In this video I discuss David Rosenhan’s well-known study in which pseudo-patients went for psychiatric consultations and described a single symptom of hearing voices. I discuss how this study raised questions about recognition and diagnosis of mental illness, interpretations of … Read More
Overview of Positive Psychology
In this video I describe some of the concepts of positive psychology and its emphasis on thriving, growth, and well-being. I discuss optimism, upward and downward comparison, gratitude, and the adaptation level phenomenon or hedonic treadmill, as well as how … Read More
Stress, Social Support, & The Faith Factor
In this video I describe how social support can help people to manage stress. This may come in the form of tangible support, informational support, or emotional support, though not all social interactions are beneficial for managing stress. I also … Read More
Stress Management & Physical Exercise
In this video I describe three main approaches for dealing with stress: appraisal-focused coping, problem-focused coping, and emotion-focused coping. Next I discuss physical exercise as a means of managing stress, in addition to the many physical and cognitive benefits that … Read More
Coping, Resilience, & Post-Traumatic Growth
In this video I describe traits and techniques associated with coping with stressors. Susanne Kobasa identified commitment, challenge, and control as important factors in understanding hardiness and people who were able to thrive in stressful circumstances. Resilience in the face … Read More
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD
In this video I briefly describe the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, the people most often affected by it, and research on potential risk factors for the development of PTSD, including hippocampal volume. Gilbertson et al (2002) – Smaller hippocampal … Read More
Control, Choice, Blame, & Stress
In this video I discuss the downsides of perceived control and choice and how we assign blame when things don’t go our way. I describe Sherman James’s idea of John Henryism, review the concept of locus of control, and consider … Read More
Skewness – Floor & Ceiling Effects
In this video I explain how skewness in a sample may be caused by a floor or a ceiling effect, in which the measurement isn’t able to capture variability at the low or high end of a population’s distribution. A … Read More
Skewness – Positive & Negative Skew
In this video I explain one way in which a distribution can deviate from normality, which is skewness. I explain the difference between positive and negative skew, and how these can be seen in histograms, stem and leaf displays, and … Read More
Exploratory Data Analysis: Box & Whisker Plots
In this video I describe box-and-whisker plots, or boxplots, developed by John Tukey. First we’ll look at a simple box-and-whisker plot, then we’ll see some variations depending on the data, some different sets of terminology that can be used when … Read More