Probably one of the most iconic tests that jump to mind when a person starts talking about going to a psychologist (or ’shrink’) is the inkblot tests.  These tests, correctly referred to as the Rorschach Inkblot tests were surrounded in ’secrecy’ as practicing psychologists who used them thought that the tests would be invalid if they had been seen previously.

The Rorschach Inkblot tests are one of a type of test called a ‘projective’ test which are supposedly meant to give insight into a persons psyche and allow us to rate how ‘healthy a personality’ a person has.  The validity of these types of tests was debated with many who were not avid fans of Freudian thinking and psychoanalysis dismissing them and questioning the objectivity of these tests.

Either way, thanks to wikipedia, we can now see the full selection of 10 inkblots that were created by Rorschach all those years ago.  Don’t accept imitations - these are the only 10 ‘official’ inkblots that were created by Rorschach.

These might come in useful when talking about Eve White / Black / Jane in Thigpen and Cleckley’s case study of multiple personality where they administered these tests to the three personalities which emerged throughout the duration of her consultation with the pair.

What do you see?

Build self esteem with fun, scientifically proven game

Tags: AS, core studies, Individual, resources, thigpen-and-cleckley

Only the other week I was talking about the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes‘ task that Baron-Cohen employed in his 1997 research looking at high functioning adults with Autism and Aspergers.

In order to validate the Eyes Task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (ASD & Tourette’s) were also tested on Happe’s Strange Stories.

This assesses the ability to interpret a nonliteral statement. Relative to normal controls who were IQ and age-matched, individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome performed less well on the task, while performing normally on a non-mentalistic control task. Individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome could provide mental state answers, but had difficulty in providing contextually appropriate mental state answers. Rather, their answers tended to concentrate on the utterance in isolation. This replicates Happé’s result. Although the majority of both clinical groups provided context-inappropriate interpretations, the autism group had the greater difficulty. 

It was argued that if the Eyes Task was indeed tapping theory of mind, then performance on the Eyes Task should correlate with performance on Happe’s strange stories - and this is what was found. See Holah for a great summary of the 1997 study.

As they seem to be difficult to come across here’s a selection of ‘Strange Stories’ that were used by Kaland et al. (2005) in a replication-type-study of Baron-Cohen’s (1999) research into those with ASD’s ability to correctly answer these questions.

Thanks to Rosey on the OCR e-list for trawling articles and finding the Kaland et. al (2005) study.

Boost sports performance with fun, simple to play computer game!

Tags: AS, Baron-Cohen, Cognitive, core studies, resources

As we’ve evolved, the human stress response has saved our lives. Today, we turn on the same life-saving physical reaction to cope with intense, ongoing stressors - and we can’t seem to turn it off. “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” reveals just how dangerous prolonged exposure to stress can be.

Is stress a saviour, tyrant or plague? This, along with many other questions are raised in a recent KPBS television programmme called ‘Stress: Portrait of a Killer’.

The video starts by looking at how it may be possible to make comparisons between wild baboons and humans and their stress responses. In the video it is argued that humans have a specific problem with stress: we don’t know how to turn it off. In the wild the stress response is designed to help in times of crisis - running for ones life - getting away from the thing that’s going to eat you.

In our lives we have the same physiological responses to that idiot in the car in front who can’t drive or the fact that we’ve lost out keys once more. The goal in life isn’t to get rid of stress but to get the right types of stress. In some cases we will pay good money to be stressed - think of theme parks and horror movies.

The video is well worth a watch and gives an excellent overview of stress research and thinking currently in psychology and clinical trials.  More importantly, it reflects on how stress is a ’secret killer’ in out society and how this can negatively affect many peoples lives. 

Along with the programme there’s a great website to accompay the show: killerstress.stanford.edu.

Thanks to Contemporary Mottled Sheep for letting me know about the show. 

Anxiety reduction using unique, scientifically proven game

Tags: A2, health, stress, video, websites

I’m often bullied into watching episodes of Grey’s Anatomy (honest - it was just on!) and occasionally I understand what McDreamy might be saying about hemispherectomies and neural-pathways; but I didn’t realise that Grey’s is raising awareness of health issues throughout the globe.  Well done Dr. Grey and cast.

According to a recent article on the CBS News site a Grey’s Anatomy episode with embedded messages about HIV awareness shifted viewers attitudes about HIV especially attitudes surrounding mothers with HIV and the chances of their baby contracting the disease.

