Surrey University Psychology Department

What's new at the department?

Marco Vassallo who visited the department for a month during November as part of an exchange scheme operating between the partners in the Healthgrain research programme. Marco is a statistician with interests in consumer behaviour and is usually based at INRAN (National Institute of Research in Food and Nutrition) in Rome. The Institute advises the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on human nutrition and consumer policy. In addition to Healthgrain, which is concerned with improving wellbeing by increasing the intake of protective compounds in whole grains, Marco also worked with colleagues at Surrey on the Condor project which looked at consumers’ decisions about organic foods.

Marco: Being here has been an amazing experience. The department is so well organised. INRAN is a small institute (with a scientific and technical research staff of 150 employees) so in comparison Surrey is like a golden
land! The library is fantastic you have access to so many electronic journals and I’ve had such a great time here. It’s not just the work that’s well organised, there’s the sports centre on campus and everything that you need during a typical working day. I’m so enthusiastic about this place!

My colleagues (in the Centre for Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health) have been organising social events, taking me out to the countryside to have dinner in local pubs. They have all been so kind and I’m so glad to be here. When I go home I’ll tell my colleagues about the University and the ambience. One thing that has surprised me is the close relationships between the researchers here. It’s not just work, they are so close and they have strong friendships. I think it’s crucial that you find a friendly atmosphere because we spend so much of our time at work. I went to the PhD party too and that was fun and I met a lot more people.

Guildford is a small town but I like it - it has the river and the castle and it amazed me that you can be inthe hustle and bustle of the town centre and then the castle grounds are so peaceful. In general in my country there’s chaos in the gardens too! I would say that you are lucky to have the opportunity to work here, but I love my country so I look forward to going home but I would like to take some things back with me. The experience here has been very positive for me and for the project and I hope that I’ll have the opportunity to come again.

It would be great to have someone come to INRAN. I think these kinds of projects are very important for young people. After you finish your degree you still have so much to learn and working on a European project, meeting people, comparing yourself to others, both in work and social situations, isn’t easy but it’s such a good way to learn and you can create links which lead to other projects in the future. At INRAN we have students from Spain, Russia, Sweden, Yugoslavia and sometimes there are language difficulties but the bigger problems are the habits that you used to. You need to be versatile and flexible. I think that trying new things keeps you young and makes you eager to do more.

Course and Student News

Plans to change the MSc Environmental Psychology course

Plans are underway to make several changes to the MSc Environmental Psychology starting the academic year 2007/2008. The new course format will allow for more flexibility and will make the course or parts of it more accessible for a wider audience and therefore help increase student numbers. The new course also aims to better reflect the research interests of the Environmental Psychology Research Group.

Four types of changes are proposed.

1. Restructuring the course into one week modules rather than 10 week modules. This format is already being used in other departments of the University such as EIHMS and CES and in othe Universities. The main advantage of such a structure is that it makes the course much more accessible to students who work. It also makes it possible to sell individual modules for CPD. Moreover, for small groups this intensive structure may be more suitable then the usually 10 week lecture arrangement.

2. Better reflection of the research activities in the research group.
Much of the research that is now being conducted by the Environmental Psychology Research Group and by Environmental Psychology researchers world wide involves the study of issues around sustainability, such as environmental values, attitudes and behaviours, household energy use, transport and waste. We would like to strengthen the link between our research expertise and the training we offer.

3. Providing two MSc options
At the moment our course attracts students with two different interests, which overlap in
part but are also very distinct. The new course aims to address these two different
interests by providing two MSc options.

A. Psychology and the Environment
The first involves the more classical Environmental Psychology which is related to the design and planning disciplines. We are the only course in the UK and one of the very few courses in the world which provide this kind of training.

