the

psychologist
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Out of this world

A special feature takes psychology
into alien territory

letters 782 what would you say to an alien? 800

news 788 psychology in deep space 804
careers 840 eye on fiction: the alien in us all 808
looking back 816 close encounters 812
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What would you say to an alien? 800
Jon Sutton talks to Douglas Vakoch, clinical
psychologist and Director of Interstellar
Message Composition at the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence
800
...features
Psychology in deep space 804
Nick Kanas considers issues and
countermeasures
Eye on fiction:
The alien in us all 808
We asked for your favourite alien
entity, and what their depiction
says about our own psychology
Close encounters of the
psychological kind 812
Christopher C. French considers
explanations of UFO sightings, alien
804 encounters and even abductions
...looks back
Encountering extraterrestrial intelligence 816
Albert Harrison looks to lessons from history
7 years ago
Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our archive, including (December 2008) ‘New horizons’
The Psychologist is the monthly publication of The British Psychological Society. It provides a forum for
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 the
psychologist
vol 28 no 10 october 2015

the issue
...features In 1948 British astronomer Fred
Hoyle wrote: ‘Once a photograph
of the earth, taken from outside, is
New voices: The flat landscape 820 available… a new idea as powerful
Clementine Edwards considers emotional deficits in schizophrenia, in the as any in history will be let loose.’
latest of our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices) For some time I have wanted to lift
The Psychologist free from earthly
...reports shackles, pausing to look back at
our blue planet before forging ahead
news 788 to the stars in search of powerful
Cheltenham Literature Festival; malnourishment; good childhood; hearing voices; new ideas. This, finally, is an ‘out of
A-level psychology; fear in organisations; psychological terms to avoid; and more this world’ issue.
We meet a clinical psychologist
society 824 who is Director of Interstellar
President’s column; what ‘good’ looks like for children; PsyPAG; and more Message Composition at the Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
...debates Frankly, that would be enough. But
we also have close encounters,
letters 782 aliens in fiction, psychology in deep
psychology’s non-stick frying pan: the debate continues; confidence intervals; space and lessons from historical
ADHD; the real world column on ‘migrants’; and more hoaxes.
This might be one of our
...digests more ‘out there’ editions, but I am
convinced it’s grounded in serious
what happened when psychologists tried to replicate 100 previously published and sensible science. I’m also
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about?; in the latest from our free Research Digest (see www.bps.org.uk/digest) 794 aliens-are-coming-look-busy – if we
had credible warning of an imminent
...meets alien invasion, how would humanity –
and psychologists – react?
careers 840 Dr Jon Sutton
we meet Doyin Atewologun, and psychology graduate Melanthe Grand Managing Editor @psychmag
interviews her mother, Chartered Psychologist and novelist Voula Grand
one on one 856
with Jo Silvester, Professor of Organisational Psychology

...reviews
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Better Brain; the Amazing World of M.C. Escher; People, Places and Things at the
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The Psychologist and Digest

Editorial Advisory Committee Big picture centre-page pull-out
Catherine Loveday (Chair), Phil Banyard, motion illusions in static patterns:
Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, images and words from research by
Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Peter Johannes Zanker
Olusoga, Tony Wainwright, Peter Wright

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

LETTERS

Do we eclipse other sciences?

Phil Banyard (‘Where is our non-stick frying pan?’, Letters,
September 2015) bemoans what he perceives to be a lack of
useful discoveries in psychology. Does any of what we do as
psychologists amount to more than ‘a hill of beans’, in contrast
to the glorious achievements of other sciences? In a fit of physics
envy, Banyard declares Einstein’s general theory of relativity
‘spectacularly tested’ during the 1919 solar eclipse, when light
was shown to be bent ‘to the amount predicted’.
However, Banyard ‘spectacularly’ misfires with this example.
There are several errors worthy of discussion in such retellings
of the myth of the 1919 eclipse ‘proof’ of general relativity, not
least an enormous misunderstanding of
how science actually works. Remember
the ‘discovery’ of cold fusion? Genuine
about psychology, than is popularly supposed.
Sir Arthur Eddington, scientific leader of the expedition
and huge advocate of Einstein’s theory, felt enormous pressure
to gain the ‘correct’ result. A devout Quaker, Eddington had
noted that the heavens on 29 May 1919 (the day of the eclipse)
had seen fit to deliver a particularly favourable alignment of
celestial bodies for ‘weighing light’, as he put it (see Eddington,
1920). However, the technology of the time was simply not up
to delivering the precision required (accurate testing of general
relativity had to wait another 40 years and more). Interpretation
of the fuzzy results was influenced by knowing what

TIM SANDERS
scientific discovery is not like an
election or a football match, a one-off
contest (Newton 0; Einstein 1); rather,
it must survive many rigorous
validations through replication and
triangulation of results.
However, given the central
argument of Phil Banyard’s letter – that
physics trumps psychology – I wish to
concentrate on the particular irony of
deploying the eclipse myth here: what
really happened in 1919 tells us much
less about physics, and much more

A few years ago I treated a 66-year-

old woman. She had suffered with
psychological distress from age 16 and
in that time had been in and out of
mental hospitals and had experienced
the full range of psychotropic medicines
plus several bouts of ECT. When I met
her she was pretty much housebound
and socially isolated, she was alienated
from her children and she lived a life of by intrusive thoughts of becoming violent but within three months of a
constant misery and anxiety due to her towards other people. straightforward application of exposure
extreme OCD. This was largely manifest I am not a particularly expert therapist and response prevention, a technique that
contribute

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782 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 letters

experimental data would precisely fit the theory.

‘[L]ater examination of the photographs taken on that
expedition showed the errors were as great as the effect they
Five greats
were trying to measure. Their measurement had been sheer A recent, despondent letter effect’ plus operant
luck, or a case of knowing the result they wanted to get, entitled called for information conditioning, (4) Harlow’s
a not uncommon occurrence in science’ (Hawking, 1988). on the greatest scientific surrogate mother monkeys
Psychologists have a name for this: it is confirmation bias: inventions in psychology. plus ‘The nature of love’,
‘the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are Please permit me here to (5) the doorbell at a
partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in mention just a few great ones: psychotherapist’s office.
hand’ (Nickerson, 1998). (1) Watson’s behaviourism Donald F. Smith
Note that the Stephen Hawking quotation I have given based on Pavlov’s classical Retired Research Psychologist,
above is from A Brief History of Time, a book Banyard may conditioning, (2) The Skinner Psychiatric Hospital of Aarhus
well have heard of, or even own. So I suspect he would not Box; (3) Thorndike’s ‘law of University
have had to look far to refute the stuff of his own argument,
had he really wished to do so. Thus his claim itself evidences
just how widespread and pernicious is confirmation bias: Phil
Banyard seized on the 1919 eclipse myth uncritically, because
it ‘confirmed’ his bias towards spectacular physics. His letter,
Intelligent concept
far from making the case that psychology amounts only to an
undersized mountain of beans, illustrates how much we need The most useful item developed by psychological science is
psychological theory to inform our understanding of other the concept of intelligence. For more than a century this sturdy
sciences and ourselves. understanding has been tweaked from pure g to multiples, from
Mike Kelly fixed to malleable, admired and despised. Although around the
Senior Specialist Educational Psychologist (Autism Spectrum) world it may be somewhat differently interpreted, there is a basic
Essex County Council understanding that individual intelligence is to do with the
ability to deal with one’s world. Measures of intelligence are
References reliable and regularly improved to serve their purpose of
Eddington, A. (1920). Space, time and gravitation: An outline of the general relativity predicting intellectual achievement, mostly in school. It’s an
theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. infinitely more valuable tool than a non-stick pan.
Hawking, S.W. (1988). A brief history of time. New York: Bantam Books. Professor Joan Freeman FBPsS
Nickerson, R.S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many Middlesex University
guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220.

psychology (and psychiatry) can rightly claim to have invented,

this woman was showing clinically significant improvement. The Big Five
Eighteen months later her life was totally changed. She was able
to go out by herself and shop in a nearby large town. She was My candidate for psychology’s
back in contact with her two daughters. She had nursed her answer to the non-stick frying
husband through his terminal illness and was coping well with pan or chemistry’s periodic
her bereavement. She was planning to take her first ever holiday table of elements is the Big
abroad. The intrusive thoughts still came occasionally and she Five model of personality (see
knew how to deal with them. e.g. Goldberg, 1981). This has
Phil Banyard may not think this is ‘impressive’, but I did and proved to be extractable from
so did she. She had been in contact with mental health services the lexicons of many
for 50 years yet it was only when she was put in contact with languages and is increasingly
a (very ordinary, jobbing) clinical psychology service that she supported by the findings of
received effective treatment. Of course it won’t always be like neuroscience (DeYoung et al.,
this, and I agree that psychologists have a lot to be modest 2010). The Big Five
about, but let’s hear it for the treatments that work and the dimensions, and their various
hope they bring. circumplex combinations (see
Paul Whitby CPsychol, AFBPsS e.g. Hofstee et al.,1992), have
Wiltshire Specialist Therapies Team, Green Lane Hospital, Devizes a wide range of convenience.
They have been empirically
related to an impressive
number of psychological
THE ALIENS ARE COMING! phenomena and, with their
facet scales, are beginning to
To celebrate our ‘Out of this world’ issue, we would like you to bring sense to the confusing
visit our website to discuss the following question: taxonomy of overlapping
If we had credible warning of an imminent alien invasion, how personality disorders (Skodol
would humanity – and psychologists – react? et al., 2011) in the DSM-5.
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/aliens-are-coming-look-busy Hugh McCredie
Dr Jon Sutton, Managing Editor, The Psychologist Vice Chair, The Psychometrics
Forum
References
DeYoung, C.G., Hirsh, J.B., Shane, M.S.
et al. (2010). Testing predictions
from personality neuroscience:
Brain structure and the Big Five.
Psychological Science, 21, 820–828.
Goldberg, L.R. (1981). Language and
individual differences: The search
for universals in personality
lexicons. In L. Wheeler (Ed.) Review
of personality and social psychology
(Vol. 2, pp.141–165). Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage.
Hofstee, W.K.B., de Raad, B. &
Goldberg, L.R. (1992). Integration of
the Big Five and circumplex
approaches to trait structure.
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 63(1), 146–163.
Skodol, A.E., Clark, L.A., Bender, D.S. et
al. (2011). Proposed changes in
personality and personality disorder
assessment and diagnosis for DSM-
5 Part I: Description and rationale.
Journal of Personality Disorders, 2,
4–22.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 783

 letters

A place for confidence intervals

In response to van der Linden and
Chryst’s letter (‘Why the “new statistics”
isn’t new’, August 2015), their assertion
that confidence intervals (CIs) are based
on null hypothesis significance testing
(NHST) is clearly mistaken, as evidenced
by the history of their development and
by the information provided by each
approach.
The history of the development of CIs
and NHST makes clear that they are not
equivalent, although both were developed
as alternatives to applying Bayesian
arguments in the absence of a priori
expectations. These alternatives were
developed at roughly the same time, by
different people in different places: Fisher
for NHST (1930, 1933, 1935, England)
and Neyman for CIs (1934, 1941, Poland;
see also Pytkowski, 1932). Neyman
(1934) initially viewed Fisher’s fiducial
limits as essentially the same as his
confidence intervals, but later (1941),
following careful examination of Fisher’s
work and discussions with Fisher, both
Neyman (1941) and Fisher (1935)
determined that they were fundamentally
different.
CIs and NHST provide very different
information, although they sometimes rely
on the same statistical information. With
NHST, the significance value is the
probability of obtaining these data, or
more extreme data, if the null hypothesis
is true. NHST does not provide any
information about the likelihood of the
data if the null hypothesis is not true.
CIs, on the other hand, straightforwardly
provide a range of plausible values for a
statistic (in future samples) or a parameter
without reference to a null hypothesis.
Catherine O. Fritz
Psychology Division, University of Northampton
References
Fisher, R.A. (1930). Inverse probability. Proceedings of
the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 26, 528–535.
Fisher, R.A. (1933). The concepts of inverse probability
and fiducial probability referring to unknown
parameters. Proc of the Royal Soc, A, 139, 343–348.
Fisher, R.A. (1935). The fiducial argument in statistical
inference. Annals of Eugenics, 6, 391–398.
Neyman, J. (1934). On the two different aspects of the
representative method. Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society, 97, 558–625.
Neyman, J. (1941). Fiducial argument and the theory of
confidence intervals. Biometrica, 32, 128–150.
Pytkowski, W. (1932). The dependence of small farms
upon their area, the outlay and the capital invested in
cows. Warsaw: Series Bibljoteka Pulawaka.

We were puzzled by van der Linden and Chryst’s claim that
confidence intervals (CIs) are based on null hypothesis
significance testing (NHST). Their argument seems to be that
both CIs and NHSTs can make use of the same statistical tools
in their calculations – in their example, standard errors and
Z-scores. You might, however, argue similarly that, for example,
a grave and a flower bed are the same because they both involve
the use of the same tool, in this case, a spade.
The thrust of our argument in our article on building
confidence in confidence intervals (June 2015) was that CIs,
combined with effect sizes (ESs), provide researchers with much
more useful information than NHST tests. We acknowledge that
some researchers, shaped by the NHST world, will use CIs to
draw conclusions about the likelihood of their results occurring
by chance, and will probably be encouraged to do so by journal
editors. We do not believe that this is a bad thing, because all
researchers have the practical decision to take on whether they
will or will not continue with that particular line of research, and
at least the decision concerns the probable distribution of the
effect, rather than a usually irrelevant null hypothesis. However,
we hope that the researchers go much farther in using CIs.
Of course, CIs cannot give certainty over the population
parameter – but they can give a great deal more information
than the point estimates that are all that are usually reported.
Also, it is not surprising that, as Hoekstra et al. (2014) reported,
many psychologists misinterpret CIs. Most psychologists are
unfamiliar with them and their use. Perhaps more depressing are
the misinterpretations of NHSTs that occur, despite researchers’
familiarity with them.
It is wrong for van der Linden and Chryst to claim that one
has no idea whether or not a CI contains the population value.
That conclusion would be true only if one accepts the strict
frequentist interpretation of CIs that they set out. But the
interpretation is hotly debated among statisticians. Instead we
hold, as does Cumming (2012), that it is logical to believe that
values within a CI are relatively plausible potential population
values and therefore CIs are much more intuitive than van der
Linden and Chryst suggest.
We would not want the casual reader to believe that van der
Linden and Chryst have successfully defended current statistical
practice from the arguments we presented. They are no fans of
NHST, but instead want psychologists to adopt a third approach,
Bayesian statistics. We have sympathy with Bayesian approaches,
but we do not recommend a wholesale and enforced conversion
of psychological data analysis to Bayesian methods for two main
reasons. The challenge of persuading all psychologists to retrain
in the sophisticated Bayesian techniques seems beyond what
could be accomplished at the moment. We have found that even
getting psychologists to think about effect sizes, rather than
merely reporting them from statistical package output, is a
challenging task. Secondly, moving to a Bayesian approach will
not eliminate problems and disputes. Most Bayesian methods
(but not all; see Wagenmakers et al., 2011) require the choosing
of prior probabilities on which the calculations develop. Such
priors are often contentious. As one recent example,
Wagenmakers et al. argue that the prior probability for analysing
a study on precognition should be .00000000000000000001.
Not surprisingly, this makes finding supporting evidence for
precognition very difficult! Others who are more sympathetic
to the possibility of precognition would argue for a much more
generous prior probability, leading to a greater likelihood of
positive results.
We believe that the calculation of CIs and ESs are well
within the skills of all psychologists, and that, if they explore
this approach, they will find that they have more insight into
their data and are able to communicate more useful information
to their readers.
Peter E. Morris
Graham D. Smith
Psychology Division, University of Northampton
References
Cumming, G. (2012). Understanding the new statistics: Effect sizes, confidence intervals,
and meta-analysis. New York: Routledge.
Hoekstra, R., Morey, R.D., Rouder, J.N. & Wagenmakers, E.J. (2014). Robust
misinterpretation of confidence intervals. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21,
1157–1164.
Wagenmakers, E.J., Wetzels, R., Borsboom, D. & van der Maas, H.L.J. (2011). Why
psychologists must change the way they analyse their data. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 100, 426–432.

784 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


ADHD – recognising
the signs
Ellie van Staden’s letter
(‘Recognising ADHD in
school’, August 2015)
expressed very effectively my
own thoughts and feelings
whenever I arrive at a
diagnosis of ADHD for an
undergraduate. Almost
inevitably such students have
been referred to me because of
late submission of work and
under-achievement in exams
and coursework. Very
frequently there is also
a history of mental health
issues, especially bouts
of depression. My feelings
of exasperation are further
heightened when a student
has had a previous diagnostic
assessment for a learning
difficulty that has failed to
recognise that ADHD is
present and is a significant
contributory factor to the
academic problems being
encountered.
One of the key reasons
for the generalised failure to
recognise that an individual
has ADHD may well be
negative stereotyping. This
was captured in the comment
by one trainee primary school
teacher that she had not
thought she could have ADHD
‘because ADHD is all about
eight-year-old boys throwing
chairs about in the classroom’.
ADHD takes different forms,
and for about 50 per cent of
the individuals I see
hyperactivity/impulsivity is
not an issue. In such instances
the diagnosis is one of ADHD
(Inattentive presentation). It
is also worth pointing out that
I diagnose as many females as
males. ADHD is not
predominantly a male-specific
learning difficulty.
Ellie asks what
psychologists are doing to
raise awareness. A major step
forward was taken in May
2013 when a SASC (SpLD
Assessment Standards
Committee)-convened group,
drawn from many different
disciplines and chaired by
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
Philip Asherson, Professor in
Molecular Psychiatry at King’s
College London, arrived at the
consensus that practitioner
psychologists and specialist
teacher assessors, could, with
relevant training, undertake
ADHD assessments and make
appropriate recommendations
for support in further and
higher education. It is vital to
note that such an assessment
is for ADHD as a specific
learning difficulty rather than
being a medical diagnosis.
(This consensus outcome can
be found at www.sasc.org.uk.)
Since then I have made
freely available an ADHD
diagnosis protocol guide
(hosted on the Patoss
(www.patoss-dyslexia.org) and
ADSHE (www.adshe.org.uk)
websites. I am also currently
collaborating with a study
skills tutor on a letter to be
sent to schools that will
provide some guidance on
key facts about ADHD and
a shortlist of characteristic
ADHD behaviours:
procrastination, distractibility,
uneven educational
performance, propensity to
make simple/careless errors,
disorganisation, and being
fidgety.
Educational psychologists
are well positioned to help
educate schools about how to
recognise signs of ADHD and
to provide advice on support.
Following the outcome of the
ADHD consensus meeting
there can be no excuse for not
doing so.
Dr David W Grant CPsychol,
AFBPsS
Independent educational
psychologist
London W7
letters
FORUM THE REAL WORLD
Can a single picture change the course of history? Will the image of
three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s dead body on a Turkish beach change
the way we respond to those fleeing economic and political turmoil?
In the ensuing weeks there have been a spate of events we may
have thought we would never see. Cheering crowds welcoming
refugees at Munich station. Hundreds of thousands petitioning
Parliament. Convoys of aid to the Calais camps massively over-
subscribed. Impromptu acts of solidarity across the country.
But exactly what has changed is unclear. It could be that no one
has actually changed their minds, but suddenly those who abhorred
the demonisation of migrants have realised that they were not alone.
This would fit with a fascinating literature which suggests that the
media doesn’t so much influence what people think, but what those
people think others think (meta-representations rather than
representations). But this still matters because it affects what we are
prepared to do. Once we feel that we are not alone, that ours is part
of a collective voice, we are much more willing to act in public.
That is important, but it isn’t all that is going on. In a recent
article on the BBC website, the Home Editor, Mark Easton, struggled
to accept that Aylan’s picture could have made a difference. It ‘may
have pricked our conscience,’ he concluded, ‘but I doubt it has
changed our mind.’ Easton’s perplexity was premised on the
assumption that we are of one mind. We must either be for opening
our borders to more people, or for keeping them shut. We can’t be
both. And the evidence is overwhelming as to where we stand. British
social attitudes surveys consistently tell us that some 10 times as
many people want the number of migrants to be reduced as want it
to be increased – and the level of rejection continues to grow.
Yet consider the questions that are asked: Do you want more
migrants (or refugees, or asylum seekers) in the country? Already
people have been labelled. Not only are they ‘not us’, they belong to
a particularly pathologised category. The word ‘bogus’ always haunts
these terms and was again invoked by Cameron when, after Aylan, he
insisted that Britain is open to genuine refugees and asylum seekers.
The term is associated with notions of invasion, pollution,
exploitation. Asking ‘Do you want more migrants?’ it is not far from
asking ‘Do you want alien hordes who threaten much of what you
hold near and dear?’.
Aylan’s image led us to recategorise the subject of the question.
Aylan became a little boy rather than a migrant. Abdullah Kurdi
became a father to that boy rather than a migrant. And through them
others began to be recategorised as less alien, less toxic, and indeed
members of the same groups as ourselves. It is not that we have
changed our minds about the same question, it is that the question
has changed.
These issues of language and categorisation have long been
understood by those at the sharp end. We have investigated the way
Bulgarians were successfully mobilised to stop the Nazis deporting
Jews to the death camps, and more recently, Caoimhe Ryan, at the
University of St Andrews, has completed a three-year study of anti-
deportation campaigns in the UK, showing that appeals based on
common categorisation (‘being one of us’) actually work. They
mobilise compassion and support – even more than describing those
in need simply as ‘people’. Language is critical to our responses.
As long as we talk of a ‘migrant crisis’ we perpetuate rather than
address the issues. And certainly, a migrant is not a migrant by any
other name. Or when endowed with a name. Aylan.
Steve Reicher is at the University of St Andrews. Alex Haslam is at
the University of Queensland. Share your views on this and other ‘real
world’ psychological issues – e-mail psychologist@bps.org.uk.
An archive of columns can be found at www.bbcprisonstudy.org.
785
 letters

Demanding greater rigour

As a child I remember leafing through
Sense and Nonsense in Psychology by Hans
Eysenck. It seems that A-level Psychology
is at risk of promoting a new version of
nonsense. I was prompted to write this
letter after reading the Research Digest
article ‘What the textbooks don’t tell you
about psychology’s most famous case
study’ (August 2015) about
misrepresenting research in textbooks,
no doubt a result of a form of Chinese
whispers where knowledge is distorted by
serial reproduction without reference to
the original. This is evidently the case in
some textbooks written for students. The
article reminded me of a recent experience
of my own.
Students at A-level are expected to
know about demand characteristics.
However, as I discovered when I spent
a few months teaching A-level again, there
was a misunderstanding that arose from
use of language. It transpired that they
learnt stock phrases such as ‘participants
might show demand characteristics’.
The expression is to be found in some
textbooks. Their understanding was vague
but they guessed it might be something to
do with the characteristics of the
participants. They took some convincing,
to say the least, that the characteristics
were cues, particularly in experiments,
that prompt participants to work out what
is expected of them. As Orne said: ‘The
cues which govern his [sic] perception –
which communicate what is expected of
him and what the experimenter hopes to
find – can therefore be crucial variables.
Some time ago I proposed that these cues
be called the “demand characteristics of
an experiment”’ (Orne, 1969. p.146).
Having finally accepted, if doubtfully,
that it was not the participants’
characteristics that were being referred to,
students duly sat their exam. One of the
questions on the paper, to my despair,
asked students to explain how the
participants in the Strange Situation might
show demand characteristics. I contacted
the chief examiner, but suffice to say that
the exam question was considered to be
adequate. I know that one of my students
crossed out the question in the answer
booklet and wrote ‘participants cannot
show demand characteristics’. The student
was able to answer as expected, however,
and would have gained the marks.
However, no doubt many of the students
thought I had had no idea what I was
talking about, now justified by the
question in front of them.
The gripe might seem insignificant
but is representative of a situation that
Richard Griggs highlighted in his analysis
of textbooks, covered by the Research
Digest. It is the tip of a rather messy
iceberg. The A-level syllabus is very broad,
and it can be hard to track down original
sources. However, an associated difficulty
is that academic rigour runs the risk of
falling foul of exam papers, mark schemes
and the knowledge of markers. Teaching
psychology, it seems, requires knowledge
of these as much as an accurate
knowledge of psychology.
Dr Hilary McQueen
Lewes

Fossil fuel divestment and the BPS

As Francis Vergunst and
Bergljot Gjelsvik point out
in their letter on fossil fuel
divestment (August 2015),
‘climate change poses an
unacceptably high risk to
human health and wellbeing
and necessitates urgent action’.
They go on to ask the BPS to
clarify its position on fossil
fuel investments and to divest
for good. The disappointing
and complacent-sounding
response from Honorary
Treasurer Ray Miller effectively
tells us that we don't need to
worry because the BPS Board
of Trustees will continue to
monitor investments closely.
This is not good enough.
The request was to clarify
what investments the BPS has
in the fossil fuel industry and
to make a commitment, like
a number of other leading
universities, pension funds and
NGOs, to divest from this
sector. Note the words ‘urgent
action’ in the above quotation.
We therefore call on the BPS to
publish a list of its investments
with a breakdown by sector, to
describe how the Trustees
make decisions on investment
ethics, clarifying if they make
these decisions themselves or
outsource them to fund
managers, and to initiate a
programme that immediately
freezes fossil fuel investments
and then, over a five-year
period, divests, reinvesting in
assets that prioritise
community wellbeing while
delivering adequate returns.
Mark Burton
Carolyn Kagan
Manchester Metropolitan
University
Editor’s note: This issue was
due to be discussed by the
Board of Trustees as we went
to print. We will seek an
update in due course.

786 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 letters

obituary

Dr Trevor Butt (1947–2015)

We were extremely sad, this
year, to lose our dear friend
and colleague Dr Trevor Butt.
He was diagnosed with cancer
last autumn and died in April.
His death is a great loss both
for psychology and for the
many close friends and family
who he left behind.
Trevor was originally
a clinical psychologist who
worked in a psychiatric unit in
Bradford in the 1970s, but he
soon realised that clinical work
wasn’t for him and shifted into
academic psychology as a
teacher and researcher at what
later became the University of
Huddersfield. He remained at
Huddersfield until his
retirement as Emeritus Reader in 2007, whereupon he took on
a role as Visiting Fellow at City University. It was at Huddersfield
that he produced an impressive body of work and cultivated
many great friendships with people with whom he also wrote
and researched, including Viv Burr, Jeff Hearn, Nigel King and
Darren Langdridge. Trevor was Chair of the Psychotherapy
Section of the BPS (2000–2001) and was centrally involved in
the History & Philosophy of Psychology Section, as Secretary
from 2005 to 2008 and organising a number of their annual
conferences.
Trevor’s great theoretical fascination was with personal
construct psychology (PCP). He wrote many books and papers
on PCP as well as organising the 2003 annual conference, and
was co-editor of the journal Personal Construct Theory and
Practice. Meg John recalls picking up Viv Burr and Trevor’s book
Invitation to Personal Construct Psychology in the late 1990s and
finding it a life-changing introduction to constructionist and
constructivist perspectives. Not only was the book an accessible
introduction to these theoretical perspectives in – and on –
psychology, but it was also a call to live differently by
questioning the taken-for-granted assumptions that structure
our self-perceptions, our understandings of the world, and our
relationships. This was an approach that continued throughout
Trevor’s immensely engaging and entertaining teaching, in the
revision of this book in 2004 and in his own Understanding
People (2004) and George Kelly and the Psychology of Personal
Constructs (2008).
Beyond the theoretical interest in personal construct
theory, Trevor focused a great deal of his academic attention
on researching and writing about sexualities. It was through
this work, alongside a shared interest in phenomenology, that
the relationship with Darren Langdridge was forged. Trevor was
a passionate advocate of sexual equality and fought against the
pathologisation of minority sexualities. He was also passionately
opposed to corporal punishment and was centrally involved in
the STOPP campaign group that sought the abolition of corporal
punishment in schools. Both of these themes were represented in
his research, with his writing about the sexualisation of corporal
punishment and the construction of consensual sadomasochistic
practice (e.g. Butt & Hearn, 1998; Langdridge & Butt, 2004).
And though Darren and Trevor
never agreed on theory, they found
a common interest in social justice
more than enough to bring them
together as academic collaborators
and wonderful friends.
At his funeral back in April
one of his closest friends read out
a short piece that Trevor had written
for the occasion, for, as he himself
said, ‘he couldn’t resist a lecture,
even from the grave’. In this, he told
us that in the last few months of his
life he had come to know a deeper
intimacy than ever previously with
his wife, June, and daughter, Claire.
It was typical of Trevor that he was
thinking about human experience
right up until the end, and that he
wanted to share that hopeful knowledge
with the rest of us. He will be very sorely missed.
Dr Meg John Barker
Professor Darren Langdridge
The Open University
You can read a longer piece about Meg John’s memories of Trevor and his work on:
http://rewritingtherules.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/in-memory-of-trevor-butt
obituary
Svetlana Boym
(1959–2015)
Svetlana Boym, Professor of Slavic
Literature and Languages and of
Comparative Literature at Harvard,
will not be known to many
students of our discipline.
Hopefully in the years to come that
will change. Her works on nostalgia and freedom are
indispensable guides to understanding the longings and
belongings that characterise the human condition in the modern
age. Her examination of these through the twists and turns of
aesthetics, politics, history, art and philosophy defy conventional
academic boundaries and mix personal narrative and incisive
analysis with an unrivalled poetic flair.
Svetlana was, by some distance, the most brilliant original
and witty thinker I have ever encountered. She was also one of
the warmest. We became friends following an unlikely though
fortuitous chain of events. Her untimely passing at the age of 56
following a struggle with cancer leaves the world a poorer, less
vibrant and colourful place. The academic world will miss her
daring originality. For those who knew her personally and whose
lives she enriched it is an incalculable loss.
Dr Ron Roberts CPsychol, AFBPsS
Kingston University

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 787

NEWS

Inquisitive thinking at Cheltenham

Alastair Campbell will be among the authors interviewed
by eminent figures in psychology and neuroscience at BPS-
supported events at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
We spoke to some of the speakers as well as the psychologists
who will be interviewing them.
Campbell, the former Director of Communications for
Tony Blair, will be interviewed
by Vincent Walsh (University
College London) about his new
book Winners and how they
succeed. Campbell told The
Psychologist that he had a great
fascination with the workings of
the human mind. He said he had
been previously inspired after
speaking with a psychiatrist at
a National Theatre event.
He said: ‘One of my favourite
parts of the book actually came
by chance from a similar kind of
event when I shared a platform at
the National Theatre with an
American-Iranian psychiatrist called
Alastair Campbell Nassir Ghaemi. We were there to
talk about power and madness before
a performance of King Lear, but he
was fascinating about what in the book I describe as the
positive side to what we would term mental illness. Those
people and those qualities that sometimes drive them beyond
what we would consider normal but in a way that does real
good for the world. Churchill. Darwin. Lincoln. Martin Luther
King. So who knows – maybe Vincent Walsh will end up in the
paperback if he comes out with some interesting insights.’
Professor Walsh, who will also be interviewing journalist
Matthew Syed in the same session, said he was hoping to ask
both questions around the philosophy of winners – whether
they are born or made and what winning means
in different contexts. He added: ‘I’ll be probing
them both on specific examples they use in their
books. I’ll ask what makes a winner, whether
winning is always essential and how important
it is to lose. I’ll also be talking about how people
build resilience to deal with inevitable failures
people meet with when they try and get the best
out of themselves.’
Professor Kevin Dutton (University of
Oxford), will be interviewing journalist Åsne
Seierstad whose book One of Us explores Anders
Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer
who killed 77 people in two terrorist attacks.
Dutton said he was hoping to speak to Seierstad
about several main areas, including a general view
of who Anders Breivik is, whether he is sane,
what triggered his murderous spree and what
similarities he shows with other mass murderers.
When asked what psychology can bring to
such an event, Dutton said: ‘For a long time I’ve
been of the opinion that us psychologists got on
to the science of the brain pretty late. Right back
to the Ancient Greeks and medieval poetry there’s
a lot of psychology there, but it’s just not written Åsne Seierstad
in a psychological form. We add a bit of science to
insights which have already been put out there by
the poets, writers and philosophers of yesteryear.
In my chat with Åsne I hope to carry on that tradition,
sit down together, work as a team and put science and art
literature together and form an offender profile of sorts.’
Rory O’Connor (University of Glasgow) said he thought
it was very important for those from the arts and sciences to
come together at events such as the Cheltenham Literature
Festival not only to share with each other but to reach the
general public. He added: ‘If you work in an area like suicide