“Health educators slipped a message about HIV-positive mothers into a story line in the popular TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Then they tested whether viewers got that message.”

Three surveys were conducted: one before the episode aired, one shortly after and a follow-up 6 weeks after.  One of the questions asked in the survey was in relation to the probability of contracting HIV from a mother who had the disease.

“As far as you know, if a woman who is HIV positive becomes pregnant and receives the proper treatment, what is the chance that she will give birth to a healthy baby, not infected with HIV?”

Before the show aired only 15% of people questioned got the correct answer (more than a 90% chance), soon after the show this went up dramatically to 61% and at the six-week follow-up 45% got the question correct.

The author of the research, Victoria Rideout, suggests that while watching television we absorb information.

“For better or worse, viewers do absorb the health information they see on TV, so it’s important for these shows to get it right … This study shows the enormous potential for entertainment television to serve as a health educator.”

This obviously raises many questions as far as health promotion goes.  Firstly, that the medium of television, and more importantly entertainment programmes can be very powerful in getting positive messages and health awareness out to the viewers.

However, this power has to be used carfully - if viewers believe that the information they are ‘absorbing’ from medical entertainment programmes are accurate (as almost 60% of viewers do) we need to ensure that there’s no false or misleading information in these programmes.  A real double-edged sword.

Positive thinking games for building well being

Tags: A2, adverts, health, health promotion, prevention, Research

The addition of the new Reicher & Haslam study to the course has introduced to many a long-argued debate surrounding Zimbardo’s original Stanford Prison Experiment; calling into question his conclusions and situational explanation for the behaviour that was seen.  

Reicher & Haslam argue against this in their 2006 research from the BBC’s The Experiment (and they have a great new website to support the study now).  The feel that the SPE was massively flawed in it’s implimentation and, basically, Zimbardo told the guards how to act and it wasn’t a result of the situation that they were all subject to. 

Following on from this you can see Zimbardo answer some uncomfortable questions put to him by Stephen Sackur as he attempts to justify his SPE on the BBC’s Hard Talk programme. Well worth a watch as it brings in Richer & Haslam’s replication too.

To hear more about the original Stanford Prison Experiment and more of Zimbardo’s thesis on tytanny - if you’re in the North - Cara Flanagan is organising another Zimbardo Conference in Edinburgh. 

Dr. Zimbardo will share his views on the nature of evil, revisit the Milgram Obedience studies, his Stanford Prison Experiment, take us to the torture dungeon at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib, and describe why it is essential to understand not only individual temperament, but also situational forces, and powerful system influences that create, justify and maintain, evil-generating situations. Finally, we go from examining how ordinary people do very bad things to how other ordinary people do very good things that qualify as Heroic. We uncover a new perspective on Ordinary Heroes, and why we need to encourage everyone to become Heroes-In-Waiting ready to act on behalf of others or a moral cause when the situation arises. 

Also speaking at the conference is Christina Maslach (Zimbardo’s wife who was the Post Grad student that called a halt to the SPE), Phil Banyard and Mike Cardwell.  Well worth the trip and good to see some conferences up North!

Unique clinically proven games to build self confidence and reduce stress

Tags: AS, core studies, reicher haslam, Social, Zimbardo

Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) occur in 1% of the population, are strongly heritable, and result from atypical neurodevelopment. Classic autism and Asperger Syndrome (AS) share difficulties in social functioning, communication and coping with change, alongside unusually narrow interests. IQ is average or above in AS with average or even precocious age of language onset. Many areas within the ’social brain’ are atypical in ASC. ASC has a profile of impaired empathy alongside strong ’systemising’. Hence, ASC involves disability (when empathy is required) and talent (when strong systemising would be advantageous). Psychological interventions that target empathy by harnessing systemising may help.

To save you counting - that’s actually Autism in 99 words! Thanks to MindHacks for this. 

Improve self confidence with unique clinically proven games

Tags: AS, autism, Baron-Cohen, Cognitive, core studies

Hot off the press: The new Official BBC prison website has been launched by Reicher & Haslam.

www.BBCPrisonStudy.org

Having had a link through this new site it offers a massive amount of resources, insight and information about the study that is new to the 2008 specification.

The site has a great resources section with ideas in depth, related publications and loads of quantitative data from the study.

