References

As I said in my email, it is essential in all academic subjects that you include sources in essays and reports.

One piece of advice I have already mentioned is to keep track of your sources as you go along, as it’s much quicker than having to go back and find sources again. If you are working on the computer then just type them/paste them at the foot of your document and you can sort out the formatting later. If you are using pencil and paper, ensure you write them out when you take notes on a study – do it at the start so you don’t forget.

For all studies from the Higher course and from the textbook you will be able to copy the reference from the back of the textbook or booklet. You can also cut-n-paste references from my research studies blog.

Note that if you take info from Wikipedia (which you should be wary of doing btw), they have a useful ‘cite this page’ tool (in a box on the left ) which takes you to a list of possible styles – pick the first one, APA style.

‘Citations’: while the end section is called references, the technical name for the name and year in your text is an ‘in-text citation’. Some people also refer to the references at the end as citations, or use the term citation to mean both together (the bit in the text and the full details at the end). Just to confuse you…

One other thing: a bibliography is a background reading list whereas a reference section contains all of the works and only those works cited by the author in the text. In psychology report you have a references section, there is no need to put in background reading e.g. textbooks.

Many of you have asked about which university psychology departments I would recommend. There are a lot of things to take into account when you choose your university, and the reputation of the department is only one of them. However for your information, here are the ratings of the major Scottish psych departments from the RAE 2008 (see www.rae.ac.uk for more info). I have included Cambridge, Sheffield, Bangor and Ulster for comparison!

(Red=% of staff who are internationally acclaimed, top of their field; lilac=% who are internationally reknowned but not quite as good as the reds, and the next two numbers are the divisions below that! The number in brackets is the number of staff, full time equivalent, who were included.)

St Andrews (33.90) 20 45 35 0

Glasgow (26.00) 20 40 40 0

Edinburgh (38.51) 15 45 35 5

Aberdeen (26.00) 5 45 40 10

Dundee (22.00) 5 30 50 15

Stirling (24.20) 5 10 55 30

Strath (17.00) 0 30 45 25

Heriot Watt (9.20) 0 5 30 65

Glasgow Cal (18.70) 0 10 40 50

Abertay (10.00) 0 15 40 45

Bangor (39.00) 20 45 25 10

Ulster (27.00) 5 20 45 30

Sheffield (40.45) 15 45 35 5

Cambridge (24.00) 35 50 15 0

RI: Sections

Here's a brief summary of the sections in an RI write-up, and how many marks they are worth:

Abstract: 5
Introduction: 10
Method: 8
Results: 8
Discussion: 12
References: 3

Plus 4 marks for style and presentation, taking the total to 50.

RI: Pitfalls

As you begin the process of writing up your RI (and practice RI), I would like to hightlight some common pitfalls: places where people often mess up and lose marks unneccesarily...

• Missing out the references section, or putting in a mixture of references and bibliography (book list e.g. Higher Psychology textbooks).
• Major flaws in the results section, e.g. missing or unclear graphs, not labelling tables and graphs, not explaining what statistics have been used, failing to put raw data and calculations into an appendix.
• Incorrect or incomplete hypotheses - your teacher can check these for you.
• Not sticking to the SQA 'brief' - this document describes what you should do in your study. If you don't follow it, you could lose several marks.
• Failing to include a conclusion, and suggestions for future research studies.
  

None of these flaws is big on its own, but collectively they could bring a mark down from an 'A' to a 'C'.

Top ten psychology studies

Here's a link to a site which has a lot of interesting 'top tens' and other accessible articles.
In this one they present a selection of 10 great psychology studies, and invite you to vote for the best one. You should be familiar with at least some of these from our course so far!

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/top-ten-psychology-studies.php

Notice board

Hi, since I spent all of...hmm, half an hour at least making the Psychology notice board looking nice for open day, I invite you all to come up to C8 and look at it! If you can't find the time, here is a picture of what it looks like:

If you can guess the theme, you win a stress dot ;)

Essay competition

Corpus Christi College (Cambridge University) is holding its annual essay competition for subjects including Psychology. This is aimed at A-Level and Higher students. Each school can enter up to two essays. Your essay should be 1,500 - 2,00o words in answer to one of the following questions:

1) Why do some people oppose immigration?
2) Is it possible to predict at birth which children are most likely to behave anti-socially?
3) "It is vital that action is taken to improve the health of those who regularly drink above the recommended daily limits for lower risk drinking" (Department of Health). What kind of action can be taken to encourage people to drink less alcohol, and how successful are the options likely to be?