Understanding malnourishment
A psychologist will be part of a team
working in The Gambia to extend
a project that was the first functional
imaging study of infants in Africa. The
longitudinal project named BRIGHT
(BRain Imaging for Global HealTh) and
funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, will look at whether
malnutrition leads to atypical brain
development and cognitive changes
across the first two years of life.
Sarah Lloyd-Fox, a Research Fellow
at Birkbeck University of London’s Centre
for Brain and Cognitive Development, has
spent much of her career optimising an
imaging technique, fNIRS (functional near
infrared spectroscopy), for the study of
infant cognition. Recently her work has
turned to the use and transportation of
fNIRS into rural communities in the
developing world. After a successful pilot work in The Gambia will
project the multidisciplinary group, led allow us to see, from the
by Professor Clare Elwell (UCL, Medical earliest possible point,
Physics and Biomedical Engineering), how these children
Dr Sophie Moore (Cambridge, Human develop and any
Nutrition Research) and Dr Lloyd-Fox, deviations from normal
will now follow 200 children in The developmental patterns.
Gambia from birth, using fNIRS and We don’t know whether
a multitude of cognitive tasks. malnutrition affects brain
The fNIRS technology to be used development in a global
in The Gambia, and also on a control manner or whether some
group of 50 infants in Cambridge, uses parts of the brain are
a headband that emits and detects non- susceptible to under-
invasive near infrared light. This light development.’
travels through the skin and skull, but is Malnutrition before
reflected differently depending on oxygen the age of two can have
level, therefore brain activity, in that area. far-reaching effects, extending into
Dr Lloyd-Fox said: ‘It’s often said that adulthood. Dr Moore said: ‘Nutritional
the first 1000 days of an infant’s life, from deficiencies in low-income countries
conception, are the most important. This impair the growth and development of

788 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 news

DBS checks and

and self-harm, it is vitally
important that we go beyond
our ivory towers to
communicate the science, the
evidence-based practice, and
also dispel the many myths
that exist, in my case, around
suicide.’
Professor O’Connor will
be interviewing journalist and
author Matt Haig about his
extraordinarily popular book
Reasons to Stay Alive, which
discusses his own personal
experiences with suicidal
thoughts and attempts. When
asked what psychologists
can bring to interviews with
authors, O’Connor said:
‘As psychologists we try to
understand mind and
behaviour – so I’ll attempt to
bring that inquisitive thinking
to the interview. I’ll also take a
life-course approach and explore
the emergence of his mental
health problems, the moment
when, aged 24, he was on the
brink of suicide, his subsequent recovery and his fear of
becoming unwell again. As I was reading his book, lots of
things struck me as interesting and intriguing, so hopefully
some of the questions that I plan to ask will resonate with
other readers at Cheltenham.’ ER
I To find out more about the events at the Cheltenham Literature
Festival, which runs from 2 to 11 October, see
tinyurl.com/kwwsxlb
BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
mental health
Many people applying to work or volunteer with children or
in health care face background checks from the Disclosure and
Barring Service (DBS – previously CRB). A review last year raised
concerns that irrelevant information about people being detained
under the Mental Health Act was being released and having a
negative impact on the employment prospects of such people.
Now new guidelines call for a number of factors must be taken
into account before an individual’s mental health crisis is
revealed.
The guidelines point out that detention by the police
under the Mental Health Act ‘does not constitute a criminal
investigation and should therefore be treated with great caution
when considering relevance for disclosure’. They point out that if
a person showed a risk of harming others during their detention
this may be disclosed if it is relevant, and how long ago an
incident happened should also be taken into account before
including such information on criminal record certificates.
If a mental health crisis is disclosed during a DBS check the
Home Office guidelines recommend the certificate should give
enough information as to why this may be relevant to the
employer or voluntary organisation.
Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, said having a mental
health problem or having been detained under the Mental Health
Act should not necessarily be a red flag in the case of DBS
checks. However, he added, there was still room to go further:
‘For example, people should automatically be allowed to make
representations about the current state of their mental health if
concerns are raised. At the moment it is left to the discretion of
the chief police officer to give someone that opportunity. In a
society where stigma about mental ill health is still rife, we need
all the checks and balances possible to negate any fears and
preconceived ideas about the one in four of us who experience
mental health problems every year.’ ER

children and contribute to almost half of
all child deaths worldwide’.
Of the 200 Gambian infants
potentially involved with the study, Lloyd-
Fox said up to 20 per cent
could be severely malnourished.
Therefore in the project they will
be able to trace both typical and
compromised development in
these infants from birth. Brain
activity during social cognition,
attention and memory tasks will
be measured with fNIRS along
with functional connectivity to
see how well the brain is
communicating across regions.
The families will also take part in
a number of general behavioural
cognitive tests and questionnaires
to help the research group to
understand the interplay between
nutrition, brain function and other
environmental factors.
One of the benefits of fNIRS, Lloyd-
Fox said, was that it allowed researchers
to measure infant development in an
objective manner, and to potentially look
more closely at individual differences
rather than global effects across groups.
She will spend her time between the UK
and The Gambia, while researchers at the
Medical Research Council International
Nutrition Unit in Keneba will carry out
testing in the country.
Principal investigator Professor Clare
Elwell said: ‘Extending this work to a
long-term study gives us a unique chance
to understanding how infants are affected
by growing up in extreme poverty and to
guide interventions to give these children
the best chance of healthy and productive
lives.’ ER
I For more information see the project
website www.globalfnirs.org

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 789

 news

‘We can make changes –

we just need to be brave’
A group of psychologists successfully
walked 100 miles between Leicester
and London to highlight the impact of
austerity on mental health. Their journey
caught the attention of both local and
national media as well as many members
A guy came and said he wanted had affected him. He
to join in but due to mobility added: ‘In the food banks
problems he couldn’t walk far. and shelters we visited,
However he did take our bags people were losing hope.
in his car for 10 miles of the They said they didn’t think
journey, this made such a huge the systems were going to
Psychological health and wellbeing are
largely dependent on social circumstances.

of the general public.
Dr Ste Weatherhead, who organised
difference to our energy and our change. They got some
We must reduce poverty and social inequality.
If we are to care for individuals, we must
care for society and promote social justice.
walking speed. hope from what we did.’
Our actions, words and policies must hold
psychological wellbeing at their centre.

Walk the Talk, and his group visited food
banks and homeless shelters along the
route and collected the stories of those
who had been hit hard by austerity
measures and welfare reform. The group’s
aim was to highlight three areas in
particular: the benefits system,
homelessness and food poverty, and at
each of the food banks and shelters they
visited they took video or audio
recordings of people’s stories and how
their mental health has been affected by
such cuts.
Along their route, Weatherhead said,
he was struck by how their cause had
caught the imagination of the general
public as well as professionals, the media
and politicians. He added: ‘We had lots of
people stop us in the streets to say hi and
make points of support for what we were
doing. One lady met us at one of our
scheduled stops and brought us cakes.
The group were interviewed
#walk
w the
#walkthetalk2015
by The Guardian, the Mirror,
BBC Radio Leicester, BBC
Northampton, and the BBC
World Service, as well as RT TV.
Weatherhead said he was overwhelmed
to be joined by dozens of supporters on
the London section of their walk.
He added: ‘As psychologists, our job
is in part to show we are listening to what
people are saying. Hitting the streets in
this way, really did that. It took active
listening to a new level, and made us very
visible in showing our connection with
important issues, our desire to be with
people in calling for change, our belief
in the possibility of change, and our
willingness to actively make that change
happen.’
The stark reality of life for people
using food banks and struggling with
their mental health, Weatherhead said,
He told the story of
etalk2
2015
one woman he met whose
partner of 11 years had
passed away: ‘Her mental
health really suffered and she ended up
on the streets and needed benefits, but
I’ve heard so many times that there are
simply too many hoops for people to
jump through and they lose hope.
Speaking of the future, Weatherhead
added: ‘This isn’t about one person and
one mission. Now we need other people,
professional bodies and organisations to
take new approaches, be brave and step
outside their comfort zone in order to
show they want to make a positive
impact. We can make changes, we just
need to be brave.’
To see the media coverage garnered by
the walk and to find out more about their
cause see their website
walkthetalk2015.org. ER

Seeking closure on ‘closure’

A list of 50 words and phrases
to be avoided when writing
about psychology was recently
published, leading to much
debate among academics and
science journalists. The article,
in Frontiers in Psychology,
includes misleading terms,
misused or ambiguous terms,
oxymorons and pleonasms –
where more words than
necessary are used to convey
meaning.
The authors, who include
Scott Lilienfeld, (Emory
University), state the terms
included should be avoided or
used sparingly. They suggested
that, as the field of psychology
is often full of ambiguous
terms and concepts, the use of
language should be all the
more rigorous and clear
to limit potential
misunderstanding.
In the inaccurate or
misleading terms section of
the article, the authors warn
against calling drugs such as
SSRIs or tricyclics
‘antidepressant medication’.
They write that there is no
evidence to suggest these
drugs are any more useful in
the treatment of depression
than for other conditions,
including anxiety disorders
or bulimia nervosa.
Among the five ‘frequently
misused terms’ listed is fetish.
The authors suggest this
should only be used, as
initially intended, to describe
sexual arousal from inanimate
objects or non-genital body presenting signs or symptoms,
parts and should not be used the assumption that
simply to describe general psychological issues are better
preferences for objects, ideas treated with medication than
or people. Secondly, closure, psychotherapy and the belief
they write, should be used in that mentally ill people who
its original gestalt context as act irresponsibly are not fully
a way to describe a tendency at fault for such behaviour.
to see incomplete figures as Although it may be argued
wholes rather than a feeling that the changing usage of
of resolution following trauma. these words is part of the
The use of medical model natural evolution of language,
is listed in the article’s the authors do claim some
‘ambiguous terms’ section, as terms are just plain wrong: for
many authors who use it think example, the term hierarchical
it always means the same stepwise regression when
thing, although it has a huge hierarchical and stepwise
number of possible meanings. regression are entirely separate
For example, the authors processes. They also suggest
write, it has been used to the use of the term biological
describe an emphasis on an and environmental influences is
underlying disease rather than unnecessarily wordy when

790 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 news

Not such a good childhood?

Children in England show some of the lowest levels of happiness in England were more than twice as likely as boys to say they
with their school lives, compared with 14 other countries were unhappy with their bodies, and perhaps surprisingly this
surveyed by the Children’s Society. Bullying seems a particular gender difference was not found in many other countries.
problem, with more than half a million 10- and 12-year-olds The Children’s Society have urged the government to make it
having been physically bullied each month. a legal requirement for schools in England to provide counselling
The Good Childhood Report surveyed 53,000 children aged to pupils to bring it in line with Wales and Northern Ireland.
10 and 12 in Algeria, Poland, England, Colombia, Turkey, Spain, ‘We would like to see independent and qualified counselling
Estonia, Germany, Nepal, Norway, South Africa, Ethiopia, professionals available in all schools to support young people
Romania, Israel and South Korea. with low wellbeing and those who have
Children in England were found to be emotional needs. The provision of school-
unhappier with their school lives than based counselling should be flexible and
those in 11 other countries – only faring should take into account local demand,
better than children in Germany, South demographics and existing structures and
The sub
jective The
well-bei Good Chi
ng of ldho
children od 201 5
in the
UK

Korea and Estonia. In terms of happiness services in the local area. Young people should
with life in general, they only fared better also have the ability to self-refer to a school
than those in South Korea. counsellor to make it easier for them to get
This work, which marks a decade of help when they need it.’
the society’s work on children’s wellbeing Dr Sue Whitcombe, Communications Lead
in collaboration with the University of for the British Psychological Society Division
York, also found that more than a third of Counselling Psychology, has worked in
(38 per cent) of 10- and 12-year-olds in schools with children, young people and
The G
England had been physically bullied in ood C school staff. She said the trends highlighted
Repo hildhood
the last month, and half (50 per cent) had rt 201 in the report were concerning, but added
5
felt excluded. Children in England who ‘they are unlikely to come as a surprise to
were bullied frequently were six times those who work with children and young
more likely to have low wellbeing in 1
people on a daily basis’. Dr Whitcombe told
general. us that although there is increasingly a focus
As well as showing unhappiness with on programmes in schools to increase wellbeing,
school life, the study showed that there were concerns among practitioners about
children in England were notably dissatisfied with their delays and extended waiting times for therapy when referrals
appearance and body confidence. Girls in England ranked are made to CAMHS services. She added: ‘It is important to grasp
bottom in terms of happiness with their body confidence, that staff wellbeing is a key factor in whole school functioning
appearance and self-confidence compared with girls in every and individual pupil experience. Some of our colleagues are now
other country surveyed, with the exception of South Korea. Girls engaged to provide therapeutic support or professional
supervision to staff in schools. Counselling psychologist
colleagues are employed or contracted to provide a range of
services for which our relational approaches and understanding
of system dynamics are particularly beneficial.’
Chartered Psychologist Marc Smith, who is also a teacher and
PhD student at the University of York, said in a blog for the
environmental influences alone academic literature.’ Huffington Post that during 10 years of teaching he had seen
encompasses all the effects on In reply to Bell’s article, growing numbers of young people suffering anxiety and stress
a living being from the Lilienfeld said the list was related to exam pressure. He added: ‘While we all want our
moment it is conceived. not intended as a ‘ban list’ of young people to do well, our measure of success is a rather
Vaughan Bell, writing terms, but as a guide to use narrow one, being based almost entirely on exam grades… The
on his Mindhacks blog, said: them with more clarity. He Children’s Society call for counselling to be more widely available
‘Some of the recommendations wrote: ‘We are lobbying for and programmes to promote positive mental health in schools
are essentially based on the considerably greater clarity are certainly laudable and positive steps… but as the emphasis
premise that you “shouldn’t in the use of certain terms, on high-stakes testing and material success increases, such
use the term except for how especially those that are often interventions will need to run even faster to catch up.’ ER
it was first defined or defined used loosely or sloppily in the I For the full Good Childhood Report see: tinyurl.com/oynsee9; to
where we think is the psychological and psychiatric read Marc Smith’s Huffington Post blog see tinyurl.com/p6pyx8g
authoritative source”. This is literatures. When we suggest and for his article on academic resilience in schools from The
just daft advice. Terms evolve “avoiding the use of a term,” we Psychologist see tinyurl.com/ovmjzwv
over time. Definitions shift typically mean avoiding the use
and change. The article of that term in certain ways
recommends against using and in certain contexts.’ ER
“fetish” except for in its I The Frontiers article is at Visit http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk for much more news,
DSM-5 definition, despite the tinyurl.com/opyyb3x; including the latest on the American Psychological Association
fact this is different to how Mindhacks and Lilienfeld stance on interrogation and a report from an event bringing
it’s used commonly and how response (in comments) together psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioural therapy.
it’s widely used in other tinyurl.com/pxqnzkh

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 791

 news

Video games and aggression

A report from a task force of the American
Psychological Association has found that
although violent video game play is linked
to increased aggression in players, there is
insufficient evidence to link such games
with actual criminal violence.
The APA Task Force on Violent Media
carried out a review of research literature
published between 2005 and 2013, which
included four meta-analyses that reviewed
more than 150 research reports published
before 2009. The group
then conducted a
systematic evidence
review and a quantitative
review of the literature
published between 2009
and 2013.
A consistent
relationship was found
between violent video
game use and increases
in aggressive behaviour,
aggressive cognitions and
aggressive affect, and
decreases in prosocial behaviour, empathy
and sensitivity to aggression. Mark
Appelbaum, who chaired the task force,
said in a statement that there was very
limited research into whether these
violent games lead to acts of criminal
violence, while the link between violence
in video games and increased aggression
in players is well established.
The report stated: ‘No single risk
factor consistently leads a person to act
aggressively or violently. Rather, it is the
accumulation of risk factors that tends to
lead to aggressive or violent behavior. The
research reviewed here demonstrates that
violent video game use is one such risk
factor.’
In light of the group’s conclusions the
APA has called on the industry to design
video games that include increased
parental control over the amount of
violence the games contain. The APA’s
Council of Representatives adopted a
resolution at its meeting in Toronto to
encourage the Entertainment Software
Rating Board to refine its video game
rating system to reflect the levels and
characteristics of violence in games. The
resolution also urged game developers to
design games that are appropriate to users’
age and psychological development.
The report pointed out limitations in
the research, including a failure to look
for any differences in outcomes between
boys and girls who play violent video
games; a lack of studies that have
examined the effects of violent video game
play on children younger than 10; and not
enough research examining the games’
effects over the course of children’s
development.
Appelbaum added: ‘We know that
there are numerous risk factors for
aggressive behaviour. What researchers
need to do now is conduct studies that
look at the effects of video game play in
people at risk for aggression or violence
due to a combination of risk factors. For
example, how do depression or
delinquency interact with violent video
game use? While there is some variation
among the individual studies, a strong and
consistent general pattern has emerged
from many years of research that provides
confidence in our general conclusions.’
In 2013 around 230 media scholars,
psychologists and criminologists signed
an open letter to the APA expressing
concern over the generalisation of
findings in lab-based studies onto the
general population, as well as the use of
meta-analyses which can be misleading.
They wrote: ‘As a simple matter, boys both
consume more violent media and are
more aggressive, so small correlations may
reflect gender effects. Naturally, other
variables may well explain small
correlations as well. From our
observation, considerable research data
bears this belief out.’ ER
I For Christopher Ferguson’s discussion in
The Psychologist on whether video game
violence is bad see tinyurl.com/ozupg5r;
see tinyurl.com/nzmj3o4 for a news
article from The Psychologist on the
changing face of attitudes towards video
games

AWARD FOR It’s a jungle out there

BULLYING
RESEARCH
Emeritus Professor Peter Smith
(Goldsmiths, University of
London) has been given an
award for his extensive research
on bullying. He has published
numerous papers comparing the
incidence and characteristics of
bullying and cyberbullying
across different countries in
Europe and in Western and
Asian countries.
Smith received the William
Thierry Preyer Award for
Excellence in Research on
Human Development at the
European Conference for
Developmental Psychology in
Braga, Portugal.
Fear within organisations
has been in the news of late,
following a New York Times
exposé of online retailer
Amazon’s treatment of its staff
(tinyurl.com/o2vdvtf), and
publication of a report,
commissioned by employment
law specialists Slater and
Gordon, showing 37 per cent
of 2000 people surveyed had
experienced bullying at work
(see tinyurl.com/ngqnxk5).
But is fear in organisations
a growing phenomenon, or
are we simply more willing to
speak out about these issues
in our culture of online
naming and shaming? And do
psychologists have a role in
tackling fear?
Joan Kingsley, a consultant
clinical and organisational
psychotherapist and author
of The Fear-Free Organization:
Vital Insights from Neuroscience
to Transform your Business
Culture, said: ‘It is easy to
make assumptions that a
business that promotes such
high values on customer
needs, such as Amazon, is
following the same ethos with
its employees. So readers were
rather surprised to read about
management tactics producing
extreme levels of fear that are
reportedly running rampant.
The article vividly illustrates
a bruising workplace culture,
but unfortunately fear-based
management strategies are the
rule of the day in far too many
organisations.’
Kingsley said that prior
to labour laws workers had
no bargaining power,
compensation was low, hours
were long, jobs were scarce
and unemployment was high.
She said: ‘Management styles
may have evolved but what
hasn’t changed is the use
of fear by leaders and
managers to keep order and
to motivate. The use of fear
as a management tool means
a person’s energy is entirely
diverted from thriving to
surviving. Leaders and
managers would do well to
educate themselves and all
employees about the
devastating impact of fear-
based strategies.’
Psychologists can help

792 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 news

A-LEVEL
PSYCHOLOGY
Boost for research The number of young people
studying psychology at AS- and
A-level has increased, while
there has been a 10 per cent
A multidisciplinary, five-year project that aims and inner speech, including pioneering new drop in entrants for Scottish
to research and explore voice-hearing has approaches to studying their neural bases.’ Highers in the subject.
received £2.75 million from the Wellcome On the collaboration between such a diverse After a small decrease in
Trust. Hearing the Voice involves experts from group of researchers, Fernyhough said the thing psychology at AS- and A-level
cognitive neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, that helped them work together was their drive last year, in 2015 there was
philosophy, English literature, theology and the towards the same end – to understand voice- a 4 per cent increase in those
medical humanities, led by psychologist Charles hearing by speaking to people who have taking A-level (the total was
Fernyhough (Durham University). experienced it. He said the funding would be 57,014) and a 2 per cent increase
This funding is one of the first of the Trust’s essential in helping the group engage with the in those taking AS-level
Social Science Collaborative Awards; a second public.
was given to the Centre for the History of the ‘A big part of our work involves trying to
Emotions (Queen Mary, University of London). change perceptions about voice-hearing and
Hearing the Voice, which started in 2012, reduce the stigma associated with it. In the next
will now be expanded to help the research team five years we will be working on major
continue their work with local clinicians, exhibitions, publications and artistic initiatives
mental health professionals, voice-hearers and that will, we hope, help to dispel some of the
other ‘experts by experience’. myths and misconceptions that surround
Professor Fernyhough said the group’s hearing voices,’ he said.
research so far had revealed voice-hearing to be Dan O’Connor, Head of Humanities and
a complex, varied experience with rich Social Science at the Wellcome Trust, added:
significances across cultures and historical ‘We are absolutely delighted to be able to psychology this year (up to
periods. He said of the future of the project: support these two genuinely innovative and 103,476). The pass rate for both
‘We’ll be asking about the varied sensory exciting research visions. These are some of the has also increased from last
experiences that accompany voice-hearing and largest research awards ever made to the year, reaching 71 per cent
how they help us to understand it as a humanities in the UK, almost unique in their achieving A* to C at A-level and
communicative act. We’re looking at how voices scale and scope. Both hold out the promise of 53.7 per cent achieving the same
relate to autobiographical memory, imagination making genuinely ground breaking changes in at AS-level.
and creativity, and continuing with our both our understanding of, and approaches to, Psychology is still the fourth
examination of the links between voice-hearing the diverse spectrum of human experience.’ ER most popular A-level behind
maths, English and biology, but
candidate numbers in chemistry
and history both continue to rise.
In Scotland there was a 10 per
cent decrease in students taking
a psychology Scottish Higher,
individuals to deal with stress, increased considerably. in the knowledge that the from 3479 to 3175, the pass rate
anxiety and fear, but can they She added: ‘There are many outcome may not be positive, also decreased by 1 per cent to
also help managers to learn reasons posited for this, but the staff member has 74 per cent.
about the role emotions play including job insecurity, learnt a great deal of general BPS Policy Advisor for
in day-to-day life at the office? zero-hours contracts, rapid information and learning en Psychology Education, Kelly
Kingsley concluded: ‘Leaders turnaround of staff and route.’ Auty, said: ‘The overall trend
and managers who are undercutting by foreign According to Keegan, of a growth in the numbers
emotionally savvy develop workers.’ many organisations deal with of students taking psychology
insight. Empathy for others Keegan said the key their staff in mechanistic ways. at pre-tertiary level is
is built on knowing oneself. to tackling fear was for ‘For example, senior managers encouraging, although the
Empathic leadership will have organisations to develop are removed from workers on situation in Scotland is obviously
zero tolerance for bullying, greater levels of trust the floor with limited a cause for concern and we will
aggression and undermining throughout the whole connections between staff in be looking at factors that may be
behaviours.’ company. She added: ‘This different departments. Building influencing that. The next issue
Dr Sheila Keegan, a is not an easy task, especially trust and connection helps to the Society will be keeping a
Chartered Psychologist and where suspicion between build strong, self-sufficient watching brief on is the
author of The Psychology of senior managers and other workforces. There is a good implementation of A-level
Fear in Organisations, said that groups of staff has been built deal of scope for psychologists reform and whether the de-
although fear had always been up over years. It may involve within organisations, working coupling of AS- from A-level will
a factor in organisations, there encouraging a staff member at senior levels to help build have an impact on psychology.’
was strong evidence that levels to embark on a project they resilience, empathy and group
of fear, across the globe had are particularly enthused by, cohesion.’ ER

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 793

DIGEST
When psychologists tried to replicate
100 previously published findings
After some high-profile and at times acrimonious failures to
replicate past landmark findings, psychology as a discipline and
scientific community has led the way in trying to find out more
about why some scientific findings reproduce and others don’t,
including instituting reporting practices to improve the reliability
of future results. Much of this endeavour is thanks to the Center
for Open Science, co-founded by the University of Virginia
psychologist Brian Nosek.
In August the Center published its latest large-scale project:
an attempt by 270 psychologists to replicate findings from 100
psychology studies published in 2008 in three prestigious
journals that cover cognitive and social psychology: Psychological
Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and
Cognition.
The Reproducibility Project is designed to estimate the
‘reproducibility’ of psychological findings and complements the
In Science
To hear about what it was like to take part in the project, and for links
to further coverage, see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/
reproducibility-project-disaster-or-triumph-psychology
Many Labs Replication Project, which published its initial results
last year. The new effort aimed to replicate many different prior
results to try to establish the distinguishing features of
replicable versus unreliable findings – in this sense it was broad
and shallow and looking for general rules that apply across the
fields studied. By contrast, the Many Labs Project involved many
different teams all attempting to replicate a smaller number of
past findings – in that sense it was narrow and deep, providing
more detailed insights into specific psychological phenomena.
The headline result from the new Reproducibility Project
report is that whereas 97 per cent of the original results showed
a statistically significant effect, this was reproduced in only 36
per cent of the replication attempts. Some replications found the
opposite effect to the one they were trying to recreate. This is
despite the fact that the Project went to great lengths to make
the replication attempts true to the original studies, including
consulting with the original authors.
794
Just because a finding doesn’t replicate doesn’t mean the
original result was false – there are many possible reasons
for a replication failure, including unknown or unavoidable
deviations from the original methodology. Overall, however,
the results of the Project are likely indications of the biases
that researchers and journals show towards producing and
publishing positive findings. For example, a survey published
a few years ago revealed the questionable practices many
researchers use to achieve positive results, and it’s well
known that journals are less likely to publish negative results.
The Project found that studies that initially reported
weaker or more surprising results were less likely to replicate.
In contrast, the expertise of the original research team or
replication research team was not related to the chances of
replication success. Meanwhile, social psychology replications
were less than half as likely to achieve a significant finding
compared with cognitive psychology replication attempts, but in
terms of declines in size of effect both fields showed the same
average reduction from original study to replication attempt,
to less than half (cognitive psychology studies started out with
larger effects, and this is why more of the replications in this
area retained statistical significance).
Among the studies that failed to replicate was research
on loneliness increasing supernatural beliefs; on conceptual
fluency increasing a preference for concrete descriptions (e.g.
if I prime you with the name of a city, that increases your
conceptual fluency for the city, which supposedly makes you
prefer concrete descriptions of that city); and links between
people’s racial prejudice and their response times to pictures
showing people from different ethnic groups alongside guns.
A full list of the findings that the researchers attempted to
replicate can be found on the Reproducibility Project website
(as can all the data and replication analyses: see
https://osf.io/ezcuj).
This may sound like a disappointing development for
psychology, but in fact really the opposite is true. Through the
Reproducibility Project, psychology and psychologists are
blazing a trail, helping shed light on a problem that afflicts all
of science, not just psychology. The Project, which was backed
by the Association for Psychological Science (publisher of the
journal Psychological Science), is a model of constructive
collaboration showing how original authors and the authors of
replication attempts can work together to further their field. In
fact, some investigators on the Project were in the position of
being both an original author and a replication researcher.
‘The present results suggest there is room to improve
reproducibility in psychology,’ the authors of the Reproducibility
Project concluded. But they added: ‘Any temptation to interpret
these results as a defeat for psychology, or science more
generally, must contend with the fact that this project
demonstrates science behaving as it should’ – that is, being
constantly sceptical of its own explanatory claims and striving for
improvement. ‘This isn’t a pessimistic story’, added Brian Nosek
in a press conference for the new results. ‘The project shows
science demonstrating an essential quality, self-correction –
a community of researchers volunteered their time to contribute
to a large project for which they would receive little individual
credit.’ CJ
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
 digest

Having strong political skills can
be a drawback in the workplace
In Journal of Applied Psychology
If you overheard someone at work refer to
you as ‘a real political operator’, would you
feel complimented, or alarmed? The latter
turns out to be a sensible reaction, as new
research suggests that supervisors and
colleagues have less faith in the
performance of the highly politically skilled.
Study authors Ingo Zettler and Jonas
Lang noted a conundrum in their field:
researchers treat political skill as a uniform
good, the more the better, yet a meta-
analysis found a spotty relationship between
more political skill and improved outcomes
What is it like to be a refugee with psychosis?
In Psychosis
We’re in the midst of a ‘migrant crisis’
as tens of thousands of brave, desperate
people seek new lives in Europe, risking life
and limb to get here. Amidst the tragedy
and controversy, the continued plight of
those people who actually make it to relative
safety is often forgotten. Unsurprisingly,
given all they’ve endured, refugees often
have serious mental health problems,
including hallucinations. As an indicator,
research published in 2011 reported that
80 per cent of 130 young Somali refugees
surveyed in Minnesota had symptoms of
psychosis.
the torture itself also had a voice: ‘Some
voice I have it’s like from the past. But some
of them are not from the past. I don’t know.
Sometimes it’s like a voice of the thing that
was done to me when I was back home,
when I was tortured. Sometimes I hear the
voice of that person.’
Reflecting on the nature of such
symptoms, the researchers see them as
distinct from the flashbacks associated with
post-traumatic stress (PTSD). ‘The trauma-
related intrusions did not appear to be
relived experiences in the classic “PTSD”
sense,’ they explained,

like job performance. Might deft politicking,
however well intentioned, create suspicions
in co-workers? Once others lose trust in
a politically focused performer, their ability
to get things done is stymied. Or perhaps
habitually working the angles leads highly
skilled individuals to make like Machiavelli
and potentially do harm.
Zettler and Lang predicted that thanks
to these reasons, those who live and
breathe political approaches would actually
do worse at their jobs compared with those
merely competent in political skill. This
prediction was confirmed in two studies.
The first, involving on-the-job apprentices,
found that the relationship between self-
ratings of political skill and supervisors’
ratings of their job performance was
positively correlated, but only up to a point.
Beyond a political skill score of 3.5 on a
five-point scale, supervisor ratings flatlined
and then began dropping. The second study
found the same overall pattern in
employees with longer work experience,
each rated by a supervisor and also a
colleague. This study also found that this
‘curvilinear relationship’ between political
skill and job performance (whereby
intermediates in political skill outperformed
low- and high-skilled participants) – was
most pronounced when the rater was not
personally close to the participant.
Savviness and bluntness alike can be
forgiven by close colleagues – ‘that’s just
how Chris gets things done’ – but others
are less trusting.
These are cross-sectional studies, so
we can’t confirm cause and effect. And we
should also take into account that political
skill is judged quite differently in people in
other parts of an organisation that weren’t
studied here, such as in leadership circles.
But this research is a preliminary validation
of a new idea gaining currency in
organisational research – that you can have
‘too much of a good thing’ – that even traits
considered universally positive can in excess
have negative consequences. AF
JESS HURD/REPORTDIGITAL.CO.UK
Now a timely, heart-rending study ‘but rather to be
published in Psychosis has reported the engrossing and
results of in-depth interviews with seven believable perceptions
African refugees or asylum seekers in the “flavoured” by past
UK (aged 26 to 43; one woman), all of whom trauma.’ Such
reported experiencing symptoms of experiences do not fit
psychosis. The researchers’ aim was to gain well with conventional
insight into the ‘lived experience’ of their Western psychiatric
participants. This is the first time the first- categories, they
hand perspective of refugees with psychosis argued. Rather than
has been documented. ‘Such information is interpreting their
crucial participants’
for understanding and working with such hallucinations as Calais refugee camp
clients,’ the researchers said. indicative of
Clinical psychologist John Rhodes and schizophrenia or PTSD, they suggest a
his colleagues analysed the interview neutral description: ‘complex trauma with
transcripts and identified six key, recurring perceptual disturbance’.
themes in their participants’ accounts. The participants also described their
The first was bleak agitated immobility – powerful feelings of fear and mistrust.
the participants’ sense that their lives were Belvie feared a man on a bus was planning
going nowhere. One participant likened the to kill her just because he looked at her.
feeling to being in a never-ending race. All the participants also had a sense of
Similarly, Amine (aged 43) said: ‘I feel like a broken self. ‘My emotional state has
I’m finished. There’s no life, there's no changed and my personality has changed…
future, there’s no anything any more. I think I really haven’t been alright,’ said Frederic
everything is going to become like (aged 39). They also described the pain of
darkness.’ losing everything. ‘The degree of loss for
The second theme was trauma-related these participants is difficult for us to
voices and visions. These tended to be the understand,’ the researchers said. ‘They
sounds or sights of lost relatives or have lost their worlds. A new location or
attackers from the past. Belvie (aged 30, role does not replace “home”, that place
female) heard voices of a past torturer, and of familiarity and warmth.’ Consistent with
The material in this section is taken from the Society’s Research Digest blog
at www.bps.org.uk/digest, and is written by its editor Dr Christian Jarrett
and contributor Dr Alex Fradera.
Visit the blog for full coverage, additional current reports, an archive,
comment, our brand new podcast, and to book your place at our blog’s 10th
birthday party, on 9 December in London. Only a few places remaining!
Subscribe to the fortnightly e-mail, friend, follow and more via
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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 795

 digest

this, many of the painful feelings described Weird things start to happen when you stare into someone’s
by the interviewees, such as there being no
eyes for 10 minutes
future, were the same regardless of
whether they’d be granted asylum (as four In Psychiatry Research
of them had) or whether they were still
waiting to hear about their status. A psychologist based in Italy says he has perception’. The participants’ task was
The final theme concerned the found a simple way to induce in healthy simply to stare into each other's eyes for 10
attraction of death. Several of the people an altered state of consciousness – minutes, all the while maintaining a neutral
participants described past suicide attempts simply get two individuals to look into each facial expression. A control group also sat in
and the unbearable strain of life. ‘The worst other’s eyes for 10 minutes while they are a dimly lit room in pairs, but their chairs
part,’ said Sando (aged 26), ‘is I keep sitting in a dimly lit room. The sensations faced the wall and they stared at the wall.
harming myself… and you know knocking that ensue resemble mild ‘dissociation’ – Beforehand both groups were told that the
my head to the wall, kinda too much stuff a rather vague psychological term for when study was going to involve a ‘meditative
in there, you know, I just want to open my people lose their normal connection with experience with eyes open’.
head and finish with this.’ Yet, the reality. It can include feeling like the world When the 10 minutes were over the
participants also expressed optimism. is unreal, memory loss, and odd perceptual participants filled out three questionnaires:
The researchers described the participants’ experiences, such as seeing the world in the first was an 18-item test of dissociative
wish to die ‘held in tension with their wish black and white. states; the other two asked questions about
to live and build a purposeful and Giovanni Caputo recruited 20 young their experience of the other person’s face
worthwhile life’. This final theme is adults (15 women) to form pairs. Each pair (or their own face in the control group).
important for clinical services, the sat in chairs opposite each other, one metre The participants in the eye-staring
researchers said, which ‘need to recognise apart, in a large, dimly lit room. Specifically, group said they’d had a compelling
that while many [refugees] speak of building the lighting level was 0.8 lx, which Caputo experience unlike anything they’d felt
a new life, there is an attraction to suicide says ‘allowed detailed perception of the fine before. They also scored higher on all three
as escape’. CJ face traits but attenuated colour questionnaires than the control group. On
the dissociative states test, they gave the
strongest ratings to items related to
reduced colour intensity, sounds seeming
quieter or louder than expected, becoming
LINK FEAST spaced out, and time seeming to drag on.
On the strange-face questionnaire, 90 per
How Reliable Are Psychology Studies? cent of the eye-staring group agreed that
Findings from the Reproducibility Project have sent shockwaves through psychology. they’d seen some deformed facial traits, 75
At The Atlantic, Ed Yong provides commentary and reflection. per cent said they’d seen a monster, 50 per
www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/08/psychology-studies-reliability- cent said they saw aspects of their own face
reproducability-nosek/402466 in their partner’s face, and 15 per cent said
they’d seen a relative’s face.
On My Radar: Steven Pinker’s Cultural Highlights Caputo thinks the facial hallucinations
The psychologist and popular science author on data graphics, spectacular planet are a kind of rebound effect, as the
photography and the ambitious comedy of Amy Schumer. participants in the eye-staring group
www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/aug/23/on-my-radar-steven-pinker- returned to ‘reality’ after dissociating. This
psychologist-author is largely speculation and he admits that the
study should be considered preliminary. I’d
How to Have a Better Brain also highlight that while it’s true the eye-
New BBC Radio 4 series of short programmes on ways to look staring group scored higher than controls
after the health of your brain. See reviews (p.850) on dissociative states, they didn’t score any
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067gcj6 of the items on the scale higher than 2.45,
on average, on a five-point scale (where 0 is
What It’s Like to Have ADHD As a Grown Woman ‘not at all’ and 5 would be ‘extremely’).
‘Having ADHD is challenging regardless of gender but in a world predisposed to We don’t know what the crucial
undermining women, not having your shit together can feel like a dereliction of elements of the eye-staring exercise were
feminine duty,’ writes Rae Jacobson at NY Mag's The Cut. for inducing the described effects (nor why
http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/what-its-like-to-have-adhd-as-a-grown- they had these effects). We can infer that
woman.html low lighting was not the only important
element because the control group sat in
Identity Is Lost Without a Moral Compass the same dim room. Other clues come from
‘Research on neurodegenerative diseases suggests that, more than anything else, prior research finding that simply staring at
moral traits like kindness and integrity define who we are,’ writes Nathan Collins at a dot on the wall for a prolonged duration
the Pacific Standard. can induce dissociative-like states, as can
www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/identity-is-lost-without-a-moral-compass staring at one’s own face in the mirror.
However, comparing the questionnaire
How Autistic People Helped Shape the Modern World scores in the current study with those
Carl Zimmer interviews Steve Silberman for WIRED about his new book, NeuroTribes: reported in his past research, Caputo says
The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. that what he calls ‘interpersonal gazing’ has
www.wired.com/2015/08/neurotribes-with-steve-silberman a more powerful dissociative effect than
staring into a mirror. CJ

