Psychology is becoming an increasingly female-dominated discipline at sixth form and undergraduate level, but the balance shifts at each step of the career hierarchy. Conceived over margaritas in Florida, this one-day workshop held at the University of Nottingham offered a rare and welcome opportunity to hear the personal stories of some top women in psychology, reports Jon Sutton in The Psychologist. What obstacles had they encountered in their career progression, and how had they overcome them?
Dr Nicola Pitchford (University of Nottingham), who organised the day with Dr Kate Cain (University of Lancaster), opened proceedings by admitting she had felt personally vulnerable in putting the event on. Would she be judged, or pigeonholed? However, it was clear throughout that this was no militant rally of wronged women: a lot of the 'top tips for success' would be just as valuable for men, and Pitchford asserted at the outset that she didn't feel that she had been discriminated against in any way. Instead, it may be their own personality traits which prevent some women going forward.
Supporting this, Pitchford pointed to a recent Harvard Business Review article by Jill Flynn and colleagues on 'four ways women stunt their careers unintentionally': 'being overly modest', 'not asking', 'blending in' and 'remaining silent'. The report suggested that career progression is not about adding job skills but about changing everyday thinking and behaviours. The majority of high-performing women don't need to make major changes: it's about the tweaks.
The first speaker supported this view, highlighting the role of serendipity and personal chemistry in her own career. The ever-wise and generous Professor Vicki Bruce (Newcastle University) spoke as a 'planaholic' who nevertheless confesses to 'an absence of career planning and where that can get you'. 'I've largely followed my heart not my head', Bruce admitted, 'and amazing things can follow.'
Bruce's story began with a gap year job at Proctor and Gamble in Newcastle, which she got because her dad worked there. Programming computers to help in the invention of new soap powders may seem a long way from psychology, but when Bruce found herself doing 'so badly' in the first year of chemistry at Cambridge she was drawn to the human information processing and computer metaphors that were beginning to dominate psychology. 'HIP was hip and IT was it', Bruce said. Psychology was a young discipline, and there was plenty of chance to make a genuine, if incremental contribution.
On travelling to Lancaster to give a seminar in the early 80s, Bruce was picked up by Andy Young who, it transpired, had grown up in the next street and had travelled on the same train as Bruce as a child. So began a fruitful collaboration, in the increasingly influential field of face recognition. Bruce showed a photo from the first ESRC workshop on face recognition in 1984: a phenomenal line-up, including four women who are now professors.
Bruce's talk was full of sage advice. If you can, move at least every 10 years; if there's something that isn't working, change it; grow your own network; say 'no' to 'more of the same'; disseminate broadly; be a good 'academic citizen' (do book and journal reviews, serve on committees, etc.) - you will be asked to do more, but ultimately you will be valued. In what was to become a recurring theme, Bruce spoke fondly of several key role models and mentors in her life.
Next up, Professor Christine Horrocks (Manchester Metropolitan University, and Chair of the British Psychological Society's Psychology of Women Section) described her journey from a demanding job with a marketing agency to director of a research centre. Horrocks said that along the way she had experienced difficult relationships that had been gendered, but not out and out discrimination. Dare to stand up, she advised, to negotiate and avoid being forced down routes that are not right for you. Horrocks focused on the job application and promotion process, warning the audience against 'being lacklustre'. Use adjectives and action verbs in your application, and take the opportunity offered by a performance review to really give a good account of yourself and make sure everyone knows your good ideas.
Horrocks is in the midst of a move from the University of Bradford, and she spoke candidly on how she has always thought herself more likely to regret missed opportunities than something she has done. That has applied to her choices as a working mother in general: 'Yes, I've suffered the "tyranny of the school gates", I've wondered if I'm exchanging my daughter's GCSEs for my own position... but they're thriving, independent kids now. It's so easy to concentrate on what we might lose and not what we might gain.'
As someone who admitted to being 'quite forceful' to get where she is, it was noteworthy that Horrocks still refused to underestimate the importance of good working relations. 'Those who demonstrate emotional competencies - self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management - advance more in their careers', she said.
'I used to think winning was everything when I was younger. Now I know when to retreat and regroup.' This had a gendered element: 'Our identities as senior female academics are very vulnerable', Horrocks said. 'I am not willing to be cast as bossy, as problematic.'
After lunch, Professor Veena Kumari (Institute of Psychiatry) continued the sage advice with an account of her own efforts to secure an academic foothold after starting out in India. 'Hearing of the wisdom and humanity shown by former giants of the field like Jeffrey Gray and Hans Eysenck made me hanker for a golden age of mentoring in psychology, before I quickly realised that our field remains replete with fantastic role models and mentors, both male and female.' Kumari receiving such support was not luck: as she said, 'Don't just take the first postdoc that comes your way. Investigate potential supervisors and their supervision history.'
It was also fascinating to hear the role in Kumari's career played by a position she never took. External job offers can offer an opportunity to open a discussion with your employers about your progression if you stay. This echoed a point made earlier by Professor Horrocks, who pointed to figures that suggest male academics advance more in their careers via these 'retention payments'. 'Playing by the rules is not always the best way,' Horrocks said; although Professor Bruce advised caution in the use of this tactic and said that the important point is using the opportunity to create a conversation.
Professor Kumari spoke of the importance of finding out the 'new and emerging - what's likely to become important in the next five to 10 years, and what skills do you need to get a head start?' The day's final speaker, Professor Claire O'Malley (University of Nottingham), advised a similarly long-term view on the funding you need. Nurture your team, she advised: plan, and build a track record. For O'Malley, this has led to her involvement in the £13 million Horizon Digital Economy Research Centre, and a passion for interdisciplinary work. 'Look outside your own tribes and territories', she advised. 'Spend time in other good institutions, if possible outside the UK. Most advances are made when we push at boundaries.'
O'Malley said that what you do matters - esteem indicators such as conference keynotes, service for funding councils and professional societies can count when it comes to promotion. But how you appear to others matters as well, and O'Malley advised the audience to consider their image, brand, website and overall social network presence.
It was interesting to see the day ending with plenty of advice that was just as applicable to men as it was to women. As Vicki Bruce had commented, 'What's good for women is good for men too!' Other speakers had acknowledged that change - for women in psychology, in science and in society - has happened fast. Many places are trying hard to recruit more women, 'balanced values' are the order of the day and supporting women into senior positions is becoming a more prominent agenda in government. Yet we are all so busy doing the day job that it's rare to have the opportunity to share stories, and to benefit from the considerable nous of those who have made it to the top. Let's hope that the organisers of this inspirational day are successful in their own ambition, of making this a regular event which tours the country and reaches out beyond academia to other sectors.

