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Hello everyone, I hope that you've had a good weekend. Today's episode of The Psychology World Podcast is on the Cognitive Explanations for the Formation of Human Relationships as we start to look at the Psychology Human Relationships. This is an area of psychology that draws upon other areas of psychology to explain relationships. For example, cognitive psychology and social psychology. In addition, The Psychology of Human Relationships 2nd edition is now available. Also, Forensic Psychology is available as well. Show Notes (Extract from Psychology of Human Relationships 1st Edition) Now that we understand how our biology can cause us to feel attraction for someone. We can now start to look at the psychological or mental reasons why we find people attractive. In the cognitive realm of relationships, there are two main theories for relationships. The first theory that we’ll look at is the similarity-relationships hypothesis. This states that people form a relationship because they are similar. For example, think about your friend and you’ll probably find that you’re friends with them because you have things in common with them. Such as music preference, common interest and TV interests. A study that supports this hypothesis is: Byrne (1961): Subjects were asked to rate a number of issues on their importance. Ranging from western films to premarital sex to music. Then two weeks later they were shown a fake questionnaire. It was fake so one of four results could happen. Same on the important issues, same on the unimportant issues, opposite to the subject completely and the same as the subject on all issues. Then they were asked to rate the attractiveness of the stranger based on their answers. Results showed that more positive ratings were associated with a similar attitude as well as associated with similarity in important issues. Critical thinking: The study has strong internal validity; they measured what they intended to measure; because the study effectively showed that attraction to the stranger was because they had more in common with them. This supports the hypothesis. However, this study has low ecological validity; can you apply the findings to the real world; because in the real world nobody meets people and rates them on the basis of a questionnaire. Even people on dating websites tend to be shown pictures and other information that impacts on their rating of attractiveness. Consequently, to improve the experiment another research method could be used to support the findings and add creditability to the study. For example, interviews to see if their ratings were down to similarities or another reason. Matching hypothesis: The next major cognitive theory for the formation of personal relationships is the matching hypothesis. This hypothesis states that we are more likely to be attracted to someone who is equally socially desirable. One way to think about it is is that your current or past partner according to the hypothesis is about the same in terms of how socially desirable they are. For example, a popular person would date a popular person. An unattractive person would date an equally unattractive person. And so on… A study that supports this is: Berscheid et al (1971): · Subjects were split into High Probability of rejection and low POR · High POR got to meet their dates before the dance to either reject or accept them. · Low POR was told that their dates agreed to go with whoever was chosen for them by the computer programme. · Results showed that attractive subjects choose equally popular and attractive dates compared to High POR who choose more unattractive dates. · As this was not different in the two groups increasing fear of rejection doesn’t affect the choosing stagey. · In conclusion, the matching principle may be a determinant of initial contact but not of maintaining already established relationships. Critical thinking: A positive of this study is that it can be reproduced therefore future studies can repeat the experiment to test the results. This is positive because it adds creditability to the study if the results are the same or similar. On the other hand, this study has low temporal validity; how time affects the results; because in this modern age of online dating and the crazy world of dating. It’s possible that the results would be different as the computer programmes that had chosen the dates for the two groups could be more reliable or choose different dates for the two groups. Using more modern programmes to calculate the best match for the person. Summary: In conclusion, the two major cognitive explanations are: · Similarity attraction hypothesis that states that people are attracted to those you have something in common with, as supported by Byrne (1981) · The matching hypothesis that states people are attracted to those who are equally socially desirable. I hope that you've enjoyed today's psychology blog post. Please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive your free book. Have a great week everyone.

Hello everyone, I hope that you're week is going well. Today's post is on social psychology and sociocultural psychology methods. This is an extract from my new book Sociocultural Psychology: (It should be available for pre-order in the next week or two) In this chapter, we’ll be investigating how social psychology is researched. In social psychology, you can take two approaches to research. Firstly, you can take the root of observations. This is where you observe behaviour in order to learn about it. Secondly, you can take the empirical approach. This is where you take scientific methods can use them to examine behaviour. Research process: The first step to any good piece of social psychological research is to have a good research process. The research process goes in the following way: · You create your question. Like: what causes conformity? · You develop a theory or refer to past theories to answer your question · You develop an experiment and then you test your theory. · If your theory isn’t supported then this leads to reduced confidence in theory so you can reject the theory or modify the theory taking you back to the develop experiment phrase. · If your theory is supported then your confidence in the theory increases. Overall, the stages of the research process are one big circular cycle as you try to answer your research question. Tools of social psychology: In social psychology, there is a wide range of research tools that social psychologists can use to study behaviour. Qualitative: In short, qualitative research is when you create thick rich descriptions of text as your data instead of hard numbers. Please see Research in Psychology for more information. Some examples of qualitative research methods in social psychology include: · Thematic analysis- you analyse the themes of a situation to find something. · Conversational analysis- you analyse the conservation to find something. · Narrative analysis- one way of doing this type of analysis is by analysing the patient’s narratives to discover the patient’s emotional state, unconscious thoughts and as a type of therapy. · Discourse analysis- you analyse any discourse; written, spoken and more; to find something. · Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) Quantitative: The opposite of Qualitative research is quantitative research, where you use hard factual numbers in your research data. Some examples of this type of research include: · Surveys and questionnaires · Experiments · Field experiments · Archival experiments · Observations · Case study Issues in social psychology: In this last section, we’ll be looking at the many problems that social psychology has faced. Firstly, social psychology and pretty much all social science fields are prone to sample bias because most psychology participants are from the western world and undergraduate psychology students. Meaning that you potentially cannot say the behaviour showed with these studies are universal as psychology undergraduate are a very small percentage of the human population. In addition, in reason years social psychology has faced The Crisis where multiple famous research papers that have revolutionised the field and the world were found out to be falsified by the researchers. Overall, these are only a small number of problems that social psychology faces but it must be remembered that it is only a very select few researchers that falsified data. I hope that you've found this useful and please consider signing up for my mailing list to receive for FREE book and get more psychology news. Have a great week everyone!