796 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


What do long-distance runners think about?
In International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Marathon runners are on the
road for hours at a time, what
on earth goes through their
minds? Past investigations have
relied on asking runners to
remember what they were
thinking, but of course that is an
unreliable method. Now Ashley
Samson and her team have
conducted the first ever ‘think
aloud’ investigation of long-
distance runners, which involves
them verbalising ‘everything
that passes through your head’.
The researchers recruited
10 amateur long-distance
runners (four women) with
an average age of 41, all with
a habit of running long-distance
at least three times a week.
All were in training for a half-
marathon or longer distance.
The runners were given some
practice recording their
thoughts while on a treadmill.
Then they were given the
equipment and asked to record
their thoughts while out on a
real run of at least seven miles.
The researchers ended up
with over 18 hours of recordings
to analyse, with the runners’
thoughts falling into three
distinct categories. The majority
(40 per cent) of thoughts
pertained to pace and distance,
showing just how important it is
even in a non-competition
context for long-distance
runners to continually calculate
their optimum speed,
considering their energy levels
and the distance left to cover.
This category included thoughts
to do with monitoring pace (e.g.
‘downhill, don’t kill yourself, just
cruise’); strategies to maintain
pace, such as correcting form
(e.g. ‘lean and steady, make it
a long stride, lean and steady’);
and thoughts about altering
pace (e.g. ‘6.50 mile that’s
alright ... 2 miles to go ... 6.20
that's better’).
Making up 32 per cent of all
thoughts, the next major
category was, perhaps
unsurprisingly, pain and
discomfort. This included
thoughts about injuries (e.g.
‘My hips are a little tight. I’m
stiff, my feet, my ankles, just
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
digest
DIGEST DIGESTED
Full reports are available at www.bps.org.uk/digest
killing me this morning’);
about the causes of pain and
You might want to avoid pulling
discomfort (e.g. ‘Hill, you’re
a ‘duck face’ the next time you
a bitch ... it's long and hot’); and
take a selfie. Research with
thoughts about coping, including
users of the Chinese Sina Weibo
motivational strategies (e.g.
microblogging website found that
‘neck and shoulder relax’; ‘that
people who posed with their lips
sucked but it’s going to be an
pouted in this exaggerated
awesome run on the way back’).
fashion were judged to be more
The final category, making
neurotic and less conscientious
up 28 per cent of all thoughts,
than others. Computers in Human
pertained to thoughts directed
Behavior
outwards to the environment.
This included thoughts about
People who think they have expert knowledge in a given field are
geography, especially those
particularly prone to ‘over-claiming’ in that area – that is, saying
nasty hills, and the weather
they are familiar with impossible words or concepts that don’t really
(e.g. ‘I need it to start raining’);
exist. Psychological Science
admiration for scenery (e.g. ‘it's
so beautiful, the ocean, the
A comparison of five-month-olds’ sitting ability across six cultures
mountains’); thoughts about
revealed some striking differences. For example, none of the Italian
wildlife (e.g. ‘hope I don’t see
infants studied showed independent sitting compared with 92 per
any snakes’), and finally,
cent of the Cameroonian infants. Journal of Cross-Cultural
thoughts about traffic and other
Psychology
runners and cyclists (e.g. ‘this
is such a fucking busy street.
Free personality tests based on the Big Five factors of personality
I hate it’; ‘ton of bikes out now ...
are more reliable than proprietary versions. That’s according to an
I've been passed by 20 of them’).
assessment of the tests’ ‘internal consistency’. Researchers say the
If you were wondering
reason could be that users of paid-for tests are usually prohibited
whether long-distance runners
from changing them, thus preventing any chance of refinement.
use the time to solve life’s
Journal of Psychology
dilemmas – relationship
troubles or metaphysical
Gay people’s ‘coming out’ experiences are related to their
conundrums, say – it seems not,
psychological wellbeing 10 or more years later. Specifically,
at least not in this sample of
participants who recalled more negative reactions from a friend
runners anyway. They’re too
or family member tended to be less happy in the present day, an
busy focusing on their
association that was mediated by their having weaker feelings of
performance, bodily sensations
autonomy in their relationship with that person. Self and Identity
and surroundings. Of course, it’s
likely the participants censored
Taking part in a brain-scan experiment appears to change how
some of their thoughts, so we
children think about brains and minds. Eight-year-old children
can’t know for sure.
who’d had their own brain scanned two years earlier were more
This is the first time long-
likely than controls to say that dreaming and imagination require
distance runners’ thoughts have
both the mind and the brain. Trends in Neuroscience and Education
been recorded live, and the
researchers said there were
Teenagers are
some specific insights that
the most prolific
could be useful to sports
liars, while young
psychologists. For example,
adults (aged 18 to
they noted that nearly all the
29) are the most
runners recorded thoughts near
skilled. That’s
the beginning of the run that
according to a
suggested they were finding
test and survey
it difficult, but things nearly
conducted with
always seemed to get easier
members of the
as the run progressed. From
public aged up to
a practical perspective, it would
77 years who
be interesting if future research
visited a science
using this methodology could
museum in
identify specific thoughts or
Amsterdam. Acta
thought styles that tend to
Psychologica
correlate with better pacing
and performance. CJ
797
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798 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 Psychology heaven and hell
Wednesday 9 December
7-10pm
Senate House, London
#digestblog10
For further information and booking
www.bps.org.uk/digest/10
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
Celebrating a decade of the
British Psychological Society’s
Research Digest blog
Introduction Dr Jon Sutton
(Managing Editor, The Psychologist)
Methods Dr Christian Jarrett
(Editor, Research Digest)
Results Professor Andy Field
(University of Sussex)
Discussion Professor Uta Frith
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Conclusion Wine and nibbles
Supported by
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799
INTERVIEW

was the third, consisting of those who

believed that extraterrestrial life may

What would you say well exist, but who doubted that UFOs
provide evidence of them. These
respondents Bainbridge labelled

to an alien? ‘allopatrists’, drawing on a term from

population genetics to refer to gene pools
that are geographically separated. These
Jon Sutton talks to Douglas Vakoch, clinical psychologist and Director of questionnaire-takers seemed aware of the
Interstellar Message Composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence immense distance between stars, and thus
the unlikelihood of face-to-face contact,
but kept open the prospects of
intelligence somewhere. Allopatrists were
less religious than average, and whereas
less than half of ufophiles had graduated
ou’re the only social scientist languages and cultures. Similarly, from college, over 70 per cent of
Y employed by a SETI (Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
anthropologists are trained to encounter
radically different cultures and
allopatrists had.

organisation. Your job title is ‘Director
of Interstellar Message Composition’.
That has to be both the coolest and
oddest role I have ever heard of.
It’s interesting, the whole venture is
a leap that many psychologists will
feel very uncomfortable with. Since
psychology separated from philosophy
at the end of the 19th century, we have
prided ourselves in being an empirical
science. What could be less empirical
than speculation about the nature of an
extraterrestrial intelligence that we do not
even know exists? And yet, I would argue,
the contributions of psychologists can
help provide a foundation that
substantially increases the chances that
SETI scientists can find and ultimately
even communicate with intelligent life
in the cosmos, if in fact it exists.
I imagine that so far the search has
been dominated by astronomers,
computer scientists, engineers?
Yes, but other disciplines have made
a growing contribution, particularly
archaeologists and anthropologists,
perhaps because their mindset matches
that of the SETI scientist. Like
astronomers who attempt to find,
reconstruct and understand other
civilisations distant from us in space,
archaeologists piece together temporally
distant civilisations and their lost
perspectives – that’s the kind of openness
required of astronomers searching for
intelligence of a form they cannot quite
imagine.
And psychology is well placed to
join in?
Yes. Consider the expertise of
psychologists, not the labels by which
the work we need to do is categorised.
I don’t artificially separate
relevant work of other
scholars because their PhDs
are in sociology or cognitive “What if aliens are like
science or musicology, cats – they know we’re
rather than psychology… here, they don’t care?”
I just ask that psychologists
collectively ask what their
profession can contribute to a broader
understanding of life in the cosmos.
I firmly believe intelligent life is out
there, but I am very sceptical that it
has visited us. Is that a common view
amongst scientists?
Well, that’s interesting. A survey by
Bainbridge a few years ago suggested
three groups. ‘Geocentrists’ rejected the
possibility of either extraterrestrial
intelligence on distant planets or as
visitors to Earth. The ‘ufophiles’ thought
UFOs were from other planets, and thus,
also believed that other planets must be
populated. The most interesting group
Is that kind of information any practical
use to you in your role?
Most past studies of beliefs about
extraterrestrial life have focused on UFOs,
which makes their results less relevant for
contact at interstellar distance. In
standard SETI scenarios, civilisations are
separated by trillions of miles, providing
a buffer that can shield respondents from
fears of the impact of direct alien contact.
But some research,
for example by
Pettinico, posited
contact through
a signal sent at
interstellar distances.
Educational level
predicted likely response
to detection: those with a college
education were two and a half times less
likely to say they would be afraid and
nervous than were those with a high
school degree or less. Among those who
already believed that life beyond Earth is
likely to exist, fully 90 per cent would
advocate sending a reply. So studies like
this help us anticipate who will be in
favour of sending a reply to
extraterrestrials, and who will be
opposed.
So if we do respond, you’re the guy
that speaks for Earth? Tough gig!
Yes, and in fact Pettinico’s survey revealed

To find out more and to watch Doug’s TEDx talk ‘What would you say to an extraterrestrial intelligence? An analysis of responses to ‘Earth Speaks’. Acta
reading

extraterrestrial?’, see www.seti.org/users/douglas-vakoch Astronautica, 86, 136–148.

Vakoch, D.A. & Dowd, M.F. (Eds.) (2015). The Drake equation: Estimating the prevalence
of extraterrestrial life through the ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vakoch, D.A. (Ed.) (2014). Archaeology, anthropology, and interstellar communication.
Washington, DC: NASA.
Vakoch, D.A. (Ed.) (2014). Extraterrestrial altruism: Evolution and ethics in the cosmos.
Heidelberg: Springer.
Vakoch, D.A., Lower, T.A., Niles, B.A. et al. (2013). What should we say to
Vakoch, D.A. & Harrison, A.H. (Eds.) (2011). Civilizations beyond earth: Extraterrestrial
life and society. New York: Berghahn Books.
Vakoch, D.A. (2011). A narratological approach to interpreting and designing
interstellar messages. Acta Astronautica, 68, 520–534.
Vakoch, D.A. (2011). What does it mean to be human? Reflections on the portrayal of
pain in interstellar messages. Acta Astronautica, 68, 445–450.
Baird, J. (1982). Human pattern detection and recognition in the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 20(2), 74–76.

800 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


something else interesting about that.
Only half of the respondents answered
positively to the question ‘If beings from
another planet sent a message to us
through deep space, do you think we
would be able to figure out what they
were saying?’. When SETI first began,
its proponents typically held hope that
mathematics and science would provide
a universal language, capable of bridging
the gap between civilisations. More recent
scholarship is sympathetic to the many
challenges that must be overcome to
create an intelligible message.
Setting that considerable challenge
aside for a moment, what kind of
things would we say?
Most often messages to
extraterrestrial audiences
have focused on human
strengths. Take the Voyager
spacecraft’s interstellar
message – in over 100
pictures of life on Earth,
with an emphasis on
human presence, there
were no depictions of war,
poverty or disease. But it is
precisely an emphasis on
our vulnerabilities that
may be of most interest to
extraterrestrials. We will
not be the most intelligent
beings in the galaxy, if we
make contact. Humans
have had the capacity to
communicate with radio
for less than a century –
a blip in the 13-billion-year
history of our galaxy. If
extraterrestrial civilisations
seeking contact are comparably young
technologically, the chances that their
century of communicability and that of
humankind will coincide are nil. The
only way we will make contact, on purely
statistical grounds, is if extraterrestrials
have been around much longer than
humankind. Perhaps it is not the beauty
of our symphonies that will set us apart
from extraterrestrials, nor our moral
perfection – living true to our ideals of
altruism. If we wish to convey what it is
about us that is distinctive, it may be our
weakness, our fears, our unknowing –
and yet a willingness to forge ahead to
attempt contact in spite of this. Perhaps
we will be the intelligent species that has
the most exquisite balance of joy and
sorrow of any civilisation in the Milky
Way. And it is the fundamental facts of
human existence such as these that might
best be explained to other civilisations,
and here that psychology may be of
greatest help.
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
So all you need to do is get agreement
on the fundamentals of human
existence!
I know, easy, right?! Many SETI scientists
have assumed that we should speak as
one Earth. Consider, for example, the
New Horizons Message Initiative, called
One World. But in truth, we humans
inhabit many different worlds. And
whereas many subfields of psychology
seek to identify truths that hold across
cultures, others place an emphasis on the
diversity of our experience and
understanding.
But the fundamental point here is that
I’m suggesting a big shift in what we look
to communicate. The usual
presupposition is that the best possibility
for a language to be understood by
extraterrestrials is one of based on maths
and science. Those are the prerequisites
to creating the technologies needed for
interstellar communication. But if we
only explain what we and the
extraterrestrials already have in common,
what’s the point? Once we have
communicated basic principles of
mathematics, physics, and chemistry, how
might we go on to talk about what makes
us distinctively human? Isn’t it endlessly
more fascinating to consider how we
might portray an aspect of our species
that may seem quintessentially human –
our sense of beauty, say? Perhaps we
would look to communicate the
Fibonacci sequence, how certain
proportions are deemed beautiful. Or the
cognitive structures of music perception.
What if any intelligence is so alien, say
silicon-based artificial intelligence?
Then if our goal in sending a message to
out of this world
extraterrestrials is not simply to tell
them about ourselves, but to teach
them something new, it could be in our
approach to death that we have the most
to teach. Such a species, with replaceable
parts, may cease to comprehend death –
or at least, to treat it very different than
does a species with an expected lifetime
of less than a century. The dread of an
existential psychologist comes to the
fore… Since Freud we have become
accustomed to psychologists helping
us get in touch with aspects of ourselves
we have sealed off. Within the realm of
clinical psychology, we continue to focus
on the hidden, the obscured, even as we
shift from the more mechanistic models
of cognitive psychology. An alien species
may find our unacceptable
beliefs and desires as
SETH SHOSTAK
fascinating as we
psychologists always have.
And ‘fascinating’ them is
important?
Of course! How do you
intrigue an alien? My wife
and I have two cats. What
if aliens are like them –
they know we’re here, but
they don’t care? What’s the
‘interstellar yarn’ that will
make them respond?
Brilliant! Maybe we need
to become more alien to
communicate with
aliens?
Exactly! Yet to do that we
need to understand our
own psychology and its
limitations. As we ponder the
messages we would send to other worlds,
we evoke images and sounds that
characterise life on our world. And yet,
what if the denizens of other worlds don’t
rely on the same senses? As we consider
the proportion of our cerebral cortexes
devoted to processing various sensory
modalities, we see a much greater
percentage devoted to processing visual
and auditory information than our other
senses. How then can we imagine what
it’s like to experience the world as
anything but seeing, hearing creatures?
Here we can look to comparative
psychology, in order to become more
open to non-human ways of messaging.
You’re the Principal Investigator
on ‘Earth Speaks’ (see
www.earthspeaks.seti.org). Tell me
about that.
People from around the world are invited
to submit pictures, sounds and text
messages that they would want to send to
801
 out of this world
other worlds. The project aims
to foster a dialogue about what
we should say to
extraterrestrial intelligence,
as well as whether or not we
should be sending intentional
messages. It differs from
previous efforts to collect
messages to extraterrestrials,
in that it looks to identify and
‘tag’ the major themes that
people address in their
messages. By tracking
demographic variables for each
person submitting a message, The Allen Telescope Array is a ‘Large Number of Small Dishes’ (LNSD) array for SETI projects
we will be able to identify
commonalities and differences in message
content that are related to such factors as
nationality, age and gender. So that takes
the pressure off me a little: rather than
trying to identify a unified ‘Message from
Earth’, this draws on a dialogic model for
interstellar message design to provide a
more broadly representative view of our
species. Psychology is vital here in the
lexical analysis, in interpreting the themes
– for example, in terms of Maslow’s
hierarchy – and in cross-cultural
understanding – for example, how
a Maori or someone from Papua New
Guinea depicts a human being, visually
and in descriptive terms, can be very
different from the Western view which
has dominated efforts so far.
What does the future hold for you and
your role?
Oh, infinite possibilities! The most
contentious question in SETI right now
is whether we should transmit powerful,
information-rich signals to possible
extraterrestrials even before we know for
sure they’re out there. This is a strategy
called ‘active SETI’, and no less a
luminary than Stephen Hawking has
warned that it could attract the attention
of hostile aliens, so Hawking says we
should avoid targeting other stars with
powerful transmissions. I take the
opposite view. I’m a strong advocate
of active SETI, and I’d argue that any
civilisation with the ability to travel to
Earth to do us harm could already pick
up our accidental leakage radiation. We
don’t expose ourselves to any increased
risk of alien invasion by sending an
intentional signal, letting them know we
want to make contact. But fear is getting
in the way of people objectively
evaluating the merits of this new search
strategy – fear of annihilation by aliens,
or for SETI scientists who understand
that interstellar space provides a natural
buffer, fear of losing public support and
funding by doing something that’s
controversial. A sustained active SETI
802
programme would benefit greatly by
using organisational psychology to
understand and assist multigenerational
crews in their search. Investigating the
mindset of the explorer. Considering
exactly what we mean by ‘intelligence’
in the ‘search for extraterrestrial
intelligence’. But perhaps the biggest
question is to step right back to our
motivations for making contact, and
whether we dare. Religion, fear, risk
and responsibility… these are huge
psychological questions, and unless we
face them head on, we risk cutting off
promising new ways of making contact.
And do we dare not to? Ecopsychology
is important in learning how we can face
our own challenges, to sustain ourselves,
but we need to ensure our focus is dual –
inward and outward.
Finally, I have to ask, what do you think
are our chances of detecting life out
there? Is it just a case of pointing the
electromagnetic telescopes to the sky
and waiting for the computers to beep?
No – humans have a real role to play.
From the outset of SETI, a major
constraint in the search has been the
processing of the electromagnetic signals
entering the telescope, looking for
something that stands out from the
cosmic background radiation as distinctly
artificial. As signal
processing has
improved into the “Tonight could be the
21st century, night that we discover an
billions of radio extraterrestrial”
channels can be
analysed for each
star by computer,
and as SETI searches became increasingly
automated in the 1980s the human eye
was eclipsed as a signal detector in favour
of computer algorithms that could detect
faint signals. Yet as early as 1982,
psychologist John C. Baird and colleagues
tested human participants’ abilities to
detect signals of the sort that could be
received in a SETI experiment, and noted
that humans are especially good at
identifying signals of a form that cannot
be anticipated. Automated computer
programs are limited to the use of
algorithms that detect clearly defined
signals. That remains the case today.
So what can people do in practical
terms?
In an effort to get human help in finding
hard-to-characterise signals, the SETI
Institute launched a web-based project
called SETILive, inviting lay citizen
scientists to scan visually screen shots
made from live SETI observations. But
we have no confirmed signal from an
extraterrestrial civilisation; at best, we
have archived examples of false alarms
that could not be confirmed by follow-up
observations. So a major challenge is to
find motivated participants who are
willing to visually scan screenshot after
screenshot, even though they may never
find a signal from ET. SETI would profit
from the input of learning theorists, as we
plan how to create an experimental task
that would be engaging for participants,
even if they aren’t able to find a signal
from another civilization. We could
intersperse the screenshots coming in live
with periodic archived screenshots of
signals such as those created by
spacecraft. In effect, we’re creating a
cosmic slot machine – using
an intermittent reinforcement
schedule that gives periodic
small payoffs could be enough
to sustain the hope of someday
hitting the jackpot.
As we are speaking, the
telescopes are searching. Tonight
could be the night that we discover an
extraterrestrial. And if we do,
psychologists should be right in there
determining how we respond, and also
ensuring that the decisions aren’t just
made by a handful of astronomers…
people all around the world have a
responsibility to consider what they
would say to an alien.
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 803

ARTICLE

control personnel during on-orbit

Psychology in deep space
Nick Kanas considers issues and countermeasures
Manned space missions involve a
number of psychological and
interpersonal stressors. Dealing
with these becomes a major issue if
we are going to venture forth to the
planets and beyond. This article
reviews what we know about
psychosocial issues from on-orbit
research and discusses future
challenges beyond the Earth’s
neighbourhood.
What has on-orbit research told us
questions
ntil now, manned space missions
U have ventured no further than
the Moon, and the longest that
a person has been in space has been
14 months. Using current propulsion
technology, a round trip mission to Mars
will take 2½ years, and expeditions to the
outer planets will take between 4½ years
(for Jupiter) to 26.3 years (Neptune)
(Kanas, 2011). If we are able to develop
advanced propulsion systems that allow
us to travel at 10 to 20 per cent the speed
of light, one-way expeditions to the stars
would still take decades to centuries to
accomplish. This would likely involve
putting the crewmembers in suspended
animation or using multi-generational
crews.
Space missions are stressful (Kanas,
2015). Periods of monotony alternate
with periods of frenetic activity, the body
must adapt to the novel conditions of
microgravity, and potential danger in the
vacuum of space is always present. People
on long, isolated missions beyond the
Earth’s neighbourhood will encounter
additional psychological and
missions to the Mir and the International
Space Stations (Boyd et al., 2009; Kanas
et al., 2000, 2001, 2007). A total of 30
astronauts and cosmonauts and 186
American and Russian mission control
personnel were studied, who participated
in space missions lasting from four to
seven months. We found no significant
changes in levels of crewmember mood
and group interpersonal climate over
time. However, there was significant
evidence for the displacement of negative
emotions outwardly, with crewmembers
perceiving lack of support from mission
control. Crew cohesion correlated
positively with the supportive role of the
mission commander. Using similar
methodology, these findings have been
replicated in a space station simulation
study in Beijing (Wang & Wu, 2015).
In our two studies, crewmembers
scored higher in terms of experience with
other cultures as compared with mission
control personnel. Americans reported
significantly more work pressure than
Russians in both studies, and less tension
during International Space Station (ISS)
missions.
Other investigators also have studied
orbiting crewmembers. Gushin and his
colleagues found that space crews showed
decreases in the scope and content of
their communications and a tendency to
filter what they said to outside personnel,
which the investigators called
‘psychological closing’. Crewmembers
also interacted more with some
individuals than others in mission

interpersonal stressors, and it is important control. This was felt to be due to

about psychological and interpersonal
to develop strategies to cope. But before a process of withdrawal and
issues in space?
discussing countermeasures for dealing ‘autonomisation’, where isolated
What psychosocial challenges will we with such long-duration manned space crewmembers became more egocentric
face during future interplanetary and missions, let’s examine what we currently and perceived some outsiders as
interstellar missions? know from research done close to home. opponents (Gushin, 2003; Gushin et al.,
1997). Tomi and her colleagues surveyed
75 astronauts and cosmonauts and 106
resources

Kanas, N. [2015]. Humans in space: The On-orbit psychological research
psychological hurdles. Switzerland: My colleagues and I conducted two
Springer.
http://nickkanas.com international NASA-funded studies of
psychological and interpersonal issues
affecting crewmembers and mission
mission control personnel in order to
assess intercultural issues that could lead
to problems during space missions. Both
subject groups rated coordination
conflicts between space organisations

Boyd, J.E., Kanas, N.A., Salnitskiy, V.P. et the crew communication with psychological hurdles. Switzerland: and Dordrecht: Springer.
references

al. (2009). Cultural differences in
crewmembers and mission control
personnel during two space station
programs. Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine, 80, 1–9.
Gushin, V.I. (2003). Problems of distant
communication of isolated small
groups. Human Physiology, 29, 548–555.
Gushin, V.I., Zaprisa, N.S., Kolinitchenko,
T.B. et al. (1997). Content analysis of
external communicants under
prolonged isolation. Aviation, Space,
and Environmental Medicine, 68,
1093–1098.
Ihle, E.C., Ritsher, J.B. & Kanas, N.
(2006). Positive psychological
outcomes of spaceflight: An
empirical study. Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine, 77, 93–101.
Kanas, N. [2015]. Humans in space: The
Springer.
Kanas, N. (2011). From Earth’s orbit to
the outer planets and beyond:
Psychological issues in space. Acta
Astronautica, 68, 576–581.
Kanas, N. (2014). The Protos mandate: A
scientific novel. Switzerland: Springer.
Kanas, N. & Manzey, D. (2008). Space
psychology and psychiatry (2nd edn).
El Segundo, CA: Microcosm Press;
Kanas, N.A., Salnitskiy, V.P., Boyd, J.E. et
al. (2007). Crewmember and mission
control personnel interactions during
International Space Station Missions.
Aviation, Space, and Environmental
Medicine, 78, 601–607.
Kanas, N., Salnitskiy, V., Grund, E.M. et
al. (2000). Interpersonal and cultural
issues involving crews and ground
personnel during Shuttle/Mir space