Psychology is becoming an increasingly female-dominated discipline at sixth form and undergraduate level, but the balance shifts at each step of the career hierarchy. Conceived over margaritas in Florida, this one-day workshop held at the University of Nottingham offered a rare and welcome opportunity to hear the personal stories of some top women in psychology. What obstacles had they encountered in their career progression, and how had they overcome them?
Dr Nicola Pitchford (University of Nottingham), who organised the day with Dr Kate Cain (University of Lancaster), opened proceedings by admitting she had felt personally vulnerable in putting the event on. Would she be judged, or pigeonholed? However, it was clear throughout that this was no militant rally of wronged women: a lot of the 'top tips for success' would be just as valuable for men, and Pitchford asserted at the outset that she didn't feel that she had been discriminated against in any way. Instead, it may be their own personality traits which prevent some women going forward.
Supporting this, Pitchford pointed to a recent Harvard Business Review article by Jill Flynn and colleagues on 'four ways women stunt their careers unintentionally': 'being overly modest', 'not asking', 'blending in' and 'remaining silent'. The report suggested that career progression is not about adding job skills but about changing everyday thinking and behaviours. The majority of high-performing women don't need to make major changes: it's about the tweaks.
The first speaker supported this view, highlighting the role of serendipity and personal chemistry in her own career. The ever-wise and generous Professor Vicki Bruce (Newcastle University) spoke as a 'planaholic' who nevertheless confesses to 'an absence of career planning and where that can get you'. 'I've largely followed my heart not my head', Bruce admitted, 'and amazing things can follow.'
Bruce's story began with a gap year job at Proctor and Gamble in Newcastle, which she got because her dad worked there. Programming computers to help in the invention of new soap powders may seem a long way from psychology, but when Bruce found herself doing 'so badly' in the first year of chemistry at Cambridge she was drawn to the human information processing and computer metaphors that were beginning to dominate psychology. 'HIP was hip and IT was it', Bruce said. Psychology was a young discipline, and there was plenty of chance to make a genuine, if incremental contribution.
On travelling to Lancaster to give a seminar in the early 80s, Bruce was picked up by Andy Young who, it transpired, had grown up in the next street and had travelled on the same train as Bruce as a child. So began a fruitful collaboration, in the increasingly influential field of face recognition. Bruce showed a photo from the first ESRC workshop on face recognition in 1984:
a phenomenal line-up, including four women who are now professors.
Bruce's talk was full of sage advice. If you can, move at least every 10 years; if there's something that isn't working, change it; grow your own network; say 'no' to 'more of the same'; disseminate broadly; be a good 'academic citizen' (do book and journal reviews, serve on committees, etc.) - you will be asked to do more, but ultimately you will be valued. In what was to become a recurring theme, Bruce spoke fondly of several key role models and mentors in her life.
Next up, Professor Christine Horrocks (Manchester Metropolitan University, and Chair of the British Psychological Society's Psychology of Women Section) described her journey from a demanding job with a marketing agency to director of a research centre. Horrocks said that along the way she had experienced difficult relationships that had been gendered, but not out and out discrimination. Dare to stand up, she advised, to negotiate and avoid being forced down routes that are not right for you. Horrocks focused on the job application and promotion process, warning the audience against 'being lacklustre'. Use adjectives and action verbs in your application, and take the opportunity offered by a performance review to really give a good account of yourself and make sure everyone knows your good ideas.
Horrocks is in the midst of a move from the University of Bradford, and she spoke candidly on how she has always thought herself more likely to regret missed opportunities than something she has done. That has applied to her choices as a working mother in general: 'Yes, I've suffered the "tyranny of the school gates", I've wondered if I'm exchanging my daughter's GCSEs for my own position... but they're thriving, independent kids now. It's so easy to concentrate on what we might lose and not what we might gain.'
As someone who admitted to being 'quite forceful' to get where she is, it was noteworthy that Horrocks still refused to underestimate the importance of good working relations. 'Those who demonstrate emotional competencies - self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management - advance more in their careers', she said.
'I used to think winning was everything when I was younger. Now I know when to retreat and regroup.' This had a gendered element: 'Our identities as senior female academics are very vulnerable', Horrocks said. 'I am not willing to be cast as bossy, as problematic.'
After lunch, Professor Veena Kumari (Institute of Psychiatry) continued the sage advice with an account of her own efforts to secure an academic foothold after starting out in India. 'Hearing of the wisdom and humanity shown by former giants of the field like Jeffrey Gray and Hans Eysenck made me hanker for a golden age of mentoring in psychology, before I quickly realised that our field remains replete with fantastic role models and mentors, both male and female.' Kumari receiving such support was not luck: as she said, 'Don't just take the first postdoc that comes your way. Investigate potential supervisors and their supervision history.'
It was also fascinating to hear the role in Kumari's career played by a position she never took. External job offers can offer an opportunity to open a discussion with your employers about your progression if you stay. This echoed a point made earlier by Professor Horrocks, who pointed to figures that suggest male academics advance more in their careers via these 'retention payments'. 'Playing by the rules is not always the best way,' Horrocks said; although Professor Bruce advised caution in the use of this tactic and said that the important point is using the opportunity to create a conversation.
Professor Kumari spoke of the importance of finding out the 'new and emerging - what's likely to become important in the next five to 10 years, and what skills do you need to get a head start?' The day's final speaker, Professor Claire O'Malley (University of Nottingham), advised a similarly long-term view on the funding you need. Nurture your team, she advised: plan, and build a track record. For O'Malley, this has led to her involvement in the £13 million Horizon Digital Economy Research Centre, and a passion for interdisciplinary work. 'Look outside your own tribes and territories', she advised. 'Spend time in other good institutions, if possible outside the UK. Most advances are made when we push at boundaries.'
O'Malley said that what you do matters - esteem indicators such as conference keynotes, service for funding councils and professional societies can count when it comes to promotion. But how you appear to others matters as well, and O'Malley advised the audience to consider their image, brand, website and overall social network presence.
It was interesting to see the day ending with plenty of advice that was just as applicable to men as it was to women. As Vicki Bruce had commented, 'What's good for women is good for men too!' Other speakers had acknowledged that change - for women in psychology, in science and in society - has happened fast. Many places are trying hard to recruit more women, 'balanced values' are the order of the day and supporting women into senior positions is becoming a more prominent agenda in government. Yet we are all so busy doing the day job that it's rare to have the opportunity to share stories, and to benefit from the considerable nous of those who have made it to the top. Let's hope that the organisers of this inspirational day are successful in their own ambition, of making this a regular event which tours the country and reaches out beyond academia to other sectors.
Jon Sutton