Hello everyone, I hope that you had a good weekend. Today's episode of The Psychology World Podcast is on ethics in psychology as we take a brief break after abnormal psychology and sociocultural psychology. Show notes: Hello everyone, today's episode is finally the ethics episode, which I know I've been talking about for quite a while, but I'm finally going to do it so it should be a very interesting episode because ethics is a major part of psychology because before the ethical guidelines came out. It was the wild Western psychology and some of the experiments were quite devastating, which is echoed from my books and just psychology in general. Informed consent- this can simply be defined as you are giving people information about the study so they can make an informed decision about if they want to take part in the experiment or not. And this is all goes back to the idea of consent and people allow you to experiment on them because in the early days there was no informed consent. It was bad. And informed consent in most psychology studies is really simple you just signing a bit of paper after reading a bit of information. Is that as you really simple step, very simple step to do, but a really important and powerful one. So you definitely need to do that. Protection from harm is another one. Now, this is both physiological so bodily harm and then psychological harm. Like: other psychological trauma. Confidentiality- you need to protect data and you need to protect your participant's identity because if your data isn't confidential, I've made the assumption here. There's more from my notebook. So this is what it says from the IB psychology guide “Data collected in the process of research, as well as the facts of hesitation in the study, must remain unknown to any third parties and nobody should be able to establish the identity for purpose, to enter from the pup histories that offer disclosed information. This ethical norm has implications of how data is recorded and stored. Report it in a research study is confidential. If the researcher can connect the authentic or data obtained in this study, but the terms of the agreement, then the research from sharing this information with anyone. Puppies station is ominous, if even the V such cannot connect, obtained information to the Papa since authentic, for example, and online so that if I weren't, you do not provide your name.”And this confidentiality is a part of everyday life. For, for example, example data privacy laws. And in 2018 I want to say we have the GDPR. So this was all very interesting and that this can be applied to everyday life to just protect people's identity. For example, if you're a business owner and you collect EAM and just need to make sure that you're not sharing anyone's database, that they have given you, that they've given their permission for you to use that data, not for Facebook, Amazon, Google, or any of these big further companies. Right to withdraw- This is a massive one and maybe one of the most important, because. You need to make sure that people can withdraw from the study if they're uncomfortable, or even if your study will not remain or will not harm, then psychology or physically, everyone is different. One of my favourites is deception. I love a good deception case study, which makes me sound actually quite terrible now, but in psychology, deceptions needed, because if you tell people the exact hypothesis or purpose of the study, then you get demand characteristics, which is when people will act how we think that it wants to behave. And that will pretty much ruin your experiment. So deception I do quite like because some deception in psychology studies is quite pretty blatant but really clever. Let's do a bit more reading because I know, I want to say I just can't. I can't put into words. “In many cases, the true aim of the study cannot be, were to pop sins as it may change their behaviour, which I just said the Hmong characteristics, this is why some degrees of deception often have to be used. However, deception must be minimal as possible and fully justified by the purposes of the study.” I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Please sign up for newsletter for more psychology information. Have a great week everyone.

Hello everyone, I hope that you're having a good week. Today's post is on Forensic Psychology and the History of Imprisonment. History of imprisonment: Before, we explore the effects of imprisonment on offenders. Let’s learn about the history of imprisonment. 16th Century: It all began in the 16th century and in this century, imprisonment was to do with religion as it was a common belief that if someone had committed a crime. Then their body was possessed by evil. Therefore, imprisonment was meant to punish the body and prison was a place for people that were awaiting trial. Finally, everyone was imprisoned together, and they had very poor conditions. For instance, malnutrition, maltreatment and disease. 18th century: This era is a bit more interesting because this is known as the ‘Blood code’ era where you were punished with the death penalty and jurors decided on the punishment. Surprisingly though, there were a lot of people that opposed the death penalty for the less serve crimes. I thought that this was surprising because I thought that back then people would believe in deterring others from crime a lot more- so I thought it reasonable to assume to that they would want to kill others to act as extreme deterrence for others who wanted steal or commit any crime. Resulting in jurors refused to punish thieves with the death penalty so instead of the death penalty the offenders were sent to British colonies to do hard labour. During the 18th Century, there was a person called John Howard that insisted on reform and he wanted the following: · Paid staff to look after prisoners · Outside inspections to make sure that the offenders were being treated properly. · A proper diet for the prisoners. · Men and women should be kept separate. · Humane living conditions (proper sanitation) Overall, in the 18th Century, the Humanitarian approach; more on that later; started and the Howard Leverage of Penal Reform was started as well. Mid-19th Century: During the Mid-19th Century, imprisonment replaced the death penalty for the most serious offences and more prisons were built. Additionally, The Prison Act of 1898 was passed. This abolished hard labour and stated that prison labour should be productive and not harmful to the offender’s health. Lastly, the idea of prison should be about reform and reducing reoffending was introduced to the world. 20th century: In all honesty, the 20th Century was less dramatic with their developments, but one important development was that young people should be kept separate to adults. As adults can influence the younger people with potentially devasting consequences. Another important development was that the mental needs of the offenders were addressed. Nevertheless, a very odd and… personally, I find strange development was in 1933, the first open prison was built. These open prisons are prisons were the offenders can simply walkout during the night and come back at night, yet they were monitored. I find this idea odd as why didn’t the offenders just flee? Although, Sir Alex Paterson said that “You cannot train a man for freedom under conditions for captivity” Which makes sense as people do need freedom and not to be caged to be rehabilitated. I hope that you enjoyed today's Forensic Psychology blog post. Please leave a comment below and sign up for my newsletter to learn more about psychology and get notification about new book releases. Have a great week! Kind regards Connor.

