Collections 6 | PowerPoint Presentations
The next set in the Collections series covers both Sociology and Psychology and covers a mix of PowerPoint Presentations, some of which I’ve lifted from the Web but a lot of which I’ve created. These, as you might expect, are not your conventional “list of bullet-points on a white screen” Presentation and so may not […]
Beyond Zimbardo: The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment, arguably one of the most controversial experiments of the 20th century, has polarised opinions for over 50 years: To its supporters, the transformation of perfectly decent college students into brutal guards or compliant prisoners demonstrated the power of situations to determine behaviour. To its detractors, the study is a perfect storm […]
Dynamic Learning: Mindmaps
Mindmapping is a note-taking technique combining text and graphics that research has shown can improve recall, understanding and help structure exam answers. And this short film takes you through the four easy steps you need to follow to create Notes that will supercharge both your reviewing and chances of academic success.
Do Modern Audiences Shape Modern Media?
Or how a $19 Strawberry illustrates the changing world of media effects. Okay, I’ve taken a bit of a liberty here because, outrageous as it undoubtedly is, the $19 Strawberry isn’t, of itself, indicative of how our understanding of the way the media affects our behaviour has changed over the past 25 years. What’s actually […]
The New Penology
The New Penology refers to changes in the roles played by control agencies (both formal, such as the police and informal, such as schools) in contemporary societies that can be summarised in terms of three main ideas: 1. The Extension of control This refers to the idea that social controls in the late 20th century […]
Collections 5 | Flipbooks
The next Collection in a series that includes Learning Mats, Revision Resources, Simulations and the ever-popular Introductory Sociology, brings together all the Flipbook posts dotted around the Blog I could find and puts them into one handy cut-out-and-keep post. Research Methods The first four to be given the Flipbook treatment are actual, physical, book chapters […]
The Helpful Professor
The Helpful Professor site offers a range of free Study Guides for both Sociology (115 guides) and Psychology (30 guides) aimed at American University students doing Introductory courses in these subjects (Sociology 101, for example). The level at which they’re pitched, however, wouldn’t be out of place on an A-level Sociology or Psychology course. Each […]
Situational Action Theory: Online Magazine
I thought that for the 1,000th SCTV blog post I’d make an effort to do something a bit different. But then I came to my senses and thought “why break the habit of a lifetime?”, which is why this Milestone Post is just another of my GoTo favourites – the flipbook (although I’ve decided to […]
PsychEd: Free Resources
A rather unprepossessing WordPress blog about A-level Psychology, run by someone called “Ed” (hence the title) and featuring 8 posts in 2 years isn’t the kind of thing I usually feature on the blog. But I’ve made an exception because, much like the proverbial duck, while there may not be much happening on the surface […]
Flipbook: Testing the Marshmallow Test
For those who prefer their information in a more-colourful magazine-style format than bare-bones blog posts, I’ve put the two recent Marshmallow Test posts together in an online flipbook format that adds to the growing collection I’ve put together over the years. A flipbook, if you haven’t come across the format before, is basically an online […]
Theories of Crime and Deviance
Three short(ish) films dredged-up from The Archive (I’m not exactly sure which Archive but it probably sounds more-authentic than “found on an old neglected hard drive”) that provide a good overview of the major theoretical strands in the history of sociological theorising about crime and deviance. 1. The Social Causes of Crime introduces students to […]
The Marshmallow Effect | 2
The first part of this post provided some background to Mischel et al’s (1990) Marshmallow Test and started to question the idea it could be used to predict things like future academic performance. This concluding post looks in more depth at exactly why this should be the case… From A to B… There are two […]
The Marshmallow Effect | 1
Although the concepts of immediate and delayed gratification have been widely used in both psychology and sociology for over 50+ years, perhaps their most well-known application has been through Mischel’s “Marshmallow Test”. This experiment has seen its influence spread from the world of academic psychology to the wider shores of both the popular imagination and, […]
Study Smarter: Giving Your Ideas Legs
Whether you’re a teacher looking to instil in your students the idea there are a wide range of scientifically-demonstrated techniques you can use to improve your performance in examinations or a student looking for a quick fix to improve your recall and presentation skills, there’s no-doubt “study skills” (or whatever you prefer to call them) […]
A Top 10 of Psychological Myths
In which Ben Ambridge takes 15 minutes out of his very busy life (probably. I’m speculating. I don’t actually know. He might just have had nothing to do on a wet Tuesday) to both identify and – here’s the kicker – sadly disabuse your belief in any or indeed all of the following psychological phenomena: […]