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Today’s psychology blog post is on Cognitive psychology and we’ll be focusing on how we memory information as a lot of cognitive psychology is related to memory and other mental processes. Therefore, focusing on the Long Term Memory, how do we remember things and how do we retrieve information that’s stored in the Long Term Memory? Importance of Context: When it comes to retrieving memories the condition under which the memories was encoded is only one side of the story because memory performance is affected by the conditions we try to retrieve the memories under as well. Context reinstatement: The physical context has no effect on memory if the mental perspective doesn’t change. In fact, the physical setting only impacts memory indirectly and only if the physical setting helps us to recreate the setting in which the memory was encoded in. (Smith, 1979) In other words, when the detectives take the victim back to the scene of the crime in TV Dramas. It probably doesn’t do much to the victim’s memory. Memory traces: These are important for the retrieval of information and the subsequent ‘remembering’ of information as memory traces are physical records of memories in the brain. These are formed through maintenance rehearsal. This is where you keep rehearsing it and this keeps the information in the short-term memory for a while. Although, this isn’t very effective for transferring the information into the long-term memory. In addition, you have elaborative rehearsals. This is when you think about the information continually and you associate it with things that are already known. A common example of this is a memory palace. Levels of processing theory: Another theory or aspect of memory that increases the likelihood of you remembering something is the levels of processing theory. This theory looks at whether greater activity in processing leads to better memory. For example, if you only read a list of words; shallow processing; then this leads to lower activity. Whereas deep processing leads to higher activity. This is whether you read and imagine the words in the list in your mind. Additionally, Laik and Lockhart (1972) found that after a delay. It’s easy to remember the deep processing words. Another level of processing is called: deepest processing meaning does the word you’ve trying to remember fit into the sentence. This links back to elaborative rehearsal. For instance, if you need to memory the word: cat. Then it’s easier to remember the word in this sentence: The cat ate the food. Instead of the sentence: The cat laid the eggs. Self-reference: Interestingly, Rogers et al (1979) found that words heard with a self-referencing question were remembered three times more likely to be remembered compared to words without the self-referencing. The reason for this finding is because of a certain type of deeper processing. As the self-referencing allows you to make connections with your own life. In return, this creates more retrieval cues. Meaning you’re more likely to remember the word dog when asked: How’s your dog today? Compared to being asked: What’s that dog called again? Multiple trace theory: This theory proposes that we can make connections between multiple pieces of information. Giving us multiple memory traces as well as it gives us multiple ways to retrieve the word or information. (Retrieval paths) Memory dysfunction: It is a great shame that memory isn’t perfect and that memory dysfunctions can occur. For example, amnesia means the loss of the ability to acquire or retain memories. In addition, people who sadly suffer from retrograde amnesia have an inability to access old memories but an ability to form new memories. Yet people who unfortunately suffer from anterograde amnesia can’t form new memories. Source: Cognitive Psychology 2nd Edition (2020) Connor Whiteley, CGD Publishing I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s cognitive psychology blog post and if you want to learn more about memory and other mental processes then please check out my book Cognitive Psychology. Have a great day, Connor.