It is noted that students are not expected to be studying any of the above subject matter on their course, and that they should draw on information from across the curriculum in their answers.

Let me know if you're interested - prize money is available, plus it would look fantastic on your CV!

Topics

Just a quick word on topics - any of you browsing through this blog might notice changes compared to previous years. Just to clarify:

There are three topics in unit 1, but we only study two of them (the third topic, Early Socialisation, will be in the exam paper but you won't answer those questions).

There are several option topics in unit 3, and I have tended to vary these from year to year depending on what I think will be of most interest, and lead to the best exam results. This year the syllabus has changed slightly, and in light of this I think the best ones to do will be Prejudice and Atypical Behaviour.

Et al

Some of you were asking about 'et al'. As you know, this is often used to shorten the researchers' names in a text, so you might see a reference to Rahe et al (1970).

The convention in psychology writing (such as articles and textbooks) is for one or two names to be given in full - e.g. Miller (1956), Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) - but any more than that get reduced to the first name from the publication plus 'et al'.

Apparently the latin origin of the term is the word alius meaning 'other'. Et al is an abbreviation of the plural et alli, so it means 'and others'. However, it would be unusual in speech or writing to actually say 'and others'; the convention would be to say 'and colleagues', e.g. "Lazarus and colleagues investigated the transactional nature of stress...".

Hope that clears it up!

Key aspects of the WMM and MSM theories of memory

A summary of the points about these two models that I wrote on the whiteboard. This is the kind of information you should put in if asked in a test/exam to describe or explain the model(s).

MSM:
3 separate stores
Linear - info goes through each store in turn
Rehearsal is key to LTM encoding
Passive storage

WMM:
Modalities of slave systems allow two different tasks to be done at once
Flexible - info travels between slave systems, controlled by C.E.
Processing time is based on real time to do tasks (e.g. articulate words)
Active processing of everyday tasks

Course info - the exam

The Exam

The external assessment comprises the exam, which is worth 100 marks (40 each on the material from units 1 and 3, and 20 from unit 2), and the Research Investigation, which is worth the equivalent of 25 exam marks (roughly 20% overall).

There will be a 2-and-a-half hour exam in late May/early June, with three sections, one on each unit. The section on unit 1 consists of two questions on each topic, which will be worth either 10 marks each, or 8 marks and 12 marks. Unit 2 (Investigating Behaviour) will be assessed with short answer questions, based around a research scenario. Unit 3 will combine one set of short answer questions and one essay question.

Past papers plus the SQA 'specimen paper' are available on the SQA website www.sqa.org.uk as are marking instructions. Please note that a few changes have been made to the content of the course starting with year 2009-10, so don't worry about unfamiliar questions in previous year's exams.

Course info - Prelim

Prelim & school prize

There will be a prelim in January/February, and the mark will appear on your spring report, and will also inform estimates of your grade which go to the SQA and universities. The prelim will be shorter than the final exam, and will focus on research evidence.

As the SQA require appeals evidence to cover all three units of the Higher, it will be necessary to run an additional ‘2nd prelim’, which will take place in late April/early May. Although this is a busy time for all students, the exam practice will be very useful preparation, and this will be a good time to start your exam revision.

The student(s) with the most marks in NABs and January prelim combined will be awarded the prize(s) for psychology, and the top 25% of students will appear on the ‘Order of Merit’ for the year.

Course info - NABs

NABs

Your knowledge of the units covered will be tested with SQA unit tests throughout the course. You are required to gain 50% (a ‘C’ pass) or more in all of these, as without doing so you cannot gain your higher, even if you pass the exam.

You have up to three attempts to pass each NAB. You must attend on the day of a NAB (see appendix 4, below, for provisional dates); any unexplained absences count as one of these three attempts.

If NABs are failed, a time must be arranged with your teacher to do a reassessment. The reassessment will consist of a completely new set of questions, so you must be prepared to answer on any aspect of the unit content. Again, failure to attend as arranged must count as one out of the three possible attempts, so make sure you take a note of time and place.

Tests will usually be marked and returned within a week of the date they are sat; resits and late tests may take longer before they are returned.

