Tips on conducting eﬀective online research The Good, the ...2089.pdf · Conscientisation and identity: Reflections on being a community psychologist Also in this issue: Psychology

Tips on conducting effective online research

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly about the fMRI world

Conscientisation and identity:Reflections on being a community psychologist

Also in this issue:Psychology People in Profile: Dr Rusi Jaspal

Conference and workshop reviews

Issue 89 December 2013

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EditorialLaura Scurlock-Evans

Issue 89 December 2013 1© The British Psychological Society

WELCOME to the 89th issue of thePsyPAG Quarterly. This issue ispacked full of wonderful discussion

and research-based articles, hints and tips,and reviews, which we hope will make for aninteresting and informative read!

We open with a series of articles whichexplore research methods and analysis;Fayme Yeats challenges readers to considerhow quality can be assured and maintainedwithin quantitative research, and presentsthe results of a thought-provoking studyexploring psychological researchers’ under-standing of statistics. On the quantitativetheme, James Grange provides us with agreat introduction to Bayes and Bayesianstatistics, and why it may be far more appli-cable to the sorts of issues psychology isinterested in, compared with traditionalmethods (which may not be all they arecracked up to be). Greg Maciejewski exam-ines the fMRI world – the advances and thepitfalls, and how not everything that glistensis gold. The next article, by RosemaryKingston, will be useful for anyone with aninterest in conducting research online –providing useful hints and tips on how to getthe most out of your research. Followingthis, in ‘On a date with secondary data:Things you should know before askingsomeone else’s data out’, Patrycja Piotrowskapresents a great introduction to secondarydata, where to find it, and the things youneed to consider when using taking thisapproach.

Next we have a variety of conference andworkshop reviews, which each help to showpostgraduates the benefits of attending. In acombined conference review and hints andtips article, Fiona McBryde provides aninsight into her experiences of presenting at aconference, and the benefits which writingpresentations can provide for your thesis.

Carolyn Plateau takes us through her experi-ences of attending an international confer-ence – the International Conference onEating Disorders: from organising everythingto be able to attend, to presenting her poster,to being able to explore the city (Montreal) inwhich the conference was held. The reviewwill be useful for anyone thinking aboutattending an interdisciplinary conference.Jenny Watts’ review of the Royal College ofNurses International Nursing ResearchConference provides a fun account of adifferent approach to networking, and someof the issues affecting nurses’ development ofeconomically viable health care innovations.Laurien Nagels-Coune and MadeleineDalsklev review the 2nd Junior ResearchersProgramme Conference; the final phase ofthe Junior Researcher Programme, which is abranch of the European Federation forPsychology Students Association (EFPSA).The conference is an international affair andrepresents a fantastic opportunity for under-graduate and postgraduate psychologystudents to network, present and enjoypsychology. Laura De Molière reviewsSoDoc – a workshop started and supported bythe German Psychological Society’s Social

PsyPAG Quarterly Editorial Team

2013–2014

Jumana Ahmad

Emma Norris

Laura Scurlock-Evans

Martin Toye

Email: [email protected]

2 PsyPAG Quarterly

Laura Scurlock-Evans

Psychology Division. This review helps to showwhy presenting at workshops, and picking theright workshop in the first place, are sohelpful for developing your research.Samantha Rowbotham, Melissa Noke andRuth Butterworth review a workshop theydeveloped and delivered for postgraduatepsychology students, to introduce them toOutreach (i.e. activities to promotepsychology to individuals from less privilegedbackgrounds and communicating psychologyto the public). This provides a great insightfor anyone thinking of developing their ownworkshop. Rebecca Wray’s review of the F-Word in Contemporary Women’s WritingConference follows; a lively and supportiveforum for discussing the ‘F-Word’ conferencewas to examine the diverse and varied ways inwhich contemporary women’s writing (post-1970s) has engaged with, approached andcontributed to contemporary feministdiscourse. Finally, Kathryn Fackrell reviewsthe 7th International Tinnitus ResearchInitiative (TRI) Tinnitus Conference, whichfocused on tinnitus diagnosis, treatment andmanagement.

Continuing the auditory theme, HarrietSmith presents a fascinating discussion ofthe use of ‘earwitness testimony’, in ‘Unfa-miliar voice identification as forensicevidence: Can you believe your ears?’

Angelos Kassianos next discusses theexperience of being diagnosed with cancer;how research has overlooked the positiveoutcomes that people may achieve, whichmay help people cope with their experiencesand the implications this has for clinicalinterventions.

We have a glimpse into the working lifeof a community psychologist in MichaelRichards’ article, which explores ‘Conscien-tisation’ and a reflection on a smaller projecthe co-ordinated, which aimed to helpdevelop a training programme for volun-teers to build relationships with peoplelabelled with learning disabilities.

Finally, we are treated to an interviewwith Dr Rusi Jaspal, by Kate Doran. Dr Jaspalwas the recipient of the BPS QualitativeMethods in Psychology Section’sOutstanding Research by an Early CareerScholar Award. In the interview we learnabout Dr Jaspal’s career and research inter-ests have developed, and how his approachintegrates social psychology and linguisticsto understand Identity.

If you have any comments on this issue,please feel free to get in touch by email, or Twitter.

Laura Scurlock-EvansOn behalf of thePsyPAG Quarterly Editorial TeamEmail: [email protected]: @PsyPAGQuarterly


Chair’s ColumnLaura Neale

WELCOME to the winter 2013edition of the PsyPAG Quarterly. I hope you are all adjusting to the

cold weather and dark nights and that all newpostgraduates are settling into their studieswell. There has been a lot of PsyPAG activityover the last few months since I was elected asChair. Of particular note are the two work-shops which PsyPAG has funded with ourworkshop fund. A pre-conference workshopentitled ‘Advice and Inspiration: GettingPublished and Planning your Career’ washeld at the beginning of the joint Cognitive/Developmental Conference in September atthe University of Reading. The workshopaimed at providing advice for getting workpublished as a PhD student, planning earlycareers and to provide an opportunity for anopen discussion concerning general issuesthat PhD students experience. The workshopincluded presentations from ProfessorRobert Johnson (University of Kent),Professor Margaret Harris (Oxford BrookesUniversity) and five early career academics allwithin ten years of completing their PhDs(Dr Dan Lamport, University of Reading; Dr Alana James, Royal Holloway, Universityof London; Dr Claire Monks, University ofGreenwich; Dr Bhismadev Charkrabarti andDr Nicholas Holmes, both from the Univer-sity of Reading). The second PsyPAG-fundedworkshop was held in October at the Univer-sity of Manchester entitled ‘Research in NHScontexts’. The keynote speaker was Dr SaraTai from the University of Manchester andthere was a Twitter discussion throughout theworkshop which can be viewed at #PGNHS-research. Both workshops were over-subscribed and received positive feedbackand we hope to fund similar workshops in thenear future. If you have an idea for a work-shop on another topic to benefit your fellowpostgraduates then please get in touch as we

would love to hear from you. We accept appli-cations for workshop funding throughout theyear and this is an important way in whichPsyPAG can benefit our members. Moreinformation about our workshop fund andhow to apply can also be found on ourwebsite: www.psypag.co.uk/workshops/

I am delighted to announce thatPsyPAG’s 29th Annual Conference is to beheld at Cardiff Metropolitan University from23–25 July 2014. Registration for the confer-ence will become available shortly at our lowcost, postgraduate rates, so be sure to keepan eye on our website (www.psypag.co.uk),Twitter (@PsyPAG2014) and Facebook (face-book.com/PsyPAGAnnualConference) forall of the latest information. PsyPAG’s annualconference is our flagship event whereapproximately 150 delegates over the threedays come together, including psychologyUK postgraduates who are currently studyingfor MSc’s, PhD’s and practitioners intraining. The conference is a fantastic oppor-tunity to not only network with other post-graduates but to present your work to asupportive audience comprised of yourpeers. There will also be the traditionalplanned social events including a winereception and conference dinner. We hopeto see many of you in Cardiff next July!

We have also recently launched a PsyPAGnewsletter to help keep you up-to-date withour latest news and activities including the conference, bursaries, awards and infor-mation regarding upcoming issues of The Quarterly with details regarding submis-sion. We are initially aiming to producethree newsletters a year which will coincidewith our committee representative reports sothat you are informed of latest develop-ments. The newsletter has been distributedvia our mailing lists which include ourdepartmental contacts to ensure we reach as

4 PsyPAG Quarterly

many UK psychology postgraduates aspossible. Hopefully you have received thisbut if you did not please contact me [email protected] as we are keen to linkwith all UK psychology postgraduates and weare aware that not everyone is based within atraditional psychology department. You willalso be able to find the PsyPAG newsletter onour website.

We are always keen to hear from postgrad-uates who have suggestions, feedback or ideasas to how PsyPAG is able to provide furthersupport for UK psychology postgraduates, soplease contact me at [email protected] ifyou have a contribution.

Thank you to the British PsychologicalSociety’s Research Board for their supportand the PsyPAG committee for theircontinued hard work and dedication insupporting UK psychology postgraduates.

Best wishes to you all for Christmas and theNew Year.

Laura NealePsyPAG ChairEmail: [email protected]: @PsyPAG

Laura Neale

Follow PsyPAG on Twitter

www.twitter.com/PsyPAGor

@PsyPAGQuarterly

ON READING THE TITLE OF THISARTICLE one might imagine it isconcerned with evaluating or perhaps

encouraging the amalgamation of qualitativemethods alongside quantitative ones. Whilstworthy of academic interest, this is not theconcern of this research, which presents datathat are concerned with the quality of thequantitative research that psychology isproducing. Increasingly, psychology hasfound itself under serious scrutiny with highprofile contemporary cases of fraud, falsepositives and misconduct gathering atten-tion at pace within the discipline itself and inthe wider public conscience. As a third-yearPhD student on the (ever hopeful) cusp ofan academic career I find myself wondering:is the credibility of my discipline at stake? If so, what could I possibly do about this?

Perhaps the most infamous contempo-rary example of malpractice in psychologicalresearch would be Diederik Stapel, onceprofessor of social psychology based atTilburg University. Stapel was sacked inSeptember 2011 after admitting to usingfaked data in his publications (Enserink,2011), with ‘55 publications in which it iscertain that Stapel committed fraud’(Tilburg University, 2012). His work includesa (now retracted) Science paper (Stapel &Lindenberg, 2011) and it is believed that heboth manipulated and fabricated datasets:either manipulating data collected by assis-tants, interns or undergraduates beforepassing them for analysis to PhD students; orproviding co-authors with data and resultswhen no study whatsoever had been run(Levelt Committee, 2012).

Consequently the attention of bothacademics and the media has been drawn tothe discipline. Higher profile cases of gross

misconduct are in turn drawing attention tothe ‘greyer area of bad or lazy scientific prac-tice’ (Jha, 2012). Psychology as a discipline isunder serious scrutiny, as Cardiff Universitypsychologist Chris Chambers asserts:‘Psychology is at a crossroads – the decisionswe take now will determine whether or not itremains a serious, credible, scientific disci-pline along with the harder sciences’ (Chambers, cited in Jha, 2012).

So, what are these decisions that we mustmake? We could discuss a huge variety ofresearch culture issues – the influences anddemands upon psychologists that mightencourage deviant or slip-shod practices.The review process, quantity demands onacademics, open access data and replicationstudies (Yong, 2012) are all strong candi-dates for deliberation. I encourage you toengage with these debates in any which wayyou can, influence them and anticipatechange – but these are not the topics I willdiscuss in this article. Nor am I beginning alengthy sermon on candor, corruption andacademic integrity in the vain hope that I would catch you, red handed, just about tochange that p>.05 into a p<.05 and turn yourwicked heart to one of pure, scientific gold. I am assuming you have already made thisdecision. The pursuit of knowledge, truthand understanding is what gets you out ofbed in the morning, right?

This paper is not concerned with ouractive or intentional mistreatment ofscience, or indeed more general issues of thepublication process or other demands onacademics. What I would like to consider is:how much of research is of poor qualitysimply because we don’t actually know whatwe are doing? To what extent do we, orshould we, understand the quantitative


Putting the quality into quantitative researchFayme Yeates

methodologies that are often integral to theconclusions that we make, publish and use todirect future research? To what extent canwe accurately evaluate our own under-standing? As postgraduates we are allcapable of running the tests and reading offthe output that we need – but how much dowe understand about this particular test inthe first place? This paper seeks to explorethe extent that (postgraduate) researchersunderstand statistics.

To this end a simple test will be used toassess understanding of what a simple p valueof 0.01 means. Six true-or-false questionsregarding such a p value are presented inDienes (2008) and taken from Oakes (1986)and I was shocked when confronted with myown (lack of) understanding. I was alsosurprised that out of the 70 researchers thatOakes (1986) investigated, only two demon-strated a sound understanding of statisticalsignificance. Please take time to test yourself

now (the answers are revealed in the resultssection) – see Table 1 and circle the correctanswer to each statement.

I present here the findings from a survey(involving these six questions) of PsyPAGmembers and postgraduates from across theUK. The paper intends to produce contem-porary figures regarding the proportion ofresearchers entering psychological academiathat have a sound understanding of statis-tical significance. My aim is to use theseresults to build a picture of the extent towhich postgraduates demonstrate under-standing of core principles involved in quan-titative research. I intend, therefore, to bothhighlight any gaps in understanding, discusstheir consequences and provide recommen-dations as to what decisions we need to maketo ensure that psychology ‘remains a serious,credible, scientific discipline along with theharder sciences’ (Chambers, cited in Jha,2012).

6 PsyPAG Quarterly

Fayme Yeates

Table 1: Questions taken from Oakes (1986) and reproduced from Dienes (2008) with permission.

Please take a moment to consider this example and choose true or false to the following:You have conducted a piece of research and compared the means of a control and experimentalgroup (20 subjects in each). Your result is t (38)=2.7, p=.01.

i You have absolutely disproved the null hypothesis (that there is no difference True Falsebetween the population means).

ii You have found the probability of the null hypothesis being true. True False

iii You have absolutely proved your experimental hypothesis (that there is a True Falsedifference between the population means).

iv You can deduce the probability of the experimental hypothesis being true. True False

v You know that if you decided to reject the null hypothesis, the probability True Falsethat you are making the wrong decision.

vi You have a reliable experimental finding in the sense that if, hypothetically, True Falsethe experiment were repeated a great number of times, you would obtain a significant result on 99 per cent of occasions.

MethodParticipantsNinety postgraduates were recruited throughthe PsyPAG facebook page, twitter feed andmailing list.

DesignThe survey comprised of an online surveymade up of optional questions. Demo-graphic information was taken simply in theform of current institution and qualificationscurrently or previously studied. The regu-larity and type of statistical tests that partici-pants use were measured, as well as whereparticipants sought information about statis-tics. A seven-point Likert scale was used tomeasure interest in statistics (from 1 ‘not atall interested’ to 7 ‘very interested’); under-standing of statistics (from 1 ‘no under-standing’ to 7 ‘very confident in myunderstanding’); and engagement with liter-ature on statistics (from 1 ‘no engagement’to 7 ‘very engaged’). Finally participantswere asked to select either true or false to thesix statements following a hypothetical t -testresult (see Table 1).

ResultsOf the six true or false questions assessingparticipant knowledge regarding statisticalsignificance, five of the 90 participantsanswered all of the questions correctly asfalse (six per cent of participants). The distri-bution of correct answers is shown in Figure 1, with both the modal and meancorrect answers equal to 3 – which is half ofthe total questions.

Figure 2 shows the distribution ofresponses for each statement in particular.Of these statements participants found i andiii easiest to falsify, both resulting in 76correct answers (84 per cent of participants).This aligns with Dienes’s (2008) suggestionthat most people are happy with the ideathat statistics do not give us absolute proof ordisproof. Over half of the participants in thestudy also rejected statement ii (62 per cent),which refers to the null hypothesis beingtrue. However, statement iv, which also refersto truth, this time in the context of theexperimental hypothesis, collected only 26correct answers (29 per cent of participants)and the lowest accuracy. The p value does

Issue 89 December 2013 7

Putting the quality into quantitative research

Figure 1: Distribution of number of correct responses.

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Num

ber of participa

nts

0 Correct 1 Correct 2 Correct 3 Correct 4 Correct 5 Correct All 6Correct

Number of correct answers

not refer to the probability of a hypothesis,null or otherwise being true. Whilst Dienes(2008) suggests that statement v is a ‘sneakyone and often catches people out’ (p.68)around half of the participants in the survey(N=50, 55 per cent) answer correctly to thisquestion. Indeed it suggests that a singleevent (the wrong decision) is the subject ofthe p value, when this refers to a collective ofevents. Statement vi is a description of powerand not statistical significance – which justunder a third of participants answeredcorrectly as false (N=28, 31 per cent).

The participants answered a variety ofother questions, including self-rating theirinterest in statistics on a scale of 1 (‘not at allinterested’) to 7 (‘very interested’),mean=5.00, SD=1.56. Participants also self-rated their understanding of statistics on asimilar scale between 1 (‘no understanding’)to 7 (‘very confident in my understanding’),

mean=4.34, SD=1.36. Self ratings of engage-ment with literature on statistics from 1 (‘no engagement’) to 7 (‘very engaged’),mean=3.46, SD=1.61. None of these self-report measures correlated with the numberof correct answers on the test.

We also asked participants to select from32 common statistical tests or methodsemployed within psychology which they hadused. The number of tests reported,mean=9.44, SD=4.84, positively correlatedwith number of correct answers on the test,r(90)=.308, p=.003, suggesting a possiblerelationship between the number of statis-tical tests and methods that participantsreport that they use and the number ofcorrect answers given. There was also a rela-tionship between the number of correctanswers and the number of sources partici-pants reported that they used when seekinginformation or advice on statistical methods,

8 PsyPAG Quarterly

Fayme Yeates

Figure 2: Distribution of correct, incorrect and withheld responses across statements.

i ii iii iv v viQuestion number

Num

ber of participa

nts

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

No answer

True (incorrect)

False (correct)

r(90)=.254, p=.016, suggesting a possiblerelationship between seeking informationon statistics and understanding statisticalsignificance.

General discussionWhilst slightly more than the two out of 70psychologists (three per cent) that Oakes(1986) reports can answer these questionscorrectly, the picture here is very much thesame. If one assumes that those five post-graduates who answered all the questions asfalse did so with informed intent, then itleaves a further 70 participants who reportedthat they regularly use t -tests (the subject ofthe example) yet could not answer all ofthese questions correctly. This suggests that93 per cent of postgraduates using t -tests tounderstand their findings do not fully under-stand the interpretation of the outcome.This is a worrying but not unexpected result.It lends support for the idea that a largeproportion of psychologists employing quan-titative methods do not fully understandthem.

A rich and deep understanding of whyparticipants responded correctly or incor-rectly is lacking from this report. This is thefirst criticism of the true or false questionsasked, which are problematic for a variety ofreasons. It is impossible to qualify under-standing as responding at random, corrector incorrect reasoning could all underlie anygiven answer. Conclusions about (a lack of)understanding may be based on the demandcharacteristic of all the questions requiringfalse answers (participants may assume oneanswer at least should be true). Conversely,the chance nature of the questions maymean participants have guessed their correctanswers where we assume understanding.Also, the question refers to only one aspect(albeit a hugely central premise) of statistics,so does not provide a full assessment of thesample’s breadth of understanding.

The subject of further research couldinvolve asking what postgraduates in psycho-logy actually know about statistics? Whileintention of this paper was not to address the

precise flaws in reasoning for each indi-vidual, we can observe a general trend as tothe gaps in understanding, suggested in thedistribution of correct answers. Whilst mostpostgraduates demonstrated an under-standing of the concept of proof withinstatistics, they struggled with the idea oftruth; single versus collective events; andpower. This is perhaps something to takehome, to read up on and consider as part ofyour training. Have you ever been taughtabout power, or was it rolled in with signifi-cance as pretty much one and the same? Is there a difference between proof andtruth? What is a p value?!

The relationships observed between theamount of statistical tests are initial findingsand no direction has been proposed forthese relationships. To me it seems equally aspossible that a postgraduate who regularlyinteracts with statistical tests and informationwould have greater understanding, or that apostgraduate with greater understandingwould use a wider variety of tests andmethods and seek information from a widervariety of sources. A greater engagementwith methods, literature and greater discus-sion of statistical principles would donothing to damage understanding (and mayencourage self-reflection at the very least).

