Improving the Health, Safety, and Well-Being of Young Adults: National Academy of Sciences Report

The National Academy of Sciences has just published a report on the well-being of young adults.  The details and how to get it for free can be found over at Prosocial Place.

Tom Dickins

Introducing Zola Mannie

After completing my Honours and Masters degree in Applied Psychology (Brunel University) I worked at the Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University on the strength of a joint psychology and psychiatric nursing background. I pursued a PhD in Psychology program at Oxford Brookes University supported with funding from the University Department of Psychiatry. At completion of the PhD program I continued pursuing my research as a Post Doc within the department.

My main area of research covers the identification of neurobiological and psychosocial vulnerability markers of depression. I am specifically interested in investigating young people at increased familial risk of depression 1) to establish whether the HPA axis hyperactivity (from waking cortisol hypersecretion measured from saliva) they demonstrate may also place them at increased risk to associated medical conditions such as the metabolic syndrome and vascular disease (measuring insulin resistance from fasting glucose and insulin levels; and endothelial dysfunction from Flow Mediated Dilatation (FMD); and other mechanisms underpinning the associations between vulnerability to depression and these medical conditions; 2) to assess whether they also present with deficits in cognitive functioning (with particular focus on working memory) and abnormalities in the neural substrates of these functions.

I am also interested in investigating the use of computerised cognitive training programs designed to improve working memory and related deficits in executive function. The ultimate aim of this work has been to identify impairments that can be targeted for prevention aimed at increasing resilience to reduce the incidence of depression. My methods of investigation are predominantly cross-sectional with biological, cognitive and behavioural measures as well as neuroimaging techniques, although I have also used short-term prospective cohort methods within funding constraints.

I am currently a Research Fellow on a short-term contract working closely with Professor Nouwen in a range of projects that combine various biological measures with cognitive function techniques as methods of investigation. I am also establishing collaborations with Lygeri Dimitrou from the London Sports Institute in the hope that we could conduct joint studies requiring salivary hormonal or inflammatory assessment to give context to cognitive processes.

Zola Mannie

Z.Mannie@mdx.ac.uk

Conference at Middlesex University: The rebirth of feminism? Situating feminism in the popular imaginary

Wednesday, 30 October 2013 from 10:00 to 16:00

This one-day workshop aims to challenge the idea that feminism as a social movement is no longer current or applicable to the lives of women, and further explores the ways in which stereotypes in the media and public discourse debunk both feminist activists and academics, failing to acknowledge feminism’s transformative potential.  These prejudicial accounts are a-critically reproduced and reinforced in the fabrics of everyday life and increasingly do not correspond to actual experiences in the real word. Stigmatizing accounts of feminism for instance suggests that young women are anti-feminist, and anti-feminism becomes constitutive of young womanhood in the popular imaginary. However, in the last five years public discourse about feminism has become more prominent in the UK and, at the same time, feminist activism and campaigns have intensified.

The workshop aims at creating a platform for academics and a diverse range of feminist activists to discuss this paradox which is so solidly inscribed in the popular imaginary and will experiment with non-hierarchical interaction among participants. In the morning sessions, invited feminist activists/academics will comment on images, short clips, news items or other cultural and social artifacts of their choice which are meaningful in order to explore the challenges feminism poses to the popular imaginary in the twenty first century.  Invited activists and academics include Kat Baynard, Kristin Aune, Nirmal Puwar, Yvette Taylor, Feona Attwood, Kate Hardy, Jason Lim, and Ellis Suzanna Slack.  During the afternoon  participants will be engaged through Participatory Video and the production of a short video which captures ideas and encounters inspired by the workshop.

We are asking participants to donate £5 to attend the session, which will be donated to Hackney Women's Forum. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the donation, please contact us to discuss.

This event is organized by Elena Vacchelli, Erin Sanders-McDonagh, and Anastasia Christou, with help from the Social Policy Research Centre and the School of Law at Middlesex University.

Please contact Christiana Rose at c.rose@mdx.ac.uk for further details about the conference, or more information about registering.

You can find out more and book your place at: https://middlesexfeministconference.eventbrite.co.uk/

Dr Miranda Horvath

Reader in Forensic Psychology
Deputy Director of Forensic Psychological Services

Department of Psychology
School of Health and Education
Middlesex University
London
NW4 4BT

Tel: +44 (0)2084114532
Fax: +44 (0)2082035973
Email: m.horvath@mdx.ac.uk
Personal webpage: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/aboutus/staffdirectory/miranda-horvath.aspx
Follow me on Twitter@Miranda_Horvath

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/fps

2012-2013 David Jenkins Chair in Forensic and Legal Medicine
Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians
http://www.fflm.ac.uk

Associate Editor of the Journal of Sexual Aggression
www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tjsa

Body language effects

As we begin the academic year and try to make sense of our new students and colleagues I thought this video of a TED presentation by Amy Cuddy would be of interest.

