who are little affected by intoxication; ‘Nutty Professors’ who become highly extraverted; ‘Mary Poppinses’ who remain pleasantly agreeable when drunk; and ‘Mr Hydes’ who show large decreases in agreeableness and conscientiousness. It’s hoped the findings will help explain why some students behave in harmful ways when drunk while others don’t. Addiction Research & Theory

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Psychology heaven and hell Wednesday 9 December 7-10pm Senate House, London

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Celebrating a decade of the British Psychological Societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Research Digest blog Introduction Dr Jon Sutton (Managing Editor, The Psychologist) Methods Dr Christian Jarrett (Editor, Research Digest) Results Professor Andy Field (University of Sussex) Discussion Professor Uta Frith (University College London) Conclusion Wine and nibbles Supported by

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CPD Workshops Teaching Clients to use Mindfulness Skills With Dr Maggie Stanton & Dr Christine Dunkley 10th Sept 2015 - Exeter th 8 Oct 2015 - BPS London

Using Social Media in your Therapy Practice David Taylor 12th Sept 2015 - BPS London Mindfulness Training Ltd. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Training(ACT) Extended with RFT and FAP All our ACT trainers are ACBS peer reviewed Including assessment of your learning through regular supervision 1. ACT Experiential Introduction with Martin Wilks & Henry Whitfield

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The transition to school Claire Hughes asks what matters and why Alongside the birth of a sibling, the transition to school is the first major event in many children’s lives. This period is, for most children, exciting and enjoyable but it also brings social, practical and academic demands that some find challenging. Longitudinal studies confirm the importance of individual differences in early school success, but explanations remain elusive. Challenges include the lack of consensus about how ‘school readiness’ should be defined, the dearth of simple measurement tools, and difficulties in making causal inferences about family influences on children’s development. Nonetheless, recent years have seen progress in research, leading to interventions that could narrow the achievement gap between children from affluent and disadvantaged families.

questions resources

Williford, A.P., Maier, M.F., Downer, J.T. et al. (2013). Understanding how children’s engagement and teachers’ interactions combine to predict school readiness. Journal of Applied Developmental Psych, 34(6), 299–309.

references

A

How should ‘school readiness’ be defined and measured?

Allhusen, V., Belsky, J., Booth, C. et al.

(2003). Early child care and motherchild interaction from 36 months through first grade. Infant Behavior and Development, 26(3), 345–370.

Barbarin, O.A., Early, D., Clifford, R. et al.

(2008). Parental conceptions of school readiness. Early Education and Development, 19(5), 671–701.

Belsky, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. & Van IJzendoorn, M. (2007). For better

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s the end of summer is upon us, parents of four-year-old children will almost certainly begin to wonder about how their children’s lives will change once they start school. What can they do to prepare their offspring?

Are they ‘ready’?

‘School readiness’ is a term that means different things to different people. For politicians and many parents, school readiness hinges on achieving foundation skills in literacy and numeracy (Barbarin et al., 2008). Teachers, however, are more likely to highlight the importance of children’s behaviour and socio-emotional development. For example, in a USA survey of more than 3500 kindergarten teachers, respondents reported adjustment problems in half or more of their class (Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2000).

Confirming the validity of these teachers’ concerns, robust links have been reported between preschoolers’ control of attention and behaviour and key long-term outcomes, including academic achievement (e.g. McClelland et al., 2013).

Defining school readiness is also complicated by the fact that learning takes many forms: from surface learning (e.g. letter recognition) to deep learning (e.g. problem solving). Reflecting this heterogeneity, the UK Department of Education has issued Foundation Stage Goals that encompass both ‘Areas of Learning’ (e.g. literacy, numeracy) and ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ (e.g. self-regulatory and social skills, motivation to learn). Likewise, Blair and Diamond (2008) have argued that

How can families promote children’s successful transition to school and what can we do to support this?

and for worse. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 300–304.

Blair, C. & Diamond, A. (2008). Biological processes in prevention and intervention. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 899–911.

Blair, C. & Raver, C. (2014). Closing the achievement gap through modification of neurocognitive and neuroendocrine function. PLoS ONE, 9, art. no. e112393.

effective learning depends not only on cognitive skills but also on the physiological systems involved in adaptive responses to stress. Extending this multi-layered approach upwards, other theorists have noted that academic achievement is linked to variation in children’s beliefs – for example, about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable.

That is, children who believe that they can, through effort, improve their performance on a task will be more motivated to persist in their efforts or to try out different strategies.

Finally, it is worth noting that the very term ‘school readiness’ can be seen as intrinsically unfair, in that it appears to place the burden of responsibility for success in the transition to school on the child. Given the social inequalities in many societies, assessing whether or not a child is ‘school ready’ is, arguably, a myopic exercise. Instead, leading theorists have recently proposed an interactive model in which families, schools and communities share a joint responsibility for children’s school readiness (e.g. Williford et al., 2013).

From this perspective, the definition of school readiness should encompass not only children’s ability to meet everyday social and practical challenges but also key aspects of social support (which I will discuss later).

Measuring school readiness In the past, school readiness has been assessed via detailed psychometric tests of specific pivotal cognitive skills. Adopting this traditional approach, this autumn the UK government will ask Reception teachers to complete a ‘base-line assessment’ for every child within the first few weeks of school (2015 is a pilot year; the plan is for these tests to become mandatory in 2016). Understandably, teachers have voted to boycott this mass testing of four-year-olds; likewise, many famous children’s authors have signed an open letter of protest, arguing that children in the UK already face too many

Blanden, J., Gregg, P. & Machin, S. (2005). Intergenerational mobility in Europe and North America. A report supported by the Sutton Trust: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics.

Brinkman, S. A., Gregory, T. A., Goldfeld, S. et al. (2014). Data resource profile: The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI). International Journal of Epidemiology, 43(4), 1089–1096.

Devine, R. & Hughes, C. (2014). Relations between false-belief understanding and executive function in early childhood: A meta-analysis. Child Development, 85, 1777–1794.

Engle, P.L. & Black, M.M. (2008). The effect of poverty on development and educational outcomes. Vol. 1136.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (pp. 243-256).

Ferretti, L. & Bub, K. (2014). The

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tests and that four-year-olds are just too young to be assessed. From a psychologist’s perspective one might also add that formal psychometric assessments do not capture problems of behaviour and emotion regulation, which are increasingly recognised as key barriers to school readiness. So do we have more promising alternative strategies?

achievement. For example, in a study of Italian children, Lecce et al. (2011) found sensitivity to teacher criticism at age 10 mediated the association between age-9 theory of mind and age-11 academic achievement. Other findings from this Italian research group highlight both the importance of theory of mind for children’s meta-knowledge about reading (Lecce et al., 2010) and the scope for achieving sustained improvements in 9year-olds’ understanding of mind through a school-based training programme involving group discussions about story characters and their motivations, thoughts and feelings (Lecce et al., 2014).

These findings have real practical implications in that acquiring a theory of mind is likely to foster school success via multiple pathways, both direct (e.g. being able to understand teachers’ and peers’ intentions and so respond appropriately to instructions/social overtures) and indirect (e.g. forming and maintaining friendships that promote wellbeing and school engagement) (Hughes, 2011).

Variation in theory of mind is closely related to individual differences in executive function (for a meta-analysis, see Devine & Hughes, 2014), which are also very important for children’s success in the transition to primary school

Socio-cognitive skills Experimental measures of children’s socio-cognitive skills could be used to predict success at school. Two aspects of children’s socio-cognitive development that show striking individual differences are: (a) ‘theory of mind’ (with a particular focus on children’s understanding of the fallible nature of beliefs); and (b) ‘executive functions’ (the higher-order cognitive processes such as working memory and inhibitory control that underpin flexible goal-directed behaviour). Importantly, theory-of-mind tasks involve brief and engaging puppet stories, and so are quite different from formal tests. Unlike the large body of research on the social origins of individual differences in theory of mind (for a review, see Hughes and Devine, 2015) research on social and academic consequences is much more recent.

In a meta-analytic review, Slaughter et al. (2015) found an overall link between theory of mind and peer status, which was clearer for positive measures (e.g. popularity) than for negative measures (e.g. rejection) and significantly stronger in girls than in boys – perhaps reflecting early gender differences in intimacy within friendship.

Other recent studies have focused on potential mediators of the Teachers have voted to boycott mass testing of association between theory four-year-olds of mind and academic

influence of family routines on the resilience of low-income preschoolers. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 35, 168–180.

Hanscombe, K., Howarth, C., Davis, O. et al. (2011). Chaotic homes and school achievement. Journal of Child Psych and Psychiatry, 52, 1212–1220.

Hughes, C. (2011). Social understanding, social lives. London: Psychology

Press.

Hughes, C., Daly, I., White, N. et al.

(2015). Measuring the foundations of school readiness. British Journal of Educational Psychology. doi:10.1111/bjep.1207 Hughes, C. & Devine, R. (2015). A social perspective on theory of mind. In M. Lamb (Ed.) Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Vol. 3. Socioemotional

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

(Hughes & Ensor, 2011; Hughes et al., 2010). Children draw on their executive functions when they are required to: (a) hold information (e.g. teachers’ instructions) in mind; (b) resist distraction (e.g. from peers); (c) inhibit impulsive responses (e.g. calling out or grabbing); or (d) switch goals (e.g. from playing to tidying up). These key components of executive function show contrasting developmental trajectories; as a result, efforts to identify their relative salience for school success have so far produced mixed findings.

Although there is no single ‘litmus test’ of executive function (to parallel the false-belief task that is so widely used in theory-of-mind research), one engaging and cheap (no materials required) multicomponential test is the Heads-ToesKnees-Shoulders task (HTKS), which is akin to the children’s party game ‘Simon Says’. Performance on the HTKS in kindergarten predicts academic gains across the transition to formal schooling, especially in mathematics (McClelland et al., 2014). However, much more research is needed to establish causal pathways and identify the specific mechanisms through which executive functions can promote school readiness. Children who make greater gains in executive control across the transition to school display more positive academic self-concepts (Hughes & Ensor, 2011), which in turn are known to play an independent role in predicting individual differences in achievement (Paunesku et al., 2015).

Poor executive function in preschool is also a robust predictor of problem behaviours (for a meta-analysis, see Schoemaker et al., 2013). Thus, in addition to direct effects, gains in executive control are likely to benefit children’s academic performance through both an increased motivation to learn and more positive interactions with peers.

Teachers’ questionnaire ratings An obvious alternative to testing children’s socio-cognitive skills directly is

processes (pp.–46). New York: Wiley.

Hughes, C. & Ensor, R. (2011). Executive function trajectories across the transition to school. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 663–676.

Hughes, C., Ensor, R., Wilson, A. & Graham, A. (2010). Tracking executive function across the transition to school. Developmental Neuropsychology, 35, 20–36.

Hughes, C., Roman, G. & Ensor, R. (Eds.) (2014). Parenting and executive function (Vol. 1). Wiley.

Jacobs, J.E. & Weisz, V. (1994). Gender stereotypes. Roeper Review, 16, 152–155.

Janus, M. & Offord, D.R. (2007).

Development and psychometric properties of the Early Development Instrument (EDI). Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 39(1), 1–22.

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to harness the skills and experience of teachers to identify children who lag behind their peers in the key components of school readiness. Adopting this strategy, a Canadian research team (Janus & Offord, 2007) developed the Early Development Instrument (EDI) to enable teachers to monitor preschool children’s developmental health and wellbeing in five distinct subscales (social, emotional, physical, cognitive and communicative ability). The EDI has been used in epidemiological studies of four- and fiveyear-olds in several different countries.

For example, an adapted version of the EDI was used in a national census of 261,147 Australian five-year-olds (i.e.

97 per cent of all five-year-olds in the population), which revealed worrying regional disparities in the proportion of children with ‘developmental vulnerabilities’ (Brinkman et al., 2014).

Although the EDI is clearly a useful instrument, three limitations deserve note. First, the EDI does not include any items about family support and so provides only a partial view of school readiness. Second, the EDI was developed for Canadian children who start school between the ages of five and six and so is not really developmentally appropriate for children in the UK who typically enter an educational setting at three years of age, with some receiving government vouchers to attend preschool from as early as two years of age. Third, at seven pages (104 items) long, the EDI would take a teacher many hours to complete for a class of 30 children; time that would probably be much better spent in helping children to settle in.

In response to the above challenges, my research team and I have developed a one-page questionnaire – the Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI), for educators working with children aged 2.5 to 5.5 years (Hughes et al., 2015). The BESSI encompasses not only traditional aspects of school readiness but also items about salient ‘daily living skills’ for younger children (e.g. independence in dressing/using cutlery/personal hygiene)

Johnson, A., Martin, A., Brooks-Gunn, J. & Petrill, S. (2008). Order in the house! Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54, 445–472.

Jones, T.L. & Prinz, R.J. (2005). Potential roles of parental self-efficacy in parent and child adjustment. Clinical Psychology Review, 25, 341–363.

Lecce, S., Bianco, F., Devine, R. et al.

(2014). Promoting theory of mind during middle childhood. Journal of

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correlations (.51 and .34 respectively) with scores for Language/Cognition – the traditional ‘core’ measure of school readiness. Home reading is well recognised as important for children’s success at school, but the strong links with ratings for ‘fun at home’ are novel and encouraging, in that they indicate that parents who do not enjoy reading can Home reading is well recognised as important for nevertheless contribute to their children’s success at school children’s school readiness – simply by spending time and having fun together. and indicators of family support Variation in family support also (attendance, punctuality, sleepiness, differed by gender and birth order. regular reading, receiving praise and fun Compared with girls and with first-born at home). These items were identified children respectively, family support through focus groups with teachers, ratings were, on average, lower for boys conducted to ensure that the BESSI had and for children with an older sibling. good face-validity for informants.

Worryingly, the strongest gender Teachers’ ratings for just under 1500 difference was for the item ‘talks about children revealed three latent child factors fun activities at home’ that, as noted (behavioural adjustment, above, was an especially strong predictor language/cognition and daily living skills) of positive child outcomes. The birthand one family support factor. The BESSI order effect is also of concern: while the can be used reliably from 2.5 to 5.5 years need to support adults making the and does not show any age-related bias. transition to parenthood is well For each of the four BESSI subscales, recognised, this contrast highlights the problems were, on average, about twice as likely in boys as in girls and in children importance of supporting parents who face the additional challenges that come from low-income families (defined by with caring for more than one child. eligibility for the pupil premium) as Findings from other large-scale compared with their more affluent peers. studies support the results of this BESSI Overall then, the BESSI appears to study. For example, an NICHD study of provide a promising brief alternative to 1300 children followed from birth the EDI. provides further evidence that the quality (as much as the content) of parent–child Family influences on school interactions matters for children’s school readiness readiness (Allhusen et al., 2003).

The BESSI study described above Specifically, both maternal sensitivity in yielded two interesting sets of findings late-preschool and increases in maternal concerning family support. First, the sensitivity from infancy to preschool poorer outcomes noted for children from predicted greater social competence, low-income families were explained by fewer problem behaviours and reduced contrasts in family support. Of the six conflict with adults – positive outcomes family support items, two (‘talks about that are likely to contribute to school fun activities at home’ and ‘reads regularly readiness. Further findings from this at home’) showed particularly strong NICHD cohort showed that attachment

Experimental Child Psych, 126, 52-67.

Lecce, S., Caputi, M. & Hughes, C. (2011).

Does sensitivity to criticism mediate the relationship between theory of mind and academic achievement?

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110(3), 313–331.

Lecce, S., Zocchi, S., Pagnin, A. et al.

(2010). Reading minds. Child Development, 81, 1876–1893.

Mashburn, A.J. & Pianta, R.C. (2006).

Social relationships and school readiness. Early Education and Development, 17, 151–176.

McClelland, M.M., Acock, A.C., Piccinin, A. et al. (2013). Relations between preschool attention span-persistence and age 25 educational outcomes.

Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28, 314–324.

McClelland, M., Cameron, C., Duncan, R. et al. (2014). Predictors of early

growth in academic achievement.

Frontiers in Psychology, 5, art. no. 599.

Melhuish, E., Belsky, J., Anning, A. et al.

(2007). Variation in community intervention programmes and consequences for children and families. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 48(6), 543–551.

Paunesku, D., Walton, G., Romero, C. et al. (2015). Mind-set interventions are

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security at 24 and 36 months predicted IQ and school performance in middle childhood, with parental quality of assistance and support for homework (alongside children's self-regulatory skills and social relationships) playing a mediating role in these predictive relationships (West et al., 2013).

As the above results suggest, positive child outcomes depend upon a combination of parental qualities.

That is, children require both warmth and high-quality instruction from caregivers and teachers (Mashburn & Pianta, 2006).

High-quality instruction (also known as ‘scaffolding’) includes at least three dimensions (Hughes et al., 2014): I Cognitive support: This involves making the task simpler – for example, by breaking it down into manageable stages (e.g. for a jigsaw, finding the corner pieces, then connecting all the edge pieces, etc.).

I Emotional support (e.g. praise, encouragement, playful interactions): This motivates the child to persist even when the task is challenging.

I Autonomy support: This involves a process of ‘contingent shifting’ – providing extra help if the child is struggling or demoralised and then reducing this support when the child begins to master the task.

Parents are particularly well placed to use scaffolding in this way to set their children upon a positive journey to learning: for example, providing the appropriate form and level of support is much easier if one knows a child well; moreover, parents are not only children’s ‘first teachers’ but also the people who matter most to them, such that parental praise and encouragement is particularly powerful. Parental cognitions also matter: children’s achievements are often more clearly related to parental views of their ability than to their previous actual performance (e.g. Jacobs & Weisz, 1994).

It is, however, important to avoid simplifications. For example, parental support for early literacy requires not

a scalable treatment for academic underachievement. Psychological Science, 26, 784–793.

Rimm-Kaufman, S., Pianta, R. & Cox, M. (2000). Teachers’ judgements of problems in the transition to kindergarten. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15, 146–166.

Scarr, S. (2000). American childcare today. In A. Slater & D. Muir (Eds.) Blackwell reader in developmental

only a belief in the value of reading and in the child’s ability and interest, but also both a recognition of the importance of making reading fun (Sonnenschein et al., 1997) and a sense of their own efficacy as parents (for a review, see Jones & Prinz, 2005). This complex network of influence makes it difficult to draw causal conclusions about family influences on school readiness. In addition, beyond the obvious challenge of distinguishing effects of nature and nurture, children vary markedly in their susceptibility to parental influences (Belsky et al., 2007).

Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is the non-linearity of parental effects. In some ways, this can be explained by the psychoanalytic construct of ‘good enough’ parenting (Winnicott, 1953). That is, rather like gardeners, parents need to tend their infants with patience, attention and care, but should not expect success at every turn. Applying this gardening metaphor to the transition to school, one could argue that just as good gardeners allow seedlings to harden off before moving them from the greenhouse to the soil, so too good parents provide children with gradually increasing autonomy and responsibility for decision making and emotional regulation. In other words, ‘more parenting’ does not necessarily equal ‘better parenting’. As a result, while the contrast between poor versus adequate parenting is vitally important, beyond the threshold of ‘good enough’ parenting variation in parenting quality often only has very modest effects (Scarr, 2000).

Narrowing the gap Social mobility in the UK has dropped dramatically and is now on a par with the USA and lower than in Canada, Germany and Scandinavia (Blanden et al., 2005).

Pivotal to this problem of social immobility are contrasts in educational aspirations and achievement (e.g. Engle & Black, 2008). Many sources of stimulation for children are free (e.g. public libraries, parent-toddler groups), but parents living

psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Schoemaker, K., Mulder, H., Deković, M. & Matthys, W. (2013). Executive functions in preschool children with externalizing behavior problems: A meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41, 457–471.

Slaughter, V., Imuta, K., Peterson, C. & Henry, J. (2015). Meta-analysis of theory of mind and peer popularity in the preschool and early school

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

in poverty may well lack the confidence or motivation needed to take advantage of these resources (particularly if this requires transport). Family chaos is another salient index of adversity that has been shown to predict unique variance in early reading (Johnson et al., 2008). Twin findings demonstrate that genetic factors underpin one third of the association between family chaos and poor school performance (Hanscombe et al., 2011).

In other words, most of this association is environmental; moreover, in a recent Early Head Start study both resilience and cognitive development in preschoolers was enhanced by fostering family routines (Ferretti & Bub, 2014).

For cost–benefit reasons, interventions are, however, typically school-based. For example, a recent cluster randomisedcontrol trial of an intervention to promote executive function in early school years has produced clear improvements in academic outcomes that were particularly evident in the context of poverty (Blair & Raver, 2014). As these authors have argued, a focus on executive function in early education holds real promise for closing the SES-related achievement gap.

Communities and neighbourhoods should also be active participants in helping children navigate the transition to school and empowering parents to ensure that they in turn can provide children with sensitive and stimulating care. Support for the effectiveness of this approach comes from a review of Sure Start initiatives in the UK (Melhuish et al., 2007). The importance of this endeavour is wellcaptured by the words of Nelson Mandela: ‘There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.’

years. Child Development, 86 (4), 1159–1174.

Sonnenschein, S., Baker, L., Serpell, R. et al. (1997). Parental beliefs about ways to help children learn to read.

Early Child Dev and Care, 111–118.

West, K.K., Mathews, B.L. & Kerns, K.A. (2013). Mother-child attachment and cognitive performance in middle childhood. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28, 259-270.

Claire Hughes is Deputy Director, Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge ch288@cam.ac.uk

Winnicott, D. (1953). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena.

International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34, 89–97.

Williford, A.P., Maier, M.F., Downer, J.T. et al. (2013). Understanding how children’s engagement and teachers’ interactions combine to predict school readiness. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 34(6), 299–309

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From adversity to buoyancy Marc Smith reconceptualises academic resilience in schools Despite the growth of so-called non-cognitive skills interventions in schools, such as resilience training, there often exists a degree of dissonance regarding the definition of such terms. Resilience interventions have been found to use the term in different ways, reducing the significance of any measureable outcomes.

Reconceptualising our view of academic resilience as academic buoyancy helps to distinguish between traditional views of resilience and the more useful role of learners’ ability to bounce back from seemingly minor, yet subjectively crucial, daily setbacks.

questions resources

Martin, A.J. (2013). Academic buoyancy and academic resilience: Exploring ‘everyday’ and ‘classic’ resilience in the face of academic adversity. School Psychology International, 34(5), 488–500.

Pekrun, R. & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (Eds.) (2014). International handbook of emotions in education. New York: Routledge.

references

O

How do emotions impact on students’ academic success?

Bouteyre, E., Maurel, M. & Bernaud, J-L. (2007). Daily hassles and depressive symptoms among first year psychology students in France. Stress and Health, 23(2), 93–99.

Coyne, J. (2013). Positive psychology in the schools: The UK Resilience Project. PloS blogs. Retrieved 18 October 2014 tinyurl.com/nt6ehs5 Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D. & Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit:

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ver recent years there has been growing interest from educationalists and politicians in so-called ‘non-cognitive’ or ‘soft’ skills, resulting in attempts to introduce programmes such as character building and resilience training into schools. This growing interest counters what many have seen as an overemphasis on testing and the view of schools as ‘exam factories’. There have been calls from both sides of the political divide for ‘character and attentiveness’ lessons (Prynne, 2014) as well as ‘grit’ and ‘resilience’ training (Vaughan, 2014) to be part of the educational curriculum, highlighting the importance being placed on what many view as skills that can be taught just like any other school subject.

The role of resilience is perhaps where the greatest emphasis has been placed.

Many schools in the UK have implemented resilience- and grit-building programmes as part of the school culture in an attempt to encourage a positive attitude towards hard work and perseverance. While such attempts remain laudable, problems often arise when we attempt to measure the impact of such interventions and to disentangle related concepts that rely too heavily on techniques that don’t necessarily measure those characteristics that the intervention is attempting to promote.

A recent systematic consultative review found that many resilience programmes within schools used the term ‘resilience’ is such a vague and conceptually weak manner that the authors found it difficult to identify those

How can teachers help students bounce back from personally significant setbacks?

Perseverance and passion for longterm goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087–1101.

Dweck, C.S. (2000). Self-theories.

Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

Eccles, J. & Wigfield, A. (2002).

Motivational beliefs, values and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 109–132.

Finn, J.D. & Rock, D.A. (1997). Academic success among students at risk for

that could be realistically described as resilience-based (Hart & Heaver, 2013).

This would suggest that interventions have been implemented with very little understanding of the desired outcome measures or, indeed, any specific measures at all. With the teaching profession becoming ever hungrier for evidence-based interventions, it remains disappointing that potentially valuable programmes are being implemented in the absence of both an evidence base and measurement strategies. Interestingly, results from the largest UK trial of resilience training in schools (the UK Resilience Project) continue to be largely ignored, perhaps due in part to disappointing outcomes and criticism concerning the intervention package (Coyne, 2013).

While the implementation of such interventions remains problematic, so does the terminology. When politicians responsible for education use terms interchangeably, they give the impression that skills such as resilience are synonymous with other skills such as grit, when not only do these terms represent different skills, they may not even represent an appropriate label for that which is being promoted. Furthermore, while promoting these skills, little attention has been paid to how they interact with and impact on other aspects, such as emotions, emotional regulation, motivation and engagement.

Resilience has been defined in the literature as ‘good outcomes in spite of serious threats to adaptation or development’ (Masten, 2001); and, although the term is often used to denote student responses to everyday setbacks and the ability to ‘bounce back’, resilience research has tended to concentrate on children at risk from psychopathology rather than the ways in which they cope with daily setbacks or general adversity.

Those children who thrive and develop well in spite of these serious threats are said to be ‘resilient’. Adversity itself can be seen as any threat that might undermine development: for example,

school failure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(2), 221–234.

Fredrickson, B. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.

Gadbois, S.A. & Sturgeon, R.D. (2011).

Academic self-handicapping. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 81(2), 207–222.

Gervais, R.L. & Hockey, G.R.J. (2005).

Daily hassles, daily uplifts, sleep loss and stress. Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, 13(2), 153–154.

Goetz, T., Preckel, F., Zeidner, M. & Schleyer, E. (2008). Big fish in big ponds. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 21(2), 185–198.

Gonzalez, R. & Padilla, A.M. (1997). The academic resilience of Mexican American high school students.

Hispanic Journal of Behavioral

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Finn and Rock (1997) examined the academic success of students at risk of school failure, distinguishing between resilient and non-resilient school ‘completers’ and ‘non-completers’.

Others (e.g. Overstreet & Braun, 1999) have investigated social factors, such as exposure to community violence, and their relationship to academic achievement and functioning or the achievement of ethnic minorities (e.g.

Gonzalez & Padilla, 1997).

While some have seen resilient individuals as being in some way special, others view the process as arising from

Academic buoyancy is the ability of students to successfully deal with academic setbacks

‘normative functions of the human adaptational system’ (Masten, 2001, p.227). In other words, rather than being remarkable individuals with extraordinary psychological strength, at-risk children are more, not less, likely to display high levels of resilience.

While research into these at-risk groups has provided some useful clues concerning individuals at risk of

Sciences, 19(3), 301–317.

Hart, A. & Heaver, B. (2013). Evaluating resilience-based programs for schools using a systematic consultative review. Journal of Child and Youth Development, 1(1), 27–53.

