Dr. Sabiha Alam Choudhury: May 2020

Stretched Words And Imaginary Beasts: The Week’s Best Psychology Links

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Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Researchers have finalllyyyyyy studied the ways we elongate words on social media, reports Matt Simon at Wired. The team developed a program that searched through 100 billion tweets for stretched words, finding some interesting patterns. Some words, for example, tend to be “unbalanced” (think “thaaaanks”), while others are balanced (think “hahahahaha”). The Wired story has some cool charts that show how common different stretched variations were for particular words.

What makes people decide to donate money for tiger conservation, say, but not to save an endangered bat? It could be partly down to the animals’ physical features, reports Amanda Heidt at Science. Researchers looked at people’s responses to a variety of bizarre fictional creatures, finding that they were more likely to donate to conserve larger animals or those that were more colourful or that sported cooler colours. Check out the story for some great pictures of the imaginary beasts.

Back to real animals, and a new comparative psychology study suggests that goats understand the meaning of some basic human gestures, writes Candice Wang at Popular Science. Researchers found that goats could follow a human’s pointing gesture to correctly locate a source of food — although not perfectly. They hope that their work can ultimately help to improve the well-being of farm animals.

Is it really Friday already? At Scientific American, Jacki Rocheleau looks at how the coronavirus lock-down is warping our perception of time.

While epidemiologists continue to track the spread of COVID-19, other researchers are investigating how conspiracy theories about the virus are transmitted. A feature at Nature by Amy Maxmen and Philip Ball looks at the work of these scientists, and how it might help inform attempts to “flatten the curve” of misinformation.

Of course, simply attempting to debunk coronavirus myths may backfire, as several scientists explain in The Conversation. Repeating a claim — even when trying to debunk it — can make it seem more believable. Instead, it may be more useful to ensure that true information is made more accessible and easy to understand, they suggest.

Finally, it feels like everyone is playing the Nintendo game Animal Crossing right now — but can psychology explain its appeal? Pete Etchells has the answers at BBC Science Focus.

Compiled by Matthew Warren (@MattbWarren), Editor of BPS Research Digest

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Change fatigue during COVID-19: Recognising the signs and shifting your mindset

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“Visual-Verbal Prompting” Could Make Interviews More Manageable For Autistic People

By guest blogger Dan Carney

A key feature of interviews is open-ended questioning inviting the recall of past experiences and memories — what psychologists call “autobiographical” memory. Having to provide this information accurately and coherently, combined with the stress of the situation, can often make being interviewed a demanding and uncomfortable experience.

That is especially true of autistic people, who may have difficulties with both autobiographical memory and open-ended questioning. Many autistic people report job interviews as a major barrier to employment, and it’s possible that interview difficulties may also be compounding, or partially causing, problems in legal and healthcare contexts where open-ended interviews requiring autobiographical recall are a common feature. Autistic people are more likely to be involved in criminal investigations, for instance, and to experience physical and mental health difficulties.

Now, in a paper published in Autism, a team led by Jade Norris from the University of Bath has examined techniques that may help autistic people in these situations. Thirty autistic and thirty typically developing (TD) adults were given eighteen questions asking them to recall specific life events relating to common scenarios across three contexts: criminal justice (e.g. “tell me about a specific instance when… you went to the bank”), healthcare (e.g. “…you vomited”), and employment (e.g. “…you’ve met a deadline”).

Sometimes participants were also given support in the form of prompts. For some questions, they were asked for general autobiographical information before the question (semantic prompting; e.g. “do you enjoy going to the cinema?”). For others, they received verbal prompting for the specific information required, alongside a pie chart displaying these prompts, after the question (visual-verbal prompting (V-VP); e.g. setting, people present, actions performed). Responses were graded for specificity, with each unit of information also categorized for type (episodic vs. semantic) and relevance (relevant vs. irrelevant).

Overall, the autistic group’s responses were less specific, and contained a higher proportion of irrelevant semantic information, than those of the TD group. The key finding was that V-VP was most beneficial support technique, associated with greater overall specificity, and a higher overall proportion of relevant episodic information, in both groups.