The BBC Prison Study explores the social and psychological consequences of putting people in groups of unequal power. It examines when people accept inequality and when they challenge it.  Findings from the study were first broadcast by the BBC in 2002. They have since been published in leading scientific journals and textbooks and have also entered the core student syllabus. They have changed our basic understanding of how groups and power work.

There’s some really nice clips from the study which are a lot easier to digest than the full series (3 DVD’s - but if you want that you can get it there too!)

Well worth a look if you’re interested in the study; and a really excellent resource for those teaching and learning OCR Psychology.

Thanks to Steve Reicher for letting me know about the launch.

Reduce stress with scientifically tested Mindhabits games

Tags: AS, core studies, reicher haslam, Social, Zimbardo

I’ve written a lot about Autism here over the years and spoken about the different ways in which it has been suggested it was possible to find out if a person or child was autistic; from the Sally-Anne test to this more recent suggestion from Baron-Cohen et al. - the eyes and emotion recognition. 

In his 1997 study Baron-Cohen used adult participants with autism or Aspergers and compared there ability to recognise emotions from only seeing the eyes of a target person with ‘normal’ participants and further group of participants with Tourettes.  He found that those with Autism performed significantly worse on the ‘eye task’.  He suggested that this could have significance relating to those with autism’s poor social skills and difficulty with social interaction. 

If you want to read more about the study you can pop over to Holah and read his summary of the study or read the full-text article here at PsychBLOG.

Have a go on the test yourself and see how you do.  You can get PDF versions of the Eye test from the Autism Research Centre or visit Glenn Rowe’s site where he has created an online version of the test.  You can also view the results of over 15,000 peoples tests there too which is an interesting comparison and a massive sample for comparison to the Baron-Cohen (1997) research.

Tags: AS, autism, Baron-Cohen, Cognitive, new studies, resources, Spec 2008, websites

I’ve just read an account of a participant from the original Milgram experiment. The account in the January 2004 issue of Jewish Currents recounts Joseph Dimow’s experience at the hands of Milgram and the experimenter.

When is it proper to refuse to obey authority figures, even if they have been democratically chosen for their positions?  In 1961, I participated in a famous experimental study about obedience and authority — although I and other participants were led to believe it was a study of memory and learning.

It’s not very often that we get such an insight into an experiment - from the participant’s point-of-view.  Although it has been written many years after the experiment if some of the suggestions in the article are true Milgram wasn’t entirly truthful about his experiment in his write-up and there seems to have been a lot more psychological harm caused.

Then the most disturbing part of the entire experience occurred: The professor brought in the learner and I was flabbergasted. His face was covered in tears and he looked haggard. He offered his hand and thanked me for stopping the experiment, saying that the shocks hadn’t really hurt but anticipating them had been dreadful. I was confused as to whether he was in earnest or acting. I left unsure, and waited outside for the learner so I could discuss it with him.

It’s a fantastic read for anyone who studies Milgram - a participants view of one of the most notable psychological experiments of the 20th Century. 

Thanks to Debs for finding this excellent article. 

Reduce stress with scientifically tested Mindhabits games

Tags: AS, core studies, Milgram, obedience, Social

A great guest post from Amit on his experiences of teaching the new Maguire study and how he linked it in with memory and even got onto a playing field!

Notwithstanding with the fact that we might be an experienced teacher there is that little element of irky nervousness while teaching something new. So was my challenge to teach Maguire to groups of students who are barely couple of weeks old in the world of learning formal psychology.

This is my navigation through Maguire.

I started with the concept of plasticity of the brain. There are ample clinical case studies one can use where it has been demonstrated that the brain is an extremely resilient organ which is able to change and modify to meet the new demands. Particularly useful are the cases of hemispherectomy where a complete hemisphere has been removed for some patients, yet over a period of time the remaining hemisphere has been able to develop capabilities to take over the functions of the lost hemisphere. For example, despite the fact left side of body is controlled by right hemisphere, when right hemisphere is removed for clinical reason, brain still somehow managed to operate the left side (of course with some limitations). It generally fascinates students (I think… everybody).

Then I asked students to draw map of their route from home to college with sign gestalt (the term used by Tolman for things which we call signposts like you turn right from the Bus stop…so bus stop is a sign gestalt). That led to discussions on mental maps, how detailed some maps are compared to others.

