Blogging astrophysics, shaping the self. Content-mediated identity negotiation and peer group adjustment in a sample of astrophysicists’ blogs

Research blogging has received a rather good amount of attention from the scholarly literature, but not in the domain of astrophysics. In the present paper, three active astrophysicists’ blogs have been chosen from a previously retrieved much wider corpus and analyzed against the pivotal theory of identity shaping in an online setting. The study, which is essentially mixed-methods, has built on Susan Herring’s definition of computer-mediated conversation and focusses on content analysis as well as on content-based interaction (comments and replies per subject). Special care was taken on ensuring bloggers’ and commenters’ anonimity, in compliance with the British Psychological Society Ethics Guidelines. These blogs’ conversational capacity has emerged and the hypothesis of some degree of professional identity negotiation results to be confirmed, with implications on the invisible colleges. The context is that of an interdisciplinary, provisional junction between ground-based linguistic fieldwork in a 2.0 online setting and the search for appropriate theoretical frameworks about unconscious or semi-conscious aims of communication in a scholarly environment.

Emotions in action: Telephone-mediated dispute resolution

© 2014 The British Psychological Society. The present study investigated emotions as they were made visible and responded to in a particular institutional setting. Following discursive psychology the aim was to provide a rigorous account of emotion as observable in talk-in-interaction. Using conversation analysis a focus was on the temporality of emotion in turns of talk and over the course of an interaction. Data were recordings and transcriptions of calls to a dispute resolution service for consumers' problems with electricity and gas. The analysis identified systematic practices callers' use for describing and doing upset. Call-takers rarely displayed emotion in the body of the calls and typically responded to institutionally relevant aspects of the callers' troubles and not the emotional ones. In the absence of any kind of endorsement of the callers' emotional stance, emotionality could escalate. Emotional affiliation regularly occurred at the end of the calls. The escalation of emotion in the absence of its endorsement and the occurrence of emotional affiliation at call-closing evidences a sequential property of emotion that has been largely overlooked.

Emotions in action: Telephone-mediated dispute resolution

© 2014 The British Psychological Society. The present study investigated emotions as they were made visible and responded to in a particular institutional setting. Following discursive psychology the aim was to provide a rigorous account of emotion as observable in talk-in-interaction. Using conversation analysis a focus was on the temporality of emotion in turns of talk and over the course of an interaction. Data were recordings and transcriptions of calls to a dispute resolution service for consumers' problems with electricity and gas. The analysis identified systematic practices callers' use for describing and doing upset. Call-takers rarely displayed emotion in the body of the calls and typically responded to institutionally relevant aspects of the callers' troubles and not the emotional ones. In the absence of any kind of endorsement of the callers' emotional stance, emotionality could escalate. Emotional affiliation regularly occurred at the end of the calls. The escalation of emotion in the absence of its endorsement and the occurrence of emotional affiliation at call-closing evidences a sequential property of emotion that has been largely overlooked.

Discursive psychology and feminism

This appraisal highlights the productive engagement between feminism and discursive psychology (DP). It discusses some of the confluence and tensions between DP and feminism. The two share critical perspectives on science and psychology, a concern with prejudice, and have ideas in common about the constructed nature of social categories, such as gender. One difficulty arises from the relativism associated with the post-structural theoretical underpinnings of DP, which can be understood as politically paralyzing. Another problem comes from an endorsement of a conversation analytic mentality, where identity categories such as gender can only be legitimately used in an analysis when participants' orient to their relevance. The high-profile debates and literature in DP shows it has made a notable contribution to social psychology and its influence can also be found in other areas. A particular influence of DP highlighted in the present appraisal is on gender and language research. © 2011 The British Psychological Society.

Discursive psychology and feminism

This appraisal highlights the productive engagement between feminism and discursive psychology (DP). It discusses some of the confluence and tensions between DP and feminism. The two share critical perspectives on science and psychology, a concern with prejudice, and have ideas in common about the constructed nature of social categories, such as gender. One difficulty arises from the relativism associated with the post-structural theoretical underpinnings of DP, which can be understood as politically paralyzing. Another problem comes from an endorsement of a conversation analytic mentality, where identity categories such as gender can only be legitimately used in an analysis when participants' orient to their relevance. The high-profile debates and literature in DP shows it has made a notable contribution to social psychology and its influence can also be found in other areas. A particular influence of DP highlighted in the present appraisal is on gender and language research. © 2011 The British Psychological Society.