This suggests that verbal prompting may be most useful when combined with visual aids, and that this may apply to a range of interview situations. The researchers speculate that V-VP may aid the interrelated recall of information (e.g. who did what to whom, where, and when) — something autistic people can have a problem with. It may also reduce the cognitive demands of open-ended interviews, such as working out unaided exactly what — and how much — information to provide.

Semantic prompting was not as broadly helpful, but did benefit both groups, in the same ways, on the employment-based questions. The authors argue that this shows the importance of context: semantic prompting may be most useful in employment interviews, where it’s important to convey favourable personal characteristics, and give examples that show these.

The fact that the benefits of V-VP and semantic prompting were observed in both groups implies that techniques that benefit autistic people are also more generally useful. However, the finding that autistic people’s responses were less specific and semantically relevant overall suggests that — for them — any improvements may be more meaningful, enabling them in some instances to provide sufficiently detailed and relevant information where they might not otherwise have been able to do so.

The authors also consider ways in which subsequent work could extend on this study. Firstly, they suggest that groups be matched on gender (which wasn’t done here), given that gender differences have been observed in the kind of details reported in autobiographical memories. Secondly, the authors point out that autistic and TD people may have different levels of familiarity with the situations used in the questions. A survey conducted ahead of the study found that TD individuals reported more frequent engagement with the scenarios used for the criminal justice (e.g. going to the supermarket, cinema) and employment questions (e.g. working in a team, being organized) than autistic people, with the latter group reporting more experience of the healthcare-related contexts. Norris and her colleagues suggest that future work should attempt to address how these disparities may affect recall.

Overall, however, this is a well-designed study that offers a glimpse into how interviews may be made more manageable for both autistic and TD individuals. The findings suggest that these prompting techniques may — by reducing cognitive demand — help people provide more detailed and relevant information.

– Interviewing autistic adults: Adaptations to support recall in police, employment, and healthcare interviews

Post written for BPS Research Digest by Dr. Dan Carney. Dan is a UK academic psychologist specialising in developmental disorders. He undertook his post-doctoral research fellowship at London South Bank University, finishing in 2013. His published work to date has examined cognition, memory, and inner speech processes in Williams syndrome and Down syndrome, as well as savant skills in autism.

At Research Digest we’re proud to showcase the expertise and writing talent of our community. Click here for more about our guest posts.

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Graduate says SACAP’s online coaching course changed his life

Opportunities for personal growth and development come in various shapes and sizes for different people. Some may argue the adversity of the Covid-19 crisis is a catalyst for self-development, for example, while for others the daily deluge of bad news evokes fear and anxiety. Unequivocally, learning how to thrive in our new normal is vital if we are to survive. Developing our potential by discovering who we truly are is a good place to start.

Personal development is an avenue Rodrique George, 47, explored earlier this year before the coronavirus struck. Having had a keen interest in psychology since he was a child, he decided to enrol in SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course. Fortuitously Rodrique learnt a lot about himself, he says – a real asset in these unfamiliar times. He also gained useful tools for dealing with people effectively in the context of his job. We asked him if he’d recommend the course to others? Here’s what he had to say…

First steps

“My interest in psychology began when I was a boy,” Rodrique recalls. “My father wanted me to become a lawyer, but I wanted to be a psychologist. Conversely, I believe I’d make a great human rights lawyer because I have a real passion for people.”

Ultimately this penchant for people has been key in carving out Roderique’s career path. “I currently work as a lecturer in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Western Cape,” he explains. “I enjoy engaging with students and staff, consulting with them one-on-one, and I absolutely love being in the classroom!”

Charting and inspiring development in his students is what Rodrique says he relishes most about his job. “I mentor a number of current and ex-students about cultivating clarity for their futures. When I hear or see how their career paths have developed I’m inclined to become quite emotional,” he admits.

Springboard to success

“I became interested in coaching a few years ago and chose to enrol at SACAP because I saw it as an opportunity to develop myself and be of greater service to others,” says Rodrique.

As it turns out SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course was more than he bargained for. “It transformed my life!” he exclaims. “While the course teaches you how to be of assistance to others, it demonstrates how helping yourself is of foremost importance.”

In just 12 weeks Rodrique feels the online programme has endowed him with a renewed sense of self. “It afforded me the opportunity to grow and changed my view of life,” he says. “I needed a fresh perspective and the course helped me realize that it was necessary for me to resolve certain emotions in an effort to be of better service to others.”