It is possible that the uncorrelated self-report measures of understanding, enjoymentand engagement with statistics were not thebest way of assessing these predispositions.The predicted correlation between self-reported understanding of statistics andperformance on test was not apparent in thedata, but I would be interested to investigatefurther whether there is any link betweenperceived and actual understanding. It isworth considering the possibility that thisresults suggests that we ourselves cannot accu-rately assess our knowledge. How might thisinteract with our understanding and approachto further training? If we indeed lack theability to accurately assess our own knowledge,why would we seek further training or infor-mation on something we already use regularlyand seem to understand?



It seems that we should be assessing ourown understanding of what these tests doand actually mean, as well as engaging withtraining, improving our understanding aswell as increasing our awareness of alterna-tives and novel ideas. We should be takingadvantage of our current status as postgrad-uate students by learning, by checking ourknowledge now with supervisors and seniorcolleagues. Statistics shouldn’t be seen as setlaws; tests to feed input to and get a yes-noanswer output. We need to step out of such aconstrained understanding of what is so inte-gral to our research decisions and embrace amore grown up, critical approach to quanti-tative methodologies.

Right now you might be thinking thatthis all seems like a lot more (useless) work,because if you run a t -test, say what you aresupposed to say about it and leave it at that,it will do. Here it comes back to the questionas to why we need to improve our under-standing in the first place. As we embark onour careers in academia, where we will notonly be producing research but relaying ourunderstanding to more students, isn’t thisthe time to make sure you do understandwhat you are doing? To understand what youare going to be teaching to future psycho-logists and what conclusions you are makingabout research: your own as well as others?We could all misunderstand a p value andmiss an entire phenomenon, reject apossible solution, or accept and chase thewrong idea entirely. At the extreme we mayend up claiming fraudulent findings andresults, entirely by accident.

I hope (without a shred of ill intent) thatyou got at least one question wrong. I hopethat, like for myself, this resulted in anepiphany. We all have an obligation to ourdiscipline, colleagues and the public to makesure what we produce is of the highestquality, which I suggest that this starts withincreased engagement and self-evaluation.Whilst this by no means is constrained toquantitative research, I think statisticalmethods suffer from their attachment to themysterious world of mathematics – whereproof and truth exist and even the thoughtof basic concepts give most psychologists aheadache. We find it easy to accept what weconsider to be universal truths about statis-tics, when they like any method or theory arejust one possibility and are not certain. Thisis meant to be the sort of article you get tothe end of and think ‘Wow. I didn’t knowthat. I really should do something about it’and for the good of psychology, I hope thatyou do.

AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank ZoltánDienes for his permission to reproduce theexamples presented in his book Under-standing Psychology As A Science (2008), theBPS Mathematical Statistical and ComputingSection for hosting her as a PsyPAG repre-sentative and PsyPAG for generouslyproviding a conference bursary.

Correspondence Fayme YeatesSchool of Psychology,College of Life and EnvironmentalSciences,University of Exeter,Washington Singer Laboratories,Perry Road,Exeter, EX4 4QG.Email: [email protected]

10 PsyPAG Quarterly

Fayme Yeates

Dienes, Z. (2008). Understanding psychology as a science:An introduction to statistical inference. Hampshire,England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Enserink, M. (2008). Dutch university sacks socialpsychologist over faked data. ScienceInsider.Retrieved from:http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/09/dutch-university-sacks-social.html?ref=hp

Jha, A. (2012). False positives: fraud and misconductare threatening scientific research. The Guardian,13 September. Retrieved from:http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/13/scientific-research-fraud-bad-practice

Levelt Committee (2012). Flawed science: The fraudu-lent research practices of social psychology DiederikStapel. Retrieved from:https://www.commissielevelt.nl/wp-content/uploads_per_blog/commissielevelt/2013/01/finalreportLevelt1.pdf

Oakes, M. (1986). Statistical inference: A commentary forthe social and behavioral sciences. Chichester: Wiley.

Stapel, D.A. & Lindenberg, S. (2011). Coping withchaos: How disordered contexts promote stereo-typing and discrimination. Science, 332, 251–253.

Tilberg University (2012). The flawed sciencesurrounding Diederik Stapel (Press Release).Retrieved from:http://uvtapp.uvt.nl/fsw/spits.npc.ShowPressReleaseCM?v_id=5199042271779297

Yong, E. (2012). Nobel laureate challenges psycholo-gists to clean up their act. Nature News andComment, 3 October. Retrieved from:http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535



References

S READERS OF contemporary psycho-logy journals may well know, you can’thelp but keep reading about some-

thing called ‘Bayesian statistics’. This articleaims to give a very broad introduction toBayesian statistics to whet your appetite, andhighlight avenues for interested readers toexplore the world of Bayes further.

Researchers ‘in the know’ seem to extolBayesian statistics as a superior method ofmaking inferences from data compared totraditional, ‘frequentist’, methods (yes, Mr p-value, I’m looking at you!). But what isit? What can it do that standard methodscan’t? It turns out the answer is just abouteverything you’ve ever dreamed of (well, as aresearcher, anyway!).

The problemThis article will highlight the problems withstandard methods of analysis using the p-value. There are many problems with p: it isa test of a null hypothesis, but the null isnever really true; it depends on sample size;it doesn’t answer the questions we, asresearchers are interested in, etc. Further-more, it is not well understood. Very fewknow the correct definition of the p-value. It is not the probability that the resultsoccurred by chance. It is the probability ofobserving results as extreme (or more so) asthe ones you have obtained, if the nullhypothesis is true.

The problem is that hidden in this defi-nition lies the fact that it is a conditionalprobability – the key part is ‘…if the nullhypothesis is true’. Thus, the p-value onlyprovides information about the probabilityof your data, assuming the null is true;formally, p(D|H0).

However, as a researcher, shouldn’t yoube more interested in the probability of yourhypothesis, given the data, p(H|D)? We might

assume that this is the same thing; however,we cannot use the p-value to infer the proba-bility of our (null) hypothesis.

To illustrate, take the example given inKruschke’s (2011) book on Bayesian statis-tics: what is the probability it is raining givenyou can see clouds, p(rain|clouds)? Alterna-tively, if you know that it is raining (becauseyou are soaked), what is the probability thereare clouds, p(clouds|rain)? The answers tothese two questions are not the same, and byinference, p(D|H) is not p(H|D).

Introducing Bayes’ ruleThomas Bayes – a mathematician who livedin the 18th century – provided a solution tothe problem of ‘reversing’ conditional prob-abilities. Bayes’ Theorem allows you to turnp(X|Y) into p(Y|X):

p(y│x)= p(x│y)p(y) (1).(p(x)

The following example is again adaptedfrom Kruschke (2011). A person has a deckof cards in front of them. If they were to pickone at random and declare that it was a King,what is the probability that it is also a club;that is, what is p(♣|K)? It is not too tricky towork out that it is ¼, as there are only foursuits a card can take. After replacing thiscard and shuffling, the person draws anothercard and declares that it is a club. Given thisinformation, what is the probability that thecard is a King; that is, p(K|♣)? Again, it istrivial to show that it is 1/13, as a card canonly have one of 13 values.

Now it is clearer that p(♣|K) does notequal p(K|♣); extrapolated to psychology,p(D|H) does not equal p(H|D). Bayes’ ruletells us the mathematical relationshipbetween these probabilities, and allows us toswitch them around.

12 PsyPAG Quarterly© The British Psychological Society

What’s all this business about Bayes?James A. Grange

A

The following example calculates p(K|♣)using Bayes’ rule. From this we know that

p(K│♣)= p(♣│K)p(K) (2).(p(♣)

So, if we know p(♣|K) and p(♣), we can workout p(K|♣).

It is already known that p(♣|K)=¼. Wealso know – because there are only fourkings in a pack of 52 – that p(K)=4/52. Also,as there are only 13 hearts in a pack of 52,thus p(♣)=13/52. With this information,p(K|♣) can be calculated:

p(K│♣)= (3).

Working through this equation will confirmthat p(K|♣)=1/13, which demonstratesBayes’ rule works.

Application to psychologyObviously, the example provided is muchsimpler than real life research; but this doesnot detract from what Bayesian analysis istrying to do: give you the probability of yourhypothesis, given the data. This, after all, iswhat we are interested in as researchers, andsomething the p-value fails miserably at.

Bayesian analysis also allows you todirectly compare competing hypotheses. Forexample, we can work out p(H0|D) – theprobability of the null hypothesis – andp(H1|D) – the probability of the alternativehypothesis. Which one is more likely, giventhe data? Finally, we have a statistic that reallygets to the point of what researchers wantanswers to.

This article is really just to whet thereaders’ appetite to find out more about thisfascinating subject; Bayesian statistics does somuch more than is justifiable in this article.The complexity of Bayesian analysis is aidedby recent publications aimed at bringing

Bayesian statistics to the masses. Many typicalstatistical tests can now be implementedusing Bayesian statistics. For readers new toBayes, start off with implementing Bayesian t -tests (see Rouder, Speckman, Sun, Morey,& Iverson, 2009; Kruschke, 2012) or correla-tions/partial correlations (Wetzels & Wagen-makers, 2012); the authors provide user-friendly tools to calculate the necessary statis-tics, bypassing the at-times daunting mathe-matics of Bayes.

In conclusionAs the techniques used to conduct Bayesiananalysis become simplified for researchers,we will undoubtedly see more of it inpsychology publications. It is, therefore,perhaps worthwhile for psychologists to befamiliar with the concept.

Or, if you are like me, just dive head-firstinto the wonderful pool of Bayesian statistics. Swim around, and enjoy yourself…I just hope it isn’t contaminated with p.

CorrespondenceDr James A. GrangeSchool of Psychology,Dorothy Hodgkin Building, Keele University,Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG.Email: [email protected]

ReferencesKruschke, J.K. (2011). Doing Bayesian data analysis:

A tutorial with R and BUGS. Burlington, MA:Academic Press/Elsevier.

Kruschke, J.K. (2012). Bayesian estimation super-sedes the t -test. Journal of Experimental Psychology:General. Online – first publication.

Rouder, J.N., Speckman, P.L, Sun, D., Morey, R.D. &Iverson, G. (2009). Bayesian t -tests for acceptingand rejecting the null hypothesis. PsychonomicBulletin & Review, 16, 225–237.

Wetzels, R. & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2012). A defaultBayesian hypothesis test for correlations andpartial correlations. Psychonomic Bulletin &Review, 19, 1057–1064.


What’s all this business about Bayes?

1*4

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NOT SO LONG AGO, the only way tounderstand how the brain executesdifferent mental processes was to

examine individuals who had sustainedbrain damage. It was this kind of researchthat has shed the very first light on the func-tional organisation of our most importantorgan. However, studies on brain-damagedpatients soon turned out to be limited anddid not reach our great expectations. Thissort of ‘scientific constipation’ fortunatelyhad not been long when neuroimagingmethods surfaced.

One of these new tools, functionalmagnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), wasparticularly promising and provided exactlywhat many cognitive neuroscientists hadbeen impatiently waiting for. In short, fMRIprovides both structural and functionalimages of the brain, and rests on the assump-tion that neural activity is correlated withtemporary changes in blood flow andoxygenation and that the magnetic proper-ties of oxygenated and deoxygenated bloodare different. It should then come as nosurprise that fMRI has become the tool thatscientists interested in brain-mind relationswant now to learn and use.

Aue, Lavelle and Cacioppo (2009) foundthat, since the beginning of systematic fMRIresearch in 1991, the number of studies usingthe method has increased drastically. Frommerely a few papers in 1994 to almost 3500 in2007 (Medline search). Many scientists,including Gazzaniga and Heatherton (2003),regard fMRI as a breakthrough that will soonpermit us to answer the most central ques-tions of psychological pheno-mena. Andwhile I must admit that fMRI studiesadvanced our knowledge in a way that hasbeen nothing short of revolutionary, the

fMRI world is not really happy as a clam athigh tide. Aside from various technical andmethodological issues in fMRI studies, thereare many other, equally worrisome, things.

The first thing that strikes me about fMRIstudies is how some neuroscientists over-interpret their results and end up withmisleading far-reaching implications. This isparticularly dangerous for many psycholo-gists, not to mention the media, who do notknow much about the process of fMRIresearch and may easily accept these claimsat face value. My favourite example is fromthe Daily Mail – ‘Women feel pain more thanmen, scientists say after studying brain scans’(Hope, 2011). The article rants from thevery beginning, saying ‘the long-runningbattle of the sexes over who feels the mostpain has been won’, as if the findings clari-fied everything in this research area.

A group of scientists studied brain activityin the anticipation and processing of pain.They investigated sex differences in responseto chronic pain in 16 men and 16 womenwith Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The results‘prove’ that in females, the activity of areasrelated to processing fear and those involvedin pain avoidance was smaller and greater,respectively. During a painful event, theopposite reaction was observed among menas they were more pain avoidant. Comparedto males, women showed greater activity inbrain regions that have been previouslylinked to feeling pain and processingemotions. The researchers concluded thatfemales attribute more emotional impor-tance to painful stimulus, which in turnaffects their perception and response topain. What is wrong with that?

Well, plenty of things. Firstly, brain scansgive you nothing but a three-dimensional


The Good, the Bad and the Ugly about the fMRI worldGrzegorz Maciejewski

image of hemodynamic changes that accom-pany a particular activity/task. It cannotmeasure emotional stimulation nor directlyreflects neural activity. Secondly, mostmental activities rely on interactions withinbrain networks that vary from person toperson in both brain structure and function.Consider not the brain, but another organ –the skin. There are some many reasons forwhich we sweat. Now some researchers mightthink that I am sweating because I amanxious, whereas the truth is that I have justhad a spicy curry for lunch. Just because twothings co-occur it does not mean you caninfer causality. While it is a good idea tostudy neural correlates of mental functions,conclusions on complex psychological phen-emona based on some ‘blobs’ are a differentstory. I do not really understand the fad tofavour fMRI over psychological data; thesetwo offer completely different levels ofdescription.

It seems that each week fMRI scans‘prove’ something that is far beyond theirexplanatory power, from political views tobelief in God. Just because fMRI looks ‘cool’and integrates many disciplines of science, itdoes not necessarily mean it is right. If this isthe sort of knowledge we offer to a wideraudience, no wonder some of my friends,researchers with no experience with neuro-imaging, fall for this high technology.

There is some hope though. Otherresearchers begin now to explore the poten-tial of fMRI. For example, Coleman et al.(2009) conducted a speech processing studyon 41 patients, who were once diagnosed asbeing in a vegetative state. There were twospeech conditions (sentences of high or lowsemantic ambiguity), unintelligible noise,and a silence condition. Before the experi-ment began, all patients’ ability to hear wasconfirmed with electrophysiological assess-ment of the auditory pathways. What is inter-esting is that while one of the diagnostic

criteria for the vegetative state is the inabilityto process speech, fMRI showed that thebrain of 19 patients responded to bothsound and speech. Four of the patients hadintact semantic processing, and two demon-strated a pattern of cortical activity that wasthe same as in healthy subjects processingdifficult high-ambiguity sentences. What ismore, Coleman et al. found that the level ofpatients’ performance at the time of scan-ning was a significant predictor of theirrecovery. All patients who had previouslyindicated high-level speech processingprogressed to a minimally conscious state sixmonths after the study.

This study emphasises the issuesconcerning the diagnosis of the vegetativestate, in which patients are neither comatosenor fully conscious. Problematic behaviouralassessment, lack of clear-cut diagnosticcriteria or indication of pathophysiologicalaetiology all contribute to the terrifyinglyhigh rate of misdiagnosis – 43 per cent(Andrews et al., 1996). Coleman andcolleagues have shown us that not only are somany patients, who are actually aware of theself and environment, ‘warehoused’ withoutadequate rehabilitation, but also that fMRIhas much more to offer than simple condi-tion-activation relationships.

Overall, the fMRI world much resemblesthe Disney-like world. There are heroes whoexplain the neurological basis of complexpsychological phenomena. But there arealso villains who got carried away withneuroimaging tools and have left us a messthat, I fear, will soon need to be cleaned up.

CorrespondenceGrzegorz MaciejewskiDepartment of Cognitive, Perceptual andBrain Sciences,University College London.Email: [email protected]


The Good, the Bad and the Ugly about the fMRI world

Andrews, K., Murphy, L., Munday, R. & Littlewood, C.(1996). Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state:Retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit.British Medical Journal, 313, 13–16.

Aue, T., Lavelle, L.A. & Cacioppo, J.T. (2009). Greatexpectations: What can fMRI research tell usabout psychological phenomena? InternationalJournal of Psychophysiology, 73, 10–16.

Coleman, M.R., Davis, M.H., Rodd, J.M., Robson, T.,Ali, A., Owen, A.M. & Pickard, J.D. (2009).Towards the routine use of brain imaging to aidthe clinical diagnosis of disorders of conscious-ness. Brain, 132, 2541–2552.

Gazzaniga, M. & Heatherton, T. (2003). Psychologicalscience: Mind, brain, and behavior. New York: W.W.Norton.

Hope, J. (2011). Women feel pain more than men,scientists say after studying brain scans. DailyMail. Retrieved from:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1366651/Women-feel-pain-men-scientists-say-studying-brain-scans.html.

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Grzegorz Maciejewski

References

Research DigestBlogging on brain and behaviour

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THERE ARE MANY REASONS why youmay wish to conduct research studiesonline, and online research is

becoming increasingly prevalent (Buchanan& Hvizdak, 2009). Perhaps you want torecruit a large number of participants, reacha broader population beyond staff andstudents at your institution, or target aspecific group of individuals who it may notbe practical to meet in person. Perhaps youare aiming to conduct ‘paperless’ research(even when I am in the lab, I often useonline questionnaires administered on alaptop rather than hard copies).

In this article, I share some ideas thatcame from my own experiences ofconducting cross-sectional and prospectiveresearch online. There are many approachesto internet-based research, and the most suit-able approach will vary from project toproject. This is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all, authoritative account of the best wayto do online research; instead, I presentsome suggestions you may find useful whenconducting internet-based research, with aparticular focus on online questionnairestudies.

Familiarise yourself with the basiclanguages of the webYou don’t need to be fluent in web languageslike HTML and CSS to display material onthe internet in an attractive and coherentway. Much of the time, you will be able to usevisual interfaces that allow you to edit theappearance of your work by simply pressing abutton (much like in Microsoft Word), usingsurvey packages such as LimeSurvey(https://www.limesurvey.org/). However, ifyou can learn a few basic bits of HTML andCSS, you will find this useful for occasions

when you need to write the code yourself. Forinstance, when formatting text, using <p>tags for paragraphs and <strong> tags forbold text will enable you to present materialclearly. The internet is full of useful guidesfor beginners that will help you get to gripswith the basics, such as W3Schools(http://www.w3schools.com), CodeAcademy(http://www.codecademy.com/), or thebeginner HTML and CSS course at TutsPlus(http://learncss.tutsplus.com).

Create a simple website that acts as anonline hub for your researchBuild a basic website that clearly states whoyou are, what your research is about, andhow to participate in your research (seeFigure 1 for an example). It is really useful tohave a website that contains all of the infor-mation that a potential participant will needto know. Once created, you can reuse yourwebsite for future studies, simply updatingthe text as you go along. I use my website forall of the studies I run, not just online ones.When I’m emailing around my departmentto recruit participants for a lab-based study, ithelps to have a single place that has all of therelevant information (e.g. how to sign up tothe study, where to go for the experiment,how to contact me, etc.). Many universitieswill allow you access to free webspace.Hosting your website on their servers (e.g.exeter.ac.uk) will help it look more profes-sional and credible.

When recruiting, be systematic abouthow you advertise your study.Think carefully about who you contact toadvertise your study. You will need to explainyour recruitment strategy for publicationand so your rationale must be clear.


Tips on conducting effective online researchRosemary Kingston

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Rosemary Kingston

Figure 1: An example of a simple research website.

Be methodical in deciding whom you willcontact. Don’t introduce bias into yourrecruitment by being haphazard in the wayyou advertise your study.

Think carefully before publicly advertisingyour research online (e.g. public Facebookgroups, discussion forums). One disadvan-tage of this approach is that as anyone couldpotentially view the study advertisement, itcan be difficult to describe your sample orrestrict participation to the population youwish to target (Birmbaum, 2004).

