Here is a presentation prepared by Trissana Burke, Enda Cahill, Andrea Gomoll, Lauren Michels, Jeanette Perrault, and Orla Sheil, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Rachel Morgan, Neal McDonagh, Nicole Strong, Annie Gordon, Rebekah Proctor, and Noreen Lenihan, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here.
Here is a presentation prepared by Kevin McInerney, Rachael Daly, Kyra Taylor, and Kevin Carey, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Stephen Bennett, Sinead Carroll, Shane Curran, Niall Kelly, Rachael Rysz, and Sinead Wright, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Raquel Avila, Jesila Adair, Roxie Mays, Ryan Doherty, Lisa Walsh, and Julia Berquist, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Brittany Morales, Laura Ellen-Dwyer, Koreen Walsh, Tara King, Amy Halkett, Kori Kilduff, and Kaitlin Hanley students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by John Birrane, Patrick Corbett, Tara Earley, Lisa Moran, Miriam Ondarre, Saoirse Scrivens, and Hannah Higgins Pardo, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Eamon Doyle, Aaron Bradley, Darina Gormley, Peter Grau, Hilary Groarke, Jessica Warner, and Laura Weir, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Páraic Ó Súilleabháin, Katherine Semas, Elaine Gallagher, Lara Estes, Joshua Cuddy, and Sommer McWhirter, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is a presentation prepared by Alice Bisquoli, Clodagh Carey, Steven Heaney, Cliona Hurst, Josephine McGrath, Mary Kate Mineman, and Carlos Perez Hernandez, students of the ‘Psychology, Society, & Human Values’ class at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
You can download a supplementary text-based script (which includes references) by clicking here. (more…)
Here is my post on how some ambiguous research on food consumption patterns and mental health led some researchers (and most of the world’s media) to conclude that hamburgers cause depression…
…and here is my other post on how some ambiguous research on food consumption patterns and physical health led some researchers (and most of the world’s media) to conclude that chocolate makes you thin.
Go figure!
Here is an interesting article from Psychology Today, relating to this book by anthropologist Robin Dunbar. It considers the issue of whether there is an optimal social network size (or amount of social contact or social support) for human societies. If so, this would stand in contrast to the view that having more friends is simply always better than having fewer (or, in more technical terms, that there exists a simple positive association between social contact and well-being).
Theorists have argued that the costs of social contact should begin to outweigh the benefits if the social network is too large. Moreover, the view here is that this is an intrinsic feature of networks of various kinds. In other words, it does not relate exclusively to humans and their friends, but also to other species where social contact occurs and to other types of interconnected contact relationships.
Such discussions have led to the proposal that there does indeed exist such an optimal size for social networks. The size proposed has become known as Dunbar’s number.
Can you guess what Dunbar’s number is?
Here is a questionnaire intended to test whether you are altruistic, egoistic, or somewhere in between.
http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=692
Consider the various questions and scenarios. Is this a useful test of altruism? What does it suggest about the nature of altruism?
In the UK, the chairperson of the governing Conservative party has complained about “militant secularisation” taking hold of British society.
You can read about that in lots of places, including here.
This could be an example of value-laden argumentation, rather than evidence-based argumentation. For one thing, what is meant by the term “militant” in this context? And why would an opponent of secularisation use the term “militant” when making such a point?
In class on Monday, we discussed the weekend article by psychologist Tony Humphreys as published in the Irish Examiner. You will recall that the article — which claimed that autism was not a neurodevelopmental disorder but in fact was the result of poor parenting — had caused a great deal of public distress. Moreover, both scientifically and logically, it was deeply flawed. Well, you can now read my full blog post on the matter here.
Coincidentally (and I know it’s a coincidence because I was in touch with the author yesterday), today’s Irish Times features another article on the aetiology of autism written by a prominent clinical psychologist. The psychologist, Paul O’Donoghue, discusses a separate–but similar–recent controversy in France, where a court has ruled that a film critical of a theory similar to that of Tony Humphreys should be censored (arising from complaints my advocates of such theories). O’Donoghue carefully sets out the scientific context that makes the theories controversial. I think it’s a good piece. You can read it here.
Two observations:
Professor David Colquhoun of University College London on complementary medicine in universities:
Complementary medicine courses in universities: how I beat the varsity quacks – Telegraph.
Social conservatives have a lower I.Q.? (probably) | Gene Expression – http://pulse.me/s/5rMNI
Here is an interesting article from Discover, about new research into the association between intelligence and social attitudes. In particular, the author points out how such research can be interpreted in different ways depending on your social value system. It is argued that the study in question was reported from a liberal perspective.
For example, have a look at the diagram and ask yourself the question: why aren’t the arrows pointing in the opposite direction?
Here is an interesting opinion piece from The Guardian, concerning the way scientific opinion is (or is not) incorporated into public debate on current affairs and public policy: “The BBC’s problem with science” by Martin Robbins
Here is a short film describing the social and scientific context, as well as the content, of Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience experiments. There is some detailed original footage from of the actual experiments, and some great commentary from Milgram himself. Continue Reading
[Mirrored from my Posterous]
This is from Discovery News >> http://pulse.me/s/5lala
“Planning to pop the marriage question on Valentine’s Day? A study in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family may make you reconsider. While married couples enjoy some health advantages (likely because of shared health care plans), the study found that unmarried couples who live together are generally happier and have better self-esteem.”