Hewitt, P.L., Caelian, C.F., Chen, C. & Flett, G.L. (2014). Perfectionism, stress, daily hassles, hopelessness, and suicide potential in depressed psychiatric adolescents. Journal of

psychopathology, they tell us little about how students cope with everyday setbacks and even less about why some students are able to bounce back while others struggle to recover. Such setbacks (e.g. a bad grade on a test or competing deadlines) cannot necessarily be viewed as major assaults on developmental processes, but rather as minor setbacks and daily hassles. Resilience research investigates cases of extreme adversity rather than the daily problems students face, suggesting that day-to-day resilience is a particular form of resilience with a much lower research base. Martin and Marsh (2008) have suggested that the ability to cope with these daily setbacks and minor adversities can be reconceptualised as ‘academic buoyancy’ in order to distinguish the term from the traditional view of academic resilience.

Academic buoyancy is the ability of students to successfully deal with academic setbacks and challenges that are ‘typical of the ordinary course of school life (e.g. poor grades, competing deadlines, exam pressure, difficult schoolwork)’ (Martin & Marsh, 2008, p.54). Although the term resilience can be used in different ways, there is a tendency to associate low resilience with chronic underachievement, being overwhelmed and incapacitated, debilitation in the face of chronic failure or anxiety, clinical affect such as anxiety and depression, truancy and disaffection from school, and comprehensive and consistent alienation or opposition to teachers.

Academic buoyancy, on the other hand, is associated with the process of dealing with isolated poor grades and patches of poor performance, typical stress levels and daily pressures, threats to confidence due to poor grades, low-level stress and confidence, dips in motivation and engagement, and the way in which learners deal with negative feedback on schoolwork (Martin & Marsh, 2008).

Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment. doi:10.1007/s10862-0149427-0 Martin, A. (2002). Motivation and academic resilience. Australian Journal of Education, 46(I), 34–49.

Martin, A. (2003). The Student Motivation Scale. Australian Journal of Education, 47(1), 88–106.

Martin, A.J. (2013). Academic buoyancy and academic resilience. School

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Although resilience and buoyancy appear related to each other and buoyancy appears to be a good predictor of resilience, the differences relate to the difference of degree (e.g. threats to confidence) and differences of kind (e.g. dips in motivation). Another study, of Australian high school students, suggested that buoyancy and resilience were separate constructs sharing around 35 per cent variance, with buoyancy more salient in protecting from low-level negative outcomes and resilience more salient in buffering major negative outcomes (Martin, 2013) So is academic buoyancy just another term for the ability to cope with daily hassles? Daily hassles research involves the measurement of how incidents impact on the individual and their relationship to other negative emotional outcomes (e.g.

Bouteyre et al., 2007; Hewitt et al., 2014) and the use of certain coping strategies (Gervais & Hockey, 2005). Similarly, the relatively recent identification of ‘grit’ as a specific trait associated with achievement has led to erroneous comparisons with both resilience and buoyancy. Grit has been defined as ‘perseverance and passion for long-terms goals’ (Duckworth et al., 2007); and while there remains the possibility of a reciprocal relationship between them, buoyancy and resilience, being conceptually similar, are viewed as dynamic emergent constructs, whereas grit is generally viewed as a trait that may or may not be teachable. Academic buoyancy, therefore, relates to the ways in which the individual responds to and attempts to deal with these everyday challenges.

The ability to bounce back from daily setbacks is likely to be influenced by several interconnecting factors.

Martin and Marsh (2006) have proposed a number of motivational predictors of academic buoyancy, the so-called 5Cs: Confidence (self-efficacy), Coordination (planning), Control (low uncertain control), Composure (low anxiety) and Commitment (persistence). Longitudinal studies have found the 5Cs to be

Psychology International, 34(5), 488–500.

Martin, A.J., Colmar, S.H., Davey, L.A. & Marsh, H.W. (2010). Longitudinal modelling of academic buoyancy and motivation: Do the ‘5Cs’ hold up over time? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(3), 473–496.

Martin, A.J. & Marsh, H.W. (2006).

Academic resilience and its psychological and educational

correlates. Psychology in the Schools, 43(3), 267–281.

Martin, A.J. & Marsh, H.W. (2008).

Academic buoyancy: Towards an understanding of students’ everyday academic resilience. Journal of School Psychology, 46(1), 53–83.

Masten, A. (2001). Ordinary magic.

American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238.

Overstreet, S. & Braun, S. (1999). A preliminary examination of the

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significant predictors of academic buoyancy and to partially mediate between prior and subsequent academic buoyancy (Martin et al., 2010). Earlier research had identified three resilience outcome constructs representing a breadth of students’ experiences and the capacity to effectively deal with challenge, adversity and setback within a school context (Martin & Marsh, 2006). These three constructs consist of enjoyment of school (a school-related cognitiveaffective measure), class participation (a behavioural measure), and self-esteem (a global affective measure).

The identification of these three outcome constructs are themselves related to earlier (pre-buoyancy) studies into students’ motivation and engagement, and factors in the ‘Student Motivation and Engagement Wheel’ (Martin, 2002).

Adaptive dimensions of student motivation consist of self-efficacy, valuing of school, mastery orientation, persistence, planning and study management. Maladaptive dimensions consist of anxiety, uncertain control, failure avoidance and self-handicapping.

The ‘wheel’, therefore, represents the psychological and engagement dimensions that underpin academic resilience, while academic resilience predicts the three outcome constructs of enjoyment of school, class participation and general self-esteem.

The 5Cs, as predictors of academic buoyancy, represent a useful starting point for the planning and implementation of school-based interventions aimed at strengthening students’ day-to-day resilience and their ability to ‘bounce back’ from seemingly minor but personally significant setbacks in the daily lives of learners. Specific factors related to self-efficacy address students’ beliefs about their own capabilities and issues regarding academic self-concept. Effective goal-setting and the development of selfregulatory skills further develop the ability to plan and persist while interventions designed to reduce anxiety can diminish students’ fear of failure and

relationship between exposure to community violence and academic functioning. School Psychology Quarterly, 14(4), 380–396.

Prynne, M. (2014, 10 February). Children must be taught resilience and attentiveness, Tristram Hunt claims.

The Telegraph. tinyurl.com/naf9bdr Putwain, D.W. (2008). Test anxiety and GCSE performance. Educational Psychology in Practice, 24(4), 319–334.

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reduce the likelihood of them employing self-handicapping measures.

The role of negative emotion: Test anxiety Further studies have discovered that the concept of academic buoyancy explains a significant proportion of variance in all four components of test anxiety (cognitive: worry and irrelevant thoughts; emotional: tension, bodily symptoms) beyond that explained by coping (Putwain et al., 2012). However, academic buoyancy was found to be inversely related to test anxiety but unrelated to coping, suggesting that academic buoyancy does not reflect a general tendency towards adaptive coping. The authors have suggested that the measures included in the scale used to quantify academic buoyancy may not be challenging enough to engage those processes related to coping, further suggesting that although coping might be related to resilience, it does not appear to be related to academic buoyancy.

Furthermore, it is more likely that buoyancy is related to positive and adaptive outcomes rather than threat appraisal directly.

Test anxiety represents a particularly relevant area in relation to academic buoyancy as the 5Cs framework would suggest that higher levels of test anxiety result in lower levels of academic buoyancy and, subsequently, lower levels of achievement. Research into test anxiety and academic buoyancy also highlights an emotional component within the academic buoyancy construct. Test anxiety is a situation-specific form of trait anxiety that incorporates a general tendency to appraise assessments and examinations as threatening (Spielberger & Vagg, 1995) and is associated with a number of negative academic and personal outcomes, including risk to personal wellbeing (Putwain, 2008), lower competence beliefs (Goetz et al., 2008), stronger goal-avoidant orientations (Putwain & Daniels, 2010; Putwain et al.,

Putwain, D.W., Connors, L., Symes, W. & Douglas-Osborn, E. (2012). Is academic buoyancy anything more than adaptive coping? Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 25(3), 349–358.

Putwain, D.W. & Daniels, R.A. (2010). Is the relationship between competence beliefs and test anxiety influenced by goal orientation? Learning and Individual Differences, 20(1), 8–13.

Putwain, D.W., Woods, K.A. & Symes, W.

2010), stronger academic selfhandicapping (Gadbois & Sturgeon, 2011) and maladaptive forms of coping such as avoidant and emotion-focussed strategies (Zeidner, 1998).

It has been speculated (Putwain et al., 2012) that buoyant individuals may not view academic failure as threatening to either personal aspirations or self-worth due to their belief in the ability to bounce back from failure. This in turn would suggest an incremental (growth) rather than an entity-based (fixed) attributional style as hypothesised by Dweck (2000).

It can also be speculated that buoyant individuals do not hold an expectation of failure because of a belief in their ability to respond positively to the challenge of evaluative-performance events, suggesting further that academic resilience is based on positive ways of approaching academic setbacks rather than attempting to cope with them. This would suggest that academic buoyant individuals are better able to employ positive emotional responses to potentially threatening situations; however, this remains speculative due to the lack of research in this area.

Academic buoyancy and positive emotions If negative emotions such as anxiety reduce the ability to cope with daily setbacks within an education setting, can positive emotions fuel the ability to bounce back? Martin and Marsh (2008) have suggested that academic buoyancy can be viewed as a positive psychology version of resilience. Resilient individuals do appear to display more positive emotions than less resilient individuals and also tend to be more curious and open to new experiences. In addition, they are able to utilise positive emotions to bounce back from stressful experiences more quickly and effectively than less resilient individuals (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2011).

Positive emotions also appear to regulate more negative emotions through

(2010). Personal and situational predictors of test anxiety of students in post-compulsory education. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 137–160.

Schiefele, U., Krapp, A. & Winteler, A. (1992). Interest as a predictor of academic achievement. In K. Renninger, S. Hidi & A. Krapp (Eds.) The role of interest in learning and development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum.

Spielberger, C.D. & Vagg, P.R. (1995). Test anxiety. In C.D. Spielberger & P.R. Vagg (Eds.) Test anxiety: Theory, assessment, and treatment (pp.3–14).

Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis.

Thomas, C.R. & Gadbois, S.A. (2007).

Academic self-handicapping. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(1), 101–119.

Tugade, M.M. & Fredrickson, B.L. (2011).

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the use of positive coping strategies, including, positive reappraisal, problemfocused coping or infusing day-to-day events with positive meaning (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2011). Perhaps students who are able to proactively use and nurture positive approaches are less likely to be negatively affected by daily pressures and regular setbacks. In addition, academic buoyancy’s emphasis on growth and the suggestion that buoyant individuals display incremental attributional styles further emphasises the positive aspects of the buoyancy construct.

Promoting academic buoyancy Identify negative emotions Students often divulge their anxieties about learning through their language. Identifying patterns of language that can lead to self-handicapping (those pre-emptive excuses we use to justify future failure) allow teachers to spot those students in danger of anxiety and underachievement. Statements such as ‘I’m not clever enough to get an A in maths’ or ‘I’ve done my homework but it’s probably wrong’ could well be indications that negative emotions are stifling attainment.

Growth goals over attainment goals Setting goals can be a powerful tool, particularly if they are incremental and represent a ‘better than last time’ or ‘personal best’ approach. And never neglect good feedback.

Praise effort over intellect Praising the effort a student has put into a task, rather than their innate intelligence, reinforces the view that success is incremental. Incremental views of intelligence, in turn, allows students to understand the where they need to improve.

Broaden, build and buoyancy Fredrickson (2001) describes a subset of positive emotions that broaden an individual’s ‘momentary thought–action repertoire’. This ‘broaden-and-build framework’ suggests that positive emotions promote positive behaviours; for example, the positive emotion of joy sparks the urge to play and the positive emotion of interest sparks the urge to explore.

Broaden-and-build theory suggests that positive and negative emotions have distinct and complementary adaptive functions and both cognitive and physiological effects, so, while negative emotions such as anxiety narrow the thought–action repertoire by preparing the individual to employ specific behaviours (e.g. fight or flight), discrete positive emotions broaden the thought–action repertoire by expanding the range of cognitions and behaviours and therefore creating more available options. This broadened mindset then builds on the individual’s physical, intellectual and social resources.

The broaden-and-build framework would suggest an emphasis on building on strengths that nurture proactive rather than reactive approaches to setbacks and challenges, which could go some way to explaining why those students who experience positive emotions during daily setbacks are able to benefit from these

Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(2), 320–333.

Vaughan, R. (2014, 30 September). Nicky Morgan: We must lift the burden on our ‘hero’ teachers. Times Educational Supplement.

Zeidner, M. (1998). Test anxiety. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.

The power of ‘yet’ When students display their anxieties through verbalising their inability to grasp a complex concept, emphasising that learning takes time and effort shifts the emphasis away from ‘I cant do it’ to one of ‘I can’t do it yet’.

A whole-school ‘growth mindset’ approach According to Dweck (2000), those who view intelligence as malleable rather than a fixed entity tend to display higher levels of resilience and academic buoyancy. Ensuring that this ‘growth mindset’ remains consistent and part of a whole-school initiative can help students move beyond their last test result.

broadened mindsets and regulate negative emotional experiences as well as view failure in more positive terms. Certain individuals are able to draw on positive emotions in times of stress and are consequently able to cope better with daily setbacks through the effective use of such emotions. Buoyant individuals are, therefore, better equipped to deal with the low-level hassles and negative experiences encountered on a daily basis within a school setting through a kind of positive academic-psychological capital. For example, it has been found that individual interest maintains positive relationships with students’ use of cognitive strategies, perceptions of skill and academic achievement as well as making a significant contribution to several aspects of the learning process (Schiefele et al., 1992) while also displaying a significant link to academic achievement, even after controlling for the effects of ability (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).

In the scramble to promote so-called non-cognitive skills in education, it would appear that much of the research that could provide a suitable foundation on which to build interventions has been neglected. The growing research base for such interventions has been largely

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ignored, and those interventions that have been implemented often lack both the research base and the design methodology that would promote and encourage replication (Hart & Heaver, 2013).

A closer relationship between researchers and teachers would certainly help to eliminate the possibility that expensive and labour-intensive interventions yield very little in terms of outcomes.

Finally, any intervention that aims to strengthen day-to-day resilience and academic buoyancy must take into account other aspects of emotion and cognition. The encouragement and nurturing of positive emotions and the awareness of the consequences of negative ones should be incorporated into both research and interventions in order for these interventions to be properly trialled and systematically reviewed.

Marc Smith is a Chartered Psychologist, teacher and PhD student at the University of York marcsmithrs@gmail.com

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Do schools need lessons on motivation?

Laura Oxley on reward and punishment in the classroom in the latest in our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices for more information)

yle knew that he wasn’t supposed to use his mobile phone during lessons. Yet here he was at 3.30pm, the end of the school day, and he was trudging down the corridor to another detention. It wasn’t his fault he had arrived late to the lesson, and he felt a smouldering anger towards the teacher who made a sarcastic comment about the time as Kyle sidled into the room, trying to remain unnoticed. He would like to see how that teacher managed after a sleepless night with his baby sister screaming and his mum arguing with her latest boyfriend. When the morning finally arrived, there was no sign of his school uniform in the chaos of the laundry pile and, glancing in at the barren fridge, Kyle knew that breakfast was simply not going to happen. When he did get to school, the work for the lesson had already been handed out, and Kyle stared at the worksheet in front of him uncomprehendingly, silently asking himself why on earth he needed to know what 2n + 3y equals. He glanced over at the teacher, considering asking for help, but the teacher was with someone else at that moment. Slumping down in his seat, Kyle pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and started texting. The shout from the teacher interrupted this as he stormed over to Kyle and demanded that he put his phone away and get on with the work. Sullenly returning his phone to his pocket, Kyle turned back to the worksheet, no more comprehending than he had been before, and now with the

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Bennett, T. (2015). New behaviour tsar Tom Bennett’s top ten tips for maintaining classroom discipline.

Retrieved from tinyurl.com/qefkt2n Bombèr, L.M. (2007). Inside I’m hurting: Practical strategies for supporting children with attachment difficulties in school. London: Worth Publishing.

Department for Education (2013).

Permanent and fixed term exclusion from schools in England: 2011– 2012

prospect of yet another detention after school weighing him down.

Sadly Kyle’s tale is not an anomaly. This is the experience of a core minority of children and young people who are trapped in a cycle of punishments and sanctions due to their school’s ineffective and inflexible behaviour policies. As a professional working for the last 10 years in the education sector with young people at risk of exclusion from school, I have seen various strategies used to try and support them with their behaviour. Not all the strategies have been supportive; some have been punitive and designed to ‘shock’ the young person into behaving, for example in the case of a short fixedterm exclusion from school. The strategies that have worked best have been those that include the young people in the process of change and acknowledge that systemic changes often have to be made to enable that young person to learn new ways of behaving.

Having embarked last year on a PhD study about behaviour management systems in English schools, I have found that my professional experience resonates with the literature in this area. Yet the predominant approach to behaviour management in many English schools remains based on a system of punishments and rewards. Despite research (Geddes, 2006; Greene, 2009; Kohn, 1993) and statistics (Department for Education, 2013) that suggest that this approach is not effective for all students,

academic year. Retrieved from tinyurl.com/pab4wrr Department for Education (2014).

Behaviour and discipline in schools.

Retrieved from tinyurl.com/nod9uqf Flanagan, H. (2014, July). Restorative approaches. Presentation at training event for Cambridgeshire County Council, Over, Cambridgeshire, UK. Geddes, H. (2006). Attachment in the classroom. London: Worth Publishing.

it continues to be used by the majority of schools and is promoted by government guidance (Department for Education, 2014) and policy advisers (Bennett, 2015).

Punishment is a way of controlling the behaviour of others. The use of punishment is based on an unequal power relationship, with the will of the teacher being imposed on the student under the threat of a negative experience if they do not comply (Kohn, 1993). The majority of students are able to conform to the school rules and follow instructions with little difficulty. However the minority of students, like Kyle, can find themselves in trouble on a regular basis. Students are rarely unaware of the rules, yet often they lack the skills to respond adaptively to the situations they find themselves in (Greene, 2009).

A punitive response does not help these young people to learn these skills and instead creates feelings of resentment and rejection, often resulting in more extreme behaviour (Martinez, 2009). If a young person were to make an academic mistake, the school would offer extra support to teach the young person how to correct this, even if they were making the same mistake again and again (Flanagan, 2014). This level of support is rarely offered when a student makes a behavioural mistake.

It is debatable whether this system of behaviour management is even effective for those students who are not repeatedly in trouble. At first glance it may appear to be so, but research shows that most people actually conform to rules because of their own values and their relationships with others, rather than through fear of consequences (Flanagan, 2014; Greene, 2009). For the student who strays from their usual path of good behaviour, the short sharp shock of a detention may seem to make a difference.

But research (Greene, 2009) suggests that it may actually be the disappointment of parents or the isolation from peers that causes them to avoid this experience in the future.

Glasser, W. (1985). Choice theory in the classroom. New York: Harper Perennial.

Greene, R.W. (2009). Lost at school: Why our kids with behavioural challenges are falling through the cracks and how we can help them. New York: Scribner.

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Martinez, S. (2009). A system gone berserk: How are zero tolerance

policies really affecting schools?

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Ryan, R. & Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54–67.

Thorsborne, M. & Blood, P. (2013).

Implementing restorative practices in schools. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

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Serious incidents or repetition of like learning to read, which is something challenging behaviour can eventually lead in which it would beneficial for children to an exclusion from school. The statistics to develop a lifelong interest, rewards are for school exclusions nationally show unlikely to achieve this goal. that almost half of the students who had The behaviourist principles of received a fixed-term exclusion from sanctions and rewards are so embedded school had received this sanction more in our school discipline system that it can than once in one school year. They also show that the majority of fixed -term exclusions from school are recorded as being due to persistently disruptive behaviour (Department for Education, 2013).

This suggests that there was a prolonged period of challenging behaviour leading up to this serious sanction, with the implication that any interventions attempted prior to the exclusion were not effective in changing student behaviour.

With the recognition that a punitive response is often ineffective, many teachers are already trying to move away from the use of punishments to control behaviour (Kohn, 1993). Rewards and praise are seen as better ways of encouraging students to do what is required of them in the classroom. However, while this is certainly a kinder way of responding, the basic premise of rewards and praise is little different The use of punishment is based on an unequal to that of punishment. Both power relationship rewards and sanctions are forms of extrinsic motivation, specifically aiming to control behaviour and ensure compliance with the will of seem difficult to think about trying another. The problem with using rewards something else. Yet, in the famous quote in a learning environment is that this attributed to Einstein, the definition of detracts from the value of learning for its insanity is to continue to do the same own sake. thing again and again while expecting Ideally, students should be different results. The good news is that intrinsically motivated to learn how to there are evidence-based alternative read and solve maths puzzles, but clearly approaches to behaviour management this is not always the case. However, available and some schools are already when children start school, they are eager beginning to adopt these approaches. to learn and curious about being One of the more well-known alternative introduced to new tasks. So what happens approaches is restorative practice. to change that as they continue on their Originating in the criminal justice system, educational journey? The answer is likely where it has been shown to be both more to be that these young people become effective and less costly than traditional caught in a cycle of extrinsic motivators punitive approaches (Flanagan, 2014), (Kohn, 1993). For those who are restorative practice is based on building fortunate enough to have the skills to and maintaining relationships, repairing conform to school rules and avoid any harm caused, and working punishment, the lure of rewards and collaboratively on a way forward praise often becomes the sole reason for (Thorsborne & Blood, 2013). This completing school work. Many studies approach takes commitment and support (Kohn, 1993; Ryan and Deci, 2000) have from all school staff and would initially shown that the use of extrinsic motivators be more time-consuming than continuing reduces future intrinsic motivation for the with a system of punishments and same or similar tasks. For ensuring rewards. But in the long term this obedience, rewards may be the way approach would be far more beneficial forward, but when concerned with a task to the young people involved as they are

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given the opportunity to learn the skills they need to respond adaptively to life’s challenges and to develop emotional awareness and empathy. Schools that have implemented this approach have seen improvements on both social and academic measures, such as a decrease in school exclusions, a reduction in persistent absence, and increased achievement in both English and maths (Flanagan, 2014; Thorsborne & Blood, 2013).

Other alternative approaches, such as Glasser’s choice theory (Glasser, 1985), Greene’s collaborative problem solving (Greene, 2009), and practical strategies for working with students with attachment difficulties (Bombèr, 2007; Geddes, 2006) are also based on collaboration and relationships. The basic principle of all of these approaches is that school staff are working with the young people to solve challenging behaviour issues, rather than imposing solutions on them. Research shows that choice and autonomy are key elements in building intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Enabling young people to participate in decision making about what happens to them in school is an effective way to engage students and teach valuable decision-making skills.

The aim of my own PhD study is to explore the experiences and beliefs of senior school leaders with regard to different approaches to discipline within schools. Through this study, I hope to be able to identify the perceived barriers that are preventing applied innovation in the field of school discipline and suggest possibilities for overcoming these. Further implementation of alternative approaches to behaviour management in schools is needed in order to build a strong evidence base for a change in school discipline. The role of psychologists should be to disseminate knowledge about these alternative approaches to school staff and provide support in implementing these different ways of working with challenging students. By focusing on building positive learning relationships, the emotional and relational needs of both students and staff can be more effectively met, and young people like Kyle can be given the opportunity to achieve success against the odds.

Laura Oxley is a postgraduate student in the Department of Education at the University of York lo590@york.ac.uk

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sources of new and stimulating information. Consequently, even beyond the updates posted by our connections, social media sites generally update their design every couple of months, simply to keep our attention.

In terms of behaviour per se, the main labour of social media users is adding new connections. However, in building Ciarán Mc Mahon considers the psychology behind Facebook and more the network, I cannot connect with everyone equally. For example, if I click ‘add as friend’ on Facebook, that person It has been around a decade since hen I first considered writing an must accept my request for me to be able social networking websites first article like this some years ago, to see their updates (generally speaking). entered public consciousness – now I imagined that Facebook would On Twitter, clicking ‘follow’ means I will they seem like an indispensable become supplanted by some other see their updates straightaway (usually), part of daily life for many of us. website, in the same way that it had though at the same time they may or may What has psychological research displaced MySpace. Yet Facebook is now not ‘follow’ me in return. In both cases, shown about why these sites have more globally dominant than ever, and, the user can choose to positively reinforce become so popular? as if to underline my hubris, MySpace is my behaviour with their reward of their resurgent. Often personal information written off as passing – though it is by no fads for teenagers, means certain that these websites now they will do so. So have billions of users my behaviour of – not only with making a connection Facebook, Twitter, request follows Google Plus, YouTube, a variable schedule Instagram and reinforcement (Ferster MySpace in the West, & Skinner, 1957) We are witnessing something of a boom but with hugely paradigm: sometimes in social sciences scholarship pertaining popular sites like it is rewarded, and to social media (see example resources Tencent Weibo, sometimes it is not, below). Naturally, communications Vkontakt and Orkut meaning that I am studies have been to the forefront, but in the rest of the very likely to continue it could be argued that psychology as world. Social media to engage in it. a discipline has been slow to pick up on marches on. But, Cleverly, many social media as a topic of study. Why is from the point of view social media websites this, do you think? of peer-reviewed have concentrated this If we were to review the discipline’s Often written off as passing fads psychological research, reinforcement body of work as a whole, and apply it what do we know about for teenagers, social media sites paradigm across several to website design, what kind of social march on what makes these activities into a single media should result? websites popular? signal: the notification icon. By creating a bright, and usually red, ‘+1’ for every Behavioural and cognitive time we have received a new piece of The Psychology of Cyberspace: Almost a truism at this stage, the human information – whether it is a friend http://psycyber.blogspot.co.uk preference for novelty first described by request accepted, a new message, new Attrill, A. (Ed.). (2015). Cyberpsychology.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Lord Kames (Home, 1823) plays into the photo ‘liked’ or ‘favorite’ – social media Social Media + Society open access attractiveness of social media. Web websites encourage us to keep checking journal: http://sms.sagepub.com designers fret over not delivering enough them. These icons are not constant ‘fresh content’ to users, because we prefer features of social media websites (unless

Why do we ‘like’ social media?

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Bakshy, E., Messing, S. & Adamic, L. (2015). Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science, 58(4), 707–731.

Bauer, L., Cranor, L.F., Komanduri, S. et al. (2013). The post anachronism. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM workshop on privacy in the electronic society. (pp.1–12). New York: ACM Press.

Bernstein, M.S., Harry, D., Andr, P. et al.

(2011). 4chan and /b/: An analysis of anonymity and ephemerality in a large online community. In ICWSM, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 1–8).

Blanco, K., Briceno, A., Steele, A. et al.

(2013). The dynamics of offensive messages in the world of social media. Available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.0694 boyd, d. (2007). Why youth (heart) social

network sites. In D. Buckingham (Ed.) MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media (pp.1–26). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bucher, T. (2012). Want to be on the top?

Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1164–1180.

Cialdini, R.B. (2001). The science of persuasion. Scientific American,

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we engage with other users incessantly, in which case, job well done by the site’s engineers) – they are unpredictable.