Craft a brief, polite and informative email to advertise your studyIf you are recruiting on a large scale, it issensible to write an email template that canbe copied and pasted to each person thatyou need to contact. Keep the email as briefas possible, and clearly state who you are,what you would like them to do, and whatthey need to do to help you. Make things aseasy as possible for them as they are doingyou a favour! For instance, if you wantsomeone to forward an email advertising

your study, have the email that you wantthem to forward displayed underneath youroriginal contact message, ready to be sentout. Get someone with a good eye for detailto proof-read your message to make sure it isclear – ideally, someone who doesn’t knowanything about your research.

Personalise your emailsWhilst it is fine to use a well-written template,where possible, you should personalise youremails, as this can increase response rates(Heerwegh et al., 2005). For instance,address it to a named contact person if thereis one, and briefly edit the text to mentiontheir institution and/or department.

Keep records of who you contact withrecruitment requestsIt is important to keep a log of who youcontact to prevent duplication and to enableyou to clearly describe your recruitmentstrategy when writing up your research. I recommend creating a spreadsheetcontaining the name of the person and/ororganisation, the date you contacted them,the email address you used, and whatresponse, if any, was given.

Be prepared to be flexible whenrecruitingMany organisations are happy to forwardaround details of a research study, howeversome prefer to display posters. Have a PDFversion of your poster available to emailthem, and have hard copies of posters thatyou could be posted on request. On yourposter, you could consider displaying a QRcode that links to your research website thatcan be scanned with a smartphone. Websitessuch as QRStuff (http://www.qrstuff.com)will generate the code for you.

Don’t infringe copyrightIf you are planning to administer standard-ised questionnaires on the internet, youneed to check that you have permission fromthe copyright holder to do so. If you’reunsure, email and ask.

Don’t breach data protection lawsIt is beyond the scope of this article todiscuss data protection in detail, but it issurprisingly easy to breach data protectionlaws without intending to do so! Familiariseyourself with the Data Protection Act (there is a ‘plain English’ guide here:http://www.ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection), and check with a knowl-edgeable person in your department if youhave any questions.

Carefully consider ethical andparticipant risk issuesAs with any research, make sure that you arefully compliant with the Society’s ethicalguidelines, but for internet research, youshould also consult their guidelines for conducting research online(http://www.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/conducting_research_on_the_internet-guidelines_for_ethical_practice_in_psychological_research_online.pdf).

When conducting research about highlypersonal or sensitive topics, you need tomake sure that you have an appropriate riskpolicy that has been approved by yourdepartmental ethics committee. If theresearch is highly likely to cause distress orhave lasting effects on your participants, theBPS advise against conducting the researchonline.

There are a number of ethical considera-tions pertinent to online research(Buchanan & Hvizdak, 2009). For instance,make sure participants know how to with-draw from the study. Many people exit thebrowser window, but you may wish to have an‘Exit the Study’ button that explicitly offersthe opportunity to quit the study on everypage. With longitudinal research, considerin advance how many reminder messagesyou will send to participants who fail torespond to initial follow-ups. This is some-thing that will need to be ethically approvedand clearly stated in advance to participants(so that they know they will be contacted acertain number of times if they do notrespond to the initial follow-up).



Keep clear records of participation,particularly if your study is longitudinalIf you are running a longitudinal study thatrequires you to contact participants again inthe future, consider keeping a spreadsheetof who has participated at each stage, andthe dates of their participation. If you aremanually sending emails to invite partici-pants to complete future parts of the study,include the dates for when each participantneeds to be contacted, and get into the habitof checking the spreadsheet daily. As well ashelping you to keep organised, thisapproach also allows you to easily calculatethe mean time between participation atdifferent time points (useful to include whenwriting up the research). Some online surveypackages allow the automation of follow-upemails, but make sure to thoroughly test thisfacility before you launch your study.

Think carefully about participantremunerationWith large-scale online studies, it is often notpossible or practical to offer remunerationto every participant. For this reason, manyresearchers choose to conduct a prize drawand offer a reward to one or a small numberof participants. It is also worth thinkingabout other non-material ways in whichparticipants can benefit from your study(e.g. learning something interesting aboutthemselves; giving them the option to hearabout the results of the research), so makesure to promote these.

Run a pilot study to test your onlinematerialsPilot your study with people who can give youdetailed feedback about whether the onlinematerials work properly, and whether thingsare easy to understand. Piloting will also giveyou an idea of how long it takes to completethe study, so you can give an honest and real-istic time estimate to prospective participants.Accurate time estimates are important asmany online study participants take part intheir own time, and are less likely to have timeset aside as in a traditional lab-based study.

Consider the design of your study withonline presentation in mindA number of articles have been publishedcontaining further suggestions and guide-lines for designing internet studies (e.g.Reips, 2002a, 2002b); below are a selectionof specific points to consider. If you are usingonline questionnaires, think about the waythese are presented to participants (e.g. textformatting, length of each page). Use as fewmeasures as you can to assess your variablesof interest. You are more likely to havemissing data if your study takes a long time tocomplete and has lots of measures(McKnight et al., 2007). If you are conduct-ing a questionnaire-based study, think aboutthe order in which your measures arepresented. Attrition can be high in onlinestudies, with one possible reason for thisbeing because of the relative ease of termi-nating participation: Unlike a lab experi-ment where a participant would need toexcuse themselves, internet participants cansimply exit the webpage, free from embar-rassment or social pressure (Birnbaum,2004).

As such, you may wish to put the mostimportant measures first. If you think theremay be order effects, consider randomisingthe order in which your measures arepresented (most online survey packages willallow you to do this). Consider whether youwant any questions to be mandatory so thatparticipants are alerted to complete them ifomitted Remember that you may not bepresent when participants are completingthe study, so be extra careful in ensuring thatall of your instructions are extremely clear.

Thoroughly test that your datacollection methods (e.g. questionnaires)workBefore launching your study, repeatedly testthat your measures work and that responsesare being recorded to your satisfaction. Thissounds quite obvious, but it is sometimeseasy for online materials to look correct at aglance, but actually record the data incor-rectly (e.g. if you have set up response codes

20 PsyPAG Quarterly

Rosemary Kingston

for particular answers to questions). If youare using logic rules to display certain thingsto certain participants (e.g. if participantanswers A, display Question 1, if participantanswers B, display Question 2), check rigor-ously that the information displays correctlyin all possible iterations.

Think about how participants can askyou questionsGive very clear information about howparticipants can ask questions beforeconsenting to participate, and at any timeduring the study: As a minimum, you shouldprovide your email address, and give timelyresponses to any questions.

CorrespondenceRosemary KingstonUniversity of Exeter.Email: [email protected]

ReferencesBirnbaum, M.H. (2004). Human research and data

collection via the internet. Annual Review ofPsychology, 55, 803–832.

Buchanan, E.A. & Hvizdak, E.E. (2009). Onlinesurvey tools: Ethical and methodologicalconcerns of human research ethics committees.Journal of Empirical Research on Human ResearchEthics: An International Journal, 4, 37–48.

Heerwegh, D., Vanhove, T., Matthijs, K. & Loosveldt,G. (2005). The effect of personalisation onresponse rates and data quality in web surveys.International Journal of Social Research Methodology,8, 85–100.

McKnight, P.E., McKnight, K.M., Sidani, S. &Figueredo, A.J. (2007). Missing data: A gentle intro-duction. New York: The Guilford Press.

Reips, U. (2002a). Internet-based psychologicalexperimenting. Social Science Computer Review, 20,241–249.

Reips, U. (2002b). Standards for internet-basedexperimenting. Experimental Psychology, 49,243–256.



What do we mean by ‘secondary data’?

THIS TERM refers to already existingdatasets that were either collected bysomeone else or for a different purpose.

Secondary data analysis is a practice encour-aged by many research councils and otherresearch funding bodies which have beenactively advocating the re-use of alreadyexisting datasets. For example, theEconomic and Social Research Council(ESRC) introduced the Secondary DataAnalyses Initiative which aims to deliver highimpact policy through deeper exploitationof existing data resources. This £10.8 millioninitiative started in 2012, and the secondphase has opened in 2013 inviting proposalsfor innovative and creative projects of up to£200,000 each (www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/).

Many datasets are freely accessible toresearchers via data archives and repositories(you simply need to register!) and can alsobe requested from local experts, interna-tional institutions and charities working inthe area of interest.

The UK has an incredible collection ofdatasets such as the world-leading cohortstudies (e.g. Millennium Cohort Study,www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/mcs), Census datasets(www.census.ac.uk) and other longitudinalstudies (e.g. Scottish Longitudinal Study,www.lscs.ac.uk/sls/). There is relatively littlequalitative secondary data; the two mainresources are: Timescapes – a longitudinalstudy of the relationships with significantothers (www.timescapes.leeds.ac.uk) andQualidata (www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/).

Popular misconceptions aboutsecondary data analysis ‘Saves time collecting your own data’Although secondary data analysis may betime- and cost-effective, the time needed toevaluate and prepare a dataset is oftenunderestimated. It depends on the scale andquality of the dataset as well as specificity ofthe research topic, but it may take from acouple of weeks of intense work to manymonths of preparation and data cleaning.

‘You can always find some significant results’Datasets available are often very large and assuch have a lot of power in estimating thestrength of relationships with reasonableprecision; however, they also have goodpower to estimate significance. Due to therisk of cherry-picking of variables or trawlingdata for significant relationships, manyrepositories require researchers to presentthe social case and rationale for their projectbefore any data are revealed to them. Thisemphasises the importance of having clearresearch questions before approaching thedata. The choice of dataset must be directedby a research question, and the appropriate-ness of the dataset to answer this question.

‘A monkey could do it’More often than not, analysing large scalesecondary datasets requires advanced statis-tical and analytical skills as well as thoroughunderstanding of the chosen dataset. Largedataset collections always involve experts andprofessionals in the area which often resultsin sophisticated sampling and weightingtechniques. Some funding bodies offerspecialist workshops to help researchers


On a date with secondary data: Things you should know before askingsomeone else’s data outPatrycja Piotrowska

familiarise themselves with chosen datasetand advanced statistical techniques (e.g.ESRC National Centre for ResearchMethods, www.ncrm.ac.uk/).

‘I’m in control of my research project’Although a project is based on your ownresearch questions and ideas it is also heavilydependent on the data available. Whenworking with a dataset someone elsecollected, not all the information you wouldhave liked may have been included or ques-tions may have been asked in a different wayto what you would have preferred. As aresearcher you lose the chance to chooseyour own measures and may find yourselfworking with the data you have, not the oneyou wish had been collected.

Not all that bad…Despite quite a few not so positive things youshould consider before starting your journeywith secondary data, there are numerousadvantages of this endeavour.

High-impact outputLarge-scale projects are often more easilygeneralisable due to the breadth and type ofthe data. They are also a unique tool to studyquestions that you could not possibly addresswith primary data such as time trend analyseswhich require comparable cohort studies,life course development, or behaviouralgenetics studies based on twin or adoptiondesigns; this could not be done from scratchas a single research project within oneresearch team.

Self-developmentAs with any research project, use ofsecondary data will require you to learn newtechniques and methodologies; it will alsohelp you develop resilience as the volume ofdata is often quite overwhelming andcleaning procedures daunting (butextremely important too!). It will alsoincrease your awareness of the importanceof high-quality data management (there isnothing like the joy of figuring out how the

data were coded or why the same codingscheme was not applied to the wholesample).

NetworkingDue to the multidisciplinary nature of manydatasets, you may find yourself workingalongside researchers from other depart-ments such as economists or statisticians.This enhances new cross-disciplinary collab-orations and helps create knowledgeexchange environment.

FundingWith the existing and upcoming secondarydata initiatives and the UK’s largest nationalbirth cohort study – Life Study around thecorner (www.lifestudy.ac.uk/), many fundingbodies happily welcome proposals involvingthe re-use of existing datasets (e.g. NuffieldFoundation, www.nuffieldfoundation.org)

EmployabilityAbilities to perform and relay complex statis-tical procedures as well as analyse large-scaledatasets are increasingly desired by manyemployers, not only within research but alsocommercial services.

Go and find an interesting dataset! Secondary data analyses are important forresearch integrity and the future of manydisciplines. One day you may also be asked toshare your data (which will surely increasethe number of citations for your ownresearch). With that in mind, it is alwaysuseful to have a clear and accurate datamanagement plan in place.

There are many pros and cons ofsecondary data analyses, but being aware ofthem is the first step to making an informeddecision whether one wants to get involved insecondary data projects. The key, not only tosuccess but also to ensuring you make themost of all the opportunities offered bysecondary data, is to stay extremely focused onyour goals and research questions, choose ahigh-quality dataset, and remember that whileit is not going to be easy, it will be worthwhile.


On a date with secondary data: Things you should know before asking someone else’s data out

Useful resourcesEconomic and Social Data Servicewww.esds.ac.uk/ UK Data Archivewww.data-archive.ac.uk/ESRC Research Catalogue www.esrc.ac.uk/impacts-and-findings/research-catalogue/index.aspxOffice for National Statisticswww.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html HM Governmentwww.data.gov.ukWorld Health Organisationwww.who.int/research/en/Social Data Sources (US)www.socialdata.info/ Census (US)www.census.gov/

CorrespondencePatrycja J. Piotrowska, BSc, MBPsSUniversity of Sheffield.Email: [email protected]

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CALLING ALL POSTGRADS!Join the DOP Annual Conference 2014 to meet potential employers, learn more about your chosenprofession, build your network of contacts, and hear about hot topics in the field.This year, the conference has tailored the theme ‘Investing in the Future’ into eight smaller streams,giving you a wider variety of sessions to choose from. You can take part in a choice of professionalworkshops, career sessions or discussion forums that is of most interest to you!

Benefits of attending for you include:l Publication session with Dr Jonathon Halbesleben, Chief Editor of the Journal of Occupational

and Organizational Psychology (JOOP). l Learn about the most cutting-edge research insights from both a practitioner and research

point of view. l Networking with peers, employers and renowned guest speakers.l Interactive programme including presentations, symposiums, bitesize sessions

‘Meet the Keynotes’ etc. l Discover the latest developments with what companies have to offer by visiting the conference

exhibitors’ stands.l And most importantly, a relaxed informal atmosphere which give you an invaluable opportunity

to have a quick chat with some of the leading practitioners and researchers in the UK.

What’s more! First time attending the DOP? Then be sure to join our Conference Ambassador Programme. It isespecially designed to make sure you feel welcomed at the conference. On top of that, our excitingprogramme will match you with a Conference Ambassador who will introduce you to their network,making it an effective way to expand your own professional contacts and a chance to meet withothers who have shared interests. And that’s not all! The conference will also be having a Career’s Surgery for early career psychologistsand fresh graduates to ask questions relating to the profession, as well as hearing about theexperiences, advices and views on career planning from a senior occupational psychologist. Last year, our Career’s Forum was a huge success! Companies like SHL, Zircon, Saville, CriterionPartnership, Cubiks and many others participated in the session. This is a chance to hear snappypresentations from various organisations relating to job openings for a range of positions.Subsequently, delegates are given some time to mingle and discuss with the representatives from theorganisation, which of course, is normally extended throughout the entire conference. See the value our 2013 postgraduate attendees derived from the conference:‘This was my first time attending a DOP event. As a postgraduate student, attending this conferencenot only gave me the opportunity to learn about others’ exciting developments in the field, but alsothe exciting chance to meet the big names that we always reference for our assignment in real life!I’m delighted that I attended this event and looking forward to upcoming conferences in future.’Dana Ho, MSc Work Psychology and Business Student, Aston Business School‘As this was my first conference, I wasn’t too sure what to expect, however, I found it to be veryuseful and interesting. The talks were engaging and the careers forum gave both practical advice aswell as providing the opportunity to meet recruiting organisations. Presenting my dissertationfindings was a little nerve-wracking but a great experience and I would definitely recommend it. I would encourage other graduates to attend as I feel it was beneficial and insightful.’Helen Baker, MSc Organisational Psychology Student, Leeds University Business School

EXCEPTIONAL VALUE FOR MONEYThe DOP Annual Conference offers an exceptional opportunity for you to be a part of a high qualityprogramme and provides an excellent networking event for those new to the profession. Conference rates offer remarkable value for money and as a postgraduate you can also takeadvantage of our special three-day ‘POP’ package being offered. Full registration details areavailable at: www.bps.org.uk/dop2014 If you haven’t already done so…book your place now!If you have any queries please get in touch with us at: [email protected].


N MY FIRST YEAR training as an Educa-tional Psychologist at Newcastle University,I was lucky enough that the BPS Division of

Educational and Child Psychology (DECP)held their annual conference in Gateshead.Unencumbered by a hefty rail or aeroplanefare (which was more keenly appreciatedafter becoming a student for the third time),I was able to bus over the Tyne with mycolleagues to the one-day event, that theDECP arranged specifically to celebrate theresearch of Trainee Educational Psycholo-gists (TEPs) from across the country. Fourmonths into my course, the final submissionof my own research seemed an eternity away,so I was able to relax into the day and marvelat the range of topics, methodologies andcontexts which the research presentedcovered. It was stimulating to see colleaguesat the end of their training and it has beenan event which I have reflected upon andbeen grateful to have attended throughoutthe whole of my own training.

This year I had the opportunity topresent my own research, on Teacher Self-Efficacy and Teacher Practice in the Philos-ophy for Children classroom, at the DECPTEP conference at the other end of thecountry in Bristol. The first TEP conferenceI had attended helped me to consider myhopes and aims for my research; I felt thatpresenting at the 2013 conference wouldhave benefits not only for writing-up myresearch, but also for preparing me tocommunicate my ideas and enthusiasm forthe topic at my Viva.

Preparation: The value of immersion,cool reflection and imposing deadlinesThe experience delivered on all fronts. As my course involved three days a week ona professional practice placement and theother two days working on my research anda practice portfolio, it was somewhat of aluxury to be able to commit myself for longstretches solely to my research. Preparing forthe conference presented one such opportu-nity: a chance to immerse myself over theChristmas holidays in my research. Assomeone who works better when havingdeadlines in place, the conference provideda useful focal point to consider where I waswith my research, where I was going andwhat it was all starting to mean. It was achance to have some ‘cool’ reflection (Eraut,1995), one step removed from the everydaycarrying out of my research plan, andconsider what this meant for the next stepsin my analysis.

Refining the research narrative Taking a step back and putting my ideas intoa logical structure, in the form of a confer-ence presentation, was also a chance to criti-cally consider what ideas were essential. Foxsuggests that we can become ‘attached cogni-tively, and emotionally’ (Fox, 2011, p.325) toperspectives that we have formative experi-ences with, such as those ideas that help ustake next steps in research. I initially wantedto cling to the safety and familiarity of theseperspectives when going in to the new andchallenging situation of communicating to


Hints and Tips/Conference Review:

Presenting at a conference for TraineeEducational Psychologists: Reflections onthe benefits for the research processFiona McBryde

I

others about my research; yet, it can be valu-able to look back from points on the researchjourney and think about whether these sameideas are necessary for others in order tounderstand the messages of your research.Preparing this and other presentations was areally useful tool for me in helping to eval-uate whether these ideas were still part of thenarrative that gave my research meaning forthose less familiar with it.

Taking this step back was also part of theprocess of determining what should begoing in to my ‘elevator pitch’ for theresearch and what could be left out. By thetime it came to my Viva I felt I had managedto distil the key messages of my research andthe background ideas that were necessary tomake it meaningful to anyone who had notlived with it for two years like I had. Finally,by laying out the narrative of my researchthrough a PowerPoint presentation, I endedup with a really useful resource for referenceto use throughout the remainder of myresearch. I found myself constantlyreturning to my slides in the followingmonths when writing memos, reflectingupon and writing up my research.

Engaging in a professional developmentevent: Experiences of efficacy andsocial construction of knowledgeIn addition to the process of preparing mypresentation, being and talking at theconference on the day itself brought manybenefits. First of all, the experience ofstanding up in front of interested colleaguewho are nevertheless mostly strangers wasimmensely reassuring: yes I did know what I was doing, yes I did know why, and yes, I wasable to relax in the face of this knowledgeand allow myself to share my enthusiasm formy topic. Personally, I found this valuable toknow, as when it came to my Viva I couldremind myself that I knew my stuff in theface of potentially tricky questions.

Secondly, attending some of the otherworkshops in the day was a wonderful oppor-tunity for seeing other TEPs at a similar stageof their professional and research journeys.

Like Bandura’s (1997) vicarious experiencesleading to positive self-efficacy, seeing otherssucceed in both presenting and incontributing to new knowledge for theprofession was motivating. Even seeing thoseat the start of their TEP training, with all theresearch still to come, was a valuable experi-ence; perhaps as it put me back in touch withthe person I was at the start of my Educa-tional Psychology Doctorate in Gateshead,wondering what I would end up researching.