I will look on with interest during Research Club to see if there are any changes in your behaviour.

Tom Dickins

Invited speaker: Dr Minna Lyons

Title: Can bad be good? Evolutionary perspectives on the Dark Triad of personality

Date: Thursday 10 October 2013

Time: 4pm

Venue: HG09, Middlesex University, London

The Dark Triad of personality (viz., narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) have been traditionally viewed as maladaptive, receiving much attention in the forensic and clinical contexts. Although the Dark Triad traits are distinct, they share the core features of selfishness, manipulativeness, and agentic personality styles. When investigated from evolutionary perspective, it is clear that individual differences in seemingly aversive personality traits could be adaptive in certain contexts. In this talk, I will present findings of several empirical studies researching the Dark Triad and childhood experiences,  inter-personal perception (e.g., lie detection), mate choice, and other personality variables (e.g., morningness/eveningness). We have found that there are clear sex differences in how the Dark Triad is manifested. Further, some of the sub-facets (especially callous and unemotional features of primary psychopathy) could be especially adaptive for males in increasing status and resources.

Minna Lyons

Liverpool Hope University

An introduction to Chris Woodrow

I joined Middlesex in July 2013 as a lecturer, and I will be teaching on PSY3018 Business Psychology and PSY4117 Applied Business Psychology. My academic background is in organizational and health psychology, and I am interested in applications of psychological theory to people at work, particularly where this relates to healthcare provision.

After a first degree in Psychology and an MSc in Health Psychology I took up a health services research post, joining a Cancer Research UK funded group at the University of Oxford. My focus was on informed decision making about whether to have screening for cancer, and I researched and wrote some of the information materials about screening that are sent to patients and doctors by the NHS.

Not being able to avoid the inevitable pull of London, I then moved to KCL to work in an NIHR funded research group looking at safety and quality in the NHS. My job was to examine ways in which workforce issues might affect patients, which involved looking at various human resources issues such as harassment amongst staff. I also did a part time PhD in organizational psychology at KCL, a mixed methods longitudinal study examining how joining a new organization can affect the well-being of hospital employees and their patients.

I am currently writing up various bits of research. I am finalising a paper looking at the ways in which managers and supervisors respond (or don’t!) to bullying and harassment at work. I also have an interesting piece ongoing about the “psychological contract”, which is basically the perceived / implicit (rather than formal written) employment contract held by employees.

I’d be delighted to hear from anyone who might like to collaborate on anything. I am broadly interested in applications of psychology to organizations and to healthcare (ideally but not necessarily at the same time) and I have experience with mixed methods and longitudinal research designs.

My contact details are: room TG65, extension 15009, email c.woodrow@mdx.ac.uk.

Chris Woodrow

An introduction to Antonia Bifulco, our new Head of Department

Antonia Bifulco – Professor of Lifespan Psychology and Head of Department.

a.bifulco@mdx.ac.uk  (room TG34; tel 0208 411 3705)

I joined the Psychology Department in July 2013, having been at Kingston University for the last 2 years, and before that at Royal Holloway for most of my career. I have also brought my research team – Centre for Abuse and Trauma Studies (CATS) which I co-direct with Prof Julia Davidson from Criminology. The Centre is multidisciplinary in its focus on victims and perpetrators of abuse and aims to engage in both academic and applied research with relevant services. We currently have projects involving youth violence, young people in residential care and cyberbullying as well as conducting CPD training for practitioners in health and social care in standardised assessments on childhood neglect/abuse, attachment style and parenting. We have recently completed an EU study of online grooming for sexual abuse, and working with a child protection team on improving case assessment and analysis. My interest in Lifespan Psychology in relation to vulnerability and clinical disorder is around childhood and adolescent experience as a primer for later risk and disorder as well as intergenerational transmission of risk from parent to offspring. My interests combine both Health and Forensic domains.

I have a new 3-year ESRC project grant beginning in November called: ‘Stress online: Developing a reliable and valid interactive online method for measuring stressful life events and difficulties’. This is held with partners at the Institute of Psychiatry (KCL) and Goldsmiths. It aims to mimic a face-to-face contextualised interview online, testing this with existing samples with depression, physical illness and controls, as well as in a first year student group. The aim is to validate the new interview alongside the in-person interview and then to examine the relationship of stressful events and difficulties to depression and physical illness and to drop-out or poor exam results in students.

I am very pleased to be taking on a head of department role for this vibrant and talented staff group! I look forward to a productive year of work and the department’s success in both teaching and research programmes.