An interim report by Tilburg University into the fraudulent research activities of social psychologist Diederik Stapel has found the extent of his malpractice to be on a 'shocking scale', with 'several dozen' studies implicated over a period of more than a decade, writes Christian Jarrett in The Psychologist. The investigating committee, chaired by Professor Willem Levelt, a psycholinguist, published their initial findings early in November.
A full list of affected studies will be published later with the final report. No other individuals were found to be culpable, but the interim report says the affair has profound ramifications for the reputation and practice of psychology. It has already generated a great deal of mainstream media interest, with 'Fraud Case Seen as a Red Flag for Psychology Research' being the chosen headline of the New York Times.
According to the Levelt Committee, Stapel's 'cunning, simple system' at Tilburg and earlier at Groningen University was to form intense one-on-one relationships with students and other researchers, to discuss hypotheses and methodologies with them at length, to prepare together the necessary materials, but to do all the apparent research collection himself at local schools. In many instances, the research never took place and the data was entirely fabricated. Other times it was massaged. Only then was it passed to students or colleagues for inspection, analysis and write-up. 'This conduct is deplorable,' the report says.
The doctoral work of five students at Tilburg and seven at Groningen, some of whom did no data collection of their own, is tainted as a consequence. Another strategy was for Stapel to produce old, unpublished data-sets - also fabricated or doctored - that he claimed were just perfect for answering colleagues' and students' new research questions.
Concerns had been raised about Stapel's practices in previous years by three young researchers and by two senior colleagues. But it was only this August when three more young researchers reported their misgivings that a full investigation was launched. 'The Committee concludes that the six young whistle blowers showed more courage, vigilance and inquisitiveness than incumbent full professors,' the report says.
How did Stapel avoid detection for so long? The Committee finds that much of this has to do with personality and status - charismatic Stapel enjoyed a 'virtually unassailable position' in his department, used his 'prestige, reputation and influence', formed close friendships with many of his colleagues and students, and was widely judged to have 'phenomenal research skills'. However, that anomalies in his data and unrealistically perfect results were allowed to persist has exposed 'the flawed performance of academic criticism, which is the cornerstone of science,' the report says.
Stapel's research, on topics such as how power dehumanises us, and the effect of mirrors on prejudice, was published in some of science's most prestigious journals. Yet clues as to Stapel's activities went unnoticed: the lack of detail provided in his papers about research participants and about the feasibility of sometimes complex experiments being conducted in schools. 'Apparently neither the reviewers nor the editorial teams of journals delved into aspects of this kind,' the report says.
Central to the longevity of Stapel's fraud was that he was able to keep his fabricated raw data from so many people for many years without raising undue alarm. The report suggests this was possible because of 'a lamentable... culture in social psychology and psychology research for everyone to keep their own data and not make them available to a public archive'. This is an issue that has been raised before: a 2006 paper by Jelte Wicherts and colleagues in American Psychologist found that just 27 per cent of psychology study authors they contacted were willing to share their data for re-analysis (see News, January 2007). In another paper published this November, Wicherts and his team found that psychologists were less likely to share their data if the likelihood of errors being found was high or the strength of evidence was weak (PLoS One). More worrying still, a study led by Leslie John in press at Psychological Science finds that 'questionable practices may constitute the prevailing research norm' based on an anonymous survey of 2000 psychologists.
The Levelt Committee's interim report concludes with recommendations to prevent fraud on such a scale from occurring again at Tilburg University and more widely, including: having PhD students complete a short integrity course; establishing a Confidential Counsellor For Academic Integrity; creating rules to protect whistle-blowers; and requiring journals to provide details on where and how data are collected. 'Far more than is customary in psychology research practice, research replication must be made part of the basic instruments of the discipline. Research data that underlie psychology publications must be held on file for at least five years after publication, and be made available on request to other scientific practitioners.'
In a formal response to the Committee findings, Stapel said he'd read the report with 'a sense of dismay and shame'. He claimed he'd not been motivated by self-interest and regretted the suffering he'd caused. 'Unfortunately my present state does not permit me to assess this report completely for any factual accuracies,' he said. In a separate statement to the press, he said (translated from Dutch) that he'd 'just wanted to make something more beautiful than it is'.
Christian Jarrett

Edited: 12/05/2011 at 09:29 AM by jonsut

The first population-based study to assess the course of self-harm from adolescence to young adulthood has found that around 1 in 12 young people self-harm, with the balance skewed towards girls.

Published in The Lancet, the cohort study was conducted between August 1992 and January 2008 in Victoria, Australia, with participants aged 14-15 at the outset. The researchers, led by Paula Moran (Institute of Psychiatry), chose this period as one 'characterised by major changes in health and a steep rise in deaths resulting from self-inflicted injuries'. Risks for self-harm increased substantially across puberty, 'a process that seems to be independent of age' according to the authors. Self-harm during adolescence was independently associated with the presence of depression and anxiety, antisocial behaviour, high-risk alcohol use, cannabis use, and cigarette smoking. Injury to the skin through cutting and burning was the commonest method of self-harm during adolescence, although by young adulthood no one form of self-harm predominated.

There is some good news though: 90 per cent of people who self-harm as adolescents will naturally stop in adulthood. 'Our findings suggest that most adolescent self-harming behaviour resolves spontaneously,' the authors said. 'However, young people who self-harm often have mental health problems that might not resolve without treatment, as evident in the strong relation detected between adolescent anxiety and depression and an increased risk of self-harm in young adulthood.'

Commenting on the age-related decline in self-harm in The Lancet, Keith Hawton (University of Oxford) and Rory O'Connor (University of Stirling) considered that as young people move from adolescence to young adulthood, the extent of exposure to peer self-harm might decrease. They also referred to a possibility not addressed by Moran and colleagues: the extent to which clinical interventions might have contributed to the reduction in self-harm. 'The results of Moran and colleagues' study will offer some reassurance to parents of adolescents who self-harm and to health and educational agencies,' Hawton and O'Connor said. 'Clinicians can offer encouragement to both young people who are self-harming and their families.'
Jon Sutton