Thirdly, attending and presenting for aprofession-oriented conference helped meconsider my research in terms of its profes-sional context. Partly this was throughtuning in to my audience’s reaction andtheir thoughts about my research as a pieceof applied psychology. Hearing and seeingothers go through the same process ofmaking links between their research andtheir practice prompted me to continue toreflect on this.

Finally, my thesis was rooted in a socialconstructivist perspective and so I felt thatinteraction with others around my researchtopic was a key process for creating the newknowledge at the heart of my research.Taking it to the highly social environment ofthe conference was an opportunity to ensurethat I took advantage of this perspective increating my research. In addition, I had thechance to take part in discussions aboutother TEPs’ research, which I know will havesparked new ideas for the participating TEPsin a way that sitting alone with your laptopand data for hours on end cannot.

From a continuing professional develop-ment perspective, I gained new knowledgeof research methodologies, such as Interpre-tive Phenomenological Analysis andFoucauldian Discourse Analysis, insight in tothe topics which my colleagues have beenresearching, including parents’ views onsupporting their children with reading athome, and ways of using technology innova-tions in applied psychology settings, such asusing iPad apps to gather children’s views inassessments of their educational needs.


Presenting at a conference for Trainee Educational Psychologists

An event such as the TEP conference is avaluable reminder of the incredible andexciting range of new ideas, people andpassions that are coming in to the professionof Educational Psychology every year. If I could have gone to all the presentationsavailable on the day, I would have, whichmakes me excited to now be going in to aprofession of applied researchers with theirown research passions and stories to tell. I wish everyone who presented at the confer-ence, and the other TEPs currently finishingtheir training, all the best in continuing todisseminate and put into practice theresearch that you have loved and labouredover. For those who have their EducationalPsychology or other Doctorate research tocome, I highly recommend engaging withrelevant professional development confer-ences and presenting where possible: thebenefits really are numerous and invaluable.

CorrespondenceFiona McBrydeNewcastle University.Email: [email protected]

ReferencesBandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control.

New York: W.H. Freeman.Eraut, M. (1995). Schon Shock: A case for refraining

reflection in action? Teachers and Teaching, 1(1),9–22. doi: 10.1080/1354060950010102

Fox, M. (2011). Practice-based evidence – over-coming insecure attachments. EducationalPsychology in Practice, 27(4), 325–335.doi: 10.1080/02667363.2011.615299

28 PsyPAG Quarterly

Fiona McBryde

Bursary Deadline

Up to £300 for an international conference bursary

Up to £100 for a domestic conference bursary 10 February 2014

Up to £50 for a travel bursary

Up to £100 for other events (e.g. training events, workshops, etc.) No deadline

For more information about any of the financial support PsyPAG offers, please visit our website:http://www.psypag.co.uk/bursaries

PsyPAG Bursaries

LTHOUGH it is not an essential part ofa PhD to attend an internationalconference, it is something that

seems to be becoming the norm, rather thanthe exception. I had watched other PhDstudents in my study year jet off to a varietyof places from Scotland to Portugal andfrom Texas to Indianapolis; it was difficultnot to feel even a little bit jealous! When mysupervisor suggested submitting some of mywork for the Academy for Eating Disorders(AED) conference in Montreal, I certainlydidn’t imagine attending; after all, a PhDstudent’s budget will only go so far, andMontreal isn’t somewhere you can just popto for the day. We were very fortunate tosecure support from the Graduate School atLoughborough University and from PsyPAG,which made my attendance possible oncethe abstract had been accepted.

I hadn’t quite realised how much therewas to organise when attending a confer-ence; needless to say there was plenty to keepme busy in the run up to the trip, with thelogistics of fitting a poster into a suitcase justone of the things that provided some enter-tainment. I was also under no misconcep-tions that this would be a holiday, spendingmost of the seven-hour flight from Londonto Montreal working on my thesis.

The International Conference on EatingDisorders (ICED) is the largest annualeating disorder conference in the world,with more than 1000 eating disorders profes-sionals gathering for the 2013 three-dayconference in the beautiful city of Montreal.Attendees were from a wide range of back-

grounds, including researchers, psychiatristsand therapists, as well as a significant studentpresence. One of the primary themes of thisyear’s conference was crossing interdiscipli-nary boundaries, and in particular recog-nising what can be learnt from other fields inorder to further our understanding of eatingdisorders. In reflection of this, the keynotespeaker was Professor David Barlow, whospoke about some of the parallels that can bedrawn between diagnostic and therapeuticapproaches for neuroticism and eating disor-ders. He proposed taking a more globalperspective on mental health and its under-lying psychopathology, questioning thevalidity and usefulness from a therapeuticperspective of categorising disorders in finedetail. In terms of treatment, he suggestedan approach of tackling the traits that arecommon across mental health issues, such asneuroticism. It was refreshing to considersome of the broader issues within mentalhealth research and therapy, and promptedus to reflect on our current focus on thesymptoms and manifestations of eatingdisorders. Up to two-thirds of eating disorderpatients are diagnosed within the category ofEating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified,(Fairburn et al., 2007) as they fail to meetthe specific criteria for anorexia nervosa orbulimia nervosa; a reminder that the classifi-cation system is not always as successful as wemight hope.

ICED 2013 also had a strong clinicalfocus, in addition to presenting some of thecutting edge research within the field.Alongside every scientific paper session


Conference Review:

International Conference on Eating Disorders 2013Carolyn Plateau

Montreal, Canada, 1–4 May 2013.

A

a number of clinically relevant workshopswere held, focussing on bridging the gapbetween research and practice. Theprogramme was, therefore, tailored to meetthe needs of both the clinician and theresearch delegates, although it often repre-sented quite a challenge in deciding whichto attend. There was so much going onconcurrently, it was easy to feel like you hadmissed out on something important. I priori-tised attending sessions that had particularrelevance to my PhD work, which is in thearea of eating disorders in sport, but other-wise tried to experience a variety of sessionsand topics to gain an insight into the depthand diversity of current research.

One of the really exciting things aboutattending ICED 2013 was being able tonetwork and talk to people currently doingresearch within my area. When presentingmy poster (entitled ‘Coach experiences ofidentifying disordered eating amongstathletes’) I enjoyed talking to several peoplewith similar research interests; a few ofwhom I have been in touch with since ourreturn to the UK, with the hope of collabo-ration in the future. The AED also hold aseries of Special Interest Group (SIG) meet-ings at ICED, which allow researchers withspecific interests to come together anddiscuss salient issues within that particularfield. At ICED 2013 there was a meeting ofthe Sport and Exercise SIG, with a presenta-tion from Ron Thompson and RobertaSherman about their new specialist treat-ment centre specifically for athletes. It alsorepresented a fantastic opportunity todiscuss my PhD research with people at theforefront of the field.

It was nice to have a small amount of timeat the end of the conference to explore thecity of Montreal. The French and Americancultural influences complemented eachother extraordinarily well, with somewonderful architecture on display andfantastic food on offer. The weather was alsoa real bonus, with some beautiful sunshinefor the three days that we were there; a pleasant change from the drizzle in the UKat the time.

The conference environment and incred-ible volume of cutting-edge research ondisplay meant that I returned from Montrealvery motivated about my work and a futurein research. It was inspiring to hear aboutthe wide range of research being conductedwithin a relatively small field, and served as areminder that we can often get caught up inour own ‘niche’ area when doing PhDresearch, and risk becoming oblivious to theleaps and bounds of research within the fieldas a whole. As I come to the end of my PhDand consider what my next steps will be,attending ICED 2013 provided a fantasticopportunity to witness the extensive amountof research being done, but also still to bedone within this field.

CorrespondenceCarolyn Plateau, BA MResLoughborough University.Email: [email protected]

ReferencesFairburn, C.G., Cooper, Z., Bohn, K., O’Connor,

M.E., Doll, H.A. & Palmer R.L. (2007). Theseverity and status of eating disorder NOS: Impli-cations for DSM-V. Behaviour Research & Therapy,45(8) 1705–1715.

30 PsyPAG Quarterly

Carolyn Plateau

UE TO THE SNOWY WEATHERtraffic was moving very slowly and I arrived just after the morning’s

presentations had started, so I took theopportunity to set up my poster and attemptnetworking. There is something about thisterm which makes my toes curl, chatting overcoffee – no problem, networking – no thankyou! Although, like many postgraduates I have attended the training, it can still seemdifficult or awkward to approach a strangerto ask about their work. Especially if theperson you wish to talk with is very senior,successful or well-known and as a PhDstudent it can feel as if everyone else meetsthese criteria! I decided to try somethingdifferent and rather than opening conversa-tions with topics I felt I should be discussing(new NHS policies), I began with somethingless heavy-fashion.

This new strategy was working well and I began to relax and enjoy the conference.Yet had I known that the stylish coupleapproaching my poster were an awardwinning specialist heart-failure nurse and asuccessful economic researcher I may nothave called out ‘great shoes!’. However, forme it was a much easier and more relaxednetworking strategy than ‘Do you think theFrancis Report will bring about lastingchange?’ After discussing conferencefashion choices we moved on to motivationsfor attending and I took the opportunity toask if they thought change to organisationalculture was possible. As a result Dr ChiHoong Sin and Jill Nicholl invited me totheir afternoon symposium: ‘Generating

Clinically Relevant Impactful Evidence inPractice’.

The symposium, Chaired by Janice Smyth(Director of the Royal College of Nurses forIreland), explored the theme of nurses devel-oping economically viable health care inno-vations. The presenters argued that in timesof economic austerity it is vital that healthcare is efficient and good value, rather thanhampered by ill-informed spending cuts. As aresult the Royal College of Nurses launched‘Front-Line First’, a campaign to publicisecuts to front-line services and unnecessarywaste and also promote nurse-led innova-tions. Their website details small changes thatnurses have made to their working practicesto improve patient outcomes and provide amore cost-effective, efficient service. In thefirst paper, Ann McMahon, described onesuch example, in which how nurses collabo-rated with a non-profit organisation (theOffice of Public Management) to demon-strate both the clinical effectiveness and alsocost benefits of redesigning older adult careprovision, hereby increasing the impact ofthis innovation.

Conducting an economic assessment anddemonstrating the business case for organi-sational change can be challenging andtherefore the second paper, presented by Dr Chi Hoong Sin, explained how the Officeof Public Management, provides appropriatelogistical support during the evaluationprocess. In the final paper Jill Nichollpresented an economic assessment of theHeart Failure Nurse Liason Service(HFNLS) in Tayside, Scotland. This service


Conference Review:

Royal College of Nurses InternationalNursing Research ConferenceJenny Watts

Belfast, 20–22 March 2013

D

offers specialist support to at risk patientshereby reducing the duration of hospitalstays and also the likelihood of readmission.Jill Nichols’ assessment of costs and benefits,both direct and indirect, demonstrated thatthe HFNLS saves nearly £500 per patient.Therefore, the presentations argued thatinformed decisions made by front-line staffcan yield significant clinical and monetarybenefits.

Overall the conference was informal andinformative and I am glad I took the oppor-tunity to present my research. I left withsome useful references for my final thesischapter and talking with fellow delegatesproved to be invaluable viva preparation. In hindsight, would I advise attending in thefinal hectic weeks before submitting yourthesis? This would depend on how hectic!Yet having a fixed commitment helpedensure that when back in England myremaining days were well-structured and theremaining time was not wasted.

Attending a conference in the final stagesof your PhD can provide the opportunity toreflect on the wide issues within your field,gain new perspectives and take a break fromthe thesis, yet still remain productive. If youare a conducting general health careresearch, or research with nurses andseeking a relevant conference I stronglyrecommend attending the next RCNResearch Conference to be held in Glasgowin April 2014. Michael West, Professor inOrganisational Psychology at LancasterUniversity, will be one of the keynotespeakers.

AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank the University ofLeicester, School of Psychology and PsyPAGfor contributing towards my conferenceexpenses.

CorrespondenceJenny WattsUniversity of Leicester.Email: [email protected]

32 PsyPAG Quarterly

Jenny Watts

BELFAST TOWN HALL

TOGETHER WITH 51 undergraduateand postgraduate psychology studentswe attended the 2nd Junior Researcher

Programme Conference in Cambridge. Theconference is highly international: studentsattending represented 25 EEA countriestogether with Brazil, Canada, Malaysia,Philippines, Singapore and the US. Theconference was a truly inspiring event with amix of science, knowledge-sharing, net-working and a diversity of cultures. In thisreview we will elaborate on some of the high-lights from the conference and hopefullymotivate you to engage in this programmeyourself.

The Junior Researcher Programme (JRP)is a branch of the European Federation forPsychology Students Association (EFPSA).The programme is led by the Director, Dr Kai Ruggeri, from the University ofCambridge. The Research Officer for ourcohort was Luís Miguel Tojo from MaastrichtUniversity. Although the JRP is a programmerun under EFPSA, it has collaborations with researchers from the University ofCambridge and RAND Europe. The pro-gramme offers a professional and academicnetwork for its delegates.

The conference represented the finalphase of the JRP, which started, for ourcohort, in the European Summer Schoolheld in July 2012 in Vila Nova de Foz Côa,Portugal. During the European SummerSchool, we were divided in small groups offive to seven students. The theme of the

summer school was ‘The Biased Brain:Research in Decision Making’. Under thewatchful eye of a PhD supervisor, weconducted a literature review, formulated aresearch question and came up with aresearch proposal. In the following academicyear all students conducted research in theirhome countries and discussed progress viaonline communication tools. After a year ofhard work, the students assembled inCambridge to further analyse the collecteddata and discuss the results. Consequently,the focus was placed on methodology,analysis and discussion of outcomes duringthis conference. The research projects werepresented in a poster symposium, at theDepartment of Psychology of the Universityof Cambridge, and through oral presenta-tions, at Corpus Christi College.

On day one of the conference, 24 JRPdelegates presented their research posters.We were excited to take part in this postersession since it was our first poster presenta-tion. Together with our fellow students, wehad worked hard on this extracurricularresearch project and were curious as to whatour peers’ comments would be. Ourresearch (Tekin et al., 2013) looked into therole of self-construal in eyewitness memoriesand the susceptibility to different sources ofinformation. Similar to the well-knownLoftus study (Loftus & Palmer, 1974), parti-cipants watched a clip of a theft and weresubsequently misled by a written testimonythat deviated from the clip. The phenom-


Conference Review:

2nd Junior Researcher ProgrammeConferenceLaurien Nagels-Coune & Madeleine Dalsklev

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 14–15 August 2013.Junior Researcher Programme by European Federation of Psychology StudentsAssociation: www.efpsa.org/junior-researcher-programme/

enon where memory is distorted by newinformation, contradicting the originalmemory, is commonly referred to as the Post-event Misinformation Effect (PME; Loftus &Palmer, 1974). We also wanted to look atcultural differences in memory distortion.One such dimension is independence andinterdependence. People with high inde-pendent self-construal scores stronglybelieve in their own memory, while interde-pendent individuals place greater value oninformation received from others (Markus &Kitayama, 1991) and, therefore, might bemore likely to incorporate others’ informa-tion into their own memory. We predictedthat people with interdependent self-construals would be more susceptible to thePME than people with independent self-construals, especially when it comes from anauthoritative source (e.g. a police officer offduty as compared to an anonymousbypasser). Participants watched a video clipof a theft, after which they were presentedwith a testimony, containing the misinforma-tion, from a police officer or an anonymousbypasser. Memory distortion was assessedwith a multiple choice test and participantsfilled in the Self-Construal Scale (Singelis,1994). Preliminary analysis of 237 partici-pants revealed no interaction effect betweenself-construal and the authoritative level ofthe source but hinted to a possible maineffect of source of misinformation. Theauthoritative source elicited less suscepti-bility to PME than the non-authoritativesource. Through discussing with our peersduring the poster presentation, many inter-esting interpretations for our strange find-ings came up. For example, it could be thecase that police officers are perceived asuntrustworthy in certain countries. Ourpeers advised us to use a different analysismethod and to conduct country specificanalyses in the near future.

Another interesting poster was presentedby Robert Blakey (Blakey, 2013) with thetitle: Are two heads better than one? Theeffect of expert/novice interaction on esti-mation accuracy. In this study they investi-

gated whether experts and novices estimatequantities more accurately alone comparedto together. Further, they wanted to investi-gate how the expert/novice interactioncould affect the subsequent estimation accu-racy of experts and novices alone. Theresults are still being analysed, but the studyhas important implications in educationalsettings in deciding whether or not tolecture in mixed or streamed ability classes.

Oral presentations took place on thesecond day of the conference. The group ledby Samuel Lins (Lins et al., 2013) kicked offthe day enthusiastically with their study onthe role of need for cognition, hedonismand materialism in impulse buying. Theyconducted a questionnaire study in adoles-cents, an age group under-represented inresearch on impulse buying. Their mostinteresting hypothesis concerned the needfor cognition, which refers to derivingpleasure from effortful cognitive activity.This concept was sparsely studied in rela-tionship to impulse buying tendency (IBT).The only study that examined the relation-ship between need for cognition and IBT sofar, found a correlation in the right direc-tion, however, not statistically significant(Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001). Thepresented themselves found that need forcognition was only negatively correlated withIBT in one out of five countries. Addition-ally, need for cognition did not seem tomoderate the link between materialism andIBT or hedonism and IBT. These interestingresults made us think the following: impulsebuying affects ‘thinkers’ as well as ‘non-thinkers’ because there is no act of thinkinginvolved in impulse buying. An interestingtopic to keep an eye on in the future.

A related presentation, this time on deci-sion-making in sports as opposed to in shop-ping, was given by the group led by VandaCorreia (Correia et al., 2013). Their studyaimed to answer the question: Do basketballplayers rely on previous observation of oppo-nents or decide during on-going interac-tions? Although their study was welldesigned (they planned to videotape profes-

34 PsyPAG Quarterly

Laurien Nagels-Coune & Madeleine Dalsklev

sional basketball players from three differentangles while performing two different tasks),they experienced many practical set-backsduring their data collection. Their opennesson the many experienced practicalconstraints, resulted in a fruitful discussionthat installed hope for their future datacollection. We regard the opportunity todiscuss research findings in an open andrelaxed environment as an especially positiveaspect of the JRP Conference.

Several participants from the previouscohort, 2011–2012, presented how theirresearch projects further developed after theJRP. An important study was conducted byDafina Petroval and colleagues, entitled: Notall information is good: Young women’sexperiences with communication about theHuman Papilloma Virus vaccine in fourEuropean countries. With young adultsbeing the highest risk of infection, it isimportant to explore the experiences withthe HPV vaccine among young women. Theyfound that communicating about the risk ofHPV in general, and the HPV vaccine wasvalued by young women. Being a cross-cultural study, another important findingwas that it seems to be beneficial forcampaigns to incorporate culturally tailoredcommunication.

For the final presentation in the confer-ence, the Director’s Talk, a vision for thefuture of the programme was laid out by Dr Ruggeri. In it, he covered a brief historyof how everything was developed and keymilestones – and setbacks – faced thus far.He noted the considerable increase in visi-bility and strategy for establishing the scien-tific foundations moving forward. He alsoremarked on the extensive stability in termsof administrative support and willingness tocontribute amongst JRP members. The newalumni have an important role in developingthe programme in the future, both through

supporting new members and connectionsto academic institutions across Europe andbeyond. In closing, he made it clear that theprogramme would continue to provideprofessional development opportunities forboth the top young psychologists in Europeand the most motivated students who mightnot otherwise have such chances.

As you have read, the diverse domain ofhuman decision-making was tackled fromdiverse backgrounds and viewpoints. Aftertwo very busy yet inspiring conference days,a beautiful formal dinner was held in CorpusChristi College. The reception took place inthe old court yard and subsequently we wereserved a supreme three-course dinner in theimposing main dining hall. During thisdinner the JRP programme was officiallyclosed for our cohort. When we look back atthe past year, we feel proud to have reachedsuch an advanced level of scientific researchand writing. We got the unique opportunitybe a part of a cross-country collaborativeresearch project, and were guided by profes-sionals in the field. Next to the academicaspect, we truly appreciated the social side ofthe programme. Friendships and mutualappreciation were the driving forces thatmade this project possible. As a student,networking in the academic world is veryvaluable for professional development, andenhances the likelihood of academic oppor-tunities in the future. Many of us are lookingeagerly forward to hear about the researchprojects of the next JRP cohort, where theoverarching topic will be research in well-being.