804 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


involved with the missions as the biggest
problem, followed by miscommunications
due to simple misunderstandings. Other
difficulties related to differences in
language and work management styles,
and communication problems between
mission control personnel and their
support teams (Tomi et al., 2007).
Others have surveyed cosmonauts
in order to gain their perspective on
psychological issues during an expedition
to Mars. Factors seen as potentially
causing problems included isolation and
monotony, distance-related
communication delays with the Earth,
differences in management style among
the involved space agencies, and cultural
problems resulting from the international
makeup of the crew (Nechaev et al.,
2007).
Sandal and Manzey conducted a
survey of 576 employees of the European
Space Agency in order to assess important
cultural issues that could impact on
performance. They found a positive link
between experience with other cultures
and ability to work with fellow employees
(Sandal & Manzey, 2009).
Finally, Stuster performed a content
analysis of personal journals from 10 ISS
astronauts. He found that 88 per cent of
the entries dealt with the following
content categories: Work, Outside
Communications, Adjustment, Group
Interaction, Recreation/Leisure,
Equipment, Events, Organisation/
Management, Sleep, and Food. Despite
a 20 per cent increase in interpersonal
problems during the second half of the
missions (such as conflicts with
crewmates), the astronauts reported that
their life in space was not as difficult as
they had expected prior to launch
(Stuster, 2010).
Treasuring the Earth from space
Travelling in space also can be a positive
experience. Some astronauts and
cosmonauts have reported transcendental
experiences, religious insights, or a better
sense of the unity of mankind as a result
missions. Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine, 71(9 Suppl.),
A11–A16.
Kanas, N., Salnitskiy, V., Weiss, D.S. et al.
(2001). Crewmember and ground
personnel interactions over time
during Shuttle/Mir space missions.
Aviation, Space, and Environmental
Medicine, 72, 453–461.
Kelly, A.D. & Kanas, N. (1992).
Crewmember communication in
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
out of this world
of viewing the Earth below and the every respondent reported at least some
cosmos beyond (Kanas, 2015). In his positive change as a result of his or her
diary, cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev stated experience. A cluster analysis of the
that photographing the Earth from the questionnaire responses found eight
Salyut 7 space station was a restful and subscale categories: Perceptions of Earth,
stress-reducing experience (Lebedev, Perceptions of Space, New Possibilities,
1988). Appreciation of Life, Personal Strength,
Extending pioneering research Changes in Daily Life, Relating
on positive factors begun in to Others, and Spiritual
the early 1990s, Change. The only
Suedfeld and his subscale to show a
colleagues content significant change
analysed the was Perceptions
published of Earth, and
memoirs of observing our
125 space home planet
travellers. from space
As a result sometimes
of being in led to
space, lifestyle
astronauts alterations
and after the
cosmonauts space
reported traveller
more returned
Universalism home. For
(i.e. a greater example, three
appreciation for of the subscale
other people and items (‘I realized
nature), Spirituality how much I treasure
and Power the Earth,’ ‘I learned
(Suedfeld et al., to appreciate the
2010). These ‘Once a photograph of the earth, taken from fragility of the Earth,’
changes likely outside, is available… a new idea as powerful and ‘I gained a
reflected seeing as any in history will be let loose.’ – Fred stronger appreciation
the Earth as a Hoyle, 1948 of the Earth’s beauty’)
beautiful, fragile were significantly
orb in infinite associated with the
space, with no obvious political behavioural item ‘I increased my
boundaries separating its inhabitants. involvement in environmental causes’
In a survey of 54 astronauts and after returning (Ihle et al., 2006).
cosmonauts who had flown in space, Alan
Kelly and I found that our subjects rated
the positive excitement related to their Missions to other planets
mission as being one of the strongest Although seeing the beautiful Earth and
factors enhancing communication within communicating with family and friends
the crew and between the crewmembers on the ground can be positive
and mission control personnel on the experiences, there seems little doubt that
ground (Kelly & Kanas, 1992, 1993). living with the same people in space for
In a follow-up study, my colleagues and months on end can lead to interpersonal
I surveyed 39 astronauts and cosmonauts problems that are difficult to express
who had flown in space. We found that openly, given that one must depend on
space. Aviation, Space, and interstellar multi-generational space cultural issues in space operations.
Environmental Medicine, 63, 721–726. travel. In Y. Kondo, F.C. Bruhweiler, J. Acta Astronautica, 65, 1520–1529.
Kelly, A.D. & Kanas, N. (1993). Moore & C. Sheffield (Eds.) Stuster, J. (2010). Behavioral issues
Communication between space Interstellar travel and multi-generation associated with long-duration space
crews and ground personnel. space ships (pp.80–88). Burlington, expeditions. Houston, TX:
Aviation, Space, and Environmental Ontario: Apogee Books. NASA/Johnson Space Center.
Medicine, 64, 779–800. Nechaev, A.P., Polyakov, V.V. & Morukov, Suedfeld, P., Legkaia, K. & Brcic, J.
Lebedev, V. (1988). Diary of a cosmonaut. B.V. (2007). Martian manned mission: (2010). Changes in the hierarchy of
College Station, TX: Phytoresource What cosmonauts think about this. value references associated with
Research Information Service. Acta Astronautica, 60, 351–353. flying in space. Journal of Personality,
Moore, J.H. (2003). Kin-based crews for Sandal, G.M. & Manzey, D. (2009). Cross- 78, 1–25.
805
 out of this world
these same people for support and
assistance in accomplishing mission goals.
A supportive commander becomes vital
for crew cohesion, and in multinational
crews, cultural differences (both national
and organisational) can produce stress.
Intra-crew tensions may be displaced to
people in mission control, which
negatively affects crew–ground
communication. It is important for
crewmembers to learn strategies of coping
with psychological problems before they
can fester and lead to withdrawal and
additional difficulties with their
crewmates and with mission control.
Given these psychosocial issues
affecting crewmembers during on-orbit
missions, what can we say about potential
problems on space missions beyond the
Earth’s neighbourhood? Interplanetary
expeditions will include many of the
same stressors as missions close to home:
microgravity, danger, isolation,
confinement, separation from family and
friends, and a limited social environment.
However, there will be additional stressors
that will affect humans travelling to the
distant reaches of the solar system. The
crew will experience a severe sense of
isolation and separation from Earth, with
no hope of evacuation or assistance from
the ground during emergencies. The
tremendous distances involved will
increase the average two-way
communication times with Earth from
25 minutes (Mars) to 500 minutes
(Neptune) (Kanas, 2011). Consequently,
the crewmembers will be much more
autonomous from mission control than
during near-Earth missions, and they will
need to plan their schedules and deal
with problems themselves.
Finally, no human being has ever
experienced the Earth as an insignificant
dot in the heavens, the so-called ‘Earth-
out-of-view phenomenon’ (Kanas, 2015;
Kanas & Manzey, 2008). Since gazing at
the Earth has been rated as a major
positive factor of being in space, the
absence of this experience during an
expeditionary mission on crewmember
psychology may result in increased
Tomi, L., Kealey, D., Lange, M. et al. (2007,
21 May). Cross-cultural training
requirements for long-duration space
missions. Paper delivered at the Human
Interactions in Space Symposium,
Beijing, China.
Wang, Y. & Wu, R. [2015]. Time effects,
displacement, and leadership roles on a
lunar space station analogue. Aerospace
Medicine and Human Performance, 86,
819-823.
806
homesickness, depression, and other
unpleasant psychological problems due to
the profound sense of truly being isolated
in the heavens.
Coping with long-duration
interplanetary space missions
In dealing with these issues, it is possible
to conceptualise countermeasures around
four areas: crew selection, pre-flight
orientation and training, in-flight
monitoring and support, and post-mission
readaptation to Earth (Kanas, 2015). Crew
selection should include people who are
comfortable in working alone on a task
when necessary as well as interacting with
their crewmates around social events,
such as meals and celebrations.
Commanders should be selected who not
only are task-oriented, but also
psychologically sensitive and supportive
of the needs of the crew.
Before launch, crewmembers and
mission control personnel should receive
psychosocial education training aimed at
recognising and dealing with important
psychological and interpersonal issues
that might arise during the mission. Topic
areas should include: ways to work and
interact productively during isolated and
confined conditions; recognising and
dealing with intrapsychic and
interpersonal problems; understanding
cultural differences as manifested by
verbal and non-verbal behaviour; and
coping with increased autonomy and
dependence on local resources.
During the mission, the crew should
receive computer-based psychosocial
education training refresher courses to
remind them of key issues discussed prior
to launch. Crewmembers need to plan
time for ‘bull sessions’ to discuss personal
and interpersonal issues and stressors
before they fester and become
problematic. Strategies should be
developed to allow space travellers to
communicate efficiently with people on
Earth during distance-related time delays.
These might include writing e-mail
messages that append suggested responses
at the end, to which the recipient may
reply in order to minimise time-
consuming back-and-forth interactions.
A virtual reality system or an on-board
telescope with which to see the Earth in
real time may help the crewmembers deal
with feelings around separation from their
home planet. Families at home need to be
supported during the mission, both
informally (peer-led groups) and formally
(counselling or psychotherapy).
Post-mission readaptation debriefings
and supportive strategies should be
employed to help returning crewmembers
The psychology of
Frank M. Robinson’s The Oceans are Wide is
a novella published in Science Stories in April
1954 (reprinted in Starships edited by Isaac
Asimov et al., Fawcett Crest/Ballantine Books,
1983). In this story, starship governance is
through a hereditary board of executives
whose chairman is dying and whose son is ill-
equipped to take over, due to his more passive
personality and the plotting of competitive
family members. With the assistance of a
Machiavellian-like Predict, the son grows up to
become the chairman and ultimately the new
Predict, as he outwits his former mentor. The
story involves father–son and mentor–student
conflicts, within an interesting sociological
description of life on a multigenerational
starship.
Brian Aldiss’ Non-Stop, published in 1958
(available from Overlook Press, 2005), has its
protagonist as part of a primordial tribe living in
a jungle-like setting. As he and his colleagues
are exploring their environment, they encounter
other people and discover that they all are
inhabiting a giant starship that is returning
from a planet around the star Procyon, where
23 generations earlier the ship’s populace had
suffered from a pandemic. The story contains
numerous surprises about the true mission,
and psychoanalytic theory and terminology is
used throughout to describe the rituals and
interactions of the starship inhabitants.
In Gregory Benford’s Redeemer, a short
story published in Analog Science
and their families readjust to life together
on Earth. These strategies should include
protected private time and methods of
dealing with the fame and glory that will
result from highly visible space missions,
such as the first expedition to Mars.
Interstellar travel
During multi-year missions to the fringes
of the solar system (such as to the outer
planets, the Kuiper Belt, or the Oort
Cloud), or beyond to the stars, the long
distances involved will make travel using
current propulsion systems highly
unlikely. New propulsion systems and the
possibility of putting the crewmembers in
suspended animation will need to be
considered. Both strategies present
technical problems that are beyond the
scope of this article, and the interested
reader is referred to the discussion in the
scientific appendix to my interstellar
science fiction novel The Protos Mandate
(Kanas, 2014).
vol 28 no 10 october 2015

interstellar travel in fiction
Fiction/Science Fact in 1979 (reprinted in Skylife:
Space Habitats in Story and Science edited by
G. Benford & G. Zebrowski, Harcourt, 2000) a
man travelling in a faster-than-light space ship
overtakes an interstellar starship launched 75
years earlier that is travelling at sub-light
speed. The slower vehicle contains thousands
of future colonists in suspended animation,
a small maintenance crew that is awake, and
a cache of frozen DNA that the man intends to
capture to replenish radiation-damaged DNA
back home that was affected by a devastating
war. The psychological twist is that on the
slower starship he encounters his great-
grandmother.
In Ship of Fools, written by Richard
Paul Russo (Ace Books, 2001), a huge
multigenerational starship with several
thousand inhabitants has a class system of
‘topsiders’, who hold positions of power, and
‘downsiders’, who perform the more menial
duties on the ship. There also is a clerical
group led by a bishop who wields significant
power. The plot involves the relationship of
the crewmembers with each other, including
their anxieties and intrigues.
In Ken MacLeod’s Learning the World (Tor
Books, Tom Doherty Associates, 2005), there
are two worlds to be learned. One involves
the society on board a giant starship with a
complicated social system composed of three
groups: a young space-borne group of
individuals who are bred genetically to
Another scenario that has been
advocated for interstellar expeditions
has been the use of giant self-contained
multi-generational starships. Moore has
discussed some of the practical issues
of such a mission involving a crew of
150–180 people on a 200-year expedition
to Alpha Centauri. Based on his computer
models, he has suggested several social
engineering principles to maintain a
stable population that would not tax the
limited food, water, and on-board space
resources. These strategies include
beginning the mission with a crew of
childless married couples, who would
be required to postpone parenthood until
their 30s and would limit the number of
children they have to conform to the
population needs of the mission. This
cycle would be repeated for subsequent
generations. The result would be the
production of well-defined demographic
echelons of roughly equal numbers over
time, with people clustering into age
groups some 30 years apart. The older
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
colonise newly discovered worlds; the crew,
whose members are adapted for permanent
life on the ship; and the founder generation,
composed of people born hundreds of years
earlier at the time of the settlement of the last
star system. The other world to be learned is
a planet that is the first ever to be discovered
with intelligent life. A number of psychological
and ethical issues are raised as these two
groups discover each other, with surprising
changes occurring to both societies.
In Ben Bova’s short story A Country for
Old Men (published in Going Interstellar by
L. Johnson & J. McDevitt, Baen Publishing,
2012) the crewmembers heading for a distant
members would rear the younger ones
and serve as teachers and advisers. People
in the middle echelon would perform the
routine maintenance activities. As a
result, the social network and use of
resources would remain stable across
generations (Moore, 2003).
Such a scenario raises a number of
psychological and sociological questions.
Who would be selected for such a
mission? How many extended family
members would be allowed to start the
journey? How much cultural and
religious diversity could be tolerated?
How would a diverse enough gene pool
be assured to minimise the appearance
of dangerous recessives and maximise
the stability of future generations? What
kind of governance system would be
used? How will the starship populace
accept such social engineering? Will
later generations view these echelons
as a normal part of life, or will they rebel
against such a regulated system? The
launch generation likely will reminisce
out of this world
star realise that they are entering an area of
low interstellar hydrogen, which is needed to
fuel their starship. The chief executive wants to
divert around the low hydrogen region, but he is
met with resistance from the central computer.
Complicating his actions are the facts that he is
depressed over the death of his wife and is
aware that given his age, he will die before the
completion of the decades-long mission.
In Stephen Baxter’s short story StarCall
(published in Starship Century edited by J.
Benford & G. Benford, Microwave Sciences and
Lucky Bat Books, 2013), a sentient computer
probe named Sannah III has been launched on
a long mission to Alpha Centauri. For public
relations purposes, several hundred children
have been selected to speak with the probe
every 10 years. The story follows the
communications between Sannah III and a
British boy named Paul over six decades.
During this time, both human and robot
experience numerous developmental changes,
some of which take place in a similar manner
that reflects complementary changes in their
environments.
Finally, my own novel The Protos Mandate
(which along with my other novel The New
Martians was published in 2014 as part of
Springer’s ‘Science and Fiction’ series) explores
the vicissitudes of a crew undertaking the first
interstellar expedition. The story deals with the
building and launching of the giant starship,
problems facing the multigenerational
crewmembers during their 107-year mission,
and surprises they face after reaching their
destination. A referenced appendix explains the
science behind the story.
about life on Earth, and later generations
may want to return to the home planet.
Alternatively, they may wish to continue
travelling indefinitely in space in their
familiar and comfortable starship rather
than deal with the unknowns of a new
world (Kanas, 2014).
As can be seen, travel to distant stars
presents a number of psychosocial issues
that will test human adaptability and
resources. Hopefully, by the time such
missions are planned, we will have had
enough experience with interplanetary
travel to enable starship crews to deal
effectively with the new psychological
and sociological challenges.
Nick Kanas MD
is a Professor Emeritus in
the Department of
Psychiatry at the University
of California, San Francisco
nick.kanas@ucsf.edu
http://nickkanas.com
807
EYE ON FICTION
The alien in us all
We asked for your favourite alien entity, and what their depiction says about our
own psychology
Beyond the Borg
Alan Redman, Occupational
Psychologist, Criterion Partnership
f I’m going to out myself as a science
I fiction fan in front of the rest of my
profession I might as well do it
properly. That means turning to what is
arguably the nerdier end of the SF canon:
Star Trek.
Despite its recent sexy reboot, Star
Trek has never developed the same patina
of cool as Star Wars, but it does try harder
to hold a mirror up to the human
condition through the
melting pot of alien races
that make up the
Federation and its foes.
While the Klingons,
Vulcans, and Romulans all
offer a lens on humanity, as
a psychologist I believe it is
the Borg who provide a
richer metaphor for many
of humanity’s more
defining psychological
characteristics.
Created for the 1990s
Captain Picard era Star
Trek, the Borg became the
defining nemesis for the
Enterprise and her crew.
The Borg are a race of
cybernetic organisms,
bodies augmented by
technology and emotions
suppressed. The Borg are
aggressively expansionist
Chaudhuri, S. (2014). Cinema of the Dark
references
Side. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.
Gelman, S.A. (2004). Psychological
essentialism in children. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 8(9), 404–409.
Gelman, S.A. & Wellman, H.M. (1991).
Insides and essences. Cognition, 38(3),
213–244.
Keil, F. (1989). Concepts, kinds, and
cognitive development. Cambridge, MA:
808
became another drone connected to
the Borg hive mind (the Collective).
All independent thought and emotions
removed.
At a sociological level the Borg
touched upon contemporary anxieties
such as the loss of cultural distinctiveness
in the drive towards globalisation. At an
individual level the Borg resonate with
psychological concepts such as
deindividuation, social identity and
groupthink. Narratives featuring Borg
assimilation survivors would focus on the
PTSD effects suffered by those rescued
and cannot be negotiated or reasoned from the Collective.
with (‘resistance is futile’). The Collective nature of the Borg,
So far, so Cybermen, but the Borg with every individual interconnected and
added darker qualities than the Dr Who all thoughts shared, represents the apex
enemy. Rather than invade and occupy, of group cohesiveness. The pooling of
the Borg would forcibly assimilate other
races in a quest to attain physical,
technological and ideological perfection.
intellectual resources and the elimination
of dissent in favour of harmony and
single-minded purpose gave the Borg the
Individuals from other races would be edge over their human adversaries, whose
subjected to a terrifying assimilation fundamental flaw was intra-personal
process, involving the replacement of conflict and the cult of the individual.
body parts with Borg implants and the The terror of assimilation, beyond the
erasure of all individuality. The outcome physical depredations, was the loss of
of assimilation was that the individual self, the repression of personality and
powerlessness to break free from the
tyranny of the group.
As an occupational psychologist,
THE KOBAL COLLECTION/PARAMOUNT TELEVISION
when I first encountered the Borg I was
fascinated with the way it chimed with
contemporary organisational theory. The
Borg modelled key 1990s organisation
design (OD) themes, such as flat
organisations, team-based processes
and the removal of hierarchies. The Borg
were able to harness the power of their
collective organisation to adapt quickly
to any new threat or technology they
encountered. This mirrors concepts being
promoted in OD at the time around the
learning organisation and change
management. This adaptability gave the
Borg another advantage over humanity,
which was stuck with the unfashionable
command and control model.
As the Klingons represented the
Western cold-war anxiety about the
Soviet bloc, the Borg articulated late 20th-
century fears about the superiority of
Asian economic and leadership models.
Borg decision making operated in an
analogous manner to the Japanese ringi
system, where decisions are made
MIT Press.
Levine, J. (1983). Materialism and qualia:
consensually by the entire workforce.
The explanatory gap. Pacific Many Western manufacturing facilities
Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 354–361. were assimilated into these new ways of
Newman, G.E. & Bloom, P. (2012). Art and working while the Enterprise continued
authenticity. Journal of Experimental its fictional fight with the Borg to preserve
Psychology: General, 141(3), 558. humanity’s culture, individuality and
Newman, G.E., Diesendruck, G. & Bloom, ways of thinking.
P. (2011). Celebrity contagion and the
It is not clear whether the Star Trek
value of objects. Journal of Consumer
Research, 38(2), 215–228.
writing team had any interactions with
the British Psychological Society.
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
 out of this world

Not so alien? cockroaches, beetles and praying

THE KOBAL COLLECTION/COLUMBIA TRISTAR

Catherine Pugh, University of Essex
graduate
The 1997 film Starship Troopers, directed
by Paul Verhoeven, follows the fascist
Federation military as they fight an
interplanetary war against giant insectoids
known as ‘Bugs’. Although the Bugs
appear as the monstrous Other, the film
suggests that humans are equally
complicit in their brutality.
The line between humankind and
Bugs becomes increasingly blurred,
highlighted by Carl (Neil Patrick Harris).
An affable character to start, his behaviour
becomes increasingly less human. He
shows little empathy, even towards
childhood friends, declaring coldly: ‘We’re
in this for the species, boys and girls. It’s
simple numbers. They have more. And
every day I have to make decisions that
send hundreds of people like you to their
deaths.’ In Carl’s final appearances he has
prematurely aged and is notably less
healthy, giving him the sharper, more
shell-like look of the Bugs.
Different types of Bugs appear
throughout, utilising the features of
mantises. They are designed to
elicit fear and disgust, especially the
Brain Bug. Despite its intelligence
and sentience, it is essentially no
more than a mound of flesh,
reminiscent of both brain and
mollusc. Shohini Chaudhuri argues
that while the science-fiction
tradition of portraying aliens as
insectoids aims to evoke dread, it
also ‘reflects on processes of
dehumanisation that enable others
to be oppressed and destroyed more
easily, recalling the Nazi’s
characterisation of Jews as vermin
and Hutus’ labelling of Tutsis as
cockroaches’ (Chaudhuri, 2014, p.137). propaganda announcement delights in
The film’s strong use of fascist mise-en- presenting its torture. The Brain Bug is
scène and lack of anthropomorphic brutal in its methods, sucking out human
features in the aliens support this theory. brains to gain intelligence, but the film
Starship Troopers establishes alien and asks if this is really any different to earlier
humankind as the same, both capable of images of scientists experimenting on the
terrible atrocities. It is strongly insinuated most efficient ways to kill the Arachnids.
that humans started the war by invading Despite humankind’s efforts to distance
|a planet already colonised by Bugs. The themselves from the Bugs, ultimately, as
revelation that the Brain Bug experiences a General in the film points out: ‘They’re
fear not only elicits ecstatic cheering from just like us… They want to know us so
the crowd but a final Federation they can kill us.’

Snatching the essence

Dr Heath Matheson,
does not. Consciousness? with a celebrity more than
Postdoctoral Fellow, Center
ALLIED ARTISTS/THE KOBAL COLLECTION

A unique ‘self’? A soul? Why a duplicate watch that had

for Cognitive Neuroscience,
University of Pennsylvania
You look across the room to your
loved one and, though they look
and act normally, you are
convinced they’re an impostor!
This plot has terrified
audiences for decades, famously
explored in the classic novel The
Body Snatchers (1954) by Jack
Finney. In it, an alien species
floats to earth undetected,
duplicates the bodies of sleeping
people, and masquerades as
authentic citizens. Horrifyingly,
the replicants are
indistinguishable.
The plot, while entertaining,
reveals some startling aspects
of the human mind. The idea of
body snatching is unnerving
because it capitalises on a very
important psychological
phenomenon.
Despite perfect replication,
we feel that the original person
has something that the replicant
do we think such things exist?
The sense that the original is
unique and immutable – this
psychological essentialism –
is a robust feature of the
human mind.
Psychological essentialism
is the idea that other people
have an essential quality,
some underlying nature, that
is unobservable but central to
them (Gelman 2004).
Psychological essentialism
has been revealed by a
number of different studies.
For instance, seven-year-olds
who are told that a raccoon
was transformed into a skunk
(with a haircut, dye, and
smelly stuff) insist that the
raccoon is still a raccoon
(Keil, 1989). Indeed, children
think a turtle is still a turtle
without its shell (but a hollow
shell is not a turtle; Gelman &
Wellman, 1991). This suggests
that despite transformations in
not (Newman et al., 2011),
and people are willing to pay
more for an original artwork
than an exact duplicate
(Newman & Bloom, 2012).
Together, these findings
suggest that we believe
people, animals and
artefacts, carry with them
some sort of essence that
is special, unique and
meaningful.
Regardless of whether
people do have essences,
psychological essentialism
has many benefits, including
allowing us to make
inferences about those
around us (Gelman, 2004);
imagine how hard it would be
to talk to someone if you thought
appearance, children think the they were a new person every
animal retains some sort of time you met them! Either way,
essential nature. And essences psychological research suggests
extend to objects, too. In one that body snatching frightens us
study, people wanted to wear because there is a psychological
a watch that came into contact premium on the original.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 809

 out of this world

Bridging the gap

Adorable killers Dr Tom Stafford,
Dr Ellen Migo, Postdoctoral Research Worker, Institute of University of Sheffield
Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London
Greg Egan writes novels full
Picking my favourite alien race is remarkably tricky. Obviously the of complex maths and the far
alien I would most like to have a drink with was an easy choice (Londo future. The effect is a kind of
Mollari for what it’s worth, at least before the darkness of the Shadow existential vertigo about what
War; as an aside, on this issue Sheldon could not be more wrong it means to be human and
about Babylon 5). what it could mean to be
After much thought I have chosen the Ewoks. The original Star human. In his Diaspora the
Wars movies are my favourite films, and I’m sure I’m also influenced human species has lived so
by their short-lived mid-80s cartoon show. The question then is, why? long, and merged so
Why do these little walking teddy-bears have a special place in so successfully with computers,
many people’s hearts? that we have spread to explore
One explanation is that my love of the Ewoks is analogous to hugely different environments, shared frame of reference.
our (and maybe especially academics’) love of cats (have a look at diverging as different species – A concrete, but
#AcademicsWithCats). They’re furry, difficult to understand and aliens to ourselves – fundamental, example is
can look adorable. They’re also adept killers when needed. Much as ‘developing new ways of research on infant cognition
I remember them for being cuddly and curious, the Ewoks also tried mapping the physical world which shows that human
to cook and eat Han, Luke and Chewbacca when they first met them. into the minds, and adding babies are primed to
They live under a tribal system, and while their technology is specialised neural structures understand what adults do as
primitive, it is very effective. They’re smart little creatures, who can to handle the new categories’. attempts as communication.
apparently ride In the novel, the central This readiness allows them
speeder-bikes characters realise they need to to make sense of what people
with no training, talk to these off-shoot human mean, even if they don’t use
THE KOBAL COLLECTION/LUCASFILM/20TH CENTURY FOX

as well make species to warn them about an
large traps and impending disaster (a life-
have their own ending blast of neutron energy
hang gliders. from an exploding star, as
My cat is less you’d expect). The problem is
advanced, but that some human species live
can look in such a different world, have
adorable just been separate from the rest of
before (and humanity for so long, that
indeed after) communication with them is
dragging a dead impossible. It isn’t just that
bird into the they speak different languages,
house. but that the methods of
The communicating and the
relationship underlying concepts they use
between the are so radically divergent that
Empire and the they can’t even begin to
Ewoks mirrors recognise the need to
so many human communicate.
conquests. The This is exciting because
invading force it reminds me that our
subjugates the psychology is based on a
local population particular way of being in the
who rise up world. Jakob von Uexküll
against them. called this an ‘umwelt’, or life-
We feel for the world. The important thing is
Ewoks; we want that other animals don’t just
them to win their think differently from us. It
freedom. The Ewoks isn’t just that dogs, say, don’t
expose why armies struggle to overcome guerrilla warfare; they are understand mathematics, but
easy to underestimate and can use what they know about the terrain there is a more profound
to their advantage. The Ewoks’ help allows the Rebels to win the difference: that the categories
Battle of Endor and destroy the Death Star. dogs use to carve up the world
It’s also interesting that the word ‘Ewoks’ is not mentioned at all in cut across those we use.
the Return of the Jedi. Without the closing credits, we might not have Wittgenstein said ‘If a lion
a name for the species that helped to take down the evil Imperial could talk, we could not
Empire. This may have been a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, understand him’ and I take
but how often does our own history favour those telling it, pushing out this to be expressing the same
the contributions of those less able to spread the story themselves. thought – communication
requires a shared world, a
the right words (or if the
words are completely novel to
the baby). Communication is
only possible because the two
parties have from the
beginning a shared
understanding about how
communication is done (and
assume communicating is one
of the things the other is likely
to do).
In the novel, the
communication with the aliens
is made by Bridgers – humans
who alter themselves into
intermediate species that exist
in a manner that is in between
standard humans and the
human-aliens they are trying
to connect to. Through a chain
of ‘Bridgers’ they are able, at
last, to speak to about the
urgent need to evacuate earth
(but, ironically, not to be
believed).
The problems we face as
individuals and as a society are
less spectacular, but can be as
urgent. When different groups,
ideologies or individuals can’t
agree, I sometimes fancifully
wonder if part of the problem
is the different life-world the
two inhabit, and if – instead of
more shouting at each other –
communication would be best
made by finding people who
inhabit intermediate umwelts
and so could bridge between
the different minds.

810 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


Solaris and ‘The Other’
Dr Ian Hocking, Canterbury Christ Church University
Solaristics, wrote Muntius, is a
substitute for religion in the space
age. (Lem, Solaris)
For me, the 1961 science fiction classic
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem is forever
associated with J.S. Bach’s church cantata
Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, which plays
throughout the 1972 film adaptation
directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
The organ gives an ecclesiastic feel to
the slow-moving shots of Kelvin, the
psychologist hero, as he walks around the
lake of his childhood home before leaving
Earth for Solaris Station on a mission to
discover the fate of the scientists aboard.
The lake and its forest is ancient. The
depiction of Kelvin is stark: he is
dissociated, depressed.
There is no lake in the book. Lem’s
Solaris begins in outer space as Kelvin’s
shuttle docks with Solaris Station.
Kelvin, I’m sorry. It’s nothing, you
know, just the surprise. I wasn’t
expecting you.
Anti-gravity generators keep Solaris
Station floating above a planet whose
ocean may, or may not, be sentient. The
struggle to understand this ocean began
a century before with a mystery about the
planet’s orbit. According to physical law,
the orbit should be elliptical, not circular.
A discipline called solaristics has
sprung up, but it hasn’t got much further
than description. Just as some claim that
our psychological literature excludes
something essential of what psychology
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
should be – the qualia of being (Levine,
1983) – solaristics misses something
essential of Solaris.
Gravinsky’s compendium, which was
most often used in school as a simple
crib, was an alphabetically arranged
collection of solaristic hypotheses,
from Abiological to Zoo-degenerative.
On board the station, Kelvin finds chaos.
He looks for a scientist called Gibarian,
who had once been an instructor at
Kelvin’s university.
Gibarian is dead and his colleagues are
making no sense. Kelvin soon learns that
there are visitors on the station. They are
not human. They are manifestations of
guilt and trauma; patterns pulled from
human minds by something connected
with the ocean below, or perhaps the
ocean itself.
One of these manifestations looks like
a woman whom Kelvin failed to help. She
killed herself not long after her marriage –
to Kelvin.
It was Harey, in a white summer
dress. Her legs were crossed, she was
barefoot, her dark hair was tied back;
the sheer material was taut over her
breasts.
This version of Harey walks and talks like
What’s your favourite alien, and what does its depiction tell us about our own
psychology? Join the conversation on the web version of this article at
http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk or connect on Twitter @psychmag
THE KOBAL COLLECTION/MOSFILM
the original. Kelvin tries to hate it but he
can’t. Slowly, it remembers the suicide of
the original.
‘Kris, I have the feeling that
something has happened.’ She broke
off. I waited, the turned-off razor in
my hand.
The aliens of Solaris do not have pointy
ears, American accents, or trundle about
with sink-plunger attachments. They are
so utterly different that there is no basis
for common understanding. The science
of Solaristics cannot even settle the
question of whether the aliens are alive
or an inanimate, but active, element of
the planet’s geology. The geology of Solaris
might think the same about us.
What, as literature, is Solaris about?
The failure to communicate, both between
intelligences and within minds. We never
find out whether this failure is deliberate
on the part of Solaris. In the 2015 BBC
television documentary Bitter Lake, Adam
Curtis argues that the stories we are told –
about why we go to war, how we divide
the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and ‘us’
and ‘them’ – no longer make sense, and
with this obfuscation comes control. Does
the ocean on Solaris control the humans
on Solaris Station? Humanity wants to
make sense of Solaris, but physics can’t
help. Kelvin wants to make sense of
Harey, but psychology can’t help. What’s
left is the essence of the alien: otherness.
811
ARTICLE

intelligent life elsewhere in the universe

Close encounters of the
psychological kind
Christopher C. French considers explanations of UFO sightings,
alien encounters and even abductions
In recent years astronomers have
discovered an ever-increasing
number of earth-like planets,
fuelling speculation that we may
not be alone in the universe. Many
members of the public are already
convinced that not only is there
intelligent life elsewhere in the
universe, but also that aliens visit
our planet regularly. Indeed, many
claim to have had personal
experiences that prove that this is
so. Are there plausible alternative
explanations for such claims?
What are the possible implications for
questions
t is a pretty safe bet that virtually every
I reader of this article has heard of, and
possibly even seen, Steven Spielberg’s
1977 blockbuster UFO movie Close
Encounters of the Third Kind. However,
I suspect that most readers are not
entirely sure what the film’s title really
means. In fact, it refers to J. Allen Hynek’s
classificatory system for alleged alien
contact of various kinds. Hynek was an
American astronomer who acted as a
scientific adviser to the US Air Force
on a number of high-profile projects
investigating UFOs beginning back in
the 1940s. He began as a sceptic and
debunker – but ended up as a strong
defender of both the so-called
but are far from convinced that alien
visitation of our home planet has ever
happened. Even if our own galaxy is
teeming with life, it may well be the case
that the vast interstellar distances
between inhabited planets is such that
any direct human–alien contact is simply
not possible.
If indeed the earth has never been
visited by ET, how are we to explain the
numerous reports of UFO sightings and
even alien contact and abduction that
have taken place in the last 60 years or
so, and arguably even before that? I will
argue that psychology provides plausible
counter-explanations for close encounters
of all kinds.
The first kind
A simple sighting of a UFO with no other
supporting evidence is referred to as a
close encounter of the first kind (CE1).
Ever since human beings first looked up
at the sky, they have seen objects that
they could not identify – literally
unidentified flying objects. In modern
times, however, the acronym UFO has

‘extraterrestrial (ET) hypothesis’ and the become synonymous in many people’s

our view of ourselves and our place in
the universe if contact is ever made with
an advanced extraterrestrial civilisation?
Some attempts to estimate the number
of intelligent civilisations that might live
in our galaxy, such as the famous Drake
equation, imply that such civilisations
might be surprisingly common.
Physicist Enrico Fermi asked the
question, ‘Why, if this is so, is there little
convincing evidence of contact from
such civilisations?’ How might you
answer this question?
resources
even more controversial ‘extradimensional minds to that of ET. A moment’s
(ED) hypothesis’ as possible explanations reflection will reveal that this is a huge
for such reports. Specifically, close inferential leap.
encounters of the third kind (CE3s) refers Our readers will be well aware that
to alleged encounters that involve
actual human–alien interaction.
Opinion polls routinely show that
many members of the general public
also believe in the ET hypothesis. To
give but one typical example, a 2013
HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1000 US
adults (tinyurl.com/moa2ez6) found
that half believed there is life on other
planets, 38 per cent believed there is
intelligent life on other planets, and
a quarter believed that aliens have

French, C.C. & Stone, A. (2014).

Anomalistic psychology: Exploring
paranormal belief and experience.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit:
www.gold.ac.uk/apru
visited the earth. It is important to
note in this context that right back to
Carl Sagan, many scientists involved
in the SETI (Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Project How are we to explain the numerous reports of
have fully accepted the possibility of UFO sightings?