Because we can never be certain how many notifications we will have before we log back into these sites, they reinforce our behaviour with all the power of a Skinner box, randomly delivering food pellets in response to a rat’s lever presses.

Interestingly, biological research has shown that Facebook usage may be associated with a specific psychophysiological pattern (Mauri et al., 2011). This research suggests that there is a core flow state present when browsing Facebook that is significantly different from stress and relaxation on a number of indices of somatic activity. Being on a social media site is a positive experience – it feels good – and this is why we enjoy using it. Strikingly, a controversial study from last year found that there is some evidence for emotional contagion (Kramer et al., 2014: see box) – when we see expressions of either positive or negative emotions on Facebook, we are more likely to express emotions of that valence in our updates too.

It is to be expected that new users of social media will first connect with other users they already know, who should be most likely to accept their invitations.

Subsequently, there will inevitably be diminishing returns on behaviour in the user’s early days on a site, in that the same amount of effort will produce decreasing reward. Social media engineers can rely on negative automaintenance (Williams & Williams, 1969) for a time – we will continue to engage in the same way even we are not being rewarded at all. For example, after we have run out of people we know, we will move on to people we only slightly know, who are less likely to reciprocate when we ‘add as friend’ or ‘follow’ them.

Consequently, web developers can expect a decline in user activity after their first few weeks, which inevitably plays into what might be the dominant cognitive state of our era: media

284(2), 76–81.

Deutsch, M. & Gerard, H.B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgement. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 51, 629–636.

Ellison, N.B., Steinfield, C. & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook ‘Friends’. Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, 12(4), 1143–1168.

Potentials and pitfalls Last July controversy erupted with what became known as the ‘Facebook Emotion Study’ (Kramer et al., 2014). The study demonstrated a small ‘emotional contagion’ effect: users who saw more emotional content were more likely to post similar content themselves. Debate centred on its methodology, as the newsfeeds of 689,003 Facebook users were altered without their being informed: experimental participation without consent. While websites often restructure, that seldom is described as ‘research’, nor is it for the explicit purpose of trying to make visitors feel better or worse. Consequently, the study began a conversation about research ethics in cyberspace (Aiken & Mc Mahon, 2014).

On the one hand, traditional methods are common with social media.

An experiment with Facebook users found that when asked to edit their profiles they experienced a relative increase in self-

esteem (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011). A crosssectional survey of Twitter users found correlations between levels of suicidal ideation and whether or not they had posted tweets as such (Sueki, 2014). Content analysis of Facebook profile photographs found no significant difference across genders (Hum et al., 2011).

The attraction of social media for teenagers has been explored using ethnographic methods (boyd, 2007). A focus group of London undergraduates revealed many interesting findings (Lewis & West, 2009), such as possibly the first academic description of ‘Facebook stalking’!

On the other hand, newer methods are increasingly common.

Network analysis has revealed how information flows through adolescents’ groups of friends (Van Cleemput, 2010) and datamining has illustrated the dynamics of cyberbullying on Twitter (Blanco et al., 2013).

These present a challenge for research: fascinating

multitasking. Instead of spending extended periods of time on them, we dip into and out of these sites all day long, checking for updates from friends and family, as well as news and information.

Research has shown, unsurprisingly, that Facebook is the most common activity that university students switch to when studying. Worryingly, it has also found

Ellison, N.B., Vitak, J., Gray, R. & Lampe, C. (2014). Cultivating social resources on social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(4), 855–870.

Ferster, C.B. & Skinner, B.F. (1957).

Schedules of reinforcement. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-CenturyCrofts.

Foucault, M. (1993). About the beginning of the hermeneutics of the self.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

insights, but ethical conundrums. In Kramer et al. (2014), the data had already been gathered by Facebook, passed to the researchers after having been anonymised, with institutional review not deemed necessary, because there didn’t seem to be any human participation.

In smaller studies, it is easy to remember that data represent people – this may be more difficult in larger studies. Yet another controversial Facebook study has been published which, while without experimental manipulation, utilised anonymised data from 10.1 million users (Bakshy et al., 2015). Cyberpsychology speaks of online disinhibition (Suler, 2004) – but perhaps researchers should also think about N-line disinhibition: becoming overawed by huge amounts of data. Dignity of participants, long a hallmark of psychological research, may be an mounting issue in cyberpsychological research: are we our social media data?

that those who most engage in this type of internet browsing tend to have lower levels of educational achievement (Rosen et al., 2013). Interestingly, while multitasking on the whole has cognitive costs, it provides emotional gratifications that its users do not actively seek (Wang & Tchernev, 2012).

In addition, research has also shown

Political Theory, 21(2), 198–227.

Fullwood, C., Quinn, S., Chen-Wilson, J., et al. (2015). Put on a smiley face: Textspeak and personality perceptions. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 18(3), 147–151.

Gibbs, M., Meese, J., Arnold, M. et al.

(2014). #Funeral and Instagram: Death, social media, and platform vernacular. Information,

Communication & Society, 18(3), 255–268.

Gilder, G. (1993). Metcalfe’s law and legacy. Forbes ASAP. Retrieved from http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~gaj1/me tgg.html Gray, K.L. (2012). Intersecting oppressions and online communities.

Information, Communication & Society, 15(3), 411–428.

Gonzales, A.L. & Hancock, J.T. (2011).

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that there are personality differences in the social media sites preferred by users, with those who preferred Twitter displaying higher need for cognition, and those who preferred Facebook displaying higher sociability, extraversion and neuroticism (Hughes et al., 2012).

Social Paradoxically, given the extent of social media’s popularity, at least a certain amount of the growth of these sites is their exclusivity. Early in Facebook’s history, it was only available to students at élite North American universities.

This was gradually extended to global universities, then all adults, and eventually high school pupils, but its growth relied initially on a variation on the scarcity heuristic (Cialdini, 2001).

While not many other sites have used this particular gradation mechanism, nearly all new services begin life with ‘invite only’ or ‘waiting list’ messages. While their marketing departments try to stir up publicity, the fact that the public can’t yet access the new cool website only serves to increase its attractiveness.

The flipside of this effect is known as Metcalfe’s law, or the network effect (Gilder, 1993). While technically defined as ‘the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system’, it basically means that there is little point in joining a service unless your friends are on it. Again this shows why Facebook originally concentrated on specific universities as these provided readymade populations of interconnected individuals. Several other services – the dating app Tinder, for example – have used the same strategy in concentrating market targeting on college students.

Once a whole class join a service, it is extremely useful to them – but if only one or two join, it’s relatively useless.

Beyond that point, social media became popular from the very basic principle of conformity (Asch, 1951).

If everyone we know is on a particular

Mirror, mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of exposure to Facebook on self-esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 14(1–2), 79–83.

Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: Distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(6), 377–386.

Home, H. (1823). Elements of criticism:

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site, it is very hard to avoid such normative social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). Again, this has a corollary in what has become known as ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) – removing oneself from such a website has psychological side-effects. Interestingly, there has been empirical research that shows that FOMO has significant motivational, emotional and behavioural correlates (Przybylski et al., 2013).

However, why we stay members of social media is to do with social capital: the tangible benefits we receive from being members of a group. One of the earliest research teams to look seriously at Facebook found that while using the site didn’t seem to have much effect on bonding social capital – advantages gained from close friends and family, the sort of people who would do anything for you (Ellison et al., 2007) – users did seem to benefit from greater bridging social capital – low-level information, news and advice. For example, you may be friends on Facebook with someone you only met once, which may seem a little pointless – but if they post a status update about a job vacancy that you might be interested in, you could be glad you hadn’t unfriended them!

Continuing with this line of research, the same research team has explored how certain ‘Facebook Relationship

Volume 1 (4th Americ.). New York: S. Campbell & Son, E. Duyckinck [etc.].

Hughes, D.J., Rowe, M., Batey, M. & Lee, A. (2012). A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage.

Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 561–569.

Hum, N.J., Chamberlin, P.E., Hambright, B.L. et al. (2011). A picture is worth a thousand words: A content analysis

Maintenance Behaviours’, such as responding to a friend’s good news, requests for help or advice and so on, underlie bridging social capital (Ellison et al., 2014). The researchers conclude that Facebook users take advantage of the site’s design features (e.g. birthday reminders) to strengthen the weak ties that underlie bridging social capital. In other words, the site’s affordances allow you to tell someone you don’t know very well that you are still paying attention to them.

Interestingly, on Israeli social media site Shox, Schwarz (2010) describes how teenagers use self-portraits (selfies, though that term was not common at the time) as a form of corporeal social capital.

As these young people are not yet part of ‘grown-up’ society, they do not have access to the established methods of social influence that adults do, so they use self-portraits as a means of presenting themselves, comparing themselves to each other and thereby building social relationships, both online and offline.

There is, Schwarz notes, a certain amount of liberation in the social capital of selfimagery, but it does come at a price – not everyone can play this game, and not everyone succeeds, much like the celebrity culture that it mimics.

Furthermore, and what is critical for psychological research to recognise in

of Facebook profile photographs.

Computers in Human Behavior, 27(5), 1828–1833.

Johnson, B.K. & Knobloch-Westerwick, S. (2014). Glancing up or down: Mood management and selective social comparisons on social networking sites. Computers in Human Behavior, 41, 33–39.

Joinson, A.N. (2001). Self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication.

European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 31, 177–192.

Kramer, A.D.I., Guillory, J.E. & Hancock, J.T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(24), 8788–8790.

Lewis, J. & West, A. (2009). ‘Friending’: London-based undergraduates’ experience of Facebook. New Media

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these contexts – such as funeral research on Instagram (Gibbs et al., 2014) – is that each particular social media site has its own platform vernacular. In other words, to appreciate any social media site fully, researchers need to understand its language practices, which are often unique to it.

That said, it does seem like we associate with other people on social media at least in part because of the how good they make us look, and social comparison research remains intriguing.

There is long-standing research demonstrating that if our Facebook friends are good-looking, we too will be perceived as better looking (Walther et al., 2008). Additionally, it has also been shown that users of social media sites compare themselves to each other in an effort to manage their mood (Johnson & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2014) – that when we are in a negative mood we prefer to make more downward social comparisons, against those we view as less successful or attractive as ourselves.

Interestingly, it has been shown that even anonymous websites have complex community structures. On 4chan, even though it is impossible to distinguish the author of one post from the next in such an environment, and posts disappear if no one interacts with them, Bernstein et al.

(2011) have shown that there is still a distinct social hierarchy at work. By using distinctive identity signs, such as difficultto-reproduce Unicode character displays or time-stamped photographs, 4chan has a distinctive community culture and hierarchy of participation. This gives rise to the most exquisite aspect of both internet and teenage culture: the in-joke.

Fundamentally, social media allows its users to socialise with similarly-minded individuals.

Self and identity Additionally, there is ample cultural work that is useful in understanding the psychology of social media sites’ popularity. Foucault (1993) speaks of

& Society, 11(7), 1209–1229.

Locke, J. (1700). An essay concerning humane understanding, in four books (4th edn). London: Awnsham and John Churchill.

Marcia, J.E. (1966). Development and validation of ego-identity status.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3(5), 551–558.

Mauri, M., Cipresso, P., Balgera, A. et al.

(2011). Why is Facebook so

technologies of the self – techniques by which people manipulate their bodies, minds and behaviour in order to reach some ideal of psychological perfection.

While he wrote largely about ancient practices like mediation and diarykeeping, it is clear that there are many such technologies present today. These websites are how many of us now choose to refine and manage our identities.

A Foucauldian analysis of social media would necessarily have to incorporate notions of power and governance: social media as an outlet for comparative selfdevelopment. LinkedIn, for example, as a professional and business-oriented social media site is extensively used for marking personal progress and improvement. Research has shown that on Xing, a similar professional social network, there is a high degree of authenticity, rather than idealism, present in users profiles (Sievers et al., 2015).

But the major use of social media in this regard has been by teenagers and young adults, and has been repeatedly demonstrated by danah boyd (e.g. boyd, 2007). The ethnographic work of boyd demonstrates that within such mediated environments – networked publics – young users of MySpace engage in a considerable amount of time editing and managing their profiles in a process of impression management with regard to their imagined audiences. Critically, boyd was one of the first to underline how teenagers turned to the (appropriately named) MySpace as their physical spaces were restricted by their parents. These days, with geolocation services present on the likes of Instagram and Foursquare, we are now seeing research on the spatial self (Schwartz & Halegoua, 2014). Users of such services portray their social identities according to the places they have been: we like to show our friends that we are getting out.

On the whole, self-presentation affordances are a critical aspect of social media’s popularity. On Facebook, Strano (2008) found that female adult users were more likely to change their profile

successful? Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(12), 723–731.

Postmes, T. & Spears, R. (2002). Behavior online: Does anonymous computer communication reduce gender inequality? Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(7), 1073–1083.

Przybylski, A.K., Murayama, K., Dehaan, C.R. & Gladwell, V. (2013).

Motivational, emotional, and

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

photographs more often, and to emphasise friendships in those photographs. Continuing that vein of investigation, more recent research has also shown that the language we use on social media has a critical effect on how we are perceived by others. Fullwood et al. (2015) found that people whose profiles used textspeak (including emoticons) were deemed to be less conscientious and less open but more emotionally stable. Interestingly, the amount of textspeak used was not important – even small amounts were enough to shift perceptions.

These processes hark back very much to the work of Erving Goffman, namely the idea of the presentation of self, which Hogan (2010) has interpreted in the social media context as involving both performances (synchronous, real-time, co-present) and exhibitions (asynchronous, not necessarily copresent). The tricky thing about social media in this regard, Hogan notes, is that while users may choose to present or hide certain aspects of their digital selves, some of this process is taken over by the code of the particular site, which decides which content rises to the top of newsfeeds. What Bucher (2012) calls the threat of invisibility to these algorithms is an under-appreciated factor in the attraction of these social media sites: once we engage with them, we are at their mercy. The trouble is, as Bucher notes, the algorithms that decide which content is highlighted and which is obscured, are proprietary and secret.

I have no way of knowing if Facebook will push my post to the top of my friends’ newsfeeds. Again, though in a much subtler way, this harks back to the variable schedule reinforcement conditioning mentioned above.

The thing is, while these opaque algorithms do have a certain amount of control over our social media, we tend to change our minds about our identities quite a lot. As has been argued in philosophy since the early modern period (e.g. Locke, 1700), while there is a

behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848.

Rosen, L.D., Mark Carrier, L. & Cheever, N.A. (2013). Facebook and texting made me do it: Media-induced taskswitching while studying. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 948–958.

Schwartz, R. & Halegoua, G.R. (2014).

The spatial self: Location-based identity performance on social

media. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444814531364 .

Schwarz, O. (2010). On friendship, boobs and the logic of the catalogue: Online self-portraits as a means for the exchange of capital. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16(2), 163–183.

Sievers, K., Wodzicki, K., Aberle, I. et al.

(2015). Self-presentation in

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continuity to our consciousness, who we are as individuals evolves and changes over time. Temporality, therefore, is an important aspect of the appeal of social media – it allows us to edit our identities in a coherent narrative fashion, of where we come from, where we currently are and where we hope to go.

The problem though is that we are not very good at knowing our place in that chronology. A very interesting study

by Bauer et al. (2013) asked participants about the privacy settings on their Facebook posts – asking them both longitudinally and retrospectively about whether or not they would like their content to remain public or private. The study’s participants’ predictions about how their visibility preferences would change did not correlate well with their actual changes in preferences over time.

This appears to be the appeal of newer picture social messaging applications like Snapchat, which offers a sense of ephemerality to its content, by claiming that pictures sent via its service will automatically be deleted once viewed by their recipients. Naturally, this appeals greatly to younger users, especially those within what Marcia (1966) would term the identity crisis – the developmental stage when young people attempt to decide who they are by trying out new ways of presenting themselves (which they may not want to keep permanently).

While there is very little academic psychological research on Snapchat to date, it seems clear that it appeals very much to a generation who have grown up with perils of permanent internet content hanging over them.

Conclusions The major factors driving the popularity of social media usage are fundamentally cyberpsychological. We can simply do things and experience things on social media that we cannot do anywhere else.

While sitting alone at home, we can make our most private and personal thoughts

professional networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 50, 25–30.

Soukup, C. (2006). Computer-mediated communication as a virtual third place. New Media & Society, 8(3), 421–440.

Strano, M.M. (2008). User descriptions and interpretations of selfpresentation through Facebook profile images. Journal of Psychosocial Research on

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instantly and globally public – a historically unprecedented psychological experience. In this way we are experiencing what has been described as online disinhibition (Suler, 2004) – the phenomenon whereby we do and say things on the internet that we probably would not do in a face-to-face environment. This is unnerving, as in certain circumstances of anonymity and perceived privacy we are more likely to engage in self-disclosure of personal information online that we would not do otherwise (Joinson, 2001).

Another cyberpsychology concept encourages our participation in social media – that of hyperpersonal communication (Walther, 2007). Because much of online communication online is textual, time-stamped and can be edited, its emotional impact is augmented: we know how long our interlocutors were composing their replies, we can spellcheck our messages, and much more besides.

We have yet to get used to this, and this is why social media will continue to be highly fascinating for some time to come.

In a holistic sense, the popularity of social media has been driven by how user-friendly and interactive it has made modern cyberspace. In the traditional sociological distinction of home, work and ‘third space’, we now have an online environment – a ‘fourth space’ (Soukup, 2006). In effect, social media has created a much more massive online space where all kinds of interesting activities are very easy to engage in. Many of these have long-standing foundations in psychology – the behavioural, cognitive, social and self/identity factors above. However, the newer cyberpsychological factors are

Cyberspace, 2(2), 1. Retrieved from tinyurl.com/nrwwu6r Sueki, H. (2015). The association of suicide-related Twitter use with suicidal behaviour. Journal of Affective Disorders, 170,155–160.

Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321–326.

Van Cleemput, K. (2010). ‘I’ll see you on IM, text, or call you’: A social

essential to understanding the appeal of this environment, yet remain far less well studied – a new research frontier for psychology.

It cannot be denied however, that the discipline faces a number of challenges in this space. We need to get over our ‘digital dualism’: what happens in cyberspace is ‘real’. It is not easy keeping up with the pace of technological developments, but psychologists must not shirk our normative responsibilities.

In particular, we need greater interrogation of the affordances of social media sites and apps. Sociology, communication studies and other disciplines have joined the social media party, and psychology must ensure it is not excluded, particularly with the advent of ‘big data’ – who needs a psychologist if you have petabytes of social media data being analysed by the second?

Finally, it is sad to say, but online environments provide refutation of the equalisation hypothesis. The hope that ICT would level out differences like gender stereotypes has not been supported (Postmes & Spears, 2002), even more so in intersectional studies (Gray, 2012). This is the toxic online disinhibition Suler (2004) described over a decade ago, yet society is a long way from acknowledging it, or its consequences. As the idea of the internet as an aggressive playground dominates public discourse, the insinuation that we must be ‘resilient’ to online abuse is disturbingly common. In the past, at times of cultural unease, ground-breaking psychological research had profound and vital societal impact. Is such a time upon us again?

network approach of adolescents’ use of communication media.

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(2), 75–85.

Walther, J.B. (2007). Selective selfpresentation in computer-mediated communication. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(5), 2538–2557.

Walther, J.B., Van Der Heide, B., Kim, S.-Y. et al. (2008). The role of friends’ appearance and behavior

Ciarán Mc Mahon is in the CyberPsychology Research Centre, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland ciaranmcmahon@rcsi.ie

on evaluations of individuals on Facebook. Human Communication Research, 34(1), 28–49.

Wang, Z. & Tchernev, J.M. (2012). The ‘myth’ of media multitasking.

Journal of Communication, 62, 493–513.

Williams, D.R. & Williams, H. (1969).

Auto-maintenance in the pigeon.

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 4(4), 511–520.

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ARTICLE

relevant. Medicine and clinical psychology are interesting because they require selectors to consider candidates’ personal qualities such as empathy, warmth and a commitment to best practice, as well as academic ability.

The best choice?

Katherine Woolf, Henry Potts, Josh Stott, Chris McManus, Amanda Williams and Katrina Scior consider evidence on selection into the healthcare professions The biggest hurdle to becoming a clinical psychologist, doctor or other healthcare professional is getting onto a training course – once accepted nearly all trainees qualify to practise. It is therefore crucial that selection methods weed out those who would perform poorly in practice and keep those who will perform well. Courses also need to attract the best candidates from diverse backgrounds, and ensure selection methods don’t discriminate unfairly.

In the selection process what are the best predictors of course performance? How useful is the academic record of candidates?

How does this compare with aptitude tests and traditional interviews? And what is the evidence linking selection methods with future performance in practice?

questions resources

Prideaux, D., Roberts, C., Eva, K. et al.

(2011). Assessment for selection for the health care professions and specialty training. Medical Teacher, 33, 215–223.

references

Baron, H. (2011). Selection of clinical psychologist trainees job analysis to develop selection tools. Final Report for the selection working group of the Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology.

British Medical Association (2009).

Equality and diversity in UK medical schools. London: Author.

Cabinet Office (2009). Unleashing aspiration: The final report of the Panel

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ow do we select people to become healthcare professionals?

Psychologists, medical doctors and other healthcare professionals have demanding jobs that significantly impact on the public. The professions, and academic psychologists, have a duty to produce evidence on who should fill these roles. Many of us are personally involved in choosing candidates and want to know if our choices are sound. It is now widely accepted that those choices must be carefully balanced with the mandate to increase demographic diversity (e.g. Medical Schools Council, 2014).

In many professional courses, such as clinical psychology and medicine, the validity of selection methods is especially important because nearly everyone accepted qualifies to practise.

Training routes are heavily oversubscribed, with the applicant-to-place ratio for clinical psychology as high as 30:1. This has led to concerns that it seems next to impossible to gain a place, and that selection processes are opaque.

This article provides an overview of selection methods, asking how well they predict later performance and how fair they are. We use examples from medicine, where there is considerable research evidence A key way to test whether selection methods work is (cf. McManus, 2005), and from clinical psychology, where to see whether people with high scores at selection subsequently do well, and those with low scores do badly there is less, but which is more

H

How can we tell which selection methods work best for healthcare education?

How can we predict whether someone will become a good healthcare professional?

Assessing candidates The UK’s 30 clinical psychology and 33 undergraduate medical programmes use various selection methods. Academic ability is evaluated using GCSEs and A-levels or equivalents in medicine – a minimum of three As (and increasingly at least one A*) at A-level and a B at ASlevel being required. Degree performance is more important in clinical psychology, a good 2:1 or first class degree being required and postgraduate qualifications providing an advantage. Interviews, personal statements and referee ratings are used to assess person-based qualities.

Recently, situational judgement tests – multiple-choice tests that ask candidates how they would behave in relevant situations – have been used to select medical students for junior doctor jobs, and there is pressure for them to be used in clinical psychology selection (Health Education England, 2014). Medical schools also use aptitude tests such as

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Cape, J., Roth, A., Scior, K. et al. (2008).

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Department for Education.

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Donnon, T., Paolucci, E.O. & Violato, C. (2007). The predictive validity of the MCAT for medical school performance and Medical Board licensing examinations. Academic Medicine, 82, 100–106.

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The multiple mini-interview in the UK context. Medical Teacher, 34, 297–304.

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Eva, K.W., Reiter, H.I., Rosenfeld, J. & Norman, G.R. (2004) The ability of the multiple mini-interview to predict

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UKCAT (UK Clinical Aptitude Test) and BMAT (Biomedical Admissions Test) to measure academic and personal qualities because so many applicants have top A-level grades and because they are, it is claimed, fairer.

A key way to test whether selection methods work is to see whether people with high scores at selection subsequently do well, and those with low scores do badly. This provides evidence of predictive validity. For example, if students with three A* grades at A-level do better on course assessments than those with three A grades, and the latter do better than those with three B grades, this helps justify rejecting candidates with lower grades who could reasonably be expected to fail the course.

Of course it is not that simple, because as well as using diverse selection methods, professional courses teach and assess their students’ academic and person-based knowledge and skills in various ways. Clinical psychology is a three-year postgraduate full-time course providing academic teaching and study, clinical placements and research training.

Assessments include reports on clinical work, placement supervisor ratings, a doctoral thesis viva, exams, essays and clinical simulations. Medicine is usually a five-year undergraduate course. Students learn the scientific underpinning of clinical medicine in a university setting, and learn practical skills and professional behaviour in NHS or community settings.

Assessments are typically multiple-choice written examinations and practical faceto-face examinations. In choosing a selection toolkit, we need to know which selection methods predict academic outcomes, which predict person-based outcomes, and which selection methods add value to others and should be used in combination.

Selecting on academic ability A-level grades are good predictors of undergraduate performance across undergraduate subjects (HEFCE, 2014) and in medicine specifically (Ferguson et

preclerkship performance in medical school. Academic Medicine, 79(10), S40–S42.

Eva, K.W., Reiter, H.I., Trinh, K. et al.

(2009). Predictive validity of the multiple mini-interview for selecting medical trainees. Medical Education, 43(8), 767–775.

Ferguson, E., James, D., & Madeley, L. (2002). Factors associated with success in medical school:

al., 2002; James & Chilvers, 2001; McManus, Woolf et al., 2013; Yates & James, 2007). A-levels are (usually) written knowledge tests and thus predict performance on in-course written knowledge tests well, although they also predict performance on practical tests of professional skills and behaviours.

A study of 700 medical students found high A-level grades (along with high conscientiousness and white ethnicity) were better predictors of high scores in written and clinical examinations than study habits, parental socio-economic status, speaking English as a first language, or sex (Woolf et al., 2012).

Data from 12 medical schools showed that up to 65 per cent of the variance in first-year scores (mostly written knowledge tests) was accounted for by A-level performance (McManus, Dewberry et al., 2013a); and a metaregression of six studies of medical school entrants estimated the predictive validity of A-levels to be very high, around 0.8 (McManus, Dewberry et al., 2013b). Data from seven cohorts of the University College London DClinPsy course showed that better A-levels predicted higher marks on all four in-course exams, and were associated with fewer reported concerns about clinical placement performance (Scior et al. 2013). GCSEs have less predictive validity (McManus, Woolf et al., 2013), although when nearly all applicants have top A-level grades they add useful information (Woolf et al., 2012).

Theoretically, A-levels and GCSEs are good predictors of academic and personbased performance in medicine because they provide the foundation of what has been called the ‘academic backbone’: ‘the accumulation of…“medical capital”; that set of knowledge, theories, experience, understanding and skills that comprise successful medical practice’ (McManus, Woolf et al., 2013). It is likely that A-levels have a similar role in underpinning the academic backbone in psychology and other courses.

There is less evidence about degree

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Goho, J. & Blackman, A. (2006). The effectiveness of academic admission interviews. Medical Teacher, 28(4), 335–340.

Griffin, B. & Hu, W. (2015) The interaction of socio-economic status and gender in widening participation in medicine.

Medical Education, 49(1), 103–113.

Health Education England (2014). Values

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performance in selection, although our UCL DClinPsy study found it predicted course exam performance independently from A-levels on Year 1, but not Year 2, exams (Scior, 2013).

Selecting on person-based factors Interviews can take many forms and there is conflicting evidence as to their utility (Ferguson et al., 2002; Goho & Blackman, 2006; Hogg et al., 2014; Scior et al., 2013). Concerns have also been expressed about the reliability and fairness of traditional unstructured interviews (Prideaux et al., 2011; Salvatori, 2001).