Beyond developing his personal relationship with himself, Rodrique says his investment in the course is paying dividends in his workplace, too. “It’s made me aware that I need to listen more attentively and has highlighted how using coaching methods when managing people can enhance working relationships. It’s certainly provided me with lots of tools to work effectively with my colleagues.”

Benefits to bank

SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course has many impressive elements, says Rodrique. “The facilitation was done with such sensitivity and appreciation for people’s contributions, it really helped unlock my capabilities. I felt the online platform was well-stocked with resources and time was used so effectively, too.”

Hands down his most attractive feature? “I think the one-on-one mentoring sessions with my coach is an aspect that I will remember for life,” says Rodrique. “I was in awe at how she picked up several things about me within minutes of our discussion. It made me feel valued.”

So, to revisit the question we put to Rodrique about whether he’d recommend SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course? “Yes, gladly!” he asserts. “As a result of the course I feel more secure and empowered. It’s enhanced my ability to connect with staff better and I would like to believe they’ve seen a change in me, too.”

As a consequence of the course, Rodrique believes he might pursue his vision of becoming a professional life coach. “I also see myself progressing from my current position to one where I am part of a team working on policy for higher education. This is part of my dream,” he says.

How about you? What are your prospects for the future? In these crazy Covid times investing in yourself is essential. With our economic and social landscapes changing so radically, and rapidly, developing skills to forge forward in an altered world is the best way to future-proof your career.

Coaching fosters inherent potential because it helps people develop self-belief, self-motivation, choice, clarity, commitment, awareness, responsibility and a readiness to act. If you’d like to find out more about SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course and how it can advance your career trajectory please get in touch. The 12-week programme has been designed entirely online so that you’ll be able to juggle earning a first-class qualification with the busy-ness of life. It couldn’t be more convenient. Or rewarding! The next Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course starts on the 14^th of September 2020. Will you be on it? Enquire here now.

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Gradual Hearing Loss “Reorganises” Brain’s Sensory Areas And Impairs Memory (In Mice)

By Emma Young

In 2011, a US-based study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people with hearing loss were more likely to develop dementia. This alarming result prompted a number of follow-up studies, which have substantiated the link and further explored the risk. But the mechanism of how hearing loss raises this risk has not been clear.

Now a new study, by a team at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, offers an explanation. The researchers found that gradual hearing loss (the sort commonly experienced into older age) “profoundly” alters normal processes in the brain’s cortex and hippocampus, and that this impairs memory. This work was conducted on mice, not humans. But it provides useful new insights into what might happen in people.

Sudden sensory loss is known to trigger widespread reorganisation of key brain areas. This “cortical plasticity” is an adaptive way of dealing with a challenge. If someone suddenly loses their vision, for example, areas of the cortex that were dedicated to vision can switch to processing touch and hearing data, enhancing these senses.

Information from our senses plays a big part in the formation of our memories, so we have strong links between the sensory cortices and the hippocampus, our most important memory structure. The sudden loss of a sense can therefore also produce disruptive changes in the hippocampus — and memory impairments. Eventually, though, this settles, limiting the disruption to memory.

A gradual deterioration is different, though. Typical age-related hearing loss starts with impairments in hearing higher frequencies, then mid-range frequencies, then low frequencies. “During cumulative hearing loss, a steady state in terms of sensory input is not achieved,” comments senior author Denise Manahan-Vaughan. “Rather the brain has to constantly adapt to an ever-changing sensory input.”

For the study, led by Daniela Beckmann, the team used a strain of mice that serve as a model for typical gradual hearing loss in older people. To look at how this hearing loss might reorganise the brain, the researchers examined changes in the animals’ neurotransmitter receptors, a key part of the chemical messaging system that allows for healthy communication between brain cells.

The team found that progressive hearing loss caused a reorganisation of brain areas, with neurotransmitter receptor changes taking place in both sensory-processing regions in the cortex and the hippocampus. This process also impaired cellular processes related to memory that take place in the hippocampus, and the mice developed clear deficits in spatial memory (their memory for where they’ve been and the layout of their environment).