Psychometric Assessment Standards Based on the «Performance Based Assessment» Methodology

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that there has been a request for a comprehensive assessment of knowledge and skills based on the methodology of competency-based assignments, which consists in a performance-based assessment. In the article, the author presents the psychometric standards and recommendations existing in foreign practice that are necessary for a fair, reliable and objective assessment of the learning outcomes of company employees. The purpose of the work is to study existing standards and recommendations for assessing learning outcomes in the KPI system. The empirical basis of the study was the data of the International Test Commission; British Psychological Society – British Psychological Society, BPS and others. The author analyzes the empirical base of the research and systematizes the existing standards and recommendations for assessing testing. The practical significance of the research results lies in the fact that, given the challenges and demands of the modern world, most organizations will allow them to form a systemic development of the measurement process and quickly respond to new challenges that arise before psychometrics.

A Template for Preregistration of Quantitative Research in Psychology: Report of the Joint Psychological Societies Preregistration Task Force

Recent years have seen dramatic changes in research practices in psychological science. In particular, preregistration of study plans prior to conducting a study has been identified as an important tool to help increase the transparency of science and to improve the robustness of psychological research findings. This article presents the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template produced by a Joint Psychological Societies Preregistration Task Force consisting of the American Psychological Association (APA), British Psychological Society (BPS) and German Psychological Society (DGPs), supported by the Center for Open Science (COS) and the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID). The goal of the Task Force was to provide the psychological community with a consensus template for the preregistration of quantitative research in psychology, one with wide coverage and the ability, if necessary, to adapt to specific journals, disciplines and researcher needs. This article covers the structure and use of the PRP-QUANT template, while outlining and discussing the benefits of its use for researchers, authors, funders and other relevant stakeholders. We hope that by introducing this template and by demonstrating the support of preregistration by major academic psychological societies, we will facilitate an increase in preregistration practices and thereby also the further advancement of transparency and knowledge-sharing in the psychological sciences.

Research misconduct complaints and institutional logics: The case of Hans Eysenck and the British Psychological Society

A formal complaint was lodged with the British Psychological Society in 1995 that alleged serious scientific misconduct by Hans J Eysenck. The complaint referred to research into the links between personality traits and the causes, prevention and treatment of cancer and heart disease. Using a framework of institutional logics, we criticise the Society’s decision not to hear this complaint at a full disciplinary hearing. We urge the BPS to investigate this complaint afresh. We also support calls for the establishment of an independent National Research Integrity Ombudsperson to deal more effectively with allegations of research misconduct.

Winter is coming: age and early psychological concomitants of the Covid-19 pandemic in England

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate early psychological concomitants of the Covid-19 pandemic in England on a sample of younger and older people. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional quantitative questionnaire (n = 1608) was conducted on the Prolific website. Participants completed the PERMA Scale (Flourishing), the four Office of National Statistics (ONS4) Well-being Questions, the Clinical Outcomes Measure in Routine Evaluation (CORE-10) and the short University of California Los Angeles Brief Loneliness Scale. Findings Data were gathered on March 18, 2020, near the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study looks at the effects of the developing pandemic on younger participants (18 to 25 years, n = 391) and older participants (60 to 80 years, n = 104). Flourishing levels for older participants were significantly higher (M = 107.96) than for younger participants (M = 97.80). Younger participants scored significantly higher on the ONS4 for anxiety and lower than the older participants for happiness, life satisfaction and having a worthwhile life. Levels of psychological distress (CORE-10) were also significantly lower for older participants (M = 9.06) than for younger participants (M = 14.61). Finally, younger participants scored significantly higher on the Brief UCLA Loneliness Scale (M = 6.05) than older participants (M = 4.64). Research limitations/implications From these findings, the Covid-19 pandemic was having a significantly greater effect on younger people in England, less than one week before the UK went into “lockdown”. Scores for both the Younger and Older groups on all the study measures were worse than normative comparisons. The study had no specific measure of Covid-19 anxiety, but nor was one available at the time of the survey. Practical implications This study suggests that younger people (18 to 25) may be a more vulnerable group during the Covid-19 pandemic than many may have realized. Social implications As a recent British Psychological Society report concluded, there is a lot of untapped wisdom amongst older groups in society. Originality/value This is one of the earliest studies to look at psychological distress before England went into “lockdown.”