Hello everyone, I hope that had a good weekend. Today's episode is on Abnormal Psychology and the treatment options for Depression. Here are the show notes taken from more Abnormal Psychology book. Chapter 5: biological treatment So now that we understand how MDD is caused, we can start the last leg of our journey and start to understand how depression is treated. Biology can be used to treat depression because of anti-depressants. These are drugs that tend to increase serotonin levels in the body and then a month later your symptoms start to go. That’s basically all you need to know about the biological treatment, as well as drugs focus on restoring the chemical imbalance in the body. Kirsch et al (2002): A meta-analysis of published and unpublished data from clinical trials on antidepressants. Results show that 82% of the effects of antidepressants are the same as the placebo. In conclusion, when published and unpublished data are combined, they fail to show the effectiveness of antidepressants. Critically thinking: This study manages to get around publication bias; were only positive studies tend to get published; as they used both published and unpublished data, so the results are a fair and balanced look at the antidepressants’ effectiveness. However, a meta-analysis can be flawed if there are studies used with the analysis that is an outlier compared to the other studies used. In other words, the study doesn’t include, or the results are very different from the other studies included. This can end up skewing the results of the analysis and causing the wrong conclusion to be drawn. Therefore, it’s important that only studies that are related and suitable are used in the analysis. Chapter 6: psychological treatment Now we’re going to look at a very effective method of treatment, but it takes a long time. Its Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) the therapy is based on Beck’s theory and it focuses on restructuring your mental processes and behavioural activation in order to changes these automatic thoughts to be more positive. Hollon et al (2005): Three groups of patients with moderate to serve depression were compared. They were people who had responded positively to CBT and had been withdrawn from medication for 12 months. People who had responded and continued with medication. People who had responded to medication and continued to take a placebo. Their relapse rates in 12 months were: CBT- 31% Medication- 47% Placebo- 76% In conclusion, CBT has a longer lasting effect than medication. Critically thinking: The study shows the effectiveness of different treatments well and as it was over a long time period. We know that the effects of treatments over a long period of time. However, this study fails to consider the other factors that could have caused a relapse. I believe that other factors like social factors could have caused the relapse instead of the treatment itself. I hope that you've enjoyed today's episode of The Psychology World Podcast. Please feel free to leave a comment and sign up for my newsletter to receive your FREE ebook. Have a great week everyone!

Hello everyone, I hope that you're having a great week. Today's post is something taken from my work-in-progression Forensic Psychology book so please free feel to leave a comment down below. Types of Courts I absolutely love courts. I love what they represent and their function. Yet most of all I love the psychology behind them and that’s why we’ll be investigating them in this chapter. Note: Whilst, we will be focusing on the UK legal system I will still be making references with the European legal system and American legal system. As an introduction to this topic, we’ll first be looking at the two types of legal systems. Adversarial system: This is the legal system that the United Kingdom and the United States tend to use and in this system it is a contest between the prosecution and defence were they call witnesses, cross-examine and present evidence to try to win over the other. Furthermore, the questioning is governed by strict rules where the judge acts as the umpire with the presumption being innocent until proven guilty. It’s the barrister’s job to present a compelling argument for the offender’s guilty. Whilst, it’s the defence’s job to challenge the soundness of the case. However, interestingly; and I was surprised when I learned this fact, but the defence doesn’t have to prove their client’s innocence. Additionally, when it comes to the burden of proof in the Adversarial system when it comes to criminal cases were a law or regulation has been broken. The burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt. Whereas in civil cases where a moral wrong has been committed it’s all about the balance of probability. An example for the criminal case would be- let’s say X killed someone in a road accident; so, a law has been broken. In order to meet the burden of proof and charge X will the crime. The judge or jury would have to be certain beyond reasonable doubt that X did kill this person. Whereas, for a civil case were a member of the family was rear-ended in their car. In order to charge the person driving the car who rear-ended them. The judge would have to balance the probability of whose fault it was and it would have to be more probable than it was the other driver in order to charge them with the crime. Lastly, when the UK legal system and the US system was compared and a number of difference were found: The UK system improved memory of evidence presence and juror’s confidence in their verdict as well as the influence of judges non-verbal cues. But failed to demonstrate how the two different systems affect the trial outcome. The Inquisitorial system: Before, we dive into what the inquisitorial system is. I have to say that I love this system but not for the reason that you think. Personally, I am nearly obsessed with the Inquisition. I love the word Inquisition. Mainly because I love the sci-fi fantasy universe of Warhammer 40,000 and they have an Inquisition and there Inquisitors are amazing. Therefore, whenever I come across something to do with the Inquisition or something related. I quickly become interested. Anyway, now that the fanboy stuff is over. Let’s learn about the Inquisitorial Legal System. What is the Inquisitorial system? This is