People in Devon with dementia and their carers are climbing aboard a vintage 1959 double-decker bus as part of a project assessing the benefits of reminiscence therapy. Conceived and led by psychologist Dr Ruth Darvill, the project is funded by the National Lottery and run in association with Age UK.
Two groups of 20 people (10 patients and 10 carers) are being taken on six themed trips. For example, a visit to Sidmouth began with the singing of old songs en route, followed by a Punch and Judy show on the beach. Participants then took turns sharing their memories, which are to be collected in a memory book. 'As soon as people get on the bus, they talk about their memories,' Darvill told us. 'The smell of the diesel and the feeling of the bus as it starts to move, takes people back in time instantly. It's a very multisensory experience.' The driver's and conductor's vintage uniforms and props, including an original ticket machine, add to the sense of theatre.
'There's plenty of research on the benefits of reminiscence therapy for people in care homes,' Darvill explained, 'but not much involving people in the community. These are people who usually receive very little support.'
Darvill is working with Professor Cath Haslam of the University of Exeter to evaluate the impact of the memory trips, which will involve measures of cognitive ability, social support, mood, identity and carer stress. The final trips are planned for April 2012, after which Darvill and Haslam will begin writing up their findings. 'We're hoping the scientific evaluation will demonstrate the impact of the memory trips and help attract more funding,' Darvill said.
Christian Jarrett

St Basils, a West-Midlands homelessness charity, has begun implementing a project to create 'psychologically informed environments' for local homeless youth, an idea advocated by Chartered Clinical Psychologist Nick Maguire, of Southampton University, in government guidelines published last year (see September 2010 News and http://nmhdu.org.uk/complextrauma).
Thanks to funding from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Maguire and Chartered Clinical Psychologist Amanda Skeate of the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust are training 120 of St Basils' front-line staff in basic CBT formulation and change techniques, and developing reflective practice sessions for them to reflect on the impact of their interventions. This includes teaching them how to monitor and detect even small incremental changes. This is vital because it allows staff to see the benefits of their work, which might otherwise be missed, and it's highly motivating for clients who get to see the changes they're making to their lives.
'An important thing with "psychologically informed environments" is that you get as many of the staff as possible working with the same psychological understanding of their clients' problems, using the same language, describing the problems in the same way, generating the same understanding of what's going on,' Maguire told us.
'The whole homelessness area is starting to pick up on the idea that places like hostels need to be psychologically informed, in terms of what they do, but also in terms of the environment. It really feels like a tipping point,' he said. 'It's also very good news that the government are still willing to put money into the development of psychologically informed projects.'
The St Basils initiative is one of the first such projects of its kind in the country, with similar initiatives planned by St Mungos in London and Two Saints in Hampshire. Dr Maguire is currently in the process of co-writing further guidelines on 'psychologically informed environments' for DCLG and will be involved with Dr Skeate in an ongoing assessment of the St Basils project.
Christian Jarrett

Rob B. Briner (University of Bath) and 'Doyin' Atewologun (Cranfield University) report from a one-day conference in London

A challenge facing many organisational leaders and HR professionals concerns how they effectively manage business in the context of today's increasingly diverse employee, customer, community and shareholder groups. So, what can psychology research offer to those responsible for managing the complexity of diversity, and particularly ethnicity, at work?
This was the driving question behind a conference organised by the Ethnic Diversity at Work Group, sponsored by the Society's Division of Occupational Psychology and established two years ago to increase the impact of psychology in this area. Over 90 delegates (mainly managers and practitioners) were shown how theories and findings from social and organisational psychology research can help design effective organisational and individual interventions in areas such as career development, assessment and organisational strategy.
The all-day event began with three keynote presentations which, in different ways, considered how psychology research is relevant to understanding ethnicity at work. The first, from Dr Etlyn Kenny, a lecturer in organisational psychology (Birkbeck, University of London), provided an overview of UK research into ethnicity at work, calling for more work psychology research that specifically examines ethnicity. Kenny argued that research from other contexts, such as the US, is not necessarily relevant to the UK - the way both countries consider, debate and experience ethnicity and 'race' issues differ. More comparative research is therefore needed to identify how and when findings from other contexts such as the US can be applied.
Next up was Professor Binna Kandola (Pearn Kandola), a founder of a business psychology consultancy specialising in diversity. He drew on his latest book The Value of Difference to discuss how basic findings from social psychology and research on unconscious attitudes can be used to help managers consider how they manage diversity in a more evidence-informed way. Professor Kandola reviewed how bias operates in organisations, its neuropsychological basis, the impact on decision making and interpersonal behaviour, and the crucial role that leaders have to play in ensuring that positive change occurs in organisations.
The final morning presentation from a leading international researcher on ethnicity at work, Professor Stella Nkomo (University of Pretoria, South Africa), drew on examples from the growing body of evidence from organisational psychology and other areas of organisational behaviour. For instance, Professor Nkomo discussed how congruence between what an organisation says and what it actually does about diversity increases 'identity safety' for ethnic minority members. A clear diversity philosophy (inherent in policies such as 'equal opportunity employer' statements) as well as actual representation of ethnic minorities (beyond token appointments) tends to be more effective than a 'colourblind' approach for fostering identity safety. And 'identity safe' climate is one in which ethnic minority professionals feel comfortable and trust that they can 'be themselves', free from judgments, stereotypes, opportunities or restrictions that are tied their identities.
Continuing with the theme of applying psychology research to practice, the afternoon continued with four workshops aimed squarely at practitioners, managers and consultants working in the diversity field: 'Proactive career management for minority professionals' (Doyin Atewologun and Audrey Campbell), 'Networking, mentoring and the psychology of diversity' (Tinu Cornish and Maddy Wyatt), 'Assessing and selecting without bias' (Nic Hammarling, Dr Pete Jones and Wendy Lord) and 'Organisational strategies for diversity' (Phil Wilson and Gordon Ryan). The day ended with a question and answer panel session involving the keynote presenters and Professor Rob Briner (University of Bath).
Delegates found the day engaging and thought-provoking, and left with evidence and insights to help those responsible for managing diversity at work. Evidence-based practice is a challenge for all areas of psychology. The Ethnic Diversity at Work Group's activities and approach involving, as it does, both psychology practitioners and researchers, provides one possible model for how psychology research and psychology practice can be better integrated.
I For more on the Ethnic Diversity at Work Group, see tinyurl.com.bpsedawg or contact the Group's Chair, Tinu Cornish or Co-Chair, Doyin Atewologun

