Psychology

More on the subject of the influence of the moon on our behaviour (or not).  Here’s a link to a published paper on “The Disease of the Moon” – well worth a read!

If you are in Yr 13, you could approach this as a gentle introduction to Clinical Psychology – look out for ‘expectancy’ effects, types of evidence, and cultural differences (in this case through time) with respect to mental health issues, and changing practices with regards to ‘diagnosis’.

If you’re in Yr 12, just enjoy it – but it gives you a flavour of what you might be doing this time next year.

(Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3561662932/)

So – if you looked here yesterday, did you find yourself doing anything unusual?

If you did, and even if you didn’t, you will have given yourself an example of ‘expectancy effects’. These affect us all everyday, and account for or influence a large proportion of our behaviour. They are relevant to almost all areas of Psychology that you have/will be studying, from your reactions to what you’ve learned, to what actually happened in many of the research studies you have looked at. I’m hoping you’ve realised that if you are ‘self-monitoring’, it’s quite likely you will change your behaviour anyway. If you were expecting unusual behaviour, it is likely you spotted some; if you thought the idea was ridiculous, you probably didn’t bother to self-monitor, or found nothing unusual – either way, whatever you were expecting probably happened!! (so you could consider the ethics of the previous post…!!)

If you are Yr 13 and revising Unit 3, this is an illustration of a phenomenon you need to know in detail for this exam – so a quick revision test:-

a) Identify the phenomenon

b) What research would you use to support this?  - findings (results/conclusions) from at least 3 studies.

c) Evaluate this as an explanation of criminal/anti-social behaviour.

If you are Yr 12, we have just started introducing Psychoanalytic ideas, particularly the idea of symbolism, eg in dreams or in artwork. So put your evaluative heads on – now we’re expecting to see hidden meanings – how likely is it that we’ll see them??

(and if any of you DID end up howling or shape-shifting (and can prove it!!), please let us know…..  )

[picture from http//terrorpixels.com]

Today is a full moon. There is a theory that people’s behaviour changes at full moon (particularly students, who tend to be awake all night anyway!) Monitor your behaviour over the next 24 hours. Is it different to usual?

Come back to this site tomorrow and report anything you notice.

(pic from ‘I am Marion’ Flickr creative commons (and that’s not me!))