the legal system that is dominant in mainland Europe and in this legal system judges play a greater role where they act as investigating magistrates. Where they decide which witnesses to call and they direct police efforts. In other words, the line between police and court is blurred because as mentioned in the Adversarial explanation the police is one separate entity then the judge and prosecution serve is completely different. However, for the Inquisitorial system, this isn’t the case. As a result of judges having a more active role, lawyers take more of a secondary role. Resulting in less procedural rules. The adversarial British could be a response to the historical shortcoming of the Inquisitorial system. The inquisitorial ‘jury’ is a made up of a judge and laypeople. Scotland’s version of the Inquisitorial System: Oddly enough Scotland is the only place in the UK that has a very interesting hybridised model of this system called: Procurator Fiscals. (PF) These Procurators are involved in all sudden and suspicious deaths as well as they undertake preliminary investigations, precognition from witnesses and they prosecute the crimes for the Criminal Justice System, allowing them to direct the police investigations. Precognition in Scottish law is when you take statements from witnesses after the offender has been charged but before the trial begins. Extra information: Here are two extra-legal concepts for you to understand that is key in many legal matters. Mens Rea- the state of mind that recognises the act was criminal. Actus Reus- the actual committing of the criminal act. In the UK, when it comes to a corner's inquest or case involving the care of children. These matters are closer to the inquisitorial system than adversarial. Sevier (2014) compared the two systems and it turns out that in terms of ‘truth-justice trade-off) the adversary system gets closer to delivering to justice than truth and the Inquisitorial system is better at finding the truth. Government and Courts: Parliament and the courts try to strike a balance between the right of citizens and the police powers. Although, this co-existence does depend on political mood at the time. For example, if the public is restless and demanding the government to do more to tackle crime then this can cause the government to be very demanding of the Courts. Hence, making co-existence difficult. As recently, politicians have been trying to extend police powers. By trying to restrict bail rights and reduce the right to silence. Consequences: The double effect (Foot, 1967) is when the perceived consequences and the intended consequences are different. For example, Keegan (2011) argues that whilst information from torture is likely to be unreliable. It has the unintended effect of likely radicalising the victim’s associates. When do courts require Forensic Psychologists? Forensic psychologists can be used in the prosecution process because they can access whether or not a person is fit to plead. Fitness to plead is fundamental in British Law (Rogers et al, 2008) Rogers and his colleagues outline key criteria for assessing fitness to plead. · Ability to pled · Ability to understand the evidence · Ability to understand court proceeding · Ability to instruct a lawyer I hope that you're enjoyed today's pos. Please leave a comment below and sign up for my newsletter to heard about more psychology news, when my Forensic psychology book is out and receive a FREE ebook. Have a great week everyone!

Hello everyone, I hope that you had a good weekend. Today's episode of The Psychology World Podcast will be on the cognitive explanations for depression continuing with our abnormal psychology theme. Show notes: Moving to our next point of interest is how can our mental processes affect our chance of developing MDD. Now the main theory of depression used for this type of explanation is: Beck (1967) and the theory states that cognition (mental processes) is the main reason behind depression and focuses on the impact that a change in automatic thoughts can have on behaviour. The theory focuses on: · The cognitive triad- negative beliefs about the self, the world and the future. These influence the automatic thoughts to be pessimistic. · Negative schema- the negative beliefs about themselves become generalize and people start to think negatively about everything that happens to them. · Faulty thinking patterns- people think and make illogical conclusions because of how they process information is biased. Personally, I do quite like the theory because if you know someone with depression as I did then you can see some of this theory out to light. In addition, I think that it’s a reasonably easy theory to follow. But let’s put this theory into context, according to this theory a depression is caused by: (I know some the examples are poor) · The cognitive triad- this can be demonstrated when a depressed person says things. Like: “I’m useless,” or “Oh the world is falling apart so what’s the point of living?” · Negative schemas- as demonstrated by this: “Oh I failed in art so I’m never to pass any subjects, go to university and I’m just going to be a failure in life,” · Faulty thinking patterns- this could be shown in a setting when researching a holiday to the most beautiful place ever and there was a 0.5% chance of a terror attack. “Oh no, I can’t go there I’m going to die,” While that last example wasn’t the best. It shows how illogical conclusions can be made because of a bias towards the negative. Supporting studies: This first study shows how having a negative thinking style can affect depression. Alloy, Abramson and Francis (1999): Quasi-experiment and longitudinal study for 5.5 years with a questionnaire and structured interviews. Freshmen were given a questionnaire to determine their cognitive style and they were split into two groups based on the results. High risk; the negative cognitive style; believed that negative life events were cataphoric and the results meant that they were flawed and worthless. During the first 2.5 years, high-risk people were more likely to develop symptoms of major depression. (17% versus 1%) High-risk people were more likely to have suicidal thoughts and behaviour (28% versus 13%) In conclusion, negative cognitive style can lead to the development of major depression. Critically