• Using Cues to Enhance Recall

    Have you ever found yourself struggling to recollect a particular word or the name of a specific person? You know that you know it, but you can’t find the word, so to speak? The word is on the tip of your tongue. This tip of the tongue phenomenon is quite common. You might be attempting…

  • Privation: Development in the absence of attachment

    Deprivation refers to the breaking of the attachment bond once it had been established. As discussed in a previous article, this would include temporary separations, such as a brief stay in hospital, or permanent separations such as the death of a parent. The key point here (regardless of time length) is that the bond between…

  • A Memory Primer

    Memory is essential for learning. In fact, memory is essential for life. Without memory, we would exist in the perpetual present, a void where we are unable to recall a past and incapable of anticipating a future. We wouldn’t recognise our loved ones or be able to plan our futures. And we wouldn’t be able…

  • An Attachment Primer

    I rarely write about attachment beyond the role it plays in childhood resilience. This is despite having a strong professional and personal interest in it (as well as having taught the topic for more than a decade). My professional interest lies in both my role as a psychologist and a teacher; the way in which…

  • Some interesting facts about sleep

    Sleep comes in two varieties, slow-wave sleep (or NREM sleep) and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. REM sleep is the stage in which dreaming most often occurs. REM sleep is often called paradoxical sleep. This is because the brain waves of a sleeping brain are very similar to those of an awake brain.  Our bodies are…

  • Crisis? The Intersection between education and mental health, Part 2

    Part 2: The role of schools in child and adolescent mental health. This is part 2 of a summary of Are the kids alright? Examining the intersection between education and mental health. Part 1 and context can be found here. The role of schools in contributing to the ‘crisis’ Humphrey asserts that the transformation of…

  • Crisis? The Intersection between education and mental health, Part 1

    Part 1: Is there a child and adolescent mental health crisis? [skip to part 2] Are we currently in the throws of a child and adolescent mental health crisis? If we are, is our current education system in some way to blame? These questions might seem simple enough, but when we dig a little deeper…

  • Personality Type and Intelligence

    Is there a relationship between your personality type and how you score on an IQ test? The study of personality and intelligence share a number of important factors. The overriding one, perhaps, pertains to the sphere of behavioural genetics, the study of the heritability of human behaviour. What do we mean by heritability? The term…

  • Is Conscientiousness all it’s cracked up to be?

    Conscientiousness is a Big 5 trait associated with commitment and persistence, the skill of staying on track and battling through despite setbacks and minor hiccups. It shares many of its characteristics with other traits such as grit (indeed, many researchers see grit as simply conscientiousness repackaged). Persistence is a trait in its own right and…

  • Behaviour, Causality and Social Cognition.

      A recent Twitter poll asked the following question: If a student behaves with one teacher and not another, it means they’re choosing when they behave.” (Interpret as you want & comment if you want to expand) I was interested in how the question implied that participants should consider the causality of behaviour, that is,…