The multiple mini-interview (MMI) is a practical structured interview increasingly used in medicine. Candidates rotate around ‘stations’ in order. At each station they perform a task – such as talking to an actor about an ethical issue – for a set time. An examiner at each station assesses performance using a structured checklist, to give an overall measure of non-cognitive ability (Dowell et al., 2012; Eva et al., 2004). The MMI is more reliable than unstructured interviews and measures actual rather than reported performance. In medicine, the MMI is a good predictor of performance in practical examinations of knowledge application and communication skills (Eva et al., 2009; Husbands & Dowell, 2013; Kelly et al., 2014). To our knowledge, there is no evidence as to the effectiveness of an MMI in clinical psychology.

Situational judgement tests (SJTs) are written tests in which candidates are presented with hypothetical scenarios requiring them to choose or rank the most appropriate responses. SJTs have only recently been used in medicine – to select qualified doctors into specialty training (see Patterson et al., 2012, for a review). The SJT used to select candidates into general practice training has a small to medium correlation (r = .3) with job supervisor ratings a year later and a slightly higher correlation (r = .4) with the GP exit examination two years later,

based recruitment framework.

Retrieved from tinyurl.com/pljyw2q HEFCE (2014). Differences in degree outcomes. London: Author.

Hogg, L., Panting, H., Gregory, J. & Salkovskis, P. (2014). Can we predict performance in clinical psychology training from performance in selection.

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, University of Bath.

Hurwitz, B. & Vass, A. (2002) What’s a

good doctor, and how can you make one? British Medical Journal, 325, 667.

Husbands, A. & Dowell, J. (2013).

Predictive validity of the Dundee multiple mini-interview. Medical Education, 47(7), 717–725.

James, D. & Chilvers, C. (2001).

Academic and non-academic predictors of success on the Nottingham undergraduate medical course 1970–1995. Medical Education,

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and adds significantly to information provided from written knowledge and practical clinical tests (Patterson et al., 2013).

SJTs are not used to select medical undergraduates in the UK, although the UKCAT test is piloting one. In Belgium a study of 5000 medical school applicants found that a video-based SJT measuring interpersonal skills (candidates watched 30 videos and had decide what to do after each one) was a reasonable predictor of medical school assessments of interpersonal behaviour, and of performance as a doctor seven years later – correlations being small to medium (.15 to .23). It was significantly better than a ‘cognitive’ test of science knowledge and general mental ability, although the cognitive test was a better predictor of knowledge test scores (Lievens, 2013). As far as we know, there are no published reports of SJTs in clinical psychology selection, although anecdotally they are used or currently being piloted by several UK courses.

Aptitude tests in selection The best-established aptitude test in medicine is the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), used in one form or another in the United States since the 1920s (Moss, 1930). MCAT has a small to medium correlation (r = .4) with early medical school performance, and a medium to large correlation (r = .6) with the US Medical Licensing Examination (similar to medical school finals in the UK) (Donnon et al., 2007). In predictive validity studies, a correlation of .6 is high.

By contrast, there is only a small correlation (r = .2) between UKCAT scores and medical school results, which is weaker than the correlation between school exam results and medical school results (r = .3). UKCAT also adds little information over the school achievement mark (McManus, Dewberry et al., 2013a).

BMAT has similar predictive power to UKCAT (McManus et al., 2011).

Differences in the relative predictive power of aptitude tests reflect differences

35, 1056–1064.

Kelly, M., Dowell, J., Husbands, A. et al.

(2014). The fairness, predictive validity and acceptability of multiple mini interview in an internationally diverse student population. BMC Medical Education, 14, 267.

Lievens, F. (2013). Adjusting medical school admission. Medical Education, 47(2), 182–189.

Ludka, K., Woolf, K. & McManus, I.C.

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in their content. Until 2012 the MCAT subtests were Physical Science, Biological Science, Verbal Reasoning, and a Writing Sample. The best-performing subtest was Biological Science, which predicted medical school written knowledge test performance and job performance. The next best was Verbal Reasoning, which predicted job performance only (Donnon et al., 2007). UKCAT tests reasoning, not science knowledge. BMAT’s knowledge subscale performs significantly better than its reasoning and writing subscales (McManus et al., 2011).

Aptitude tests are not widely used in clinical psychology selection, and there is no consensus on what a psychological aptitude test should entail, although Baron (2011) suggests cognitive ability, research comprehension, personality, English language ability or SJTs might be useful. There are some course-specific tests, but there are insufficient data to assess their predictive validity reliably.

From April 2015 all providers of NHSfunded training programmes in England are expected to assess candidates’ values and behaviours using reliable and valid methods, such as face-to-face structured interviews or multiple mini-interviews, and to use tools such as SJTs and aptitude tests to screen for interview selection (Health Education England, 2014). It is imperative to consider how these should be used to select in clinical psychology, where there is little research evidence.

Job performance So far we have looked at whether selection methods predict course performance. While a student cannot qualify without passing, job performance is much more important. Selection methods are crucial because nearly everyone accepted on a medical or clinical psychology course qualifies.

We could say this means selection methods work, but that assumes course assessments are proxies for job performance; that is, that candidates who perform well on the course go on to be

(2013). Poor performance on the MRCP(UK) examination predicts license limitations in subsequent medical practice. Prague: Association for Medical Education Europe Conference.

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McManus, I.C., Dewberry, C., Nicholson, S. & Dowell, J.S. (2013a). The

good practitioners, candidates who perform badly go on to be poor practitioners, and candidates who fail the course would have been terrible practitioners.

Is this true? It is certainly controversial. Doctors often say that exams predict exams and they have nothing to do with being a good doctor (Hurwitz & Vass, 2002). To test this we need to look at how well the methods used to select on to courses predict job performance. To our knowledge, no direct evidence exists in medicine or clinical psychology. However, if selection methods predict course performance and course performance predicts job performance, that chain of evidence would help validate selection methods.

One problem with establishing the chain is that there is no agreed definition of ‘good’ performance, and in the UK there are as yet few available data on any potential measures of it. Being struck off the medical register is, however, a reasonable proxy for bad performance, and there is evidence that medics who do badly in exams but scrape through are more likely to have licensing problems (Ludka et al., 2013; Papadakis et al., 2008) and more patient deaths (Norcini et al., 2014). To our knowledge, there are no studies of the link between course and job performance in clinical psychology.

Diversity and selection methods Despite concerted efforts to widen access, the lack of diversity in the professions remains a problem (Cabinet Office, 2009). Newly qualified clinical psychologists are overwhelmingly female and white (Cape et al., 2008).

In medicine, black and minority ethnic (BME) groups are better represented, but this is due to high proportions of some groups (e.g. Indian), while others (e.g.

Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean) remain underrepresented (BMA, 2009). Fifty per cent of doctors are independently schooled compared with 6.5 per cent of British children (Cabinet Office, 2009).

UKCAT-12 study. BMC Medicine, 11, 244.

McManus, I.C., Dewberry, C., Nicholson, S. et al. (2013b). Construct-level predictive validity of educational attainment and intellectual aptitude tests in medical student selection.

BMC Medicine, 11, 243.

McManus, I.C., Elder, A.T., de Champlain, A. et al. (2008). Graduates of different UK medical schools show substantial

differences in performance on MRCP(UK) Part 1, Part 2 and PACES examinations. BMC Medicine, 6, 5.

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(2013c). The academic backbone.

BMC Medicine, 11, 242.

Medical Schools Council (2014). Selecting

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School attainment is linked to gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and school characteristics (Crawford, 2014; Department for Education, 2014), which is clearly a problem and can mean able students do not apply for courses. For selectors, a major issue is whether it is possible to increase diversity without reducing quality, and one test of that is whether selection methods predict equally well for students from different groups .

Prior academic performance and diversity It may disadvantage applicants from state schools to select on A-levels without any adjustment for school characteristics.

Students from state schools perform slightly better at university than students with equivalent A-level grades from independent schools (Crawford, 2014).

The effect disappears for those with the highest grades (HEFCE, 2014), from which the pool of medical students is drawn; however, the UKCAT-12 study did find that students from selective schools did slightly worse at medical school than those from state schools; and students who did particularly well in A-levels relative to their school peers did better at medical school than students who achieved the same A-level grades but performed at the same level as their school peers (McManus, Dewberry et al., 2013a). The issues surrounding ethnicity are somewhat different. BME groups

for excellence: Final report. London: Author.

Moss, F.A. (1930). Scholastic aptitude tests for medical students. Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 5(2), 90–110.

Norcini, J.J., Boulet, J.R., Opalek, A. & Dauphinee, W.D. (2014). The relationship between licensing examination performance and the outcomes of care by international

underperform at university compared with white students with equivalent A-level grades (HEFCE, 2014; Woolf et al., 2013), putting an onus on universities to investigate their teaching and learning practices to ensure equality.

These findings do not mean that A-levels have no place in selecting students from state or poorly performing schools, but that university entry requirements should perhaps be calibrated to the type of school where A-levels were obtained, with contextual data being carefully considered. An example of what can happen when A-level requirements are reduced without careful calibration comes from the Extended Medical Degree Programme (EMDP) at King’s College Medical School. The EMDP has the laudable aim of widening access to medicine. It admits students with significantly lower A-level grades and gives them an extra year’s tuition; most go on to be doctors. The course also provides a rare opportunity to analyse the performance of students with relatively poor A-level grades who would not usually be admitted to medical school.

Students on the EMDP perform significantly worse in finals and have three times the failure rate of students on the conventional programme (McManus, Dewberry et al., 2013b). Students on the EMDP are different in many ways from those on the conventional programme, but these findings should encourage caution before lowering entry grades without research into how much they should be lowered, and for which groups.

On a related note, in the UCL DClinPsy study, graduates from Oxford or Cambridge performed best, and graduates from post-1992 institutions and non-UK universities performed worst on a statistics exam, with no differences found on all other assessments (Scior et al., 2013). Oxford and Cambridge medical

medical school graduates. Academic Medicine, 89(8), 1157–1162.

Papadakis, M.A, Arnold, G.K., Blank, L.L et al. (2008). Performance during internal medicine residency training and subsequent disciplinary action by State Licensing Boards. Annals of Internal Medicine, 148(11), 869–876.

Patterson, F., Ashworth, V., Zibarras, L. et al. (2012). Evaluations of situational judgment tests to assess

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graduates outperform academically those from other medical schools (McManus, Elder et al., 2008; Woolf et al., 2012).

Bearing in mind that psychology undergraduates from BME backgrounds tend to be concentrated in post-1992 universities (Turpin & Fensom, 2004), further research is needed to understand the implications for selection into postgraduate courses.

Aptitude tests and diversity Aptitude tests used in medicine, law and other subjects claim to more fairly assess ability than school exams (http://admissionstestingservice.org) yet better UKCAT and BMAT performance is predicted by grammar or independent school attendance, white ethnicity, having professional parents, being male and speaking English as a first language (Emery et al., 2011; Tiffin et al., 2014; McManus, Dewberry et al., 2013a).

This suggests that, while not necessarily biased, aptitude tests are unlikely to increase diversity.

Interviews, situational judgement tests and diversity The potential for bias in traditional interviews is well known. There is surprisingly little evidence about how the use of the MMI and SJTs impacts on diversity in selection in medicine or clinical psychology. Two recent studies from Australia and England found that MMI scores were unrelated to socioeconomic factors, although applicants had already been screened for prior academic performance (Griffin & Hu, 2015; Taylor et al., 2015).

Course performance and diversity There are concerns about the fairness of course assessments. In medicine, as in higher education generally, BME students and doctors, and those from lower socioeconomic groups tend to perform less well (Woolf et al., 2011; Woolf et al., 2012). The UCL DClinPsy study found BME students were more likely to fail course assignments (Scior et al., 2013).

non-academic attributes in selection.

Medical Education, 46(9), 850–868.

Patterson, F., Lievens, F., Kerrin, M. et al.

(2013). The predictive validity of selection for entry into postgraduate training in general practice. British Journal of General Practice. [Advance online publication]. doi: 10.3399/bjgp13X674413 Prideaux, D., Roberts, C., Eva, K. et al.

(2011). Assessment for selection for

the health care professions and specialty training. Medical Teacher, 33, 215–223.

Salvatori, P. (2001). Reliability and validity of admissions tools used to select students for the health professions Advances in Health Sciences Education: Theory and Practice, 6(2), 159–175.

Scior, K., Bradley, C.E., Potts, H.W. et al.

(2013). What predicts performance during clinical psychology training?

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In medicine, numerous explanations put forward to explain the ethnic difference fail to do so (Woolf et al., 2012), but it is unlikely to result from direct discrimination by examiners or in the assessments themselves (McManus, 1996; Woolf et al., 2011). New avenues of investigation include negative stereotyping and stereotype threat, as well as how the relationship between ethnicity, friendship and belonging may influence the acquisition of ‘medical capital’ (Woolf et al., 2012).

When considering whether selection methods work, job performance postqualification is crucial; however, there is little evidence. The assertion that high qualification rates are evidence of the quality of selection methods in choosing competent future practitioners is only justified if course performance predicts job performance. A handful of medical studies have found that poor course performance predicts being struck off the medical register and increase patient mortality rates. There is a considerable need for more longitudinal studies with job performance outcomes.

Looking to the longer term The professions of medicine and Being a psychologist, medic or another clinical psychology must do more to healthcare professional is a complex job increase diversity, but the issues are requiring high-level knowledge and skills complex. The relatively poor performance and appropriate attitudes and behaviours, of some groups on A-levels, aptitude tests with potentially life-changing effects for and SJTs may reflect real differences the population. The rather than bias per se, evidence for and against which would be better the variety of methods tackled by intervening “Future research should used to select suitable much earlier in the focus on the relationship candidates is patchy, educational pathway. between selection and although some methods A major issue for job performance” are clearly better than selectors is whether it others. is possible to adjust entry There is good evidence criteria without lowering that the wide use of A-levels to select standards. A-level entry criteria may be onto undergraduate courses is justified adjusted to ensure candidates from state by their ability to predict performance and poorly performing schools are not on academic and person-based outcomes. disadvantaged, although this needs to be For postgraduate courses, limited done by individual courses in a careful evidence suggests that degree class is of evidence-based way to avoid lowering some use in addition to A-levels. Aptitude standards. Adjusting for ethnicity is tests that measure general factors such as more difficult. There is no evidence reasoning add little or nothing to A-levels that aptitude tests improve diversity. and GCSEs; tests measuring subjectInterestingly, limited evidence suggests specific knowledge are better. In selecting the MMI is perhaps fairer than other ways for personal qualities, traditional-style of assessing person-based factors. unstructured interviews should not be In conclusion, we appear to be doing used. Highly structured practical tests reasonably well at selecting candidates such as the MMI are useful, although who will do well on courses on tests of expensive and labour-intensive. SJTs seem knowledge, skills and attitudes. We have promising, predicting both academic and little idea, though, what this means in the job performance ratings in postgraduate longer term. Future research should focus medicine. More research is needed to on the relationship between selection and establish what SJTs should look like in job performance, and a key issue is that clinical psychology and for selection onto there are not agreed, clear definitions as undergraduate courses. to what it is to be a ‘good’ practitioner.

British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53, 194–212.

Scior, K., Gray, J., Halsey, R. & Roth, A.D. (2007). Selection for clinical training.

Clinical Psychology Forum, 175, 7–12.

Taylor, C.A., Green, K.E. & Spruce, A. (2015). Evaluation of the effect of socio-economic status on performance in a multiple mini interview for admission to medical school. Medical Teacher, 37(1), 59–63.

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Tiffin, P.A., McLachlan, J.C., Webster, L. & Nicholson, S. (2014). Comparison of the sensitivity of the UKCAT and A levels to sociodemographic characteristics: A national study.

BMC Medical Education, 14, 7.

Turpin, G. & Fensom, P. (2004). Widening access within undergraduate psychology education and its implications for professional psychology: Gender, disability and

The identification of suitable selection methods should be more coupled with research into what it means to be a safe and effective practitioner, rather than merely measures of whether one does well during training. Understanding how to remedy this situation very likely requires studies that go beyond specific courses and look at factors beyond exam performance both in terms of selection metrics and outcomes.

Note The authors wish to note that the views expressed in this article are theirs alone and in no way represent the position of the UCL Clinical Psychology course or UCL Medical School.

I Katherine Woolf

is at UCL Medical School, UCL k.woolf@ucl.ac.uk I Henry Potts

is at Institute of Health Informatics, UCL h.potts@ucl.ac.uk I Josh Stott

is at Clinical Educational and Health Psychology, UCL. j.stott@ucl.ac.uk I Chris McManus

is at Clinical Educational and Health Psychology and UCL Medical School i.mcmanus@ucl.ac.uk I Amanda Williams

is at Clinical Educational and Health Psychology, UCL amanda.williams@ucl.ac.uk I Katrina Scior

is at Clinical Educational and Health Psychology, UCL k.scior@ucl.ac.uk

ethnic diversity. Leicester: British Psychological Society.

Woolf, K., McManus, I.C., Potts, H.W. & Dacre, J. (2013). The mediators of minority ethnic underperformance in final medical school examinations: A longitudinal study. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 135–159.

Woolf, K., Potts, H.W. & McManus, I.C. (2011). Ethnicity and academic performance in UK-trained doctors

and medical students. BMJ, 342, d901.

Woolf, K., Potts, H., Patel, S. & McManus, C. (2012). The hidden medical school.

Medical Teacher, 34, 577–586.

Yates, J. & James, D. (2007). Risk factors for poor performance on the undergraduate medical course: Cohort study at Nottingham University. Medical Education, 41, 65–73.

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Annual Conference 2016 East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham 26–28 April Submissions now open Themes: Faces Ageing Impact Wellbeing General submissions invited for all other research areas New for 2016 Haiku Deck – simple yet powerful visuals that support verbal presentations Don’t miss your opportunity to share research, gather feedback and inspire others. Visit our website for guidelines, key dates and to register for Conference updates

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Playtime is an important aspect of everyday life for most school-aged children. As well as an opportunity for fun, the free for-all of the playground is a challenging environment that provides opportunity for cognitive, social and physical development. Children engaging in successful playground peer interaction often demonstrate social, cognitive and communication skills at a more sophisticated level than those evident in other school contexts. On the other hand, those with developmental difficulties can struggle to navigate the social world of the playground.

A new collaboration between children’s environmental charity Learning through Landscapes (www.ltl.org.uk), and researchers at University of Cambridge and University College London has been formed to investigate some interesting open questions.

Dr Jenny Gibson (Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDaL), University of Cambridge) says: ‘Are children less likely to be aggressive if they are in a more “natural” playground compared to a concrete school yard? Do different groups of children play and interact differently on the playground (e.g. are girls really more sociable than boys?). Can we reliably detect early signs of conditions like ADHD or Asperger’s syndrome just from observing play? Additionally, very little is known about the interaction of individual differences with the characteristics of the playground environment and how this might influence group behaviour.’

The team are developing a novel methodology combining GPS, computer modelling and more traditional forms of observation in order to gain deeper insights into the world of the playground.

Image by LTL/Malcolm Cochrane with comment from Dr Jenny Gibson (University of Cambridge)

Learning through landscapes

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INTERVIEW

Excursions into broader theorising Lance Workman questions Richard Stevens on the Open University, consciousness, happiness and more

ou’ve had a varied career – from Y directing TV programmes, to helping to set up the Consciousness and Experiential Section of the British Psychological Society, to helping to ‘make Slough happy’. What originally got you into psychology?

At school I specialised in literature and languages. I loved their focus on human experience but found them too subjective to be satisfying. So I chose a psychology honours degree at Edinburgh in the hope of getting a more systematic understanding of people. I also studied philosophy and music. Much of my time though was spent acting, and particularly directing plays for the Dramatic Society (of which I became President). I loved my time at Edinburgh, surrounded by talented and creative fellow students.

I directed Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending in only its second production in the UK. I was also one of the first to direct Pinter’s The Birthday Party and handled a cast of 80 in Buchner’s wonderful play about the French revolution – Danton’s Death. My three sons were all born during my four years at Edinburgh. Although I graduated with a first and received awards as the most distinguished student in both psychology and also in philosophy, I chose to pursue neither when I graduated.

So what career did you pursue?

Well, my first career was as a theatre and TV director. I was taken on by the BBC and became the youngest TV drama director in the UK. I directed episodes for series such as Dr Finlay’s Casebook, Maigret and Z Cars (which went out live!)

But you moved back into psychology.

Working on episodes in series in fact offered limited scope for creative direction. I was sorely missing ideas, intellectual excitement and university life. So I applied for and was offered posts at three universities (it was much easier in those days!). I chose Trinity College Dublin, as I couldn’t resist old-style

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college life… I very much enjoyed being there, with great colleagues, some of whom remain my closest friends.

You moved on to the OU – do you think the work in TV helped you here?

Yes, when the Open University started it seemed an ideal opportunity for me.

I could pursue psychology but utilise some of my experience of broadcasting.

I also wanted to move back to the UK for the sake of the education of my children and my wife’s career. The OU was very different, but offered wonderful creative possibilities.

The OU was quite unique – what kind of opportunities and challenges did you face?

Course production was an exciting if sometimes fraught affair. At that time all our writing for a course went through at least three drafts. At each stage your work was commented on, often in detail, both by other members of the course team and by external assessors. These included some of the best-known names in psychology, such as Jerome Bruner (who used to type his long missives to us in the middle of the night). We had a substantial budget (in excess of £1 million for a full credit course including television productions and publishing) and we recruited some great people as consultants – either to write course material or to work on broadcast programmes.

It was an exciting and stimulating community. OU students tend to be highly motivated and are quite often a joy to teach. We had about 11,000 students a year studying psychology, with 2000 taking the social psychology course.

Several hundred tutors look after the students – as you know, Lance, having been one yourself – and many of these are academic staff from other universities.

At least three of our tutors I worked with subsequently became Presidents of the BPS. Although we worked hard, we also had a lot of fun, especially at those unique events called summer schools. Looking

back I realise how many interesting and creative people I have worked with in one way or another.

The OU has strong reputation for research as well as in teaching.

Yes, creating courses at the OU is more than teaching. We typically had over two years to create a full-credit course. The resources and the timescale gave us the wonderful luxury, which so few lecturers have when they teach a course on their own, to really think about and reconceptualise the subject matter we are teaching. What, for example is social psychology and what might it be? The standard social psychology course at that time was something of a pot-pourri of loosely or unrelated topics such as attitudes, social perception, groups, prejudice, with a focus largely on experimental or at least quantitative research. We took a rather different approach. The course was focused around a key question – how can we understand human social behaviour and experience?

While we didn’t neglect the classic studies, they were framed by this question. This inevitably led to a focus on epistemological issues. There are radically different ways of viewing human behaviour and experience from evolutionary, cognitive-experimental approaches to existential and psychoanalytic perspectives. We tried to highlight and contrast such different approaches, their relative strengths and weaknesses. It made for an exciting course which, according to Bruner, was ‘really revolutionary; wonderfully thoughtful’.

Has this multiple perspective influenced your own approach?

Absolutely. Because my goal, unfashionable in psychology as it often is, has always been to try to understand myself and other people. To do this effectively you have to explore a range of approaches and look at their implications.

I chose to write a book on psychoanalysis not because I am a devotee of the approach but because I found it fascinating that a theory that had been so influential in intellectual and everyday understanding was so derided in standard UK psychology. This paradox highlights the critical issue of epistemology – what kind of understanding is possible and appropriate for an effective psychology?

Also, in spite of the undoubted weaknesses of the specifics of Freud’s theory, he did attempt to get to grips with what for me is a central issue for psychology – the bridge between biology and meanings and the problem of

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interrelating the two. Curiously evolutionary psychology also focuses, though in a totally different way, on the same issue. So you can see I am fascinated by the communalities and differences between different psychological approaches, and what each might contribute to our understanding.

What about your interest in consciousness?

For several years I was Chair of the Association for Humanistic Psychology in Britain, emphasising the ‘openness of being human’ which makes possible personal growth. Exploring these issues experientially made the conferences really exciting affairs. I was interested in the topic of consciousness then, long before it became fashionable. Subsequently, with my colleague Jane Nolan, we systematically explored our own experience of what it is to be conscious, developing a perceptual-lingual theory.

Our theory came to view consciousness as essentially multimodal perception, although, in humans this will include awareness of symbols like words and concepts which carry with them implicit meanings. However, consciousness is now a less interesting issue for me. Human cognition operates largely at an unconscious level.

Consciousness is not what is quintessentially human. The key difference between us and other species is language. Language has extraordinary qualities. At one and the same time it depends on key biological structures, it is a product of socialisation, and, most extraordinary of all, it has the quality of openness that permits the generation of the new. Any one of us can say something we have never heard before.

Understanding each of these three aspects requires different epistemologies – natural science for the biological substratum, hermeneutics for meanings and ‘transformational’ to accommodate ‘openness’. This kind of analysis is at the heart of my ‘trimodal theory’.

Your recent work has been the area of wellbeing and happiness.

Well, I guess this naturally follows on from the focus on personal growth in humanistic psychology. I am glad that Seligman has put positive psychology on the map. But he is wrong to actively ignore the legacy of humanistic psychology. What Carl Rogers, for example, realised, and Seligman does not, is that, although natural science is clearly the method of choice for investigating physical matter, it has critical limits when it comes to understanding the very

different subject matter of human experience.

You were very much involved in a TV series Making Slough Happy. How did this come about?

The BBC wanted to do a series of TV programmes on the ‘new’ science of happiness. But being the BBC they wanted it in the form of ‘reality TV’. So a group of us were recruited to go into Slough to try to make at least some of its residents happier. I was the psychologist on the team and my task was to work with 50 volunteers to help increase their sense of wellbeing. We had 12 weeks to do this in! I love putting psychology on the line like that. For me an acid test of

our discipline is how useful can our ideas and strategies be in practice.

I was fortunate in being able to recruit a team of creative colleagues – Jane Henry, Linda Corlett and Nevia Mullan – to help with the project. We thought intensively about the methods we might try. At the base of our thinking was the trimodal approach. So we worked with the body – using exercise and dance for example. We also worked at the level of meanings – modifying ways of thinking about oneself and life, and also existentially by, for example, opening up awareness of nature and oneself, and exploring ways of connecting with others.

We were deliberately eclectic in the sources which we mined for ideas. We used some of the methods developed by positive psychology. For example, we set up a gratitude party, which proved to be deeply moving. But we also drew ideas from CBT, neurolinguistic programming, and Buddhism. We used meditation, awareness training, and biodanza. And we invented our own – graveyard therapy, for example, aimed at helping volunteers become more aware of their own

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mortality and thus stimulate a greater sense of the significance and excitement of being alive. We also specifically explored relationships, work and community involvement.

As you might expect, there were differences between volunteers as to which method each found most useful.

We measured their happiness levels all through the project, using a battery of tests. On average, these measures showed improvement in wellbeing by about 30 per cent. I should stress though that this was not intended to be a research project.

Clearly the presence of the cameras and taking part in a TV project had its own effects. The aim really was to inspire the six million or so viewers of the programmes and open them up to the idea that they could be instrumental in improving their own wellbeing.