Course info - Units

Unit 1: The Psychology of the Individual

This unit will look at two key areas (‘domains’) of psychology, selecting one topic from each for in-depth study:

The cognitive domain. Topic: memory
The biological domain. Topic: stress

This unit will be assessed by a 30-minute ‘NAB’ unit test in class in October or November.

Unit 2: Investigating Behaviour

This unit will look at the main ways in which psychologists conduct research. These are known as ‘research methods’ and consist of the experimental method, the case-study method, the survey method, and the observation method. More details on the content of this unit appears in appendix 1 (page 9).

This first section of the unit will be assessed by a 30-minute NAB, and constitutes 50% of the internal assessment for this unit.

Students must also conduct their own ‘Research Investigation’ (RI); the RI will be externally marked and the final version must be submitted to the school by the deadline date.

The process of planning and keeping a log during the RI is essential, and a Practical Portfolio comprising a plan and log must be submitted to your teacher prior to handing in the RI. The Practical Portfolio contributes the other 50% of the internal assessment for this unit

Unit 3: The Individual in the social context

This unit will look at two key areas (‘domains’) of psychology, again with a topic from each:

The social domain. Topic: Prejudice.
The individual differences domain. Topic: Atypical Behaviour.

This unit will be assessed by a 30-minute unit test in class in March.

** More details of the content of these units in separate posts! **

Hello! Goodbye!

Hi all, it was great to see some of you at the yearbook non-launch, and thanks for the comments on my Hans Selye book.

I hope you can pop in at some point, but if not, good luck, maybe see you around!

p.s. I have bought textbooks from some people for £12, let me know or pop in in August/Sept if you have a good condition one that you want to sell. I can then pass it on to one of next year's S6 for a small profit the same price.

On projective tests

Useful and interesting article on projective tests such as the Rorschach inkblot test (see picture) - a sceptical viewpoint that is well worth considering.



http://www.psychologicalscience.org/newsresearch/publications/journals/sa1_2.pdf

A couple of issues

A couple of issues that have come up in late NABs, prelims etc:

1. Conditions of the IV. Don't get this mixed up with extraneous variables. An IV has two or more values. For example with a memory test, the IV could be sitting it with or without music as a distraction. When participants are then tested, there are two experimental 'conditions'. So the two 'conditions of the IV' in this example would be 1) Memory test with music and 2) memory test without music.


2. Effects of stress. People tend to produce good examples of physical effects, but neglect mental health effects e.g. irritable, unable to sleep, anger, memory loss, paranoia. Long term: greater liklihood of developing major psychological disorder e.g. depression, anorexia.


3. Random sampling - this means that everyone in the population has the same chance of being chosen. A list of names and random numbers can be used, or with a small sample, pulling names from a hat is also random. Picking people off the street or corridor is not random, as you will get a biased sample, with certain people more likely to be chosen. Take these toy soldiers for example:

A week to go

Well, just a week to go folks, I hope the study is going well.

A couple of points about exam technique:

- Look carefully at the mark allocation for each question, which will be divided into K&U (knoweldge and understanding) and A&E (analysis and evaluation). For example, a ten mark question will usually be 6 K&U and 4 A&E. In prelims, many people have included information for the K&U part, but forgotten about evaulation, which is usually necessary for the A&E marks.

- Similarly, remember that an accurate and relevant evaluation point is worth 2 marks. This will usually be a strength or weakness of a theory/study/technique. Research can also be used for evaluation, e.g. by stating that the results of a study supports or does not support a theory.

- Put in detail about research studies. You will pick up marks for accurately stating things like aim, number of participants, percentages in results. Also, don't just include research where it is specifically asked for (e.g. 'Describe a research study...') but use research to flesh out all your extended-answer questions and essay questions.

- You absolutely must answer all the questions. Markers are a nice bunch of people really, they may give you a mark or two for a weak answer but if you write nothing then you are guaranteed to get zero.

- You don't have to answer the questions in order. Consider tackling the essay question in Section C first, rather than leaving it to the end (and yes, you will get an essay question in either Conformity&Obedience or Intelligence. Look at the past papers to get an idea of which is most likely to appear this year!).

Hope this helps, I'll be around on my usual days this week to answer questions, mark practice answers etc. Revision classes 10.30 room A24.

Pitfalls

Let's start with some common pitfalls: places where people often mess up and lose marks unneccesarily...