This constant change in the mice’s neurotransmitter receptor expression during cumulative hearing loss uses up tremendous resources, says Manahan-Vaughan. Not only do memory structures receive less sensory information — because hearing is becoming impaired — but also the information that these structures receive from the cortex constantly changes (with the progression from high-frequency through to low-frequency loss). “This is very likely why memory becomes impaired,” she says.

If this process is mirrored in the human brain, hearing loss may, then, amplify or accelerate deficits in cognition caused by the degeneration of brain cells with older age. As the researchers write, “our results suggest that age-related hearing loss may be a contributor to loss of function in the hippocampus that occurs with age.”

This process does not itself cause Alzheimer’s disease (or vascular dementia, which is also relatively common). But in acting as such a drain on the brain’s resources, and interfering with memory, hearing loss could make it much harder for the brain to cope with another challenge — such as the protein plaques and tangles that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. And this has practical implications, the researchers argue.

“I think my study shows that it is extremely important to start wearing a hearing aid when hearing loss becomes apparent,” says Manahan-Vaughan. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say this will prevent dementia — this is another physiological process entirely — but wearing a hearing aid is likely to slow down the progress of memory impairments that occur in healthy ageing, simply because one reduces the demands on the brain to adapt to the progressive loss of a sensory modality.”

– Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity, Spatial Memory, and Neurotransmitter Receptor Expression Are Profoundly Altered by Gradual Loss of Hearing Ability

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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Compassion Fatigue: The cost of caring for dying loved ones

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Coronavirus Quarantine Survival Skills For Parents & Kids

Are your kids and perhaps you as well become zoned out or should I say Zoomed out during your stay at home experience? If so, …

Coronavirus Quarantine Survival Skills For Parents & Kids Read More »

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We’re Less Likely To Spread Alarming Information While Experiencing Physiological Stress

By Emily Reynolds

The spread of bad news — fake or otherwise — is likely to be on everybody’s minds at the moment. Whether it’s legitimate updates on the spread or symptoms of coronavirus, or sensationalism more to do with page clicks than scientific fact, it can be hard to tune out of the news cycle — and to know what information you should be passing on to friends and family.

Past research has found that alarming information is likely to spread further than positive information; we’re also more likely to share news that confirms our own beliefs and biases. But what impact does the experience of stress have on the sharing of negative or alarming news? A new study published in Scientific Reports suggests a complex relationship between the two.

To examine the relationship between stress and the spread of alarming information, Nathalie Popovic at the University of Konstanz and colleagues recruited 141 participants, who were split into two groups. Half completed a control task, writing notes for a hypothetical job interview that only they would see. The other half prepared the same notes — but, in this condition, were then asked to explain to two interviewers why they were a good fit for the job and perform a mental arithmetic task in order to raise their levels of stress.

Both groups then read six articles about Triclosan, a controversial chemical substance sometimes used in toothpaste, detergents, soaps, and other consumer goods. Each article took a different position on the substance, containing a variety of positive, negative and neutral statements about it (despite widespread use, some research suggests it may not be safe). Before and after reading the information, they were asked whether they had heard of Triclosan, whether they were likely to have been exposed to it, and how they perceived the risk of chemical substances in general and Triclosan specifically. They were also given 17 minutes to write a message to another participant about Triclosan.

Throughout the experiment — at twelve to fifteen minute intervals — subjective stress levels were measured using a scale of one to ten and cortisol was measured using saliva samples.

All participants reported an increase in concern after reading articles about Triclosan. But participants in the stress group — who had higher levels of cortisol — were less influenced by the articles, showing a smaller increase in concern than those in the control group. They were also less likely to share alarming information in their messages to other participants. The bigger the increase in cortisol, the smaller the increase in concern. But those who reported subjective feelings of stress — even if unrelated to the task at hand — were both more concerned and more likely to share alarming information.

Why the contrast? In a supporting article, co-author Wolfgang Gaissmaier suggests that acute physiological stress reactions may result in adaptive processes intended to calm us down. For instance, we may naturally downplay negative information when stressed, reducing the perception of risk and leaving us better able to respond to the situation in front of us. Feeling stressed, on the other hand, may make us feel more alarmed about risky situations, even when they’re not directly related to the source of our anxiety — and may make us more likely to share that stress with others via alarming information.