B. Psychology, Environment and Sustainability
This option will specifically be designed to better reflect the research work conducted in the Research Group and will has strong links with the 5-year RESOLVE research programme which started in June 2006, and has strong cognate links with research and teaching on lifestyles, consumption and sustainability by researchers in different departments of the University -CES, Economics, Sociology and Psychology. PsychD Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology Open Afternoon - 8th January We will be holding our annual Open Afternoon for prospective applicants on Monday 8th January from 2.00 -5.00 pm and will be using the foyer from about 3.45-5.00 pm. As we have had a particularly good response this year we will also need to use Room 30 AD 02 during the same period. Please accept my apologies in advance for any inconvenience caused by the additional noise. Marion Steed Department of Psychology

4. Providing links with other Master programmes at University of Surrey
With the start of the RESOLVE project we have strengthened the links between different departments in the University (CES, Sociology, Economics and Psychology) and we believe it would be useful to build on these links by offering optional CES modules to our students, and open up some of our modules to students from CES. Moreover, we would like to develop a link between our Masters course and the new MSc in Transport Planning and Practice in the School of Engineering by providing a specific module on transport psychology.

At the moment we are going through all the appropriate channels to get approval for our plans. So far we have had very positive responses both from colleagues as well as from existing and prospective students.

Birgitta Gatersleben and David Uzzell

Eighty MSc students were awarded their degrees in November and we are looking forward to celebrating with them at the graduation ceremony on March 30t 2007. Several students are staying in the department to work towards PhDs; Katie Herron (MSc Applied), Cristina Ruscitto and Katarzyna Chapman (MSc Health) Lucy Arnold and Sebastian Teicher (MSc Forensic), Patrick Martens and Rasmus Martensen (Social).

BPS Award for MSc Occupational Psychology Student

Each year the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology makestthree awards to students who have produced projects which in the view of a panel of academic and practitioner judges, have made the most valuable contribution to the field of Occupational Psychology.

We are delighted to report that Kathryn Taylor, who completed her MSc in Occupational and Organisational Psychology earlier this year submitted a summary of her project and was awarded first prize. Kathryn’s project, supervised by Adrian Banks, was titled ‘How can we maximise the transfer of training? Effects of goal orientation, achievement motivation and climate for transfer’. Through quantitative and qualitative research Kathryn established that people who transfer the most knowledge and skills from training courses to the work place are those who work in environments where the climate for transfer is positive. She also identified differences in transfer rates between public and private sector workers.

Kathryn’s prize of £750 will be presented at the Division’s annual conference in January and she will also receive free daily admission to the conference plus £150 towards travel and accommodation costs.

Thank you to everyone who has bought books from the Book People this year. Julie was able to collect two large boxes of children’s books as a result of your orders and delivered them to St Christopher's Children's Hospice just outside Guildford early in December.

Student News

Following their successful vivas, Jane Palmer and Oliver Wright send us the following updates:

Jane, who’s thesis was titled ‘An exploration of sadistic sex offending: phenomenology & measurement’, writes:



I'd like to thank my supervisors Professor Jennifer Brown and Professor Derek Perkins (Broadmoor Hospital), and also givethanks to the National Programme in Forensic Mental Health, who funded my research. One of the best bits of working in the department was the support I received from everyone and especially from others doing PhDs - feeling supported is so important when you have the inevitable ups and downs that come with undertaking a PhD.






Oliver, who is lecturing in Turkey says:

I've been working abroad since submitting my thesis a few months ago, so it was good to come back to the psychology department - it felt almost like returning home. I found studying for a PhD to be a very satisfying experience, and feel very lucky, both to have been given the opportunity to undertake such studies and to have received such excellent supervision. I was funded by a Psychology Department bursary for the first year and for the remaining time by the ESRC. For me, the most interesting part of the experience were the two summers I spent doing fieldwork with Himba people in the Kaokoveld in Namibia. These trips were also the hardest part of my studies due to the extreme remoteness of the location and attendant lack of comforts.

Miranda Horvath’s viva was held on 27th November, with Dr Arlene Vetere acting as internal examiner, Dr Julian Boon (University of Leicester) as external examiner and Dr John Everatt as Chair. Miranda’s thesis was titled ‘Drug assisted rape: An investigation’ and her supervisor was Jennifer Brown.



I would like to thank everyone at Surrey for putting up with me and providing me with so much support over the years. Jennifer has been the most wonderful supervisor, I am sograteful for all her support, she's a truly amazing woman. I'veenjoyed my time here so much and I’ll really miss everyone.



