Biological psychology has come to the fore over the past years. The mapping of the human genome combined with improved brain-scanning techniques has meant that the biological correlation to psychological conditions is more easily identifiable, and it is clear that many mental disorders like major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia are explainable through a gene x environment interaction. This … Read More
Is it all our parents’ fault?
How attachment styles can affect later relationships. This topic is part of the syllabus for developmental psychology, with a focus on inter-generational transmission of attachment styles, not through genetic inheritance, but through vertical social transmission, as our parents’ styles affect our own attachment styles as babies, which affect our later relationships and our parenting as adults. Psychology Sorted Book 2 … Read More
Child Poverty
Psychology comes right up to date with the study of the effects of child poverty on cognitive and social development. In Psychology Sorted we make the link between child poverty, brain imaging technology and child development. We could just as easily have also added in an abnormal psychology link to mental health, for as child poverty rates in the US and … Read More
Are the ‘January blues’ a self-fulfilling prophecy?
January is not the kindest month but it doesn’t have to be as cruel as we are popularly led to believe (which is good news for those of us whose birthdays fall in this gloomy month – thank you mum and dad…) Research has shown that depression can be held at bay by engaging not only in physical activity but … Read More
We’re all just animals, aren’t we?
The question of when to use non-human animal studies as evidence for human behaviour is a tricky one. Because it remains unethical to lesion the brain of a live human to look for a correlation between brain damage and behaviour (at the moment!), animal studies are used in large numbers at the biological approach. However, many people are becoming more … Read More
Research from Psychology Sorted: Social Identity Theory
How we develop our social identity is still a hot topic today, and for those of you studying the effect of technologies, especially social media, on social identity, there is a developing literature on the subject. But we should start with the classic minimal groups paradigm from Tajfel (1971), found in our new book Psychology Sorted, as it is still so … Read More
Cognitive biases – don’t let them confuse you.
Studying the reliability of thinking and decision-making leads us into the slightly complex world of System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow) thinking and heuristics. Teaching cognitive biases is straightforward, and less is more. The key point is that we are inclined to base our current thinking and decision-making on past experiences and present perceptions. Our memories distort the past, … Read More
Psychology Sorted cognitive research: The effect of digital technology on memory and learning
There has been a lot in the news recently about the effect of social media on mental health, but less about the effect on school and university students of reading or responding to texts during lectures. As students expect to be ‘connected’ throughout the day, gradually mobile phones have been finding their way into classrooms and lecture halls. Students often … Read More