Both reactions have downsides. The endocrine stress reaction may make us underestimate risk, potentially blinding us to genuinely dangerous situations. Overestimating risk, as was seen in subjectively stressed participants, might also get us into trouble: the team uses the example of anti-vaxxers, who erroneously judge vaccines as dangerous and therefore put themselves at risk of serious illness.

There have been ongoing discussions about the spread of alarming views — including those of anti-vaxxers — for the last few years; never have they been more relevant than at the moment, when much of the world is wracked with anxiety and faced with a seemingly endless stream of bad news. Understanding the circumstances in which negative information is more or less likely to spread may help us tackle it before it does too much damage.

– Acute Stress Reduces the Social Amplification of Risk Perception

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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Child abuse in South Africa: Helping and healing the voiceless

Many cases of child abuse in South Africa don’t even get reported. Comprehensive measures are needed to root out abuse and protect children from harm.

Key takeaways:

Reported child abuse cases in South Africa are alarming enough; but what about all the ones that don’t get reported?
There are many reasons children might choose not to report cases, such as fear of the abuser, and lack of understanding of what is being done to them. Furthermore, child abuse generally takes place away from the public eye.
Teachers need to be trained to recognise signs of child abuse, and crisis intervention should be implemented in schools where child abuse is suspected or discovered.

While child abuse is widespread, crisis intervention, sadly, continues to remain virtually non-existent in most South African schools – a state of play that will have drastic implications for the futures of today’s learners.

The under-reporting of child abuse in the South Africa

South Africa’s stats on reported child abuse cases are alarming as it is. Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Rondebosch has seen an increase in the numbers and severity of child abuse and neglect cases reported to the facility over the last 25 years.

The Optimus National Prevalence Study estimated that 42% of South Africa’s children have experienced some form of ill-treatment and 82% have either experienced or witnessed some form of victimisation.

But what adds to the concern is the amount of cases that go unreported. The 2016 Optimus National Prevalence Study showed that one in three boys and girls have experienced sexual abuse, yet only one-third of them ask for help (with boys being less likely to do so).

There are a number of reasons why children might not report a case of child abuse, or why adults may fail to identify it.

Child abuse usually occurs in places that are hidden from the public eye, such as the home.
It may take the form of something that society considers acceptable, such as discipline. But in many cases the line between discipline and child abuse is crossed.
Children may internalise what is being done to them, and be afraid to speak out, especially if the abuse is being perpetrated by someone they know.
The abuser may manipulate the child psychologically, convincing them that no one will listen to them or that they’ll get in trouble if they tell anyone.

Being alert to the signs of child abuse

Since children have difficulty reporting cases of child abuse, the onus lies mainly on adults to report their suspicions.

Child abuse can manifest in different ways, whether it be physical, sexual, psychological, or in the form of neglect. Educating teachers to recognise signs of these different forms of child abuse should be part of a comprehensive training program instituted by schools.

According to westerncape.gov, these are some of the signs adults should look out for:

Physical abuse: unexplained burns, cuts or bruises, bite marks, anti-social behaviour, fear of adults, suicide attempts
Emotional abuse: depression, hostility of stress, apathy, lack of centration, eating disorders, suicide attempts
Sexual abuse: fear of a certain family member, inappropriate knowledge or interest of sexual acts or sexual terminology, depression and suicide attempts, self-mutilating behaviour, drastic changes in appetite, over compliance or excessive aggression
Neglect: dirty or unbathed, unsuitable clothing for weather, extreme hunger, unattended medical, dental or educational needs

Childline has a 24-hour free helpline for reporting suspicion of child abuse: 0800 055 555.

Protecting children

In a speech during Child Protection Week in 2019, Premier Alan Winde said that child protection should be a concern every day of the year, not just for one week. Government needs to implement programmes that approach the issue with the seriousness it deserves, with a focus on making communities safer, tackling substance abuse, and developing education programmes.

Many locally based psychology professionals favour crisis intervention in schools when abuse of a pupil is suspected or discovered. Though there are certain self- and donor-funded organisations – some of which work closely with local schools – dedicated to providing trauma counselling and relief to victims and their families; a shortage of school psychologists coupled with a lack of funding and the insufficient training of educators is largely to blame for the absence of crisis intervention in our schools.