1. Missing out the references section, or putting in a mixture of references and bibliography (book list e.g. Higher Psychology textbooks).
2. Major flaws in the results section, e.g. missing or unclear graphs, not labelling tables and graphs, not explaining what statistics have been used, failing to put raw data and calculations into an appendix.
3. Incorrect or incomplete hypotheses - your teacher can check these for you.
4. Not sticking to the SQA 'brief' - this document describes what you should do in your study. If you don't follow it, you could lose several marks.
5. Failing to include a conclusion, and suggestions for future research studies.

None of these flaws is big on its own, but collectively they could bring a mark down from and 'A' to a 'C'.

Welcome to the RI blog!

To start with, I realised that a blog would be a very good way to share information and ideas about the higher Research Investgation. This might eventually replace a handout on the RI.

I have marked RIs for the SQA for many years, so I will be reflecting on this experience and trying to provide some useful advice.

One slight concern with using a blog is that I might give some advice here which will later go out of date due to changes in the marking instructions. To avoid this problem, make sure you refer to the most recent version of SQA guidelines and marking instructions when you are preparing the final draft of your RI.

No class on 29th May

The revision class on friday 29th May has been cancelled, as I will not be in school in the morning of that day.

All other classes will go ahead as originally announced, 10.30 Mon, Thu and Fri. We will usually be in A24, but if for any reason there is a conflict or room displacement, just assume that we will find the closest available classroom to A24.

There are quite a few of you I haven't seen so far this exam leave...I realise that you have been busy with other exams, but once those are out of the way it would be a good idea to make use of these revision classes for psychology.

Past Papers

I have given you all past papers so hopefully you still have copies of these...

However, it occured to me that some of you may not know where to find the marking instructions. The simplest way is to go to the SQA website, and use the search box to find the Psychology page. The links that appear down the right hand side take you to various documents, including arrangements and past papers. There is also a link for 'Marking Instructions'.

Note that the only past paper available as a pdf is 2008, but previous years' questions are printed as part of the marking instructions. They go back as far as 2005.

The Specimen Question Paper has been changed, and for some reason the link takes you to the old version. The updated marking instruictions for Section A were sent out in a letter last year; click the following link and scroll down a few pages:

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/NQPsychologyUpdateLetterMarch2008.pdf

Mnemonics

You'll remember I give out a few mnemonics for the research methods topic. For example, CROC - control, replication, operationalising, cause&effect - for the features of the experimental method. Maybe you could picture and experimenter wearing crocs, or perhaps a crocodile wearing a lab coat?



Anyway, use these and the other ones if you like...in terms of what you really need to know for Research Methods, let's simplify it as much as possible. Two or three 'features' of each method, plus one strength and one weakness for each should do it for questions such as 'Describe and evaluate the ___ method' - the longest type of question in this section.

The other common things which come up include:

- Design (e.g. Repeated Measures/Independent Measures)
- Sampling (Random v's Opportunity)
- Features of a good sample (large, unbiased, representative, random...)
- Hypotheses (be able to write an experimental/null hypothesis)
- Defining measures of central tendency (mean, mode, median) and distribution (range & SD).
- Graphs and charts - be able to identify pie chart, histogram etc and know their uses.

As mentioned in the previous post, past paper questions will be very useful preparation.

Looking ahead to the 2nd Prelim

As you are hopefully well aware, the 2nd Prelim for Psychology will take place next Friday (8th May). A provisional time and place - room A24, 10.30 to 1.00. Sorry about going into lunchtime, but it's either that or morning break! You are welcome to bring snacks with you - I don't want people leaving early beacause they get hungry.
This exam is very important, great preparation for the final exam, and doing well in it will mean we have a very strong case for an appeal if necessary.

You will be doing a lot of your revision by yourselves, due to the Monday holiday, plus I am away at a meeting on Thursday the 7th. From a revision point of view, focus on past papers...SQA advice is to use past paper questions in prelims. Some of these questions might be slightly modified, for example I could change a question on obedience into a question on conformity or whatever. So keep this in mind as you revise.

Make sure you know the format of the exam - any questions then check with me. As a basic quideline, it is more or less the same format as the 2008 exam, but the essay questions could be on Conf&Obed instead of Intelligence.

One last point - remember the importance of A&E marks. They add up to 40% overall, and each correct point you make gets you two marks. Extra A&E marks can also be carried over into K&U, so for example if you put in 50% A&E you can still get credited with all of these marks. (Note that although the paper as a whole has a 60-40 split between K&U and A&E, each individual question has its own mark allocation which you must take note of).