Today’s episode of The Psychology World Podcast is on Types of Legal System and Forensic Psychology. Feel free to check out my new psychology books below: Biological Psychology 2nd Edition Cognitive Psychology 2nd Edition Abnormal Psychology 2nd Edition Buy Direct at www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Today’s show notes are from my Forensic Psychology book: Adversarial system: This is the legal system that the United Kingdom and the United States tend to use and in this system, the trial 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 X killed someone in a road accident; so, a law has been broken. In order to meet the burden of proof and charge X with 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 in order to charge them with the crime. Lastly, when the UK legal system and the US system was compared a number of differences were found. For example, the UK system improved memory of evidence presented and juror’s confidence in their verdict as well as the influence of judges non-verbal cues. On the other hand, the two systems 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 their 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 the police and the court is blurred because as mentioned in the Adversarial explanation the police are one separate entity then the judge and prosecution serve is another entity. However, for the Inquisitorial system, this isn’t the case. As a result, judges have a more active role, lawyers take more of a secondary role. Resulting in less procedural rules. The adversarial British system could be a response to the historical shortcoming of the Inquisitorial system. The inquisitorial ‘jury’ is a made up of a judge and laypeople. I hope you’re enjoyed today’s episode. If you want to learn more about Forensic Psychology then please check out my Forensic Psychology book and sign up for my newsletter to receive your FREE book. Plus, please feel free to check out my new psychology books at www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Have a great day everyone, Connor

Today’s post is on Biological Psychology and an Introduction to Sleep. This is an extract from my new Biological Psychology 2nd Edition. Please enjoy. CHAPTER 18: INTRODUCTION TO SLEEP I thought that I would end this book looking at sleep because we all need sleep but: How does it work? Why do we need sleep? Why do we dream? These are all interesting as well as important questions that we need to answer to be able to understand the whole point of sleep. Because let’s face it, sleep can be inconvenient as sometimes I would rather be doing something than sleeping. However, as you will find out throughout this next section sleep is vital so it shouldn’t be taken lightly. What is sleep? Personally, I always find these sorts of questions to be great because ‘what is sleep?’ is one of those annoying questions as we know what sleep is but it’s almost impossible to put into words. Nonetheless, three definitions include: · “Sleep is a readily reversible state of reduced responsiveness to, and interaction with, the environment.” · “Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterised by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles.” · Sleep represents an altered state of consciousness (Mutz, Javadi, 2017) Although, regardless of how you define sleep it must be noted that sleep is a universal behaviour that is displayed by higher vertebrates (all mammals and birds), and some cold-blooded vertebrates. The Circadian rhythm: As I read these slides and passages for my university lecture I was immediately interested in the whole sleep concept but then this strange word kept popping up. This word or phrase was the ‘Circadian Rhythm’ Which come on is a nice word to say. So, before we continue, we need to define it. A circadian rhythm can be defined in simple terms as a circular rhythm that the body goes through. In terms of sleep, the circadian rhythm is our melatonin; more on than later; drops during the day as we wake up and remains low during the day and increase as we get closer to bedtime and remains high during the night. Before it comes full circle and drops back down to lower levels in the morning. Circadian rhythms for the entire body: Many bodily functions follow a circadian rhythm and these are the product of endogenous influences; influences that originate from inside the body; and exogenous influences; influences from outside the body. Some examples of exogenous influences include: · Light · Temperature · Environment The purpose of endogenous rhythms is to keep the working of our internal body in sync with the outside world. This is important as the human circadian clock generates a rhythm that is longer than 24 hours when it has no external cues to refer to. As supported by Kelley et al (1999) who studied naval officers on 18-hour shifts. Exogenous or external cues: These cues rely on a stimulus to reset the circadian rhythm. This is called a Zeitgeber. (time trigger) Although, out of all the stimulus that the human body encounters light is crucial for resetting the rhythm. Overall, the human body runs on a biological clock that needs to reset itself and we need stimulus in order to do that. Mechanisms of the biological clock: There are 3 mechanisms involved in the biological clock and these include: · Melatonin · Genes that produce certain proteins · The Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) The SCN is part of the hypothalamus and it’s the main centre of the circadian rhythm for sleep and temperature. If the SCN is damaged then this results in less consistent body rhythms that aren’t synchronised to the environmental patterns of light as well as dark. In addition, cells in the SCN fire their action potentials in a very specific rhythm that are generated by the SCN are genetically controlled. Additionally, light resets the SCN via a small branch of the optic nerve called: the retinahypothalamus path. That travels directly from the retina to the SCN. The way how the SCN affects sleep is because the SCN controls activity in other areas of the brain. Like the pineal gland. The pineal gland is important as it secretes melatonin; a hormone that regulates the circadian and circannual rhythms as well as it increases 2-4 hours before bedtime. The genetic basis of circadian rhythms: There are two genes that are involved in circadian rhythms and thy are: · Timeless- this gene produces proteins called TIM. · Period- this gene produces proteins called PER. When TIM and PER are in high concentration, they interact with a protein (clock) to induce sleepiness. However, if the clock gene is damaged then this can result in a reduced sleep as well as erratic sleeping pattern. Furthermore, mutations in the PER gene can result in strange circadian rhythms. So now that we’ve looked at the basics of sleep and the circadian rhythm, what happens to us when it gets disrupted? I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s Biological Psychology post and if you want to learn more then please consider checking out my book Biological Psychology 2nd Edition. Have a great day everyone.