Then we went to the football pitch where I used some cones to sign post to lay medium difficulty route in the middle of the pitch. Then students had to walk that route. Then students had to retrace the route blindfolded. Most people only managed to trace up to three to four signposts before they made mistakes. So then we related that with Miller’s seven plus minus two (which we had discussed in an earlier lesson).

So we discussed about various types of memories and possibility of different locations in the brain for different memories. It was an ideal place to introduce the Hippocampi. One can spend the next 20 odd minutes on hippocampii its locations and functions. We also talked about research on Albert Einstein’s brain and more glial cells in his brain. It led to two possibilities emerged -he was born with different structure or because of excessive use of a particular type of functions.

It was perfect time to introduce Maguire ….asking key question that if London taxi drivers deal with maps and routes and space everyday…day after day….will there be change in their brain?

New, unique brain training game that helps you feel better, not just think better!

Tags: 4Teachers, guest post, Maguire, memory, new studies, Spec 2008, teaching

Graphic pictures of diseased lungs, rotting teeth and throat cancer will be placed on cigarette packets from next week to show the health dangers of smoking.

As of next week cigarette packets will no longer have the ‘Smoking Kills’ or ‘Smoking harms you and those around you’ messages on their side but a much stronger image: diseased lungs, rotting teeth and throat cancer.  These are just some of the images that will soon appear on your favouriate brand to get the message of the dangers of smoking across to all. 

The messages are obviously there to get the health message across to smokers and there’s a lot of psychology behind them.  But, have the cigarette manufacturers and government gone too far this time?  

Yerks-Dodson would have us believe that there’s an optimum level of arousal that will ensure the best effect or best performance on a task.  The messages that currently adorn our cigerette packets have been around since 2003 and almost wash over smokers now, they have habituated to the messages they provide. 

The have even become the but of jokes (man: “I just make sure that I get the ’causes low birth weight’”) or even a whole new set of ‘cover-’em-up’ stickers.  Maybe it is time that we have some more shocking messages to inform the smoker of the potential (actual?) dangers of smoking. 

Even with the amount of money being spent by the NHS on it’s quit smoking campaigns, not being able to smoke in pubs and bars and many companies not allowing smoking on site over 10 million people still smoke in the UK and it’s estimated that over half of them will die early as a result. 

Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said: “I welcome the introduction of picture warnings on tobacco product packaging, which show smokers the grim reality of the effects smoking can have on their health. This will help to maintain the momentum of the increasing number of people who have given up smoking following England going smoke free in 2007.

“Written health warnings have encouraged many smokers to stop smoking. These new stark picture warnings emphasise the harsh health realities of continuing to smoke. I hope they will make many more think hard about giving up, and get the help they need to stop smoking for good.” 

Have we gone too far? How do you explain to your child what those pictures are on the side of your fag packet… and it’s always going to be fun going to the news agents now to be faced with a wall of death, cancer and suffering as you pay for your morning paper. 

And for those readers who do smoke, a little light-hearted relief from the legend that was Bill Hicks… 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anxiety reduction using unique, scientifically proven game

Tags: A2, addiction, adverts, health, health promotion, news commentary, smoking

Harnessing the power of the web for Psychology Teachers
Course leaders Jamie Davies (PsychBLOG) and Mark Holah (Holah.co.uk)

Thursday 6th November 2008, 10am-4pm. Regus Centre, London.

Click here for Course Flyer and Booking Details

Jamie Davies along with Mark Holah and Cara Flanagan we will be giving a hands-on guided tour of wikis, forums, file sharing, blogging, social networking and more.

This practical workshop should develop your ability to confidently interact with such technologies and enable you to make better use of these techniques for learning and teaching psychology. We will take a light hearted and informative romp through the history of this technology, suggesting how it is being used and try to predict what will happen in the future.

We will take a light hearted and informative romp through the history of this technology, suggesting how it is being used and predict what will happen in the future. And like all discussions about the internet this will be out of date in a week.

During the first part of the day we will give an overview of what sites are out there and focus on their ability to facilitate the learning experience for our students. Discussion about the usefulness of these different technologies followed with a heated debate about the use of social networking sites.

The rest of the day will be a practical workshop that should develop your ability to confidently interact with such technologies and therefore enable you to make better use of these techniques for learning and teaching psychology.

Suitable for all, from those who have a less-than-healthy relationship with the internet to those who are internet-o-phobic.

