Box of delight

For decades following World War II,  the world was left wondering how the atrocities of the Holocaust could have been perpetrated in the midst of—and, most horrifically, by—a modern and civilized society. How did people come to engage in a willing and systematic extermination of their neighbors? Psychologists, whose field had grown into a grudgingly respected science by the midpoint of the 20th century, were eager to tackle the question.

In 1961, Yale University’s Stanley Milgram began a series of infamous obedience experiments. While Adolf Eichmann’s trial was underway in Jerusalem (resulting in Hannah Arendt’s five-piece reportage, which became one of The New Yorker magazine’s most dramatic and controversial article series), Milgram began to suspect that human nature was more straightforward than earlier theorists had imagined; he wondered, as he later wrote, "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"

or decades following World War II,  the world was left wondering how the atrocities of the Holocaust could have been perpetrated in the midst of—and, most horrifically, by—a modern and civilized society. How did people come to engage in a willing and systematic extermination of their neighbors? Psychologists, whose field had grown into a grudgingly respected science by the midpoint of the 20th century, were eager to tackle the question.

Dear Men: So you think you want a ‘strong, independent woman’
jessicapsych Abuse, Feminism, Psychology, Sexism, Sexual

January 4, 2020 10 Minutes

So you think you want a ‘strong, independent woman’.

Written by Dr Jessica Taylor

4th January 2020

This blog is written for men, talking directly to men. Men who have an interest in women (whether heterosexual or bisexual).

Even more specifically, the men who say that they want a strong, independent woman. The men who find powerful, determined women sexy.

Loneliness is a problem of epidemic proportions, affecting millions from all walks of life. But while its roots are complex, remedies may be within reach.

In the world of Peanuts, Charlie Brown once visited Lucy's psychiatry booth and asked, "Can you cure loneliness?"

"For a nickel, I can cure anything," Lucy said.

"Can you cure deep-down, black, bottom-of-the-well, no-hope, end-of-the-world, what's-the-use loneliness?" he asked.

"For the same nickel?!" she balked.

Recently I was listening to Scott Barry Kaufman’s Psychology Podcast, which I highly recommend. Scott was speaking with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, about the way we achieve growth in our personal and professional lives. Many of us see goal setting as the best approach to achievement, but Clear sees it differently. In his view, habits are the foundation of growth and change, in large part because they help us form our identity: “Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you want to become.”

We are a group of individuals who teach, study and work in psychology and are trying to move the discipline away from its overwhelmingly White, Western bias (see how its biased here). We are directly influenced by the Why Is My Curriculum White movement.

We work at Leeds Beckett University and received a small grant (£,2,500) from our Centre for Learning and Teaching to highlight this Western*, White bias in our BSc and MSc Psychology courses in September 2016 (and again in September 2017). We know this bias is not exclusive to Leeds Beckett or even the UK, however. Therefore we have set up this website with the aim of signposting BME psychological and anti-racism work to begin to challenge this bias. We try to be mindful of the breadth and depth of racism in higher education and of the overwhelming need to do justice to BME psychological work.We know this website can only be one small step towards this.

Have you ever considered letting your students listen to hardcore punk while they take their mid-term exam?

Decided to do away with Power Point presentations during your lectures?

Urged your students to memorize more in order to remember more? If the answer is no, you may want to rethink your notions of psychology and its place in the learning environment.

Here are 35 critical thinking strategies, straight from the mind of Sigmund Freud.

Getting history across to young students is challenging enough, but what should a teacher do when actual history-making events happen on their watch? They have to be acknowledged, but to what extent do they have to be explained, even "taught"? Of the teachers who have turned history-in-the-making into a lesson, perhaps the most famous is Jane Elliott of Riceville, Iowa. On April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, she divided her classroom of third-graders along color lines: blue-eyed and brown-eyed. On the first day she granted the brown-eyed students such special privileges as desks in the front rows, second helpings at lunch, and five extra minutes of recess. The next day she reversed the situation, and the blue-eyed kids had the perks.

‘Let me tell you what it feels like to stand in front of a white man and explain privilege to him. It hurts. It makes you tired. Sometimes it makes you want to cry. Sometimes it is exhilarating. Every single time it is hard. Every single time I get angry that I have to do this, that this is my job, that this shouldn’t be my job. Every single time I am proud of myself that I’ve been able to say these things because I used to not be able to and because some days I just don’t want to’ (McCleave-Maharawal, 2016)

You’d think that bullies would disappear after high school, but some people never grow out of being a great big jerk. They may not steal your lunch money anymore, but bullies can still harass you, put you down, and even undermine your work. Here are some tips for understanding and dealing with bullies, no matter how old you are.

For decades following World War II,  the world was left wondering how the atrocities of the Holocaust could have been perpetrated in the midst of—and, most horrifically, by—a modern and civilized society.  How did people come to engage in a willing and systematic extermination of their neighbors? Psychologists, whose field had grown into a grudgingly respected science by the midpoint of the 20th century, were eager to tackle the question.

Drugs, coffee, television – they can all be described as 'addictive'. But when do they become a problem?