Today’s episode of The Psychology World Podcast is on Forensic Psychology and Public and Crime. Also, today’s podcast show notes are taken from my Forensic Psychology book: Victims and fear of crimes: Public and crime are honestly one of my favourite topics in forensic psychology because I love to learn how flawed the public’s knowledge is and the impacts that has on the Criminal Justice System. Hence, why that will be our focus for this chapter. Firstly, the path from committing the crime to punishment is very complex and it must be remembered that crime is a social problem as well. To emphasize the complexity of the process from committing a crime to punishment. Here are the stages of crime. (Ainsworth, 2000) · Will the victim notice crime? · Will the victim report crime? · Will the police record the crime? · Will the offender caught? · Will the offender be prosecuted? · Will the perpetrator be found guilty? · Will the perpetrator be sentenced? As you can see, the path to punishment isn’t straight forward as the case can be dropped or no undetected at any point. Public and crime: In addition to the crime being a social problem, crime is a public issue. Meaning that public opinion affects the justice system. Therefore, public concern needs to understand as it may affect how justice is delivered. However, the public’s perception of rates of crime is often inaccurate. (Ainsworth and Moss, 20002) and it's unrealistic to expect the public to have accurate perceptions. (Howitt, 1992, 1986) The public’s perception of crime is that society is becoming increasingly criminal and risky. (Doherty, 1990) Whereas in reality, crime rates have been decreasing throughout history, but recently certain types of crime are on the rise. Meaning that the public’s perception is wrong. Fear of crime: Let’s face it, the public fear crime and becoming victims of crime. As a result of this fear of crime, politicians and others use this fear in political contexts to gain favour and governments may actively try to influence it. The reason for this influencing and political interest is because if there’s less fear then the government is doing a perceived better job of tackling crime. In other words, this is another example of politicians telling the public half-truths in an effort to gain favour and stay in power. Where does the fear of crime come from? There are many different sources of this fear. Such as Mass media plays a big role as they focus on the most serious of crimes. Meaning that you think that these major crimes are happening more often than they naturally occur. Another example is direct knowledge of crimes were a crime has affected us directly and we have learned from that experience. For example, a crime in our community, a crime against a family member or even a crime against ourselves. Finally, there are aspects of our personality and social characteristics that make us more likely to be fearful of crime. For example, Bazzargan (1994) found that feeling lonely, having a poor education, believing that your neighbours are untrustworthy and having a lack of vigilance increased the likelihood in you becoming fearful of crime. Fear-victimisation paradox (Clark, 2004) That fact shows that being fearful of crime is somewhat unneeded as this paradox shows that there are no relationships between rates of crimes and victimisation. Here’s an example, women are more fearful of crime than men. (Stanko, 1995) but men are actually most at risk of attack by a stranger. Hence, demonstrating how being fearful of crime doesn’t always mean that you will become a victim of crime. Crime phobia (Clark, 2004) Many people who are fearful of crimes say that they have a phobia. I know that this is what some of my older family has said as they can be very fearful at times about crime. Especially, after a terror attack. However, the research suggests that the fear of crime isn’t like a phobia because the fear of crime isn’t dysfunctional or irrational. Media bias: In my opinion, this idea of media bias is one of the most important topics in Forensic Psychology because media bias; as you will see throughout the book; is linked with a lot of public knowledge. As we use the media to learn about crime and other matters. For example, if an individual has limited or very little opportunities to interact with a specific stereotyped group, then the individual will rely on the media’s portrayed of that group in order to learn more. (Sanghana & Wilson, 2006) Furthermore, Media interest regarding crime and in particular sexual offending has grown dramatically (Quinn et al, 2000) However, reported levels of sexual assault have remained constant over the years. This is an example of the public believing that sex offending is increasing but in reality, it isn’t and the media is manipulating the public to believe in such ideas. Finally, the media only likes to report sensational crimes. Thank you for listening or read. If you want to learn more about Forensic Psychology, then please consider checking out my Forensic Psychology book and please consider signing up for my mailing list to receive your FREE psychology book. Have a great day everyone, Connor