thinking: This study was a longitudinal study, so this allowed the researchers to show the effects of a negative thinking style over time. Yet it was a quasi-experiment without a clear independent variable and the dependent variable, so it can’t be said if the study has strong internal validity; does the study measure what it intended to; as it wasn’t clear what the study was measuring. Caseras et al (2007): Quasi-experiment with eye tracking technology Using the Beck Depression Inventory, the subjects were assessed for depressive symptoms and then split into two groups. Depressed and non-depressed. Then the subjects were shown 32 pictures paired with a positive, neutral and negative stimuli and each picture was shown for 3 seconds. Using eye-tracking technology, the researchers measured what stimuli the subject first focused on and how long they focused on it before they switched to another stimulus. Results showed that depressed people have an attention bias for the negative stimuli because once they looked at the negative stimuli, they found it hard to move onto another stimulus. Critically thinking: The study used a large sample bias so the findings can be applied to large groups of people as we know that this trend of behaviour is shown by a number of people. However, this is a reductionist way of thinking. A way of thinking that tries to find a single cause for depression without thinking of other factors and more holistic research that considers biological, cognitive and social factors of depression needs to be done. Summary: Beck (1967) theory focuses on the cognitive triad, negative schemas and faulty thinking processes. Alloy, Abramson and Francis (1999) shows how a negative thinking style can lead to depression. Caseras et al (2007) found that depressed people have an attention bias to negative stimuli. I hope that you've enjoyed today's episode and if you want to learn more about Abnormal Psychology then please check out my book Abnormal Psychology and sign up for my newsletter to receive your FREE book. Have a great day!

Hello everyone, I hope that you're all having a great week. Today's post is on Forensic Psychology and specifically the perceived link between mental illness and crime. Please note that the psychology blog post below is a work-in-progress chapter from my forensic psychology book that I'm aiming to publish on the 17th February 2020 so this chapter is bound to change. Extract from my Forensic Psychology book: (Work in Progress) Mental illness and crime is a very interesting topic because if you watch the media or TV programmes then they always mention mental illness is related to crime. But what is the truth? That is the aim of this chapter as we scratch the surface of this modern topic. Overall, there seems to be little doubt that certain types of mental disorders do in fact increase the likelihood of violence. However, it is difficult to say who is at risk and who amongst the mentally ill are likely to be the most violent. We’ll explore the reason why in a moment, but this is because other factors can increase the likelihood of violence as well as the mental illness. What other factors increase the likelihood of violence? Several other factors in addition to the mental illness itself tend to have a greater effect on the mentally ill. Including substance abuse and alcohol. Although, this is because there’s fewer of them. Putting this fact into an easy to understand example, let’s say that 100,000 clinically normal people were tested and 30,000 of them were discovered to be substance abusers. That means that 30% of those people were substance abusers. Subsequently, let’s say that 50,000 mentally ill people were tested; so there are 50,000 LESS people in this group, and the study found that 30,000 people in this group were substance abusers. Meaning that 60% of this fictional mentally ill group were substance abusers. Overall, showing you that merely as a result of there being less mentally ill people in the world. People can make grand claims that certain things affect the mentally ill more than clinically normal. This highlights the need for good research to prove that these claims are based on facts and not unfair prejudice. What is the relationship between mental illness and crime? In reality, the relationship between crime as well as mental illness is small and in general, the public is more at risk from young men and substance abusers than the much rare schizophrenics. Why is there is link associating mental illness with crime? Personally, I blame the media and television because the media always focuses on the most sensational of crime (as discussed previously) and sometimes these are linked to mental health. Nonetheless, this is a difficult question to answer so let’s explore in this topic further. Firstly, it is too reductionist; where you try to narrow the reason down to one singular cause like stating depression is caused by genetics. Whilst ignoring the cognitive and sociocultural reasons. See Abnormal Psychology for more information; to say that mental illness causes crime. Especially, when other factors are involved. Such as drugs used to treat the mentally ill can cause an increase in aggression. Leading to a possible increase in violent crime and this wouldn’t be the fault of the mentally ill. As the fault would lie in the drugs as they caused the aggression to increase. Furthermore, it could be society’s fault that a link is perceived to exist. As changes in social policy; a governmental policy that affects people; can possibly lead to an increase in these perceived relationships. For example: if there’s a change in social policy that states that community-based rehabilitation is better. Leading to the mentally ill are out of prison then this could increase the risk to the public as there could be more opportunity for the mentally ill to commit crimes. Although, it MUST be noted that society has an amazing ability to generalise the actions of a few to an entire subgroup of individuals. Thus, it is not a strange or unreasonable idea to propose that humanity stereotypes the mentally ill as criminals just because a hand of mentally ill people in the past have committed crimes. This stereotyping; which can be read in more detail in my book Sociocultural Psychology; isn’t new as the following are all examples of