CorrespondenceLaurien Nagels-CouneMaastricht University.Email: [email protected]


2nd Junior Researcher Programme Conference

Blakey, R. (2013, August). Are two heads better thanone? The effect of expert/novice interaction onestimation accuracy. Poster session presented atthe meeting of Junior Researcher ProgrammeConference, Cambridge.

Correia, V., Winders, S., Doyle, N., Bagó, B., Foldes,A. & Pesout, O. (2013). Do basketball players relyon previous observations of opponents or decidebased on on-going interaction? Journal of Euro-pean Psychology Students, 4(2), 33–39.doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jeps.bi

Lins, S., Bottequin, E., Dóka, A., Golasa, A., Hylander,F., Merchán, A., Odabašic, A. & Pavlovic, S.(2013). To think, to feel, to have: The effects ofneed for cognition, hedonism and materialism onimpulse buying tendencies in adolescents. Journalof European Psychology Students, 4(2), 25–32. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jeps.bh

Loftus, E.F. & Palmer, J.C. (1974). Reconstruction ofautomobile destruction: An example of the inter-action between language and memory. Journal ofVerbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 585–589.doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3

Markus, H.R. & Kitayama, S. (1991). Cultural varia-tion in the self-concept. In G.R. Goethals & J.Strauss (Eds.), Multidisciplinary perspectives on theself (pp.18–48). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Singelis, T.M. (1994). The measurement of inde-pendent and interdependent self-construals.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20,580–591. doi:10.1177/0146167294205014

Tekin, S., Brecht, K., Dalsklev, M.M., Irminska, M.,Nagels-Coune, L., Simkovicova, I., Holm Thor-valdsen, J. & Yu, S. (2013). The role of self-construal in eyewitness memories: Susceptibilityto different sources of information. Journal ofEuropean Psychology Students, 4(2), 1–8.doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jeps.be

Verplanken, B. & Herabadi, A. (2001). Individualdifferences in impulse buying tendency: Feelingand no thinking. European Journal of Personality,15, 71–83.

36 PsyPAG Quarterly

Laurien Nagels-Coune & Madeleine Dalsklev

References

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

THE SoDoc is a workshop initiated andsupported by the German PsychologicalSociety’s Social Psychology Division.

Since the first workshop in 2003, set inWürzburg, the SoDoc has gained popularityamongst junior researchers and is now heldannually. This year’s workshop was set inbeautiful Cologne, a city known for itsimpressive cathedral, buzzing party life andgrand carnival. The workshop’s aim is toprovide a platform for PhD students fromGermany and the rest of the world to presenttheir research in a relaxed environment,whilst gaining valuable feedback from peersand renowned experts. A total of four seniorresearchers (Mario Gollwitzer, RolandImhoff, Jon Maner and Johan Karremans),supervised a small group of eight to ninePhD students each. I had the honour to besupervised by Mario Gollwitzer, an expert inaggression, morality and research methods.

I was interested in participating in thisworkshop since my PhD research crossesover the fields of decision making and socialpsychology: I am examining how far intero-ceptive awareness moderates the impact ofnegative utility on probability judgments.Thus, the SoDoc offered me the opportunityto present my research in front of an audi-ence interested in social psychology, which I hoped would help me develop my researchfurther.

One of the best parts of the conferencewas the vast variety of different topicspresented by students: my group consisted ofsocial psychology PhD students researchingin the fields of ethics, social influence, politics, education, social dilemmas, legalexpertise and process accountability. Each

student had 40 minutes to present theirresearch as well as to lead the discussion(sometimes with concrete questions forfuture studies, sometimes asking for feed-back regarding current experiments). Thisformat proved to be extremely productive –participation was lively and Mario Gollwitzerguided the discussions with much thoughtand valuable input. With regard to my owntalk, I profited from the feedback that I received and was overall very satisfied withthe discussion.

Throughout the two days, each of thefour experts also gave a keynote speech.Johan Karremans presented work on howindividuals in a relationship deal with attrac-tive alternatives. Johan and his research teamshowed that if individuals are high in self-control and in a relationship, attractiveopposite sex others are perceived as lessattractive than when individuals are low inself-control or not in a relationship. RolandImhoff’s keynote was titled: ‘Distrust yourmeasures! An excursus on the internalvalidity of (in-)direct measurementapproaches’. Roland urged students to assesscritically in how far measures really measurewhat they claim, and gave interesting exam-ples from his own research. Jon Maner gavea very motivating keynote with the title ‘How to get your manuscript published’. Jon shared insight knowledge starting fromsentence formation and content to where tosend your journal, and how to be strategic inthe reviewing process. Finally, Mario Goll-witzer discussed the individual and socialfunctions of revenge. Mario presented hisresearch showing that revenge is not satis-fying to avengers if the message does not


Workshop Review:

SoDoc 2013 WorkshopLaura de Molière

Cologne, Germany, 21–23 June 2013

come across – revenge is only ‘sweet’ to thepunisher if the wrongdoer understands whythe act of vengeance has happened.

On top of that, an ‘Ask the expert’session was organised, giving students theopportunity to ask questions about theexpert’s career in academia (‘According towhich criteria do you chose your Postdocs?’,‘How do you keep a work life balance?’,‘How many hours a week do you spend onbureaucratic matters?’).

Another focus of this workshop was laidon the social activities: visiting a traditionalbeer garden as well as a brewhouse, studentshad the chance to network and to ask theexperts for personal guidance whilstenjoying the traditional Cologne beer(‘Kölsch’).

Overall, I can warmly recommend PhDstudents in social psychology or related fieldsfrom the UK to attend this workshop (fullyheld in English). Whilst the researchdiscussed was very interesting, I think themain benefit laid in the endless chances todiscuss issues one experiences when doing aPhD with experts and to share experienceswith peers. This workshop gives juniorresearchers confidence, insight knowledge,and the opportunity to network – I trulyenjoyed participating and am lookingforward to next year’s workshop which I hope I will be able to attend.

CorrespondenceLaura de MolièreUniversity College London.Email: [email protected]

38 PsyPAG Quarterly

Laura de Molière

VIEW FROM COLOGNE CATHEDRAL ON OLD TOWN AND RHINE RIVER.

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10th Annual Conference Thursday 20th February 2014

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Keynote speakers: Dr Andrew Prestwich – University of Leeds

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BackgroundT IS WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED thatuniversities, and those working withinthem, have a duty to be socially responsible

and ‘give something back’ to the public. Twokey streams within the social responsibilitydomain are those of Widening Participation(WP) and Public Engagement (PE). The aimof WP is to provide the opportunity to partic-ipate in Higher Education (HE) to everyonethat can benefit (Higher Education FundingCouncil for England, 2013). Thus, WP tendsto focus on promoting the progression touniversity by talented individuals who mightnot have considered university as a futureoption due to financial constraints, no familybackground of higher education, or beingfrom an area with low participation in HE.PE is concerned with communicatingresearch to the general public and refers tothe ‘the use of appropriate skills, media,activities and dialogue to produce one ormore of the following personal responses toscience: awareness, enjoyment, interest,opinion-forming and understanding’(Burns, O’Connor & Stocklmayer, 2003,p.183). PE can take many forms, including

museum events, stalls at science fairs, orpublic lectures. As well as being extremelyvaluable, WP and PE work is highly enjoyableand can be a refreshing change from day-to-day teaching and research activities, offeringopportunities to try out new ideas andcommunicate your topic to people that youwould not normally reach. It is also a valu-able source of experience for postgraduatestudents and can really boost their CV.

Social responsibility is highlighted as oneof the University of Manchester’s key goals,with the 2020 strategy document empha-sising WP and PE as crucial aspects of this.The university promises to ‘engage widelywith communities’ and ‘improve opennessand accessibility by increasing the impact ofour interactions with… communities’(University of Manchester, 2011). TheSchool of Psychological Sciences OutreachGroup at the University of Manchester strivesto work towards these goals through itsinvolvement in a diverse range of WP and PEwork (henceforth ‘Outreach’ for brevity).This includes a two-day ‘Big Brain’ summerschool (for year 9 to 10 pupils from low


Development and delivery of an Outreachtraining event for postgraduatepsychology studentsSamantha Rowbotham, Melissa Noke & Ruth Butterworth

University Outreach programmes are important for providing opportunities for talented individuals fromless privileged backgrounds to participate in higher education as well as communicating science to thepublic more broadly. In addition to this, it is an enjoyable and worthwhile way for postgraduates to boosttheir CVs while gaining valuable experience in communicating their topic to different audiences. TheSchool of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester has a thriving programme of Outreachactivities but sometimes struggles to find postgraduate students to be involved in the development anddelivery of these activities. As such, we decided to develop a training session to introduce postgraduatestudents to Outreach, with a view to increase knowledge of the kinds of activities they can get involved inand boost their confidence in developing and delivering new activities. Here we report on the format of theworkshop and the feedback received from delegates as well as suggesting improvements and providing tipsfor people wishing to set up a similar project.

I

participation areas), monthly Café Scient-fique events (informal talks by academics),the Community Liaison Group (service usersproviding input and teaching on the ClinicalPsychology Doctorate), and various eventsfor schools and families during local andnational science festivals (e.g. stalls, talks,workshops). As a relatively small group(consisting of nine academic and three post-graduate members), we are constantly inneed of enthusiastic people to support ourwork, not only to facilitate and deliverexisting events but also to develop newevents and activities so that we can continueto move forward in the work we do. Post-graduates are an important resource as theytend to be enthusiastic, have (a bit) moretime than academic staff and can directlybenefit their future careers by gettinginvolved. Despite this, in our school at least,it is sometimes challenging to get postgradu-ates involved in Outreach work, particularlyin the development and delivery of newevents. Key reasons cited for this low partici-pation include lack of experience and confi-dence, and limited knowledge of the waysthat they can get involved.

To tackle this issue we decided to developa short, informal training session to intro-duce postgraduates to the work that we doand provide them with the skills and confi-dence to get involved in Outreach work,whether on an occasional basis as an activityfacilitator, or to take a more active role indeveloping and co-ordinating Outreachactivities. This article provides details of theformat of the event and a summary of feed-back from delegates.

The workshopThe workshop had two main aims: (1) tointroduce postgraduate students toOutreach work; and (2) to provide studentswith some practical experience in devel-oping Outreach-related activities. Thus, theworkshop aimed to increase attendees’knowledge and confidence in order tomaximise the chances of them becomingmore involved in Outreach activities after

the event. We obtained funding for thisevent from the Social Activities Fund forPostgraduate Research Students, which wasprovided by the Faculty of Medical andHuman Sciences at the University ofManchester. The workshop lasted for two-hours and took place in a seminar room oncampus.

DelegatesWe advertised the event using posters andemail notifications and interested partici-pants were asked to sign up to the event. Ofthe 22 participants that signed up to attend,12 came along to the event. All delegateswere PhD students in the School of Psycho-logical Sciences.

NetworkingTo promote networking and collaborationthe event was kept informal, with food anddrinks provided. For the first 15 minutes,participants were encouraged to help them-selves to food and drink and chat with otherdelegates as well as event organisers andspeakers. A range of activities that had beenused at previous Outreach events (e.g. atscience fairs and summer school workshops)were laid out around the room and delegateswere encouraged to browse and discussthese, taking some of the pressure out of the‘networking’ element.

Talks from practitionersIn the second section of the workshop, prac-titioners involved with various aspects ofOutreach gave short talks about their area ofinvolvement. Each speaker had a 10-minutepresentation slot and delegates were giventhe opportunity to ask questions. The topicsand speakers are presented in Box 1.

Practical experience Delegates were given approximately 30minutes to work in small groups (three tofour people per group) to come up with apossible Outreach event that they coulddevelop and run. They began by brain-storming ideas for possible events in their


Development and delivery of an Outreach training event for postgraduate psychology students

groups before choosing a single idea todiscuss and develop. We provided eachgroup with an activity planning form onwhich they were encouraged to state the aimof their event, the intended audience, whatthe event would involve, and how they wouldevaluate the event. At least one practitionerfacilitated each group to help with thediscussion and development of ideas. Wethen asked delegates to feedback their ideasto the rest of the group and received feed-back from the facilitators. Following this,delegates were encouraged to complete asix-month action plan detailing their nextsteps in terms of Outreach work in order toencourage continued involvement. Thisplan included stating what they were inter-ested in getting involved with, what theyneeded to do and who they needed tocontact to help them to take this interestfurther, and a date on which they wouldreview their progress.

Feedback and evaluationDelegates completed a short, anonymousfeedback questionnaire at the end of thesession. The questionnaire consisted of twostatements (one about session content andone about future involvement) for whichdelegates could indicate level of agreementon a 10-point rating scale (1=not at all,

10=extremely), followed by three prompts toencourage participants to provide detailedfeedback about: (1) what they found helpfuland interesting; (2) what needed to beimproved; and (3) the one thing they wouldtake away from the event. A summary of thefeedback is provided below, with somequotes provided in Box 2.

The statement ‘I found this workshop helpfuland interesting’ received an average score of8.5, with 85 per cent providing a score of 8 orabove. The statement, ‘I am interested in takingpart in outreach activities following this workshop’received an average score of 8.8 with all delegates providing a score of 7 or above. It is noteworthy that no delegates provided ascore below 5 for either of the scales,suggesting that all felt the event had beenhelpful and interesting. Taken together thissuggests that delegates valued the event in terms of content and as a source of motivation.

‘I found the following helpful or interesting…’ :In response to this prompt, three partici-pants cited the practical task while six dele-gates indicated that they found the talksprovided by the Outreach practitioners mostinteresting and helpful, particularly in termsof finding out more about the streams ofWP/PE work that exist and projects theycould get involved with.

42 PsyPAG Quarterly

Samantha Rowbotham, Melissa Noke & Ruth Butterworth

Box 1: Talks from practitioners.l Community Engagement: The Community Liaison Group (CLG)

Daniel Pratt (Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, CLG Liaison Lead)l Widening Participation: Aims and current projects

Sam Rowbotham (PhD Student, Widening Participation Fellow, Postgraduate Representative for SPS Outreach Group)

l Public Engagement: Informing, consulting and collaboratingKate Dack (NOWGEN Public Programmes Manager)

l Planning an Outreach project: Practical considerations and case studyMelissa Noke (PhD Student, Widening Participation Fellow, Postgraduate Representative for SPS Outreach Group)

l Hosting a Café ScientifiquePenny Lewis (Lecturer in Psychology, co-organiser of Café Scientfique Manchester)

‘I think the session could be improved by’ :Only five delegates responded to this ques-tion suggesting that other delegates did notperceive a need for significant improve-ments. Four of the responses to this promptconcerned the timing of the event, with oneperson suggesting that the event should beshorter overall and three highlighting theneed for more time for the practical activity.One participant requested the inclusion ofmore real-life examples of Outreach work.

‘If there is one thing I will take away fromtoday it will be’ : Delegates answered this ques-tion with a wide range of responses, all ofwhich were positive. In order of frequency,the things delegates indicated they wouldtake away were: knowledge about the ways toget involved with Outreach work (6), inspi-ration, skills and ideas for setting up an event(3), and enthusiasm and a desire to be moreproactive (2).

The futureFeedback from delegates suggests that weachieved our aims of improving postgradu-ates’ knowledge, skills and confidence inrelation to Outreach work. In terms ofconcrete outcomes, six delegates contactedus to get involved with upcoming activities,with one delegate helping at a recent sciencefair stand for National Science and Engi-

neering week, and five signing up to help atupcoming events. Another delegate has alsocontacted us seeking further advice onsetting up a PE activity to take place at ascience and music festival. Finally, a furthertwo delegates have contacted us to offer helpin promoting Outreach work amongst otherpostgraduates. This is promising, and wehope to hear from more delegates in thenear future.

Reflection on the content and running ofthe session from the perspective of theorganisers (SR, MN and RB), has high-lighted that the key area for improvement inthe workshop programme is in terms of thetiming. For future workshops, we think itwould be beneficial to increase the timespent on the practical activity. Delegatesengaged really well with this task had someexcellent ideas and discussions aboutpossible events. Having more time to go intothe details of these events, particularly interms of practicalities, would be beneficial interms of meeting our second aim of equip-ping postgraduates with the confidence andskills to develop their own events. To providethe extra time for this activity withoutmaking the workshop longer we couldreduce the number of speakers that talkabout their projects. Although these talkswere viewed as a valuable part of the work-


Development and delivery of an Outreach training event for postgraduate psychology students

Box 2: Quotes from delegates.‘It was great. Really enjoyed all the activities and learned a lot. I am more clear on how to develop my own activities.’

‘Helpful to hear examples from people with experience in engagement,outreach and involvement.’

‘More time for planning/discussion to help people get further with future plans.’

‘There are lots of opportunities to suit your interests and timecommitments.’

‘Putting people in groups and asking them to come up with a plan can have some good results.’

shop, we believe that the same impact can beachieved with the event organisers providinga brief overview of the various WP and PEactivities (with relevant contact details formore information), followed by one or twospeakers providing ‘case-study’ type profilesof their work.

Given the high turnover of postgraduatestudents, if we are to maintain a goodnetwork of postgraduates with the confi-dence and skills to sustain a healthyprogramme of Outreach work then we willneed to repeat this workshop at least onceevery one to two years. Fortunately, in termsof sustainability, this workshop is relativelystraightforward to set up and run andrequires a minimal budget if funding islimited, with the main outgoing being thecost of food and drinks for delegates. Nowthat all of the materials have been prepared,it is possible for other members of theOutreach group to run this session if neededin the future (for example, once the currentorganisers have moved on), furtherincreasing the sustainability of this event.Further, the simplicity of the workshopshould mean that it is possible for other post-graduates wanting to increase Outreachparticipation in their department to use thisworkshop as a template to plan their ownevent. We hope that this will inspire a newwave of postgraduate students to getinvolved in this exciting and important work!

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the Faculty ofMedical and Human Sciences at the Univer-sity of Manchester for providing funding toallow us to run this event, to Daniel Pratt,Kate Dack and Penny Lewis for giving uptheir time to come along to the event todeliver talks and facilitate activities. Finallywe would like to thank the delegates forcoming along and engaging so well with theactivities and facilitators.

The AuthorsSamantha RowbothamSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.

Melissa NokeSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.

Ruth ButterworthSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, andSchool of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT.

CorrespondenceSamantha RowbothamSchool of Psychological Sciences, Coupland 1 Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL. Email:[email protected].

ReferencesBurns, T.W., O’Connor, D.J. & Stocklmayer, S.M.

(2003). Science communication: A contempo-rary definition. Public Understanding of Science, 12,183–202.

Higher Education Funding Council for England(2013). Retrieved 6 March 2013, from:http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/wp/

The University of Manchester (2011). Manchester2020: The Strategic Plan for The University ofManchester. Retrieved 5 March 2013, from:http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/vision/

44 PsyPAG Quarterly

Samantha Rowbotham, Melissa Noke & Ruth Butterworth

THE F-Word in Contemporary Women’sWriting is the fourth biennial confer-ence organised by the Postgraduate

Contemporary Women’s Writing Network(PGCWWN). The PGCWWN is a student-ledresearch community for postgraduatestudents whose research is focused on thework of contemporary women writers. Withsnow threatening the whole of the UK inearly April, the conference took place atQueen’s University Belfast and was surpris-ingly, though pleasantly sunny. Delegatescame from a number of disciplines such asEnglish literature, film studies, psychologyand sociology; as well as from a variety oflocations across the globe.

As a psychologist I was interested inattending this conference because the firstpart of my PhD research is focused on iden-tifying discourses in women’s magazines andfeminist blogs and in particular how feministand post-feminist discourses are engagedwith. The theme of the ‘F-Word’ conferencewas to examine the diverse and varied waysin which contemporary women’s writing(post-1970s) has engaged with, approachedand contributed to contemporary feministdiscourse.

There were parallel presentation panelsrunning throughout both days of the confer-ence which produced lively discussions ofwomen’s writing across a range of mediaplatforms including: fiction of various genres(including crime and detective novels,historical fiction, fairytales, chick lit, andyoung adult fiction), biographies, poetry,erotica, manga, magazines, independently-

produced zines, television shows, musicvideos, online blogs and digital campaigns.With such a wide range of presentationsshowcasing the research of postgraduatesfrom varying disciplines, I felt spoiled forchoice and only wish I could have also seenthe panels that were running parallel to theones I attended.