Today’s guest post is on a great biological psychology topic of the Psychology of Daydreaming, and this psychology guest post was written by the great Sofia Papalouka and I love this topic of biological psychology as it really can be applied to everyday. I hope you enjoy! Have you ever been in class and you started zoning out? Or perhaps, have been walking home and started thinking how you’d rule England? Although sometimes illogical, these thoughts are termed as daydreaming or mind-wandering. This consists of unconscious, unconstrained, spontaneous thoughts, that are not influenced by the external environment. This means that daydreaming can happen at any point and time, without needing a trigger. Daydreaming acts as a default mode, when you are in a condition that requires low cognitive processes. This means that you are more likely to engage in daydreaming when you are waiting or relaxing, than when you are solving math problems. But why do we engage in daydreaming anyways? Some believe that it aids survival and maintains positive relationships. By imagining alternate outcomes of an upcoming event, daydreaming can increase conflict resolution, but also can reduce social anxiety which increases communication. Not only that, but it can also help in achieving goals, by future planning and making future decisions. One of the biggest advantages, however, is the increase of creativity (Poerio & Smallwood, 2016). By fantasizing different scenarios, parts of the brain named pre-frontal cortex and temporal lobe display higher activity when daydreaming, which is where the imagination network is believed to be located (Kaufman, 2013). The stimulation of the imagination network could potentially aid in gaining creative and inspired moods, valuable to artists and musicians. On the negative side, daydreaming can also lead to detrimental effects, such as loss of concentration when driving or lack of attention in an education context affecting performance (Poerio & Smallwood, 2016). Even if there are chances of having negative experiences, however, daydreaming is valuable to social cognitions and emotional stability, since it can act as an escape from reality. So, keep on daydreaming! Thank you so much for that great psychology blog post Sofia! I hope that you’re enjoyed this biological psychology blog post and if you want to learn more about biological psychology- you can get my FREE eBook when you sign up for my newsletter. Have a great day everyone! References: Poerio, G., & Smallwood, J. (2016). Daydreaming to navigate the social world: What we know, what we don't know, and why it matters. Social And Personality Psychology Compass, 10(11), 605-618. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12288 Kaufman. (2013). Retrieved from http://myteamswings.org/Bibliographie/The-Real-Neuroscience-of-Creativity.pdf

Today’s episode of The Psychology World Podcast is on Research Biases in Psychology research and How to Minimize Their Impact on Research. Now today’s episode is important regardless of your preferred type of psychology whether it’s abnormal psychology, biological psychology or cognitive psychology, because biases can and will impact your research regardless of the type of psychology you prefer. So this is a very important episode to listen or read. Today’s psychology podcast show notes are taken from my Research in Psychology: There are many biases in research that can impact the findings of experiments, but as this is an introduction, I will focus on three main biases. Demand characteristics: This is when the participants believe that they have managed to work out what the experimenters are looking for and they change their behaviour accordingly. This impacts on research as it can lead to false conclusions to be drawn as the data being analysed shows the opposite of how humans actually behave. To counter this in research you can organise your experiment in such a way that makes it difficult for the participants to work out what you’re looking for. Social desirability bias: This is where you change or give your answer to questions or the experiment to something that puts you in a more acceptable light. People do this intentionally or unintentionally. For example; if a 15-year-old girl was asked if she had ever had sex? And she had, she might say that she hasn’t because it could be socially unacceptable for her to have sex because of her age. Impacting results as it could lead to false data leading to false conclusions. A possible way to avoid this bias is to frame questions in a non-judgemental way. Leading question bias: Where the question is worded in such a way that the question encourages a certain answer. Such as: how fast were the cars going when the smashed into each other? That question should lead to a higher speed being given. This impacts research as it gets people to give a certain answer instead of the true answer of their behaviour. Possibly leading to be false conclusions. To avoid this bias questions should be asked in an open-ended and neutral way. For instance: how fast were the cars going at the time of the incident? I hope you’re enjoyed this episode of The Psychology World Podcast and hopefully the things that you have learned today will help you in your psychology research whether it be studying cognitive psychology, social psychology or any other. Please consider to sign up for my newsletter to receive your FREE book and if you want to learn more about psychology research, please check out my book Research in Psychology. Have a great day everyone, Connor.

