It’s been a busy time with assessments. Nevertheless, Psychology carries on. Here are some recent highlights.
1) Steven Pinker On Milgram
Here is the lecture from his Harvard series. Steven Pinker recommends watching Milgram’s own film. You can find that here.
2) The Reunion – Romanian Orphanages
Here’s a radio programme about the Romanian orphanages which are the subject of Rutter’s study. Some of this is quite distressing.
3) Free Will And Determinism
I was asked by someone in Year 12 on Friday if I believed in free will. That made me go home and read this article from The Guardian. As with the other debates we look at during our course, it is tempting to pretend that the debate which has run in Psychology for a long time is over. We’re all soft determinists now. It’s not over though and it has important consequences for how we think about the brain and the mind. Kevin Mitchell has an interesting take on this, linking to his other work on genotype and phenotype. You can listen to him here and read about his ideas here.
We look at Libet’s procedure as part of our course. Here is a recent piece of research on this.
4) Dreams
Here is a SciShow video on a recent step forward on dream research.
5) Taking A Nap
Here’s a TED Ed video which uses some of the ideas about stages of sleep which we study.
6) Tech Use And Well Being
Here is the latest research on this from Andrew Przybylski and his team. I’m hoping to use this as a basis for some practical work next year.
7) Classification And Diagnosis
I worry a bit that our course does not get us to think critically about classification and diagnosis. There is some controversy in this area. Here is a podcast to make us think.
DHSB/DHSG Psychology Research Digest 