2nd Prelim

As you should know by now, we will be having a second prelim on 8th May. The reason for this exam is mainly to meet SQA requirements for appeals - it is no longer possible to be upgraded to an A or B grade on the basis of a 2-unit prelim. So like a lot of subjects, we now have to do a prelim which covers the whole course.

Although it is not ideal to have to fit in an extra assessment, there are many positives. It provides a good starting point for revision, with the possibility to sort out misunderstandings ahead of the final exam. It is the first time you will have done a complete practice exam, so will be very useful experience. It is also a chance for people who underachieved in January to redeem themselves!

Good luck.

Transactional Model

Introduction

One of the most important theories in stress research today, the 'transactional model' (or 'approach') is important because it takes account of cognitive factors in stress. It is primarily the work of Lazarus and Folkman (1984).

General points

The GAS can be described as a a physiological model of stress, as it focusses on what happens inside the body - the outcomes of stress. The approach of Holmes and Rahe (1967) focusses on the stressors themselves - how they add up to make an individual stressed and ill. The transactional model is different because it focusses on the thought processes of individuals, such as how they view a stressor, and how they view themselves.

The details

The model proposes that a two part mental evaluation of a stressor occurs. This involves:

- Primary appraisal: assessing the stressor to judge how much of a threat it is.

- Secondary appraisal: assessing one's own ability to cope with the stressor. For example, does the person feel up for the challenge, or do they feel tired and overwhelmed?

Once these processes are complete, the person proceeds to tackle the stressor, and the outcome (good or bad) follows.

Evaluation

The transactional model is more realistic that some older models, in that it allows for different people to react to the same stressor in different ways. It can explain why some people find exams stressful, and others don't. Unlike the GAS, the research has been done on humans. It us a current theory which is proving very useful for research.

A negative side of the theory is that it assumes that people are rational in their thought processes, which may not always be true.

The 'GAS'

Introduction

One of the main theories in the area of stress, the 'General Adaptation Syndrome' or 'GAS' is based on the work of Hans Selye and colleagues. It presents the idea that a person proceeds through a series of stages as they fight stress.

Key Ideas

The GAS suggests that all animals including humans react to all stressors in a similar way. The response to stressors is presented as a 'syndrome', a medical term for a group of symptoms that appear together.

The details

The reaction to stress is presented as adaptation or resistance, for Selye believed that this is an important part of how the body fights stressors, including illness. Not all stressors will cause the full range of stages to be experienced, but if they are, then the person progresses throught three main stages:

- Alarm: the body's reactions and heightened and a 'fight or flight' reaction is experienced. The body releases adrenalin and glucose enters the bloodstream. Symptoms include sweating, a raised heart rate. Internally, the adrenal glands enlarge, and stomach ulcers may be present. The immune system is damaged, with a shrinking of the lymph (white blood cell) system.
- Resistance: if the stressor persists, the body adapts to find some way of coping. Stress hormones such as cortisol are released, and the body obtains energy by burning fats. Even though the stressor is still present, symptoms from the alarm stage disappear.
- Exhaustion: if the stress is prolonged for weeks without being overcome, the body may become
exhausted. Symptoms from the first stage reappear. Ultimately this results in 'diseases of adaptation' such as heart disease, and psychological problems such as depression are also likely.

Evaluation

The GAS is a thorough biological theory of stress, based on a large body of experimental evidence. However, a lot of the research has been done on animals (especially rats and birds), making it harder to apply to humans. The theory is based on sound knowledge of biological systems. However, it does not always take account of psychological factors. The idea that all organisms react to all stressors in the same way is certainly an oversimplification.

Early IQ test - Binet schedule & apparatus for child IQ tests.

RIs done and dusted at last

!!Well done everybody!!

I have finally got the RIs processed and packed up... You are probably glad to see the back of them and I certainly am too!

Having said that, I hope you look back on it as quite an enjoyable part of the course. Running your own experiment and taking responsibility for research is something many of you will be doing more of when at university, so hopefully you have benefited from the experience. Even when things didn't go well, you can learn a lot...these can be the best lessons, in fact. Try to keep in mind feedback I have given you regarding use of sources, references, backing up your data etc.

Overall, I'd like to post here what I have said to a few of you informally - I thought they were a really good batch of projects, and I am very confident that all of them will get a decent mark. Many are deserving of very high marks indeed.