Today’s episode is looking at teletherapy under the branch of Abnormal Psychology. Hello, I hope that you’re all well during these difficult times so I wanted to take a break from social psychology in this in-between episode of The Psychology World Podcast and talk about abnormal psychology, but more specifically I wanted to talk about the future of psychotherapy. Which as you know is very important in Clinical and Abnormal psychology. Therefore, teletherapy is simply when psychotherapy is delivered from the telephone, skype or any other over-the-internet form of communication and it can be done over the talk as well. In addition, teletherapy could become the ‘normal’ psychotherapy as it is becoming perfectly normal for therapists to phone, text or video chat with patients as well as teletherapy is becoming increasingly used during the COVID-19 pandemic as people still need therapy during this crisis. Interestingly, teletherapy isn’t new in psychology as it and a number of interesting developments were happening before the pandemic. For example, it’s isn’t uncommon to find therapists on social media to grow their business and social media allowed the therapists to grow their business with a global clientele. Meaning that teletherapy was needed in order to help these international clients. Another interesting development is co-working spaces for mental health professionals and this development I found strange at first as surely you would need to be away from other people to deliver effective therapy. However, in JAMA article in 2012 found that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) delivered in teletherapy was just as effective as in-person CBT. Another benefit of these co-working places includes therapists stay mobile for delivering remote services as well as it gives people a chance to network. This is always useful. However, the problem and main difficulty for teletherapy is that according to the article at the button of the page, these pieces of software like zoom and Skype don’t meet the regulatory requirements. Hence, this creates issues for the therapists. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this abnormal psychology blog post and if you want to learn more about psychology then please sign up for my newsletter to receive your FREE book and if you want to learn more about abnormal psychology then please check out my Abnormal Psychology book. Have a great day everyone! Kind regards Connor. Reference: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202003/will-covid-19-make-teletherapy-the-rule-not-the-exception

Generalizability and Credibility in psychological research and how to increase it are the topics in today’s episode of The Psychology World Podcast. Hello, everyone I hope that you’re having a great week. In addition, to what generalizability and credibility is in psychology research, we will be looking at how to increase generalizability and credibility in research as well. So today’s show notes are taken from my Research in Psychology book: Generalizability refers to the extent to which the findings can be applied to other populations and other settings that weren’t used in the study. For example: applying the results of a drug study on teenagers to adults as well. Credibility refers to the extent to which the findings can be trusted to reflect the reality of the world. The higher the creditable the more trusted they can be to effectively tell the truth. Generalizing the findings: Over this section, we’ll be looking at factors that will increase a study’s ability to generalise their findings. Ecological validity: This means the extent to which the findings can be applied to the real world as a result of the experimental scenario. Studies with low ecological validity tend to use artificial scenarios and ones that don’t match the real world. Therefore, the findings cannot be applied to the real world or other populations. Studies with high ecological validity use real-world scenarios so you can apply the findings to other situations and populations. You can increase the ecological validity in your experiments by making your experiment as lifelike as possible. Population validity: Meaning the extent to which your findings can be generalised from your sample. Studies with low population validity tend to use inappropriate samples or too small sample in relation to their target population for a meaningful conclusion to be drawn. For example: if I was to do a study on teenage drug addiction and I used only 20 12 and 13-year-old then I would have low population validity. As I’m only using a small age group and I’m using 12-year olds that aren’t even teenagers. Plus, I’m only using 20 of them compared to the millions of teenagers in the UK. Whereas, studies with high population validity use a large sample size using an appropriate population to study. Therefore, to improve the example above, I would use 500 13-17 years old. Construct validity: Construct validity is how well does the method for measurement measure what you want to measure. Such as: how well does rating your anger on a scale of 1-5 help you measure anger levels. Studies with low construct validity tend to use inappropriate measurement tools. For example: using a focus group when you want to test people’s shopping habits after being exposed to a drug. Studies with high construct validity use effective measurement tools. +Such as: conducting an experiment at a shopping centre to test shopping’s habits