1) Uta Frith Talking About Alice Lee
In this short BBC video, Uta Frith discusses Alice Lee’s pioneering research into brain size in the early 1900s. It’s a brilliant example of how Psychology works. This video on probability in the same series is almost as good.
2) John Dury On Crowds
John Drury is a leading theorist on social identity. Here he sums up the theory in relation to crowds. There is a superb example from protests against the building of the M11 for how the development of an identity leads to people taking collective action.
3) Self-Improvement And Losing Weight
When we’ve been looking in Year 2 at psychological explanations of anorexia nervosa, we have struggled a bit to understand the link between perfectionist, all or nothing thinking and extreme weight loss. The question is why someone who thinks that they have to be in control of everything and that anything that falls short of perfection is a disaster feels the need to control their weight to an extreme. The answer lies in this article. Unlike previous generations, we live in an age where personal well being is linked to physical appearance. The pernicious effects of this belief are explored in the article.
4) The Genetic Basis Of Childhood Behaviour
All through the Attachment topic in Year 1, we come up against the problem of the extent to which behaviour is the consequence of attachment as opposed to the temperament of the child. This article explains what research is being done and the limits of what is known.
5) Gamified CBT For Adolescents
This is an example of a well conducted research trial. It also says something important about the effectiveness of the SPARX programme which delivers CBT in the form of a game. Here is the trailer for it.
6) Anti-Depressants
There’s been much written in the press about these this week. This is the best thing I have read.
DHSB/DHSG Psychology Research Digest 