Appelle, S. (1996). The abduction Voices and visions from within. Brookesmith, P. (1998). Alien abductions. Clarke, D. & Roberts, A. (1990). Phantoms
references

experience. Journal of UFO Studies, 6,
29–79.
Appelle, S., Lynn, S.J., Newman, L. &
Maktaris, A. (2014). Alien abduction
experiences. In E. Cardeña, S.J. Lynn,
& S. Krippner (Eds.) Varieties of
anomalous experience (2nd edn,
pp.213–240). Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Baker, R.A. (1992). Hidden memories:
Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
Bartholomew, R.E. & Howard, G.S.
(1998). UFOs and alien contact.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
Blackmore, S. (1994). Alien abduction.
New Scientist, 144, 29–31.
Brookesmith, P. (1995). UFO: The complete
sightings catalogue. London: Blandford.
Brookesmith, P. (1996). UFO: The
government files. London: Blandford.
New York: Barnes & Noble.
Clancy, S.A. (2005). Abducted. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Clancy, S.A., McNally, R.J., Schacter, D.L.
et al. (2002). Memory distortion in
people reporting abduction by aliens.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111,
455–461.
Clarke, D. (2012). The UFO files. London:
Bloomsbury.
of the sky. London: Robert Hale.
Deese, J. (1959). On the prediction of
occurrence of particular verbal
intrusions in immediate recall.
Journal of Experimental Psychology,
58, 17–22.
Devereux, P. & Brookesmith, P. (1997).
UFOs and ufology. London: Blandford.
Frazier, K., Karr, B. & Nickell, J. (Eds.)
(1997). The UFO invasion. Amherst,

812 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 out of this world

both perception and memory are
constructive processes greatly affected by
the top-down influences of the observer’s
pre-existing beliefs and expectations.
UFOs are typically observed unexpectedly
under less than ideal viewing conditions,
often at night. It is precisely under such
viewing conditions that top-down
influences will have their strongest effect
upon the perceptions of the viewer. Thus,
details may be perceived (e.g. aliens
peering back at the observer through
windows) that were not actually present
at all. It should also be borne in mind
that there are typically few, if any, cues to
size, distance and speed in the sky. An
object that is small, near and slow-
moving will produce the same image on
the retina as one that is large, far away
and fast-moving.
It may initially seem incredible that
Roberts, 1990; Frazier et al., 1997; Klass,
1983; Randles et al., 2000; Sheaffer, 1998;
Watson, 2013).
The second kind
A sighting that appears to be supported
by physical evidence is referred to as a
close encounter of the second kind
(CE2). Such evidence is typically in the
form of a photographic record, but these
cases also include sightings accompanied
by radar readings or else indentations
and/or raised radiation levels at alleged
landing sights.
The old adage ‘The camera never lies’
has never been true and has never been
less true than it is in our modern digital
age. Ever since the earliest days of
photography, cameras have been used
to fake paranormal phenomena, such as
CREDIT
radiation levels were found at the alleged
UFO landing site. In fact, the indentations
were in all probability made by rabbits
and the reported raised radiation levels
were actually not particularly high and
were based upon the use of inappropriate
technology by inexperienced personnel
(Randles et al., 2000). Confirmation bias
on the part of both witnesses and some
investigators leads to the interpretation
of any apparent anomaly, no matter how
minor, being interpreted as support for
the ET hypothesis.
The third kind
As stated, the title of Spielberg’s
influential film refers to actual direct
contact between aliens and humans. In
1952, George Adamski claimed to have
met a rather attractive female Venusian in

people could misperceive a wide variety
of stimuli (such as bright stars and
planets, meteors, weather balloons,
aircraft seen from unusual angles, laser
displays and Chinese lanterns) as alien
spaceships, but even the most fervent
proponents of the ET hypothesis accept
that over 95 per cent of all reported
sightings can be explained in such terms.
The reason we can often be sure that such
explanations are correct is because the
precise time and direction of the sighting
exactly corresponds to a known event
occurring in that part of the sky. However,
proponents of the ET hypothesis insist
that unless such explanations can be
provided for 100 per cent of all reported
sightings, the ET hypothesis is supported.
Is this reasonable? Of course not. Just as
the police cannot solve all of the crimes
they investigate, sometimes there is
simply not enough evidence to allow for
a definitive explanation of a sighting.
Even those who could be thought of as
professional observers, such as pilots,
astronomers, military personnel, and
police officers, are not immune to such
misperceptions – as illustrated in several
well-documented cases (see e.g.
Bartholomew & Howard, 1998;
Brookesmith, 1995, 1996; Clarke &
apparently capturing ghostly images of
the deceased (Nickell, 1994). With
software such as Photoshop, it has never
been easier to produce hoax photographs
of all kinds. Many classic photographs of
flying saucers have been shown to be
deliberate hoaxes (see, for example,
Hines, 2003; Hoggart & Hutchinson,
1995; Korff, 1995). In other cases,
photographs or videos are simply
sincerely misinterpreted natural or
manmade phenomena.
Mundane explanations can also often
be provided for other types of physical
evidence. For example, radar readings can
sometimes be misleading. False positives,
sometimes referred to as angels, can be
caused by flocks of birds or unusual
atmospheric conditions. This was
particularly a problem for pre-1960s
systems, which may explain why reports
of UFOs detected on radar are much rarer
these days (Clarke, 2012).
The problems of interpreting other
types of physical evidence are nicely
illustrated by the notorious case of the
alleged UFO landing in Rendlesham
Forest in 1980, often referred to as
‘Britain’s Roswell’. One aspect of this
complex case was the claim that both
indentations in the ground and raised
the Californian desert (Bartholomew &
Howard, 1998). He even claimed that he
had been taken for a ride in her
spaceship, and wrote several bestselling
books recounting his adventures.
Adamski was just one of several so-called
contactees in this era who made such
claims, often involving the contactee in
the transmission of important messages
from the aliens to humanity warning of
the dangers of, say, nuclear war or
pollution. The claims themselves became
more elaborate as time went by, but the
accounts were generally positive in tone
and the aliens clearly viewed humanity
benevolently. The contactees were not
taken seriously even by the ufologists of
the day, who preferred instead to
concentrate on what they perceived to be
more reliable reports of CE1s. However,
things were soon to take a more sinister
turn and an additional category was
added to Hynek’s original tripartite
scheme.
The fourth kind
One of the earliest cases of alleged human
abduction by aliens, referred to as a close
encounter of the fourth kind (CE4), was
that of Brazilian farmer Antonio Villas

NY: Prometheus.
French, C.C. (2001). Alien abductions. In
R. Roberts & D. Groome (Eds.)
Parapsychology (pp.102–116). London:
Arnold.
French, C.C. (2003). Fantastic memories.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10,
153–174.
French, C.C. & Santomauro, J. (2007).
Something wicked this way comes:
Causes and interpretations of sleep
paralysis. In S. Della Sala (Ed.) Tall
tales about the mind and brain
(pp.380–398). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
French, C.C., Santomauro, J., Hamilton,
V. et al. (2008). Psychological aspects
of the alien contact experience.
Cortex, 44, 1387–1395.
French, C.C. & Stone, A. (2014).
Anomalistic psychology. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Goodman, G.S., Quas, J.A. & Redlich,
A.D. (1998). The ethics of conducting
‘false memory’ research with
children. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 12, 207–217.
Hines, T. (2003). Pseudoscience and the
paranormal (2nd edn). Amherst, NY:
Prometheus.
Hoggart, S. & Hutchinson, M. (1995).
Bizarre beliefs. London: Richard
Cohen Books.
Holden, K.J. & French, C.C. (2002). Alien
abduction experiences. Cognitive
Neuropsychiatry, 7, 163–178.
Hopkins, B. (1987). Intruders: The
incredible visitations at Copley Woods.
New York: Random House.
Klass, P.J. (1983). UFOs: The public
deceived. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
Klass, P.J. (1989). UFO abductions: A
dangerous game. Updated edition.
Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.

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 out of this world

Boas who claimed that in 1957 he was
dragged into a spaceship by aliens and
forced to have sex with an attractive
female alien (who made barking sounds
during intercourse).
The first alien abduction claim to
receive worldwide media attention was
that of Betty and Barney Hill. The Hills
claimed that in September 1961 they had
spotted a UFO while driving from
Montreal to New Hampshire and that
they had arrived home much later than
expected, unable to account for a full two
hours. Betty then started having dreams
about being taken on board a spaceship
by aliens and being medically examined.
Years later, the couple consulted Dr
Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist, with
respect to problems in their marriage.
They were regressed back to that fateful
night in 1961 and apparently recovered
detailed memories of their car being
stopped by aliens at a roadblock and both
being taken on board an alien craft and
being medically examined. Although
there is little reason to doubt the Hills’
sincerity, there is every reason to doubt
the accuracy of their account (see Klass,
1989, for a detailed critique). It is worth
noting that Dr Simon did not believe the
account produced during hypnotic
regression (Klass, 1989), and it is now
generally accepted that hypnotic
regression, far from being a useful
technique to recover true memories, is
very likely to result in false memories
(Baker, 1992; Spanos, 1996). However,
at the time this account was taken much
more seriously in many quarters than
previous tales from contactees and many
of the features reported – a UFO sighting,
‘missing time’, memories being ‘recovered’
through dreams and hypnotic regression –
have recurred routinely in subsequent
alien abduction accounts.
In 1987 two bestselling books served
to raise public awareness of such claims
even higher: Communion by Whitley
Strieber and Intruders by Budd Hopkins.
The first, from the pen of a successful
horror fiction writer, was the allegedly
true story of his own terrifying abduction
experiences. The second, by a New York
artist turned ufologist, described his own
research with abductees, often involving
the use of hypnotic regression. Hopkins
claimed that his evidence showed that the
aliens were engaged in a sinister cross-
breeding project with the intention of
producing human-alien hybrids. Much to
the surprise of many, in 1994, Professor
John Mack, a psychiatrist at Harvard
University and a Pulitzer Prize winner,
published a book on alien abduction
claiming that ‘these accounts are not
hallucinations, not dreams, but real
experiences’.
Although many psychologists and
psychiatrists would disagree with Mack’s
conclusions, there is little doubt that alien
abduction claims constitute an intriguing
phenomenon in need of explanation. It is
certainly the case that speculation on this
topic far outweighs actual empirical
evidence, yet there is enough of the latter
to support plausible psychological
explanations for the majority of alien
abduction and contact claims without any
need to involve ET. We should be very
wary, however, of proposing any kind of
‘one size fits all’ blanket explanation for
such a rich and multifaceted
phenomenon: for the interested reader
there are numerous detailed reviews
covering a wide range of psychological
factors (e.g. Appelle, 1996; Appelle et al.,
2014; Baker, 1992; Bartholomew &
Howard, 1998; Blackmore, 1994;
Brookesmith, 1998; Devereux &
Brookesmith, 1997; French, 2001; Holden
& French, 2002; Newman & Baumeister,
1996, 1998; Randle et al., 1999;
Rutkowski, 2000; Showalter, 1997;
Spanos, 1996).
There is little doubt that deliberate
hoaxes do occur (e.g., Klass, 1989; Korff,
1995), and sometimes people suffering
from serious psychopathology will make
claims. Yet there is also general agreement
amongst both proponents and opponents
of the ET hypothesis that the vast
majority of those claiming alien
abduction experiences are sane, sincere
people who genuinely believe they have
Alien abduction claims constitute an
intriguing phenomenon in need of explanation
experienced alien contact (French &
Stone, 2014). How are we to account for
this?
The most obvious explanation is that
they are suffering from false memories,
and there is increasing evidence to
support such a claim (e.g. Clancy, 2005;
French, 2003; French & Stone, 2014;
McNally, 2012). A number of individual
difference variables, such as dissociativity,
absorption, and fantasy-proneness, have
been shown to be positively correlated
with both susceptibility to false memories
and the tendency to report ostensibly
paranormal experiences of all kinds
(French, 2003). Several studies (reviewed
by French & Stone, 2014) demonstrate
that those claiming alien contact tend to
score higher on such variables in
comparison to control groups.
Another approach is to compare
susceptibility to false memories in groups
of individuals with conscious memories
of being abducted by aliens, those who
believe they have been abducted by aliens
but cannot remember the experience, and
others who do not believe they have been
abducted by aliens. The Deese–Roediger–
McDermott (DRM) task (Deese, 1959;
Roediger & McDermott, 1995) presents
series of associated words but with a
critical lure word missing (e.g. the words
snore, dream, snooze, blanket, pillow, bed
might be presented but the word sleep is

Korff, K.K. (1995). The Billy Meier story:
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Lawson, A.H. (1984). Perinatal imagery in
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McNally, R.J. (2012). Explaining ‘memories’
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abduction phenomenon.
Psychological Inquiry, 7, 99–126.
Newman, L.S. & Baumeister, R.F. (1998).
Abducted by aliens. In S.J. Lynn &
K.M. McConkey (Eds.) Truth in
memory (pp.284–303). New York:
Guilford Press.
Nickell, J. (1994). Camera clues. Lexington,
KY: Kentucky University Press.
Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Merckelbach, H. &
Wade, K.A. (2009). Abducted by a
UFO. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23,
115–125.
Randle, K.D., Estes, R. & Cone, W.P.
(1999). The abduction enigma. New
York: Forge.
Randles, J., Roberts, A. & Clarke, J.
(2000). The UFOs that never were.
London: London House.
Roediger, H.L., III, & McDermott, K.B.
(1995). Creating false memories.
Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21,
803–814.
Rutkowski, C. (2000). Abductions and
aliens. London: Fusion Press.
Santomauro, J. & French, C.C. (2009).
Terror in the night. The Psychologist,
22, 672–675.
Sheaffer, R. (1998). UFO sightings: The

814 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


not). The number of critical lure words
reported is an indication of susceptibility
to false memories. Clancy et al. (2002)
reported that a group with conscious
memories of alien abduction
demonstrated the greatest susceptibility
and a group who did not believe
themselves to have ever been abducted
demonstrated the least. It should be
noted, however, that we have found
that although individuals reporting alien
contact scored higher than a control
group on dissociativity, absorption,
paranormal belief and experience,
self-reported psychic ability, fantasy
proneness, and tendency to hallucinate,
there was no difference in scores on the
DRM task (French et al., 2008).
What about this interesting category
of claimants who believe that they have
experienced alien contact even though
they cannot actually remember it? They
typically do so because they have had one
or more anomalous experiences that have
led them to suspect that they may have
had such contact but that the aliens have
then wiped their memories for the rest of
the event. Such ideas are widely believed
within the ufological community. These
experiences include seeing a UFO, having
a ‘missing time’ experience, or finding
puzzling scars on one’s body, all of which
in fact could have quite mundane
explanations (French & Stone, 2014) –
but perhaps the single most common
cause of such suspicions is sleep paralysis
(French & Santomauro, 2007;
Santomauro & French, 2009).
Sleep paralysis is very common
amongst the general population and
consists of a temporary paralysis
occurring just as one is about to fall
asleep or as one wakes up. It typically
lasts a few seconds and is a little
disconcerting, but nothing more.
However, in a minority of cases it can
include a variety of other features that
can result in a truly terrifying experience.
These include a strong sense of an evil
presence and difficulty breathing due to
a feeling of pressure on the chest.
Hallucinations may also be experienced
evidence. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
Showalter, E. (1997). Hystories: Hysterical
epidemics and modern culture. London:
Picador.
Spanos, N.P. (1996). Multiple identities and
false memories. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Strieber, W. (1987). Communion: A true story.
New York: Morrow.
Watson, N. (2013). UFO investigations manual.
Yeovil: Haynes.
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
out of this world
‘Abducting’ children
Otgaar et al. (2009) demonstrated that a considerable number of young children (aged either
7–8 or 11–12) readily accepted the suggestion that they themselves had been abducted by
aliens at the age of four, especially if they were told that the researchers had been informed
of this event by the child’s mother and the child was shown a fake newspaper report
suggesting that such abductions were fairly commonplace. The children were only classified
as having false memories of the event if they provided additional details of their memory of
the event.
This is an important study, being one of only two (the other being that of Lawson, 1984)
that have attempted to directly implant false memories of alien abduction. However,
implanting such false memories, especially in children, clearly raises some serious ethical
issues. The only details provided by Otgaar et al. of the debriefing procedures used in this
study are that the children ‘were debriefed using ethical guidelines for false memory research
with children (Goodman, Quas, & Redlich, 1998)’ (p.120). This is somewhat ironic given that
one of the recommendations for ethical false memory research with children stated by
Goodman et al. is as follows: ‘Although often there is little room for extraneous detail in
scholarly reports, providing readers with the procedures used for debriefing is important in
controversial areas of research’ (p.215).
including seeing lights moving around the simply imagine that they had indeed been
room or grotesque figures, hearing voices, abducted, the accounts they produced
footsteps or mechanical sounds, and were remarkably similar to those
feeling that one is being dragged out of produced by people who claimed that
bed. We have a reasonably good they really had been abducted, even down
understanding of what causes sleep to the level of minor details.
paralysis in terms of a disruption to the
normal sleep cycle. During rapid eye-
movement (REM) sleep, the phase of The truth is in there
sleep typically associated with vivid Arthur C. Clarke famously said: ‘Two
dreams, the muscles of the body are possibilities exist: either we are alone
actually paralysed, presumably to prevent in the universe or we are not. Both are
the sleeper from acting out the actions of equally terrifying.’ More recently, Stephen
the dream. However, the mechanisms Hawking has warned against trying to
controlling the sleep cycle can sometimes make contact with any alien civilisations
go slightly awry. To put it simply, it is as in case they respond by conquering and
though the brain has woken up but the colonising our home planet. However,
body has not. This can result in terrifying human curiosity is such that we cannot
episodes of sleep paralysis during which help but yearn to know whether we are
the sufferer is aware of their surroundings alone in the cosmos or not. Indeed,
but cannot move – and creepy dream Hawking himself has backed an ambitious
imagery is seeping through into wakeful $100 million programme to scan the skies
consciousness. searching for evidence of ET – listening
Whatever the cause of the original but not sending out any signals to give
suspicion that one may have experienced away the location of our planet. Should
alien contact, the next step for many is to we ever prove that there are other
seek the services of a hypnotherapist in intelligent civilisations, our understanding
order to ‘recover’ the memories of the rest of our place in the universe will be
of the episode. It is worth noting here that transformed dramatically. For now
whether one is attempting to recover though, the evidence relating to alleged
memories of alien abduction, past lives, close encounters would suggest, with
or ritualised Satanic abuse, the same apologies to The X-Files, that the truth is
techniques are used and typically deliver not ‘out there’ but within our own heads.
exactly the type of memories that were
anticipated. The available evidence
strongly suggests that these are false Christopher C. French
memories (French & Stone, 2014). It is is at the Anomalistic
interesting to note that when Lawson Psychology Research Unit,
(1984) hypnotised eight volunteers with Goldsmiths, University of
minimal prior knowledge of UFOs, none London
of whom believed they had ever been C.French@gold.ac.uk
abducted by aliens, and asked them to
815
LOOKING BACK

There had been earlier prototypes,

Encountering
extraterrestrial intelligence
Albert A. Harrison looks for lessons from history
ow can researchers educate their
in New Jersey, vanquishing the militia,
such as a masterful hoax by the New York
Sun in 1835 that convinced readers that
civilised bat-like humanoids were
cavorting amidst pleasant surroundings
on the Moon (Goodman, 2008) and
motivated illusions of artificial canals
on Mars (Sheehan, 1988). But Welles’
broadcast was fresh in mind in when
a report was prepared by the Brookings
Institution for the US Congress on the
peaceful uses of outer space (Committee
on Science and Astronautics, 1961).
Although the report focused on topics
such as communications and weather

H guesses about human responses

to extraterrestrial life? The analysis
of precedents and prototypes is one
and advancing inexorably on Manhattan.
People were frightened, and newspapers
had a field day claiming that widespread
satellites and space probes, it also made
brief reference to the possibility of
discovering extraterrestrial intelligence.
prominent strategy. panic resulted. The broadcast inspired one Panelists could imagine ‘our’ astronauts
Prototypes are situations and of the earliest field studies in social meeting ‘their’ astronauts, but also
events that with varying degrees of psychology (Cantril, 1940). acknowledged that contact could come
convincingness approximate different Yet newspaper accounts of the War about through microwave observation.
contact scenarios, and models based of the Worlds incident were overstated The report expressed apprehensions
on them point researchers in promising (Harrison, 1997). Most listeners did not about public reactions and urged further
directions. As American astronomer and take the broadcast at face value, and studies of how events unfold when
author Steven J. Dick (2013, p.227) some, alarmed by the opening lines, different cultures first meet one another.
points out, analogues offer both ‘promise conducted reality checks and were
and perils’, depending on the relieved to
degree of correspondence discover, for The culture encounter model
between the prototype and the “Are sailing ships on the example, that Under the culture encounter model the
target event. He adds that horizon a new kind of fish, other stations arrival of Europeans in the New World,
prototypes should not be as swimming gods, or were maintaining the rapid spread of colonialism
broad and sweeping as to be floating houses?” their normal throughout the world, and the relentless
meaningless, nor so specific as programming. subjugation of Native American Indians
to generate false expectations Given perceptions become prototypes for understanding
that the prototype will of the situation, some reactions to extraterrestrials. Because
precisely mirror the target event. The illustrations of panic were descriptions extraterrestrial civilisations are expected
use of precedents and prototypes is not of reasonable self-protective and even to be vastly older than our own, they are
unusual in psychology: research in altruistic actions: extricating a fiancée granted technological (but not necessarily
Antarctica and other spaceflight-analogous from the danger zone, sealing doors and moral) superiority. As history shows
environments has advanced our windows to retard the seepage of poison technological inequality poses a risk of
understanding of psychosocial adaptation gas, and reporting to armories for duty. subjugation, exploitation, dehumanisation
to spaceflight, despite differences between Decades later, a conceptual replication and traumatisation.
the two environments (Bishop, 2013). based on a fictionalised account of a James F. Strange describes how
reactor meltdown in Denmark frightened technologically disadvantaged cultures are
about eight percent of the listening likely to respond to first contact (Strange,
The instant crisis model audience and about one percent 2007). Initially, indigenous people are
Without doubt, the best-known prototype responded behaviorally (Rosengren et al., likely to be baffled and confused, because
for contact is Orson Welles’ War of the 1975). Nobody panicked, but media the indigenous peoples have no idea what
Worlds broadcast on Halloween of 1938. accounts spread the impression that panic they are seeing. Are sailing ships on the
This theatrical radio play was presented as was intense and widespread and that the horizon a new kind of fish, swimming
a live news broadcast of Martians landing police became dysfunctional. gods, or floating houses? Curiosity is
references

Bainbridge, W.S. (2011). Cultural beliefs
about extraterrestrial intelligence. In
D.A. Vakoch and A.A. Harrison [Eds.]
Civilizations beyond Earth:
Extraterrestrial life and society.
(pp.118–140). New York: Berghahn.
Baird, J. (1987). The inner limits of outer
space. Hanover, NH: The University
Press of New England.
Bishop, S.L. (2013). From Earth analogues
to space: Learning how to boldly go.
In D.A. Vakoch (Ed.) On orbit and
beyond: psychological perspectives on
human spaceflight (pp.25–50) Berlin:
Springer Verlag.
Cantril, H. (1940). The invasion from Mars:
A study in the psychology of panic.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Colavito, J. (2005). The cult of alien gods:
H.P. Lovecraft and extraterrestrial pop
culture. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books.
Committee on Science and Astronautics
(1961). Proposed studies on the
implications of peaceful space activities
for human affairs. Prepared for the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration by the Brookings
Institution and presented to the US
House of Representatives, Eighty
Seventh Congress (24 March 1961).
Dagnall, N., Drinkwater, K. & Parker, A.
(2011). Alien visitation, extra-
terrestrial life, and paranormal
beliefs. Journal of Scientific
Exploration 25(4), 699–720.
Dick, S.J. (2013). The societal impact of
extraterrestrial life. In D.A. Vakoch
(Ed.) Astrobiology, history and
psychology (pp.227–256). Heidelberg:
Springer-Verlag.
Goodman, M. (2008). The sun and the
moon. New York: Basic Books.

816 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 out of this world

useful, because it helps them learn more.
Soon they begin responding to the visitors
on the basis of assigned identities. That is,
they think about the visitors in terms of
entities that they have encountered,
cultural stories, and myths. They may
wonder if they are witnessing the arrival
of demons or the return of the gods. In
first encounters assigned identities are
mistaken identities, since they are based
on familiar ideas and imagination rather
than reliable knowledge. Once assigned
identities are formed they are supported
I Albert A. Harrison was a Professor of Psychology at the
University of California, Davis, who explored the societal
ramifications of astrobiology and the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). We were sad to hear that
he passed away shortly after submitting this article, which we
publish here unedited in his honour. See www.seti.org/seti-
institute/al-harrison-1949-2015 for more information.
by selective perception and biased
assimilation.
Biases and inaccuracies in standard
versions of history are a significant
problem for this model. Many standard
history texts have been written to flatter
leaders, and build national morale by
denigrating opponents (Restall, 2003).
The influences of allies, turncoats and
lucky breaks tend to get lost; deceitful
behaviours and atrocities are ignored or
downplayed; and the true cost of victory
is hidden. Still, a skilled ethnographer
focusing on a
geographically and
temporally limited and
carefully defined first
encounter could carry this
model forward. From a
risk analysis and disaster
management perspective
it would be premature to
discard this model (Neal,
2014), yet it is often
downplayed because
astronomers consider
physical contact unlikely.
The Information
diffusion model
The information diffusion
model is based on the
dispersal of ideas over
time and across cultures
(Dick, 2013). Sample
prototypes include the
Copernican and Darwinian
revolutions, the
exportation of the Arabic
numerical system to
Europe (Dick, 2013),
the ‘diffusion of African-
American musical
influences and slang
language into dominant
American culture’
(Strange, 2007, p.239),
and the spread of literacy
and popular interest in
science in late Tsarist
Russia. History provides
a rich source of research material. The
emphasis is less on instantaneous impact
than on the long-term infiltration and
assimilation of ideas into the receiving
culture. It could take centuries before the
full impact of contact is known.
The SETI model
There are at least three close
approximations of SETI detections. The
first two prototypes, from 1965 and 1967
respectively, were the discovery of quasars
and pulsars. In each case, unexpected
findings led to speculation that they were
intelligently controlled interstellar
beacons. In the discovery of pulsars, four
similar highly perplexing objects were
found and labeled LGM-1 to LGM-4, with
LGM standing for Little Green Men
(Penny, 2013). These appellations turned
from funny to worrisome as the
extraterrestrial hypotheses remained
standing while competing hypotheses fell.
One researcher considered burning the
results; perhaps later, when people were
better prepared, another astronomer
would rediscover these beacons and
reveal their true nature to the public
(Penny, 2013). Both quasars and pulsars
are natural objects, but internal
discussions on how to manage the
developing situation informed broader
discussions of how to manage the
verification and news of an actual
detection (Penny, 2013).
In late 1998, on his Coast to Coast
talk radio show, commentator Art Bell
announced that an anonymous amateur
astronomer had intercepted an
extraterrestrial transmission. The story
was picked up by the BBC and gained
international attention. Scientists,
including Seth Shostak, strongly
suspected that the detection was a hoax,
and attempts to confirm the discovery
failed (Shostak, 2009). The story
persisted (dwindling in importance) for
several days before it was refuted.
Afterwards, Shostak expressed vexation
and gratitude, the latter because it ‘added
a modicum of real experience to the

Harrison, A.A. (1997). After contact: the
human response to extraterrestrial life.
New York: Plenum.
Harrison, A.A. (2007). Starstruck: Cosmic
visions in science, religion, and folklore.
New York: Berghahn.
Harrison, A.A. (2011). Fear,
pandemonium, equanimity and
delight: Human responses to extra-
terrestrial life. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society A,
369, 656–668.
Harrison, A.A. & Elms, A.C. (1990).
Psychology and the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence.
Behavioral Science, 35, 207–216.
Janoff-Bullman, R. (1992). Shattered
assumptions: Towards a new theory of
trauma. New York: Free Press.
Koltko-Rivera, M.E. (2004). The
psychology of worldviews. Review of
General Psychology, 8, 3–58.
Neal, M. (2014). Preparing for
extraterrestrial contact. Risk
Management, 16(2), 63–87.
Penny, A.J. (2013). The SETI episode in
the 1967 discovery of pulsars.
European Physical Journal H, 38,
535–547.
Restall, M. (2003). Seven myths of the
Spanish conquest. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Rosengren, K.W., Arvidson, P. &
Sturveson, D. (1975). The Barseback
‘panic’: A radio programme as a
negative summary event. Acta
Sociologica, 18, 303–321.
Sheehan, W. (1988). Planets and
perception: Telescopic views and
interpretations 1809– 1909. Tucson, AZ:
University of Arizona Press.
Shostak S. (2009). Confessions of an alien
hunter: A scientist’ s search for extra-
terrestrial intelligence. Washington,

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 817

 out of this world
endless theorizing about what would
happen in the case of a “hit”’ (Shostak,
2009, pp.245–246). There are several
reasons to expect that reactions to an
orthodox SETI detection – that is, of a
carrier wave or ‘dial tone’ – will be muted
(Harrison, 2011). However, conditions
could change rapidly if a specific message
was ascribed to the transmission, and the
media and interpretation industries
gained momentum.
Culture and worldviews as
organising concepts
Historians and anthropologists have led
the way in most discussions of the effects
of the discovery of extraterrestrials on
humans. There are many topics in
psychology that could contribute to the
overall endeavour: anthropomorphic,
ethnocentric and egocentric thinking;
attribution of motives and intentions;
person perception; paranoia and pronoia;
defense mechanisms, intergroup relations;
rumour transmission, and much more
(Baird 1987; Harrison, 1997, 2007;
Harrison & Elms, 1990; Neal, 2014).
The current lack of involvement on the
part of a profession that once fought to
distinguish itself from religion and the
occult is understandable. Today,
researchers separate
openness to the possibility
of extraterrestrial life, which
is not paranormal, from the
belief that they are here,
which is paranormal in the
sense that it is intermingled
with other paranormal
beliefs (such as astrology
and reincarnation), magical thinking,
and deficient reality testing (Bainbridge,
2011; Dagnall et al., 2011). Psychologists’
interests need no longer be limited to
purported alien encounters and abduction
experiences, conspiracy thinking, and
flying saucer religions. Today it is
perfectly acceptable for psychologists to
think about imaginary beings – or at least,
how other people think about them and
the possible consequences of this.
DC: National Geographic.
Strange, J.F. (2007). Observations from
archaeology and religious studies
on first contact and ETI evidence. In
D.G. Tumminia (Ed.) Alien worlds
(pp.239–248). Syracuse NY:
Syracuse University Press.
Zimbardo, P.G. (1999). Discontinuity
theory. Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology, 32, 345–486.
818
Psychologists’ interests need no longer be limited to purported alien encounters and
abduction experiences, conspiracy thinking, and flying saucer religions
Anthropologists rally around ‘culture’
as an organising concept for their work.
Human encounters with aliens can be
construed as meetings of radically
different cultures, perhaps leading to
‘culture shock on steroids’. Psychologists
might consider worldviews as an
organising concept,
not in the common
“Human encounters with vaguely descriptive
aliens can be construed sense of the word but
as meetings of radically as a psychological
construct with
different cultures” structural and
dynamic properties that
are amenable to empirical
research (Koltko-Rivera, 2004). In
psychology, worldviews are cognitive
frameworks that structure our
understanding of reality and give us the
tools we need to navigate in an uncertain
and potentially dangerous environment
(Janoff-Bullman, 1992; Zimbardo, 1999).
They set and enforce standards of truth
and falsehood, frame questions and
answers, and influence reality testing.
Worldviews rest on self-serving
assumptions that create the illusion
of living in a safe, understandable, and
manageable world where we can feel good intelligence is discovered there may be
about ourselves (Janoff-Bullman, 1992).
Threats come from people who are not
‘like us’, information that runs contrary
to our understanding about how things
work, and from traumatic and anomalous
experiences (Zimbardo, 1999).
Discontinuity Theory (Zimbardo, 1999)
and the Shattered Assumptions Theory of
Trauma (Janoff-Bullman, 1992) identify
threats to worldviews and how the
activation and failure of ego and
worldview defenses lead to a variety of
psychological and social pathologies, from
simple denial to schizophrenia, from own
group favouritism to war. Real or ascribed
alien worldviews could threaten our
foundational beliefs about physical, social,
and psychological realities.
What might be the effects on human
worldviews if their technology seemed
liked magic, if their science contradicted
our science, if their philosophy
undermined our religious beliefs, if their
morality struck us as abhorrent, or if
everything they said or did seemed
nonsensical? What if, to borrow from
science fiction and horror writer H.P.
Lovecraft, we inferred that the universe is
not as nicely organised as we like to think
(Colavito, 2005)? The mind does not do
well under prolonged conditions of
uncertainty and confusion. Of course,
extraterrestrials and humans could have
compatible or even synergistic ideas
(Dick, 2013). Still, psychological
worldview theory and research, pegged
to a few distinctive scenarios such as
prototypes described above, might ease
us into a post-contact era.
If and when the extraterrestrial
few details about what has been found:
who they are, what they want, and what
the discovery means for us. To satisfy our
curiosity and control anxiety we are likely
to draw on preconceptions, expectations,
attitudes and prejudices, and then seek
validation from like-minded others.
Looking to ‘inner space’ is likely to be as
important as turning our gaze to outer
space, and problems that result will be
largely of our own making.
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
 Annual Conference 2016
East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham
26–28 April
Themes:
 Faces  Ageing  Impact  Wellbeing

Submission deadline 21 October

Confirmed Keynotes so far:
Dame Vicki Bruce & Professor David Clark

Registration opens in October

Visit our website for guidelines, key dates and
to register for Conference updates

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‘big picture’ pull-out www.thepsychologist.org.uk i

BIG PICTURE

Motion illusions
in static patterns
Image and words from research by Johannes
Zanker (Royal Holloway University of London)

This picture demonstrates how motion

illusions can be experienced when looking
at static images that have no physical
motion content (which we would perceive in
movies or natural scenes). A range of such
illusions has been demonstrated in many
different synthetic, carefully constructed
patterns, such as the seemingly interleaved
ring patterns in the border of the image,
which can be perceived as spinning (initially
designed by Fraser (1908) as tilt illusion,
and elaborated and put into motion in many
versions by Kitaoka: tinyurl.com/oennyjm).
The conundrum of static patterns can be
resolved by taking into account small
involuntary eye movements (Zanker &
Walker, 2004), which is also the basis of
perceiving motion in various examples
of Op art, such as Bridget Riley’s painting
'Fall' (Tate Gallery, London), a radial variant
of which is shown in the centre of the image.
A unifying computation framework has been
suggested as an attempt to understand
commonalities and differences of static
motion illusions in terms of well-
established mechanisms of biological
motion processing in combination with eye
movements that affect the spatio-temporal
properties of the images entering the visual
system of the observer (Zanker, 2004).