Did the programmes lead to anything?

There were a few informal follow-ups which indicated that, for several volunteers at least, the effect was sustained. One volunteer had become Mayor of Slough and danced for us in his back garden with his gold chain on! But as with physical exercise, this depended on how far they carried on practising wellbeing activities. The programmes certainly impacted on the public. Our strategies were taken up by several schools, by the Netmums organisation among others. I also went to Thailand in response to an invitation from their health minister to help develop a project in their northern provinces, where they were concerned about higher rates of depression and suicide.

I am glad that the topic of wellbeing is now becoming political as well as personal. The Open University Psychological Society set up a fascinating conference on wellbeing and society, on how governments should and could focus on wellbeing rather than GDP. Is there anything you dislike about psychology?

Narrowness of perspective, particularly when it is ideologically or methodologically driven. Remember, behaviourism dominated psychology when I was a student, and I had several social constructionist colleagues who believe that biology is an irrelevance to understanding behaviour. Human beings are complex. The essence of science is to be humble if the face of our subject matter. Neither the ideological nor the methodological tail should wag the dog.

What about current projects?

I am now retired from the OU but I still

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work with the marvellous Open University Psychological Society of which I remain a Vice President. I also continue as series editor of Mindshapers – an ongoing set of books published by Palgrave Macmillan. Each is focused on a thinker, usually a psychologist, who has changed our way of thinking about what it is to be human. Authors are asked to be both sympathetic and critical and to relate the ideas to the personal and social contexts from which they emerge. So far, we have books on Freud, Erikson, Fromm, Skinner and George Kelly, among others; and of course, Lance, your own book on Darwin, one of the few to look in depth at how Darwinism impacts on psychology. In progress and due later this year is Philip Corr on Eysenck – and this promises to be another cracker! What I always appreciated about Eysenck was his open-mindedness and preparedness to do grand theorising.

Other current projects include a personal book on my wonderful relationship with my partner Ruth who tragically died of breast cancer two years ago. I have also been working on a cancer project with the theatre company Complicite, which may result in a production at the National Theatre next

year. But my favourite activity nowadays, I have to say, is meditating, writing and enjoying the sun and sea on Siquijor, my island retreat in the Philippines.

Still pretty busy then! Is there anything else you would like to achieve in psychology?

I have published a few papers on trimodal theory, but I need to write it up as a book.

And one idea which would like to follow up in some way is a course called Human Existence. This was designed for the OU but never took off, and it explores the topic using a variety of epistemologies, including reason (philosophy), reason and empiricism (natural science) and existential analysis.

You seem to think in rather – how can I put it – grand terms?

I am not ashamed of that. I tend to think psychology in the past has focused too much on specifics. Psychology education on the whole has not encouraged more general creative thinking about the human condition. We desperately need some excursions into broader theorising and applications. Physics didn’t develop the understanding it has from experimentation alone. Theorising,

model-building and thought experiments all played a crucial role.

So where would you like to see psychology go in the future?

Critical problems face humankind. Not just personal and social wellbeing but climate change and population expansion.

In each of these psychology has the potential to play a central and positive role. With a few notable exceptions, there is not much evidence of interest from psychologists in these issues at the moment. Although the tasks are certainly formidable, I think we need to change that!

Finally, and with apologies, any takehome messages to boost happiness of our readers?

Nothing that I am sure they don’t know already. Increase social communication (especially intimacy), exercise, get into nature, be grateful for all the good things you have and express your gratitude to others, help and care for others when you can, and engage with your community.

The important thing is to find the strategies which work best for you – and to practise them! Oh, and spend some time contemplating in a graveyard.

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SOCIETY

President’s column Jamie Hacker Hughes

President Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes

Contact Jamie Hacker Hughes PresidentsOffice@bps.org.uk Twitter: @profjamiehh

President Elect Professor Peter Kinderman Vice President Professor Dorothy Miell Honorary General Secretary Dr Carole Allan Honorary Treasurer Professor Ray Miller Chair, Membership Standards Board Dr Mark Forshaw Chair, Education and Public Engagement Board Professor Catriona Morrison Chair, Research Board Professor Daryl O’Connor Chair, Professional Practice Board Dr Ian Gargan The Society has offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and London, as well as the main office in Leicester. All enquiries should be addressed to the Leicester office (see inside front cover for address).

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

Extract from The Charter

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hope that you have all returned revived and refreshed from your summer holidays, if you managed to get away, that is, and I really hope that you did. Holidays and downtime are so good for decluttering the mind and taking time to try and get our priorities right for once.

For those of you that have returned to mountains of e-mail, I have to tell you that I adopted the practice several years ago of leaving an ‘out of office’ message with the details of a colleague to be contacted if the message was urgent, with my date back at work (well, a day or two later if I’m entirely honest). If people specifically wanted me to read their particular e-mail and respond to it personally they were asked to send it again on my return; the message warned that all other messages would not be read. Then I set the auto-delete. I can’t tell you what a difference it makes, and everyone who has adopted this system on my advice has told me that they have never looked back!

But now we are back, there’s a heck of a lot to do. As far the Society is concerned, the reordering of our Leicester offices is well under way and our review of our own structures is similarly in full swing. I’ll keep you informed via my blog (www.bps.org.uk/blog/presidential), but we had a very healthy response to both individual and network consultations and the Society’s member network review steering group, which I chair, assisted most ably by Helen Clark and her team, is busily working up a document to go to this month’s meeting of the Board of Trustees with some initial thoughts and suggestions, following the review, on our future direction.

In September all the schools, colleges and universities restart, so that is our theme for this month. Please let me have details of any ‘education and psychology’ related events that you’d like to promote or would like to report on.

Over my time as President I have already spent a lot of time visiting universities, schools and colleges encouraging them in all they are doing that relates to psychology. Our membership services team have also helped me considerably

by developing material that we can use when talking to schools – tailored to GCSE, IB and A-level students respectively – together with additional material that we can use when talking to college and university psychology societies.

I’m going to a number of secondary schools this month and next, have already been to speak to some university psychology department PsychSocs and am also busily encouraging new ones as they set themselves up.

I’ve also attended conferences run by members of psychology departments both at home and abroad, and must single out this year’s 30th anniversary PsyPAG in Glasgow for its excellence and professionalism.

Psychology teaching in schools and universities is so important, and I want us to do all that we can to encourage and support those who teach psychology, especially at pre-tertiary level. In that vein, we already have excellent relationships with the ATP (Association of Teachers of Psychology) and, as well as attending their events, I really want us to develop links with them and, for that matter, any other organisations that psychologists belong to such as the AEP (Association of Educational Psychologists), and other, noneducation-related organisations such as the EPS (Experimental Psychology Society), ABIP (Association of Business and Industrial Psychologists) and others. There is so much that we can do along the lines of dual membership, reciprocal membership, and so on. In a nutshell, I would like every psychologist in the UK to be a member of the BPS. To that end, I am launching a new campaign this month – ‘Recruit a new member in September’. It’s simple. Find a psychologist who you think or know doesn’t belong to the BPS. Explain all the benefits of membership – the networking, the CPD, the conferences and events, the camaraderie, the reduced journals

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Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Professional Knowledge Professor Matthew Lambon Ralph Professor Matthew Lambon Ralph from the Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit, School of Psychological Sciences, at the University of Manchester is to receive the Society’s 2015 Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge.

Professor Lambon Ralph has been recognised for his body of research that brings together a range of disciplines and methodologies. He has: I pioneered the use of comparative caseseries neuropsychology in the field of dementia and language problems after stroke; I conducted ground-breaking work using transcranial magnetic stimulation to probe semantic memory; and I developed new brain-imaging studies Professor Matthew that have informed understanding of the Lambon Ralph relation between lesions and symptoms.

Society President Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes, said: ‘The Awards

Committee was united in its decision to give this year’s Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Research to Professor Lambon Ralph. We felt that his work has been most influential in advancing psychological knowledge and practice, and innovative in the way that it brings together approaches from different disciplines. I offer him my most sincere congratulations.’

Professor Lambon Ralph said: ‘It is a great honour to receive this award from the Society. I hope that it highlights the positive symbiotic relationship that can be forged between psychological sciences and neuroscience – one which advances our understanding of cognitive processes and their neural bases and provides important insights about acquired language and memory problems following brain damage.’

The mid-career Presidents’ Award is made annually to recognise the achievements of someone currently engaged in research of outstanding quality. The winner receives a commemorative certificate and is invited to give a lecture at the Society’s Annual Conference – in this case in April 2016.

Professor Lambon Ralph was appointed to his current chair in cognitive neuroscience in 2001.

subscriptions and online literature newsletter. They are our link between researching resources – and persuade them universities and our students. For any to join! If we all recruited just one new student members interested in becoming person, we could have a 100,000 strong a rep, we’d love to have you. Please e-mail Society within weeks. studentreps@bps.org.uk Members also, of course, get access to For those of you working with our BPS psychology library in Senate or teaching psychology students in House in London, which I visited recently. psychology or other departments in It’s very impressive and the staff there are universities, you may have heard of really keen to develop and build on the our multi-membership scheme, where special relationship that we have with universities have signed up to buy student them (see also p.742).

BPS memberships for whole cohorts of We’re particularly pleased that so students. Eleven universities have already many undergraduates have joined our done just that and we’d like to see many Society as student members over the past more doing so. Has your university signed few months – but we know that there are up yet? If so, fantastic, spread the word, a lot of students out there who are but if not yet, then please have a think possibly yet to see the light. So, our team about it and talk to our membership team. are planning a recruitment drive to Outside schools, colleges and coincide with the universities you will start of the new know that it’s been academic year later a busy old time. Our “I would like every this month, and we counselling psychologists psychologist in the UK to be will be in touch with held their conference in a member of the BPS” our student reps very Harrogate, our soon to work with Psychology of Women them on this.

Section held their conference Our student reps get sent information in Windsor, our forensic psychologists about promoting Society membership to held their DFP conference in Manchester their fellow students, receive information and EFPA held their ECP at the University on Society events taking place nearby, and of Milan, Bicocca. are kept up to date with a regular Psychology and social justice became

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a major issue over the summer too, not just through the ethics conference held at UEL, ‘nd the DCP’s ‘Beyond the Therapy Room’ conference but through the ‘Walk to Talk’ social justice walk carried out by the large group of psychologists who walked from Leicester to London in August, and in coverage and debate in the national broadcast and print media. The ethics of psychological practice has also, of course, come under a harsh global spotlight with the publication of the Hoffman Report on the APA, and I, through the Board of Trustees, am taking steps to ensure, as far as possible, that our Society has all the procedures and policies in place to make sure that the BPS never finds itself in a similar position.

This month sees more conferences, the Developmental Psychology Section and Quantitative Methods Section, the Welsh Branch and the Division of Health Psychology and, to bring things round full circle, the Division of Educational and Child Psychology too, and quite possibly many more.

It’s good to be back, it’s good to have you back, and whether or not we study or work in education, that back-to-school feeling probably applies wherever we work. Have a very good September. There’s lots to do.

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Consent and looked-after children Ella Rhodes reports from a discussion at the Society’s Ethics Committee The Society’s Ethics Committee have hosted a discussion meeting on the tricky ethics of carrying out research involving looked-after children. Law Professor Jean McHale (Birmingham Law School) began the discussion with a talk on some of the legal difficulties around consent in this type of research.

Professor McHale said that consent from a legal perspective was a complex issue. For example, parental responsibility for some lookedafter children can be vested in a local authority as well as a child’s parents or guardians.

In addition, the legal issues surrounding children and

consent draw on many different areas of English law.

Researchers may be liable in criminal or civil law if consent is not given. Failure to obtain consent may also lead to infringements of the Human Rights Act 1998. The question of capacity to consent is derived from family law. In relation to persons over 16, the test for capacity today is to be found in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 .

The situation is even more problematic as there is no single statute regulating research in this country. The Health Research Authority has been placed under a statutory basis by the Care Act 2014 and there are various degrees of

regulation in relation to specific areas such as clinical trials concerning medicinal products, yet considerable regulatory uncertainties remain.

Medical sociologist Professor Helen Roberts (University College London) shared her experience of ethics in relation to research with looked-after children drawing both on her current work and her work as former Head of R&D at Barnardos – one of the few non-medical charities to have had a substantial R&D function. She described her practice colleagues as being ‘better than the best’ in terms of their commitment to ensuring the right services.

However, she said, at the time, there was little research into the long-term outcomes.

The notion of setting up trials (for instance) to assess novel services was largely seen in a negative light both in academic social work and in the services themselves.

‘The notion that we often simply don’t know what is the right thing to do is one

Society President Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes visited Senate House Library, University of London in June to meet senior library managers. The collaboration between the Society and the Library dates back to 1947, since when a joint psychology collection has been developed that is one of the most important collections in Europe. Among the benefits of this enduring association are that Society members can join the Library free as reference readers or at a discount for a borrowing card (see tinyurl.com/shl-bps).

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that we all find difficult.

What had more traction with colleagues was when we spoke of a more robust evaluative approach within a children’s rights framework – that it’s part of a child’s and parent’s right to know whether what’s being offered is more likely to do harm than good.’

Roberts and her colleagues are currently doing a small study in one authority looking into care leavers’ transitions in health, education and social care. She outlined some of the ethical concerns raised by colleagues. One was whether the study was intrusive, involving as it does speaking to what were seen as vulnerable young people at a stressful time. Roberts said that this raised the tension between a child’s or a young person’s right to participation and their right to protection.

She added that since all social research has the potential to be

society

intrusive, seeing a particular group as too vulnerable to participate carried its own ethical dilemmas.

Other issues Roberts and her colleagues encountered were concerns around confidentiality. Roberts said that as part of the consent process, the young people were told that if they gave us cause for concern about their safety or someone else’s, we would need to share it. One young person challenged this, feeling that since s/he was no longer ‘looked after’, this felt heavy-handed.

Roberts concluded: ‘How can we arrive at a position that provides a level of protection but also allows an ethical and rigorous research to take place?’

Professor Pasco Fearon (UCL), who has been working with children receiving social care and third-sector services in a range of settings, said he had encountered multiple problems with gaining consent. One of the difficulties was that although children themselves found the idea of being involved with research very exciting, many professionals working with these children felt anxious and protective of them and would – through the best of intentions – block opportunities for children to get involved. Fearon suggested that professionals can sometimes lose sight of the fact that it might be interesting and empowering for service users to take part in research

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SOCIETY NOTICES Wessex Branch 4th Annual Military Conference ‘Resilience Through Change’, Basingstoke, 3 November 2015 See p.697 ‘Psychology Heaven and Hell’ Research Digest blog 10th anniversary event, London, 9 December 2015 See p.712 BPS Annual Conference, Nottingham, April 2016 See p.i British Academy/BPS Lecture, London, 17 September See p.735 BPS conferences and events See p.744 Division of Sport & Exercise Psychology conference, Leeds, December 2015 See p.744 CPD workshops 2015 See p.745 ‘History of Mental Health’ conference, Leeds, 22–23 March 2016 Se p.748 Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research Contributions to Psychology 2015 – call for nominations See p.749 ‘Childhood sexual abuse – Impact and interventions’ event, Edinburgh, October 2015 See p.750 Psychology in the Pub (South West of England Branch) See p.750 Spearman Medal 2016 – call for nominations See p.751 DCP Leadership and Management Faculty ‘Beyond Health to Life’ free event, Bristol, 30 September See p.754 Award for Equality of Opportunity 2015 – call for nominations See p.755 5th European Coaching Psychology Conference, London, December See p.756 Division of Educational & Child Psychology Annual Conference and TEP Day, London, January 2016 See p.756 History of Psychology Centre ‘Stories of Psychology’ symposium, London, 14 October 2015 See p.779

and to have a voice in that way.

His recent work involves gathering evidence for a new family intervention for foster families; however, Professor Fearon and his colleagues have encountered issues with gaining consent for these children. He said that parental responsibility for many children in care is often shared between the local authority and the child’s parents, even when there is limited contact, as it is often legally simpler to keep parental responsibility as shared. This often means that consent is required from three or even four parties (foster carers, the local authority, and one or both parents) – in addition, of course, to the assent of the child.

Professor Fearon said that biological parents can have complicated feelings about these issues and sometimes have a difficult and complex relationship with the local authority. Also making contact

with these parents can often be very difficult for researchers, or that contact may be potentially de-stabilising of the child’s care, when there has been no contact for some time.

He asked whether this was a line that should never be crossed: ‘When we have done our due diligence trying to contact biological parents, is there any scenario where not obtaining consent from parents would be permissible?

Or do we have to accept that a child in this position would not be able to participate in the research?’ He raised the possibility that this could be viewed as allowing children who are already vulnerable to become disenfranchised, at a double-disadvantage. He added that these sorts of difficulties are part of the reason why there are very few well-executed trials involving fostered or local authority children. This is a major problem for the field.

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Division of Sport & Exercise Psychology Conference 14–15 December 2015, The Queens Hotel, Leeds Early bird rates Available up to 21 October 2015

Programme Now available to download on the conference website

Confirmed Keynote Speakers Keith Davids Sheffield Hallam University James Bell Cleveland Browns Jim McKenna Leeds Beckett University

Conference Themes Exercise Psychology and Physical Activity Sport and Performance Psychology Motor Control and Skill Acquisition Professional Practice and Training

www.bps.org.uk/dsep2015

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@BPS_DSEP #dsepconf

vol 28 no 9

september 2015

2015 CPD Workshops Professional development opportunities from your learned Society Expert witness: Responsibilities and business (Workshop 1)

3 September

Expert witness: Report writing (Workshop 2)

4 September

Working successfully in private practice

10 September

Understanding and working with: Hearing voices, delusions and paranoia (DCP) HERTFORD

21 September

Engaging effectively with the supervision and reflective practice process (Cross network)

23 September

Working with refugees and asylum seekers (Cross network)

28 September

Pluralism in qualitative research (Cross network)

6 October

Person-centred planning: A practical introduction for psychologists (Cross network)

6 October

Working successfully in private practice

8 October

A somatic approach to Integral Life Theory Practice (ILP) – Taking theory into practice (Cross network)

19 October

Introduction to ethics and professional practice: Ethical decision-making (DFP)

20 October

Psychological interventions for a variety of contexts: Issues of design and implementation (SGCP)

22 October

Cognitive assessment of children and young people (Day 2) (Cross network) GLASGOW

29 October

An introduction to mindfulness-based interventions for health psychologists (DHP)

30 October

CYP-IAPT and clinical psychology (DCP) MANCHESTER

30 October

Counselling skills for sport and physical exercise (DSEP)

5 November

Expert witness: Court room evidence (Workshop 3)

5 November

Expert witness: Using psychometrics (Workshop 4)

6 November

Don’t get caught out: Ethical and professional dilemmas for psychologists and psychotherapists in 2015 (Cross network)

9 November

Devising an effective performance appraisal system (DOP)

13 November

Sexualised behaviour: An integrated approach to supporting families and schools (DECP)

16 November

Working successfully in private practice

19 November

Mixed methods research for the quantitative researcher (Cross network)

27 November

Psychology: Heaven and hell

9 December

For more information on these CPD events and many more visit www.bps.org.uk/findcpd.

Follow us on Twitter: @BPSLearning #BPScpd

www.bps.org.uk/learningcentre

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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International Academy for Professional Development Centre for Stress Management

Centre for Coaching

promoting the cognitive behavioural approach for over 25 years

promoting the cognitive behavioural approach

Diplomas† Advanced Certificates

Two-day & Three-day Courses Stress Management

22-23 Sept; 17-18 Nov

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy & Training

11-12 Aug; 20-21 Oct; 30 Nov - 1 Dec

Problem Focused Counselling, Coaching & Training Advanced Cognitive Behavioural Skills

8-9 Dec 3-5 November

Assertion and Communication Skills Training

11-12 Nov

Other Courses (modular) Foundation Certificate in CBT and REBT (4 days) Foundation Certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (4 days)

Certifi cate Courses Coaching (15 Credits, Level 5)† 14-18 Sept; 23-27 Nov Psychological Coaching (15 Credits, Level 6)† 12-16 Oct Coaching Psychology (20 Credits, Level 7)† 12-16 Oct Stress Management and Performance Coaching (Level 5, 30 Credits) (6-days)† modular Stress Management, Health and Wellbeing Coaching 4 days)

Two-day Courses

Certificate in REBT (5-days)|Certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (5-days) Certificate in Stress Management (6 days) Advanced Certificate in CBT & Stress Management (11-days)

Coaching (40 Credits, Level 6) Psychological Coaching/Coaching Psychology (50 Credits, Level 7)

modular

Distance Learning Courses Life Coaching: A cognitive behavioural approach Stress Management

Stress Management Health and Wellbeing Coaching Performance Coaching Problem Focused Counselling, Coaching & Training Coaching/ Coaching Psychology Supervision Assertion and Communication Skills Training

22-23 Sept; 17-18 Nov 26-27 Oct 30 Sept-1 Oct; 3-4 Nov; 14-15 Dec 8-9 Dec 8-9 Sept 11-12 Nov

All courses approved by the International Society for Coaching Psychology

† Courses accredited by Middlesex University. All courses approved by the International Society for Coaching Psychology. The Centre for Coaching is an ILM Recognised Provider.

Email: admin@managingstress.com Website: www.managingstress.com

Email: admin@iafpd.com Website: www.centreforcoaching.com

Our courses are British Psychological Society Learning Centre Approved and are held at the BPS London, Borehamwood and Edinburgh or in-house. We have trained 1000s of practitioners on our recognised modular courses since the 1980s. The Founder Director of the Centres and Academy is Prof Stephen Palmer PhD. Our experienced trainers have authored books and/or articles in their particular fields. They include Chartered Psychologists: Prof Stephen Palmer, Dr Siobhain O’Riordan, Nick Edgerton & Kasia Szymanska.

156 Westcombe Hill, London SE3 7DH. Tel: +44 (0) 208 853 4171. Part of the International Academy for Professional Development Ltd. Website: www.iafpd.com

Connect…

…with The Psychologist and the Society’s free Research Digest service for more psychological news and analysis

Follow us at

tinyurl.com/thepsychomag and www.facebook.com/researchdigest www.twitter.com/psychmag and www.twitter.com/researchdigest

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POSTGRADUATE TRAINING ,1 (9,'(1&(Ǧ%$6(' PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENT BABCP accredited at Level 1 Postgraduate Diploma

Postgraduate Certificate

The one year, part-time, Diploma is highly suited to independent counsellors as well as other mental health practitioners who wish to develop their skills in CBT (e.g. psychologists, mental health nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, occupational therapists, GPs, etc.). The Diploma has been thoughtfully redesigned to meet the needs of the working professional; most taught content is delivered on Wednesdays and students can tailor their learning by choosing topics of interest (e.g., a range of CBT for children and adolescent days, CBT for older adults, CBT for body dysmorphic disorder). The high-quality supervision component of the course comprises half a day a week (Thursday mornings during term times) and includes individual and small group clinical supervision.

The course is ratified by the University of Reading and accredited by the BABCP at Level 1; by meeting course requirements, students fulfil most of the criteria specified for personal accreditation with the BABCP.

The part-time Certificate is a non-clinical programme for those not yet in clinical practice. It contains much of the same teaching content as the Diploma but without the clinical skills components. The Certificate is ideal for those who want to gain theoretical knowledge in CBT interventions or need a refresher on up-to-date theories and models.

Cost: £7300 Application deadline: 23 October 2015 Start date: January 2016 (induction days late December 2015)

Cost: £2095 Application deadline: 30 October 2015 Start date: January 2016 (induction days late December 2015)

Both postgraduate qualifications above are available within our flexible module approach; students have the option of attending specific modules according to their individual professional needs and working environment.

Taught components on both courses include workshops delivered by world renowned experts as part of the CWI Masterclass series (see highlights below).

All workshops available as standalone CPD training.

3 February 2016

Fundamentals of working with older people

Professor Ken Laidlaw

4 February 2016

CBT approaches with older people

Professor Ken Laidlaw

24 February 2016

CBT for social phobia

Professor David Clark

13 April 2016

Understanding and treating OCD effectively

Professor Sabine Wilhelm

14 April 2016

Beauty and the beast: the nature and treatment of BDD

Professor Sabine Wilhelm

4 May 2016

CBT for PTSD: the evidence-based way

Professor Anke Ehlers

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

cwi@reading.ac.uk | 0118 378 5537 | www.reading.ac.uk/charliewaller |

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

@CharlieWallerIn

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DBT National Intensive Training 9-13 November 2015 (Part I) British Isles DBT Training are affiliated with the Linehan Institute and Behavioral Tech LLC

DBT National Intensive Training

Chester Queens Hotel

The training is intensive; Part I and Part II are both five full days of training. ( Part II June 2016) DBT Intensive Training is a course designed for those who may have attended two-day DBT training workshops and/or undertaken self-guided study of the treatment manuals and who are interested in taking their learning of DBT to high standards in order to better implement the treatment in their usual settings. As DBT requires an ongoing consultation team, the intensive training is not suitable for individual practitioners. A DBT team (minimum of 4, maximum of 10) is a group of mental health professionals who meet regularly to assist each other in applying DBT in the practice setting. Teams should discuss their level of commitment prior to completing their application .

Prerequisites The Team must contain at least one person with an advanced degree in Psychology (Forensic, Clinical or Counselling), and ideally one person with advanced psychotherapy training, (either as part of a university degree or equivalent accreditation) All applicants require a core professional qualification in mental health (e.g. nursing, psychiatry, psychology, social work).

All team members must read the following texts prior to the training: Linehan, MM (1993a) Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder Linehan, MM (1993b) Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder

Price: £1,825 pp 10 day Training Course (excl VAT) Plus £50 licence fee Per Person

DBT TOOLKIT OFFERS up to 30% discount per person.

For more information about purchasing the DBT Toolkit call 0800 056 8328

Register online at: www.regonline.co.uk/Intensive-Autumn2015 Registration Deadline 25 September 2015

British Isles DBT Training the sole licensed provider of training in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Great Britain and Republic of Ireland

0800 056 8328

barbara.nicholls@dbt-training.co.uk

www.dbt-training.co.uk

History of Mental Health Joint Annual Conference of the History and Philosophy of Psychology Section and the UK Critical Psychiatry Network 22–23 March 2016 Leeds Trinity University Keynote addresses Professor Gail Hornstein (Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts) Dr Joanna Moncrieff (University College London) Submissions are now open Oral submission deadline - 16:00 Friday 18 December 2015 Poster submission deadline - 23:59 Sunday 17 January 2016 This event is administered by KC Jones conference&events Ltd, 01332 224507 Please visit www.kc-jones.co.uk/history2016 for further information

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MASTER PRACTITIONER EATING DISORDERS & OBESITY A comprehensive, experiential 3 course programme whose modules may be taken individually. We offer a substantial discount when all 3 courses are booked together.

The modules of this programme are: Excellence in Practitioner Skills for Eating Disorders An 8 day diploma course teaching integrative theory & effective practical skills for the treatment of binge eating, bulimia & anorexia.

Autumn 2015: 22-25 October & 5-8 November, London

Essential Obesity: Psychological Approaches 3 days drawing from counselling, clinical and health psychology approaches to change the lives of overweight adults.