Psychology has again dominated the annual Ig Nobel awards - the irreverent prizes given by the Annals of Improbable Research to researchers that make us laugh and then think.
The designated Psychology prize at these, the 21st Ig Nobels, was picked up by Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo for his investigation into human sighing, 'Is a sigh "just a sigh"? Sighs as emotional signals and responses to a difficult task', published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Professor Teigen told us he was 'extremely surprised, honoured, and embarrassed' by the award.
Psychology also featured in other categories. The award for Medicine was given to Dr Mirjam Tuk of the University of Twente (she's moving to Imperial College, London) and her colleagues for their investigations into the effects of bladder fullness on decision making published in Psychological Science and Neurology and Urodynamics. 'It has been fun,' Dr Tuk told us. 'I mainly see it as a recognition of creativity and originality, which is important for scientists.'
In the spirit of the awards (honourees are allowed just 60 seconds to deliver an acceptance speech), we asked Teigen and Tuk to describe their findings in one sentence each. 'We concluded, tentatively,' Teigen said, 'that sighs psychologically imply a realisation that one has to give up something (a hope, a desire, a person, an idea, or an attempt); for instance people sighed a lot when working on an insoluble task.' Tuk said: 'Our study reveals that people who have to control their bladder to a larger extent are also better able to control behavioural impulses, such as desire for immediate but small rewards.'
Other award recipients with a psychological flavour included a paper on procrastination, which won the Literature prize, and an investigation into the distracting effect of a flapping visor on driving ability, which won the Public Safety prize.
The Awards ceremony was held at Harvard University at the end of September and broadcast live on the internet.
Christian Jarrett
I Further information at http://improbable.com/ig

Stress is now the leading cause of long-term absence from work, according to the 2011 Absence Management Survey, published in October by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Five hundred and ninety-two organisations across the UK, with a combined total of over two million employees, were surveyed about their absence levels. The findings were analysed and written-up for CIPD by psychology graduate Annette Sinclair, a senior researcher at Roffey Park.
Two fifths of employers said stress-related absence had increased over the last year (rising to one half of public sector employers), with common reasons cited as work loads, management style and restructuring. Job insecurity was also listed as a top-three cause of stress by 24 per cent of public sector, up from 10 per cent in a similar survey conducted last year.
At the same time, there was some evidence that stress management initiatives have reduced, perhaps because of budget cuts. For example, in the public sector (where such initiatives are actually more common), the proportion of organisations saying that they have a proactive stress policy stood at 69 per cent, compared with figures of 81 to 85 per cent from 2008 to 2010.
On a more positive note, there are signs that spending on employee general well-being is on the increase (e.g. free fresh fruit and onsite massages). Of the two thirds of organisations able to provide the data, 24 per cent said their well-being spend had increased vs. 16 per cent who said it had fallen. Organisations who saw a fall in their absence over the last year were more likely to have a staff well-being strategy in place.
Christian Jarrett
I An independent review of the UK's sickness absence system, commissioned by the Department of Work and Pensions in February, is due to report later this year.

The resilient brain
Catherine Loveday (University of Westminster) reports from a joint British Academy/British Psychological Society lecture
Which of us has not at some point wrestled to remember the name of a famous film star whose face we can quite clearly picture? Or walked into a room to fetch something, only to forget what it is we went there for? These so-called 'senior moments' do occur in all of us, but become increasingly common as we get older. However, Lorraine Tyler, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, argues that to believe that cognitive decline is inevitable is dangerous and outdated. Outdated because substantial research now tells us otherwise; dangerous because negative attitudes can in themselves impact on cognitive performance and health: a 39-year-long study by Becca Levy and colleagues at Yale evaluated 18- to 48-year-olds for their attitudes to older people, and found that those with negative attitudes were significantly more likely to have early heart attacks and strokes.
So how can we convince society and individuals that age does not have to be something to mourn? Tyler showed us an animation of a healthy brain slice as it passed through the decades. There were nervous gasps from the audience as we watched the staggering reduction in grey matter between the ages of 20 and 80. And if any of those in the younger bracket were feeling like this was all a distant concern, they were soon put to rights as Tyler pointed out that brain shrinkage has already started by the time you reach 30. 'Don't panic though!' she urged us. 'It is what you can do with your brain that matters, not how much of it you have.' There is also a lot we can do to stave off the effects of age.
A key feature of the ageing brain is the huge variability both within and between individuals. Because some regions of the brain are more prone to age-related loss of cells than others, some cognitive functions are more vulnerable to the passing years. Verbal and numeric ability are extremely resilient and often even improve, while factors such as processing speed, problem solving and verbal memory are more susceptible to the effects of age, and most of us can expect these functions to decline to some extent. This is where individual differences come in though. Some people over 80 can perform in line with much younger people, even in cognitive functions that typically decline. A parallel resilience can be seen in the brain itself, and Tyler demonstrated this with pictures of very young-looking brain slices from a 115-year-old woman.
Tyler proposes that we consider a different take on ageing. Yes, chronological age matters, but brain health matters much more. The brain is capable of reorganising its functions and compensating for lost neurons: it remains adaptive and reactive. For example, older adults who perform well on cognitive tasks not surprisingly have more grey matter than those who perform poorly, but they are also more likely to use both sides of their brain.
So what can we do to improve brain health and function? Some have argued for cognitive training, but according to Tyler for every positive study there is a negative one and the jury is still out. Far more compelling is evidence of the link between regular exercise, cardiovascular health, brain volume and cognitive performance. Kirk Erikson showed this year that compared to stretching, a year of aerobic exercise led to greater levels of hippocampal function and better working memory and other work shows that exercise actually stimulates neurogenesis, the development of new neurons.
We cannot avoid getting older, Tyler says, but there are evidence-based steps to build resilience in the brain and thus the mind. Keep exercising and keep the mind engaged. 'Get out there!' concluded Tyler. 'Believe the science and change society's views.'

Imagine it were possible to chart the mood changes of millions of people around the world. A new study shows how Twitter has made this research fantasy a reality. Scott Golder and Michael Macy at Cornell University analysed the affective tone of the words used in half a billion English-language tweets written by 2.4 million users world-wide from 2008 to 2010. Across cultures, they found most people expressed a peak in positive affect early in the morning and again near midnight. Negative affect had an independent trajectory, being lowest in the morning and rising through the day to a night-time peak. An exception was night-owls. Their morning peak in positive affect was delayed and they had no night-time peak. There were also signs of seasonal effects across the sample. A greater rate of change in increasing daylight benefited positive affect, such that people appeared happiest at the Spring equinox. By contrast, absolute length of days had no effect on mood. Surprisingly perhaps, negative affect was not affected by the seasons (Science; tinyurl.com/67hp5jo).
Christian Jarrett

The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP) celebrated its 30th Anniversary in beautiful scenery of the City of Bath. The biggest paranormal conference for a decade took place at the University Campus, and was masterminded as two-day event full of presentations, speeches, Paranormal Olympics, book stands, and complemented by the Gala Dinner. The piece of the resistance for all fans of horror movies was the Gala Dinner Speaker: Stephen Volk, the author of the infamous Ghostwatch, Afterlife, Gothic, Octane and Superstition...to name just a few.