Fraser, J. (1908). A new visual illusion of direction. British

Journal of Psychology, 2(3), 307.
Zanker, J.M. (2004). Looking at Op art from a
computational viewpoint. Spatial Vision, 17(1–2),
75–94.
Zanker, J.M. & Walker, R. (2004). A new look at Op art:
Towards a simple explanation of illusory motion.
Naturwissenschaften, 91, 149–156.
www.thepsychologist.org.uk
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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 819

NEW VOICES

image or film these ratings are similar to

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Clementine Edwards considers emotional deficits in schizophrenia, in the latest in
our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices)
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have the urge to do anything either
of their own initiative or at the bidding
of another. (Bleuler, 1950/1908).
found this quote in the early days
It has also been assumed in the past that
they are only present due to antipsychotic
medications or comorbid depression.
However, the evidence shows that
negative symptoms are independent
of side-effects, positive symptoms and
comorbid depression and that they appear
early on in schizophrenia (e.g. Blanchard
& Cohen, 2006; Loas et al., 2009). Once
an individual with schizophrenia is less
paranoid or their voices have faded they
controls (Cohen et al., 2011). If you can
experience as much pleasure as others
why would you report that you don’t?
The answer may lie in the temporal
experience of pleasure (Kring &
Caponigro, 2010). Questionnaires and
interviews tend to assess consummatory
pleasure (how much you enjoy something
at the time), and films are better at
measuring anticipatory pleasure (how
much you look forward to something).
The problem in schizophrenia seems to
be with anticipation, and this poses a new
question: If you enjoy activities as much
as others, why wouldn’t you look forward
to them and do them again?
My initial assumption was that
the general population are good at
anticipating how much they’re going to
enjoy something, and individuals with
schizophrenia are not. However, multiple
studies suggest we’re not very good at
predicting our future emotions at all
(e.g. Gilbert & Wilson, 2007). When

I of my PhD. I often return to it as a

reminder of the little progress we’ve
made in treating schizophrenia, a disorder
that affects 1 per cent of the population,
over the last 65 years. You might have
expected to read something about hearing
voices or paranoia – the unusual
experiences known as positive symptoms.
Negative symptoms are a loss of normal
experiences, something that is less
obvious but often the main cause of the
long-term consequences of the illness.
This cluster of symptoms includes low
motivation, social withdrawal, low
pleasure, slow speech and reduced facial
expressions and gestures. There are still
no treatments targeting negative
symptoms; in fact, the antipsychotics
given to most people with a diagnosis
of schizophrenia may make them worse.
The majority of people I have met whilst
doing my research are socially isolated
and engage in very few activities, and
many struggle to care for themselves.
Negative symptoms are often
considered less important than the
positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
are considered to be on the road to
recovery. But this process is so often
stalled, sometimes for decades, by
negative symptoms.
People often ask why I chose negative
symptoms as the focus of my PhD. After
all, other research areas are more popular
and communication difficulties coupled
with the low motivation of those affected
can make them a challenging group to
work with. Perhaps it was because my
initial reading had shocked me – the
papers repeatedly stated that negative
symptoms were linked to worse outcomes
and longer illness in people with
schizophrenia (Foussias et al., 2011; Loas
et al., 2009; Rocca et al., 2014), yet there
are no treatments available. I felt I had
identified an area in desperate need of
more research.
Part of the delay in treatment
development has been due to a lack of
clarity surrounding the causes of negative
symptoms. People with schizophrenia
report that they enjoy everyday activities
less than controls, but if we ask them to
rate their pleasure whilst viewing an
anticipating a scenario we run a brief
simulation of how it will go in our head
and use our emotional reaction to this
simulation to judge how we’ll feel during
the event itself: we are pleasantly excited
about the party at the weekend because
every time we run our simulation of it
we feel excited. But these simulations are
biased towards our best, worst and most
recent experiences. This means not only
that our predictions can over- or
underestimate what we’ll actually feel, but
that they change all the time as we have
new experiences that influence these
simulations. There are many benefits that
may arise from inaccurate predictions of
emotions; for example, if we overestimate
how happy we’ll feel after a run or once
we’ve done the laundry we are more
likely to do that activity. Underestimating
pleasure might also be important for
motivation – as the saying goes, ‘a
pessimist is never disappointed’, and this
may preserve motivation for the future.
Given that we’re not very good at
predicting our emotions anyway, what
makes this even more difficult for people

Blanchard, J.J. & Cohen, A.S. (2006). The 156(1), 60–62. Doll, B., Waltz, J., Cockburn, J., et al. 10.1016/j.psychres.2015.05.091
references

structure of negative symptoms
within schizophrenia. Schizophrenia
Bulletin, 32(2), 238–245.
Bleuler, E. (1950). Dementia praecox or the
group of schizophrenias. New York:
International Universities Press.
Cella, M., Reeder, C. & Wykes, T. (2014). It
is all in the factors: Effects of
cognitive remediation on symptom
dimensions. Schizophrenia Research,
Choi, S-H., Lee, H., Ku, J. et al. (2014).
Neural basis of anhedonia as a failure
to predict pleasantness in
schizophrenia. World Journal of
Biological Psychiatry, 15(7), 525–533.
Cohen, A.S., Najolia, G.M., Brown, L.A. &
Minor, K.S. (2011). The state-trait
disjunction of anhedonia in
schizophrenia. Clinical Psychology
Review, 31(3), 440–448.
(2014). Reduced susceptibility to
confirmation bias in schizophrenia.
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral
Neuroscience, 14(2), 715–728.
Edwards, C.J., Cella, M., Tarrier, N. &
Wykes, T. (2015). Predicting the future
in schizophrenia: The discrepancy
between anticipatory and
consummatory pleasure. Psychiatry
Research. doi:
Farreny, A., Aguado, J., Ochoa, S. et al.
(2013). The role of negative symptoms
in the context of cognitive remediation
for schizophrenia. Schizophrenia
Research, 150(1), 58–63.
Foussias, G., Mann, S., Zakzanis, K.K. et
al. (2011). Prediction of longitudinal
functional outcomes in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia Research, 132(1), 24–27.
Gard, D.E., Kring, A.M., Gard, M.G. et al.

820 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 new voices

with schizophrenia? It has been
consistently shown that individuals
with schizophrenia struggle to learn from
positive experiences or rewards (Strauss
et al., 2013). However, when given
negative feedback (in laboratory contexts
this often means losing some money)
they learn similarly to controls. It seems
that individuals with schizophrenia
struggle to update or change their future
expectations on the basis of positive
experiences. We know how sensitive
Negative symptoms are often considered less
important than the positive symptoms of
schizophrenia
anticipation is to the influence of recent
or important events, so an inability to
learn from these may cause problems.
But individuals with schizophrenia could
also lack the usual biases influencing
their simulations, so they are more
accurate when predicting and therefore
less motivated. Indeed, using a gambling
task, individuals with schizophrenia were
less susceptible to the biases that caused
controls to behave irrationally (Doll et al., very flat all around them; no dark ravines
2014).
Alternatively there could be
different biases operating in people with
schizophrenia that result in consistently
reduced anticipatory pleasure, as reported
in a study asking participants to rate their themselves. How could we intervene to
anticipated enjoyment of activities (Gard
et al., 2007). However, studies report
either no difference or higher designed to improve neurocognitive
anticipatory pleasure in individuals with abilities such as attention, working
schizophrenia compared with controls memory, cognitive flexibility and
(Choi et al., 2014; Trémeau et al., 2010; executive functioning, has been shown
Trémeau et al., 2014). to be effective in tackling deficits, with
Unfortunately, all of these studies some studies reporting secondary effects
measure anticipatory and consummatory on negative symptoms (Cella et al., 2014;
pleasure using a variety of different Farreny et al., 2013). If this could be
methods including images, adapted to target simulations and
questionnaires, films and daily pleasure anticipation it may prove effective. Others
ratings. As a result, it is difficult to draw have suggested that individuals with
specific conclusions and identify schizophrenia have ‘low-pleasure beliefs’,
treatment targets. This problem believing that they do not enjoy things to
has been the focus of my research, the extent where it affects their
and I have tackled it using a task anticipation. This could be due to a
that shows people images, asks history of experiencing few pleasurable
them how they feel viewing each activities and may be targeted by
one, and to anticipate how they’ll cognitive behavioural therapy (Grant et
feel when they see it again. al., 2012).
Preliminary findings suggest that One way of targeting anticipatory
both controls and individuals with difficulties may be to use the individual’s
schizophrenia show the same bias own real-time reports of their enjoyment,
in anticipation: overanticipating recorded on an app, as a tool to motivate
less pleasant images and them to repeat that activity again. This is
underanticipating highly pleasant also potentially overcomes the problems
images. This pattern was, however, associated with retrospective ratings of
significantly more pronounced in pleasure. I encountered a lot of pessimism
the schizophrenia group, who did about my chances of recruiting
not seem to differentiate between individuals with high negative symptoms
high- and low-pleasure experiences to take part in a study which involved
(Edwards et al., 2015). carrying a device around for six days.
I was struck by how these I was pleasantly surprised when many of
findings of flat rather than reduced my participants were very happy to help
anticipatory pleasure resounded with my and often reported a benefit from the
experience of talking to individuals prompts to think about their emotions.
experiencing high negative symptoms. I have high hopes that such technology
When asked about the future, these could help people struggling with
individuals are not pessimistic or negative negative symptoms out of the flat
in their reply. They discuss an upcoming landscape they see around them, and into
holiday or family occasion with the same the world of deep ravines and glorious
enthusiasm as their next blood test or summits that the rest of us try our best
doing the washing-up. Life seems to have to navigate. Helping them anticipate the
lost its extremes, and the landscape looks highs and even the lows is a good place
to start.
for them to fall down but also no
mountains to climb and admire the view Clementine Edwards is a
from the top. It is easy to see, given these PhD student at the Institute
circumstances, how they often end up of Psychiatry, Psychology
isolated and struggle to motivate & Neuroscience, King’s
College London
change this pattern? clementine.edwards@kcl.ac.uk
Cognitive remediation therapy,

(2007). Anhedonia in schizophrenia:
distinctions between anticipatory and
consummatory pleasure. Schizophrenia
Research, 93(1–3), 253–260.
Gilbert, D.T. & Wilson, T.D. (2007).
Prospection: Experiencing the future.
Science, 317(5843), 1351–1354.
Grant, P.M., Huh, G.A., Perivoliotis, D. et
al. (2012). Randomized trial to
evaluate the efficacy of cognitive
therapy for low-functioning patients
with schizophrenia. Archives of
General Psychiatry, 69(2), 121–127.
Kring, A.M. & Caponigro, J.M. (2010).
Emotion in schizophrenia. Current
Directions in Psychological Science
19(4), 255–259.
Loas, G., Azi, A., Noisette, C. et al. (2009).
Fourteen-year prospective follow-up
study of positive and negative
symptoms in chronic schizophrenic
patients dying from suicide compared
to other causes of death.
Psychopathology 42(3), 185–189.
Rocca, P., Montemagni, C., Zappia, S., et
al. (2014). Negative symptoms and
everyday functioning in schizophrenia.
Psychiatry Research 218(3), 284–289.
Strauss, G.P., Waltz, J.A. & Gold, J.M.
(2014). A review of reward processing
and motivational impairment in
schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin,
40(Suppl 2), S107–S116.
Trémeau, F., Antonius, D., Cacioppo, J.T.,
et al. (2010). Anticipated, on-line and
remembered positive experience in
schizophrenia. Schizophrenia
Research, 122(1–3), 199–205.
Trémeau, F., Antonius, D., Nolan, K., et al.
(2014). Immediate affective motivation
is not impaired in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia Research, 159(1),
157–163.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 821

 Research. Digested.
Free.

www.bps.org.uk/digest
‘Easy to access and free, and a mine of useful information for my work: what more could I want?
I only wish I’d found this years ago!’
Dr Jennifer Wild, Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry
‘The selection of papers suits my eclectic mind perfectly, and the quality and clarity of the
synopses is uniformly excellent.’
Professor Guy Claxton, University of Bristol

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SGCP 5th European Coaching Psychology Conference 2015

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Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December 2015 at the Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury
This Conference will inspire collaborations in research evidence, professional accreditation and training routes.
It will provide a platform for setting the aspirations and agenda for both coaching and coaching psychology
for the coming years.

Keynote speakers
Dr Tatiana Bachkirova; Dr Dasha Grajfoner; Dr Suzy Green; Prof Roger Steare; Donna Willis; Dr Helen Turnbull
There will be two days of impressive speakers, exciting and new topics and a broad range of master classes,
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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 823

SOCIETY

President’s column
President Jamie Hacker Hughes
Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes
Contact Jamie Hacker Hughes
President Elect PresidentsOffice@bps.org.uk Twitter: @profjamiehh
Professor Peter Kinderman

Vice President
Professor Dorothy Miell very year, the Society’s Board of Trustees international levels for research and other

Honorary General Secretary

Dr Carole Allan
Honorary Treasurer
Professor Ray Miller
Chair,
Membership Standards Board
Dr Mark Forshaw
Chair,
Education and Public
Engagement Board
Professor Catriona Morrison
Chair,
Research Board
Professor Daryl O’Connor
Chair,
Professional Practice Board
Dr Ian Gargan
The Society has offices in Belfast,
Cardiff, Glasgow and London, as
well as the main office in
Leicester. All enquiries should
be addressed to the Leicester
office (see inside front cover for
address).
The British Psychological
Society
was founded in 1901, and
incorporated by Royal Charter in
1965. Its object is ‘to promote the
advancement and diffusion of
a knowledge of psychology pure
and applied and especially to
promote the efficiency and
usefulness of Members of the
Society by setting up a high
standard of professional
education and knowledge’.
Extract from The Charter
E (www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/bps/
governance/trustees/trustees), with the
Society’s officers in attendance, decide on which
aspects of the Society’s Strategic Plan are to be
prioritised over the coming year. You can read
the Plan in full at www.bps.org.uk/strategicplan
but the six main pillars are: (1) promoting
advancements in psychological knowledge and
practice; (2) developing the psychological
knowledge and skills of our members; (3)
maximising the impact of
psychology on public policy;
(4) increasing the visibility of
psychology and raising public
awareness of its contribution
to society; (5) attracting new
members and broadening our
membership; and (6)
developing our organisation
to support change. All of these
are vitally important aspects
of the Society’s business, but
I have a particular affinity for
the third and the fourth, and
a role to play in helping our
Society achieve them.
As you know, I’ve
represented the Society on the I’ve been heartened by the
NHS England Mental Health increasing number of
Taskforce over the past few psychologists being broadcast
months and Division of on local and national media
Clinical Psychology Chair,
Richard Pemberton, and DCP
Children and Young People’s Faculty Chair,
Julia Faulconbridge, have both deputised for
me when I have been unable to attend. The
Taskforce’s report is to be published soon, and
we psychologists have certainly been able to
make an impact on its content.
There are so many ways of increasing the
visibility of psychology and raising awareness
of our contribution to society, and the Education
and Public Engagement Board (EPEB), chaired
by Catriona Morrison and supported by Kelly
Auty, put a lot of effort into developing this
aspect of our business through activities such as
the Cheltenham Science Festival and the BPS/
British Academy Public Lecture. We’ve also got
another public lecture coming up in November
as part of the Society’s First World War
commemorations. And of course every time that
we hold a conference, there’s a huge opportunity
to get publicity at local, national and
activities. This year’s Annual Conference in
Liverpool was particularly successful in this
respect, as were the Scottish and Northern
Ireland Branch conferences in Stirling and
Armagh. I have no doubt that the Welsh Branch
conference in Wrexham will have been equally
successful, along with all the other Branch, and
Division and Section conferences that we hold.
All really good opportunities for waving the flag
and telling people what psychology is all about
and what we are up to.
Later this year,
I shall be going to the
Psychology4Students and
Psychology4Graduates
events in London,
PsyPAG’s conference in
Glasgow was amazingly
successful, and university
and school PsychSocs can
do their bit too. I’m
grateful to everyone who
supports these activities –
through the EPEB, our
hardworking conference
and events team in
Leicester and all who work
so hard on conference
committees. If you’re not
already a part of all this,
please have a serious think
about how you can get
involved.
It’s right and proper that impact is one of the
several factors on which our research work is
assessed and these days, with a couple of clicks
of a button, it’s possible to measure the reach,
not just of formal academic publications but of
social media posts. Our Research Board, chaired
by Daryl O’Connor, works hard to promote the
scientific reach of our research publications and
our journals have a well-deserved international
reputation, with high impact factors too.
Another way in which psychologists can
increase our visibility and promote awareness
of our contribution is, of course, through the
media. I’ve been heartened by the increasing
number of psychologists being broadcast on
local and national media, not only on specialist
programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s All in the
Mind, with Claudia Hammond, but on news and
current affairs programmes too, such as
Panorama and the Today programme. Attracting

824 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 society

What ‘good’ looks like for children

The DCP Faculty for Children, Young People and their Families services should make a major contribution; for example, it
(CYPF) is set to launch comprehensive guidance on includes work on delivering services to those in inpatient care,
psychological services for children and young people in the
children and young people. criminal justice system, and those with
This work comes in response learning disabilities.
to the Department of Health’s Chair of the CYPF, Julia
Future in Mind report, Faulconbridge, said the contents of the
published earlier in the year, review would be of interest to anyone
which heralded a new direction who has a professional or personal
in the provision of services to interest in the psychological wellbeing
support the psychological well- of children and young people and the
being and mental health of families and organisations that support
children, young people and them. She added: ‘In particular, it will be
their families. It was also of value to policymakers, commissioners
prompted by Department for and providers who wish to better
Education plans, announced at understand what a good psychological
the same time, to promote and service can look like and to implement
support mental health in that knowledge to improve the lives of
schools. our children and young people. It is also
The Division’s report, What intended to provide a blueprint to help
Good Looks Like in Psychological regulators like the Care Quality
Services for Children, Young Commission and Ofsted to make
People and their Families, is judgements about the quality of services
featured in The Child & Family and organisations that they are
Clinical Psychology Review No inspecting.’
3, and gives guidance on the Sarah Brennan, Chief Executive,
provision of good quality YoungMinds, wrote in the review foreword:
psychological services and the This work comes in response to the Department of ‘This should be essential reading for everyone
roles that clinical psychologists Health’s Future in Mind report remotely connected to funding, providing or
can play in those services. advising children and young people’s mental
The review begins with an health services.’ ER
overview of issues in all psychological service provision along I The publication will be available from the BPS Shop and on the
with a paper on the role of clinical psychologists and workforce Faculty website. The CYPF’s annual conference will be held on 6–7
issues. The second part comprises a set of papers that outline October at the Crowne Plaza Hotel near Birmingham’s NEC. For
specific issues within a range of settings where psychological further information see tinyurl.com/ppjdcfh

the attention of the media, and through Parliamentary Office of Science and
them, the public, is so important in Technology. We have a Policy and
informing them what we do, what we Communications team in Leicester, who
work on, what we have expertise about do an excellent job of horizon scanning
and what we have to offer. There really and supporting our communications, but
shouldn’t be a need for people to say, ‘Tell public policy is an ever-more complex area
me. What is the nowadays, with Europe,
difference between Westminster, and the
a psychologist and devolved parliaments
a psychiatrist?’, they “our research publications and assemblies. Our
should just know. and our journals have a well- national Branches,
(Besides, if I’m ever deserved international together with our
asked the question, reputation” retained PR and policy
I always just say, consultants all play a
mischievously, ‘Several very considerable role in
thousand pounds a linking in with, and informing
year, actually and we have to buy all our and influencing decisions made in, the
own mugs, pens and post-its too.’ – The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and
latter not being true for all of us who go Northern Ireland Assemblies and we shall
to BPS conferences!) almost certainly need to consider a similar
Lastly, maximising the impact of function for England at some stage in the
psychology on public policy. We do this future.
through our publications, of course, and As far as the Westminster government
through organisations such as the is concerned, I already have meetings with
members of both Houses of Parliament in
the diary, I’m due to attend and speak at
a number of events in the Commons and
the Lords and the Presidential and Policy
Teams will also be busy attending the
three main Westminster party conferences.
And we can impact policy in other
ways too. I was proud, as a clinical
psychologist, to join several colleagues
‘Walking the Talk’ from Leicester to
London, and the event, even though it
was not an official BPS event, attracted
significant media attention in the airwaves
and in the broadsheet and tabloid press
alike.
Psychology, and our Society, has a lot
to say so thank you for playing your part
by organising or speaking at conferences
or other events, by publishing, by speaking
to or on the media, by engaging with
policymakers. And, if you’re not involved
yet, please think about how you can be.
There’s lots to do.
Together we can!

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 825

 society
Calling all psychology postgraduates –
PsyPAG is here to support you!
The Psychology Postgraduate
Affairs Group (PsyPAG) is
a non-profit organisation
dedicated to providing
opportunities, representation
and support to all psychology
postgraduates based in the
UK. Funded by the Research
Board of the British
Psychological Society, PsyPAG
is run on a voluntary basis
by postgraduates for
postgraduates. All
postgraduate psychology
students assume automatic
membership if they are
enrolled on a relevant course.
This year marks our 30th
anniversary and we are keen
to continue supporting
postgraduates through a
variety of ways. Here we have
provided a brief outline of
how PsyPAG can benefit you
during your studies, and how
you can get involved.
PsyPAG Representatives:
Our representatives sit across
all BPS Divisions, Sections
and Branches to ensure the
postgraduate voice is
heard across the Society.
We regularly host stands
at BPS Conferences,
including December’s
Psychology4Graduates event
in London (2 December). Our
Core Committee manages the
work of PsyPAG, comprising
of our Chair, Vice Chair,
Treasurer, Communications
Officer and Information
Officer. Please check our
website for current vacancies
and contact details for all of
our reps www.psypag.co.uk.
New for 2015: PsyPAG
book – A Guide for Psychology
Postgraduates: Surviving
Postgraduate Study. This
month we release our first
book to celebrate our 30th
anniversary year. This is
available free of charge via
hard copies sent to UK
postgraduate psychology
departments and via our
website. It provides guidance
826
on research skills, as well as £100) and study visits (up to issue of The Psychologist.
social and practical support. £200). We also offer Research Workshops: We offer funds
It contains both newly Grant Bursaries of up to £300 for students to organise
commissioned articles and that can help support workshop events suitable for
recent Quarterly articles from postgraduates with their postgraduate students. Past
current postgraduates and research. We have three rounds funded workshops include
distinguished alumni. of bursaries each year, with MatLab, Motivational Speaking
PsyPAG Quarterly: Our deadlines in February, June and Teaching Skills amongst
peer-reviewed journal is and October. All bursaries many others. We have three
circulated free to psychology involve a full application rounds each year, with
departments in the UK, as well process and assessment by an deadlines in February, June
as via our website. Articles awarding team. and October.
range from original research Awards: We offer three JISC mailing list: This
and expert interviews to top annual awards offering cash e-mail list is a great resource
tips and reviews. We always prizes and other benefits. Our to recruit participants, ask for
welcome new submissions! We Rising Researcher Award is for statistical advice, find out
have recently completed an outstanding PhD research, our about training opportunities
archive of our past issues over Masters Awards for an plus job and studentship
the last 30 years which will be outstanding master’s project advertisements. The list offers
released shortly. If you would and our DART-P Teaching a supportive platform for
like to submit an article or find Award. These are all highly postgraduates across the UK.
out more information, please competitive and would make Subscribe at:
contact the PsyPAG Quarterly a great addition to your CV. www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-
team at PsyPAG Annual Conference: bin/webadmin?A0=psych-
quarterly@psypag.co.uk or We hold an annual conference postgrads
@PsyPAGQuarterly (Twitter). each July, hosted by an Please spread the word
Bursaries: PsyPAG awards institution of a committee about PsyPAG and the support
a number of bursaries to help member. Our 2015 conference we offer. If you have any
psychology postgraduates at University of Glasgow, questions about PsyPAG,
attend conferences and other celebrating our 30th please contact Chair Emma
events, both at home and anniversary, was our biggest Norris at chair@psypag.co.uk,
abroad. These can help fund yet with over 200 delegates. visit our website at
domestic (up to £100) and We run a yearly bursary www.psypag.co.uk or our
international conferences (up scheme for this event. You social media channels
to £300), travel (up to £50), can read about this year’s @PsyPAG (Twitter) and
workshop and training (up to conference in last month’s PsyPAG (Facebook).
SOCIETY NOTICES
‘Psychology Heaven and Hell’ Research Digest blog 10th anniversary event, London, 9 December
2015 See p.799
BPS Annual Conference, Nottingham, April 2016 See p.i
5th European Coaching Psychology Conference, London, December See p.823
BPS conferences and events See p.827
CPD workshops 2015 See p.828
‘Childhood sexual abuse – Impact and interventions’ event, Edinburgh, October 2015 See p.829
Psychology in the Pub (South West of England Branch) See p.830
History of Psychology Centre ‘Stories of Psychology’ symposium, London, 14 October 2015 See
p.832
Division of Educational & Child Psychology Annual Conference and TEP Day, London, January
2016 See p.834
Division of Clinical Psychology Faculty of Psychosis & Comnplex Mental Health, ‘Understanding
psychosis’ conference, London, 11 November See p.837
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
 Organised by BPS Conferences
BPS conferences are committed to ensuring value for money,
careful budgeting and sustainability
2015

Division of Health Psychology 16–18 September Radisson Blu Portman, London www.bps.org.uk/dhp2015
Children and Young People 6–7 October Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC www.bps.org.uk/cyp2015
Psychology4Students 19 November Mercure, Sheffield www.bps.org.uk/p4s2015
Psychology4Students 1 December Friends Meeting House, Euston, London www.bps.org.uk/p4s2015
Psychology4Graduates 2 December Friends Meeting House, Euston, London www.bps.org.uk/p4g2015
Division of Clinical Psychology 2–4 December Radisson Blu Portman, London www.bps.org.uk/dcp2015
Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology 14–15 December The Queens Hotel, Leeds www.bps.org.uk/dsep2015
2016

Division of Occupational Psychology 6–8 January East Midlands Conference Centre, Notts www.bps.org.uk/dop2016

Annual Conference 26–28 April East Midlands Conference Centre, Notts www.bps.org.uk/ac2016

Piaget, Rawlings, Spearman, and Myers all left something to Psychology …

What will you leave?

A lasting contribution
The British Psychological Society is the representative body for psychology and
psychologists in the UK. Formed in 1901, it now has approximately 45,000 members.
By its Royal Charter, the Society is charged with national responsibility for the
development, promotion and application of pure and applied psychology for the public
good, and with promoting the efficiency and usefulness of Society members by
maintaining a high standard of professional education and knowledge.
With your help the Society works to:
■ To encourage the development of psychology as a scientific discipline and an
applied profession;
■ To raise standards of training and practice in the application of psychology;
■ To raise public awareness of psychology and increase the influence of
psychological practice in society.
By including us in your will you can help ensure the future of your discipline in the
years to come by continuing to support the Society.
For more information on how to leave a legacy
please contact Russell Hobbs, Finance Director
at russell.hobbs@bps.org.uk
or call him on 0116 252 9540.

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 827

 2015 CPD Workshops
Professional development opportunities from your learned Society
Engaging effectively with the supervision and reflective practice process (Cross network) 23 September

Working with refugees and asylum seekers (Cross network) 28 September

Pluralism in qualitative research (Cross network) 6 October

Person-centred planning: A practical introduction for psychologists (Cross network) 6 October

Working successfully in private practice 8 October

A somatic approach to Integral Life Theory Practice (ILP) – Taking theory into practice (Cross network) 19 October

Introduction to ethics and professional practice: Ethical decision-making (DFP) 20 October

Psychological interventions for a variety of contexts: Issues of design and implementation (SGCP) 22 October

Fundamentals of neuropsychological assessment in older adults: The art of making skilled judgements BRISTOL 23 October

Cognitive assessment of children and young people (Day 2) (Cross network) (DCP) GLASGOW 29 October

CYP-IAPT and clinical psychology (DCP) MANCHESTER 30 October

Counselling skills for sport and physical exercise (DSEP) 5 November

Expert witness: Court room evidence (Workshop 3) 5 November

Expert witness: Using psychometrics (Workshop 4) 6 November

Don’t get caught out: Ethical and professional dilemmas for psychologists and psychotherapists in 2015 (Cross network) 9 November

Instilling hope in therapy and practice (DCP) 12 November

Making the transition – Addressing the lifespan needs of young people with learning disabilities (DCP) 12 November

Devising an effective performance appraisal system (DOP) 13 November

Sexualised behaviour: An integrated approach to supporting families and schools (DECP) 16 November

Working successfully in private practice 19 November

ACT in palliative care (DCP) 20 November

Mixed methods research for the quantitative researcher (Cross network) 27 November

Positive Psychology Coaching – Masterclass with Dr Suzy Green (SGCP) 9 December

For more information on these CPD events and many more visit www.bps.org.uk/findcpd.

Follow us on Twitter:
@BPSLearning #BPScpd

www.bps.org.uk/learningcentre

828 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 International Academy for Professional Development
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Our courses are British Psychological Society Learning Centre Approved and are held at the BPS London, Borehamwood and Edinburgh or in-house. We have trained 1000s of
practitioners on our recognised modular courses since the 1980s. The Founder Director of the Centres and Academy is Prof Stephen Palmer PhD. Our experienced trainers have
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Connect…
Childhood sexual abuse
– Impact and interventions
Friday 30 October 2015
Edinburgh Napier University

…with
The Psychologist
and the Society’s
free Research
Digest service for
more psychological
news and analysis

For further information Follow us at tinyurl.com/thepsychomag and

www.facebook.com/researchdigest
or to book go to:
www.kc-jones.co.uk/cdtoct2015 www.twitter.com/psychmag and
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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 829

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In collaboration with UEA Department of Clinical Psychology, Norwich Medical School
For more information or to notify us that you will be
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830 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 We Need Qualified
Forensic Psychologists!
Expert Assessment and Consultancy Ltd. has been awarded a framework
agreement to provide reporting services for NOMS at prisons across the UK.

We Need You!
• Are you Registered/ Chartered with 2 yrs post
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through the whole process?

• We are especially (but not exclusively!) interested in those who are SARN trained

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Email CV to: office@expertconsultancy.co.uk / admin@expertconsultancy.co.uk

Call Wendy/ Laura on 0203-427-5044

WE ARE ACTIVELY RECRUITING ASSOCIATES NATIONWIDE NOW

Also wanted for other work, nationally:

Therapists with expertise in family work, Dyadic Developmental

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Other psychologists wishing to join our associate pool

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 831

 A BPS Flagship Event

Stories of Psychology
Clinically Applied: Origins of a Profession
Wednesday 14 October 2015, 10.30am–4pm
Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, University of London
Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Emeritus Professor Bill Yule (Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience)

Clinical Psychology: The Early Days, 1939–1963
Dr Jennifer Clegg (University of Nottingham)
Four Lensmakers: Jack Tizard, Ann and Alan Clark, Peter Mittler
Dr Anne Richardson (formerly of University College London and Department of Health)
Growing Pains and Pleasures: Psychology, Government and the Profession’s Health
Professor Bob Woods (Bangor University)
Dementia in the 20th Century: Discovering the Person Behind the Label
plus a short presentation by
Dr Saima Lofgren (Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust)
on the emergence of cultural concerns in clinical psychology

CONVENOR:
Professor John Hall (Oxford Brookes University)

Cost: £16 (BPS members) £18 (non-members): including buffet lunch

Registration is essential

For more information and to register, go to www.bps.org.uk/stories

History of Psychology Centre (t) 0116 252 9528 (e) hopc@bps.org.uk
This event is supported by Senate House Library,
home of the British Psychological Society’s library collection.
Look out for Clinical Psychology in Britain: Historical Perspectives edited by John Hall, David Pilgrim and Graham Turpin,
to be published by the History of Psychology Centre in December 2015 (see www.bps.org.uk/cpib)

832 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 Your psychologist
Your choice

Are you a Society member looking to read The Psychologist

on tablet, smartphone or e-reader?
Log in via tinyurl.com/yourpsych to access your options
or scan

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 833

 Annual Conference
6-8 January 2016
TEP Day 5 January 2016
Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury

Towards an inclusive psychology – do labels and diagnoses help or hinder?

