Still reeling from the Holocaust, Jewish immigrant Theodor Adorno (1950) was one of the first to make a concerted effort to understand receptivity to Fascist ideology. Understanding in this area has developed over the decades but with the rise of the Alt-Right and the sickening scenes in Charlottesville, USA, in August 2017, the importance of…
What an exciting day to be a psychologyrocker!
What a fantastic day for the blog, today we have had 597 views from 163 visitors. 480 views were from the UK and I wonder whether this had anything to do with the launch of the ‘Why wait til Christmas’ Kindness Project in House assembly this morning. If you don’t know what this is all…
Want to make an impression? Replicate the ‘That’s not all’ technique
Some of you might be interested to read from this enchantingly titled book: Most under-appreciated: 50 Social psychologists describe their most unloved work by Arkin (2011). In this book Jerry Burger laments the lack of interest in his research on the ‘That’s not all’ technique, a compliance technique used by salespeople whereby the potential customer…
Social Psychology and the situation in Catalonia
A pro-independence rally in Catalonia, Spain; it’s easy to spot the in-group in their red and yellow T-shirts with the striped flag of Catalonia. For these individuals, their Catalan identity is an important part of their self-concept. Coming together in this way may increase feelings of belonging and self-esteem. Once people have categorised themselves as…
Personality and obedience
One issue regarding the link between personality and obedience is the possible use of psychological knowledge for social control. Can a person’s level of obedience be predicted using a personality test? If you need an army of ‘yes men’, then the use of personality tests in recruitment could just the ticket to help select people…
Source strength and compliance
Recently, I came across an interesting piece of research that links Social impact Theory (A level Edexcel) and Compliance Techniques (old IB spec) so this should be of interest to many of you. Social impact theory explains many phenomena including compliance which differs slightly from obedience in that the person making the request (the source)…
Obedience and the brain
I thought it was about time I started using the blog facility on my website , so here we go with my first post in a while. I thought some of you might enjoy the following snippet which could bring your evaluation of agency theory bang up to date. It could also be used in…
Memory Hackers
This is a cracking documentary that everyone should find the time to watch. Its brilliant for both A level and IB students covering a wide range of classic and contemporary material. Utterly awesome, many thanks to lovely Helen Kitching for sharing this one with us all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-HMimI498U
Hannah Brencher’s Love Letters Project
This is the excerpt for your very first post.
PsychStix 