For more details on the course, provisional programme, and contact/booking details see our course flyer or contact Cara Flanagan through South West Conferences.

Positive thinking games for building well being

Tags: 4Teachers, conference, inset, websites

In these days of interactive games, brain training, and other make ‘yourself better’ programs Mind Habits brings something to the table that is supported by research and looks at stress, self-esteem and confidence in a fun and practical way.

Worrying about your next date or the big presentation to your boss? Feeling low? Instead of running to the closest book-store to find a trendy self-help book, get MindHabits. Find relief at the click of a mouse. A video game that is actually good for you? Now, that’s a concept!

Based on social intelligence research conducted at McGill University, these stress busting, confidence boosting games use simple, fun-to-play exercises that help players develop and maintain a more positive state of mind.

I’ve spent the last two weeks playing around with MindHabits and it’s been great fun. There’s loads of different types of ‘games’ that track many different aspects of ‘you’ and shows you trends and differences over time.  Some of the games are a little repetitive but you can see yourself improving over time really quickly - especially as you go through the levels.  My only annoyance with the software, and it is a little one, is the little ‘helper’ that pops up telling you what to do - sometimes you just want to get on with it.

As well as the game there’s a detailed website that goes along with it (MindHabits.com) which has a wealth of information on the science behind our ‘mind habits‘ and the research that has supported the game.  Much of which is quite readable and accessible.

Here are a few screen shots of the software in action. But if you’re still wanting more you can pop over to the MindHabits website and try their on-line demo to see what the game is like.

From a teaching point of view I can see how this game could be great for teaching stress and stress management. It’s interactive and fun. Also, there’s plenty of stuff to get students thinking about how and why the system works. There’s some great research behind the software and you might also want your students to have a read of this.

Considering the cost of most interactive ’self-help’ games, at only $19.99 (around £10) for the full version it’s well worth having a copy of Mind Habits around to play with or use as a demonstration in class.  PsychBLOG recommended for fun, learning and self-education.

This was an unpaid review but I did receive a full copy of the game to have a play on from MindHabits. Thanks.

Build self esteem with fun, scientifically proven game

Tags: 4Teachers, games, resources, review, stress

Thanks to Heather Johnson for this excellent guest post on how to bring IT into the classroom.

Web 2.0 has created many opportunities in all different kinds of fields since its inception within the past decade. The educational field has not been dismissed from the phenomena as there are many creative ways that educators can incorporate the capabilities of Web 2.0 in their lesson plans. While this may seem new to many teachers out there because it is, there are many ways that a student’s learning experience can be improved through Web 2.0. Here are a few examples of how this emerging industry can help educators in the classroom by making learning interactive and fun:

1. Set up a blog for your class. If you create a blog for your individual classes your students can have a forum where they can talk about issues in the class outside of school. Be sure to set up guidelines that must be adhered to if students are going to write in the blog. It has to be taken seriously and school rules must be followed. Students can talk with each other in this forum about upcoming projects and post general questions for all to consider.

2. Teach computer skills even if you’re not a computer teacher. Students need to learn how to use computers properly and search the internet for information these days. There is no getting around it. When students reach college they’ll be left behind if they don’t know how to perform their research properly. Take a few minutes every now and again and show your students how you would use the internet to do research for you own papers.

3. Post class lectures online. Develop a web site for your class and post key lectures online. This is a great way for students to study for an upcoming exam and helps the student that drifted off during the original lecture. It’s also a great tool for you as a teacher to observe your own teaching style and find out what works and what doesn’t.

4. Use a wiki as a textbook. This is an emerging teaching technique on the college level where a professor produces a wiki that the students actually take ownership over. They are able to post questions and learn more from each other than they ever would in a traditional classroom.

5. Post class materials on the web. In addition to posting lectures online it’s a good idea to post copies of handouts that students can download. If you’re comfortable posting class notes on the site then go ahead and do that too. Just be careful that your students aren’t solely relying on these tools to get through your class and are then zoning out in the actual class meetings.

This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who writes on the subject of Obtaining a Teacher Certificate. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

Improve self confidence with unique clinically proven games

Tags: 4Teachers, e-learning, resources, websites

Over on the BBC website there are a collection of annual lectures called the Reith Lectures.  Each year specialists in their field give lectures on their area.  Back in 2003 the lectures were called ‘The Emerging Mind‘ and were lead by the noted neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran (who I’ve talked about here a few times in relation to his work on phantom pain).  