If you feel compelled to join the fight against child abuse in our country, you could should consider studying psychology at SACAP. Every new trained psychologist boosts manpower and helps alleviate some of the burden on resources. SACAP offers a range of courses that can prepare you for a career in child psychology, including part-time- full-time and distance-learning. For more information, enquire now.

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Flashing Lights And Near-Death Experiences: The Week’s Best Psychology Links

Keyboard for idea Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Researchers are investigating whether flashing lights could be used to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, David Robson writes at BBC Future. People with Alzheimer’s seem to have weak gamma brainwaves, and animal studies suggest that directly inducing brain activity at these frequencies can kick-start the brain’s immune cells. Now researchers are looking at whether inducing these waves non-invasively, through flickering lights or sounds, could help patients.

We hear a lot about failed replications — so here’s some good news. Prospect theory, a key tenet of behavioural economics, has passed a large replication attempt that involved more than 4,000 participants, writes Cathleen O’Grady at Ars Technica.

What’s going on in the brain during a near-death experience? Such experiences are difficult to study from a neuroscientific perspective — but Christof Koch explores the possibilities at Scientific American.

In many parts of the world, professional sports leagues are beginning to return to action — but they’re playing to empty stadiums. So how will this affect the behaviour of players and referees? It’s going to be an interesting time for sports psychologists, writes Eric Niiler at Wired.

As the government relaxes some lockdown measures, people may experience anxiety when faced with the prospect of going back to work or school. At The Conversation, mental health researcher Olivia Remes has some advice about dealing with these worries and feelings of uncertainty.

And while humans may be feeling more fearful than before, the opposite is true for many other animals. Our sudden absence from many public spaces has changed animals’ “landscape of fear”, writes Jason G. Goldman at Scientific American — which is why you see videos of goats taking over empty streets in Wales.

Finally, Aeon has just launched = a new digital magazine about the human condition called Psyche. There’s already a load of great stuff on there — and did we mention that the senior editor is none other than Christian Jarrett, founding editor of Research Digest? Check it out!

Compiled by Matthew Warren (@MattbWarren), Editor of BPS Research Digest

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Disaster is here, but the lawn looks good: Why we fail to act on the things that matter most

Why you can’t stop climate change like you stop a pandemic, and what that has to do with mowing the lawn. We are in crisis, yet our day-to-day routines persist. While I was walking my dog the other day, I couldn’t help but notice how well-kept all the front yards looked. The lawns were mowed and the bushes were trimmed. Our ability to tend to the minor aspects of our lives while fighting to save our very way of being during a pandemic is in fact quite amazing. At any point in time, we are juggling multiple tasks, working toward multiple goals, fighting on multiple fronts. Some routine tasks...

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The benefits of Coaching in the Workplace

You know about coaching on the sports field, right? Did you know coaching in the workplace is important too? We caught up with SACAP graduate Dr Tracey-Ann Adonis and discovered that coaching in a work environment has many benefits.

From early on in her life Tracey-Ann, 48, knew she wanted a career that would help people. She planned on becoming a physiotherapist but was encouraged to study medicine at Stellenbosch University where she faced a number of challenges. “It was 1990, pre-democracy, I came from an English medium school and I had to adapt to being taught in Afrikaans,” she explains. Tracey-Ann’s daily commute from Cape Town to Stellenbosch also had a detrimental affect on her grades, she says. “I was informed that I could not proceed.”

“It was a devastating moment for a first-generation university student who had passed matric with a good set of results,” she recalls. “The trauma of the experience compelled me to stay at home for a year.” The time out developed Tracey-Ann’s interest in psychology. “It really helped me redefine my academic path that culminated in me receiving a Doctorate in Science Education,” she says.

True calling

In line with her core values, today Tracey-Ann is employed just as she hoped she’d be when she was a child. As researcher and project manager in the Community Engagement Unit at the University of the Western Cape, she’s currently involved in an important project that focuses on substance misuse in communities. “My job requires extensive reading, contact with people from diverse backgrounds and engaging with the community, which I love,” she says.

Tracey-Anne’s partiality for helping people ignited her interest in coaching. When the opportunity to enrol in SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course came up at work she grabbed it. “Having operated for several years in the field of community development I thought it would be a great way to build on my psychology roots and contribute to the development of students,” she says.