I presented in one of the first panelsessions on the first day. I was nervous as I was discussing the preliminary findingsfrom my first research study but found theaudience supportive and encouraging, anatmosphere I found which filtered throughthe entire conference. I particularly likedthe way the panels were organised so thatpresenters all take turns delivering theirpapers, followed by a joint questions-and-answers session. I like this set-up for twomain reasons. The first is that it feels moresupportive when you’re answering questionsalongside your fellow presenters thenanswering when in isolation from the others.The second reason is that it means the audi-ence can direct a question to some or all ofthe presenters at once if it is applicable to allthe papers.

Diane Negra’s keynote address was heldat the end of the first day. Her paper‘Claiming Feminism: Commentary, Autobi-ography and Advice Literature for Women inthe Recession’ was focused on how thecurrent recession has led to cultural shiftssuch as public opinion on women’s ‘seemingchoice’ to not occupy high-status and highlypaid occupations. Diane Negra discussedhow post-feminist rhetoric casts feminism as


Conference Review:

The F-Word in Contemporary Women’sWritingRebecca Wray

Queen’s University Belfast, 4–5 April 2013

being primarily about choice and how thisthen leads onto women’s capacity to self-improve and for entrepreneurship. Shehighlights how this shift is marked by the risein business self-help books written by high-profile women such as Bethany Frankel,Sheryl Sandberg, Hanna Rosin from the USand Caitlin Moran from the UK. Thesebooks focus on the individual honing theircareers and achievement through self-beliefand perseverance.

Diane Negra discusses how these authorsadvocate individual choice and personalmodification through the use of self-helpand life coaches, rather than challengingbarriers and changing structures withinsociety. One of the interesting things Negrahighlights in her talk is how these authorscreate and cultivate personas which empha-sise positive thinking, self-promotion and anemphasis placed on the importance ofdisplaying motherhood and appearing non-threatening in their approach to work. Shewas critical of how these authors ignore theirposition of privilege and how the narrative offemale ‘choice’ leaves little room foracknowledging the way choices areconstrained by life circumstances andbarriers.

A key concern raised by Diane Negra,which the audience joined in discussingtowards the end of the talk, was how thesebooks are easily accessible in public spaces,in comparison to the academic feministbooks which tend to be costly and printed onlimited runs. Negra proposed that feministbooks need to be produced so they are easierto digest and access by a general audience.

The conference, like the PGCWWN itselfprovides a supportive and encouragingatmosphere for postgraduates and earlycareer researchers, through the provision ofworkshops and spaces for discussion. In themiddle of the second day, Helen Daviesshared her knowledge and experience ongetting published in a workshop onpublishing for postgraduates and earlycareer researchers. I found her workshop tobe very informative and useful for any post-

graduate researcher looking to getpublished regardless of subject discipline. As well as practical advice on choosing andapproaching the right publishers, Helenadvised us on which stages of our postgrad-uate studies and careers is best to work ondifferent types of publications such as bookreviews, journal articles, book chapters andmonographs. What I found particularlyuseful in this workshop was how Helenexplained the Research Excellence Frame-work and what it will mean to us in relationto our careers. This gave the audience muchfood for thought and plenty of opportunitieswere provided for us to ask questions.

The F-Word in Contemporary Women’sWriting conference, also marked the depar-ture of Claire O’Callaghan, CatherineMcGurren and Amy Rushton from thePGCWWN Steering Group, who workedhard in setting up a well-organised,supportive and stimulating conference.Beginning their new roles in April 2013,James Bailey, Adèle Cook, Claire Cowlingand Michelle Green were announced overcake and coffee as the new members of theSteering Group. The next PGCWWN confer-ence will be held in 2015 and I look forwardto seeing what the new Steering Group willhave planned for this and other futureevents.

This was the first PGCWWN conference I have had the privilege of attending andpresenting at and I can recommend it tostudents of any discipline who have aninterest in gender and how feminist and/orpost-feminist ideas are engaged with inwomen’s writing. The conference organisersprovided a warm welcome and ensured dele-gates felt at ease throughout the event. I found the conference to be a very friendlyand supportive space, allowing for stimu-lating discussion of the issues raised by thepanels, which continued long into theevening at the conference dinner at the endof the first day’s events. I look forward tomeeting everyone again at future events andcontinuing these conversations.

46 PsyPAG Quarterly

Rebecca Wray

AcknowledgementI would like to thank Leeds MetropolitanUniversity for providing funding, in additionto PsyPAG for their conference bursary,allowing me to attend and present at the F-Word in Contemporary Women’s WritingConference.

CorrespondenceRebecca WrayLeeds Metropolitan University.Email: [email protected]


The F-Word in Contemporary Women’s Writing

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST

N MAY 2013, the International TinnitusResearch Initiative (TRI) conference, thelargest annual tinnitus meeting, was being

held in the beautiful city of Valencia. Thetheme of the TRI conference was ‘Tinnitus:A treatable disease’. The sessions principallyfocussed on the diagnosing and treating ofdifferent subtypes of tinnitus, and on evalu-ating current available treatment options,including innovative treatments that arecurrently under development. This involveda packed schedule of a diverse range oftopics including neuroscience, psycho-therapy and otology, bringing togetheracademics, practitioners (i.e. audiologists,ENT and psychologists) and PhD studentsfrom around the world; all with an interest intinnitus research. This conference providedan excellent opportunity for broadening myknowledge on the latest developments intinnitus research, presenting my work andgaining invaluable feedback from tinnitusresearchers involved in questionnaire devel-opment.

The conference opened with a twilightlecture, which seemed fitting in the city thatnever sleeps, from the internationallyrenowned Dirk De Ridder. The lecture wasentitled ‘To dream is to cure tinnitus’.Tinnitus is the conscious experience ofsound in the absence of a correspondingexternal auditory sound; De Ridderdiscussed evidence that when people aredreaming they no longer perceive theirtinnitus, that is, tinnitus is not perceived indreams. The lecture included the philos-ophy of dreams and argued that in order to

achieve the possible, we should continue tostrive to dream the impossible; ‘To curetinnitus we need to continue to dream-upnew treatments for tinnitus’. This was anextremely inspiring way to start my first inter-national conference and to continue in myPhD.

The following three days were packedwith parallel sessions on different areas oftinnitus treatments and diagnosis, so I needed to plan which lectures I wished toattend. The first of which was the keynotelecture on ‘An overview of tinnitus manage-ment’. This was extremely useful forsomeone just starting out in tinnitusresearch, as it provided a quick guide to thedifferent multidisciplinary approaches(from ENT to psychotherapy to neuro-surgery) used in tinnitus management. Theschedule provided me with many opportuni-ties to gain further knowledge and insightinto areas of tinnitus management that I amless familiar with. In particular, I found thatthe session on cognitive behavioural therapyand tinnitus retraining therapy informativeand insightful. This session provided anoverview on the different therapies used inclinics and the implications from these therapies. I was fascinated to discover thatthere is evidence to suggest cognitive behav-ioural self-help interventions in tinnitus arenow extremely effective without the pres-ence of a therapist at any stage. I particularlyenjoyed the lecture on the new technique of‘Mindfulness Based Tinnitus Stress Reduc-tion’. This was an interactive workshopwhere we went through the steps of this tech-


Conference Review:

7th International Tinnitus ResearchInitiative (TRI) Tinnitus ConferenceKathryn Fackrell

Valencia, Spain, 15–26 May 2013

I

nique; we were to realign our attention byrefocusing our minds to just the speaker andthe bell that had been rung each time we feltour minds wander. These sessions and thekeynote lectures on psychotherapy areparticularly memorable because they lead tointeresting discussions and debates with mycolleagues and other delegates at the confer-ence, which provided me with the opportu-nity to learn alternative points of view and tointeract with other delegates.

Finally, I presented a poster of my ownresearch on the validation of the TinnitusFunctional Index (TFI) questionnaire; a newmethod of measuring tinnitus severity.Although I was extremely nervous aboutpresenting my poster, it went off without ahitch. This was an invaluable experience thatincreased my confidence in my work. Theposter session provided me with the oppor-tunity to gain feedback on my work so farand meet one of the authors involved indeveloping the questionnaire. During theposter session, I also advised other

researchers and clinicians at the conferenceon questionnaire development processesand validation; this was an interesting expe-rience as I realised how much I have learntin the last year and that there is always moreto learn.

The TRI conference was a new experi-ence that was extremely beneficial andrewarding. I have taken away knowledge onthe developments in tinnitus research, a newconfidence in presenting my work andexplaining the validation processes behindmy work to people from a variety of back-grounds. Lastly I would recommend that allfirst year PhD students have the opportunityto attend a conference like this, as it hasinspired me to stay determined through myPhD, to continue to dream the impossibleand strive for benefits to tinnitus patients.

CorrespondenceKathryn FackrellThe University of Nottingham.Email: [email protected]


7th International Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) Tinnitus Conference

VALENCIA TURIA FOUNTAIN

N FORENSIC SITUATIONS such asmasked attacks and telephone fraud,witnesses may be required to identify

perpetrators at lineup by their voice. In asummary article, Wilding, Cook and Davis(2000) draw attention to a relative lack ofresearch about voice identification, and thefact that legal professionals require guidancein using such evidence in court. These issuesare still relevant today.

Despite the fact that earwitnessesperform much less accurately at line-up thaneyewitnesses (e.g. Stevenage, Hugill & Lewis,2012), voice identification evidence from laywitnesses can be admitted without expertacoustic analysis in England and Wales.Sometimes this evidence is pivotal. In 2003the Home Office published guidelines onthe use of voice parades (Home Office,2003), in order to bring a murder case (R v.Khan & Bains, 2002) to court. Since then,voice identification evidence has comprisedevidence in other Crown Court cases (e.g. R v. Robinson, 2005, and R v. Flynn and St John, 2008). Yet the latest version of theCrown Court Bench Book (Judicial StudiesBoard, 2010), a guide for judges summingup to the jury, highlights that there is still‘little research’ (p.133) about the variablesaffecting voice identification accuracy. TheBench Book merely identifies factors whichmay be relevant. Since 2000, earwitnessresearch has addressed, amongst others,factors such as accent, language and race(e.g. Phillippon et al., 2007), as well as criminal bias (Phillippon et al., 2008).Studies have also begun to investigate theeffects of age (Ohman, Eriksson & Granhag,2011). Further research is required, both toestablish the effect of uninvestigated vari-ables, and to test the robustness of findings.

In eyewitness research, variables affectingidentification accuracy have been cate-gorised into system and estimator variables(Wells, 1978). Estimator variables, such aswitness age and weapon presence, areuncontrollable in a forensic setting, butaffect encoding and storage processes inmemory. In contrast, system variables, suchas line-up structure and instructions, can becontrolled by the criminal justice system.System variables affect retrieval processes.Earwitness research has disproportionatelyconcentrated on estimator variables, despitethe fact that investigation of system variablesmay have more applied utility (Wells, 1978).As voice identification ability is so poor, itwould be beneficial to channel moreresearch into investigating variables that canactually strengthen forensic evidence.Current voice identification procedures arebased on those employed for face line-ups.However, research should be specificallytargeted to earwitness situations. Forexample, research might consider specificlineup instructions for earwitnesses. Eyewit-ness research has considered ways ofadapting face line-up procedures to increasehit rates and reduce false alarm rates (seeMcQuiston-Surrett, Malpass & Tredoux,2006 for a review), but earwitnessresearchers have not investigated howadapted voice line-up procedures mightimprove voice identification accuracy(Hollien, 2012).

The majority of identification research isconcerned with visual memory. Based on theassumption that similar memory processesoperate in both face and voice identification,it may be tempting to generalise findingsfrom the visual to the auditory modality.However, although the cognitive architec-


Unfamiliar voice identification as forensicevidence: Can you believe your ears? Harriet Smith

I

ture of voice identification is believed tooperate in a parallel way to face recognition(Belin, Fecteau & Bedard, 2004), markeddifferences between the two processes exist.When comparing retrieval of semantic infor-mation relating to familiar faces and voices,participants retrieve more information fromfaces than from voices (e.g. Damjanovic &Hanley, 2009). This suggests that voice iden-tification provides a weaker route to recogni-tion (Stevenage et al., 2012). Unfamiliarvoice identification is much more difficultthan familiar voice identification. Studiesfrequently indicate low hit rates (Yarmey,2007) and high false alarm rates (e.g.Kerstholt, Jansen Van Amelsvoort &Broeders, 2004) on voice line-ups. Recentresults, therefore, support the conclusions ofWilding et al. (2000) regarding the difficultyof voice identification.

Various hypotheses have been mooted toexplain poor performance. For example,voice identification may be difficult becausethe content of speech takes up encodingload, or because so many acoustic featuresare involved (Belin et al., 2011). Voiceperception involves encoding acousticfeatures such as rate of speech, intonation,

accent and timbre. Acoustic features can varyboth between utterances by the same indi-vidual, and between individuals (Hammer-sley & Read, 1996), making it difficult toextract features which have sufficient within-speaker consistency to indicate identity.

Owing to new guidelines (Home Office,2003), it is now more likely that voice identi-fication evidence will be used in court.However, research over the past 13 years hasdone little to undermine the conclusion ofWilding, Cook and Davis (2000) that cautionis needed when admitting this evidence. Iflegal professionals require such evidence,research should concentrate on establishingwhich variables affect voice identificationaccuracy so that it can be used appropriately.Research should also consider how policeprocedures might be adapted to supporthigher levels of accuracy. Until such gaps inresearch have been addressed, voice identifi-cation evidence should be used as a very lastresort, and only then with extreme caution.

CorrespondenceHarriet SmithNottingham Trent University.Email: [email protected]


Unfamiliar voice identification as forensic evidence: Can you believe your ears?

Belin, P., Bestelmeyer, P.e.g. Latinus, M. & Watson, R.(2011). Understanding voice perception. BritishJournal of Psychology, 102, 711–725.

Belin, P., Fecteau, S. & Bedard, C. (2004). Thinkingthe voice: Neural correlates of voice perception.Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 129–135.

Damjanovic, L. & Hanley, J.R. (2007). Recallingepisodic and semantic information about famousfaces and voices. Memory and Cognition, 35,1205–1210.

Hammersley, R. & Read, J.D. (1996). Voice identifi-cation by humans and computers. In S.L. Sporer,R.S. Malpass & G. Koehnken (Eds.), Psychologicalissues in eyewitness identification (pp.117–152).Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Hollien, H.F. (2012). On earwitness line-ups. Investigative Sciences Journal, 4(1), 1–17.

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Judicial Studies Board (2010). The Crown Court BenchBook: Directing the Jury. London: Judicial StudiesBoard.

Kerstholt, J.H., Jansen, N.J., Van Amelsvoort, A.G. &Broeders, A.P.A. (2004). Earwitnesses: Effects ofspeech duration, retention interval and acousticenvironment. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18(3),327–326.

McQuiston-Surrett, D., Malpass, R.S. & Tredoux, C.G.(2006). Sequential vs. simultaneous line-ups: A review of methods, data, and theory. Psychology,Public Policy, and Law, 12(2), 137–169.

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Philippon, A.C., Cherryman, J., Bull, R. & Vrij, A.(2007). Earwitness identification performance:The effect of language, target, deliberate strate-gies and indirect measures. Applied CognitivePsychology, 21(4), 539–550.

Philippon, A.C., Cherryman, J., Vrij, A. & Bull, R.(2008). Why is my voice so easily recognised inidentity parades? Influence of first impressionson voice identification. Psychiatry, Psychology andLaw, 15, 70–77.

Stevenage, S.V., Hugill, A.R. & Lewis, H.G. (2012).Integrating voice recognition into models ofperson perception. Journal of Cognitive Psychology,24(4), 409–419.

Wells, G.L. (1978). Applied eyewitness-testimonyresearch: System variables and estimator vari-ables. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,36(12), 1546–1557.

Wilding, J., Cook, S. & Davis, J. (2000). Soundfamiliar? The Psychologist, 13, 558–562.

Yarmey, A.D. (2007). The psychology of speaker iden-tification and earwitness memory. In R.C.L.Lindsay, D.F. Ross, J.D. Read & M.P. Toglia(Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology, vol II:Memory for people (pp.101–136). Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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References

OR YEARS, cancer-research has beenfocused on negative outcomes onpatients’ lives and well-being. The diag-

nosis itself can be extremely stressful andhave severe consequences for patients, likedepression, anxiety, and distress. Conse-quently it can worsen their Quality of Life(QoL). What makes cancer diagnosisstressful while triggering change is theuncontrollable, sudden and unexpectednature of diagnosis, which producesongoing, and in many cases lifelong effectsand stressors (Andrykowski et al., 1998).However, colorectal cancer patients in arecent study (Jansen et al., 2011) alsoreported positive experiences in their lives,as paradoxical as it may sound; with 64 percent of survivors reporting they experiencedmoderate to high levels of benefit finding.

Psychosocial implications of benefit finding Benefit finding after cancer diagnosisfocuses on the sequelae that many patientsview as positive or beneficial followingcancer experience (Antoni et al., 2001).Finding positive outcomes in an unpleasantsituation may help patients on their personalsources and skills, enhance their sense ofpurpose, make changes in their spiritualityand their relationships with significantothers and review their life priorities(Fromm et al., 1996). Distress can bereduced when patients report positivechanges in their lives after a trauma,allowing a person to move on with their life(McMillen et al., 1997).

When cancer is diagnosed, a person’swhole life-priorities change. Thus, beingable to re-structure the priorities in a life isan opportunity that may improve psycho-

logical outcomes like QoL, distress, depres-sion, etc. Affleck and Tennen (1996) suggestthat benefit finding can be used as a copingstrategy for cancer patients.

Studies that point out a positive outcomefrom benefit finding have stated a positivechange on patients’ QoL since been diag-nosed with cancer. It might be a possibilitythat the diagnosis itself, which previously wasconsidered as a major stressor, may providesome positive changes in patients’ lives.Dirksen (1995) suggested that three positiveexperiences exist: a sense of ‘living fortoday’, a reordering of life priorities andchanges in self-awareness while Cordova etal. (2001) found three positive outcomes bywomen newly diagnosed with breast cancer:a much greater appreciation of life, changesin spirituality and faith and improved inter-personal relationships.

Physiological implications of benefit findingSo what about the association between physiological factors and benefit finding? A groundbreaking article (Cruess et al.,2000) linked the cognitive-behavioural stressmanagement (CBSM) intervention withreduced serum cortisol among women withearly stage breast cancer. They used CBSM totest the relationship between benefit findingand changes in cortisol in women with breastcancer. The results indicate a clear physio-logical change during the psychologicalassessment. However, generalisability of suchfindings is difficult because of the partici-pants’ status (healthy and highly educatedwomen). Furthermore, the women with earlystage breast cancer proceed to other treat-ments so it is difficult to determine whichintervention was beneficial and which was


Benefit finding in cancer: The argumentof being positiveAngelos Kassianos

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not if CBSM is not compared to them. A previous study (Van der Pompe & Heijnen,1996) found that psychological challengescombined with effects on endocrine regula-tions due to the disease or the treatment hadexplained various differences in plasmacortisol levels and circadian rhythm ofcortisol secretion. However, the confound-ing effect of the severity of diagnosis needsto be established.

Cancer avoidance and benefit findingEven though positive outcomes have beennoted from benefit finding, there is alsoevidence that support exactly the opposite.For example, cancer avoidance is consideredhaving a significant positive impact onpatients’ QoL (Tallman et al., 2007). Thereare a number of studies reporting no positiveoutcomes from benefit finding (Fromm etal., 1996; Antoni et al., 2001; Cordova et al.,2001). Also, no significant associations werefound between benefit finding and QoLamong the colorectal cancer survivors inJansen et al.’s study (2011).

Furthermore, studies measuring benefitfinding are not without criticism. Forexample, they may measure positiveoutcomes long after treatment (recall bias),while others may lack theoretical groundingand involve cross-sectional designs (Sears etal., 2003).

People may react differently to cancer;health beliefs, illness cognitions and atti-tudes as well as demographics like age,gender and marital status may influence theway people react to cancer. Likewise Lazarusand Folkman (1984) provide a four-class ofvariables model called the ‘Stress andCoping Theory’ to explain this variability, aswell as the adjustment to a stressful situationlike cancer. These sets of variables are: char-acteristics of stressful situation (i.e.chronicity and time of diagnosis); patient’sattributes (which may influence canceradjustment); cognitive appraisals (that mayinfluence the extent of adjustment) andcoping processes (cognitive and behaviouralefforts to manage the diagnosis). Thus

people who may see positive outcomes froma stressful situation (even considering theircondition as curable) may proceed to effortsto reach these outcomes.

