Head's Newsletter 1 April 2022

PSYCHOLOGY A LEVEL CONFERENCE

On Monday 21st March, seventeen intrepid psychology students ventured into central London, keen to listen and question some key thinkers in psychology. Professor Phil Banyard opened the conference and introduced students to the idea of self, consciousness, phantom limbs and natural born cyborgs. Mike Cardwell then spoke offering some optimism in a lecture entitled, ‘ Toward a Culture of Peace ’. Here we were introduced to

research on nonviolent protest effectiveness, citing examples such as the 2017 Plaza de Mayo marches against the Supreme Court. He went on to explore examples of the power of art, women, photography and voice (for example in Estonia, 1991) as being successful at contributing to peace in times of conflict. Cara Flanagan, author of our main A - Level textbook and a chief examiner, focused on persuading the students to revise efficiently, applying concepts from memory research. Next up was a technical lecture from Professor Chris French. He talked about publication bias, peer review problems and

the difficulty of replication within the context of his investigation of anomalistic psychology.

The highlight of the day was when students were able to question Elizabeth Loftus. Professor Loftus has had a unique career as one of the foremost psychologists of her generation. She has been an instrumental figure in cognitive psychology and has published over 24 books and over 600 articles. She was particularly controversial as she was called by defence teams for defendants such as Harvey Weinstein to provide expert witness evidence. She had some fantastic insights into false memories, misidentification cases and the pitfalls of psychodynamic therapy. It was good to get out to a conference, mix with other psychology students and experience normality in this way again. The students reported that they got a great deal out of the day.