• Phantoms in the brain
• Synapses and the self
• The artful brain
• Purple numbers and sharp cheese
• Neuroscience - the new philosophy

There’s a great collection of resources over there as well as the lectures and the BBC Reith Lecture page is well worth a look.

Reduce stress with scientifically tested Mindhabits games

Tags: resources

This is a quick ‘heads-up’ to all. 

Sage Journals are offering free access to a massive number of Psychology, Counselling and Psycharity journals until the 30th September.  

Might come in useful to students writing assignments or coursework; or just for those who’d like to do a little extra reading.  Well worth a look.

Get over to Sage Journals registration page to take advantage of this offer.

Positive thinking games for building well being

Tags: 4Teachers, freebies, journals, websites

Following the first ‘So you want to be a psychologist?’ post we have a guest post from the author of MyClinPsychLife - a blog following a trainee clinical psychologist - about how to get into Clinical Psychology as a career.

So you’re studying psychology and loving it …. you think you may want to be a clinical psychologist… but you haven’t got a clue where to start?!

I remember that feeling well….. fast forward a few years and I’m about to embark on my final year as a Trainee Clinical Psychologist! I hope this article will be useful in helping you to think about a career in Clinical Psychology…..

So what are the Entry Requirements?
The British Psychological Society (BPS) states both academic and clinical requirements for gaining a place on a clinical psychology training programme.

1. Academic Requirements
You will need ‘Graduate Basis For Registration’ (GBR) with the BPS. What is GBR? Having GBR means your studies have equipped you with the knowledge and skills that the BPS consider to be an important foundation to further training in psychology.

Ideally, you will have a degree that provides GBR. However, if you have completed a degree in a subject other than psychology or your psychology degree doesn’t provide you with GBR, you will need to do a ‘conversion course’ (usually 1 year full time) or the ‘Qualifying Exam’.

Further information about GBR can be found from the BPS website here.

Academic requirements are pretty stringent for clinical psychology training and it is usual to have a 2.1 or above; courses are looking for evidence of good academic performance.

2. Clinical Requirements
The BPS requires that you have gained ‘relevant experience’ before you apply. This means you have gained some sense of what work as a clinical psychologist may involve, by being exposed to the types of clients and services that clinical psychologists work with.

You can start gaining this experience while you are studying, although you will need to plan your time well as you don’t want it to jeopardise your academic performance.

Gaining clinical experience:
Enthusiastic psychology students and graduates are often just the people charities and other organisations are looking for as volunteers. In my experience, being proactive about phoning/e-mailing relevant organisations and asking what opportunities were available was always warmly received!

Here are a few ideas for gaining relevant experience: .

• Volunteering with the ‘Niteline’ Listening Service at university/The Samaritans Helpline
• Becoming a Mentor for young people (e.g. with The Princes Trust)
• Volunteering with hospitals, therapeutic communities and projects for young people/ people with learning disabilities etc
• Working as an Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) Tutor - working with a child with autism
• Advocacy work for older people/people with learning disabilities
• Completing a sandwich year of relevant experience in your degree if your university offers this option

Once you’ve graduated (congratulations!) the goal is to engage in a role in which you are supervised by a Clinical Psychologist. In the past, the ideal jobs for this were Assistant Psychologist and Research Assistant posts. More recently, the government has committed to improving public access to psychological therapies and there are increasingly jobs such as ‘Low Intensity Therapists’, ‘Primary Mental Health Care Practitioner’ and ‘Primary Care Graduate Workers’ which can give you very relevant experience and supervision from a clinical psychologist.

Job vacancies are advertised in:

• BPS Appointments Memorandum (www.psychapp.co.uk)
• NHS Jobs (www.jobs.nhs.uk)
• Jobs in Research, Science, Academic and Related Professions (www.jobs.ac.uk)

Applying to Clinical Psychology Training
Once you’ve got your degree and some relevant experience, it’s time to apply. Most people need to spend a year or two gaining relevant experience before feeling confident to embark on the application process, which requires you to complete an application form, attend interviews and increasingly, complete additional interview tasks.