after being exposed to a drug. Credibility: Now that we have looked at what makes a study generalisable, we will now look at what makes a study more credible. Creditability also referred to as internal validity in experiments is the extent to which the experiment or study measured what it intended to. By doing these things in your studies, you will increase your creditability as they will increase the trustworthiness of your findings. Triangulation: There are many different types of triangulation including: · Method triangulation- you use more than one method in your study to give you more data to support your conclusions with. · Researcher triangulation- comparing and combining observations made by different researchers. Increasing credibility as if a number of different people arrive at the same conclusion then it makes it more reliable. · Theory triangulation- you use multiple theories or ideas to analyse the data. Making your findings more reliable as you have considered other theories or things that could explain your results, and this leads to a more holistic conclusion as you haven’t tried to bring the behaviour down to one cause, but you have considered multiple causes. Reflexivity: This is when you take your own biases into account and you consider how they could influence the results. Leading to an increase in credibility as this allows you to consider how you will impact the experiment and adapt how the experiment will be done accordingly. Overall, you will not be influencing the experiment as much so it should be the participant personal behaviour in the results and not their influenced behaviour. Thick descriptions: This means that the observed behaviour should be described in a lot of detail and in context so that it makes perfect sense to an outsider who has never seen the experiment before. Making the study more reliable as it could mean that the study can be accurately repeated to further support the findings if the follow up get similar or the same results. I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s episode and if you want to know more about Research in Psychology then check out my Research in Psychology book. Available for FREE at your local library and available in eBook and audiobook on all major online stores. Have a great day everyone!

Today’s episode is on creatives things to do during lockdown and COVID-19 using social psychology. Hello everyone, I hope that you’re having a great day. Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash So, during lockdown we are all looking for things to do and we all want to maintain or improve our mental health during the process, so this is where social psychology and doing creatives things during the lockdown comes in. Note: despite there being a lot of social psychology research out there. I won’t be backing up what I’m saying in this article as this is meant to help people using my own experiences and what I’ve heard from news or psychological sources. Therefore, here are five things to do during lockdown: Reflective writing: There has been a lot of research into the great benefits that writing has on mental health so writing whether creatively or otherwise is great for mental health. So, my suggestion would be to do some writing soon because it can make you feel better and if you choose to write something creatively then it can be great for escaping the COVID- 19 chaos. In addition, I recommend that you do some reflective writing on your phone or on some paper (what’s paper? Isn’t that stone age technology?) and just write about your feelings and how you’re doing during the lockdown. I know from personal experience that this is helpful to do even when you aren’t in lockdown also, I have found a few surprising things about myself during this reflective writing. Note: this tends to happen when you’re writing freely and not controlling what you’re saying. So go on just write! Reading and TV and movies: Personally, as a writer I love reading so I can testify to the power of books in print, eBook or audio format to escape this chaos and enter another type of world through reading. Also, a lot of authors are doing discounts during COVID-19 so please have a look and read. If you want to look at some of my books, then please go to: Psychology books- www.connorwhiteley.net/books sci-fi fantasy- www.connorwhiteley.net/scififantasy P.S- TV and Movies have the same effect! Arts and crafts: Similarly, to reading and reflective writing, doing arts and crafts and creating something new while the virus is destroying the world around us can provide you with some great escape. So, you can similarly type into google ‘arts and crafts activities’ and you should find a lot of great activities to do. In addition, if you have kids at home with you then doing arts and crafts are a great way to keep them entertained. Exercise: There has also been a lot of research into the great effects that exercise has on improving our mental health and experts on Sky News have constantly been talking about the need to exercise to keep up and maintain our mental health during this difficult time. Personally, I have a mini- exercise bike at home so I spend at least 30 mins a day on it exercising. So please maintain your mental health and exercise! I know that this is a very difficult time and I hope that you have found this psychology blog post with reference to social psychology useful. Please stay safe and stay sane! Have a great day everyone! kind regards, Connor.

