What predicts performance differences in two people with equal aptitude and prep?

What predicts performance differences in two people with equal preparation? Challenge!

Deskman

Tests, performance and stress.

We all face tests in our lifetime. As I write, all across the country people are preparing for, or sitting exams. My own students are no exception – I have 180 undergraduates who are busy revising (I hope) for a exam on social psychology next week. There are a lot of things which predict success in such tasks. Some are out of our immediate control – some people simply have an aptitude for exams and some (like me!) find them more difficult. Other things are more within our control – how much you engaged with the course when it was presented, how much extra reading you did and how thorough your revision was. But what predicts the differences between two people of equal aptitude, who have prepared similarly? The ‘edge’ the stronger person have may be less to do with how much they know or how skilled they are, and more to do with how they perceive the situation. I understand this via something called the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat [BPSM][1]

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Suffering from sleep deprivation due to kids, work or something else? You are basically permanently drunk, but try not to take out your ‘hangover’ out on others.

Lack of sleep can affect us in many ways, but did you know in some ways it is the equivalent of being drunk?

Asleep

I love my children, but boy, do they keep me up at night. I reckon over the last three years, 98% of my nights have involved being woken up multiple times, often for stretches of 30 minutes plus. The other 2% of the time I am away at conferences. Things were just settling down with our last one (by settle down, I mean just up once a night) when we had the next one. I think my partner has it even worse at the moment with our four month old!

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Oops. I gamified my life.

I am a grown man who is terribly pleased to get a sticker. What is worse is, this sticker is not even real. Yep. My partner bought me an activity monitor (if you’ve not heard of these think footstep pedometer on steroids).

PACMAN

 

Today I am mostly pleased because, since putting this device on, I have walked the same distance which emperor penguins migrate (112 km if you are interested). For this, my phone displayed a little picture of a penguin when I logged in. Super! Next, I want to climb stairs equivalent to a helicopters cruising altitude. I vow to avoid all elevators from this day on!

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Alien Abductions and the Science of Psychology

What does psychology make of alien abductions? And what does this study tell us about the discipline?

UFO

 

Last night, my partner and I were watching a rerun of the X-Files. It was great, Mulder and Scully being curious and sceptical, hints of conspiracy, images of alien abduction and some great dry humour. But it got me thinking – what does my discipline make of belief in alien abduction? And what does it study tell us about the wider context of psychological science?

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The Psychology of Gardening

My family and I have a allotment (well, a half sized allotment)a short walk from our home. The growing season starts in earnest soon, and our windowsills are covered in small seedlings and the like already. Whilst digging last week (something which allotments seemingly demand endlessly!) I began to wonder about the psychology of gardening.

Spade

Interestingly, a quick search of the research literature revealed a pretty decent selection of papers. Gardening seems to have a great stress reducing effect – lowering physiological reactions to stress1, being of therapeutic benefit for everyone from children2 to the elderly3. It is also linked to higher self-efficacy and self esteem4. But how does it work? This seems to be a bit more of a mystery, but I’m happy to speculate. One argument is that simply looking at green landscapes is simply inherently soothing (Soylent Green anyone?). I think this is true from hiking trips, but looking at my allotment is NOT viewing a inherently pleasant vista (more of a muddy diorama covered in bravely struggling flora!). I wonder if it is more about the states of mind gardening can produce, and the social connections it brings.

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A tale of two biases

At the moment I’ve two major projects on my desk. One is launched, a large study which requires the recruitment of a large number of participants. This project is kicking off after a lot of planning, and we need to make sure we stay on track and make good decisions as things evolve. The second is in the planning stage, a large research grant application involving multiple collaborators. I really want these both to go well – they are significant steps forward for both me and the partners involved.

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Hello!

Why am I writing this?

My name is Dan Frings and I’m an academic – specifically an Associate Professor in Psychology. Academics write copiously, but within quite strict confines. We write journal articles each focused on a single experiment. We write book chapters (or even books) to specialist audiences of academics. Occasionally we write text books for undergraduates. We are always very circumspect in the claims we make about what our work means.

At the end of last year I was invited to be involved in writing a book which was a little different (for me at least). This books was called called “Psychology Squared:100 Concepts in Psychology you should know”. It’s aimed at a mass audience, and boils down complex concepts into bite sized chunks (and each gets a picture or diagram). Although it’s not out until June, for me it’s already had a big impact. I discovered that I really enjoyed writing for a non-academic audience.

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