Competition for training places is fierce. The Clearing House for Postgraduate Courses in Clinical Psychology (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/chpccp/index.htm), cite that the success rate in 2007 was only 25%. However don’t let this statistic depress you too much, after all, each year almost 600 applicants (583 in 2007) become Trainee Clinical Psychologists! As the advert goes, in a few years time, “It could be you….”

Want to find out more?

I write a blog about Clinical Psychology Training and have just finished an e-book, ‘Clinical Psychology Training – An Inside Guide‘.

For more information, check out my website: http://myclinpsychlife.googlepages.com/

Anxiety reduction using unique, scientifically proven game

Tags: careers, clinical, guest post, so you want to be a psychologist

We all experience pain in different ways depending on individual differences, arousal at the time and habituation to chronic pain.  Some good examples of this is recent research which has shown that doctors can actually ‘turn off’ parts of their brain which would react to seeing others in pain.

What is central to future research into pain and pain experience is that we’re aware:

Although we typically associate pain with physical damage to the body, thinking only in terms of physical damage is counter-productive. We also need to tackle the psychology and neuroscience of pain both to fully understand it and to help people affected by it. [Mind Hacks]

Going even further we could even look at the sociological influences on pain perception.  Recent research reported in the May 2008 issue of The Lancet (via Providentia) has found some interesting factors that are associated with perception of pain (or it could be argued the ability to cope with pain).  Using a representative stratified sample of over 10,000 Americans were contacted (of which just shy of 4,000 responded) to inquire about their experience of pain or chronic (pain experienced for over three months) pain.

Those with lower income or less education spent a higher proportion of time in pain and reported higher average pain than did those with higher income or more education. The average pain rating increased with age, although it reached a plateau between the ages of about 45 years and 75 years, with little difference between men and women. Satisfaction with life or health and the pain indicators tended to move in opposite directions. [from Krueger & Stone, 2008 abstract]

This could be seen in two ways: are those on lower incomes experiencing more pain or are they just not as good as coping with it?  Also, it seems to suggest that we either become more sensitive to pain as we age or again we are less able to cope with pain as we age.  It seems that this research asks more questions that it answers but it raises some great questions.

Krueger and Stone used a 6-point likert scale to measure their participants perception of pain which raises more issues as to the reliability and validity of such simple rating scales for a complex thing as pain perception.  Maybe they should have used something more sophisticated like this example from Scrubs.

If you’re still wanting more on pain then you could pop over to the How to Cope with Pain blog and read their May Pain Carnival where there’s links to loads more great articles on pain, pain perception and current thinking in the area.

Reduce stress with scientifically tested Mindhabits games

Tags: A2, health, pain, pain measurement

This is a heads up for a new show that coming: A new science series for the BBC in which famous people ask one big question: why are we the way we are? Thanks to Cara Flanagan (and the fab Folens Blog) for the heads up on the TV Show. If you know of any show that you think is relevant to psychology do contact me so I can get it out to the masses.

Three celebrities go on a mission to discover the source of their defining trait, talent or characteristic. With the help of scientific testing, the latest psychology techniques, brain science and genetics, they attempt to answer a question that affects everyone - how do nature and nurture shape us?

In the first programme, John Barrowman embarks on a journey of self-discovery to find out the truth about his sexuality. John is a successful actor, musical performer, dancer, singer and TV presenter. For as long as he has been aware of his sexuality, John has been convinced that he was born gay and firmly believes that homosexuality is not a choice. But did nature really mould him or did nurture have a part to play?

John undertakes a series of tests including a DNA examination that is compared with his straight brother’s, and he takes to the streets of LA to try out a theory that the origin of homosexuality is linked to events in the womb that may affect the foetus.

Throughout the programme, as well as picking up clues from psychologists and scientists, John also meets some celebrities and extraordinary people who help shed light on the origins of their traits.

The show starts next Thursday (24th July 2008) at 9pm on BBC 1. If you miss it on the night remember you can get it on BBC iPlayer for a week after and hopefully we’ll have it up on PsychClips for all to use after. Looks like it could be a great video for highlighting and starting a discussion on the nature-nurture debate.

While we’re on the topic: it seems that the ‘nature of us’ or whatever you want to call it is the ‘in thing’ at the moment - even Orange (mobile) has joined in …

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Tags: nature-nurture, perspectives, tv, what's on

One of the most talked about studies, both here on PsychBLOG and throughout popular psychology, is Milgram’s study of obedience.  Here he asked a volunteer sample of men from the New Haven area to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person (a confederate).  How many people, both teachers and students alike asked themselves the same question: would I pull that switch?