As for the future, Miranda is working as a research fellow atthe child and women abuse studies unit at LondonMetropolitan University and is applying for assistantprofessorships in America and Canada for September 2007.






On the 9th November 2006 Andy Myers celebrated the successful outcome of hisviva and just two later left for Australia. Andy’s thesis was titled ‘Bodies in the Brain’,his supervisor was Paul Sowden and the examiners were Annette Sterr (internal) andDr Paul Downing, University of Bangor (external). Ian Davies was Chair.

Don’s Diary from Oregon Research Institute (ORI)
by Sarah Hampson




















Monday

The Scientist Council meeting takes place on the secondMonday of each month at noon. All the research scientistsbelong to this council, and all research support andadministrative staff belong to the Science Support Council.We also serve on one or more of the numerous committees.Each Council elects equal numbers of representatives to theBoard of Directors, which includes community members. TheBoard has ultimate decision-making authority; the Institute hasno director, so no single individual is ‘in charge’. Everyonecontributes to decision making in this form of participatorygovernance, which takes much time and energy.

I ponder the pros and cons of Surrey-style hierarchicalconsultative management vs. ORI-style non-hierarchical participatory management. It maybe that ORI’s size and common purpose (roughly comparable to one large Department orsmall School at Surrey) is the key to why the governance structure has worked well for 20years.

Food incentives help. A hot lunch is served at Scientist Council. Today it was classicEugene cuisine: a tasty brown rice and vegetable casserole catered by nearby Café Yumm.

Tuesday

The sun is shining, so my 10-minute bicycle ride to work was particularly pleasant. Not onlydo I get exercise, but ORI pays me to not use the car park. If you park every day of theweek you owe ORI; if you use alternative transportation or car pool at least one day a week,you pay nothing, and for every additional day of ‘alt-trans’, ORI owes you. It took a while tohammer out this policy - car parking is a sensitive issue at ORI, as it is at Surrey.

I log onto the website of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) known as ‘the Commons’. Itcontains a complete record of my grant applications for the past several years, including thereviews and the funding decisions. The research teams I work with currently have threeproposals under review, each at different branches of NIH and reviewed by different expertpanels. I check daily to see if the outcomes have been posted. Each application representsa substantial amount of work, consisting of a 25-page description of the proposed researchand about 80 pages of supporting material (budget justification, CVs, Human Subjects,etc.). And then there the appendices.

I learn that one proposal shared the fate of about 50% of NIH applications: it was rejectedwithout even being discussed by the review committee. The second proposal did getdiscussed and received a priority score that puts it just out of range of funding. The third,however, has a very good chance of being funded. One nice feature not typical in the UK isthat we receive written feedback from three reviewers on every proposal submitted, and weare permitted two rounds of revision and re-review of the same proposal. Increasingly, forthe 5% of applications that eventually do get funded, it is taking three attempts -- a two-yearprocess.

Wednesday

There is much rejoicing at ORI over the news of the Democratic success in the mid-termelections held yesterday. Politics affect my pay cheque at ORI in a much more direct waythan at Surrey. For example, all our grant funding was subject to a 1% reduction last yearto pay for the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, on top of the 20% cut resulting from
President Bush’s spending priorities. ORI even belongs to an organization that lobbies in Washingtonon behalf of research institutes. An email from this organization today warns that it willtake a year or two for positive effects of the shift in the power balance to trickle down. True, but today we celebrate.

Thursday

I must take a moment to fill out my enrollment forms for ORI’s health insurance for 2007.There has been a small increase in the premium for next year. ORI pays the bulk of it,leaving me to pay about $200 (just over £100) a month to cover myself and my husband.ORI offers health insurance to employees who work at least half-time. A growing number ofworking Americans are not part of an employer-supported insurance scheme such as thisand, of course, there is no national health care. The NHS is far from perfect, but it has tobe better than nothing.