Summer 2016: 2-4 June 2016, London

Nutritional Interventions for Eating Disorders 3 days teaching practical and effective treatment of nutrition-related aspects of eating disorders.

26-28 November 2015 London

View a prospectus for each course online at:

www.eating-disorders.org.uk

(select Training )

Or call 0845 838 2040 for further info.

EMDR Training Schedule Fully accredited EMDR trainings for Psychologists EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) and EMDR-Europe Association (EMDR-E) accredited trainings conducted by Alexandra (Sandi) Richman, Chartered Psychologist. Learn how to integrate this evidence-based therapy into your existing clinical skills.

RICHMAN EMDR TRAINING offers the complete 7-day Training in 3 parts, Part 1 (3 days), Part 2 (one day) and Part 3 (3 days). Attendee numbers are limited for each training.

EMDR Part 1 Trainings: London 2015: 16-18 September; 2-4 December 2016: 27-29 January; 9-11 March Glasgow 2016: 17-19 February Leicester 2015: 21-23 October Other training levels throughout the year For more information contact: Mary Cullinane, Training Co-ordinator or Michelle Dyer (t) 020 7372 3572 email: mary@alexandrarichman.com

www.emdr-training.com

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DOCTORAL RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOLOGY 2015 The Research Board invites nominations This annual award recognises outstanding contributions to psychological knowledge by postgraduate research students whilst carrying out research for their doctoral degrees in psychology.*

Criteria: The Award Committee will base its decision on published psychology articles, reporting the research carried out for a doctoral degree.* A maximum of two articles can be submitted, and the following requirements must be met: The articles must have been published in refereed journals, or be in press.

The candidate must be either the sole or senior (first) author of the article(s) concerned.

The candidate’s doctoral degree supervisor or head of department must sign a statement confirming that the research reported in the article(s), was carried out by the candidate as research for a doctoral degree in psychology that was passed by a university in the UK normally not more than two years before the date of acceptance of the article(s) for publication.

Nominations: Proposers must send a 500-word nomination statement outlining why the candidate’s work is outstanding and why they should be considered for the award.

Proposers must send 10 copies of what they judge to be the candidate’s two most outstanding and significant publications reporting the research carried out for the candidate’s doctoral degree.

Proposers must also send 10 copies of the candidate’s current full CV. Nominations should be sent to Liz Beech at the Leicester office by 1 November 2015.

Award: A £500 prize and a commemorative certificate. The recipient is also invited to deliver a lecture based on the research at the Society’s Annual Conference.

The Award Committee may decide not to make an award in any given year.

For more information and the full nomination criteria, please contact Liz Beech on 0116 252 9928 or e-mail liz.beech@bps.org.uk. *A candidate may only be nominated for the award if the doctoral degree was awarded no longer than three years ago (i.e. in 2012).

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Dialectical Behaviour Therapy 2 Day Workshops: £375pp (Exc VAT) British Isles DBT Training are affiliated with the Linehan Institute and Behavioral Tech LLC

DBT® Substance Misuse 22-23 October 2015 EDINBURGH VILLAGE HOTEL Register at www.regonline.co.uk/Substance-2015 This two-day workshop covers the modifications made when applying Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) to clients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and substance use disorders. Participants specifically learn how DBT, when applied to populations with co-morbid disorders, differs from standard DBT for BPD clients in the way that DBT is targeted, how behavioural skills are taught in skills training group, how to engage clients in therapy at the beginning of treatment, strategies for not losing clients during treatment, and how therapists are supported when clients are in danger of dropping out of therapy. .

Adapting your DBT® Programme: Helping Emotionally Dysregulated & Suicidal Teens

3-4 December 2015 OXFORD HOLIDAY INN Register online at www.regonline.co.uk/Adolescents-2015 Learn how to apply comprehensive DBT to an adolescent population to engage and retain clients. This training covers how to convey the biosocial theory of DBT to adolescents and families, describe dialectical dilemmas relevant to adolescents and families, and structure and run multi-family skills training groups.

.

For more information regarding Early Bird and Group Discounts please visit our website or call +44(0) 800 056 8328

British Isles DBT Training, Croesnewydd Hall, Wrexham Technology Park, WREXHAM LL13 7YP +44(0) 800 056 8328 www.dbt-training.co.uk barbara.nicholls@dbt-training.co.uk

Psychology in the Pub Childhood sexual abuse – Impact and interventions Friday 30 October 2015 Edinburgh Napier University

Plymouth The new science of out of body experiences Thursday 17 September 2015 Prof Susan Blackmore

Exeter Weird science: an introduction to anomalistic psychology Tuesday 30 September 2015 Prof Chris French

For further information or to book go to: www.kc-jones.co.uk/cdtoct2015

750

For more information or to notify us that you will be attending visit www.bps.org.uk/southwest-events

vol 28 no 9

september 2015

Oxford Institute of Clinical Psychology Training

The Clinical Neuropsychology of Acquired Brain Injury 17th-18th December 2015 This two-day workshop at St Anne’s College, Oxford University, provides updates from experienced Clinical Neuropsychologists and leading researchers within the field of Acquired Brain Injury. It includes sessions on the acute management and assessment of acquired brain injury and post-acute, out-patient and community neuropsychological rehabilitation. Seminars will focus on an update of the medical and surgical management of traumatic brain injury and stroke, neuropsychological assessment in inpatient and outpatient settings, effort testing, social cognition and family interventions.

There will be opportunity for small group discussions throughout the workshop.

The fee is £260 including lunch & refreshments. Accommodation available on request For an application form and a programme please visit www.oxicpt.co.uk or contact Maxine Pribyl, maxine.pribyl@hmc.oc.ac.uk, +44 (0)1865 226431

SPEARMAN MEDAL 2016 The Research Board invites nominations Criteria:

The award is made for outstanding published work in psychology.

The work must have been carried out by the candidate within 8 years following the completion of a PhD (although research undertaken during the PhD can be taken into account) and should represent a significant body of research output.

The Selection Committee will look for evidence of the theoretical contributions made, the originality of research (including innovation in the experimental methods or techniques used) and the impact of the research findings.

Candidates need not be members of the Society, but they must be resident in the UK.

Nomination:

Proposers must send a detailed nomination statement outlining the candidate’s contribution to psychology, together with a copy of the candidate’s current full CV.

Proposers must also send 10 copies of what they judge to be the candidate’s two most outstanding and significant publications to date.

Nominations should be sent to Liz Beech at the Leicester office by 1 November 2015.

The Home of Existential Therapy Applications throughout the year • • • • • • •

Foundation certificate in Psychotherapy, Counselling and Coaching MA in Existential Coaching* MSc in Psychotherapy Studies (online)* MSc in Typical and Atypical Development through the Lifespan** DProf in Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling*** DCPsych in Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy*** Professional Certificate Existential Supervision and Group Leadership

Recipients are invited to deliver the Spearman Medal Lecture at the Society’s Annual Conference, at which they will be presented with the Medal and a commemorative certificate.

* Validated by Middlesex University ** Subject to validation by Middlesex University *** Joint courses with Middlesex University

Previous Spearman Medal winners:

In partnership with

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Existential Academy 61– 63 Fortune Green Road London NW6 1DR

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0207 435 8067 E admissions@nspc.org.uk www.nspc.org.uk

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Award:

2015 Dr Iroise Dumontheil 2014 Associate Professor Roi Cohen Kadosh

For more information and the full nomination criteria, please contact Liz Beech on 0116 252 9928 or e-mail liz.beech@bps.org.uk.

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Geared up for the year ahead?

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re here to support you as you begin to teach our market leading AS and A-level Psychology qualifications. Our resource package is second to none. So with us, you can teach with confidence. r Our planning resources provide you with the information and support you need to prepare to teach our specifications. r Teaching resources help you inspire the psychologist in your students. r Prepare your students for success with our assessment resources including past papers and mark schemes.

For more information, visit: aqa.org.uk/psychologyďŹ rstteaching or speak to our dedicated team on 01483 477 822 or by email at psychology@aqa.org.uk Copyright 2015 Š AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved.

Technology is helping to shape the future of psychology and health care, during this conference we will look at the implications of digital technology on tomorrowÂ&#x2019;s psychologists; its role in todayÂ&#x2019;s clinical practice; how can digital technology support current or future research; when is technology helpful to us and when does it constrain us; and look at current technologies that are helpful to todayÂ&#x2019;s psychologists.

Dr Tom Manly, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBU), University of Cambridge Sarah Kate Smith, CATCH (Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected

Astrid Coxon, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia Sara Simblett, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, KingÂ&#x2019;s College London

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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

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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Leadership & Management Faculty DCP Leadership & Management Faculty invites you to join us for a free event in Bristol

Beyond Health to Life: Clinical Psychology now and in the future – a potential force for good across systems Wednesday 30 September 2015, 9.30am till 4.30pm The Grand by Thistle, Broad Street, Bristol BS1 2EL An opportunity to hear from: Alison Longwill (Woodcote Consulting), Richard Pemberton (DCP Chair) and Joanne Hemmingfield (EBE Lead for England) about the DCP workforce mapping project data, and to work together to develop a vision and an action plan for the development of the future clinical psychology workforce.

Registration Details This is a free event for members of the Division of Clinical Psychology only TO BOOK your place on this event please visit: www.bps.org.uk/beyond_health_sept If you have any queries regarding attending the event please e-mail MemberNetworkServices@bps.org.uk quoting, ‘DCP L&M_beyond health Sept2015’ in the subject header

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) 2015/2016 Workshops CFT Workshops

ACT Workshops

Developing Clinical Practice using Compassion Focused Therapy* 24–25 September 2015 Professor Paul Gilbert

An Experiential Introduction to ACT – Introductory Level 12–13 October 2015 Dr. Richard Bennett & Mr Jim Lucas

Using Compassion Focused Therapy in Groups* 12–13 November 2015 Professor Paul Gilbert

Putting ACT into Practice – Intermediate Level 14 October 2015 Dr. Richard Bennett & Mr Jim Lucas

Compassion Focused Therapy for Psychosis 26–27 November 2015 Dr. Charlie Heriot-Maitland

Skills Development Workshop in ACT – Intermediate Level 15–16 October 2015 Dr. Joe Oliver & Dr. John Boorman

Compassion Focused Therapy for Shame-Based Trauma 10–11 December 2015 Dr. Deborah Lee

“I’m Not Who I Was” – A Skills Development Workshop in ACT for Long-term Physical Health Conditions – Intermediate Level 22 October 2015 Dr. Ray Owen

The Compassionate Mind Approach to Perinatal Mental Health 7 January 2016 Dr. Michelle Cree

A Compassion Focused Approach to Education 8 January 2016 Dr. Mary Welford

ACT Workshops £95 per person per day (student rate £50) CFT Workshops £115 per person per day (5 student places available at £75) *workshops excluded from student rate

Compassion Focused Therapy for Depression and Anxiety 21–22 January 2016 Dr. Chris Irons

A Compassion Focused Approach to Working with Carers 4 March 2016 Dr. Magdalene Sampson & Dr. Ken Goss

A Compassion Focused Approach to Organisations 18 March 2016 Dr. Chris Irons

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Learn more To book workshops and for more information please visit: www.birmingham.ac.uk/cbt Email: cbtprogramme@contacts.bham.ac.uk

vol 28 no 9

september 2015

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The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion AWARD FOR EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY 2015 The Ethics Committee is delighted to invite members of the Society to submit nominations for the Societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Award for Equality of Opportunity. This award recognises a person whose work as a psychologist - teacher, researcher or practitioner - has made a significant contribution to challenging social inequalities in the UK in relation to gender, race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or age. The recipient is invited to deliver the Award lecture at the Annual Conference and to accept a commemorative certificate, which is presented at the Award Ceremony during the Societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Annual Conference.

Nominations should include a completed nomination form providing evidence of some or all of the following:

personal commitment to equality issues;

impact of the candidates contributions to psychological teaching, research or practice (inclusive of published works and influence on professional practice);

impact of the candidates work on other professionals/service providers;

impact of the candidates work directly for people from marginalised and oppressed social groups.

A copy of the candidatesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; up to date curriculum vitae should also be included. Guidance for assessors and the nomination form can be obtained from emma.smith@bps.org.uk.

The deadline for nominations is 21 September 2015. No award will be made in the absence of a candidate of sufficient merit.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

The Believing Brain: Neuroscience,, Psychology y gy and Faith

Møller Centre, Cambridge, 27 - 29 November 2015 This weekend course is for neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and psychologists, and will also appeal to philosophers and theologians. It aims to: Â&#x2021; (QJDJH ZLWK WKH ODWHVW UHVHDUFK RQ VFLHQFH DQG UHOLJLRQ Â&#x2021; ([SORUH IXQGDPHQWDO TXHVWLRQV RI KXPDQ H[LVWHQFH WKDW arise at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and religious belief, Â&#x2021; ([DPLQH WKH SKLORVRSKLFDO WKHRORJLFDO DQG HWKLFDO LPSOLFDWLRQV RI VFLHQWLÂżF LGHDV Speakers include Prof Alasdair Coles, Dr Joanna Collicutt, Prof Chris Cook, Dr Daniel De Haan, Prof Julian Hughes, Prof Raymond Tallis and Prof Irene Tracey.

www.faraday-institute.org

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SGCP 5th European Coaching Psychology Conference 2015 Breaking New Ground Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December 2015 at the Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury This Conference will inspire collaborations in research evidence, professional accreditation and training routes.

It will provide a platform for setting the aspirations and agenda for both coaching and coaching psychology for the coming years.

Keynote speakers Dr Tatiana Bachkirova; Dr Dasha Grajfoner; Dr Suzy Green; Prof Roger Steare; Donna Willis; Dr Helen Turnbull There will be two days of Impressive Speakers, exciting and new Topics and a broad range of Master classes, Skills Workshops and Scientific Papers covering the following themes: Leadership, Executive and Business Coaching Positive Psychology Coaching (including resilience) Tools & Techniques in Coaching Psychology including CPD & Peer Practice Coaching Psychology Research Network, including international collaborations, international developments, new research, new researchers and new developments This event is organised by the BPS Special Group in Coaching Psychology and administered by KC Jones conference&events Ltd, 01332 224501

Please visit www.sgcp.eu for further information

Annual Conference 6-8 January 2016 TEP Day 5 January 2016 Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury Towards an inclusive psychology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; do labels and diagnosis help or hinder?

The issue of labelling behaviour in the profession of Educational Psychology is controversial and contentious.

During the development of the practice of Educational Psychology, the provision of education for children with additional needs was based on a medical model of deficit, focusing on differences, and within child explanations. One hundred years on the conference aims to explore how 21st century Educational Psychology has shifted the agenda from an emphasis on illness to well-being, from problems to solutions, from deficit to potential and from within child explanations to careful consideration of the influence of context.

Submissions deadline â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Monday 14 September 2015 This event is organised by the BPS Division of Educational and Child Psychology and administered by KC Jones conference&events Ltd, 01332 227774 For further information, please visit the website: www.bps.org.uk/decp2016

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Part-time, Evening Psychology courses starting in late September 2015 Birkbeck’s Department of Psychological Sciences combines world-leading research with outstanding teaching. We offer a range of part-time courses taught in the evenings, ranging from Certificate of Higher Education level through to Master’s, all starting in late September 2015.

Open Evening

Cert HE Applied Psychology Study the application of psychology in a variety of settings including health and work organisations. You can also explore aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Come along to find out more about our courses and meet our staff.

Cert HE Psychology We offer a range of modules, which will help you prepare for degree level study, support your work, and deepen a professional interest.

Wednesday 9 September 2015 4-7.30pm

Foundation Degree in Psychology for Education Professionals Relevant to those working (or intending to work) with children and young people in educational contexts.

www.bbk.ac.uk/openeve

BSc Psychology (part-time or full-time) This course is BPS accredited and is the first step towards a career in Psychology.

MSc/PGDip Psychology Also BPS accredited for GBC, this course is for applicants with a previous degree in another subject.

For further details of our full range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Psychology visit: www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology

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CAREERS

‘We all have prejudices and biases – we can all learn’ Ian Florance talks to Camilla Sanger

I

careers online

met Camilla Sanger at the Spitalfields offices of ChildLine, which is part of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s (NSPCC’s) portfolio of services. I could see why she was so excited about how NSPCC’s work will affect the lives of millions of parents and children in a fundamental way. And I was equally interested in her own fascinating life story. Before talking about the NSPCC projects I asked Camilla the path she’d taken to get involved in them.

‘Neither of my parents had an education, and as a result they expected a lot of me. I grew up in Sussex, went to a good school and worked hard, but was fairly socially rebellious and often got into trouble. I wanted to study medicine and had a place at Imperial College, but

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I wasn’t well enough to sit my exams and therefore didn’t get the very high A-level grades needed. I experienced a serious short-term neurological disorder resulting in very low cognitive function and memory loss. I still can’t remember certain things. It seemed likely that, given the after-effects, there was little chance of succeeding at any sort of study, but slowly things got better. Because I’d previously done quite a bit of voluntary work and performed well in my psychology modules at college I ended up reapplying to do psychology and neuroscience at the University of Sussex.’

Camilla believes her route into psychology matches her personality: unconventional. ‘Everyone thought I was going to fail badly, and I was unsure what I wanted to do, but I became really driven at university, not least in the amount of work experience I gained outside the course. I worked in a therapeutic children’s home run by a clinical psychologist, managed a team in a sexual health clinic and did work in the treatment of drug- and alcohol-related conditions as well as setting up a charity in West Africa. A summer placement in Ghana at the end of my first year to promote mental health services really drew me to the continent. Post-degree I worked in a mother and baby unit to earn money, then went to Africa, coming back when the charity was taken over by someone else. My job history is a bit hotchpotch from there – a number of local authority roles supporting “at-risk” parents. Then I started doing

Have you taken a look at our website, www.thepsychologist.bps.org.uk?

For other Society careers resources, see www.bps.org.uk/careers.

If you click on the ‘…meets’ tab across the top, you will find an archive of all our more personal pieces, including our ‘Careers’ pages. Alternatively, just search ‘careers’ with our new and improved site search. The archive is now complete – back to 1988.

For the latest jobs, visit www.psychapp.co.uk. Society members can sign up for suitable e-mail and RSS alerts.

Recruiters can post online from just £750, and at no extra cost when placing an ad in print. For more information, see p.762.

psychosexual therapy and got really interested in the dynamics of couples.

My supervisor at the time was a really inspiring clinical psychologist, whose similar “unconventional” story convinced me to apply for clinical psychology training.’

During her doctorate at Oxford University Camilla became more interested in women’s health issues and, after qualifying, moved to the NSPCC in November 2015. I asked Camilla what her role in the NSPCC is. ‘I lead nationally on a portfolio of research, policy and service development projects that targets pregnancy and babies – with the ultimate aim of ensuring that infants are safe and nurtured. Moving into a management job at the NSPCC is not a traditional move for a newly qualified psychologist, but to me it makes perfect sense. It has been quite a shift up to a relatively senior position, but I have not lost my drive and determination and a strong desire to succeed in the role. We need more women at the top of clinical psychology. Tanya Byron inspires me– she has used media to enhance the profile of our profession. I hope that I can do something similar in the future.’

You work in an emotionally challenging area. ‘It is, but in a very different way from direct client work.

I’m removed from that, and what I now do is challenging because I know how important the issues are and that the buck stops with me – in so far as I can mould our services. I do miss clinical work… which I’m surprised about as I was sure it wasn’t for me. When I’m more settled in this job I may start a small clinic. Direct client work gives you credibility when you’re arguing a business case or conducting training, and it is a set of skills that I would not like to lose.’

During this part of our conversation, Camilla talks a lot about systems. ‘I think people need to think more creatively about how to apply clinical psychology skills in worlds beyond one-to-one therapy. I like using the ideas of clinical psychology to affect how systems work.’

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Had you become more politically includes six group sessions each week quality, and there have been fewer motivated during your clinical before the baby is born. After babies are caesarian sections so there have been psychology degree? ‘I’d prefer to say that born the family is visited again at home, better birth outcomes.’ if you work in these areas it is absolutely and then there are three more group Another example Camilla gives is essential that you are politically and sessions, including films, group ‘Coping with Crying’. ‘Forty-five per socially aware.’ discussions and creative activities. cent of all serious case reviews are with Camilla tells me the NSPCC is Camilla tells me they’re interactive children under one. At that age children innovating in perinatal care. ‘I’d like to and designed to build confidence and aren’t reacting to cues and, in turn, get the message about this across to as communication skills. There’s a strong parents can find crying difficult to cope many people as possible, including our focus on building relationships between with. There are 200 shaken baby own front line staff.’ Can you define parents and with their babies. syndrome cases a year, of whom 25 per perinatal for me? ‘From conception for ‘We have over 40 service centres cent die, and between 50 and 80 per cent the first one to two years of who survive will suffer from life. It’s about the transition severe and life-changing to parenthood starting with disabilities. We’ve developed the parents’ influence on the a very simple programme fetus. Traditionally the area based around a 10-minute focused on postnatal DVD to give parents some depression, but now we take of the risks of shaking their a much more holistic view of baby, but also some simple the issues involved in skills to help them cope with parents’ unique influence on their baby’s crying.’ child development. We know The NSPCC is also that what happens during managing and redesigning this period can affect perinatal services in children up until their Blackpool, one of the five adolescence and beyond.’ deprived UK areas that have This is evidenced by the been given Big Lottery ‘1001 Critical Days’ crossfunding as part of the ‘Better party manifesto supported by Start’ initiative. politicians, organisations and ‘One of our brand-new individuals across the board initiatives is to address (www.1001days.co.uk). This mental health in pregnancy. manifesto highlights the Parents often don’t seek help importance of acting early because of fears their to enhance the outcomes for children will be taken away. children. The title refers to So we’re creating open rolling this critical period between groups around four key conception and Year 2. theories: mind-mindedness, Forty-five per cent of all serious case reviews are with children I asked Camilla to give me mindfulness, psycho-education under one. At that age children aren’t reacting to cues and, in a flavour of the programmes and active relaxation. Again it’s turn, parents can find crying difficult to cope with. and reports the NSPCC is aimed at couples, and there’s a launching. ‘There are maybe strong peer support element to too many for one article but it to reduce the social isolation Baby Steps is an example – it is our round the UK and Channel Islands. that is so common in depression – which relationship-focused perinatal education We piloted, evaluated and refined this is a very exciting and new development programme for disadvantaged parents. programme in those centres and have for us.’

Recent research threw a huge question now started planning for scale-up – This initiative has resulted from mark over the effectiveness of traditional testing out the programme in a number of consultation with academics, rigorous antenatal education, and we wanted to external local authority areas. This latter training of non-psychologists who deliver develop a service that focused more point is important. A programme might the programme and evaluation of what on the psychological adjustments work in the very specific environment of works and what doesn’t. It also sums up of transitioning to parenthood opposed one of our centres but fail completely in one of Camilla’s key priorities: ‘I want to just preparing for birth. Baby Steps was the different context of a hospital, a what we do to be based on sound theory co-developed by Dr Angela Underdown at children’s centre, a GP surgery or but to then translate this so that it can Warwick University. It starts in the third wherever. Our evaluation of Baby Steps become accessible to practitioners and trimester and is run by two people – so far is very encouraging – we’ve found parents. We’re about making a real someone who works in children’s services huge improvement in both parent–fetus difference.’ (like a family support worker or social and parent–newborn attachment as well Time was nearly up, but Camilla had worker) and a health visitor or midwife. as improvements in parental anxiety. This one final point, drawn from her own We know from research that during this is vital, given that parental anxiety has experiences and her new, very productive period couples experience very low levels such a huge influence on children’s later job at NSPCC. ‘I think reflective of relationship satisfaction so the service development. And we’ve also seen supervision is critical. We all have is aimed at couples.’ improvements in parental self-esteem. prejudices and biases – we can all learn.

Baby Steps starts with a home visit in The programme protected against the How can we change and improve if we the seventh month of pregnancy and then usual decline in parental relationship don’t get time to reflect on our practice?’

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

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careers

Channelling strengths in young people Tina Rae on her work as an educational and child psychologist

I

have worked as an educational and child psychologist since 2001 – initially within local authority services.

But, after eight years, I felt strongly that I wanted to again engage in more direct work with children, young people and their families.

I had previously worked for 16 years in special and mainstream educational contexts and developed a specialism in the areas of wellbeing and positive psychology approaches and curricula.

Working with the most complex young people was a humbling and truly creative experience. I was definitely challenged to develop my thinking and skillset and to move very much from the child deficit model to one in which we actually identify, develop and channel strengths.

I have always felt that we, as psychologists, have a moral imperative to foster the wellbeing, happiness and overall development of all our young people – but particularly those for whom life has presented some very real, complicated and often traumatic challenges. I think that part of our role, or possibly most of it, should focus on how we help them to survive and then flourish, even in the face of such challenges and difficulties.

This has led me to adopt an approach

that supports the development of practice-based evidence and encourages the development of programmes of support that are truly engaging and that also make a real difference to the lives of young people. Providing them with skills to enable them to be autonomous within an increasingly complex context is a priority for me in my work.

The recent intervention for girls and young women developed within a residential school for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties is probably a good example of this approach to intervention. A group of girls and young women who were presenting with a range of behaviours that were felt to be putting them at risk – both emotionally and physically in a wide range of contexts – was identified. The general discourse around these young women appeared to be one of negativity, in that they were regarded as putting themselves at risk due to their daily behaviour and self-harming behaviours.

It was therefore felt appropriate to conduct a series of focus groups in order to elicit the girls’ views: What was it that they felt concerned about and what kind of intervention or support at a schoolbased level might they consider most helpful? The idea was to conduct a piece

of research to then inform the subsequent intervention.

This resulting ‘Girls’ Curriculum’ consequently aims to promote wellbeing by building positive relationships within a nurturing and child-centred approach.

This builds upon resilience and protective factors within the school context. The main tenets of the model adopted include taking into account the individual needs of each member, looking at the reasons behind different behaviours rather than reacting to the behaviours themselves, and promoting the right of the young person to choose and communicate, whilst accepting these choices and not basing judgements upon them. The key aim of the 16-session programme is to build a therapeutic environment that allows and promotes autonomy, emotional resilience and open communication.

So how does such a programme/approach also inform my work with Compass Fostering in terms of supporting foster carers and social workers? Where is the overlap or consistency in terms of the philosophical and theoretical approach?

Foster carers and social workers at Compass are provided with a training package that incorporates core elements

Welcome to your psychology degree Mike Aitken Deakin addresses the thousands of new undergraduates getting this issue free, urging them to enjoy the experience and get what they want out of it n a few short weeks A-level results, clearing, summer holidays and ‘welcome week’ will be a fading memory.

A bright, shiny new cohort of students will be following in the footsteps of previous years, and they will all ask the same question as last year of their lecturers – Do we need to know this for the exam?

This is a perfectly good question to ask when you want to know how to get a good mark in your module. But is it the most important question? Don’t you want something more than

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a piece of paper saying you ‘got good marks’ in return for investing a lot of money, and around 5 per cent of your total expected adult life?