Please comment here or speak to me if you have any feedback on doing the RIs, e.g. suggestions of things that could be improved.

Well done again on some excellent work.

Brain decline

Article on BBC news.

Citations

Just to add to my previous comments....a couple of issues about citations. The standard format used in Psychology is 'in text citations', where you refer to a previous work with name and year.

A lot of you are writing things in the format:

"...Selye did an experiment in 1936 where..."

This is non-standard. The standard way to express it would be:

"Selye (1936) did an experiment..."

OR

"...rats were stressed (Selye, 1936)."

Use brackets for the years. As well as being the standard format, it is also more accurate, as the year in question is the year of publication, but this might not be the year the research was actually carried out. So to say for example "Milgram did an experiment in 1963..." would be innacurate; his study was actually carried out between 1961-62, even though the citation would be "Milgram (1963)".

All part of correct presentation and style - this is level 2.

RI - one week to go

It's just a week until the deadline for RIs.

By and large I've been very pleased about how punctually you have submitted first drafts, and a majority have also given me an (optional) second draft to mark, which is great.

The standard has also been very good, with some first drafts needing very few changes indeed. Main problems have been missing sections, or sections which have been very short.

All of you should look over your introductions and ask whether you have a suitable amont of background research, and how relevant it is. Also, ensure that your discussion section contains all three parts - comparison of results to previous research, evaluation of methods and ethics, and broader implications/conclusions.

It is important not to forget the smaller sections too. Generally, references have been missing or incorrectly structured. Make sure that your write-ups are neatly presented, and have the correct headings (see the two examples in the textbook if you're unsure). Make sure it looks nice on the page, and again, avoid the use of first-person pronouns, and superfluous capital letters!

Added together, there are 7 marks for references plus presentation/style - compared to 5 for your background research part of the intro. So pay attention to these smaller details, don't let marks trickle away.

Stress research

It seems that the stress RI topic is posing the most problems in terms of finding suitable background research for your write-ups.

Some general comments:

1) It is hard to find stuff specifically on things like GSR (skin conductivity) and heart rate because these tend to be viewed as primarily biology rather than psychology. However, most psychology books will contain an overview of how the stress response works on a biological level.

2) Health psychology has a strong crossover with these areas, but do not put too many of these studies in if not directly relevant. For example, you are not studying immune function, so go easy on that. If you are looking at heart rate, studies like the Friedman and Rosenman (1974) study of heart disease could be used.

3) I have tended to warn against including stress reduction stuff. However, there are exceptions - some stress reduction studies are closely linked with your research. For example, the technique of biofeedback uses measures such as GSR and heart rate in an attempt to teach people to relax.

4) The SQA handout only has referenced to studies by Selye, but this in itself should give you a clue to what is expected. If anyone wants to look at Selye's book 'The Stress of Life' (1956) I have a copy, it is an easy read and you could probably find a good quote or two.

5) A lot of the research that I have found on the internet is very applied, i.e. it concerns using the concepts for practical purposes. This is ok, and in fact I think it would be very good if you worked in some applications of your research, perhaps towards the end of your intro and again in the discussion section.

Elite athletes

From BPS Research Digest:

It's reassuring to learn that even the most elite athletes can suffer frommental frailties. Maurizio Bertollo and colleagues interviewed 13 members ofItaly's 2004 pentathlon squad and a common theme to emerge was the curse ofso-called "ironic effects". As one athlete explained: "In some circumstancesmy intention is not to do the best but to avoid making a bad shot. That iswhen I make a bad shot. When I think about avoiding the error, I make the error."

The modern pentathlon involves pistol shooting, épée fencing, 200m freestyleswimming, show jumping, and a 3km cross-country run, all conducted on thesame day. Bertollo's research team transcribed the interviews they conducted with the pentathletes.

Several of the athletes said that during the days before an event they attempted to recreate the emotional stress of a real competition.They also said they prioritised relaxation time, set themselves goals andmentally rehearsed success.

During a competition, the athletes performed an opposite mental exercise tothat conducted prior to the event, attempting to recreate the feelings, such as of muscle relaxation, that they achieved during training. They also revealed that they tried to avoid dwelling on mistakes; that they reassured themselves that dysfunctional emotions usually stop once a contest getsstarted; and that they strive to focus their attention in useful ways, such as on the sight and target during shooting.