While on the subject of paperwork, our fiscal people provide scientists with a monthly 3-page budget report for each of their grants to enable timely and accurate tracking of all detailsof expenditure. Yes, it can be done. On the down side, each month I have to fill out anelectronic timesheet, apportioning my time appropriately across different grants. I am notsure I will ever get used to this.

Friday

No meetings today. At the beginning of the week I have several research meetings or conferencecalls each day, but Thursday and Friday are usually clear to make headway onthose proposals and papers. Just before 5pm I receive an email from admin staff. Do Ineed their help over the weekend for the upcoming proposal deadline on Monday? Wow.Fortunately for them, I am not submitting an application this time, so I (and they) will get theweekend off. My husband and I are thinking of going over the coast to take a walk on theempty beaches bordering the Pacific Ocean. Or we might drive an hour or so up into themountains to enjoy the fall colours, at their best just now.

Time flies, so it won’t be long before I will be packing for my next trip to Surrey.

Sarah Hampson will next be in the Department for two weeks starting April 23. Meanwhile,she can be reached at sarah@ori.org or s.hampson@surrey.ac.uk.

News from the Research Groups

Developmental

Martyn Barrett’s new book ‘Children’s Knowledge, Beliefs and Feelings about Nationsand National Groups’ was published by Psychology Press on November 13th 2006. Thebook, which is based on collaborations with almost twenty colleagues, including EvanthiaLyons, is an account of the way in which attitudes towards nations and national groupsdevelop through childhood and adolescence. Professor Kevin Durkin (Department ofPsychology, University of Strathclyde) describes the book as ‘... a very impressive monographbearing every prospect of becoming a landmark in its field. It combines an exceptionallyscholarly review of the historical and current literature on children and national identity with anaccount of the findings of a unique and ambitious series of multi-context, international studies’.

Martyn Barrett attended the second meeting of expert advisors on children's interculturalcompetences and experiences at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on November 13th-14th.Draft versions of a new educational tool, the "Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters", havebeen prepared by the group, one for use by younger learners (up to the age of about 11) andone for use by older learners (adolescents and adults). Martyn led the design of the youngerlearners' version, with support from Eithne Buchanan-Barrow. The autobiography is intendedfor cross-curricular and general use in formal and non-formal educational contexts. It requiresusers to reflect critically upon their own memorable intercultural experiences, and helps themto analyse these experiences in retrospect and in the light of the most defining aspects of eachencounter. The aim is to facilitate and enhance intercultural awareness and dialogue, and it isintended that the instrument will be made available in 2008 to schools in all 46 member statesof the Council of Europe. The draft versions of the autobiography will be piloted in severalcountries over the next few months.

On October 31st, Stephanie Davis had her PhD viva, with a successful outcome. Her thesiswas entitled "Children's Implicit and Explicit Ethnic Group Attitudes", and she was supervisedby Martyn Barrett and Patrick Leman (Royal Holloway University of London). Her examinerswere Peter Hegarty and Kevin Durkin. She has since taken up a job as a postdoctoral researcherworking with Patrick Leman and Alison Woodcock at Royal Holloway.

Clinical

Tushna Vandrevala presented the following paper recently:Vandrevala, T. (2006) Role of religion in advance care planning: a multi-methodologicalapproach. International Symposium of the European Behavioral and Social ScienceResearch Section of the International Association of Gerontology, National University ofGalway, Ireland, 20th- 22nd October 2006.

Environmental

David Uzzell was invited to a conference entitled ‘Imagined Landscapes’ organised jointly bythe Cumbria Institute of the Arts and the Brera Academy (Milan). Held on 26th-27th October,the conference explored how new media art works can help us to understand ourrelationship with landscape and the environment. David was asked to act as a discussantand reflect on the work of the international artist, Char Davies (Canada). By donning a headmounteddisplay unit and a body vest to monitor breathing and balance, participants areimmersed in 3D-virtual space where they interact with abstract images of nature whilemanoeuvring in an artificial spatial environment (http://www.immersence.com/).

‘I found Char Davies’s work fascinating, opening up completely new ways of thinking aboutand relating to the environment and which have potentially exciting research implications’.