Well that’s interesting. It only further puts the kaibosh on claims that the exact opposite is true. Claims that conservative news media keep trying to make, even when the studies they point to don’t really give them the evidence they need…
…as per my blog post of last year: http://thesciencebit.net/2011/08/26/marriage-saves-lives-well-it-has-a-nice-r…
Here is my blog post from the weekend on media coverage of a recent neuroscience study. The study purports to demonstrate an association between brain function and excessive internet use. It’s essentially a cross-sectional study, so we cannot know if abnormal brain function causes excessive internet use, or if excessive internet use causes abnormal brain function (or, indeed, if some other extraneous factor causes both). Nonetheless, the media seemed pretty confident of the direction of causality: almost as one they reported the study as showing that excessive internet use causes abnormal brains. Given that the underlying finding is ambiguous, I argue that this reflects their value-systems rather than their capacity for scientific insight.
Incidentally, today the media are at it again. The Independent (UK) report on a neuroscience study that is claimed to reveal that people’s capacity to “sell out” on expressed beliefs if given enough money is somehow “wired into” the brain. This seems like something of an extravagant interpretation. The study appears — simply — to show that people process ideas such as “I am a tea drinker” in one part of the brain and ideas like “I support gay marriage” in another. Unsurprisingly, the researchers also found that when people were offered cash to disavow the latter type of idea, then (a) they tended not to do so readily, and (b) when considering it, the part of the brain devoted to ethics tended to become activated (or “lit up” in sci-fi parlance).
Why exactly is this news? Well, in short, the media are obsessed with brains.
Today, as a class collective, we completed the survey at http://www.politicalcompass.org/. The survey provides information on human value systems in terms of economic (left- vs. right-wing) and social (authoritarian vs. libertarian) dimensions, and so builds on scholarly research to provide a richer classification system than those offered by the more traditional dichotomous or spectrum-based approaches.
The originators of the Political Compass emphasize that there are “no right, wrong, or ideal” responses. That being said, I think we can conclude from our result that we are in fact great. Our score has us occupying the same political space as the likes of Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. We even ordered the official certificate (€7) just to prove precisely how great we are (that’s us represented by the red circle in the lower left quadrant):
Naturally, we learned quite a lot from this exercise (primarily, that we are great).
Here is psychologist, Dr Wendy Walsh, discussing the merits of religion on CNN. She asserts that “Most studies on survivors show that the atheists die first“. But what does she mean? Well, this assertion is very questionable when the scientific evidence is scrutinized. See here to find out why. Continue Reading
You can download some of the introductory documents relating to our class by clicking these links:
Here’s an interesting video on the “illusion” of free will, by neuroscientist Sam Harris. While Harris is a contemporary author, the debate on free will (versus determinism) is centuries old. The idea that an individual is capable of deciding their own actions (i.e., the idea that they have free will) is very seductive — in fact, most people just assume it without question — but, empirically speaking, is very dubious. Continue Reading
Many psychologists seek to promote a greater focus on “positive human functioning” in psychology. In this video, journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich criticizes the “delusional” positivity that she believes has permeated contemporary culture, and which has contributed to both the onset and worsening of the ongoing recession that has swept much of the world economy.
Christopher Hitchens was a British-American author and journalist who died on 15 December 2011, following complications arisng from esophageal cancer. In this video, Hitchens discusses the tendency of his religious friends and associates to recommend to him that he consider changing his views on religion — Hitchens was a high-profile advocate of atheism — in response to the terminal nature of his illness.
In this video, illusionist and broadcaster Derren Brown reproduces a version of the famous Milgram obedience experiment. In this exercise, Brown attempts to subconsciously influence buisness men and women with no previous criminal records to pull an armed robbery without ever directly mentioning the idea to them. The extract is from Brown’s TV show, “The Heist“.
Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ is considered by some to be his masterpiece. While ostensibly depicting the horrors of human conflict in the context of the Spanish Civil War, Picasso steadfastly refused to explain its imagery during his lifetime.
For those interested, here’s a schedule of what we discuss in our class:
Week 1. Orientation to module
Week 2. Values: What are they; where are they?
Week 3. Why Psychologists Should Be More Ethical
Weeks 4-5. Psychology, Science, and Religion
Weeks 6-7. Helpfulness, Altruism, and Other Delusions
Week 8. Life, Birth, and Consciousness
Week 9. How to Treat Children: The Evidence
Week 10. Bodies, Animals, and Other Objects
Week 11. Mortality, Death, and Wishful Thinking
Week 12. Wrap-up
In wider society, observers often look to psychology to inform debates on contentious issues. However, it is often overlooked that psychologists themselves will have views on such issues, and/or personality characteristics and ethical dispositions that affect their production and interpretation of psychological knowledge. Further, there are considerable limits on the extent to which empirical scholarship in psychology can or should be considered to be of definitive relevance in debates on public interest issues. Finally, many of the issues relevant to public debate or social policy that psychologists study are also studied by scholars in other academic disciplines.
This blog is linked to an undergrad class on “Psychology, Society, & Human Values” at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Our class is intended to provide an analysis of: (a) the role of personal values in the production of psychological scholarship; (b) how ethical values might be applied by psychologists; (c) whether psychologists should be seen as ‘honest brokers’, ‘issue advocates’, ‘science arbiters’, or ‘pure scientists’; (d) the strengths and limitations of empirical research in public debate; and (e) the relationship between psychology and disciplines cognate to it. Throughout the module, students will be guided in considering specific areas of controversy where psychological expertise is often seen as pertinent (for example, right-to-life politics, religion, libertarianism, child-rearing, gay marriage and adoption, multiculturalism, etc.)
The Science Bit