The results from his study (well what was actually a series of studies) can force one to reflect heavily on the behaviour of the participants in the study, but also a lot closer to home.  A recent article in the New York Times titled ‘Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?’ puts a great perspective on the research as a whole.

Consider the psychologist Stanley Milgram’s obedience studiesof the early 1960s that together form one of the darkest mirrors the field has held up to the human face. In a series of about 20 experiments, hundreds of decent, well-intentioned people agreed to deliver what appeared to be increasingly painful electric shocks to another person, as part of what they thought was a learning experiment. The “learner” was in fact an actor, usually seated out of sight in an adjacent room, pretending to be zapped…

… In short, the Milgram experiments may have shown physical, biological differences in moral decision making and obedience, as well as psychological ones. Some people can be as quick on the draw as Doc Holliday when they feel something’s not right. Others need a little time to do the right thing, thank you, and would rather not be considered sadistic prison guards just yet.

It is amazing that a peice of research that is over 50 years old still has such a powerful hold over our understanding of obedience and other social behaviours.

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Tags: AS, Milgram, news commentary, Social, video

No! It’s your psychology blog!

Now I’m back from the ATP Conference and recovered it’s time to announce our new project which actually formed the basis of one of the workshops we did.  Also, a big hi to all those who saw me at the conference and commented on our work on-line. Thanks :)

For the past few weeks we’ve (Mark and I) have been working on a new project. Over the last year we’ve both got into blogging in a really big way - my with PsychBLOG and Mark’s PsychNews and we’ve really seen how blogging is an excellent educational tool that everyone should be able to get too.

So … this got us thinking - how could we help all you avid readers get your psychology blog off the ground. We’ve come up with Psylent.co.uk.

At Psylent.co.uk you can sign up for your very own, brand-spanking-shiny-new blog that you can write yourself. Be it writing about psychology (just like I do) or using it as a forum for your students then go for it. Student or teacher (or anyone else really) is welcome to have a free account. All that we ask is that it’s psychology(ish) related.

If you’re still looking for inspiration or not too sure what you could use your blog for then we have some ideas for you.  And here is the presentation that I gave guiding you through the process of signing up for a blog and embedding a video.

| View | Upload your own

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Tags: ATP, blogs, e-learning, resources, websites

Could social influence be having a positive effect for once?

It’s easy to blame those people around us when we try to rationalise why some take up habits.  It’s just easy to say that the behaviour is learned from those around us - social learning theory - who’s behaviour is imitated.  I have been one of those people myself; turning to social learning theory to explain why children might learn negative behaviours or even placing part of the blame for violent behaviour on children playing video games.

However, one concept that I touched on when looking at the ‘Children See: Children Do’ video clip, was that we need to be good role models.  More support for this has come from research published last month that suggests that quitting smoking can be triggered by those around you quitting themselves.

The urge to smoke is contagious, but quitting apparently is, too. A team of researchers who showed that obesity can spread person-to-person has found a similar pattern with smoking cessation: A smoker is more likely to kick the habit if a spouse, friend, co-worker or sibling did. Christakis, 2008

Christakis’ findings back up previous studies showing that peer influence plays a key role in people’s decision to stop lighting up and provide evidence that the “buddy system” used by smoking cessation, weight loss and alcoholism programs to change addictive behaviour works.

[The researchers] examined the social lives of 12,067 people in the Framingham Heart Study, which has been tracking the health of residents of that Boston suburb from 1971 to 2003. They were able to reconstruct people’s ties to one another since participants had to list contact information for their family, friends, co-workers and neighbours so researchers would not lose track of them over the years. The prevalence of smokers in the Framingham study over the years mirrored national trends.

This could be explained in terms of social comparison (of which I talked about in relation to obesity a few months ago).  Now that smokers are being marginalised - being made to stand in the rain at pubs, having to ‘excuse’ themselves from friends to only have to be in the cold with the other smokers - could it be that we’re looking around us and thinking that it’s the time to quit?

However, the researchers are careful and state that it’s hard to tease out whether social influence is mainly responsible for a whole group kicking the habit. Other factors such as public bans on smoking or studies highlighting the harmful effects of smoking may also play a role.

What do you think? Any recent quitters around? Why did you give up the habit?

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