The interest in paranormal crosses the borders of many professions and sciences. An evident example of the multidisciplinary nature of the paranormal research was the fact that conference speakers represented a wide variety of professional backgrounds including sociology, archaeology, anthropology, computer forensics, law, chemistry, instrumentation technology and psychology. The presentations included a broad range of subjects from crop circles, ghosts, mediums, Bigfoot, paranormal TV, electronic voice phenomenon to Black Dog apparitions and UFOs. What added to the variety of perspectives what the fact that some speakers represented the Believers in paranormal phenomena while others appeared to be more on, so-called, Sceptics' side. The programme of the conference offered a rare opportunity not only to learn about subjects one was particularly interested in but also to broaden one's horizons with knowledge one wouldn't otherwise seek. For example, although I had no interest in UFOs I was intrigued by the findings on disinformation and deception techniques presented by Mark Pilkington, author of the book "Mirage Men".

Particularly interesting from my perspective, as a graduate psychologist, were the presentations of two Senior Lecturers in Psychology, Dr Simon Sherwood and Dr Paul Rogers. They approached the subject of anomalous phenomena from two very different perspectives. Dr Sherwood from the Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes (CSAPP) at the University of Northampton presented the results of preliminary qualitative thematic analysis of the reports of apparitions of Black Dogs. By using his Internet website (www.blackshuck.info) to gather reports of Black Dogs apparitions he collected 60 cases, including 52 first-hand accounts. Although Black Dogs are often seen as part of the British folklore, Dr Sherwood's analysis indicates that the reports of their apparitions come from many other countries, especially USA and Canada. Dr Sherwood collected the reports, majority being a first-hand accounts, between 2000 and 2008, which suggests that the Black Dog apparitions, rather than being a forgotten part of folklore, are a phenomena, which is still being reported to this day. An unusual addition to his collection of the reports of Black Dog apparitions was his own account of his childhood encounter with ghostly Black Dog. Dr Sherwood is currently conducting a survey of people who have and have not experienced a ghostly phenomena (https://survey.northampton.ac.uk/ghostly). His research is focusing on the exploration of individual traits, which might affect our tendency to experience ghost apparitions.

Dr Paul Rogers from the University of Central Lancashire is also pursuing his interest in the study of individual differences in the experiences of paranormal phenomena. Dr Rogers' presentation, however, appeared to have much more sceptical focus. He presented the results of numerous studies which indicate that Believers in paranormal are poorer at some probabilistic reasoning tasks and they tend to misperceive randomness and co-occurring events. His presentation was met with a lot of questions from the audience. Although the implications of his research might have been difficult to accept for some of the participants they remained respectful in voicing their opinions. Presenting his research at the conference, which attracted at least as many Believers as Sceptics, was a brave step, which gave an opportunity for discussion and, again, exposed the audience to findings of the studies, which might have challenged their beliefs.

The centrepiece of the event was the Big Announcement that ASSAP had become recognised by the UK government as the national professional body for paranormal investigators. Majority of the members welcomed this announcement as good news. More information on that subject can be found on the ASSAP website: http://www.assap.ac.uk/

The conference attracted people interested in paranormal phenomena but one should not presume that the beliefs of all participants were united. In fact, most of them would describe themselves as either Believes in paranormal or as Sceptics. In spite of apparent differences in opinions and beliefs held by the two groups the conference was characterised by friendly and peaceful atmosphere, full of acceptance and mutual respect. It offered a rare opportunity to interact with people from different backgrounds and representing dissimilar, or even contradicting, views. Although being non-judgemental is exactly what all good psychology courses teach, how often do we purposefully put ourselves in an environment where our ability to suspend our own preconceptions and belief systems is going to be challenged? Surprisingly, the most remarkable advice, which was offered at the conference, did not come from a psychologist, but from a chartered chemist: Dr Hugh Pincott. He pointed out that "being both scientific and sympathetic may achieve positive results" and that as researchers we should "involve Sensitives in our experiments as equal partners".

The interest in paranormal is frowned upon in some university circles and often rejected by mainstream scientists. As Dr Matthews Johnson, a clinical child psychologist from Oregon, pointed out: "being child psychologist who saw a Big Foot isn't good for business". Paranormal phenomena are undoubtedly a challenging area of research. It is rather sad that psychological interest in studying such phenomena has been suppressed by physics envy and fears of loosing one's professional credibility. A better understanding of experiences, which contemporary sciences struggle to explain, might offer invaluable insight into human behaviour. For example: could working with mediums help us gain better understanding of hearing voices experience in schizophrenia? Perhaps it is worth to dare to be open-minded and practice our non-judgemental psychological attitude on the one of the most intriguing subject of all: paranormal research?

Report by Lucy Czwartos

Psychology's ongoing love affair with the brain scanner has been quantified by a 20-year review of the 'brain imaging' field by the Wellcome Trust, a major funder of the area. Research output in brain imaging has grown faster in experimental psychology than in any other discipline, bar computer science and AI, the review shows. The percentage increase in experimental psychology between 1989 - 93 and 2004 - 08 was 3119.05 per cent, faster than the increase in the neurosciences (772.84 per cent), clinical neurology (372.08 per cent) and psychiatry (187.87 per cent). Clinical psychology showed a 504 per cent increase over that time period, the seventh fastest rise in brain-imaging output.

The review Human Functional Brain Imaging 1990 - 2009 lists the 20 most highly cited researchers in the field of brain imaging, with Chartered Psychologist, Professor Emeritus Chris Frith at UCL and Aarhus University listed in fourth place. Other psychologists in the list are John Gabrieli at MIT, Mark D'Esposito at the University of California, Berkeley and Randy Buckner at Harvard. BPS Fellow Professor Trevor Robbins at Cambridge University is among three case studies highlighting achievements by Wellcome Trust-funded researchers.

Psychologists are also lead authors or collaborators on many of the major brain-imaging breakthroughs highlighted by the review, including Eleanor Maguire's (UCL) studies on taxi drivers and on the neural representation of space; research by Chris Frith into amygdala function; research by clinical psychologist Mathias Pessigilione (INSEAD) into reward-seeking behaviour and dopamine-dependent prediction error; Trevor Robbins' and Barbara Sahakian's (University of Cambridge) research into brain abnormalities associated with psychological disorders; Andy Calder's (University of Cambridge) work with children with conduct disorder; and Adrian Owen's (now at the University of Western Ontario) research into the detection of awareness in patients in a persistent vegetative state.