Nuts and bolts

Tracey-Ann says she found the course hugely empowering. “SACAP facilitators and coaching mentors provided many opportunities for personal growth, which is testament to their experience in the field of coaching,” she says. “The weekly webinars promoted learning in a non-judgemental and supportive way, too.”

SACAP’s online environment is a feature Tracey-Ann says she really reveres. “The platform is excellent! It’s very user friendly especially in terms of information sharing and being able access the required learning and reading material,” she says. “I participated on Zoom for the first time during the course and I think it worked really well. The facilitating was exceptional. Educators were knowledgeable and more than competent – even navigating load shedding was expertly done!”

Tracey-Ann admits to being a little concerned about getting the work-home-course balance right initially. She has three children and says family time is precious. “The challenge was that the SACAP webinars took place during the evening.” Happily, she was able to instigate a solution. “I negotiated with the family and we worked around my session times,” she explains. “And fortunately I was able to incorporate course reading into dedicated personal development time in my work schedule.”

Solving setbacks

Tracy-Ann says the time sacrifice she made to complete SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course was worth every minute. “Instead of rushing in and trying to solve a problem identified by colleagues I now adopt a coaching-facilitating approach, which inevitably results in the colleague with the problem solving it themselves.” This has enormous timesaving benefits. “The course has helped me move towards an ideal work environment,” she adds. “Implementing a coaching style really works!”

Beyond her job, Tracey-Ann feels she’s discovered valuable social skills, too. “The course teaches you tools that you can use in various life situations particularly when engaging with friends and family,” she says.

Five years from now Tracey-Ann hopes her coaching agility in student supervision will aid her promotion to Associate Professor. “My plan is to develop my coaching experience so that I can assist students and staff,” she says. “I’d also like to integrate my competence in community development and engagement with my psychology and coaching background so that I can contribute to uplifting communities by enabling them to recognize their innate potential.”

In the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis our country needs strong managers and leaders like Tracy-Anne more than ever. Coaching is key. By sparking the best in people it empowers them to reach new levels of performance. Beyond individual benefits, this has massive group repercussions, too. SACAP’s Coaching in the Workplace Online Short Course is a superbly structured online course that you can complete in the comfort of your own home. In just 12 weeks you’ll learn skills and tools that will unlock your potential and harness your ability to reach new heights. The next course starts on the 14^th of September 2020. Are you ready to fly? Find out more about workplace coaching and why it’s important here.

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Memory Complaints Are More Common Among Older Adults With Particular Personality Traits

By Emma Young

Memory complaints are fairly common among elderly people. Together with low participation in cognitively demanding activities, such as reading or doing crosswords, they can predict future declines — including the risk of developing dementia.

It might seem likely, then, that people with poorer cognitive functioning may report more problems, and may be less able to engage in (and so benefit from) reading or other stimulating activities. However, a new paper, published in Psychology and Aging, suggests that another factor is more important in predicting both these complaints and engagement in stimulating activities: personality.

The researchers, led by Patrick Hill at Washington University in St Louis, analysed data from 136 Swiss older adults, with an average age of about 70. (The data came from a bigger study into how the everyday behaviour of older people is linked to maintaining or improving wellbeing and health). The participants first completed a series of lab-based cognitive tasks, including memory tests, and self-report questionnaires, which included an assessment of the “Big Five” personality traits. Then, at the end of each of the next ten days, they used smartphones to report on any cognitive complaints during that day (e.g. “I misplaced or lost an object such as keys or glasses”), and also instances of cognitive engagement (e.g. “I enjoyed thinking about a complicated problem”).

Taking into account each participant’s age, education level and subjective health, the team then looked at how initial cognitive task results and personality trait scores might relate to the subsequent smartphone data.

They found that the number of daily cognitive complaints was significantly correlated with scores on all of the personality traits, but just one of the measures of cognitive performance (processing speed). Strikingly, scores on the two initial specific memory tests did not correlate with daily cognitive complaints. (This somewhat surprising observation is in fact supported by recent work that suggests our cognitive self-perceptions are relatively distinct from our actual performance).