Today’s psychology podcast episode is on research in psychology, research types in psychology and how psychology research is done? Hi everyone, I hope that you’re having a great day. In today’s episode of The Psychology World Podcast, I talk about research in psychology. Below are the show notes taken from my Research in Psychology book: In psychological research, there are two types of research. Quantitative: The aim of this research is to make universal rules of behaviour. That can be applied to a large group of people. The focus is on how behaviour is created and shows itself with a strong emphasis on scientific number-based data. Furthermore, it’s an objective type of research meaning that the researcher is removed from the research context and doesn’t influence the results as much. Some examples of this type of research include: · Experiments · Natural experiments · Correlational studies Overall, think of this type of research as the hardcore type of science that is supported by hard facts and numerical data. Qualitative research: The aim of this type is to develop a deep understanding of a particular event or case. As a result of this focus on one event, this type of research doesn’t produce universal rules of behaviour. Qualitative research focuses on human experiences, interpretation and meaning with rich detailed texts for data. However, this type is less objective as the researcher is part of the research method and could possibly influence the results. Some qualitative methods include: · Case studies · Observations · Focus groups · Interviews Overall, think as this type of research as focusing one event and trying to find out everything about the event. In order to write a very, very detailed report of why the event happened. I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s psychology blog post on research in psychology and if you want to know more about psychological research then please consider checking out my book: Research in Psychology. Have a great day! Kind regards Connor.

Today's episode of The Psychology World Podcast is on Development Psychology and how poverty impacts child development. Focusing on the negative effects poverty can have on cognitive psychology and biological psychology. Below are the show notes taken from my Development Psychology book: Poverty is the state of having no or little means to fulfil basic needs and as a result of that, a number of outcomes can arise that inhibit development. Brooks and Dunn (1997) summarised that poverty has a number of key outcomes: · Physical health as poverty leads to stunted growth, malnourish and low birth weight. · Lower cognitive ability · Poorer school achievement · Emotional as well as behavioural outcomes such as showing more aggression or fighting behaviour while feeling depressed or anxious on the inside. The researchers suggested a number of pathways as well. These pathways are other factors that affect development in addition to the family income. · Availability of nutrition · The physical condition of the home · Amount of time parents spent with children · Parenting style · Punishment practices · Parent’s mental health · Neighbour conditions · And many more… Models of poverty: There are two main models or theories that try to explain and predict the deciding factors in the argument of what factors affect development the most. · The family stress theory states that the main variables that affect development are family related. Like: parenting styles and communication strategies. · The investment model states that the most important pathways that affect development are associated with real goods. Such as nutrition, opportunities to learn and enriched environments. Personally, if you combine the two theories, I believe that you would be spot on and both are very true explanations to the factors that affect poverty the most. Pollitt (1995) · Researchers carried out a study on four very poor villages in Central Guatemala for the course of 8 years. · The participants were made up of over 2000 children and mothers. · As protein was the main nutrient missing from the villager’s diet. The villagers were given a nutrient supplement. · Participant from two villages received a high protein supplement whereas the two other control villages got a supplement that contained far less protein. · Results showed that a significant drop in infant mortality in both sets of villages, but with a 69% decrease in villages taking the high protein supplement compared to only a 24% decrease in the other two villages. Children on the lower protein supplement suffered a slower rate of growth and a slower rate of recovery from infection. They also learned to crawl and walk slightly later on average. Because these undernourished children remained small for their age, adults may have treated them as if they were younger than their actual age. · In conclusion, this shows how poverty can affect psychological development. Critical thinking: A positive of this study is that it has high ecological validity as the experiment uses a natural, real-world setting. In turn, this increases the generalizability of the findings, so we apply the results of the experiment to different situations. However, as a result of this high ecological validity where other factors that could influence cognitive development aren’t controlled. We cannot say with unshakable certainty that protein was the only factor that could have given us these results. As factors could have potentially played a role. Like: illness, genetic factors and other missing nutrients from their diet. Summary: Poverty can have a number of impacts on development. There are a number of factors that impact development as well as family income. The two main theories or models in relation to the effects of poverty on development are: · The family stress theory · The investment model Pollitt (1995) demonstrated how important protein is in cognitive development. I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of The Psychology World Podcast and if you want to learn more about more social psychology, cognitive psychology and biological psychology can impact child development. Then please check out my book Developmental Psychology for more information. Please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive your FREE book as well as more psychology news. Have a great day everyone!