Participation in learning and teaching is about more than helping you get good marks. No matter how well your university has designed and developed its assessments, there are things a degree provides that will not show up in the markbook. So go ahead – ask your lecturer whether the content will be on the exam. After all, it should always be clear to you how your

work will be assessed. But also ask – Do I need to know this for my future happiness?

To answer that, we need to consider what your future holds as psychology graduates. Many psychology undergraduates have a long-held ambition for what to do after graduation, with career plans for mental health or education detailed on their university application. But, in fact, psychology graduates are just as likely to end up doing something else entirely.

Responses from almost 3000 psychology graduates

to an ongoing BPS project suggest that out of 50 typical respondents, a dozen would be working in education four years after graduation, and a similar number working in the field of human health. The current competition for training places means that at most one of these dozen might eventually become a clinical psychologist.

What about the other 25 typical graduates? Three or four might be doing social work, three scientific researchers, a couple would be office administrators, and others

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Dr Tina Rae (second from the right) is Academic and Professional Tutor – University of East London Doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology, and is a Consultant Psychologist for Compass Fostering. T.m.rae@uel.ac.uk

including the ways in which attachment theory can and should inform practice.

Recent developments in neuropsychology are highlighted in terms of the ways in which they can support the development of positive, secure relationships and behaviours. The need to adopt a strengths-based approach emanating from positive psychology is central here.

This is an innovative and exciting approach and unique to the organisation.

What is also unique about the support and training offered to foster carers and

working in the finance sector, residential care work, in the retail sector, or in software development, etc. These are generally not careers that have a specific requirement for a psychology degree.

Even so, two thirds of graduates feel that their psychology degree was relevant to them securing their current job – slightly more than had felt their work experience was a factor, and (perhaps reassuringly), most did not feel that the final grade they got in their degree was a factor.

As well as helping them get jobs – around three quarters felt that the psychology degree had developed their ‘employability skills’ well (e.g. problem solving, communication, statistical and

social workers is the focus on developing peer support systems and the resilience of both the child and the carer through access to Compass consultation. This is delivered by psychologists (myself and, under my supervision, our wonderful Year 3 students at the University of East London) whose practice is grounded in positive psychology and attachment theory and who use a strengths-based and solution-focused problem-solving framework. Sessions are offered on both an individual level and in group contexts.

IT literacy) – and the majority felt these skills were used ‘most of the time’ in their current work.

Your degree should develop you as a psychologist and a person, building your psychology knowledge and enabling you to flourish as a graduate. But it should also be fun, and developing your core skills early on will help with that. More effective study is more rewarding, and releases more time for other fun things.

Aim to develop more than knowledge of the curriculum in the first year. Take any ‘transferable skills’ teaching seriously, and apply what you learn to your study. Planning and preparation, time management and a clear focus

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

An interesting link here with the work on the Girls’ Curriculum is the recent request from foster carers for a group session focusing specifically upon self-harm and problematic sexual behaviour, issues around anxiety and the need to build and foster a more strengthsbased and problem-solving approach.

The exciting element for me here was the opportunity to empower carers and enable them to move from negative cycles of thinking to accentuating what they can and were actually doing that made a positive difference. Again the links here with our work on the doctoral course are also clear: it is this solutionfocused skillset and ability to effectively use appreciative inquiry whilst asking the ‘right’ questions – the notion of the psychologist as coach – that we feel we can and do promote with our students.

If the work that I engage in can produce positive outcomes for the students, carers and social workers I support, then this must be a ‘result’.

And a good one that sits well with the objective of a positive psychologist who wants to truly make a difference to the wellbeing of individuals and groups in the social and learning contexts. This is a privileged position to be in, and I do not take for granted the fact that working with human beings in this way is a special, unique and often humbling experience. People never fail to impress and surprise me with their humanity and kindness and ability to inspire and enthuse.

on key criteria are important transferable skills – and they can also reduce the worst parts of student life: confusing lectures, working all night for a piece of coursework and then getting surprisingly poor marks.

Many modules will not include formal ‘skills’ training, but you can always develop your core ‘employability’ skills in academic work (group working, presentations, effective writing, time management). Whenever you are working on a project or piece of work, consider the skills you are using, and how you can improve them.

Whatever you plan to do after your degree, you will almost certainly need to produce a compelling CV or interview.

Provided you have been thinking

this way all along, you will be ready to describe your skills and how you developed and demonstrated them as part of a psychology degree.

A final metaphor: Your degree is rather like a piggy bank – how much you get out of it depends on how much you put in. But remember that the same applies to a sewer. It’s definitely worth thinking in advance about what you will want to get out of your psychology degree.

I Mike Aitken Deakin is Reader in Psychology and Director of BSc programme, IoPPN, King’s College London. King’s College London is part of the newly formed Russell Group Psychology Employability Network.

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The British Psychological Society Reach 48,000 readers as part of the publication for psychologists - a large, prime, well-qualified audience. Advertising is also now available on the Society’s award-winning Research Digest blog at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog. There are also other online options, including the ‘featured job’ at www.psychapp.co.uk.

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Job advertising is also available online-only at any time, from just £750 Advertising contact: Giorgio Romano Senior Sales Executive +44 20 7880 7556 giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk Please contact us for ad sizes, and then send your ad by email to aysha.miah@redactive.co.uk

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Clinical Psychologist Job type: Permanent, 0.6 part time Wednesday, Thursday, Friday term-time only Location: Lewisham Borough, London Pay scale / Salary: Band 7 Closing Date: 14th September 2015 Interview Date: week commencing 28th September 2015

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Drumbeat is a state-funded ASD specialist school and outreach educational service for children with ASD in the borough of Lewisham. The school works with pupils aged 4-19 years with ASD and additional learning difficulties, and is situated across two sites in the borough. It is a large school, committed to delivering transdisciplinary therapy and teaching, with therapy delivered through an onsite team including clinical psychology, counselling, and occupational, speech and language and music therapy.

Furthermore, the Drumbeat Outreach Service delivers training and support to schools and families across the borough for their children with ASD.

transdisciplinary model - working together seamlessly with other professionals to meet the needs of the children and young people, putting the child and family at the centre.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Clinical Psychologist to join our therapy team. You will be working alongside our Senior Clinical Psychologist to respond to the complex needs of our children and families. This role entails a wide range of opportunities, including staff training and consultation, assessment of learning needs, therapeutic group work, and individual and family based therapy (incorporating CBT, PBS, systemic and psychodynamic models).

We are looking for a creative and innovative individual, able to translate best evidence based practice into effective interventions, with the capacity to understand our students as individuals, and how ASD uniquely affects them. There is a need also for excellent communication and team-working skills, in order to work in a

Drumbeat is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will be subject to an enhanced DBS disclosure. Drumbeat is an equal opportunities employer.

Drumbeat has a strong commitment to providing CPD opportunities specific to staff needs and roles, with both a wide ranging portfolio of in-house expert training and support, as well as opportunities to attend external events and conferences. There is also an expectation that the psychology team will provide training and undertake relevant research projects within the school. In-house supervision is provided.

If you would like to discuss this post further or would like to arrange an informal visit please contact: Dr Kathryn Stevenson (Senior Clinical Psychologist) or Sarah Mays on 0208 698 9738.

Please go to school website for further details and application process - www.drumbeat.lewisham.sch.uk.

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september 2015

Registered Psychologist – £33,538 - £44,087 maximum to include London allowances where applicable Kent & Sussex or Greater London Forensic Psychology Services This is an exciting opportunity to work with an experienced team of Forensic Psychologists based within Kent & Sussex or Greater London Forensic Psychology Services.

Within Kent & Sussex the vacant posts are based at HMP Swaleside.

Within Greater London the vacant posts are based at Holloway, Pentonville, Coldingley, Brixton, Send and High Down. In both regions, psychology staff work across all prisons as the need arises.

As a Registered Psychologist you will draw on your expertise to reduce the risk of harm and of re-offending for male and female prisoners in open and closed establishments. You will have the opportunity to be involved in risk assessment and interventions (both high intensity accredited group based programmes and individual interventions) with prisoners, conducting research, provision of consultancy to other senior managers and the delivery training to staff to support their work.

You will also be involved in providing designated supervision and support to trainee psychologists to ensure they develop towards chartered and/or registered status.

Within Kent & Sussex there is additionally the opportunity to work at HMP Swaleside within a Psychologically Informed Planned Environment (PIPE) and within Greater London the opportunity to work within an Enhanced Support Service at HMP Pentonville. Both roles are part of the Offender Personality Disorder pathway, jointly led and commissioned by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and NHS England, providing assessment and treatment for offenders with complex needs.

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

You will be a Registered Practitioner Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council and eligible to use a protected title such as Forensic, ideally also a Chartered Psychologist and Full member of the appropriate division of the British Psychological Society (BPS). It is essential you are trained in a range of structured Risk Assessments, Personality Assessments and IQ assessments.

You will bring to the role excellent people skills, strong decision making skills, a collaborative approach, excellent communication and leadership skills.

In return, you will enjoy excellent flexible benefits plus extensive opportunities for further training and development.

Closing date: 25 September 2015.

To find out more and apply, visit and search for job reference numbers SL0021-RRRR4 or GR0015-3, or call 0845 010 3508 quoting the reference number.

Additional posts are available nationally. Details can be accessed via www.justice.gov.uk/jobs.

We are committed to promoting the benefits of a diverse workforce.

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Principal Outcomes Research Scientist Various locations Competitive salary

3 x Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Psychology London £37,633 to £49,354 pa

In a recent survey of job advertisers, 80% said they had received a good response and 70% said they had filled a vacancy as a result of their ad. to advertise please contact: Giorgio Romano, 020 7880 7556, giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk

Registrant Council Member (Part-time) London An attendance allowance of £320 per day

Lecturer in Mental Health North West £33,242 - £45,954 pa

To check the latest jobs please go to

www.psychapp.co.uk

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Lead Educational Psychologist (£450-£500/day depending on experience) Our reputable client based in Kent is currently looking for an experienced and qualified Lead/Principal Educational Psychologist with management experience for a new 6 months contract position (chance of extension).

Main Purpose • To act as the lead professional for a team of up to 10 Educational Psychologists • To contribute to the management and development of the service along with other senior post-holders.

• Ensure high quality of service is delivered.

Requirements • Post-graduate, qualified in Educational Psychology • Registered with HCPC as an Educational Psychologist • Managerial experience - demonstrate effective leadership skills • Excellent communicator with strong interpersonal skills • Good knowledge of current issues in Educational Psychology and SEN. For more information contact Adam on 07946 101010 or email adam@omnisearchandselection.com

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september 2015

Cygnet Hospital Godden Green

www.cygnetjobs.co.uk

Chartered Psychologist CAMHS Part time-18 hours per week • Up to £40,000 WTE per annum, pro rata Cygnet Hospital Godden Green in Kent offers a range of specialist mental health services for adults and young people from both the private sector and NHS trusts. We require a highly motivated Chartered Psychologist to join our busy inpatient adolescent service.

The post offers opportunities to contribute to service development, clinical governance and scope to develop your own research interests. We offer in-house teaching and a CPD programme, appraisal and supervision.

We are also in the process of forming strong academic links with the local training courses.

You would be joining a psychological therapy team lead by Dr Claire Salmond (special interests include autism and third wave cognitive approaches) and Dr Mayuri Senapati (special interests includes the diagnoses of personality disorder, psychosis and practice of Critical Psychology e.g. therapy as Deconstruction).

We aim to support service users in building a sense of hope in the future, as well as supporting families.

Experience of working within a CAMHS setting is essential. Applicants must have HCPC registration as a practitioner psychologist. You will need to be able to work effectively within a team, manage your own case load and confidently engage adolescents with complex (and often risky) presentations.

Our inpatient adolescent psychology service works with young people between the ages of 12 and 18 through an integrative approach (including cognitive, psychodynamic and systemic approaches) and the service is integrated and embedded in a wider MDT. Our clinical services include individual and group therapy as well as indirect work involving teaching, training and facilitating MDT reflective practice.

Cygnet also offers an attractive benefits package which includes contributory pension scheme, free life assurance, a comprehensive employee assistance programme and discount centre, childcare vouchers and paid birthday and anniversary of joining company leave. In addition we offer subsidised meals and free car parking.

For further information please contact Dr Claire Salmond, Principal Specialist Clinical Psychologist, on 01732 763491 or alternatively to apply go to www.cygnetjobs.co.uk.

2 x Project Research Assistant (8 month and 24 month fixed-term contract) Educating 100 million people worldwide and with offices in over 30 countries, Pearson is the global leader in educational publishing.

Pearson Clinical Assessment is the world’s oldest and largest clinical test publisher. We develop and distribute tests and related products for professionals in psychology, allied health, business, general and special education, and other areas, serving people of all ages and cultures.

We are seeking enthusiastic individuals to support our current product development projects and activities, in line with the development of Pearson’s business in assessment products.

These roles will focus on the standardisation of major psychometric assessment products. Activities will include working with the Research Manager and Content Development Team on the recruitment of normative samples, managing psychology professionals during the standardisation phase, data management and may also include conducting psychological assessments.

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

Educated to degree standard in Psychology, you will ideally have demonstrable experience in the use and development of psychometric instruments and assessment tools, especially Pearson Assessment tools.

You will be a capable, hard-working, motivated person, able to take responsibility and work on your own initiative as well as part of a team.

Both positions are located in our central London office.

If you are interested, please apply with your covering letter and CV. The deadline for applications is Friday 25th September 2015. Previous applicants need not apply.

Learn more and visit our Job Vacancies site at: http://uk.pearson.com/home/about-us/jobs.html

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CHALLENGE YOURSELF. UNDERSTAND OTHERS. PROTECT US ALL. Behavioural Scientists (London and Cheltenham) Salary depending on skills and experience.

Occupational Psychologist (London) Salary depending on skills and experience.

The diverse nature of MI5 and GCHQ’s work means we need people with a unique and distinctive set of skills to do unique and distinctive work. Join us and you’ll have the opportunity to use your expertise to play a crucial role in keeping the UK safe.

We’re looking for people from a wide range of backgrounds from across the psychological, behavioural and social science disciplines.

As a Behavioural Scientist you will have the chance to contribute to important and complex work, including playing a vital role in fast moving operations and running complex quantitative and qualitative research.

As an Occupational Psychologist you will have the chance to use your expert knowledge to help us achieve our mission, through supporting us to find and keep the very best people.

You may be surprised by the diversity and variety of career development opportunities we can offer. Prove that you have the knowledge, understanding and expertise we’re looking for and we’ll give you extensive opportunities for personal and professional development, including collaborative working across the agencies.

To find out more and apply, visit www.mi5.gov.uk/careers or www.gchq-careers.co.uk To apply, you must be born or naturalised British citizen and over 18 years old. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member, providing that they are British.

They should also be made aware of the importance of discretion.

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Our consultants at Sugarman Mind are leading recruiters within both the NHS and private sector and will be there with you every step of the journey.

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Clinical or Counseling Psychologist Contract | Part-Time to Full Time Available | Mildenhall, Suffolk Contract Qualifications: Registered HCPC & BPS Chartered Psychologist Registration or BACP Registration Contract Responsibilities:

Conduct psychological assessments and evaluations.

Provide individual therapy

Provide couples therapy/marriage and family therapy

Maintain up to date and current documentation

Run and assist with the planning and provision of individual and group treatment and provide guidance in the development of psychological services within the therapy team.

Attend multi-disciplinary team meetings and present psychological findings

To check the latest jobs please go to www.psychapp.co.uk

to advertise please contact: Giorgio Romano, 020 7880 7556, giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk

Only candidates with HCPC and BPS Chartered Psychologist or BACP registration will be considered.

The ideal candidate will be highly motivated and dedicated Clinical Psychologist who is creative, flexible and enjoys working in a team environment as well as independently.

We offer:

Salary approximately £20 - £30/hour based on qualifications

Performance raises

Promotion

Ability to create own work schedule To apply please contact Dr. Miranda Vincins at:drmirandavincins@tcfiaa.co.uk

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk

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769

REVIEWS

Memory and music at the proms In August last year at the BBC Proms, the Aurora Orchestra performed Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 in G minor entirely from memory. Free from music stands and with almost all standing, they played with enormous enthusiasm and energy. Nicholas Collon, the conductor, explained: ‘For many members of the Aurora Orchestra, performing Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 from memory ranked as one of our most intense and rewarding musical experiences. In every way it deepened and enriched our relationship with this extraordinary piece of music, forcing us to internalise nuances that can be easily glossed over when reading from the page.’ Following on from this remarkable performance, on 2 August 2015 they performed Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral Symphony’ in the same manner.

This feat raises the question of how musicians go about learning long pieces of music from memory. It was this question that Professor Daniel Levitin addressed as part of his BBC Proms Lecture ‘Unlocking the mysteries of music in your brain’. Levitin, now Professor of Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience and Music at McGill University, developed his interest in music and the brain from his experiences as a rock musician and producer (he still plays in a rock group with colleagues from McGill University called ‘The Diminished Faculties’). His book This Is Your Brain on Music was an international bestseller.

In the BBC lecture Levitin focused on aural memory: in particular, how humans as a species remember music. He outlined how different parts of the brain process pitch, rhythm, volume and timbre separately and independently of each other. Through audience participation, Levitin demonstrated how music tends to be remembered at the pitch at which it has been heard, because the same neurons are activated.

He explained how musical memory relies on the highly structured nature of music and its use of patterns, and how by the age of five most children have internalised the rules of the music of their culture. Most people can recognise 100s if not 1000s of songs, and do this through automatic template matching even when they are played on different instruments and in different arrangements. We can even recognise some music from just one note, a process typically based on timbral Music and Our memory.

Brains Levitin outlined the role of ‘Broadman 47’ (part of the frontal cortex) BBC Radio 3 in music processing. The area is involved in predicting what comes next in a piece of music, and neurons are active when expectations of the rules and conventions of music are violated. He argued that expectation is the key to music; if a piece of music is too predictable the listener becomes bored, if too unpredictable there is no reference point to engage the listener. The importance of emotion in enhancing musical memory was also stressed and how the nucleus encombas, with its strong links to the hippocampus, releases dopamine when we enjoy music which leads to strong pleasureable reactions.

In the final section of the lecture Levitin turned his attention to how the orchestra would go about memorising the Pastoral Symphony. He indicated that in addition to aural memory, supported by knowledge of structure and patterns, the orchestra would rely on motor memory and ensemble cues. He explained how, in this context, motor action sequences are hierarchically organised in relation to musical phrases giving them a natural beginning and end that reflects aural memory. Levitin also argued that performing from memory in an ensemble would provide cues from other ensemble members.

Overall, it was an entertaining lecture, punctuated with many participation activities, which the audience clearly enjoyed. Its focus on memory for music in the general population meant that the explanation of how the musicians were going to tackle the memorisation task facing them was not fully explored with a notable omission in terms of visual memory, an issue that was raised later in a question from an audience member. However, there is no doubt that the audience left with a much greater understanding of how they remember music.

I www.bbc.co.uk/events/e648gw#b062mlyr Reviewed by Susan Hallam MBE who is Professor of Education and Music Psychology at the Institute of Education, University College London

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Thorough and in-depth Maternal Sensitivity: Mary Ainsworth’s Enduring Influence on Attachment Theory, Research and Clinical Applications Klaus E. Grossmann, Inge Bretherton, Everett Waters, & Karin Grossmann (Eds.) This book is a reprint of the articles in a special double issue of Attachment & Human Development, which aimed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mary Ainsworth.

The chapters are written by a number of prominent researchers in the field. The initial section examines Mary Ainsworth’s work, in the form of an autobiographic sketch.

It then moves on to consider issues such as sensitivity, mother–infant communication and cross-cultural research, as well as the role of individual dispositions on differences in attachment quality.

The main thrust of the book looks at how Ainsworth’s ideas have been built upon and continue to be of relevance in the years since she developed them. It provides a thorough and in-depth picture both in terms of Western and nonWestern research findings.

The ideas contained within the book provide considerable background information and ideas that will be of relevance to psychology practitioners.

However, as the book is squarely aimed at research, the links to clinical practice are not always direct.

Overall this is very good, comprehensive, and thoughtprovoking text, which will be of significant relevance to researchers into attachment ideas. However, it is one for the committed attachment reader or clinician who wants to develop their theoretical understanding of child development and attachment.

I Routledge; 2015; Hb £90.00 Reviewed by Mark Wylie who is a clinical psychologist at Hill House School

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reviews

A good starting point Psychotherapy: A Very Short Introduction Tom Burns & Eva BurnsLundgren Psychotherapy has a rich and varied history, filled with multiple theories, techniques, controversies and applications. To sum up this history and its topics in so few pages is no easy feat, yet this short introduction manages to do so in an engaging and informative manner.

Tom Burns and Eva Burns-Lundgren demonstrate their wide knowledge about psychotherapy and tell an interesting historical narrative about the subject and how it has become the practice it is today.

The authors’ use of context helps inform the reader about why certain developments came to be, as well as providing a critical look at some (particularly early) approaches to therapy. Although still an example of many introductions to psychotherapy of mainly focusing on some of ‘the big approaches’ (i.e. psychoanalysis and CBT), other approaches and settings are discussed in such a manner that readers can enjoy a small sample of this broad subject.

The limits of the ‘A Very Short Introduction’ series means that this book was never going to provide readers with a great understanding of certain theories and critiques, but it still serves as a good starting point for those interested in learning about psychotherapy as a whole as well as the similarities and differences between the various ways it is practised. Overall, a light and entertaining summary.

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I Oxford University Press; 2015; Pb £7.99 Reviewed by Richard Potter who is an MSc student, University of Exeter

Sample book titles just in: The Student’s Guide to Studying Psychology (4th edn) Thomas M. Heffernan Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged Child’ Joy Schaverien The Child at School Peter Blatchford, Anthony D. Pellegrini & Ed Baines The Size of Others’ Burdens: Barack Obama, Jane Addams and the Politics of Helping Others Erik Schneiderhan For a full list of books available for review and information on reviewing for The Psychologist, see www.bps.org.uk/books. Send books for potential review to The Psychologist, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester LE1 7DR ‘Reviews’ now covers so much more than books: if you have seen or heard a psychological film, play, exhibition, podcast, website, album or anything else, do get in touch on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk or follow us on Twitter @psychmag for suggestions.

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A new perspective Girls with Autism ITV For six months Limpsfield Grange School for girls in Surrey opened its doors allowing the cameras to film their teachers and students, the majority of whom have autism.

The school, which offers boarding, takes a unique approach to preparing the girls for life after the school, using tough love and vast amounts of patience. Head teacher Sarah Wild explains how their staff are willing to go to try anything to engage their girls.

Animals are brought into the classroom, and going for dog walks mid-lesson is not uncommon.

The girls themselves are an eclectic mix of personalities, demonstrating the diversity found amongst individuals on the autism spectrum; as Ms Wild explains ‘once you have met one girl on the spectrum, you have met one girl on the spectrum’. Sixteen-year-old Katie has both Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and ADHD. She is also obsessed with boys; her parents recently discovered 1160 versions of the same image of an unknown boy on her iPad and she is filmed bursting with excitement over the end-ofterm disco with a nearby boys’ school. Beth, who is 14, has both Asperger’s syndrome and pathological demand avoidance.

Reluctant to fit into the school where she reports feeling more alien than she did in her mainstream school, Beth often self-harms and has previously

attempted to commit suicide.

Polar opposite to these two students is Abigail, who since discovering her mother’s cancer diagnosis has become selectively mute at the school and difficult to engage with. Whilst at home she is filmed being very loud, Abigail mocks the hair loss her mother has experienced from her chemotherapy and seems to find her illness funny; however, her struggle to deal with her concern and empathy for her mother is evident.

What is most apparent from all these girls is their intense anxiety, and also their strong desire to form friendships, many compensating with imaginary friends. It is fascinating to watch the special relationships these girls form with their fellow students, teachers, and the care staff. With female autism viewed by many as a rarity, this documentary demonstrates many of the common misconceptions about autism we have; these girls showed both genuine empathy and creativity, two abilities believed to be impaired in autism. This documentary is an eye opener for not only teachers and carers working with individuals on the spectrum, but also the general public in raising awareness of difference in our society.

I Reviewed by Hannah Belcher who is a PhD student studying females with autism

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reviews

Genuinely holistic Genocide and Mass Violence: Memory, Symptom, and Recovery Devon E. Hinton & Alexander L. Hinton (Eds.) This wide-ranging collection of anthropological essays explores the consequences of mass trauma on multiple levels. Edited by eminent scholars in the fields of medical anthropology and transcultural psychiatry, the 17 papers brought together here examine a variety of cases ranging from the Holocaust to more recent atrocities such as the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides.

The volume is organised into three sections examining memory, symptom and recovery respectively. These themes are explored from a cross-cultural perspective, drawing predominantly on the contributors’ ethnographic fieldwork. The book’s layout, with each paper focusing on a different society, allows the reader to select those that are most relevant to their interests.

The first section, considers memory in a broad perspective. It embraces personal and public forms of remembering in the aftermath of mass trauma, such as commemorative rituals and collective images of ghosts in survivors’ dreams. Reading about cultural syndromes, idioms of distress and local healing practices in the following sections, made me reflect on my own assumptions about trauma and resilience. Whereas the growing field of traumatic stress studies has focused on the PTSD diagnostic construct, the text guards against one-dimensional approaches. The anthropological research presented here, highlights how different symptoms may have a very different meaning in a particular group, as well as how trauma is understood and coped with in different societies. From high rates of sleep paralysis in Cambodian refugees, to beliefs about terrifying attacks by evil spirits in Sierra Leone, an impressive range of explanatory models is introduced.

What is remarkable about this volume is its ability to communicate complex ideas by synthesising the insights of a variety of disciplines including ethnopsychology, psychiatry and history. This results in a genuinely holistic approach and each chapter is comprehensively referenced.

Far from being an introductory text, this is a demanding read; both intellectually and emotionally. Without a doubt, it will be invaluable for anyone wishing to get a deeper appreciation of the cultural variation in the experiencing of and response to mass violence and genocide.

I Cambridge University Press; 2015; Pb £24.99 Reviewed by Roupen Baronian who is a graduate member of the BPS

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Parenting know-how, but no how Parenting Difficult Children: Strategies for Parents of Preschoolers to Preteens Michael Hammond As all parents will attest, raising kids is both fulfilling and frustrating.

And when a child is ‘difficult,’ the mayhem and meltdowns may so outnumber the magical moments that parents are at the end of their tether, ready to snap, which then fuels another outburst from the child. Thus, parent and child are caught in an endless spiral. Unfortunately, Parenting Difficult Children does not address the core issue of trying to understand your child’s troubles from the child’s perspective. Instead of forging empathy between parent and child, the book offers an instrumentalist

approach to behaviour management.

While the carrot-andstick approach may work for most kids, it is likely to backfire with ‘difficult’ children if their fundamental need for being understood by their parents is not met. The author assumes that ‘difficult’ kids behave badly due to poor parenting; yet the parents of these kids are not necessarily incompetent or inconsistent, rather the commonsense approach of managing kids’ behaviour using rewards and punishments does not suffice. Nor can we blame the kids for their behaviour when they lack the basic

skills to regulate their emotions or curb their impulses. The book tells parents what kids should or shouldn’t do without spelling out the crucial ‘how’. If parents are at their wits’ end, this book is unlikely to be the panacea they are looking for.