The tone of the review is noticeably celebratory with a focus on breakthroughs and achievements, and the role the Wellcome Trust has played in them. Brain imaging is credited with contributing considerably to our understanding of the 'living brain' over the last 20 years, and with 'providing new perspectives in the cognitive neurosciences'. There's no discussion of some of the field's key controversies, such as the paper published in 2009 by Ed Vul and colleagues, in which they raised concerns about the alleged widespread use of inappropriate statistical practices by elements of the brain-imaging community (tinyurl.com/9n82z4).

The review highlights the strength of UK research in brain imaging, second only to the USA and Germany in terms of research output throughout the 20-year period. It also discusses challenges for the future and makes recommendations, including: a need to shift gears via more solution-focused, 'grand-challenge' thinking, akin to the Large Hadron Collider project in physics; it calls for broad cross-disciplinary training and leadership; a refinement of existing technologies to improve spatial and temporal resolution; an international frontiers meeting ('to identify the current step limiting factors and work out what the goals and targets for brain-imaging research could or should be'); it says there's a need for more partnerships with pharmaceutical companies; and more involvement of clinicians and larger sample sizes, to aid the translation of findings into clinical benefit.

-- Christian Jarrett

In science, the difference between significant and non-significant need not itself be statistically significant. As Rosnow and Rosenthal said more than 20 years ago, 'Surely God loves the 0.06 nearly as much as the 0.05?' So why do many researchers, when making a comparison between two effects, fail to report the statistical significance of their difference?

That was the question asked by psychologist Sander Nieuwenhuis (Leiden University, the Netherlands) and colleagues, in September's Nature Neuroscience (PDF via bit.ly/n0X1Lt). 'Our impression was that this error of comparing significance levels is widespread in the neuroscience literature, but until now there were no aggregate data to support this impression. We therefore examined all of the behavioral, systems and cognitive neuroscience studies published in four prestigious journals (Nature, Science, Nature Neuroscience and Neuron) in 2009 and 2010 and in every fourth issue of the 2009 and 2010 volumes of the Journal of Neuroscience.'

Nieuwenhuis and his team found that 31 per cent of the papers described at least one situation in which the researchers might be tempted to make the error. In 50 per cent of these cases the authors used the correct approach: they reported a significant interaction. 'In the other 50 per cent of the cases, the authors made at least one error of the type discussed here: they reported no interaction effect, but only the simple main effects, pointing out the qualitative difference between their significance values.'

The authors report that the error of comparing significance levels is especially common in the neuroimaging literature. Perhaps swayed by this, a report on the paper by columnist and medic Ben Goldacre for The Guardian initially included several references to psychology and psychologists. This sparked a defence of the discipline on Twitter, with psychologists such as Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (University College London) commenting that 'Psychologists tend to be better at testing for interactions than other areas of neuroscience. It's drilled into us.'

The Psychologist contacted Nieuwenhuis for his views. 'It's hard to say where psychology ends and neuroscience starts,' he commented, 'but I think we can safely say that less than 25 per cent of the authors of the reviewed articles were trained in psychology. So most people who made the error were trained as neuroscientists (or biologists, etc.). We also found that the error was more common in the lower-level neuroscience disciplines, which are far from psychology. Finally, it is our impression that the error occurs much less often in the psychology literature that we read for our work, although we haven't reviewed that literature.'

However, Nieuwenhuis did also say that the paper was partly inspired by an article in the American Statistician that discusses the occurrence of this type of error in the social science literature. The authors of that article, Andrew Gelman and Hal Stern, did say that 'As teachers of statistics, we might think that "everybody knows" that comparing significance levels is inappropriate, but we have seen this mistake all the time in practice.'

The piece by Ben Goldacre (see tinyurl.com/3rzdua6) was later amended 'to make clear that the Nieuwenhuis study looked specifically at neuroscience papers, not psychology research'.

-- Jon Sutton

Simon Riches reports from a Royal Institute of Philosophy event

A wide-ranging group of speakers gathered at this conference in Bristol to address what is undoubtedly one of the most fundamental conceptual issues at the heart of psychology and the social sciences: Can science provide an account of our 'lived' conscious experience?

Most of the talks focused on this key issue and, refreshingly, sought to bridge the great divide between the analytic and continental camps of contemporary philosophical thought. But significant time was also devoted to expounding the giants of the phenomenological tradition, such as Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Rudolf Bernet (Leuven), Dermot Moran (UCD) and Thomas Baldwin (York) provided detailed accounts of these thinkers' work. And there were also forays into the work of related historical figures like Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger. More traditionally analytic approaches were displayed in Michelle Montague's (Bristol) discussion of mental content and James Lenman's (Sheffield) critique of naturalism as manifested in experimental ethics.

But the key issue for much of the three days was to get to the heart of this conflict between naturalism and phenomenology. Clearly certain terminological issues need to be settled in order to anchor this debate. Galen Strawson (Reading) quipped that having read fellow speaker David Papineau's (KCL) entry on naturalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he learned that naturalism had been used in so many ways throughout history that it had come to mean almost anything. There is a broad methodological definition that construes naturalism as the view that philosophical thinking is continuous with natural science; however, when cast against the phenomenological tradition under discussion here, naturalism can be understood as the more specific claim that the scientific method has the resources to account for our 'lived' conscious experience - a commitment that underpins contemporary experimental psychology.

Controversies over this claim resonate particularly throughout the social sciences - a point highlighted by conference organiser Havi Carel (UWE). As a consequence, issues in the philosophy of medicine and health were a recurring theme, from Fredrik Svenaeus' (Södertörn) discussion of naturalistic and phenomenological theories of health to Matthew Ratcliffe's (Durham) account of the 'sense of unreality' in cases of serious mental illness. The key question here is whether there can actually be such a thing as a scientific explanation of one's lived experience of illness. As Svenaeus pointed out, the tough question for a naturalist is to say what diseases really are - in terms of how they impact on people's lives. Construed here as a polar opposite to naturalism, the view would then be that only the phenomenological tradition gets to the heart of what health and illness really are. As Moran explained, real science will then need to recognise how it must coexist with the real world of human beings.

And yet many contributors sought to carve out a path that could be occupied by both phenomenologists and naturalists. Re-evaluating naturalism, Strawson argued that 'false naturalists' seek to deny 'the most natural fact': conscious experience. He pointed out that not even Quine denied the existence of conscious experience. As Strawson and Papineau debated these issues in the ensuing discussion it emerged that very few recent thinkers - Dennett aside - actually want to deny this phenomenology. The key question then is whether the sciences can account for it. The crux of this issue seemed to arise in Papineau's challenge to Dan Zahavi (Copenhagen) to provide an account of the phenomenology in question that could not be accounted for by his naturalist position. This unresolved issue continues to make this a fascinating debate.