Today’s psychology blog post is on Forensic Psychology and it focuses on the fear of crime and why people are scared of becoming victims of crime. Hi everyone, I hope that you’re having a great day. Personally, I love this area of forensic psychology because I find it very finding. Below is an extract from my Forensic Psychology book and over the next few weeks I’ll be posting some in-between psychology podcast episodes focusing on helping you during COVID-19. Victims and fear of crimes: Public and crime are honestly one of my favourite topics in forensic psychology because I love to learn how flawed the public’s knowledge is and the impacts that has on the Criminal Justice System. Hence, why that will be our focus for this chapter. Firstly, the path from committing the crime to punishment is very complex and it must be remembered that crime is a social problem as well. To emphasize the complexity of the process from committing a crime to punishment. Here are the stages of crime. (Ainsworth, 2000) · Will the victim notice crime? · Will the victim report crime? · Will the police record the crime? · Will the offender caught? · Will the offender be prosecuted? · Will the perpetrator be found guilty? · Will the perpetrator be sentenced? As you can see, the path to punishment isn’t straight forward as the case can be dropped or no undetected at any point. Public and crime: In addition to the crime being a social problem, crime is a public issue. Meaning that public opinion affects the justice system. Therefore, public concern needs to understand as it may affect how justice is delivered. However, the public’s perception of rates of crime is often inaccurate. (Ainsworth and Moss, 20002) and it's unrealistic to expect the public to have accurate perceptions. (Howitt, 1992, 1986) The public’s perception of crime is that society is becoming increasingly criminal and risky. (Doherty, 1990) Whereas in reality, crime rates have been decreasing throughout history, but recently certain types of crime are on the rise. Meaning that the public’s perception is wrong. Fear of crime: Let’s face it, the public fear crime and becoming victims of crime. As a result of this fear of crime, politicians and others use this fear in political contexts to gain favour and governments may actively try to influence it. The reason for this influencing and political interest is because if there’s less fear then the government is doing a perceived better job of tackling crime. In other words, this is another example of politicians telling the public half-truths in an effort to gain favour and stay in power. Where does the fear of crime come from? There are many different sources of this fear. Such as Mass media plays a big role as they focus on the most serious of crimes. Meaning that you think that these major crimes are happening more often than they naturally occur. Another example is direct knowledge of crimes were a crime has affected us directly and we have learned from that experience. For example, a crime in our community, a crime against a family member or even a crime against ourselves. Finally, there are aspects of our personality and social characteristics that make us more likely to be fearful of crime. For example, Bazzargan (1994) found that feeling lonely, having a poor education, believing that your neighbours are untrustworthy and having a lack of vigilance increased the likelihood in you becoming fearful of crime. Fear-victimisation paradox (Clark, 2004) That fact shows that being fearful of crime is somewhat unneeded as this paradox shows that there are no relationships between rates of crimes and victimisation. Here’s an example, women are more fearful of crime than men. (Stanko, 1995) but men are actually most at risk of attack by a stranger. Hence, demonstrating how being fearful of crime doesn’t always mean that you will become a victim of crime. Crime phobia (Clark, 2004) Many people who are fearful of crimes say that they have a phobia. I know that this is what some of my older family has said as they can be very fearful at times about crime. Especially, after a terror attack. However, the research suggests that the fear of crime isn’t like a phobia because the fear of crime isn’t dysfunctional or irrational. Media bias: In my opinion, this idea of media bias is one of the most important topics in Forensic Psychology because media bias; as you will see throughout the book; is linked with a lot of public knowledge. As we use the media to learn about crime and other matters. For example, if an individual has limited or very little opportunities to interact with a specific stereotyped group, then the individual will rely on the media’s portrayed of that group in order to learn more. (Sanghana & Wilson, 2006) Furthermore, Media interest regarding crime and in particular sexual offending has grown dramatically (Quinn et al, 2000) However, reported levels of sexual assault have remained constant over the years. This is an example of the public believing that sex offending is increasing but in reality, it isn’t and the media is manipulating the public to believe in such ideas. Finally, the media only likes to report sensational crimes. Public opinion and Experts: We will build upon this topic more in our next chapter but ideally, public opinion and experts need to appreciate each other and co-exist. However, with the government choosing to do ‘top of the head’ polls instead of deliberation polls for political gain then the government only gets a skewed version of public opinion. That they use for political gain and not the benefit of the people. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and for more information on forensic psychology and criminal psychology, please check out my book Forensic Psychology for more information. Please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive your FREE book. Have a great day everyone!