Predictors of benefit findingSo why don’t all people make efforts to findpositive outcomes on a negative experience?Predictors of benefit finding like optimismand social support shape the characteristicsof patients who may try to find positiveoutcomes of their diagnosis. Thompson andPitts (1993) state that patients who were opti-mists reported lower levels of depression andwere more likely to find benefits from theirexperience with cancer. At the same timesocial support is identified as an importantpredictor of benefit finding because cancerpatients desire emotional support fromsignificant others (Park et al., 1996), orbecause patients having social support aremore likely to have an optimistic point ofview. Finally Jansen et al. (2011) found thatcolorectal cancer survivors with highesteducation and higher depression scoresreported lower levels of benefit finding.

Developing clinical interventions forbenefit findingClinical interventions may help people tocope with cancer and experience positivelyfrom them. Behavioural interventions seemto help patients proceed to a personalgrowth as well. Trijsburg et al. (1992)reviewed several studies that used CBSM andconcluded on a reduction of stress anddistress following the intervention. CBSMwas found to reduce levels of depression butnot other emotional distress measures(Antoni et al., 2001). The same researchersdiscuss the possibility that these interven-tions provide the ability to patients to re-organise themselves and form a ‘new self’,better than the existing one. They alsomention that various changes in meaning ofan event may be induced using a group inter-vention. However, they also indicate that thispossibility must be tested empirically.Penedo et al (2006) found that a 10-week

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group-based CBSM increased both benefitfinding and QoL among localized prostatecancer patients.

Why CBSM is an effective interventionfor cancer patients? Antoni et al.’s (2001)study state that patients are influenced ontheir depressive state but also on two othermeasures of well-being: (a) reports from thepatients mentioning feelings of well-being ofhaving the cancer and which are increasedpost-intervention; and (b) optimism aboutthe future which is in higher levels as well.However these results are fundamentallyquestioned due to a very important issue: themeasure of benefit finding was not includedat the beginning of the research and waseventually added. Thus there were not cleardeterminations as to what caused the benefi-cial outcomes. More research is needed todetermine how clinical interventions(including CBSM) may enhance benefitfinding and provide space for cancerpatients to focus on the positive outcomes ofbeing diagnosed.

To conclude with, the literaturesurrounding benefit finding among cancerpatients is controversial. The growing intereston enhancing patients’ ability to improvetheir QoL and well-being by finding benefits

from cancer diagnosis, has led to adjustingthe focus on both positive and negative expe-riences due to their adversity (Andrykowksiet al., 1993). Benefit finding may be a naturalprocess for cancer patients’ unpleasant expe-riences and also a determined factor forpersonal growth and transformation (Searset al., 2003). Researchers’ focus can point tothe perspective a treatment may have forpeople diagnosed with cancer rather thandeveloping a new treatment (Calhoun &Tedeschi, 1999) even though patients couldalso benefit from patching behavioural inter-ventions to already existing medical ones,which may enhance benefit finding. Inter-ventions that focus only on the negative expe-riences of cancer patients may miss a lot ofpositive experiences and outcomes that canemerge from the treatment and the diagnosisitself. So, there is hope to improve cancerpatients’ QoL while at the same time focusingon the positives.

CorrespondenceAngelos KassianosSchool of Psychology,University of Surrey,Guildford, GU2 7XZ.Email: [email protected]


Benefit finding in cancer: The argument of being positive

Affleck, G. & Tennen, H. (1996). Construing benefitsfrom adversity: Adaptational significance anddispositional underpinnings. Journal of Person-ality, 64, 899–922.

Andrykowski, M.A., Cordova, M.J., Studts, J.L. &Miller, T.W. (1993). Positive psychosocial adjust-ment in potential bone marrow transplant recip-ients: Cancer as a psychosocial transition.Psycho-Oncology, 2, 261–276.

Andrykowski, M.A., Cordova, M.J., Studts, J.L. &Miller, T.W. (1998). Post-traumatic stress disorderafter treatment for breast cancer: Prevalence ofdiagnosis and use of the PTSD Checklist-CivillianVersion (PCL-C) as a screening instrument,Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66,586–590.

Antoni, M.H., Lehman, J.M., Kilbourn, K.M., Boyers,A.E., Culver, J.L., Alferi, S.M., Yount, S.E.,McGregor, B.A., Arena, P.L., Harris, S.D., Price,A.A. & Carver, C.S. (2001). Cognitive-Behav-ioural Stress Management Interventiondecreases the prevalence of depression andenhances benefit finding among women undertreatment for early-stage breast cancer. HealthPsychology, 20(1), 20–32.

Calhoun, L.G. & Tedeschi, R.G. (1999). Facilitatingpost-traumatic growth: A clinician’s guide. Mahwah,NJ: Erlbaum.

Cordova, M.J., Cunnigham, L.L., Carlson, C.C. &Andrykowski, M.A. (2001). Post-traumatic growthfollowing breast cancer: A controlled comparisonstudy. Health Psychology, 20, 176–185.

Cruess, D.G., Antoni, M.H., McGregor, B.A.,Kilbourn, K.M., Boyers, A.E., Alferi, S.M., Garver,C.S. & Kumar, M. (2000). Cognitive-BehaviouralStress Management reduces serum cortisol byenhancing benefit finding among women beingtreated for early-stage breast cancer. PsychosomaticMedicine, 62, 304–308.

Dirksen, S.R. (1995). Search for meaning in long-term cancer survivors. Journal of AdvancedNursing, 21, 628–633.

Fromm, K., Andrykowski, M.A. & Hunt, J. (1996).Positive and negative psychological sequelae ofbone marrow transplantation: Implications forquality of life assessment. Journal of BehavioralMedicine, 19, 221–240.

Jansen, L., Hoffmeister, M., Chang-Claude, J.,Brenner, H. & Arndt, V. (2011). Benefit findingand post-traumatic growth in long-termcolorectal cancer survivors: Prevalence, deter-minants, and associations with quality of life. British Journal of Cancer, 105, 1158–1165.

Lazarus, R.S. & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisaland coping. New York: Springer.

McMillen, J.C., Smith, E.M. & Fisher, R.H. (1997).Perceived benefit and mental health after threeyears of disaster. Journal of Consulting and ClinicalPsychology, 65, 733–739.

Park, C.L., Cohen, L.H. & Murch, R.L. (1996). Assess-ment and prediction of stress-related growth,Journal of Personality, 64, 71–105.

Penedo, F.J., Molton, I., Dahn J.R., Shen, B.J.,Kinsinger, D., Traeger, L., Siegel, S., Shnei-derman, N. & Antoni, M. (2006). A randomisedclinical trial of group-based cognitive-behav-ioural stress management in localised prostatecancer: Development of stress management skillsimproves quality of life and benefit finding.Annual Behavioural Medicine, 31, 261–270.

Sears, S.R., Stanton, A.L. & Danoff-Burg, S. (2003).The yellow brick road and the emerald city:Benefit finding, positive reappraisal coping andthe post-traumatic growth in women with early-stage breast cancer. Health Psychology, 22(5),487–497.

Tallman, B.A., Altmaier, E. & Garcia, C. (2007).Finding benefit from cancer. Journal of CounselingPsychology, 54(4), 481–487.

Tedeschi, R.G. & Calhoun, L.G. (1995). Trauma andtransformation: Growing in the aftermath of suffering.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Thompson, S.C. & Pitts, J.S. (1993). Factors relatingto a persons’ ability to find meaning after a diag-nosis of cancer. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 11,1–21.

Trijsburg, R.W., van Knippenberg, F.C.E. & Rijpma,S.E. (1992). Effects of psychological treatmenton cancer patients: A critical review. PsychosomaticMedicine, 54, 489–517.

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References

EING a community psychologist is achallenge that comes with unpre-dictability, tensions and difficulties

whether working with professionals ormarginalised individuals or groups.However, when it works, being a communitypsychologist can also bring hope andresilience and a sense of collaborativeachievement which might not be experi-enced in other areas of psychology. Thereare very few ‘community psychologists’employed as such, but there are a number ofroles that community psychologists are ableto fulfil (Kagan et al., 2011) such as repre-sentational (advocate, networker), educa-tional (trainer, conscious raiser), facilitator(mediator, organiser)and researcher roles(project planner, evaluator) that encompassinterpersonal and problem solving skillswhilst viewing problems from a social contex-tual perspective. Community psychologistsengage in a constant cycle of action andlearning whilst critically reflecting on whatthey do, to encourage change in collabora-tion with people in the community.

In this article, I will consider some of theexperiences I have encountered working inthe community. I will reflect on my experi-ences with young people in one of thepoorest places in the UK, in centralManchester. Here I will discuss the difficul-ties young people face in developing anidentity that is positive. In addition, I willdescribe one person’s story on ‘coming out’under difficult circumstances, being labelledwith ‘learning difficulties’. Finally, I willanalyse one group that was set up to trainvolunteers wanting to work with adultslabelled with ‘learning difficulties’. I willconnect these case studies specifically withmy approach to learning, influenced by

Freire’s concept of ‘conscientisation’. I willconsider how the people in the case studiesdeveloped a ‘critical consciousness’ throughthe development of dialogical relationshipsthat brought an awareness of their identityand their connection with their surroundingsocial contexts.

Conscientisation ‘Conscientisation’ emerged from the work ofFreire (1972) and Freire and Faundez(1989). Conscientisation embraces a contin-uous process, in which awareness and actionare inseparable (Kagan et al., 2011). Aware-ness is achieved through using a differentkind of educational process, one that is notone way, formal, expertly driven, like tradi-tional education. Instead it concernsdialogue between people for conscientisa-tion to evolve, not on people. In other words,everyone is an ‘expert’ with knowledge orexperiences to share together. Martin-Baros(1986, 1994) described conscientisation as:

‘A process where a human is transformedthrough changing their reality, through anactive process of dialogue, in which they decodethe world, to grasp the mechanisms ofoppression and dehumanisation. This opensup new ways of taking action and a betterunderstanding of self in their personal andwider contexts.’(Burton & Kagan, 1998, p.56)

In addition, Martin-Baros established adistinctive position on the role of theory, onethat is broadly followed by those workingwithin this paradigm:

‘It shouldn’t be theories that define theproblems of our situation, but rather theproblems that demand and so to speak, select,their own theorisation.’ (Burton & Kagan, 1998, p.56)


Conscientisation and identity: Reflectionson being a community psychologist Michael Richards

B

Therefore, conscientisation is a cyclicalprocess, grounded in different peoplesharing their experiences of the worldthrough which dialogue and reflection canbegin. Next, I will reflect on how this cyclicalprocess of conscientisation has had an effecton identity with marginalised groups andindividuals.

Young people and identityOne of my main roles as a communitypsychologist has been to work with youngpeople who have been marginalised indifferent ways, including through exclusionfrom school, being in care, recovering fromdrugs and alcohol, self-harm or by beingvictims of sexual violence or abuse. Onespecific role I had was to deliver sexualhealth programmes to young people, mostlyaged 16 to 18 years in central Manchester.My approach was not to simply deliver infor-mation relating to sexually transmitted infec-tions, or to hand out condoms, but instead I wanted to tackle ‘sexual health’ by taking acontextual approach that reflected uponequality, identity, and sexuality amongstother things. However, one of the mostfruitful aspects of my work was not whatinformation or activities were delivered, butwhat the young people themselves would dospontaneously.

One group I worked with, young menaged 16 to 18 years, had been a group I hadknown for a few weeks. I got to know themand built a good relationship with them.One week, whilst attempting to initiate anactivity on ‘equal opportunities’ they simplyrefused to co-operate and instead just kepttalking with each other or generally beingrowdy. In response, I stood in the middle ofthe room and stayed quiet. Eventually, theywent quiet and I told them that there’s nopoint in me being here if we are not doinganything. They just stayed quiet and therewas a long silence. From the silence, one ofthe young men, who had been bullied bysome of the young men in previous weeksand did not say much, started to rap a songabout himself. The song was fast and full of

bad language, but clearly a reflection aboutwhat he thought about relationships, family,school and drugs that he had experienced.Myself and the rest of the group werelooking at each other in shock. When hestopped, we congratulated him and spokeabout what he was singing about. However,another young man started to do exactly thesame thing and the same shocked reactionsoccurred again. Again, the rap reflected hislife experiences, which were not positive andindicated that he struggled with his ownidentity in difficult and unsupportivecontexts. One of the young men thenjokingly asked if I wanted to start rappingand I politely declined.

For me this is conscientisation in prac-tice. The young men decided to express whatthey thought and felt about their lives andwanted to share this with the people in theroom. Consequently, it influenced anotheryoung person to rap and express their feel-ings. We then discussed this together andcame to some collective thinking about ouridentities. The young men’s choice toexpress their feelings in such an honest andexplicit way was a form of ‘capacitation’(Carmen & Sobrado, 2000, in Kagan et al.,2011) because the music they produced wasnot imposed by outside experts (teachers ormyself), but developed by insiders (theyoung men). The young men became activelearners in wanting to change the perspec-tives they had about their lives and thusbecome aware of what their identity means.

‘Learning difficulties’ and sexuality A big part of my work in the community hasbeen working with men and women margin-alised by society through their labels of‘learning difficulties’. This is a label becausemost people I have collaborated with whoare labelled in this way refuse to accept theyhave ‘learning difficulties’. One particularman I worked with, Stephen (pseudonym), a 46-year-old man from Manchester, ‘cameout’ as being gay using poetry influenced byother members of a group I facilitated in thecommunity. Initially a shy and reluctant

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person to get involved unless asked, he soon(within a few weeks) started to expresshimself and talk about himself in an intimateand personal way. For example, one of thefirst workshops the group did was to talkabout and write poetry. This was facilitatedby another member of the group, who hadasked to do this. The week after James facili-tated this poetry workshop; Stephen cameback and asked if he could read some poetryhe had written. Stephen’s reading of thispoem was used as an opportunity by Stephento inform the group that he was gay. WhenStephen ended his poem this way, there werechuckles of laughter and shock throughoutthe group. However, Stephen received around of applause and he appeared veryhappy with what he had done. Later on, heshook my hand and thanked me for‘allowing’ him to read his work out.Although I reminded him that this was hisproject and this was the place for him toexpress himself, in his own way.

Research on the process of empower-ment demonstrates that people will notengage fully until they feel they have gainedawareness of their own oppression and haveenjoyed support from other communitymembers (Kieffer, 1984; Lord & Hutchin-son, 1993; Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2005).Therefore, to overcome oppression, pro-jects/groups need to develop interpersonaland mentoring type relationships, whichthrough this support and education peoplewill experience consciousness raising(Hollander, 1997; Nelson & Prilleltensky,2005). Stephen was able to raise conscious-ness about health for himself by liberatinghis feelings to the group and consequentlyraised consciousness amongst the men bygetting them to think about issues related tosexuality and to express their feelings.

The dialogue and consequently theconscientisation of being aware of healthissues relates here to how the group partici-pated. Kagan (2006) suggested that bottomup participation and collective action arelikely to have the greatest impact on bothwell-being and the potential for changing

the material circumstances of life (Kagan etal., 2011, p.105). In addition, this kind ofparticipation achieves several things (basedon Kagan et al., 2011, p.105, relating toCampbell & Jovchelovitch, 2000; Campbell& Murray, 2004): 1. Participation develops the group’s critical

awareness and critical thinking.2. Members of the group renegotiate their

collective social identity and varied perspec-tives on the world through shared under-standing and ways of talking aboutthemselves.

3. Participation reinforces people’s confidenceand ability to take control of their lives. Peopleare empowered to make changes.

For Stephen to have developed a positiveself-identity, the process of critical conscious-ness was achieved through talking andunderstanding one another. Although devel-oping a positive self-identity is difficult in thecontext of pervasive societal attitudes thathave devalued people labelled with ‘learningdifficulties’, Stephen overcame this bytalking with others about his feelings of sexu-ality and for everyone involved they becamemore aware, therefore, conscious of howhard it is to be labelled with ‘learning diffi-culties’ and to be gay.

Training volunteers in conscientisation My final reflection considers a small projectI co-ordinated in which I worked with menand women labelled with ‘learning difficul-ties’ to develop a training programme totrain volunteers to build relationships withpeople labelled with learning difficulties.When training volunteers or professionals, itis likely information is delivered, or you getto watch a couple of DVDs, or you mighthave some general discussions. However, incollaboration with adult men and women,we decided that we wanted to take a moreactive approach, to deliver somethingdifferent. Therefore, the group came upwith the idea of creating drama scenes thattold a story or depicted an event that hadoccurred in their lives. For example, onescene they created and delivered to volun-


Conscientisation and identity: Reflections on being a community psychologist

teers concerned the control and the abuse ofcontrol they had experienced at home. Thescene involved a man who would control allaspects of his sister’s life, that is, breakingher belongings, switching the TV off withoutasking, or hitting her. These actions areblatant forms of abuse and subtle ways tocontrol someone. The actors wanted thevolunteers to understand that their lives hadbeen controlled in some many ways andtherefore if a volunteer wanted to work withsomeone they needed to be aware of the feel-ings and difficulties people labelled withlearning difficulties face.

This kind of scene, which was one ofmany with other topics including sexuality,relationships and equality, are good exam-ples of conscientisation taking place. Inother words, through drama and improvisedspeech, the actors challenged the attitudesand perspectives the volunteers had aboutpeople labelled with learning difficulties.When the scenes were completed, the volun-teers and actors would debate and criticallyanalyse the issues that emerged from thescene. Consequently, both the peoplelabelled with learning difficulties and thevolunteers became aware of one another andunderstood each other more throughdialogue. As I stated earlier, Awareness isachieved by something that is not one way(Kagan et al, 2011) and concerns recipro-cating dialogue in which all people are onthe same level.

ConclusionIn conclusion, by developing criticalconsciousnesses within the projects I facili-tated in collaboration with young peopleand adults labelled with ‘learning difficul-ties, they were able to become aware of whattheir identity meant to them and to eachother. Through conscientisation, the peopleinvolved with my work felt empowered andincluded in a learning process that wascyclical and positive in the development oftheir identity. The groups and individualssimply talked to each other and expressedthemselves in a safe space and became awareof each other, which lead to a greater mutualrespect. Although being a communitypsychologist is clearly a challenge, it can beincredibly rewarding for the psychologist,and especially so for the people you collabo-rate with.

CorrespondenceMichael RichardsManchester Metropolitan University,Research Institute of Health and Social Change,Elizabeth Gaskell Campus,Hathersage Road,Manchester, M13 0JAEmail: [email protected]

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Burton, M. & Kagan, C. (1998). Complementarismversus incommensurability in psychologicalresearch methodology. In M. Cheung-Chong(Ed.), Current trends in history and philosophy ofpsychology. Leicester: British PsychologicalSociety.

Campbell, C. & Jovchelovitch, S. (2000). Health,community and development. Journal of Commu-nity and Applied Social Psychology, 10, 255–270.

Campbell, C. & Murray, M. (2004). Communityhealth psychology: Promoting analysis and actionfor social change. Journal of Health Psychology,9(2), 187–195.

Carmen, R. & Sobrado, M. (Eds.) (2000). A future forthe excluded: Job creation and income generation by thepoor. Clodomir Santos de Morais and the OrganisationWorkshop. London: Zed Books.

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmonds-worth: Penguin.

Freire, P. & Faundez, A. (1989). Learning to question: A pedagogy of liberation. Geneva: World Council ofChurches.

Hollander, N.C. (1997). Love in a time of hate: Libera-tion psychology in Latin America. New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Kagan, C., Burton, M., Duckett, P., Lawthom, R. &Siddique, A. (2011). Critical community psychology.Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell

Kagan, C., Duggan, K., Richards, M. & Siddiquee, A.(2011). Community psychology. In P.R. Martin,F.M. Cheung, M.C. Knowles, M. Kyrios, L. Little-field, J.B. Overmier & J.M. Prieto (Eds.), The IAAP handbook of applied psychology(pp.471–499). Oxford: Blackwell PublishingLimited,

Kieffer, C. (1984). Citizen empowerment: A develop-mental perspective. Prevention in Human Services,3, 9–35.

Lord, J. & Hutchinson, P. (1993). The process ofempowerment: Implications for theory and prac-tice. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health,12(1), 5–22.

Nelson, G. & Prilleltensky, I. (Eds) (2005). Communitypsychology: Towards liberation and well-being.London: Palgrave Macmillan.