The issue of labelling behaviour in the profession of Educational Psychology is controversial and contentious.
During the development of the practice of Educational Psychology, the provision of education for children
with additional needs was based on a medical model of deficit, focusing on differences, and within child
explanations. One hundred years on the conference aims to explore how 21st century Educational
Psychology has shifted the agenda from an emphasis on illness to well-being, from problems to solutions,
from deficit to potential and from within child explanations to careful consideration of the influence of context.

This event is organised by the BPS Division of Educational and Child Psychology
and administered by KC Jones conference&events Ltd, 01332 227774
For further information, please visit the website: www.bps.org.uk/decp2016

EMDR Training Schedule

Fully accredited EMDR trainings for Psychologists
EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) and EMDR-Europe
Association (EMDR-E) accredited trainings conducted by
Alexandra (Sandi) Richman, Chartered Psychologist.
Learn how to integrate this evidence-based
therapy into your existing clinical skills.
RICHMAN EMDR TRAINING offers the complete
7-day Training in 3 parts: Part 1 (3 days), Part 2 (one day) and Part
3 (3 days). Attendee numbers are limited for each training.

EMDR Part 1 Trainings:

London
2015: 2-4 December
2016: 27-29 January, 9-11 March, 20-22 April, 1-3 June,
21-23 September, 16-18 November
Glasgow
2016: 17-19 February
Leicester
2015: 21-23 October
Other training levels throughout the year
For more information contact:
Mary Cullinane, Training Co-ordinator
or Michelle Dyer (t) 020 7372 3572
email: mary@alexandrarichman.com
www.emdr-training.com

834 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 Progress your career...
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Full details of the programme, potential supervisors & projects, and how to
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Successful candidates will receive training in a wide range of research

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their chosen area. Fellowships are for three years; funding covers university
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specialises in translating research findings into routine clinical care.
Want to learn more?
Visit us at the BPS Psychology4Graduates event in
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Interested applicants are encouraged to approach potential supervisors

(see website) as soon as possible to discuss and develop a suitable project.
kcl.ac.uk/ioppn @KingsIoPPN facebook.com/
ioppn

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 835

 the the
psychologist psychologist
vol 28 no 1 january 2015 vol 28 no 3 march 2015
www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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letters 2 radical behaviourism 24 letters 172 eldercare: the new frontier 202
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836 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 Understanding Psychosis
Developments a year on from the release
of the document and strategies for
dissemination
Wednesday 11 November 2015
9am till 4pm BPS London Office,
30 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4UE
By the time of the conference it will be nearly a year since the
launch of the ‘Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia’
document, a report published by the DCP and edited by Anne
Cooke. The day will focus on an overview of the document,
developments a year on from publication, how it has been used in
practice, and strategies for dissemination of the information
contained in the report.
Speakers will include:
Anne Cooke, Editor of ‘Understanding Psychosis and
Schizophrenia’
Peter Kinderman, President Elect of the BPS
Alison Brabban, SMI IAPT National Advisor
Caroline Cupitt, Contributor to ‘Understanding Psychosis
and Schizophrenia’
Laura Lea, Service User and Contributor to ‘Understanding
Psychosis and Schizophrenia’
And a variety of speakers with lived experience who have
used the report.
Registration Details
Attendance at this event is free for PCMH Faculty members,
service users and carers only.
To book please visit: www.bps.org.uk/PCMH-Psychosis-Nov15
If you have any queries regarding attending the event
please e-mail MemberNetworkServices@bps.org.uk
quoting ‘PCMH-Psychosis-Nov15’ in the subject header.
For further information, please visit the website:
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read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
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838 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 what can

or product?
smartphone and

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839
CAREERS
‘I’m lucky that I’ve always
known what I wanted to do’
Ian Florance interviews Doyin Atewologun
D
r Doyin Atewologun originally
suggested an article on the Division
of Occupational Psychology’s
(DOP) Leadership Development
Programme, but her work with the British
Psychological Society also involves the
Diversity and Inclusion at Work Working
Group. We settled down to talk about
these and other topics in a pleasant coffee
shop on the Mile End Road.
Have you taken a look at our website,
careers online
www.thepsychologist.bps.org.uk?
If you click on the ‘…meets’ tab across the
top, you will find an archive of all our more
personal pieces, including our ‘Careers’
pages. Alternatively, just search ‘careers’
with our new and improved site search. The
archive is now complete – back to 1988.
840
‘I’ve always known what I wanted to
do – work with and understand people.
When I was 11 or 12 my aunt told me
that that was exactly what she did – she
was a child psychologist working at a
school. It made me very proud to be
affiliated with such an encouraging and
thoughtful profession.’
Like a lot of Nigerian children with
her background, Doyin was sent to the
UK to do her A-levels. ‘The aim was to
be an international student dividing
time between the UK and Nigeria. My
cousins were returning to the UK at the
same time, and I ended up living with
them and my aunt in Northampton.’
Doyin made an early decision to be
an occupational psychologist. ‘At the
time I would have said I wanted to
work with “normal” people rather than
the ill or with children. Anyway, after
A-levels I took a year out and worked
in HR in Benin. I had done some
research, so my psychology degree at
Birmingham didn’t surprise me as it
does some students – it certainly
interested me as I discovered the reality
of areas such as neuropsychology.’
Doyin then took another gap year
working for what is now Connexions.
‘I deferred a place at Nottingham on
an Occupational Psychology MSc to get
the ESRC funding I’d qualified for with
a first class degree. Nottingham had
a good reputation but the classes felt
too big for me. This made it difficult
to connect with a wider group although
I made friends there. Students should
see their degree and postgraduate years
For other Society careers resources, see
www.bps.org.uk/careers.
For the latest jobs, visit
www.psychapp.co.uk. Society members can
sign up for suitable e-mail and RSS alerts.
Recruiters can post online from just £750,
and at no extra cost when placing an ad in
print. For more information, see p.844.
as an opportunity to set up a peer
network which can be useful throughout
their careers.’
Did you want to be an applied or an
academic psychologist? ‘It sounds funny
now but I didn’t really see academics as
true occupational psychologists. In my
eyes, occupational psychologists were
people who worked for consultancies and
testing companies. But we were warned
that the job market was going to be
difficult – 9/11 happened a couple of
weeks before we started the course. Once
I’d finished the MSc I set about finding
a job in a fairly organised, energetic way.’
She searched for jobs in the West
Midlands, using BPS resources to find
addresses and firing off letters to everyone
she could think of. ‘I came to appreciate
the value and skills of cold calling.
Looking back I’m really touched by the
number of people who sent me
encouraging replies, telling me not to get
put off but to persevere. I’ve kept those
letters, and it made me very proud to be
affiliated with such an encouraging and
thoughtful profession.’
Doyin was finally made an informal
offer of a job by a very major company
she really wanted to work for. ‘They told
me to hang on as there were “some things
going on”. I’m afraid I’m still waiting.
Then I was offered a job by OPP, the test
publisher and consultancy who, among
other things, are Europe’s distributors of
the most widely used personality test in
the world. I loved that job. Nowadays
different individuals tend to specialise
in either training or consultancy – I did
both, which had positive implications for
chartership and for my credibility. For
instance, it meant that during training
I could talk about my own experiences.’
Reflecting on her move into work,
Doyin thinks ‘I could have been more
commercially astute. I sometimes think
a hybrid MBA and Occupational
Psychology course would help newly
qualified psychologists become effective
quickly in the real world of work.’
Doyin’s interest in diversity and her
PhD in the area started in her early years
vol 28 no 10 october 2015

in work. ‘For a long time I worked with
very few black or Asian colleagues, and
there was very little talk about diversity.
I became aware that the same behaviours
from different people would be rated
differently by different bosses as well
as by raters in assessment centres. I got
fascinated with diversity as an issue and
this tied in with authentic leadership,
which was of huge interest at the time.
It struck me that asking people to be
themselves, to be authentic, was tenable
if their identities aligned with society’s
expectations. But what if the “authentic
you” isn’t actually what people expect to
see in leadership roles?’
Doyin’s PhD looked at the effect
of micro-behaviours on minority ethnic
leaders’ work identities. ‘OPP gave me
huge support, and because I was working
in training and consultancy I was able
to work very flexibly alongside studying.
I suppose I had early experience of a
portfolio career. I finished the PhD in
January 2012 and entered a whole new
world of researching leadership and
diversity.’
Surprisingly, given her earlier views,
Doyin’s more recent career has been as
an academic. ‘Not deliberately – I had
Clinical Psychologist
(Specialist – Autism)
Part time
Bromley, Kent
£40,201 - £48,500 pro rata
seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk
received a lot of positive feedback about
some of my academic skills like writing
and presenting abstract information in
an accessible way, so I was warming to
it. And, soon after completing my PhD,
I was offered a maternity cover job at
City University, then another, and then
I moved on to Queen Mary, University
of London where I am now. I still do
a little consultancy – as an associate for
companies and some off my own bat.’
The diversity group has grown ‘with
the support of the Society. But I’m
surprised that this sort of work is only
just beginning. At the moment our
mission is very much to link diversity
practitioners with academic research but,
as well as this external communications
role, we have an internal marketing
mission – to make the Society itself more
aware of and more responsive to diversity
issues, like coaching minority clients,
gathering evidence for interventions that
work for heterogeneous groups, and
training occupational psychologists.’
Doyin is also involved in the DOP
Leadership Development Programme,
which for the last three years has aimed
at providing potential DOP committee
members with the knowledge, skills and
Consultant/Lead
Clinical Psychologist
Scotland
£56,104 to £69,168 pa
To check the latest jobs please go to
www.psychapp.co.uk
careers
attributes needed to become effective
leaders. ‘I was on the first programme and
volunteered to evaluate it, working with
a team of volunteers. It’s taught me a lot
about logistics, project management and
motivating others. I think the course has
helped participants to be more realistic
through understanding the structure of
the Society. The Society is run, to a great
extent, by volunteers, and members’ fees
are not thrown about. It takes longer to
get things done than one might want but
that’s understandable – everyone has their
day job.’
You seem to get involved a lot with
the Society. Would you like to do more?
‘The thought fills me with foreboding
since I have enough to do! But I suppose
if you complain you need to step up to
the mark.’
Have you got any advice for someone
starting in psychology now? ‘Make good
friends on your course. Volunteer for the
DOP. Do your research and really try to
understand what sort of roles there are
out there. And be careful about going into
HR. It’s a different identity and you’d do
better to get experience as a locum,
associate or volunteer within our
profession.’
Trainee ABA Tutors
London
Upto £18,000 pa
841
 careers
‘As with fairy tales, you used to ask me to
tell you the famous studies over and over’
Psychology graduate Melanthe Grand interviews her mother, Chartered Psychologist and novelist Voula Grand
M
y mother, Voula Grand, is a
Chartered Psychologist and
novelist. Her professional practice
focuses on the development of leaders in
global corporations. She has 30 years’
experience working with teams and
individuals using a range of psychological
techniques to enhance performance.
Voula has been a member of the British
Psychological Society since her student
days and is now an Associate Fellow.
Her first novel, Honor’s Shadow, about
the psychology of betrayal and revenge,
was published by Karnac in 2011. Voula
is one of the authors of the BPS Book of
the Year The Psychology Book published by
DK in 2013. She writes a blog discussing
aspects of writing and psychology. She is
also mother to my 28-year-old brother
Thibault, and three adult stepchildren,
I studied psychology at the University
of York and am now studying for an MA
in integrative child psychotherapy at the
Institute of Arts in Therapy and
Education. I have an interest in the
application of the arts for children with
special needs, and I write a blog about
my relationship with one boy with
autism. I work part-time for my mother’s
company as an assistant psychologist.
Our editor is working on a feature
‘growing up with a psychologist’. If you
are the child of a psychologist, with
a view on how this may have affected
your upbringing, he would like to hear
from you. Or perhaps as a psychologist
you are aware of how that knowledge
is affecting your own parenting?
E-mail jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
842
Here, I interview my mother about
the impact that the study and practice
of psychology has had on her life, in
mothering, business and writing.
When you look back on being a mother,
how do you think your knowledge of
psychology had an effect on your
parenting?
I studied social psychology at LSE, back
in the early eighties. I was fascinated by
Ainsworth’s work on attachment and the
Strange Situation studies. At the time,
that was very new material; now, it’s being
applied in all sorts of interesting ways.
When I went back to work after Thibault
was born in 1986, I had to arrange
childcare. Because of the attachment
studies, I was keen that my brand new
baby should have a third attachment
figure in his life, especially as he didn’t
have a grandmother. So I chose a
childminder; then, when you came along,
we had a nanny. I believed then, and still
believe now, that this is the best option
for secure attachment. Though you told
me recently, from your studies, that a
child only needs a ‘good enough mother’
a third of the time, so maybe I was overly
cautious back then. But we had an
amazing nanny, Alice who stayed with
us for 15 years, having two children of
her own along the way. Alice was very
talented, and loved you two as though
you were her own. She still does. I also
appreciated how skilled she was with
me. Some mothers may feel some envy
towards their nanny, but Alice was
exceptionally sensitive to this, and
deferred to me as your mother. She and
I became like sisters. For you two, as long
as I, Dad or Alice were there, you were
happy and loved. I will be grateful to her
for her contribution to your upbringing
for ever.
And in the years that we were growing
up, how do you think you differed to
mothers who weren’t also
psychologists?
My mother was a reading addict, and
reading stories was a lovely part of my
relationship with her. Instinctively, I read
to you and Thibault from the very
beginning, all the traditional fairy tales
as well as the modern stories. The Hungry
Caterpillar was a favourite. As you got
older, and during long drives to our
holiday home in France, I started to tell
you about Zimbardo’s prison, Harlow’s
monkeys, Milgram’s shock experiment.
As you had done with the fairy tales,
you both used to ask me to tell you
the famous psychological studies over
and over again, you were fascinated.
So I think you both grew up very
psychologically minded.
Every birthday, I would give you a
development theme for the year. When
you were six, I suggested you develop
your ‘ignoring skills’ when you were
going through a hard time with your
brother. I know you think that was a
mistake. Maybe that was me applying
some business psychology to my
mothering – they were almost like yearly
appraisals.
I remember you used to talk to us
about Greek mythology and philosophy
as well as psychology. There was a
strong emphasis on talking openly in
our family. How did you go about
cultivating this?
vol 28 no 10 october 2015

I was raised in a Greek community in
Wales, and my dad used to tell me stories
about the Greek gods. As a small child
I believed his story that we were directly
descended from the gods of Olympus,
and that was why we had blue eyes and
fair hair. I still treasure a book of Greek
myths that my father won as a school
prize. I was very keen that we
communicated very openly as a family,
though I’m not sure where that desire
came from. I remember when you were
little Thibault giving you some world-
weary advice: ‘Don’t ask Mum any
questions about sex, because she will
answer them.’
I wanted us to be able to speak freely
about anything that we would want to,
especially the most difficult things. When
Thibault went into the army in 2003 and
served three tours of duty, I was very keen
to be able to listen to him in a way that
would be helpful. So I learned about
PTSD and how to help veterans after
experiences in war zones. He had a
very difficult tour in Afghanistan in the
summer of 2009. When he came back,
I hope it helped that he could talk to me
about his experiences, and I didn’t react
with shock or horror, that I could listen
and accept such very extreme events
I knew I wanted to raise you both to
be hopeful, optimistic and resilient – what
parent wouldn’t – and you are, but maybe
you were just born that way.
I also remember you encouraging us
to follow whatever path it was that we
wanted, and I suppose looking up to
you when I was younger, you were a
very good example of doing this –
writing a novel, for example. Do you
think your knowledge of psychology
has an influence on this?
My mother wasn’t a psychologist, she was
an artist. She was great at encouraging me
and my siblings to pursue our hobbies
and interests. That seems to me to be a
core parental responsibility, and looking
back I can see that I was always alert to
what you both enjoyed and were drawn
to. I suppose it is a psychological thing,
but for me it was a mother thing.
Thibault was focused on an Army career
from a very young age, and I didn’t
discourage him (even though I wanted
to). Your early ambition was to be an art
teacher, but when I went to Thibault’s
school to do a careers talk on psychology,
you came with me. It was after that you
said that you wanted to go into
psychology. Now here you are combining
psychology and art in psychotherapy
using the arts. Psychology has been a
passion in my life and it has been a great
joy to share that with you.
seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk
I was so inspired after that talk,
and being so excited for a career
in it. How did you start your career
in psychology?
My career in psychology had very
unconventional beginnings. I left home
after O-levels at 17 and worked for 10
years in a variety of business
environments. I decided to go to
university when I was 27. As I hadn’t
done A-levels, I did the very first access
course in the UK – the Fresh Horizons
course at the City Lit in London. I wanted
to study English literature, so that I could
become a novelist. But a fellow student
brought back the syllabus for social
psychology at LSE and I changed my
mind, applied and got a place to study
there. Standing on the steps of LSE at the
start of my degree programme was one of
the most proud and thrilling moments of
my life.
And after your degree?
Because of my work experience, and
having grown up in a business family,
I never doubted that I would work in
business. I started work as an assessment
psychologist in the early 1990s. Back then,
executive coaching was just beginning as
a mechanism for executive education, and
I was fascinated. I started my own
practice, Grand Shearman Consulting, in
1991, to coach individuals and teams.
Through that work I became intrigued by
the power of human emotions to help or
hinder people’s development, so I became
deeply interested in the explosion of
research on emotional intelligence work
that started around that time.
How do you apply psychology to
businesses now?
Now I describe myself as a leadership
expert. One of the projects I am involved
with at the moment, with one of my
colleagues, is a comprehensive, in-depth
leadership programme, REAL: Resilient,
Energised and Authentic Leadership.
Resilient leadership is a hot topic at
the moment, as corporate life is now
tougher than I’ve ever known it, mainly
because of the challenges of global
economics. I work with individuals and
teams still, focusing on the deeper
dynamics that underlie work performance
and success.
What theories do you draw on for
your work?
The corporate world is very interested
in the new field of positive psychology
developed by Martin Seligman, and
I have trained in some of his methods.
Identifying strengths, focusing on what
you are good at, developing resilient
careers
thinking skills, all these form a solid
foundation for optimal performance of
corporate executives.
I am fascinated by the new findings
coming out of neuroscience, and how
such insights can be applied to
leadership. I also draw on
psychodynamics – in particular how we
unconsciously project family dynamics
on to the work ‘family’ to re-create
familiar patterns of relating in our
working relationships.
I have never been wedded to one
theoretical perspective. I like to choose
what is appropriate for each individual or
team. Change is generally hard and slow,
so it’s important to seek out ways that
might be faster and easier for any given
individual. The answer will differ widely
from one person to another, so it is
important to have an extensive tool kit.
As the saying goes: ‘if all you have is a
hammer, everything looks like a nail’.
Having said all that, I am a Jungian
at heart. I love his work, particularly on
dreams. Jung is very poetic in the way
that he expresses things, and I find his
writings profoundly moving. My first
novel, Honor’s Shadow, drew upon his
theories of the shadow personality. I love
his comment on the task of mid-life – to
turn the self inside out, and show the
shadow to the light.
And how have you applied this
psychology background to your novel
writing?
I always had the ambition to write novels,
from a very early age. On my 50th
birthday, I decided I should shut up about
it or get on with it. So I got on with it and
enrolled on an MA in creative writing at
Birkbeck. As a result of my life and work
experience, I will never run out of
material for fiction. I like to write about
psychological topics: in the end, all
writers are trying to be psychologists.
A book of fiction is psychology in action.
I like to write about dilemmas rather
than problems. A dilemma has two (or
more) choices and neither is perfect; so
choosing the least bad is the challenge,
and this is where my interest lies.
Finally what is your favourite book?
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing, because
it explains one of the worst dilemmas
I can think of – what to do when a family
is disturbed by the birth of a child with
extreme special needs.
I Voula’s professional website:
www.grandshearman.com; writer’s site
and blog: www.voulagrand.com
Melanthe’s blog can be found at
https://mysonnydays.wordpress.com
843
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The British
Psychological Society

Reach 48,000 readers as part of the publication for psychologists

- a large, prime, well-qualified audience. Advertising is also now
available on the Society’s award-winning Research Digest blog DISPLAY ADVERT APPOINTMENT PUBLISHING DATE
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Psychologist Jigsaw Trust is an advocate of lifelong

Fixed Term Contract, 18 hours per week.
Competitive Salary - scale dependent on experience
Location: Dublin and the surrounding area.
The Learning & Assessment Service strives to promote students’
independence and encourage them to develop the skills to see them
through their time in college. These skills range from general study skills
to anxiety management, social skills and confidence building. The NLN
Learning & Assessment Service team includes an Educational Psychologist
and Assistant Psychologists working with a number of third level institutes.
The service aims to assist students to develop personally (through
maintaining well-being, developing social skills and managing daily living)
and academically. Another element of the service involves work with children
and young people to assess and support their educational, behavioural and
psychological development.
The role:
This role will be reporting directly to the full-time Educational Psychologist.
The successful candidate will be responsible for supporting the Educational
Psychologist in the day to day running of the National Learning Network’s
Learning & Assessment Service. They will be required to carry out
educational psychological assessments. They will also be involved in
supporting and supervising a number of Assistant Psychologists on the
different Higher Education Institutions in providing academic support and
evidence-based interventions for third level students.
For further information and how to apply for the post, please search the
careers section on www.nln.ie or e-mail assessmentservice@nln.ie
or call 00353 1 8851386
learning. This encompasses not only the pupils
at Jigsaw CABAS® School and the young adults at
Jigsaw +, but also our most important asset – You!
We are committed to the continuous development of all individuals, and we
believe that to be the best educator, you need to have access to the best training
yourself. To facilitate this, we support a range of individually tailored personal and
professional training and development programmes. In return, you will be given the
opportunity to work towards accredited CABAS® qualifications, and provided with
ongoing personal development training.
CABAS® Teacher (Assistant or non-qualified)
(JIGSAW CABAS® SCHOOL)
£15,658 pa FTE (may vary subject to relevant ABA experience)
The Jigsaw CABAS® School is an independent day school for children and young
people with an autism spectrum disorder. Ideal candidates will have a degree and
should be able to demonstrate experience of or an interest in working with children
with special needs.
Bonuses & pay increases related to ongoing study at Jigsaw.
Learning Support Workers (Jigsaw +)
£14,329 pa FTE (may vary accordingly to previous experience)
We are seeking enthusiastic individuals to expand our team of dedicated support
staff to provide care and support services to adults with autism and related
disabilities and their families, and to facilitate positive, personal choices
that enhance well-being, independence and social inclusion.
Opportunity to obtain Care Certificate and further ongoing
study, training and development.
We offer a range of fantastic benefits and provide the
opportunity to work locally with on-site free parking.
To apply please visit: www.careersatjigsaw.co.uk
careers@jigsawtrust.co.uk

844 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 Trainee ABA Tutors
Rainbow School, part of BeyondAutism
Wandsworth, London
Salary: First year training salary 15,500 during probationary
period, £16,600 once confirmed in post, £17,000 after twelve
Director of months service, rising to £18,500 depending on performance
We also welcome applications from experienced ABA Tutors

Psychological Services who have completed training.

BeyondAutism is a registered charity dedicated to transforming the lives of vulnerable

Band 9 Ref: 310-MAC24-1398
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
(CPFT) provides integrated community and mental health,
learning disability and social care services of the highest
standard due to our continued commitment to quality
and service improvement. We aim to support people of all
ages to achieve the very best they can for their health and
well being. To ensure that we achieve this goal we look
to recruit candidates of a high calibre that share our
passion for delivering excellent service user care,
research and education.
We are currently looking to recruit an enthusiastic and
motivated Director of Psychological Services to join
the senior management team, who is registered as a
Practitioner Psychologist with formal training in supervision
of psychology colleagues and extensive experience of
working in this field.
children living with severe autism. In addition to running Rainbow School, BeyondAutism
also offers outreach, training and consultancy services.
Rainbow School is an independent special school for children and young people aged
4-19 with autism. We offer a structured programme of intensive intervention, applying
the scientific principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and Verbal Behaviour (VB)
to deliver the National Curriculum and teach functional communication and life skills.
Job Purpose
As a member of a class team, to provide excellent ABA/VB teaching to children and
young people with autism and associated learning difficulties. To support the ABA
Supervisors and qualified teachers in ensuring the daily needs of our pupils are met in a
professional, competent, safe and fun school environment.
Candidates must have experience of working with children and/or adults with special
needs, and must be educated to A Level or recognised child care qualification.
Closing date: 30th October 2015
Due to planned expansion, further vacancies will be available throughout the year
– please check our website for details.
For an application pack please visit our website www.beyondautism.org.uk or
email admin@beyondautism.org.uk.

The post will take the strategic lead on promoting and

developing psychological thinking and psychological
methods in the treatment of our patients served by the trust.
In particular the post holder will have responsibility for the
development, governance and professional leadership of
psychologists and psychological services throughout the Trust.

The ideal candidate will have a strong team work ethic,

sense of accountability, accompanied by an ability to work
under considerable pressure at times.

We are keen to support and develop our staff through a

clear career pathway and encourage promotional
opportunities within the Trust.

If you are looking for a new challenge, enjoy variety in your

work and wish to be part of a team striving to make a
difference for our community by supporting people with
both mental health, learning disability or physical health
needs then we want to hear from you.

For further information relating to this role, please contact

Aidan Thomas, Chief Executive Officer on 01223 726758.

As part of the selection process you may be required to

undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service check.

To apply or find out more information about CPFT such as

staff benefits and the services provided please visit –
http://www.cpft.nhs.uk/about-us/latest-vacancies.htm To check the latest jobs please go to
www.psychapp.co.uk
Closing date: 8th October 2015.

We are an equal opportunities employer. to advertise please

contact: Giorgio Romano,
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust provides
mental health, learning disability, social care, and community 020 7880 7556,
services for adults and older people. We also provide children’s giorgio.romano@
community services in Peterborough. CPFT supports people to
achieve the very best they can for their health and well being
redactive.co.uk

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk 845

 Job Title: Clinical Psychologist
Employer: The Caldecott Foundation
The Caldecott Foundation has been caring for children since the 19th
century. It now offers a full spectrum mix of 52 and 38 week residential
care: six comfortable homes, an assessment centre and on-site school as
well as linked services covering vocational learning and therapy. It also
offers a fostering service. The Foundation is now based in Ashford, Kent.
Its work focuses on five- to 18-year-olds with social, emotional and
behavioural difficulties stemming from early neglect and trauma. Their
residential service specialises in children with attachment issues, poor
self-esteem and sense of identity, sexualised behaviour, self-harm and
oppositional defiant disorder to name a few.
The clinical psychology role advertised here sits within the
therapeutic stream of the Foundation’s work. ‘We started as a therapeutic
community and therapy plays a huge role in our work,’ says Helen Jones,
Head of Care at the foundation. ‘Our team includes a range of
psychotherapists and trainers and they, together with the clinical
psychologist, work closely with other staff and children. The psychologist
should also work with other agencies such as primary care settings, to
improve therapeutic intervention. The psychologist’s role will include
training other staff. He or she will assess children during the initial
placement and throughout their time in the community.’
The Foundation works with a very specific therapeutic model: ‘MBT-
Mentalisation Based Therapy – concentrates on the ability to understand
behaviour and feelings associated with mental states in ourselves and
others. We’re dealing with very vulnerable children so we have a number
of courses and programmes in house as well as weekly case
management meetings, group supervision and monthly key worker
reports on each young person. Our constant goal is to improve practice
and ensure that each child is at the centre of appropriate, individualised
services.’
‘This role would be ideal for a qualified clinical psychologist with
some experience of working in child services, who wants to support very
challenging young people but is looking for a varied work load. It requires
around seven hours a week but these may vary according to the needs of
the service.’
‘This person must work well – and enjoy working – in a
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
Band 8A – 8C
An exciting new post is being created at this long established busy,
independent residential hospital in Norwich dedicated solely to the
treatment of eating disorders.
We are looking for a senior psychologist with experience in this field
and excellent interpersonal skills to become a key member of the
friendly, supportive multi-disciplinary team.
For a job description please contact Andrea Ramsden, General
Manager, on 01603 452226 or by e-mail
andrea@newmarket-house.co.uk
www.newmarket-house.co.uk
846
THE THERAPY SERVICES
The Caldecott Foundation provides care and education
for children with social, emotional and behavioural
difficulties who may have experienced considerable
emotional / physical damage in their early years.
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
1 day per week (minimum)
Consultancy Bases – Rate of pay will be dependent on experience
We have an exciting new opportunity for a qualified Clinical Psychologist
to join our Therapy Team at the Caldecott Foundation. The new post is
based at our Assessment Centre in Ashford, Kent.
Your role would involve providing highly specialised psychological
assessment and intervention for children and young people. As a Clinical
Psychologist you will work directly with the residential staff, teachers and
children. The role will include giving support and training to all staff who
work directly with the children.
You will receive regular support and consultation from the Multidisciplinary
team based at Ashford.
You will be a qualified Clinical Psychologist with at least 2 year experience
and will be registered with the relevant professional bodies (BPS and HPC).
Further information and an application form are available at:
http://www.thecaldecottfoundation.co.uk
or alternatively contact Mrs Christine Abbott, HR Administrator on
01303 815635 or christine.abbott@caldecottfoundation.co.uk
An Enhanced Criminal Record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service
will be required for this post
Closing date for applications is: Friday, 9th October 2015
Interviews will be held on: TBC Registered Charity No. 307889
multidisciplinary team. Adaptability, resilience, energy and a real
commitment to the young people they meet are critical. Reflective
practice is important for all our staff. We’re looking for someone who
comes up with new creative ideas as well – our work involves constant
new challenges.’
to advertise
please contact:
Giorgio Romano,
020 7880 7556,
giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
 Clinical Psychologist
40 hours per week | Hertfordshire
Salary will be dependent on your current level of experience
Vision Mental Healthcare (VMH) is an
independent healthcare provider to
the NHS founded in 2008. The service
is operated from Cornerstone House,
an inpatient service with 26 beds. VMH
provides on-going treatment to patients
that have been discharged from the
service; either in their own home or in
supported living services.
The service specialises in MBT and
provides a complete inpatient program
to patients with personality disorder. The
program has been running for four years.
In addition to the MBT service, structured
rehabilitation is provided to people with
other forms of mental disorder.
We are looking for a clinical psychologist
who has some clinical experience of
using behavioural chain analysis. The
successful candidate would also require
an interest in MBT although clinical
experience of the model is not essential
as training will be provided both in-
house and via the Anna Freud Centre.
As part of your role you will be a
pivotal member of the MDT and will
work alongside other mental health
professionals overseeing the programs
seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk
that are currently in place. You will be
based at Cornerstone House in Elstree,
Hertfordshire.
We are looking for someone with a
high level of emotional intelligence who
either already has the relevant current
experience or can be successfully
developed into the role.
To apply for the position please send a
copy of your CV to the following email
address with a covering letter:
s.noronha@vision-mh.com.
Short-listed applicants will be contacted
by email. Please check your emails
regularly, including your junk/spam folder.
Please note that Vision Mental Healthcare
is an equal opportunities employer.
All successful candidates with be required
to provide two references and have DBS
clearance.
Closing date for receipt of completed
application forms:
Wednesday 14 October 2015.
847
 HMP DOVEGATE
Psychology Department Our consultants at Sugarman Mind are leading
recruiters within both the NHS and private sector
OPEN DAY – Saturday 10th October and will be there with you every step of the journey.
10.00am – 4.00pm WE CURRENTLY HAVE VACANCIES FOR:
Are you passionate about making a positive
di
erence to the lives of others?
Mental
If yes! Then please come along to our Open Day where you can meet some of IAPT Health
the dedicated team from the Psychological Services department to find out
more about the work undertaken, the fantastic environment and the current Psychologists Therapists Practitioners
opportunities we have.
CONTACT US TODAY TO FIND OUT
We are in the unique position of not only having a large Category B population
but also a separate Therapeutic Communities prison. This is the only privately-run
ABOUT OUR REWARDING &
prison TC in the UK; a purpose-built therapeutic facility, o
ering its residents daily EXCITING OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN
group therapy and has psychological sta
on the clinical teams. YOUR PROFESSION:
The work of the Psychological Services department includes assessment and
intervention delivered individually and o
ers a range of accredited O
ending 0207 614 4250
Behaviour Programmes and non-accredited group interventions. We are actively
involved in research, training sta
and consultancy where psychology work can
assist in projects and decision-making throughout the prison. @ info@sugarmanmind.co.uk
We currently have vacancies for Qualified Forensic Psychologists and encourage www.sugarman.co.uk
anyone interested to come to our Open Day on 10th October to find out more.
If you are not yet qualified but will be soon, please also come along to see the sugarman mind
opportunities that we have at HMP Dovegate.
Talking Therapies Community Mental Health Psychology Mental Health Nurses
To register your interest in attending please contact Natalie Leech, Head of
Psychological Services: Natalie.Leech@serco.com

Deloitte Leadership
Powered by Kaisen
Following the recent acquisition of Kaisen Consulting Limited by Deloitte on 1st September 2015,
we have bought together Kaisen’s expertise, with Deloitte’s global footprint and business
knowledge to scale a new leadership practice globally.
Deloitte’s Leadership practice, powered by Kaisen, advises companies on three main areas:
defining leadership strategies, assessing individuals for their leadership potential and helping
develop those individuals. Initially we are recruiting psychologists across Consultant through to
Director level based in the UK to be part of our ambitious growth plans.
We are looking for psychologists who have good commercial knowledge and experience. You will
be professionally credible with senior management and have a good understanding of business,
well-developed relationship management and project management skills, an open and challenging
mind and a passion to meet client needs. Fluency in a second language would be very useful.
If you are interested in working with us, please send your CV and covering letter to Alex Williams,
alewilliams@deloitte.co.uk
To read more about Deloitte Leadership powered by Kaisen, visit www.deloitte.co.uk/kaisen

© 2015 Deloitte LLP. Deloitte LLP is an equal opportunities employer. Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.