REFERENCE: Bertollo et al (2009). Mental preparation strategies of elite modern pentathletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10 (2), 244-254.

RI update

Ok, some great work on the RIs so far, lots of data gathered, and most people have made a positive start on the first draft. These are due in soon, though, so we really really need to get on with these quickly now.

If you haven't already gathered your data, there is no more class time for that, so please use your free periods or lunchtimes.

In class we will be working on write-ups. Start with the introduction section, with all your background research, and the method, where you say what you did.

If you haven't finished data gathering, this should not hold you back from writing 90% of your write-up. It will be easy to go back and change your data tables and conclusions if you need to.

One other thing - use past tense throughout, and avoid 'I' and 'we', just use the passive voice (e.g. 'the participants were told to sit down' instead of 'we told the participants to sit down').

Essay competition

A member of staff passed on this opportunity from Newnham College, Cambridge:

Cambridge University’s Department of Social & Developmental Psychology is offering a new prize for a student essay in the field of social & developmental psychology. Schools and colleges are invited to submit essays by up to three different pupils in their first or second year of study for A-level, A/S level, Scottish Higher Level or an equivalent qualification.

A maximum of three entries per school are allowed. Each essay must be on an area of social & developmental psychology and should be accompanied by confirmation from a psychology teacher or the head teacher of the school or college that it is the work of the pupil, who should have completed not more than two years of full-time study post 16 years of age.

Examples of potential topics for the essay include antisocial behaviour; child-child relationships; the cultural relevance of psychological theories; families; fathers; fertility; mothers & daughters; personality and individual differences; same-sex parents; sex differences and their origins; etc.

Essays must not exceed 2,000 words in length (excluding the bibliography: figures, tables, etc). All debts to other scholars (including teachers, books, articles and web sites) should be acknowledged. Essays must be on a topic relating to the study of social & developmental psychology and must be written in the English language. We reserve the right to check submitted essays for plagiarism using online tools.

The First Prize in the Competition is £1,000: £600 for the pupil and £400 for his or her school or college. In the case of a tie for first place the prize will be divided. The writers of the winning essays with their subject teachers will be invited to an award ceremony held at Newnham College, Cambridge. Expenses within the UK will be paid for the winner and his or her teacher to attend.

The closing date for receipt of entries is 31st May 2009. You can download these details from the University website: http://www.ppsis.cam.ac.uk/psy/

World's cleverest child...

Great preparation for the topic 'Intelligence' later this term would be to watch:

'The world's cleverest child and me' which can be seen on Channel 4 on Wednesday night.

Thinking with analogy

The idea of using an analogy to explain something is common in everyday life and in the classroom. In psychology it is particularly important, as many key ideas cannot be seen or easily visualised. An example of such an analogy is to liken the brain to a computer hard drive and the mind to an operating system.

You can liken the problem to the difficulty in comprehending the large quantities of size and distance in the field of astrophysics. A commonly used analogy for planetary sizes is the relative sizes of fruits. I've come across a couple of examples recently of using comparison images, such as this example of the planets Earth and Neptune.
These maintain the key idea (size ratio), while leaving out such minor details as actual sizes or positions. So an analogy has one key characteristics of what we are attempting to explain, with other details being ignored. Many models and theories in psychology also rely on analogies in a sense, computer analogies being especially popular.

The concept of analogy also comes into IQ testing, with items such as:

"Hand is to palm as foot is to ____?"

These ask people to recognise that two different relationships have a common pattern. Artificial intelligence researcher Douglas Hofstadter feels this is so fundamental to thought, that he says in an interview, "analogy is really at the core of thinking", and describes it as "stripping away irrelevancies to get at the gist of things".

Couple of links

Here are a couple of revision-related links:

Mini-articles from the BBC website on memory techniques - simplistic but useful, and the discussion comments are interesting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/memory/improve/no_mistakes.shtml

A short video about stress from the same site (there's also a transcript):

Slumber quality important for learning

(From BPS digest, see http://www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog for more info)

It's not just the amount of sleep we get that is so important for learning, but the quality of that sleep. That's according to a new study that made precise use of beeping noises to disrupt deep "slow-wave" sleep among 13 elderly participants (average age 60 years), without actually waking them up.

The beeping was used in such a way that although the participants' were deprived of deep sleep, their total sleep time and number of sleep stages were unaffected (compared with a comparison night of undisturbed sleep). After a night of either shallow or deep sleep, the participants had their brains scanned while they viewed 50 images of houses and landscapes. The next day they had to say which of 100 images were repeated from the daybefore.