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References

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Kate: Thank you very much for your timetoday. To begin, can you tell me about youracademic work?Rusi: Certainly. I’m a lecturer in psychologyhere at De Montfort. My responsibilitiesinclude teaching social psychology, thepsychology of sexuality and conceptualissues in psychology and, in addition toteaching, I’m very research active. I’mcommitted to looking at pressing socialpsychological issues using the tools that areavailable to us. I try to synthesise my teachingand my research: I think that’s key in anacademic career.Kate: Tell me about your research.Rusi: The main theoretical aim of myresearch is to develop Identity ProcessTheory (see Boxed Feature 1), a theory inwhich we can look at three things: socialrepresentations (the sorts of ideas that existin society); people’s sense of self and identity;and how they cope when their sense of self isin some way threatened. This is actually quiteambitious because what we find in socialpsychology generally is piecemeal theorisingwhere there’s a focus on particular elements.I’m trying to develop a larger framework inwhich these three things can be examined.

I try to develop this theoretical aim inapplied contexts. I’ve tried to de-emphasisethe focus in psychology on Western industri-alised contexts, and to look at those contextswe’ve neglected, to show how our theorieswork in these kinds of contexts. My aim is to

represent psychology as human science asopposed to a science that is very muchfocused on Western contexts.

In terms of the actual specific areas thatI’ve looked at, I’ve probably become bestknown for my work on gay Muslims (seeBoxed Feature 2). I’ve been interested inlooking at how people who identify as eitherlesbian, gay, or bisexual, but also as an indi-vidual of religious faith, manage to reconcilethese two important identities. Because it’ssuch a complex topic, I’ve looked at variousissues and dimensions of the religion-sexu-ality interface: for example, the way thatpeople relate to members of their religiousgroup; the way that people associate withothers on the gay scene; and the sorts ofstruggles they have to deal with.And I’vefound this theoretically enlighteningbecause it sheds light on things like multiplesocial identities.

More recently I’ve started to look at radi-cally different areas, using the same theo-retical tools. I’ve looked at representationsof climate change and how we canencourage people to change their behav-iour, given the scientific evidence thatclimate change is happening and that we arecontributing to that. Now a lot of people findit quite difficult to see a link between mywork on gay Muslims and my work on behav-iour change in the context of climate changebut actually there is one. The assumptions inboth areas are relatively similar in that our

Psychology People in Profile:Dr Rusi JaspalKate Doran

Lecturer in Psychology and Convener of the Self and Identity Research Group atDe Montfort University, Dr Rusi Jaspal is the 2012 recipient of the OutstandingResearch by an Early-Career Scholar Award from the Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section of theBritish Psychological Society (QMiP). He received this award at QMiP’s Annual Conference which tookplace in Huddersfield, 4–6 September 2013. On a chilly day in February (2013), Kate Doran caught upwith Rusi, over a cuppa.

identities are very important. And it is impor-tant for psychologists to consider whatmatters to individuals if we want people tochange their behaviour and attitudes. Kate: How did you come to such an inter-esting and rich area of research?Rusi: My first degree was in French andSpanish linguistics at the University ofCambridge. My undergraduate dissertationlooked at identity issues among speakers ofAndalusian Spanish. So I had a very specifictopic, the sort of thing that linguists like tolook at. But I certainly couldn’t find theanswers to many of my questions withinlinguistics. I had to look outside of the disci-pline. I picked up Glynis Breakwell’s book,Coping with Threatened Identities. Reading thatbook as an undergraduate decisively changedthe course of my career; it made such animportant contribution to understanding theconstruction of identity. It seemed to comple-ment what was being argued in linguistics. Irealised that, in order to provide a holistic

account of language and identity, I needed tolook beyond linguistics and to go into socialpsychology. Social psychology itself issupposed to be the meeting point betweenpsychology and sociology so I think mytraining over the years has sensitised me tothe importance of bringing together disci-plines, as much as is feasible. Kate: What was your undergraduate super-visor’s response to you bringing in this wholeother disciplinary approach?Rusi: My supervisor Ioanna Sitaridou wasvery open-minded indeed and this questionallows me to say something that I believe verypassionately: supervisors have a responsi-bility to allow their students to flourish andto develop their own ideas and to think inde-pendently. There is unfortunately a bit of atrend in some areas of psychology, in somelabs, where students are treated more likeresearch assistants. I think that’s a real shame


Psychology People in Profile: Dr Rusi Jaspal

Boxed Feature 1: Identity Process Theory

Out in April2014, this is anedited volume byRusi Jaspal andDame Glynis M.Breakwell. It ispublished byC a m b r i d g eUniversity Press.As the title

suggests, the book examines recentempirical and theoretical developmentsin Identity Process Theory and focuseson the inter-relations between identity,social change and social and psycholog-ical action in a diverse range of empir-ical, cultural and geographical contexts.The book provides novel theoreticalapproaches to identity, social changeand action, and is aimed at students andresearchers interested in the socialpsychology of identity.

Boxed Feature 2: On the QMiP SectionAward

I feel as researchers we all have aresponsibility towards all kinds ofminorities within society, to try to createfavourable conditions for minorities tocoexist with majorities and to contributeto majority society. I feel very stronglyabout this topic of gay Muslims becauseI feel that they are an ignored popula-tion, their plight is not thought aboutvery much. I was absolutely thrilled thatthe QMiP Section selected my paperentitled ‘Coping with Potentially Incom-patible Identities: Accounts of Reli-gious, Ethnic and Sexual Identities fromBritish Pakistani Men who Identify asMuslim and Gay’ for the OutstandingResearch by an Early Career ScholarAward. I’m really looking forward toattending the conference in Hudders-field where I will hopefully be givensome time to talk about the paper andto encourage people to engage with thetopic.

because it perpetuates the same tradition ofresearch and the same direction and there isvery little scope for creative thinking. I wasvery lucky that my undergrad adviser was soradical that she allowed me to read a bookthat was outside of her remit and to write adissertation on a very different topic fromwhat was expected. We recently co-authoreda paper that was based on my undergraduatedissertation. I feel I owe a lot to my under-graduate supervisor. Kate: Did you go directly from your under-graduate degree to a Master’s in socialpsychology?Rusi: Yes. I realised that a lot of the theory I was drawing on was social psychological. I thought, ‘Why not go in to a discipline likesocial psychology and learn some of theirmethods and theories and see how I canmove my topic (language and identity)forward?’ So I completed a Master’s at theUniversity of Surrey under the supervision ofAdrian Coyle. He showed me a very differentway of thinking and wasn’t at all prescriptive,allowing me to develop my own ideas. Healso supervised a topic which wasn’t directlyin his area of expertise. This resulted incollaborative research and some co-authoredpapers. The role of the supervisor is funda-mental in moving our discipline forward I think.Kate: What did you do after your socialpsychology Master’s?Rusi: I decided to do a PhD in a very similartopic, under the supervision of MarcoCinnirella at Royal Holloway. During myPhD, I went to work with Professor RichardBourhis, a leading researcher in social iden-tity theory, who was one of Henri Tajfel’sPhD students. Again that was because of myinterest in language and identity. However,his focus was very different. He was focusingon the intergroup level, whereas what I haddone with Adrian Coyle and with MarcoCinnirella was very much an analysis of thetotal identity of the individual, encom-passing things like group memberships,personality and attitudes. So this was anattempt to see what other psychologists who

are looking at the same topic – but withdistinct theoretical foci – were saying. Thatwas a wonderful experience because ithelped me to enrich my research with otherperspectives.Kate: How did you arrange that collabora-tion?Rusi: I did what a lot of people are quitereluctant to do when it involves someonevery eminent like Richard Bourhis: I wrotehim an email. I asked him if he would bewilling to have me in his lab for a few monthswhile I was doing my PhD. He just asked fora copy of my CV and a brief personal state-ment and the next thing I knew I was on aflight to Montreal! There are schemes avail-able from the British Psychological Society tofacilitate these sorts of research trips and I would encourage PhD students to takeadvantage of this kind of enriching experi-ence. It was a very different way of workingfrom what I was used to in the UK. There wasa lab focus where undergraduate students,graduate students, doctoral students andpostdoctoral research fellows all worktogether on things collectively. It’s not reallya system that we have so much in the UK. ButI think it’s absolutely fantastic and if I couldchange something about psychology in theUK, it would be that: to develop integrativeapproach, an approach to get everyone towork together, to share ideas.Kate: What is your favourite part of theresearch process?Rusi: I absolutely love writing (see BoxedFeature 3). It’s my opportunity to express myviews and to give my ideas some exposure.When you write, your work is read by peoplefrom all over the world, potentially, andthat’s a very satisfying experience. It feels asif you’re making a contribution on quite alarge scale. But I wouldn’t want this toobscure the sort of satisfaction I get fromteaching and talking about my work in myteaching. It’s also highly satisfying to be ableto talk to my students and to hear their viewson my work and also to feel that you’rehaving some impact on their own thinkingwith regard to a topic. Also, I learn a lot from

64 PsyPAG Quarterly

Kate Doran


Psychology People in Profile: Dr Rusi Jaspal

my students. They give me great ideas; theyprovide very constructive criticism of myresearch; and I think they’re quite happy tosee that people who are teaching them areresearch active. I think they want to feel thatthey are being taught by people at thecutting edge of the discipline. It’s a veryreciprocal process, teaching and research,talking with students about research, and I enjoy that immensely.

Kate: What advice do you have for readerswho may be thinking of pursuing anacademic career?Rusi: Postgraduate study is a veryexploratory phase. Learn as many methodsas you can. Attend lots of workshops andconferences. Make use of the time that isafforded to a research student that isn’tafforded to a member of academic staff.Learn and explore different theories. Andwrite.

Rusi’s twitter handle: @RusiJaspal

CorrespondenceKate DoranSheffield University.Email: [email protected]

Boxed Feature 3: On writing forThe Quarterly

PsyPAG really helped to shape mycareer. I had a very positive experiencein publishing for the first time in TheQuarterly. This fuelled my enthusiasmfor writing and showed me that it ispossible for other people to appreciateyour work. We don’t always think thatbecause we’re often working in veryinsular contexts, in a dyadic relationshipwith our supervisor, for example, whichcan mean that we don’t really knowwhat other people think about ourresearch.I’m now collaborating withpeople that I actually met throughPsyPAG. I do feel that publishing inPsyPAG has enhanced my career.


Dates for your Diary

4–6 December 2013The BPS Division of Clinical Psychology Annual Conference The Royal York Hotel, Yorkhttp://www.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/division-clinical-psychology-annual-conference-2013

14 December 2013The BPS Mathematical, Statistical & Computing Psychology Section Annual Scientific Meeting & Annual General MeetingBPS Offices, 30 Tabernacle Street, Londonhttp://mscs.bps.org.uk/mscs/scientific-meetings-agms/scientific-meetings-agms_home.cfm

16–17 December 2013The BPS Division of Sport & Exercise Psychology Annual ConferenceThe Midland Hotel, Manchesterhttp://www.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/division-sport-exercise-psychology-annual-conference2013

8–10 January 2014The BPS Division of Occupational Psychology Annual ConferenceThe Grand, Brightonhttp://www.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/division-occupational-psychology-annual-conference-2014

8–10 January 2014The BPS Division of Educational and Child Psychology Annual ConferenceThe Oxford Hotel, Oxfordhttp://www.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/decp-annual-conference-2014

20 February 2014Midlands Health Psychology NetworkThe University of Northamptonwww.mhpn.co.uk

The BPS website lists a full list of BPS events: http://www.bps.org.uk/events


Annual Conference 2014International Conference Centre, BirminghamOur conference themes are:�� Psychology and war�� The psychology of family, parenting and caring�� The psychologist as expert�� New directions in human neurosciencePlus ‘General’ category for work outside the above themes.

Deadlines�� oral presentations, workshops and symposium submissions

– 27 October 2013�� poster presentations

– 7 January 2014

Our keynote speakers for 2014 are�� Professor Sir Simon Wessely

King’s College London�� Ben Shephard

Military and Medical Historian, Oxford University

�� Susan van ScoyocIndependent Practitioner

�� Professor John AggletonCardiff University

�� Professor Marinus van IJzendoornLeiden University

Registration will open on 2 September 2013For further details see www.bps.org.uk/ac2014

ICC 7–9 May 2014

68 PsyPAG Quarterly

PsyPAG Committee 2013/2014Position Currently held by Due for re-election

Core Committee Members

Chair Laura [email protected]

2015

Treasurer Katie [email protected]

2015

Vice Chair Emma [email protected]

2015

Communications Officer Hamish [email protected]

2015

Information Officer Kazia [email protected] [email protected]

2014

2016

PsyPAG Quarterly [email protected]

Jumana [email protected]

2014

Laura [email protected]

2014

Emma [email protected]

2015

Martin Toye [email protected]

2015

Division Representatives

Division of Clinical Psychology

Moitree [email protected]

2015

Division of CounsellingPsychology

Sue [email protected]

2014

Division of Educational & Child Psychology

Zayba [email protected]

2015

Divn for Academics, Researchers& Teachers in Psychology

Charlottee [email protected]

2015

Division of ForensicPsychology

Dean [email protected]

2015

Division of Health Psychology

Kimberley [email protected]

2014

Division of Neuropsychology Naomi Aoife [email protected]

2015

Division of OccupationalPsychology

Charlotte [email protected]

2015


Position Currently Held By Due for re-election

Division Representatives (contd.)

Division of Sport & ExercisePsychology

Hamish [email protected]

2014

Section Representatives

Cognitive Psychology Section Sam [email protected]

2014

Consciousness and ExperientialPsychology Section

Vacant 2015

Developmental PsychologySection

Katie [email protected]

2014

History and Philosophy ofPsychology Section

Marta [email protected]

2015

Psychology of SexualitiesSection

Ethan Lumb [email protected]

2015

Mathematical, Statistical andComputing Section

Lisa [email protected]

2015

Psychobiology Section Bernadette [email protected]

2014

Psychology of EducationSection

Jillian [email protected]

2015

Psychology of Women Section

Donna [email protected]

2015

Psychotherapy Section Kate [email protected]

2015

Qualitative Methods inPsychology Section

Marta [email protected]

2015

Social Psychology Section Daniel [email protected]

2014

Transpersonal PsychologySection

Jacqueline [email protected]

2015

Coaching Psychology Vacant 2015

Community Psychology Michael [email protected]

2015

PsyPAG Committee 2013–2014

70 PsyPAG Quarterly

Position Currently Held By Due for re-election

Branch Representatives

North East of England Branch Dawn [email protected]

2015

North West of England Branch Jin [email protected]

2015

Northern Ireland Branch Lisa [email protected]

2014

Scottish Branch Niamh [email protected]

2015

South West of England Branch Amy [email protected]

2014

Welsh Branch Alys Griffiths [email protected]

2014

Wessex Branch Rhiannon Barrington [email protected]

2015

West Midlands Branch Sarah [email protected]

2015

London and Home CountiesBranch

Lynsey [email protected]

2015

Board Representatives

Publications andCommunications Board

Patrycja [email protected]

2014

Ethics Miriam Thiel [email protected]

2015

Research Board (Chair) Laura [email protected]

2015

Other Committees

Conference Standing Committee Bernadette [email protected]

2015

Undergraduate Liaison Officer JJ [email protected]

2014

PsyPAG Committee 2013–2014


PsyPAG Quarterly submissions guidelinesThe PsyPAG Quarterly is a developing publication, which is distributed free of charge to allpsychology postgraduates in the UK. It therefore receives wide readership. The PsyPAG Quarterly accepts articles on all areas of psychology.

Types of articles accepted:Featured Articles and Discussion Papers: Articles can cover a wide range of topics. Articlesmay describe a piece of original research; provide an overview of a theory, area or issue. Research in Brief: A short report of original research, often preliminary findings. Big Interviews: An interview with anyone connected with psychology, usually written in a question-and-answer format.Conference Reviews: Provide an overview of a conference, outlining the main themes of theconference. Departmental Reviews: An overview of a department as well as research interests of thepostgraduates.Book and Software Reviews: A review of books or software relevant to psychologists. Hints and Tips: Hints and tips that will be useful to postgraduates. For example, how toapply for funding. Postgraduate Research in Brief: This is a reference list of research that has recently beenpublished by postgraduates within a particular area or department.

Word limits:The journal has a broad word limit of 500 to 2500 words excluding references. The maximum word limit is flexible for in depth discussion papers, longer interviews orhints and tips. The word count will differ depending on the type of article, for example,conference and book reviews should be shorter than featured articles.

Formatting:Please submit all articles in Microsoft Word. The content, including tables, figures, andreferences should all comply with the most recent APA guidelines. You should alsoinclude your contact details at the end of each article in the format of:

Correspondence:NameUniversity of X.Email: Submission:

To submit an article, please send as an email attachment to: [email protected].

If you have any further questions, please contact the editors at [email protected],or send in your question via twitter: @PsyPAGQuarterly.

72 PsyPAG Quarterly

Notes

About PsyPAGPsyPAG is a national organisation for all psychology postgraduates based at UK Institutions. Funded by the Research Board of the British Psychological Society, PsyPAG is run on a voluntary basis by postgraduates for postgraduates.Its aims are to provide support for postgraduate students in the UK, to act as a vehicle for communication between postgraduates, and represent postgraduates within the British Psychological Society. It also fulfills the vital role of bringing together postgraduatesfrom around the country.n PsyPAG has no official membership scheme; anyone involved in postgraduate study in

psychology at a UK Institution is automatically a member.n PsyPAG runs an annual workshop and conference and also produces a quarterly

publication, which is delivered free of charge to all postgraduate psychology departmentsin the UK.

n PsyPAG is run by an elected committee, which any postgraduate student can be voted onto. Elections are held at the PsyPAG Annual Conference each year.

n The committee includes representatives for each Sub-Division within the British Psychological Society, their role being to represent postgraduate interests andproblems within that Division or the British Psychological Society generally. We also liaise with the Student Group of the British Psychological Society to raise awareness of postgraduate issues in the undergraduate community.

n Committee members also include Practitioners-in-Training who are represented by PsyPAG.

Mailing listPsyPAG maintains a JISCmail list open to ALL psychology postgraduate students. To join, visit www.psypag.co.uk and scroll down on the main page to find the link, or go to http://tinyurl.comPsyPAGjiscmail.This list is a fantastic resource for support and advice regarding your research, statisticaladvice or postgraduate issues.

Social networkingYou can also follow PsyPAG on Twitter (http://twitter.com/PsyPAG and add us on Facebook: http://tinyurl.comPsyPAGfacebook.Again, this information is also provided at www.psypag.co.uk.

www.psypag.co.uk

Contents

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Laura Scurlock-EvansChair’s Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Laura NealePutting the quality into quantitative research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Fayme YeatesWhat's all this business about Bayes? . . .12James GrangeThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly about the fMRI world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Greg MaciejewskiHints and Tips: Tips on conductingeffective online research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Rosemary KingstonOn a date with secondary data: Things you should know before asking someone else’s data out . . . . . . . . .22Patrycja Piotrowska Hints and Tips/Conference Review:Presenting at a conference for Trainee Educational Psychology: Reflections on the benefits for the research process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Fiona McBrydeConference Review: InternationalConference on Eating Disorders 2013 . . .29Carolyn PlateauConference Review: Royal College of Nurses International Nursing Research Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Jenny WattsConference Review: 2nd Junior Researcher Programme Conference . . . . .33Laurien Nagels-Coune & Madeleine Dalsklev

Workshop Review: SoDoc 2013 Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Laura De MoliereDevelopment and delivery of an Outreach training event for postgraduate psychology students . . . . .40Samantha Rowbotham, Melissa Noke & Ruth ButterworthConference Review: The F-Word inContemporary Women's Writing . . . . . . . .45Rebecca WrayConference Review: 7th InternationalTinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) Tinnitus Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48Kathryn FackrellUnfamiliar voice identification as forensic evidence: Can you believe your ears? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50Harriet SmithBenefit finding in cancer: The argument of being positive . . . . . . . . .53Angelos KassianosConscientisation and identity: Reflections on being a community psychologist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57Michael RichardsPsychology People in Profile: Dr Rusi Jaspa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62Kate DoranDates for your Diary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66PsyPAG Committee 2013/14 . . . . . . . . . . . .68

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© The British Psychological Society 2013Incorporated by Royal Charter Registered Charity No 229642

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Tips on conducting eﬀective online research The Good, the ...2089.pdf · Conscientisation and identity: Reflections on being a community psychologist Also in this issue: Psychology