-- Simon Riches is a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry

Psychological therapies in primary care are among the list of services to be opened up by the NHS in England to 'Any Qualified Provider' (AQP), including charities and other organisations, from April 2012, the Department of Health (DoH) has announced. The development is intended to increase patient choice and drive up standards through competition. Alternative providers must meet minimum standards to offer NHS services and will compete on quality of care, not price, the DoH says, as they will be paid a fixed tariff.

NHS psychological services are already being offered successfully by alternative providers in some parts of the country, according to the DoH - for example, Oxfordshire Mind (affiliated with the nationwide Mind charity) provides a county-wide IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) service called 'Talking Space'. In Hull and East Yorkshire, a local Mind service and Relate offer employment advice as part of the local IAPT pathway.

The AQP development is a political hot potato, and commentators like Baroness Shirley Williams have raised their concerns in the media about an expanded role for the private sector in the NHS. In September, Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chair of the BMA, wrote a letter to all MPs about the wider Health and Social Care Bill going through Parliament, in which he said there 'is an inappropriate and misguided reliance on "market forces" to shape services'. The AQP policy in particular, he said, 'has the potential to destabilise local health economies if not carefully managed'.

Chair of the Society's Division of Clinical Psychology and Deputy Chair of the Professional Practice Board, Professor Peter Kinderman (University of Liverpool), told The Psychologist he finds it worrying that psychological therapies are in the front line of AQP, especially when many psychologists continue to have anxieties about the consequences of NICE guidelines, the IAPT programme and overlapping competencies with other professional groups.

'But, as this rolls forward,' he said 'we will have to manage the process...we should work closely with both central government and local commissioners... I don't think we're opposed to change - most psychologists have been calling for radical change for many years - but we do need to ensure that the "any qualified providers" are genuinely and properly "qualified". That - as we've seen from IAPT - needs careful and authoritative oversight. In these tight financial circumstances, and with a government explicit about competition and efficiency, it's all to easy to see quality lapse. We mustn't permit that to happen.'
- The Department of Health website has a list of frequently asked questions about Any Qualified Provider: http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/aqp-answers/

-- Christian Jarrett

The Rambert Dance Company has appointed Nicky Clayton, Professor of Comparative Cognition at Cambridge University's Department of Experimental Psychology and newly admitted BPS Fellow, as their first Scientist in Residence.

Nicky previously worked with Rambert on 'Comedy of Change', a piece based on evolution. A new work, 'Seven for a secret, never to be told' uses her research on corvid cognition and behavioural development to present the world as seen through the eyes of some mischievous children. Her extensive knowledge of the behavioural development of children, particularly the role of play in enriching cognitive development, firstly through imitation and then reinvention or innovation, has given the creative team valuable insight.

As Scientist in Residence, Nicky will influence choreography with her scientific insights. 'My knowledge of science is used to develop the themes that inspire the movements that we incorporate into the pieces. I combine my knowledge of dance too to ensure I'm thinking of big picture concepts that can work for movement. I've used ideas from animal behaviour, birds and evolution for "Comedy of Change" and ideas about children and corvids for "Seven for a secret". The ideas are inspired by movements, behaviours and mental processes; some are mimicked - Jon Goddard's solo in Comedy was based on the bird of paradise's courtship dance - other ideas are more conceptual, based on mental processes.'

As well as working on new dance pieces, Nicky will develop educational workshops in which children gain understanding of scientific themes through their own experience of learning some of the choreography. She and Rambert's Artistic Director Mark Baldwin are also writing a book about their collaborative process, and will present a series of talks, the next on 2 October at the Royal Society Festival of Literature and the Arts.

See YouTube at tinyurl.com/6hevx7x for a film about Nicky's work.

-- Ben Watson

In a first for her country, an Italian judge has commuted the sentence of a woman convicted of murder following the submission to court of brain-imaging and genetic evidence. Stefania Albertani pleaded guilty in 2009 to murdering her sister and burning her corpse, for which she was sentenced to life imprisonment. According to Nature, a cognitive neuroscientist subsequently called by Albertani's legal defence has demonstrated that she has structural brain abnormalities compared with 10 healthy controls, including in the anterior cingulate gyrus (implicated in inhibition) and insula (associated with aggression). A geneticist also provided evidence that the woman has genes predisposing her to violence, including a version of the MAOA 'warrior' gene, meaning that her body produces lower levels of an enzyme involved in regulating neurotransmitter levels. Based on this, the judge reduced Albertani's sentence to 20 years.

Psychological studies suggest brain scan evidence may be particularly influential. For example, a paper published earlier this year by the late David McCabe found that mock jurors were more likely to find a defendant guilty if they were presented with brain-imaging evidence suggesting he had lied, as opposed to polygraph or thermal evidence, or no lie-detection evidence (tinyurl.com/5uh3sj5).

-- Christian Jarrett

Tilburg University has suspended a leading Dutch psychologist for unethical research conduct. Diederik Stapel, Professor of Cognitive Social Psychology and Dean of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, stands accused of fabricating data. The university's press office confirmed in an e-mail to us that Stapel has now admitted to fabricating data and will not be returning to Tilburg. The news comes not long after the professional demise of Marc Hauser, another leading light in psychology found guilty of inappropriate research practices.

The Dutch professor had built a reputation for publishing eye-catching studies. For example, last year, with Joris Lammers, Stapel reported that power can lead us to dehumanise other people - a potentially adaptive effect that allows leaders to make difficult decisions (tinyurl.com/33hlyft). Earlier this year Stapel led a headline-grabbing study published in the prestigious journal Science that showed messy and disorderly environments exacerbate people's tendency to think of others in terms of stereotypes (tinyurl.com/6cg25bn). Sadly a cloud of doubt is now hanging over these findings and many others. A university committee led by psycholinguist Willem Levelt is due to report at the end of October on which of Stapel's papers are affected by the fabrication charge.

-- Christian Jarrett

Edited: 26/09/2011 at 04:50 PM by jonsut

London-based performance artist Bobby Baker has been honoured with Mind's book of the year award for her Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me (Profile Books; reviewed in the December 2010 issue). The book features drawings by Baker created over a 10-year period, during which she experienced mental and physical illness. There are also essays, including one by her clinical psychologist daughter Dora Whittuck. Judge Fay Weldon said: 'I think there's a sea change with this year's entries into a kind of acceptance about the possibilities and the future people with mental health problems can have.'