848 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 To check the latest jobs please go to
www.psychapp.co.uk

to advertise please contact:

Giorgio Romano,
020 7880 7556,
giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk

seek and advertise at www.psychapp.co.uk 849

REVIEWS

Everyday genius
Genius implies someone with a mystical quality who can change the world, inducing
awe. Kell and Lubinsky suggest fewer than 400 could be recognised over 2800 years,
while Murray in his lively run through the history of ideas points out their Eurocentrism
and early input by gods. They make a tricky psychological sample. Studies are
retrospective and subjective whether by biographers or the genius’ own reports (e.g.
Crick & Watson on Franklin), and of course no matched
controls. Any study of genius is N = 1.
Simonton’s 29 finely edited scholarly collection works
around ideas of genius. Some chapters explain specific
domains, such a music and literature. Belief is part of the job Worth remembering
description. But the more one knows of these humans, the
more fallible and less mystical they seem. Problem is, if you How to Have a Better Brain
cannot convince the right people you’ve changed the world, BBC Radio 4
your rose will blush unseen. With the recent
communications explosion your chances appear to be In this short series on BBC Radio 4,
improved but they are also as cynically diminished. journalist, broadcaster and psychology
Much of this collection is concerned with creativity. graduate Sian Williams considers different
Weinstein agrees with Einstein that ordinary creative ways in which memory can be improved, or
thinking, little-c, is the basis of all big-C. For Winner the how to have a ‘better brain’. Each of the
gifted child never gets to big-C, because practised expertise programmes focuses on one particular
gets in the way, and, for sure, savants don’t either. Where aspect of lifestyle that can affect memory:
Galton concluded that only white men could reach genius, exercise, relaxation, stimulation, sleep and
evidence of interacting genetic and environmental influences diet. Under each of these heading, Williams
The Wiley is scientifically provided by Johnson and Bouchard. looks at the evidence for different
Handbook of Intelligence, they write, has to be correlated with creative techniques that might improve, or at least
Genius genius to acquire and use essential domain specific maintain, memory function. For example, in
Dean Keith knowledge. the programme on exercise, Williams
Simonton (Ed.) Wild emotions are popularly associated with genius, attempts to memorise a list of unconnected
whether depressed Plath, obsessional Mondrian, words sitting down, and another list when
psychopathic Picasso, alcoholic Dylan Thomas or buttoned-up walking around. Her later recall of the
Emily Dickinson. A touch of megalomania helps. Andreason reluctantly concludes that second list is more successful.
the jury on bipolar disorder and genius is still out. Genius is not the sum of its In each episode, Williams visits
interacting parts, but its product. neuropsychologist Dr Catherine Loveday
Cognitive disinhibition and neuronal development are discussed, while Sternberg [University of Westminster and Chair of the
proposes that geniuses learn their skills incrementally, and themselves appear in Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory
clumps. Damian and Simonton describe hardship and diverse childhood experiences Committee] and her mother Scilla [pictured
as common denominators, high in ‘latent inhibition, blind variation and selective above], a former consultant psychiatrist,
retention’. Yet practical materials are as essential for production as the personal who has accelerated memory loss. These
qualities of an efficient working memory. I presume there are limits to a genius’s early discussions are especially illuminating, and
suffering. touching. Loveday applies her knowledge to
Can anything more be said on genius after this cornucopia of psychological science create a lifestyle for Scilla that will help
and anecdote? Yes. The rising Tiger Economies and other areas of the world are support and maintain her memory. For
scarcely mentioned. There is also relatively little concern with psychological barriers, example one of the most successful
such as gender and religion. What about the long-term effects of hot-housing? It would techniques is Scilla’s nightly habit of writing
be helpful to have drawn guidelines on how to enable genius. Geniuses are assumed to down the day’s activities, and re-reading the
be beneficial, whereas the brilliant rise of a dictator or a Machiavelli can similarly previous day’s entry, as a way of
affect the world. Sheer luck is barely mentioned, such as Chain and Florey dusting off consolidating her memory.
Fleming’s neglected paper on penicillin. At only 15 minutes long, each
The mystery still remains why few can light up inspiration to genius while others programme can only be a whistle-stop tour
of apparently equal potential and opportunity cannot. For example, not one of Terman’s of the latest research in that area. But as
Californian 1500 child ‘geniuses’ gained a Nobel prize or equivalent. No thousands of a resource for anyone who is looking for
hours of diligent practice can turn the humdrum novelist into an untutored Dickens some practical advice to give a friend or
who makes the reader’s heart leap. As a reference on genius in the Western world, this relative who is worried about their memory
handbook is excellent. But it may provide an epitaph to current thinking on the subject, – or if you are worried about your own – this
implicit in Simonton’s end piece ‘Does scientific genius have a future?’. Popular is a great listen.
interest in how the world can be changed is already fading from focus on magical
individuals to teamwork and massive budgets. Less Einstein and more Silicon Valley. I All five episodes of How to Have a Better
Brain are available on demand at
I Wiley Blackwell; 2014; Hardback £120.00 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067gcj6
Reviewed by Professor Joan Freeman who is at Middlesex University Reviewed by Kate Johnstone who is
Associate Editor (Reviews)

850 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 reviews

Challenging current ideas

Tales from the Madhouse: An Insider Critique of
Psychiatric Services
Gary Sidley

This book gives an informative implications this has for service

insight into psychiatric services, users, particularly in terms of
providing a brief overview and the recovery model and enabling
critique of the history of people to feel empowered and
psychiatric practices, helpfully motivated to make changes. It
supported by more recent outlines the benefits of allowing
clinical vignettes and anecdotes people to feel in control of their
from the author to illustrate recovery rather than adopting
some of the pitfalls in how an expert/patient approach – an
mental illness was, and is still, area that is starting to change
viewed. It raises some in current practice but still has
interesting points regarding the a way to go.
treatment of psychiatric patients Overall, I would recommend
by staff and how this may be this book to anyone working in
interpreted as discrimination, mental health as a way to
feeding into the ‘them and us’ challenge some of the current
stereotype and increasing ideas and assumptions in
stigma in mental health. The working with those experiencing
An extraordinary life author incorporates up-to-date emotional distress, and to work
evidence and research to back towards an alternative approach
On the Move – A Life up points made, and opens up that moves away from biological
Oliver Sacks the debate between nature and psychiatry and towards a more
nurture in looking at biogenetic compassionate response in
vs. psychosocial explanations for order to instil hope and
On the Move, published a few months before his death in August, the development of mental motivation with the aim of
describes Oliver Sacks’s life in a beautifully engaging, lively and disorders. promoting recovery.
sincere style enabling the reader to understand the real author This thought-provoking book
behind celebrated works such as Hallucinations, Awakenings and also highlights issues I PCCS Books; 2015; Pb £18.00
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Although this might not be surrounding the use of Reviewed by Helen Crocker
considered a psychology-related book, it is a revealing work that medication as a way to manage who is a psychological wellbeing
expresses Sacks’s curiosity for understanding the fragile and mental illness, and the practitioner
enigmatic human mind, the passion for his job and the numerous
challenges he has faced throughout his private life and career.
Within this collection of memories together with illustrative For more reviews,
photos, Oliver Sacks can be perceived as a multidimensional and including
evolving character: He is not simply a neurologist who wrote books The Autistic Gardner,
but a trustworthy doctor who not only does his best to treat his
patients but also creates an emotional attachment with them. 45 Years, and
Through a clear, touching and uplifting style, the reader can Tom Farsides on the new
empathise with him, with his feelings, dreams and ambitions. His Peter Singer book
hobbies and passions, such as the love for motorcycles, snorkelling
and travelling, are revealed alongside episodes from his private life, The most good you can do:
including family issues, friendships and relationships. How effective altruism is
The puzzling ways in which the human mind operates are also
a recurring theme. Letters from patients, students and colleagues,
changing ideas about living ethically, visit
meetings and conferences, the making of documentaries and http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/reviews
movies are included in these pages and a feeling of hugeness
pervades the readers when they realise how much Sacks’s
Sample titles just in:
contribution in the field of neurology and also neuropsychology
just in

Offenders, Deviants or Patients? An Introduction to Clinical

has helped in the improvement of diagnoses of several relatively
unknown disorders and conditions that would become the main
thread of his work.
This is a remarkable autobiography about one extraordinary life.
I Picador; 2015; Hb £20.00
Reviewed by Sara Pisani who is an undergraduate at City University
Criminology Herschel Prins
Sexuality in Adolescence: The Digital Generation Meredith
Temple-Smith, Susan Moore & Doreen Rosenthal
Reflections on the Aesthetic Experience John D. Greenwood
For a full list of books available for review and information on
reviewing for The Psychologist, see www.bps.org.uk/books

For our September 2013 interview, plus links to Oliver Sacks’s work Send books for potential review to The Psychologist,
and other tributes, see http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ten-best- 48 Princess Road East, Leicester LE1 7DR
oliver-sacks-1933-2015

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 851

 reviews

An unflinching and addictive Enduring fascination

performance
The Amazing World of M.C. Escher
People, Places and Things Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
The National Theatre
As a graduate student in the work of Escher hanging a in
People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan opens with a period 1960s I found Escher prints on a British gallery, and this
scene of a woman’s disintegration, which feels familiar. It soon the walls of many of my exhibition of over 100 prints is
becomes apparent that it is Chekhov’s The Seagull, and we are contemporaries, and indeed in the largest ever display of his
watching Nina, but along with the familiarity is a sense that chemistry, physics, mathematics works in the UK.
something is out of kilter. We realise that we are watching a play and other science labs. This was Escher has a rather unique
within a play, and it is not Nina’s disintegration we are witnessing, in contrast to the Brueghels, the connection with the British
but the actress who plays Nina. Leonardos and the Psychological Society in that
Cut to a white medical setting where Nina, as she refers to Impressionists which adorned a paper published in the British
herself, is checking in to a rehab facility. Dark humour masks the the walls of my friends in the Journal of Psychology in 1958
desperation of her situation as she instructs her mother over the arts and humanities. This quiet (see tinyurl.com/pvvq8z6) so
telephone to get rid of all the drink and drugs at her flat. She is and unassuming Dutchman, excited his interest that it led
assessed by a doctor, and refuses to give her real name – in fact whose work is regarded as little to correspondence with the
we never really know who she is right until the end of the play. more than a sideshow by art authors (the mathematicians
Stunning stage direction follows in which Nina (Denise Gough, historians, continues to have Lionel and Roger Penrose) and
who gives a stand-out and exhausting performance of anger, energy enormous cultural impact was the direct inspiration for
and emotion throughout the play) goes through detox from drugs through films, advertising, several of his works. Roger
and alcohol. First the walls begin to break down, and then Nina after computer games and even Lego. Penrose had encountered the
Nina appear from the same bed, tortured and writhing, one soiling Apparently there is only a single art of Escher while attending
herself, one ripping pages out of a book, in scenes reminiscent of
descriptions detox patients give of delirium tremens.
We move to group therapy, the therapy of choice in Addiction,
where Nina is now Emma. Various stages of therapy are played out
in a kaleidoscope of switching characters and timeframes around
Identity, race and belonging
Emma like piggy in the middle. It culminates in a furious scene Labels
where Emma refuses to accept that it is she who is broken, rather Edinburgh Fringe Festival
it is the world which needs fixing. Gough is extraordinary here. An
angry, cynical polemic is delivered by a woman who has no idea who ‘Where are you from?’ To
she is or what she feels, her emptiness highlighted by her some, these four words are
profession – she acts because she has no identity, no personality, rife with baggage, hidden
and can feel no truth unless she speaks the fictional words of meanings, judgement, and
others. When that fails, drugs and alcohol are her truth. a sense of questioning of
In the second half Emma is now Sarah, and checking back into one’s authentic sense of
rehab after a major relapse. Sarah is ready to do the work Nina and self. Joe Sellman-Leava
Emma could not do, and she moves towards some sort of resolution. and the Worklight
Group therapy provides a safe space for her to rehearse how she will Theatre’s production of
make amends to her family, and she is able to graduate from the Labels, performed at the
treatment programme and return home. Edinburgh Fringe Festival,
Some details in the play did not ring true, mainly in the portrayal seeks to tackle and
of the therapist. Few therapists would use the word ‘addict’, with all deconstruct this seemingly
its pejorative undertones. Even fewer would break good practice and innocuous question and
safeguarding protocols at the insistence of a client. It may make the meaning it presents to
good theatre to allow things to kick off in group therapy, but it’s those from immigrant, and
rarely what would happen. particularly ethnic
It would be too easy for me as an addiction researcher to get minority, backgrounds.
hung up on things which weren’t quite right, rather than focusing Mr Sellman-Leava’s
on the play as a whole, and the performances within it. I applaud play is a one-man show in
the play for not flinching from the ambiguity of addiction, and for not which he, quite
serving up feel-good clichés, nor the simplistic alternative of despair realistically, embodies
and despondency. In the final scene we witness just how much various personalities to
damage Nina/Emma/Sarah/whoever has done to her family, and her showcase the current
mother’s need to sabotage her daughter in return is one of the most political discourse surrounding walked by ethnic minorities in
powerful scenes I can recall in any play. The treatment programme immigration, interwoven with his Britain, from the construction of
in the play is based on the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step model with own personal experience of being a surname, to systemic
its central tenet of spirituality, but there is no spiritual awakening for an individual of bi-racial descent, discrimination as experienced in
our protagonist. People, Places and Things is a very good play indeed. born to a white British mother the labour market, to even facing
and a Ugandan Asian father. His racist comments on dating
I Reviewed by Dr Sally Marlow who is at the National Addiction personal narrative is often applications such as Tinder!
Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience King’s striking and realistically depicts Interacting with the audience,
College London the nuances and tightropes Sellman-Leava gets them to ‘step
See www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/people-places-and-things

852 vol 28 no 10 october 2015

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WWW.MCESCHER.COM
GEMEENTEMUSEUM DEN HAAG © 2015 THE M.C. ESCHER COMPANY.
DRAWING HANDS, 1948 BY M.C. ESCHER. COLLECTION
reviews

a conference in with a continuously personality. He cut a rather

Amsterdam, and was flowing stream of lone furrow in his time, with
particularly excited by water. no connection whatsoever with
the prints ‘House of This terrific the flourishing contemporary
Stairs’ and ‘Relativity’. exhibition will surrealist movement in art. It is
Penrose started to delight fans of ironic that such a private man
design his own science fiction and of became the godfather of
‘problem pictures’, as computer graphics psychedelic art, and who turned
he called them, and the BJP BJP article and at the bottom of as well being of particular down offers from Mick Jagger to
paper ‘Impossible objects’ which there is a man holding a interest to psychologists. design a record cover [see
featured a perspective drawing cube with similar pedigree to Judging by the footfall in the tinyurl.com/o28s5rx], and who
of a ‘tri-bar’ familiar to the impossible triangle. Escher Edinburgh gallery, Escher’s ignored a request by Stanley
thousands of psychology also sent the Penroses a copy amazing craftsmanship is Kubrick to work on a film
students through Richard of his lithograph ‘Ascending and evident to all, and continues to exploring the fourth dimension!
Gregory’s book Eye and Brain. Descending’, inspired by the have an enduring fascination.
Escher wrote to the Penroses endless staircase depicted in The exhibition notes and I The exhibition is moving to the
enclosing a print of his the Penrose article, together catalogue indicate an intriguing Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
‘Belvedere’ which he had with ‘Waterfall’, a reworking of disparity between his work and from 14 October to 17 January
created years before he read the the tri-bar form into a viaduct his reserved and very private Reviewed by Peter Wright

in the shoes’ of his various articulates repeated experiences The Sick of the Fringe
characters. Between his personal of his encountering ‘But you ain’t Edinburgh Fringe Festival
narrative, he alludes to the British, mate, you’re Asian’,
historical narrative of British despite him being bi-racial and The Sick of the (Edinburgh) Fringe, supported by the Wellcome Trust,
immigration policy, channelling growing up in a middle-class aims to ‘inspire collaboration between science and the arts’. Organiser
Enoch Powell and his famous British family. Moscovici’s social and compere Brian Lobel, who does shows about his own health issues,
1968 ‘rivers of blood speech’, Idi representation theory comes to has spoken of creating a ‘space for shared vulnerability’, and it is
Amin, David Cameron and Ed light in his examples – certainly good to see room for difficult stories around medicine, mental
Miliband reflecting on the migrant representations of a particular and physical wellbeing and how they are expressed at the Fringe.
boat crisis, and quotes from ethnic group are perpetuated and This is its first year, and it has ambitious aims to be open and
celebrities such as Jeremy become accepted as ‘authentic’. inquiring, to follow as well as lead. Inevitably this means it is also
Clarkson. Whilst his narrative is Labels astutely raises the issue confusing and contradictory. The title implies issues of health and
framed through the lens of the of the ‘politics of representation’ sickness, and yet this is not the stated aim. I came as a psychotherapist
British Asian experience, his – if negative stereotypes of and the first discussion about depression and Bryony Kimmings’ show
performance is accessible and immigrants continue to run Fake It ‘Til You Make It (reviewed in the September issue) seemed
relatable to all audiences, who rampant, and acceptance into familiar territory. The second was Simon McBurney discussing his one-
get a glimpse of how, despite the the larger British mainstream is man show, ending with an extended riff on the need for changing
purported view of tolerance of denied, can ethnic ghetto-isation consciousness of climate change, very similar to that of John Burnside
British society, racism continues be surprising? at the Book Festival. I also attended Sir Colin Blakemore’s talk on
to be systemically entrenched. Labels cleverly uses political perception, and Liz Carr’s brilliant discussion about disability and
There’s much social and personal narratives to enable assisted suicide.
psychology in how Labels seeks to questions and conversations – if I was enchanted, inspired and challenged by all the events. I was
deconstruct the prevalent notion we can identify with Sellman- also confused: I like to understand the narrative and comfortably land
of what it means to be British – is Leava’s own story at a human at the end. However, I know that is unrealistic, and usually means that
it a race-bound construct, or can level, why then are we immune uncertainties have been missed, and valuable loops and byways not
answers such as ‘I’m from to those ‘other’ migrants who explored. By the end, I was no clearer about where the programme was
Devon/Cheltenham’ from an are dying on boats to reach safe leading, but I had enjoyed myself very much and had great conversations.
ethnic minority be accepted at havens? With immigration a Most powerfully I’m reminded of the importance of awareness of the
face value? Labels alludes to current hot topic, Labels forces needs of the environment we live in. Burnside and McBurney, both
group processes involved in us to examine whether we are passionately concerned at our slide into over-consumption and
Other-isation – whereby even merely paying lip service to degradation of the oceans in particular, left me wondering how the world
an ethnic name can be seen to multiculturalism when confronted of the arts can help us to take this seriously, both in our own lives and as
influence job prospects, and with our own social political animals. Finally, as a psychotherapist, I wanted to join in with
potentially stir up feelings of representations as to who can what I know of the body–mind connection, as it felt so different from the
disenfranchisement. Notions really be ‘British’. world of theatre. Can psychotherapy join this discussion, addressing
of authenticity and of multiple health, wellbeing and the life and death questions raised here?
identities come into play – I Reviewed by Karim Mitha who is
particularly when Sellman-Leava at the University of Edinburgh I Reviewed by Cathie Wright, Edinburgh

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk 853

 reviews

Understanding OCD I had observed some

A Monster in My Mind
BBC Two (Horizon series)
Uta Frith on why she was pleased to be asked to be involved
When I was a young student in Saarbrücken,
Germany in the early 1960s, I was quite
undecided what I should study. I went to
many different lectures, with no idea what
subject to specialise in. One day my decision
was suddenly made for me.
For a psychiatry lecture, which
psychologists as well as medical students
could attend, the professor had brought
along one of his patients who suffered from
OCD. The patient impressed me hugely. He
spoke in a strikingly rational way about how
he was obsessed by an absurdly irrational
fear. He was convinced that, if he did not rid
himself of germs, there was a real chance
that he could infect members of his family
through wounds they might have
accidentally acquired. It was a monstrous
fear that haunted him all his waking hours,
and that no amount of washing could rid
him of.
Like most people I had thought that
being obsessive and compulsive was merely
a quirky personality characteristic, and quite
a common one. I imagined that I too was
a bit obsessive. I can remember that, as
a child I sometimes had the urge to touch
every fence post, and I am still strongly
drawn to straightening picture frames when
they hang askew. But that was a long way
from the case that I witnessed. It made me
realise that OCD is a harrowing mental
illness. But this was also very different from
what I had imagined mental illness to be.
schizophrenic patients who
were utterly convinced that
their irrational thoughts were
nothing but the bare truth. By
contrast, the patient’s account
of himself was incredibly
rational. His monster had only
grown stronger over the years;
he knew the cleaning
procedures he imposed on
himself were hopelessly
ineffective and only ever gave
him a few moments’ relief, yet
he could not stop them.
From then on I knew what
I wanted to do. I wanted to be
a researcher and find out what
makes the mind behave in
such a strangely contradictory
way. How could your own mind
keep you in thrall of some
unimaginable fear when you
knew that the fear was irrational? This was
like creating your own nightmare and never

An ideal resource Clarifying diagnostic obfuscations

Psychology of Physical Activity: Determinants, Disruptive Mood: Irritability in Children and
Well-being and Interventions (3rd edn) Adolescents
Stuart Biddle, Nanette Mutrie & Trish Gorely Argyris Stringaris & Eric Taylor

Given the high level of author expertise in this textbook, I was very
eager to get stuck in. The breadth and depth of topics covered is While irritability and tantrums obfuscations.
comprehensive and of note from the outset. With insights drawn from are a hallmark of early In addition to exploring
epidemiology, health psychology, public health, medicine and exercise childhood, they are of concern neuroscientific models of
science, much more than a purely psychological perspective can be when they assume chronic or anger and irritability, the book
gained from reading. As well as discussion of key theoretical models, intense proportions. also offers practical
this book also integrates practical resources and guidance on physical Disruptive Mood situates guidelines on how to manage
activity assessment tools. The range of international intervention irritability within the context these negative emotions in
examples across school, workplace, primary healthcare and beyond of child psychopathology. The various psychological
ensure there are ideas of relevance to a wide readership. book is a useful guide for conditions. The strategies
An important addition to this edition is a section clinicians who have to make covered include
devoted to sedentary behaviour: the ‘new kid on the block’ black-or-white diagnostic pharmacological interventions
of activity research. Addressed at the end of the book with decisions based on symptoms to CBT to parent training
accompanying epidemiological and intervention evidence, that range anywhere on a programmes. While the book
this sets the scene for future research trends in the field. spectrum of greys. Further, is a good resource for those
Another important change in this edition is the discussion diagnoses is also complicated who work in the field of
of physical activity interventions. This is now framed by the fact that irritability can paediatric mental health, the
around behaviour change models and techniques, clearly be a diagnosis in and of itself reader should be forewarned
reflecting a shift in theoretical models over recent years. as in disruptive mood that it takes the DSM-5 as the
Discussion of interventions also gives a useful focus on dysregulation disorder, or gold standard of psychiatric
process evaluations: promoting assessment of why not it can be one of several diagnoses. For those who are
simply whether a physical activity intervention works or not. symptoms of a disorder like sceptical of some of the
A new companion website with question bank, PowerPoint slides the manic phase in bipolar classifications of DSM-5, this
and additional learning activities make this an ideal resource for disorder or depression. Other book does not offer a critique
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this version will be a widely recommended text for students, do not include irritability in psychiatric models.
researchers and health professionals interested in physical activity their diagnostic criteria, may
promotion. Even if you just have an interest in the activity choices of be accompanied by irritability. I Oxford; 2015; Pb £24.99
yourself, friends or family, this is a great book to get you well informed. Finally, certain organic Reviewed by Aruna
conditions, like epilepsy, may Sankaranarayanan who is
I Routledge; 2015; Pb £45.00 result in irritability. The Director of PRAYATNA, a
Reviewed by Emma Norris who is a PhD student at University College authors have done a fine job centre for children with
London of clarifying these diagnostic learning difficulties in India

854 vol 28 no 10 october 2015


being able to escape from it.
I started to read avidly about mental
illness and found that the then available
methods of treatment, ranging from
lobotomy, electroshock, psychoactive drugs
to psychoanalysis, were spectacularly
unsuccessful. But then, in the psychology
department I heard about a new way of
treating mental illness that was being
developed in London’s Maudsley Hospital.
I knew I had to go there and learn more
about it.
The revolutionary new way was called
‘behaviour therapy’, and OCD, together with
other anxiety disorders, was a showcase for
its success. By good fortune I was accepted
on a course in what was then called
‘abnormal psychology’. I had already
decided to do a PhD on OCD, but fate
intervened. During my rotation on the
course I met children with autism. This
diverted my interest from OCD (although
autism too is often associated with
obsessions and compulsions).
From time to time I have wondered
wistfully what progress had been made in
our understanding of OCD. This was why
I was extremely excited to be asked to
present this documentary. It gave me a
chance to catch up on new developments
and it immediately rekindled my earliest
interests in the mind and brain.
One particularly gratifying experience
during filming was that I was able to visit
Isaac Marks, who had been one of the
pioneers of behaviour therapy at the
Maudsley when I was a student. It was
fascinating to hear him reminisce about his
first attempts to apply the insights he had
gained from an animal learning experiment
he had watched in the US.
Remarkably, later on during the filming,
I saw a version of this same experiment
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
reviews
being carried out with humans in the brain
scanner at Cambridge’s Addenbrookes’
Hospital. I was also excited to meet David
Adams, whose insightful account of his own
OCD in his book The Man Who Couldn’ t Stop
is better than any textbook.
I discovered that the leading OCD
researchers are on the way to finding the
brain abnormality that can explain the cruel
tricks that OCD plays on the mind. Trevor
Robbins and his group in Cambridge have
Have
identified a critical neural circuit, connecting
two major brain regions. One is the
orbitofrontal cortex, known to be concerned
with achieving valued goals. The other is
mid-brain region, the basal ganglia. This is
known to be associated with our ability to
you
heard…
acquire automatic habits. According to
Robbins, in the case of OCD the habit
system has gained dominance over the
goal-directed system, just as it does in drug
addiction. It’s an ancient system that serves
as a precaution against invisible threats,
such as contamination and predator attack,
but in OCD it seems that this system cannot
be turned off. The potential threat is ever
present. There is no way to obtain certainty
that it has disappeared.
I was also struck by the ‘hyper-
responsibility’ of the patients: their family,
even the world at large will be
catastrophically affected if they fail to carry
out precautionary rituals. Why? I couldn’t let
go of this question. We know little about how
we control our own thoughts. Fortunately,
most of us are under the illusion that
unwanted thoughts are not caused by us,
but by ‘our brain’. We can dismiss them, and
then we do not feel responsible for them.
People with OCD don’t have this luxury. The
unwanted thoughts intrude on their full
consciousness, creating the illusion that
they did cause them, and therefore that they
are responsible.
By the end of the filming I was
convinced that OCD provides an amazing
The new podcast from
example of how our common understanding
of mental illness has gradually changed
The British
over the last 50 years. Today we have much
more awareness of mental illness and put
Psychological Society’s
less blame on those who are affected.
Professional help is available. There are also
Research Digest
excellent support networks that inform and
inspire. Exciting advances are being made
about the abnormal functioning of particular
brain circuits, but that’s only the start. To
Listen via
understand how brain and mind relate to
each other is a hugely complex enterprise.
www.bps.org.uk/digest
We have hardly embarked on it.
I BBC resource: www.bbc.co.uk/guides/
z2vxp39
More behind the scenes:
www.slam.nhs.uk/media/our-blog/
behind-the-scenes-making-a-bbc-
documentary-on-ocd
855
ONE ON ONE
… with Jo Silvester
‘Nothing you learn is
ever redundant’
One moment that changed
the course of your career
It would have to be a press
interview at the BPS
Centenary Conference in
2001, which led to the
newspapers picking up on my
research about diversity and
selection. I received a letter
from Christina Dykes, who
was then Director of
Candidates for the
Conservative Party. Christina
invited me along to discuss
how they could develop a
fairer and more objective
process for approving
prospective parliamentary
candidates. I got to redesign
the Party’s procedures based
on best practice from
occupational psychology. In
the 2005 general election we
captured the first empirical
evidence that critical thinking
ability impacts on electoral
performance (i.e. the
percentage swing in votes
achieved by a candidate). The
work led on to many other
projects, including redesigning
selection procedures for the
Jo Silvester
is Professor of
Organisational
Psychology, Cass
Business School,
City University London
Attachment – beyond interpersonal relationships, and much more...
coming soon
I Contribute: reach 50,000 colleagues, with something to suit all. See
www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute or talk to the editor, Dr Jon
Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573
I Comment: email the editor, the Leicester office, or tweet @psychmag.
I To advertise: Reach a large and professional audience at bargain
rates: see details on inside front cover.
856
Liberal Democrat Party and
implementing 360-degree
review for candidates in the
2010 general election.
One essential
characteristic for a
politician
For the past decade
Maddy Wyatt and I have
collected self-report data
from many hundreds of
politicians. We now have
good evidence (empirical
and qualitative) that
three qualities emerge
consistently as
important: ‘analytical
skills’ (i.e. cognitive
ability), ‘resilience’, and
‘relating to others’.
‘Communicating vision’
and ‘developing support’
were also key to
performance for political
candidates, and local
politicians identified integrity
as important (strangely this
did not emerge for national
politicians). If I had to say
which I thought was key to
getting elected, I’d say
‘communicating vision’ –
voters need to know what
politicians believe and what
they think is important.
One book that you think all
psychologists should read
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest, because it reminds us
that the power of the ‘expert’ is
easy to abuse.
One great thing that
psychology has achieved
I’d say ‘reach’. I’ve been
visiting university open days
with my daughters, and
several of their friends have
joined me for work
experience. It’s easy to forget
how much psychology inspires
interest among young people.
I know some people worry
about the popularity of
psychology – that it may
somehow lead to a ‘dumbing
down’ of the discipline – but
this energy and enthusiasm
can only be positive.
One challenge psychology
faces
I think a major challenge for
the discipline is the need to
reconcile divisions between
research and practice, and
between pure and applied
research. University
appointments are driven by a
need for applicants to have 4*
publications for the REF. In
psychology most 4* journals
are not concerned with
applied areas, and the knock-
on effect is a reluctance to
appoint staff to teach applied
postgraduate courses without
such publications; even if
they have extensive expertise
as practitioners and
professionals. This perhaps
leads to the steady migration
of occupational psychology to
business schools where
journals are given a greater
REF weighting compared to
psychology.
One cultural
recommendation
Doctor Who.
One alternative career path
My PhD investigated parental
attributions in child abuse,
and I won a place to train as
a clinical psychologist, but
I decided I wasn’t cut out to
work full-time in the area.
I now come across
writing about abuse
and power in political
contexts – I guess
nothing you learn is
ever redundant.
One nugget of advice
for aspiring
psychologists
Don’t be afraid to take
risks and challenge
current paradigms. There
are only so many ways
you can test a theory –
focus on creating your
own.
One hero from
psychology past or
present
Donald Broadbent because
he helped me jumpstart my
car when I was an
undergraduate student at a
BPS conference. Here was one
of the great minds of cognitive
psychology asking me about
what I wanted to do as a
future psychologist. My heroes
are those people who have
achieved success, whilst
avoiding the traps of hubris,
who still have the humanity
and interest to encourage
lesser mortals along the way.
One psychological
superpower I’d like to have
I’d like to be able to
understand my dog.
One inspiration
My mother (a teacher) was
fond of quoting Piaget: ‘play
is work you enjoy doing’.
More answers online at
www.thepsychologist.org.uk
vol 28 no 10 october 2015
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