I Rowman & Littlefield; 2015; Hb £21.95 Reviewed by Aruna Sankaranarayanan who is Director, PRAYATNA, a centre for children with learning difficulties in India

A fascinating field Primitive Expression and Dance Therapy: When Dancing Heals France Schott-Billmann France Schott-Billmann’s frequent use of the word ‘primitive’ is a little disconcerting and her messages may be misunderstood; she asserts that this title relates to her overall interest in understanding archetypal, or universal, patterns in human nature. Readers will be able to follow her reasoning and her way of framing these terms. Schott-Billmann’s central argument is that incorporating dance therapy into a patient’s treatment plan can motivate them to take a more active role in their healing process. Her views on dance therapy can remind patients and health professionals that the power of gestures sometimes outweighs the power of words.

As a psychoanalyst and dance researcher, Schott-Billmann includes examples of patients and their use of dance therapy, which attests to the strength of her ideas. She observes that rhythm dance therapy could address a patient’s need for a positive body image.

For survivors of emotional and physical trauma, this may help them gently recover and become healthier members of their community. This book focuses on

how dance therapy serves as a breathing exercise, compelling readers to reconsider their relationship with their bodies. Schott-Billmann’s strongest point is that this ‘symbolic reorganization’ can help patients work through the separation anxiety they experienced during childhood.

She further argues that art can reach patients unconsciously in ways that psychoanalysis cannot. Schott-Billmann writes, ‘under the veil, art works to heal us’. I second that motion, however, this book is lacking a more nuanced critical analysis of the benefits and conditions of dance therapy. One way to reckon with this discrepancy is to acknowledge that not enough material has been written, or reviewed, to address a collective need in learning more about art therapy. The author’s writing style is effusive and superficial at times, but this book can be used as a beginner’s guide to a fascinating field.

I Routledge; 2015; Hb £90.00 Reviewed by Nirmala Jayaraman who has a BA in cultural anthropology from Union College in New York

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A powerful message Fake It ’Til You Make It Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall Tim and Bryony met and fell in love. This piece, a true story by a real-life couple, simply and beautifully tells of the intruder in the living room in Bryony Kimmings and Tim’ Grayburn’s new relationship – the crippling clinical depression that had partnered Tim for eight years before he was able to speak to anyone about it.

The story is told through a variety of parallel channels, songs, movement, narratives and intercut with excerpts from recorded interviews with Tim, speaking frankly about his experiences. Thoroughly researched and very informative, whilst still being utterly gripping throughout, this show is a genuine attempt to unblock the taboos on talking about depression. Whether it is a condition that you know about personally, professionally, or not at all yet, Fake It is a striking,

perfectly balanced, and lifeaffirming piece of theatre, profound and funny, with a strong message that is interwoven through the dramaturgy so as never to overwhelm it.

The ‘Clinical Depression Mambo’ gave us a checklist of the more unusual symptoms expressed through the medium of dance, and such lighter moments dealing with heavy material perfectly balanced out the more distressing elements of the story . Tim’s own face was never revealed until the end of the performance, being masked by an inspired variety of symbolic headgear – from binoculars, clouds, and a minotaur’s head perfectly representing the beastliness of suicidality.

The most powerful element for me, at the centre of the piece, was a mime to the jaunty

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background music of the Carpenters’ ‘Why do birds suddenly appear...’ in which Bryony’s puppyish and optimistic attempts to get a reaction from an unresponsive Tim, paper bag over his head, failed repeatedly, and painfully illustrated the desperate unreachableness of someone with depression.

A powerful message was delivered, about how the stigma of mental illness prevents sufferers from letting anyone in on the dark dirty secret of being depressed and suicidal, and how the myth of needing to be a “‘real man’ further complicates the possibility of disclosure or help-seeking. But what seemed to be missing here is a link between these phenomena and the actual provenance of mental health problems in the first place. Whilst SSRI antidepressant medication is

rightly critiqued for its ghastly catalogue of potential sideeffects, there is no exploration of talking therapies as a possible way of formulating and understanding Tim’s depression.

And the implied notion that sharing the diagnosis, and the love of an amazing girlfriend, might be enough to help manage Tim’s condition, left me wanting another chapter.

The final song, ‘The Duvet Song’, delivered touchingly by Tim, tentatively accompanying himself on guitar, ended the show, leaving many in the audience weeping, but in a good way.

I For tour dates in September and October see www.bryonyandtim.com Reviewed by Jenny Doe who is a clinical psychologist with the NHS in Luton www.bryonyandtim.com

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reviews

Clear, Supportive and Practical Mindfulness for Therapists: Understanding Mindfulness for Professional Effectiveness and Personal Well-being Gerhard Zarbock, Siobhan Lynch, Axel Ammann & Silka Ringer With mindfulness being considered a ‘buzzword’ at the moment with the media, it means that whilst it is reaching a wider audience, it is now coming with both positive and negative connotations and expectations; in some cases heralded as a panacea, which can be difficult to challenge when introducing it to clients.

Consequently, I looked forward to reading Mindfulness for Therapists as although I had been practising ‘informal’ mindfulness, my favourite being the morning cup of coffee, it gave me an excuse to integrate more ‘formal’ practices and explore it away from work.

Mindfulness for Therapists starts by introducing mindfulness and the key types, the authors then briefly gives a rationale for the benefits for therapists who practise mindfulness.

The chapters that follow outline an eight-week course to follow and a short manual for running a group.

The instructions were very clear but, although aided by the companion website, I could not find the online recordings, which made the practices a little more tricky.

Interestingly, I did notice my own cynicism of some of the more imagery-based mindfulness exercises, such as ‘tree meditation’, and this observation was one of the most helpful aspects to come out of it. This cynicism and the difficulties I had with practices echoed what clients say during mindfulness enquiry in groups in the service I work in: impatience, frustration, sleepiness, and finding time to fit practice into a day. Even though after completing the eight weeks I have fallen away from the ‘formal’ mindfulness practices I have noticed that I am now more present with clients and empathetic with their difficulties.

This is a clear, supportive and practical guide for clinicians with all levels of mindfulness experience and want to bring a more present awareness into both personal life and practice.

I Wiley-Blackwell; 2015; Pb £31.99 Reviewed by Elizabeth Dewey who is an Assistant Psychologist, Glasgow Pain Management Programme, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. See also http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/mindfulmoment

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Heroes and villains Amy Asif Kapadia (Director) This documentary film – comprising extensive archive footage and early family video, interviews with some key players and films of her performances – charts the rise and fall of the singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse. In every sense this is a real tragedy. Although you know it will end in her untimely death at the age of 27, like all tragedies it is the inevitability that totally absorbs the viewer.

The film makes you realise just how talented Amy Winehouse was as both a singer and writer, as she progresses from school to college to recording success. It also shows the extent to which she was exploited by those around her and let down by others close to her, including her parents. It was her parents’ split when she was nine years old that appears to be a key moment. Her mother Janis lacked the assertiveness needed to keep her on-track and her father Mitch, who she adored, seemed at times to have his own agenda when all she needed was a hug.

Like all films it has its heroes and villains. The villains include the boyfriend and husband Blake Fielder, and Amy’s management in her later years; the heroes her teenage friends who stuck with her through hell and high water, and one of her bodyguards who comments: ‘The trouble with Amy is that nobody has

ever said no to her.’ It is this absence of ‘tough love’ that lies at the heart of this film and Amy’s decline.

Another hero, surprisingly, is the singer Tony Bennet. We learn that she is in awe him from an early clip when he presents her with a ‘Grammy’. Later he asks her to sing a duet with him on what was to become her last recording. He treats her with a charm, sensitivity, dignity and love and was able to bring out the very best in her. It is a pity others in her life seemed so incapable of similar behaviour.

Psychology, while not being a hero, does come out of the film well. The reasoned refusal of colleagues not to admit Amy and her boyfriend into rehab as a joint deal speaks highly of those who refused to collude with Fielder and his apparent agenda. Yet it is clear that the delay in her receiving appropriate treatment early enough was a missed opportunity that changed the course of her life. As she sang in the song; ‘They tried to make me go to rehab: I said No No No’.

This film is compelling, absorbing and at times shocking. Whether you liked her music or not this is a film not to be missed.

I Reviewed by Dr Jeremy Swinson who is an educational psychologist

vol 28 no 9

september 2015

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775

LOOKING BACK

The Geel question For centuries, a little Belgian town has treated the mentally ill. Why are its medieval methods so successful? Mike Jay investigates.

H

alf an hour on the slow train from Antwerp, surrounded by flat, sparsely populated farmlands, Geel (pronounced, roughly, ‘Hyale’) strikes the visitor as a quiet, tidy but otherwise unremarkable Belgian market town. Yet its story is unique. For more than 700 years its inhabitants have taken the mentally ill and disabled into their homes as guests or ‘boarders’. At times, these guests have numbered in the thousands, and arrived from all over Europe. There are several hundred in residence today, sharing their lives with their host families for years, decades or even a lifetime. One boarder recently celebrated 50 years in the Flemish town, arranging a surprise party at the family home. Friends and neighbours were joined by the mayor and a full brass band.

Among the people of Geel, the term ‘mentally ill’ is never heard: even words such as ‘psychiatric’ and ‘patient’ are carefully hedged with finger-waggling and scare quotes. The family care system, as it’s known, is resolutely non-medical.

When boarders meet their new families, they do so, as they always have, without a backstory or clinical diagnosis. If a word is needed to describe them, it’s often a positive one such as ‘special’, or at worst, ‘different’. This might in fact be more accurate than ‘mentally ill’, since the boarders have always included some who would today be diagnosed with learning difficulties or special needs. But the most common collective term is simply ‘boarders’, which defines them at the most pragmatic level by their social, not mental, condition. These are people who, whatever their diagnosis, have come here because they’re unable to cope on their own, and because they have no family or friends who can look after them.

The origins of the Geel story lie in the 13th century, in the martyrdom of Saint Dymphna, a legendary seventh-century Irish princess whose pagan father went mad with grief after the death of his Christian wife and demanded that Dymphna marry him. To escape the king’s incestuous passion, Dymphna fled to GARY PORTER - MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL 10/5/2013 -© 2015 JOURNAL SENTINEL, INC.

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Host families open their homes to people who would otherwise be patients in the local psychiatric hospital. Luc (right) moved in with Smit and her husband seven years ago.

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Europe and holed up in the marshy flatlands of Flanders. Her father finally tracked her down in Geel, and when she refused him once more, he beheaded her.

Over time, she became revered as a saint with powers of intercession for the mentally afflicted, and her shrine attracted pilgrims and tales of miraculous cures.

In 1349 a church was built on the outskirts of the town around Saint Dymphna’s memorial, and in 1480 a dormitory annexe was added to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims. When the stream of visitors overflowed the allotted space, townspeople started to house them in their homes, farms and stables. During the Renaissance, Geel became famous as a place of sanctuary for the mad, who arrived and stayed for reasons both spiritual and opportunistic. Some pilgrims came in hope of a cure. In other cases, it seems that families from local villages took the chance to abandon troublesome relatives whom they couldn’t afford to keep. The people of Geel absorbed them all as an act of charity and Christian piety, but also put them to work as free labour on their farms.

Today, the system continues along much the same lines. A boarder is treated as a member of the family: involved in everything, and particularly encouraged to form a strong bond with the children, a relationship that is seen as beneficial to both parties. The boarder’s conduct is expected to meet the same basic standards as everybody else’s, though it’s also understood that he or she might not have the same coping resources as others.

Odd behaviour is ignored where possible, and when necessary dealt with discreetly.

Those who meet these standards are ‘good’; others can be described as ‘difficult’, but never ‘bad’, ‘dumb’ or ‘crazy’. Boarders who are unable to cope on this basis will be readmitted to the hospital: this is inevitably seen as a punishment, and everyone hopes the stay ‘inside’ will be as brief as possible.

The people of Geel don’t regard any of this as therapy: it’s simply ‘family care’.

But throughout the town’s long history, many both inside and outside the psychiatric profession have wondered whether this is not only a form of therapy in itself, but perhaps the best form there is. However we might categorise or diagnose their conditions, and whatever we believe their cause to be – whether genetics or childhood trauma or brain chemistry or modern society – the ‘mentally ill’ are in practice those who have fallen through the net, who have broken the ties that bind the rest of us in our social contract, who are no longer

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looking back

able to connect. If these ties can be remade so that the individual is reintegrated with the collective, doesn’t ‘family care’ amount to therapy? Even, perhaps, the closest we can approach to an actual cure?

Modern psychiatry was born in the 19th century, and for the first generation of psychiatrists, ‘the Geel question’ was central to the revolution they were attempting to bring about. For many, the system was a dismal relic of the Middle Ages, where the mad were condemned to a life of drudgery and neglect under the lax oversight of the Church. Shut away from the modern world in quasi-feudal isolation, they were denied the benefits of new medical expertise, and with it, any chance of proper treatment.

For others, however, Geel was a beacon of the progressive ideas that came to be known as ‘moral management’.

Freeing the insane from their chains and madhouses, providing them with fresh air, occupational therapies and the chance to patch themselves back into normal life – this was treatment in itself. Philippe Pinel, the founding father of French psychiatry who was legendary for ‘striking the chains off the mad’ at the Salpetrière asylum in Paris, declared that ‘the farmers of Geel are arguably the most competent doctors; they are an example of what may turn out to be the only reasonable treatment of insanity and what doctors from the outset should regard as ideal’. His student Jean-Étienne Esquirol, who became the next generation’s leading reformer of mental hospitals, visited Geel in 1821 and was astonished by the sight of hundreds of lunatics wandering freely and calmly around the town and countryside. He praised the tolerance of a system where ‘the mad are elevated to the dignity of the sick’.

The ‘Geel question’ has remained at the heart of psychiatry, and the pendulum continues to swing between these polarised views. In 1850 Belgium integrated Geel into a new state dispensation that combined elements of both perspectives. Oversight of the family care system was transferred from church to government. Families got a modest state payment, in return for which they had to submit to inspection and regulation by the medical authorities.

Under the church system, any crimes committed by a boarder had been the responsibility of families, who sometimes resorted to chaining and beating boarders who were violent or difficult to control.

Under the new rules, however, restraint and corporal punishment were banned.

And in 1861 a hospital appeared on the outskirts of town: a two-storey building

with an elegant portico and large arched was often the butt of coarse humour windows, designed in every detail to (‘Half of Geel is crazy, and the rest is half resemble a country mansion rather than crazy!’), but in the town itself, normal life a prison. Boarders, arriving now as wards was little affected. Local jokes tended to of state, came here to be assessed before revolve around how frequently locals and taking up their lodgings in town. boarders were confused, and how hard it Medical supervision brought great was to tell the difference. Boarders were improvements, but the directors of the well aware that disruptive public new hospital insisted that it should behaviour might result in being sent back supplement rather than replace the ‘inside’; the problem was more commonly unique regime of family care. In the the opposite, that they became overly terminology still used by boarders and timid for fear of drawing attention to townspeople today, ‘inside’ – the world themselves. of the hospital – was a resource to use In recent decades, the ‘two-layered sparingly, and ‘outside’ – the wider system’ – family care supported by a community – was preferred wherever medical safety net – has been constantly possible. For routine supervision, recalibrated to reflect developments in boarders were required to attend one of psychiatry, but its most abrupt shift came three bathhouses at least once a week: in the 1970s. As the asylums emptied, ostensibly for hygiene but also for more mental healthcare was reconceived to general health checks, as well as a chance become more flexible and extend further for a conversation with someone outside into the community. Antipsychotic and the family sphere. The fact that these antidepressant medications, central to the checks could be performed new treatment model, ‘outside’ rather than were initially resisted ‘inside’ meant that, for by many families who “Why is this deeply rooted most boarders, the smell of felt they would turn and universally praised the hospital and the sight boarders into medical system suddenly on the of asylum wards vanished outpatients, but they point of disappearing?” from their lives. rapidly proved The reformed system indispensable in helping became a source of great to manage the worst of the professional and local pride. Doctors depressions, crises and public incidents. and psychiatrists from across Europe and These all appear to have been changes America came on fact-finding missions. for the better. Yet they coincided with a Dozens of towns in Belgium, France and precipitous and perhaps terminal decline Germany established their own versions in the centuries-old system. Today, there of the ‘Geel system’, some of which still are around 300 boarders in Geel: less than survive. In 1902 the International a tenth of its pre-war peak and falling Congress of Psychiatry officially settled fast. While many locals believe family the ‘Geel question’, declaring it an care will endure, it has become a example of best practice to be emulated markedly smaller part of town life, and wherever possible. others suspect that this generation will be Throughout the 20th century the last to maintain it. Why is this deeply the family care system prospered and rooted and universally praised system expanded, and the town’s fame spread. suddenly on the point of disappearing?

With the growth of state asylums, families The limiting factor is not demand but across Belgium faced the choice of having supply. Few families are now able or their relatives ‘put away’ for life in grim willing to take on a boarder. Few now institutions or sending them to Geel, work the land or need help with manual where handsome promotional labour; these days most are employed in photographs and brochures showed them the thriving business parks outside town, working the fields, attending harvest working for multinationals such as Estée festivals and church services, and sleeping Lauder and BP. Dual-income households in regularly inspected private bedrooms and apartment-living mean that most with cots and linen sheets. As a result, families can no longer offer care in the so many boarders arrived from the old-fashioned way. People remain proud Netherlands that their hosts built a of the tradition, and credit it with giving Protestant church in town for them. One Geel a broad-minded and tolerant ethos, wealthy family even took in a Polish one that has made it attractive to prince, who came with his own butler international businesses and visitors and carriage. (these days it is probably best known for By the late 1930s there were almost its annual reggae festival). But the town is 4000 boarders among a native population no exception to the march of modernity of 16,000. Across Belgium the town and the irreversibly loosening social ties became famous for its eccentricity and that come in its wake.

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Modern aspirations – the increasing desire for mobility and privacy, timeshifted work schedules, and the freedom to travel – disrupt the patterns on which daily care depends.

Increasing wealth is also a disincentive: most of the burden of care always fell on the poorer families, who counted on the supply of free labour and state payments to lift them above subsistence. The state now pays around €40 ($55) per day for boarders, of which only half is passed on to the families: hardly a financial incentive for most, these days.

More optimistically, the decline of the system can be seen as a reflection of modern improvements. Psychiatry has met the town halfway: the choice is no longer limited to the stark Dis plays with a family dog. The family hope Dis will be able to stay with them until he dies. alternative of Geel or the horrors of the asylum. Care in the community, of which the town was once the leading come under pressure to be trained in its proponents – like the 19th-century example, has become the norm. For most therapy or psychiatric nursing as part of moral and religious reformers before mental health service users, the their duty of care to their boarders, but them – used the story of Geel to argue combination of medication and many insist that they aren’t clinicians and that psychiatry and its institutions should community mental health teams has don’t want responsibility for medical have no place in the treatment of the made the line between ‘inside’ and issues such as their boarders’ drug mentally unwell, and indeed that ‘outside’ more porous, with ‘outside’ the regimes. In accordance with their patient psychiatry created many of the problems preferred option for doctors and patients rights, boarders are now given their own it purported to solve. But there are many alike, on grounds both of cost and quality diagnoses and they are free to share them clear examples in its long history of of life. with families or not, as they choose; medicine’s benefits: in eliminating the use The boundaries have blurred in either way, the inevitable effect is to of restraints and physical punishment, in Geel too, and the old system is hard to medicalise their situation. Within the stepping into chaotic situations where maintain within the institutional logic family home they might still be boarders, families are no longer able to cope, in of modern mental health care. More than but outside it they are now ‘patients’ or medication regimes that have the power half of the boarders now receive some ‘clients’. to transform lives of suffering. At the form of service, such as day care, therapy When the anti-psychiatry movement same time, Geel’s story does suggest that or supervised work programmes. Families emerged in the 1960s and ’70s, many of psychiatry’s role could be limited, perhaps dramatically so: not at the centre of mental healthcare but on its periphery, as a backstop to the community. In an ideal world, might not the modern psychiatric clinic shrink back towards the size of the 19th-century hospital: a discreet ‘inside’, as remote from the majority of patients’ lives as possible?

Yet this would demand a reform not simply of medicine but of society itself.

It’s ironic but probably not coincidental that the need for a community response to mental illness is becoming obvious just as the structures that might provide it are failing. The boarder who celebrated 50 years in residence is by no means exceptional: another, recently deceased at the age of 100, had spent 80 years with the same family, in the care of successive generations to whom she had been first like a daughter, then a sister and finally an aunt. Who would not wish to live in a community where such extraordinary resources of time, attention and love were available to those who needed them – but who these days can imagine being in a Dis and Luc have grown close and become part of the family position to offer them?

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looking back

looking back

This is, in yet another form, the tragedy of the commons: our liberation as individuals to create lives of our own choosing places unsustainable pressures on the type of society that most of us would choose to live in. We might define mental ill-health in medical terms, but this is not enough to confine its treatment within the medical frame. If it is in practice a condition that has exhausted the capacity of the individual and the social support available, it’s bound to manifest more intensely in an atomised society where insoluble problems devolve onto the sufferer alone. To take up these problems on behalf of others demands, all too often, more than their own loved ones can give or the state can provide.

As mental illness proliferates and outpaces the psychiatric resources available to manage it, Geel’s story offers a vision, in equal parts sobering and inspiring, of what the alternative might look like.

I Mike Jay is a UK author and cultural historian mail@mikejay.net http://mikejay.net This piece originally appeared in the online magazine Aeon. See www.aeon.co

19th-century views of Geel ‘Numerous articles have been published, be it independently or in several proceedings in France and abroad with two things in mind, first, to present a detailed analysis of this truly exceptional village, and, second, to determine both its value and its downsides. Some have praised it to the skies, others have completely slated it.’ (Dr Loiseau, 1862) ‘…we cannot believe that the very foundation of our science would be ill-conceived and that one would have to claim – like the ones who advocate Geel – that fresh air and freedom basically suffice to treat the alienated.’ (Dr Falret, 1861) ‘I for one believe that it is impossible to do something that is equally despicable. For the “alienated” treatment and freedom cannot go hand in hand. In Geel there is no treatment, and the alienated have nothing but freedom which is harmful to them.’ (Dr Ferrus, 1867) ‘It afforded the last glimpse of a mediaeval condition, incrusted with the stains and corruption of a worn-out organization, where the faith in the supernatural had faded away, and the sun of science had not yet arisen.’ (Dr W. Browne, 1863) ‘At the present time, and with the prejudices existing in all classes against the insane, and with the apprehension, to a certain extent legitimate, which the insane inspire in all those around them, one cannot hope to realise in another country the extraordinary phenomenon presented at Geel of 400 insane persons moving freely about in the midst of a population which tolerates them without fear and without emotion.’ (Dr Loiseau, 1862) All quotes are sourced from the excellent Geel Revisited After Centuries of Rehabilitation, by Eugeen Roosens and Lieve Van De Walle, published by Garant Uitgevers nv – see tinyurl.com/nlc4gps

Stories of Psychology Clinically Applied: Origins of a Profession Wednesday 14 October 2015, 10.30am–4pm Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, University of London The fifth annual ‘Stories of Psychology’ symposium looks forward to the 50th anniversary of the Division of Clinical Psychology in 2016 by looking back at the development of clinical psychology as a profession, a history that reaches back beyond the foundation of the DCP in 1966.

Cost: £16 (BPS members); £18 (non-members) including buffet lunch Registration is essential

For more information and to register, go to www.bps.org.uk/stories History of Psychology Centre (t) 0116 252 9528 (e) hopc@bps.org.uk

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ONE ON ONE

getting positive media coverage. Then the presenter referred to it as a ‘Dark Art’ which sort of ruined it!

… with Peter Olusoga

‘I love hearing people’s stories’ One thing you love about psychology I love hearing people’s stories.

It’s really as simple as that. I’ve always been interested in what motivates people to behave the way they do, why people might think certain ways about certain things. If I can work with athletes to help them make sense of and perhaps take a greater degree of control over their own stories, then that, to me, is fantastic.

One sporting event that has captured your imagination I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see some of the basketball at the London 2012 Olympics, so my brother and I went to watch the GB vs.

Spain game. To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about the Olympics coming to London, but the atmosphere across the capital was genuinely wonderful, the Olympic park was spectacular, and as GB came close to upsetting Spain, the noise inside the arena that

coming soon

Peter Olusoga is Senior Lecturer in Sport Psychology at Sheffield Hallam University p.olusoga@shu.ac.uk

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night was nothing like I’ve ever heard at a basketball game before. As a basketball fan and a sports fan, it genuinely made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

One alternative career I thought about becoming a speech therapist for a while after graduating.

One challenge faced by sport psychology The stigma attached to using psychological services within sport is still a huge challenge.

Within a lot of sports, physical prowess and mental ‘toughness’ is still the ideal, and sometimes that doesn’t fit well with the idea of using a psychologist. The perception tends to be that we work with athletes who have ‘problems’ or are mentally ‘weak’. It’s definitely getting better, and I’d say the majority of athletes and coaches are certainly starting to understand the benefits that using a sport psychologist can bring, but there’s still a level of uncertainty, distrust, perhaps even fear in certain quarters, about what we actually do.

I remember watching a segment on sport psychology during the BBC’s coverage of the London 2012 Olympics and I was so pleased to see it

An ‘out of this world’ issue!

I Contribute: reach 50,000 colleagues, with something to suit all. See www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute or talk to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 I Comment: email the editor, the Leicester office, or tweet @psychmag.

I To advertise: Reach a large and professional audience at bargain rates: see details on inside front cover.

One defining moment in your career Quitting my office job on a whim. It was one of those ‘just graduated’ jobs that was supposed to last a few months but two years later, I found myself still there. I handed in my notice, ended up working as a part-time basketball coach, taking out a career development loan, and going back to university to study for my MSc. More of a moment that started my career than a defining moment within it, but an important moment nonetheless.

I realised I wasn’t happy with what I was doing, so I stopped doing it.

a salvaged 17th-century ship) is, somewhat bizarrely, genuinely impressive.

One book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami. Go and read it immediately!

One thing you couldn't do without Well it would be obvious but entirely true to say that I couldn’t do without my wife, Alice. And it would be even more obvious, but entirely

One film Hugo. It’s a Martin Scorsese film I watched by accident last Christmas and it’s beautiful.

One place to visit I love the coast, but I find sand really annoying, so I much prefer wandering around cities. Cadiz is pretty nice, and I love Paris, but I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a couple of months working in Stockholm and I completely fell in love with it. It’s expensive, and I went in January so it was freezing cold, and dark pretty much the whole time (I’m not really selling it, am I?), but it’s a wonderful, vibrant city, full of lovely people, and even lovelier cakes and pastries.

Oh, and the Vasamuseet (a museum built around

untrue to say something like my phone, or the internet.

I think I could cope quite happily without being constantly connected. It’s one of the things I love about going on holiday; I can turn my phone off and the rest of the word ceases to exist for a week or two. I suppose one thing I couldn’t really do without is exercise. I get grumpy if I can’t train, lift weights, go for a run or do some sort of physical activity.

I know it’s only anecdotal evidence, but I can absolutely testify to the positive impact of physical activity on psychological wellbeing!

vol 28 no 9

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