where humanity has stereotyped others due to the actions of a few: · All Muslims are terrorists due to the actions of a few extremists. · All rapists are homosexual when it’s very few and in fact, more heterosexuals are rapists, as previously discussed. · And there are many more examples. Overall, this shows you how stereotyping can be applied to minorities by the dreadful actions of a few misguided souls. Please note rehabilitation in the community is still important in the treatment of offenders. In addition, the risk factors that can predict violent behaviour is becoming increasingly understood. For example, as well as the types of diagnosis, whether the anti-social behaviour started in childhood or later, hallucinations or delusions can all predict violence. Mental Illness and Courts: Now it’s time to enter an interesting topic as I think one of the many reasons why mental illness, as well as crime, is associated together is because of the perceived overuse of the insanity defence. For instance, I once remember that my mother mentioned that mental illness is rubbish because it’s always what criminals try and use to defend themselves. Now, this… misguided opinion can be broken down into a few different components that reveal more about the general human population. Firstly, people believe that the insanity or another mental illness defence is used a lot more than it actually is as it’s only used when there’s probable cause or when certain legal criteria are met. One possible reason for this could be because humans have another great ability to only memory interesting pieces of information. Therefore, people are more likely to remember a murder case involving an insanity defence as that isn’t the every day compared to your standard boring murder with a clinically normal person. Secondly and this fact I find truly heart-breaking as a person who wants to support the mentally ill now and, in the future, but when a false claim is made about mental illness causing the crime and the offender doesn’t have a mental illness. This casts down on all the real cases were mental illness can legitimately be used as a defence. I know that that was confusing, so I’ll take the same concept and put it in a different context. Let’s use rape as an example. Sadly, some people lie about being raped for various reasons and when the lie is discovered. This ultimately impacts the public’s confidence so when someone who has been raped comes along. The public automatically think have they been rape or are they just trying to get attention like X was? Meaning that society is more suspicion and most probably less likely to prosecute or take this real case seriously. As a result of one person’s lies. Overall, I hope that this shows you how lying about having a mental illness can impact the Criminal Justice System. The Psychology of Mental Illness and Courts: Diving into the theory behind this new topic mental illness plays a massive role in courts as legal concepts. Such as competence, fitness to stand trial and diminished responsible have been around for centuries. However, the problem with these mental legal concepts is that they are not simple to equate with the psychological variables as well as there aren’t the same in different jurisdictions. In other words, it’s difficult to make an internationally recognised definition of these difficult legal concepts as each country has its own definition. For instance: in the UK the considerations involved in fitness to stand trial involves: · Having the ability to understand the evidence · The ability to follow court proceedings · Being able to understand that jurors can be objected and challenged · The ability to instruct lawyers effectively · Being able to understand the implication and meaning of the charges against them. (Grubin, 1996a) Whereas, the US system can be simplified defined as the ability to understand and consult with a lawyer at that moment. On the whole, I hope that you have found this interesting and enlightening. I hope that you enjoyed this blog post and please feel free to leave a comment below. Please sign up to my newsletter to learn when this Forensic Psychology book is available and receive your FREE eBook. Have a great week everyone!

Hello, I hope that you had a good weekend. Today's episode is on abnormal psychology and the biological explanation for depression. Please listen to the podcast episode or buy Abnormal Psychology by Connor Whiteley for more information. Chapter 2: Biological explanations Now, we’re starting to get to what I call proper psychology and my favourite parts of psychology because to this and the next two chapters are some of the most interesting pieces of psychology. As we start to explore the why and the reasons behind why Major Depressive Disorder develops. Firstly, we are starting with a biological basis for MDD. There are two theories for why MDD develops within the biological world. The first is called the serotonin hypothesis. This theory states that MDD is caused by an imbalance of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter associated with many functions in the body and it’s sometimes referred to as the happiness chemical. As it’s associated with happiness as well as well-being.[1] There are two pieces of evidence supporting this hypothesis: · Supported by: certain drugs known to decrease serotonin are known to have depressive side effects. · Drugs that increase serotonin levels can relieve depression symptoms. Like: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) However, a major criticism and a problem that I personally have with this theory is that once you take an SSRI the level of serotonin in your blood increases within an hour. However, depressive symptoms don’t decrease until a month later. Therefore, it begs the question: is it actually the increase in serotonin that cures your depression? Or does that increase start another bodily process and that process takes a month to finish and that process cures your depression? I know that it sounds strange or not thought out but if the serotonin hypothesis is true, then surely your depression could be cured within an hour of you taking the SSRI as within that hour the serotonin imbalance is gone or reduced? The neurogenesis hypothesis: On the other hand, modern research has been focusing on the Neurogenesis