The participants' performance was superior when a night with deep sleep had preceded the learning of the images, compared with a night of shallow sleep, even though total sleep time was the same in each case (36.6images correctly identified versus 31.4 images, on average). Moreover, the brain scans showed that during the initial viewing of images, activity in the hippocampus, the seat of human memory, was reduced aftershallow versus deep sleep, but only for those images that were subsequently recalled....

Van Der Werf et al (2009). Sleep benefits subsequent hippocampal functioning. NatureNeuroscience. In press.

Autism debate

You may have come across the recent research and debate into the causes of autistic spectrum disorders.

See for example this article by Simon Baron-Cohen, a prominent researcher in the field, who famously used the Sally-Anne test to investigate limitations in 'theory of mind' - the ability to attribute thoughts and knowledge to other people - as a possible central trait in autism.

Autism is also prominently featured in the current issue of Psychology Review, if you are interested in reading more.

Broadmoor

I recently read an article on Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, an well-known institution in England which detains people who are viewed to be dangerously metally ill and criminal.

The history of the place is fascinating, as are the cases of some of its inmates. The wikipedia page includes links to some of the many infamous cases, such as the serial killer Robert Maudsley, the assassin Daniel M'Naghten, plus the genius twins who wouldn't speak, June and Jennifer Gibbons. There are many others who you may have heard of from current or older news stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmoor_Hospital

It is notable how many of them had very disturbed childhoods, and how many have multiple psychological disorders.

The Titanic & social psychology

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7841000/7841629.stm

Interesting BBC radio extract about people's putting the social requirement to queue ahead of the need to save their own lives... Has some obvious links to the 'irrational' aspects of social psychology and group behaviour.

SQA

Don't forget to visit the SQA page, they are putting more and more on there, they now have question papers from the last two exams, plus all the marking instructions for the present syllabus. There are also useful documents relating to the RI.

Features of a good sample

Another mnemonic...

While teaching one of this year's classes, I noticed that the Marking Instructions (MIs) from 2006 exam paper presented us with a good mnemonic for 'features of a good sample':

The question is: 'State the features of a good sample', and the MIs say:

Is representative of the target population; avoids bias; allows generalisation to the target population.

So we can have:

Generalisable
Representative
Avoids Bias

Or 'GRAB'.

Wikispaces

As you'll have seen from the email, I have started a 'wiki', come and visit http://hutchiepsychdept.wikispaces.com/

There is info on unit 1 & 2 topics, plus some exam advice.

HM is dead

Some papers and magazines recently included an obituary of H.M., the memory-loss patient who died last month.

In 1953, H.M. had an operation which aimed to reduce the frequency of his epileptic seizures. This included removal of a structure known as the hippocampus on both sides of his brain.

The result was that from then and for the rest of his life, H.M. has severe anterograde amnesia - he was unable to encode any new episodic or semantic memories, causing him to 'live in the past'. He was able to encode new procedural memories, however, and his working memory was intact too.

His case, although tragic, was hugely important in helping psychologists to locate memory functions, which had previously thought to be distributed throughout the brain.

Stress article

Good article on stress in the Psychology Review magazine, which you can find in the stand in the library, outside the computer room (FLS).

It focusses on biological aspects - a follow-up on psychological theiries and stress reduction is due to be in the next issue.

RI update

Since my last post back in October, most of you are well underway with the final RI now.

Some of you completed the practice RI, some didn't; if you did then hopefully it was enjoyable and useful practice, but either way it is time to move on!

Things to be thinking about:

• If you have not already gathered your RI data, this is your top priority. Of course, you can't start until you have prepared all task meterials, consent forms, instructions etc, but this should not take long, especially if you split these jobs among your group.
• Background research. The introduction section of your write-up needs to show a good, broad knowledge of background research, so get reading!
• Analyse the data. Strictly speaking, this should be done individually. As you are all doing experiments, it should be quite easy - mean, mode, median, range and standard deviation for each condition, plus a graph, probably comparing the means.
• When the above tasks are done, you should be able to write up your first draft quite easily. This is due in after the February week, but I'm willing to look over your work sooner if you wish.

I can't emphasise enough how important it is to keep on top of the RI and not be rushing at the last minute. I will post more suggestions for your write-ups in due course.