David Uzzell was invited to give the opening Keynote paper at the Swedish EnvironmentalPsychology Conference in Lund on 13-14 November 2006. His paper was entitled “Conflicton the Route to Sustainability”.

David was also invited to give a seminar in the Department of Sociology at the University ofUmeå on 8th December where he spoke on the subject of “Conflict on the Route toSustainable Development”. While in Umeå he worked with staff on developing a researchproposal which is to be submitted to FORMAS, one of the Swedish Research Councils, toexamine the impact of the relocation of the commercial and residential areas in the miningtown of Kiruna. This follows earlier work he undertook with Gerda Spellar on the building ofthe Channel Tunnel and its impact on two villages which were destroyed in the process, andthe work undertaken by Gerda and Evanthia Lyons on the relocation of the coal miningtown of Arkwright in Derbyshire. Following the seminar he flew to Kiruna which lies within theArctic Circle where he visited the mining operation.

David: We know from previous research that the psychosocial and environmental impact ofrelocation operations such as these can be traumatic for local people as place and homesare destroyed. We have considerable research expertise in this area which hopefully can bedrawn upon. Kiruna is an extraordinary place. As I write this the temperature is about -10C,and the sun rose at 11.08 this morning and promptly set at 11.53!

Birgitta Gatersleben and David Uzzell hosted a meeting with environmental psychology colleagues from the University of Barcelona and the University of Magdeburg on 3rdNovember to discuss the participation in the establishment of a new European MSc inEnvironmental Psychology.

Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health

The following paper, stemming from the EuroFIR project was published recently:

Egan, M. B; Fragodt, A.; Raats, M.M. "The importance of harmonising and sustaining food composition dataacross Europe" published in Nutrition Bulletin (2006) 31:349-353.

Two further publications, from a project that Monique Raats and Bernadette Egan have beeninvolved in, are detailed below. The project was funded by the Food Standards Agency andled by Dr Anita Eves in the School of Management.

Eves, A; Bielby, G; Egan, B;Lumbers, M;Raats, M; Adams, M. ‘Food hygiene knowledge and self-reported behavioursof UK school children (4-14 years)’. British Food Journal (2006),108 (9):706-720

Bielby, G; Egan, B; Eves, A; Lumbers, M; Raats, M; Adams, M. ‘Food hygiene education in UK primary schools:a nation-wide survey of teachers' views’. British Food Journal (2006),108 (9):721-731


SPERI

The following have been accepted for publication:

Finlay, W.M.L., Antaki, C. & Walton, C. (in press) Saying no to the staff: an analysis of refusalsin a care home for people with intellectual disabilities. Sociology of Health and Illness

Antaki, C., Finlay, W.M.L. & Walton, C. (in press). Identity issues in proposing activities topersons with a learning disability. Discourse and Society

Toni Brennan presented a paper on ‘Minority Stress’ avant la lettre in Magnus Hirschfeld’sBerlins drittes Geschlecht at the Lesbian and Gay Psychology Section Conference in Londonon 1st-2nd December 2006.

Social Psychology Video Sessions

A big thanks to all those who came along to the video sessions this semester. We watched awide range of films and had even more wide-ranging discussions, always in a collegiate andstimulating fashion. Some of the topics we argued about were: the nazis, animal experimentation,the culture of the NHS, Africa, obedience, documentary story-telling, warrior societies,single parents, youth violence, the role of therapy in solving social problems, ethical choices inconsumption and charity, research ethics, prejudice, Derren Brown, persuasion, hypnosis, theskills of management, and genocide. It was great to see faces from the undergraduate courses,masters, PsychD and PhD students, as well as researchers, lecturers and administratorsat the sessions. Some people came regularly, others dropped in for a session or two as theirinterests and schedules permitted, but everyone contributed to making this a rich experience.The sessions wouldn't be what they are without the enthusiasm of those who come along. Anew programme for 2007 will be announced soon and as always, everyone is welcome .... feel free to arrive late and leave early... and so on.

Mick Finlay



If you have any news items for the next issue please email Sam Boyles (s.boyles@surrey.ac.uk).