theory of depression. The theory states that depression is the result of a lack of neuron birth in the hippocampus (this is the part of the brain responsible for emotion) and in other places in the brain that is related to serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. In addition, cortisol appears to be the reason for this lack of neurogenesis. (the birth of neurons in the brain) Patients with MDD show a symptom called HPA-axis hyperactivity. This results in the over-secretion of cortisol. (too much cortisol is being released) This leads to reduced levels of serotonin as well as other neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine. This has been linked to depression. Demonstrating how complex the brain’s chemistry is, and why the treatment for depression remains problematic. As we will explore later. There are a few pieces of evidence that support this theory as well. · Depressed people tend to have smaller hippocampi that the rest of the general population. · Stress hormones are increased in MDD patients and this appears to stop neurogenesis in the hippocampus, as shown in rodents and other primates. · Finally, anti-depressants can increase neurogenesis in the hippocampus in rodents.[2] Supporting studies: Caspi et al (2003): The 5-HTT gene is responsible or the production of serotonin. A longitudinal study of 1,037 children from New Zealand. Divided into three groups: people with two short alleles of the 5-HTT gene, one long and short alleles, two long alleles. They were assessed from the age of 3 to 25. A life history calendar was used to assess stressful life events. Subjects were assessed for depression with an interview and information from someone who knew them well. Results showed that there were no differences in the number of stressful life events. People with two short alleles managed life events with more depressive symptoms. Critically thinking: The study effective looks at the genetic argument for the serotonin hypothesis. Nonetheless, this study does have ethical concerns. For example, the distress that knowing that you’re genetically more likely to develop depression. Therefore, the costs and benefits of research must always be calculated before research is done. Kendler et al (2006): Over 42,000 twins were recruited for the study across a 60-year age span for the purpose of generational comparison. They used a computer-assisted telephone interview that was conducted using DSM-4 criteria for MDD. Informed consent was got before the interview. Trained interviewers were used with a lot of medical training to collect data. The aim was to reach both pairs within a month. Results showed prior studies got similar results. Heritability of depression is 38% on average. Didn’t differ very much across the generations. No evidence was found that the shared environment was a factor in developing depression. In conclusion, major depression is moderately inherited. Critically thinking: The study is highly reliability as a number of studies have supported its findings that depression is about 37% inherited. However, this study is open to population fallacy; were your sample does actually represent the general population; because most of the population aren’t twins. Summary: The serotonin hypothesis states the depression is caused by a serotonin imbalance in the brain. The neurogenesis theory states that depression is caused by a lack of neuron birth in the brain. Capsi et al (2003) shows that there is a clear genetic basis for depression. Kendler et al (2006) shows that depression is moderately inherited. [1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/kc/serotonin-facts-232248 [2] https://www.thinkib.net/psychology/page/22460/biological-approach-to-depression I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you want to more to know more about Abnormal Psychology then please consider buying Abnromal Psychology by Connor. Please sign up for my newsletter for your FREE book. Have a great week everyone.

Hello everyone, I hope that you had a great new year. Today’s blog post is on Altruism as I plan to release a second edition of the Psychology of Human Relationships in February 2020. This will be a brief overview that I will expand upon more in my 2nd Edition psychology book. Please enjoy and share on social media! What are some factors that determine if we help others? · Personality and situational factors can increase helping- for example if you are a helpful and happy person as well as if the situation promotes helping behaviour then you are more likely to help. · Machvavellism is the willingness to manipulate others for gain. As excepted as machvavellism increase, helping behaviour decreases. · Belief in a just world- generally the belief in a just world is likely to prevent people from doing wrong or failing in moral duties. (Hafer, 2000; Sutton and Winnard, 2007) However, these beliefs can increase the chance of people not helping when they don’t feel obligated to help. (Balbert, 1999; Stelan and Sutton,2011) · Empathy- the more empathy a person has the more likely people are to help. · Moral reasoning- people who reason more tend to demonstrate a higher level of empathy and altruism. · Religiosity- if your region places a high value on helping then you can more likely to help as you feel obligated. · Having positive role models- Scloeder, Penner, Dovido and Pilivin, 1995) showed that people who witness more altruistic behaviour from role models tend to be more altruistic themselves Some factors that increase the likelihood of being helped include: · Age- people are more likely to help the young and the elderly compared to a 30 year old adult. · Gender- woman are more likely to receive help than men. (Bruder- Maltson and Hovanitz, 1990) There are many possible reasons for this fact. Both honourable and less honourable. · Attractiveness (Witson and Dovidio, 1985)- linking back to the factor above the more attractive you are the more likely you are to be helped. I hope that you have enjoyed this very brief introduction to the psychology of Altruism and if you want to know more about the psychology of human relationships or the psychology of altruism then please check out Psychology of Human Relationships by Connor Whiteley. Please sign up for my newsletter and get your FREE book. Have a great week everyone!

