Most people believe that their parents had a big role in shaping who they are. A psychological perspective called ‘attachment theory’ says that the way you related to your parents influences your personality including the way you relate to others, and your mood regulation. So it might come as a surprise to learn that research into conditions of extreme mood changes, such as bipolar disorder, has focussed almost exclusively on drug treatments and genetic factors.

Researchers at Edinburgh University are attempting to look at this neglected area. Are those who are able to form secure relationships able to regulate their emotions more effectively? Are those who have a lot of fear or insecurity in their relationships more likely to develop bipolar disorder? The results of this research could help to form new non drug-based treatments to help those who experience highly changeable moods.

You can help with this research and find out more about yourself by taking part in a specially developed online survey system. This gives you feedback at the end about your personality and relationship style. It takes 25 mins but you’ll be rewarded with 16 different scores with graphs, all based on solid psychological research.

Visit the website to assist with psychological research and find out more about yourself:

At this point in the year lots of students are spending hours of time revising for their A Level exams but let’s think about the future and moving on. Many of you will have already had your offers to university or if you’re in your AS year actually be considering what to do be that going to university or moving into industry. If you’re thinking of moving into Psychology [...]

A new, and unique, oportunity to study a MSc Teaching of Psychology. The course will be delivered primarily through e-learning combined with an optional two-day residential workshop on selected modules. This programme provides excellent CPD for practising teachers of post-16 Psychology who wish to obtain a Masters level qualification to maximise progression through the teaching profession.

The course looks really exciting and Mark and I are both really looking forward to [...]

Guy Brandon is a counsellor, author and the founder of www.StressingOut.org, a website dedicated to resources for stress, depression, anxiety and related conditions.

Stress is a very normal and natural occurrence which happens in response to a wide variety of circumstances. It is an evolutionary response that it triggered by feelings of a lack of control, priming our bodies to react to a challenging situation. Stress has numerous effects on [...]

It is my belief that at the centre of our misunderstanding of success and creativity lays our ego.  In the deep dark depths of our psyche we allow mutual myth perpetuation and self-importance to cloud the truth about “talent”.  That is, that all those artists, designers and thinkers would have to admit that they did not simply sit and spark perfection from nowhere but their brilliant brains.  But instead [...]

Just added a summary of this study on holah.co.uk

It’s not the best summary ever written as it is difficult to do justice to such an influential 40 page experimental case study. I would like to delete a few bits to make it shorter and easier to read but would also like to add more about the quantitative data collected and add a bit more evaluation too. [...]

Mind Changers is a recent series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century. More information available from the BBC Radio 4 website.

Four excellent episodes for you to listen to. Enjoy.

The Pseudo-Patient Study

Claudia Hammond revisits David Rosenhan’s Pseudo-Patient Study

The Hawthorne Effect

The 1920s experiment in a Chicago factory that gave rise to the Hawthorne Effect

Harlow’s Monkeys

Revisiting Harry Harlow’s surrogate mothers experiment, which revolutionised parenting.

Arden House

Revisiting Langer [...]

With $55 million, a collection of frozen human brains and robots capable of processing 192 brain slices a day, the Allen Brain Institute is attempting to do the impossible: systematically map out the expression patterns of more than 20,000 genes that make our grey matter tick.

The science behind the techniques isn’t new. Researchers have probed neurons with specific RNA bits in a revealing game of genetic hide-and-seek for 40 [...]

“… Rational choice theory predicts that people will not gamble, thus it is theorised that regular gamblers gamble because they make the wrong decisions – that cognitive bias (irrational thinking) distorts their reasoning. The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the cognitive processes and behaviour of persistent fruit machine gamblers.”

Almost 18 months ago I interviewed Mark Griffiths about his 1994 research into cognitive bias and skill [...]

We all like to think that we have good memories for events and that if we were to be witness to a crime or incident that we would be able to recall in detail the events of the day. However our memories are not that reliable at all.  This has implications on many levels, but especially in the courtroom and with the police.

For example:
“Some researchers in Bologna demonstrate the [...]