Hello everyone, I hope that you had a great weekend! Today's episode is on social psychology and Social Cognitive Theory. This is one of my favourite social psychology topics. There are many reasons why I love this unit or have a great interest in this unit and one of the reasons is this amazing theory as it explains how we learn, and I just found it interesting to put a name to this obviously true theory. So Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) or Social Cognitive Learning Theory as it was once called. It’s exactly that. It’s the theory that we learn by observing other people and their consequences. It’s as simple as that. Well, we could go into more depth about the theory but when its essences are in the paragraph above. What’s the point? Especially, as this book is an introduction. So, how can this theory be put into the real world? The question is more how can’t it. Because SCT can be applied to many different situations. For example speech as we observe others as babies speaking and then we try to recreate that behaviour as we have seen people perform it so we can learn from them how to speak. Another situation is bullying we watch others bully us or other people, so we learn from them how to do it. The final example is violence as we watch others perform violence on TV, in films or we see people in fights. From this watching, we see how to perform violence. Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) The study was made up of 3-5-year-old children and their level of aggression was evaluated first, so a matched-pair design could be used to group children with similar levels of aggression together. Then the children would watch a male or female model act aggressively or passively towards the Bobo doll or as a control group they would simply be put with the bobo alone. To see what they would do to the doll. Each child would go into a room and after seeing all the toys they would be told that they weren’t allowed to play with them. Making them frustrated. Results showed that the groups with the aggressive model shown the most aggression, then the control group and then the passive model group were the least violent. Plus, the male groups were the most violent. Critically thinking: The study was well controlled as children with similar levels of aggressive were put together. However, this experiment has ethical concerns because by introducing and teaching the children violence. How negatively are we affecting their future? Joy, Kimball and Zabrack (1986) They studied three towns in Canada. A town called Notel in 1973 which didn’t have TV and again in 1975 when they had one TV channel. Two other towns were observed as well but they already had a TV. 120 elementary school children were observed to do with their level of verbal and physical aggression on the playground. Peers’ and teacher’s ratings of the aggressions were taken as well. Results showed that aggression dramatically increased in Notel from 1973 to 1975 whereas the other two towns didn’t increase significantly over the two years. The peer and teacher ratings supported this. The researchers found that males were more aggressive than females. They concluded that the most likely explanation was that the children got heighten arousal from the new television and this heighten arousal lead to an increase in aggression. Critically thinking: This study’s findings can be applied to general society as the findings were shown in three different locations, so we know that this is a general behavioural trend. Saying that, as this wasn’t an international study these findings can’t be applied to other countries as we don’t know the extent to which their culture would affect the results. Summary: SCT is the theory that we learn by observing other people. Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) found that children that observe aggression learn how to show aggression. Joy, Kimball and Zabrack (1986) found that TV does lead to an increase in aggressive behaviour. I hope that you enjoyed this post or episode. Please sign up to my newsletter and recieve a FREE book. If you want to know about social psychology then please consider checking out my Social Psychology book. Have a great week everyone!

Hello, everyone. I hope that you had a great Christmas Day and are now enjoying Boxing Day (A UK holiday). Today's post is on Health Psychology and the biological causes of obesity. This is an extract from my Health Psychology book, I hope you enjoy. Chapter 3: biological explanations of obesity Moving onto our first cause of obesity, we’ll be looking at the hormone: leptin and the biology of addiction to explain obesity. Hormones: Leptin is a hormone that’s involved in regulating energy intake and outtake. It does this by stopping and giving you hunger. For example, when your Leptin levels are low the hormone tells the body that little or no fat is being stored. Making you feel hungry. However, when you overeat your leptin levels are boosted so you don’t feel hungry anymore. Although, some research suggests that it’s actually how the brain responds to their Leptin signals rather than the levels themselves. As research found that only a minority of obese people had low levels; that should encourage overeat; instead research found that many obese people have increased levels of Leptin. Therefore, suggesting that it’s not the production or amount of Leptin in the body that’s the problem but how the brain responds to these level that causes obese. Biology of addiction: Personally, this is an interesting one because before I read this one section of health psychology about two years ago. I never really thought of fats as drugs, but you should be able to see the link after this section. Addiction leading to obesity is done in the following way: · When you eat fats and sugary foods your brain secretes dopamine as a reward for you. This makes you feel amazing. · Then you continue to eat this type of food so you can continue to get this rush. Similar to drugs. · Then over time your brain and body builds up a tolerance to these foods and stops producing dopamine. · Therefore, you eat more and more of these foods to get the same rush. · In the end, as a result of you having to eat so much in order to get this rush. You built up fat quickly as you’re eating possibly thousands of more calories than you’re burning off. Leading to obesity. Genetic factors: Haworth et al (2008) · Using over 2000 twins aged 7 and over 3500 aged 10, the researchers conducted a twin study to test the inheritability of BMI and obesity. · The parents of the twins filled in a questionnaire with their children’s measures and weight so their BMI could be calculated. · Based on their BMI the children were categorized into normal weight, overweight and obese. · Then the BMIs were correlated between identical and fraternal twins. · Results showed that for both types of twins’ genes played a major role in the development of obesity. Their role was about 60%-74%. · In conclusion, BMI and obesity are largely determined by genetics. That’s the study in its simplest form. Critical thinking: This study has high construct validity as the method used to measure BMI and obesity is very effective. As questionnaires were a quick and simple way to get the information on the children and other factors. Instead of an interview as this can be very time consuming and expensive. Therefore, this effective method allows the researchers to measure what they want so they can draw reliable conclusions from their data. However, as this is a twin study, it is open to population fallacy; where your sample group doesn’t actually represent your target population.; because most of the population aren’t twins. Thus, it could turn out in reality that the percentage of inheritance is much higher or lower in non-twins. Summary: The hormone Leptin is involved in the energy consumption of people. Fat and sugary food can lead to addiction as when you eat it the neurotransmitter dopamine gets released. Haworth et al (2008) demonstrated that obesity can be inherited. Thank you for reading. Please sign up for my mailing list to learn more about psychology and receive your FREE ebook. In addition, if you want to want to know more about Health Psychology then please check out Health Psychology by Connor Whiteley. Available in Ebook, Paperback, Large Print and Audiobook. (Available on Audible, GooglePlay and many more) Have a great week.