When all of these variables were put into a model, however, only one factor emerged as being key. This was openness to experience, a personality trait that entails a liking for intellectual and artistic pursuits, and a willingness to try new things. Participants who initially scored higher for openness went on to report, on average, fewer cognitive complaints each day, and also more, and more varied, cognitive engagement.

There may be two reasons for this, the researchers suggest. Firstly, measures of openness tap into a person’s self-perceptions of their intellectual ability and creativity. People with a stronger belief in their intellectual capacities may perceive fewer cognitive issues in daily life. Secondly, people who are more open are of course more willing to engage in varied novel experiences. Because they enjoy intellectual activities, they may be driven to think more, and in more different ways — and this could protect against cognitive decline. In fact, there are other recent findings that diversity in cognitive activity, rather than total time spent in these kinds of tasks, may be more beneficial for cognitive performance in older age.

The work also suggests that in understanding why some interventions work better for some older people than others, personality traits should be taken into account. Also, interventions that encourage openness may potentially be more effective.

However, as the researchers themselves add, all of the personality traits, demographic variables and initial cognitive performance measures only account for a small amount of the differences in the level of cognitive complaints and engagement between people. The team would like to see more work to drill into potential links with personality in finer detail. But other factors that are yet to be well-characterised — levels of stress, perhaps — may well turn out to be far more important.

– Daily cognitive complaints and engagement in older adulthood: Personality traits are more predictive than cognitive performance.

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

How Will the Coronavirus Change Higher Education in the Future?

Within a matter of weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the globe, and has challenged many of the taken for granted assumptions and practices inherent in higher education. The manner in which students engage in teaching and learning at universities and colleges across the world has had to dramatically shift almost overnight. In most instances, face-to-face classes have been cancelled and learning has moved online, in order to prevent the further spread of the virus. In South Africa, the continued struggle to overcome poverty and lack of access has meant that many institutions of higher learning were forced to suspend all academic activities whilst trying to find workable solutions to continue the academic year in a manner that leaves no student behind.

Globally, the short-term has been characterised by hurried strategies to put emergency teaching plans in place. Quick decisions have been needed concerning the financial futures of universities and their faculty. The long-term implications of the virus are undeniable and as we enter into a period of uncertainty, it is necessary to reflect on the character of higher education into the future.

Inspired by a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, we reached out to some of the SACAP staff and educators to ask them for their views on how they thought the Coronavirus might change higher education in the future and here is what they had to say.

Inequality Exposed. New Modes of Learning Critical.

TheCOVID-19 crisis has undeniably exposed the inequality inherent in higher education, not only in South Africa, but across the world. Dr Ashley Smyth, Academic Dean of SACAP, suggests that:

“Lower-income students may suffer disproportionately to students able to afford online resources, such as PCs and high-speed-internet access, to enable them to succeed in an online-learning environment. Currently there is no clear equity template of how to deal with this, and major concerns exist on how to address the impact on learners from low income and disadvantaged groups.”

Dr Poppy Masinga, Social Worker and Educator on SACAP’s Pretoria Campus, echoes these concerns and focuses on the renewed investment required to tackle these challenges, saying:

“It is obvious that higher education institutions need to invest in infrastructure and other related resources to accommodate the current situation facing the country and the dire need to migrate to online teaching.”

Dr Masinga goes on to share her sentiments about whether online education can prove to be a long-term solution suggesting that:

“Higher education institutions need to realise that online teaching cannot and should not replace face-to-face teaching. A blended model will be required to meet the needs of the diverse cohort of students. The Department of Higher Education will have to find funding models that ensure that academic institutions are well equipped to deliver on online teaching and learning. It’s likely that although challenging, this kind of investment will ensure the robustness of higher education in a post COVID-19 world.”

It is in this post COVID-19 world that Dr Smyth encourages us to consider the potential innovation that we will witness in higher education:

“While the global higher education picture is alarming, it is not all bad. The emergence of COVID-19 also heralds an underlying excitement for changes that will see learners and solution providers truly embracing the ‘learning anywhere, anytime’ concept of digital education in a range of formats. The physical classroom environment will likely return at some point, but not the same as before. Exciting options for a blended approach to learning utilising both face-to-face faculty expertise with virtual resources, that only a year ago was not even dreamed of, is a likely transformative scenario.”

The Age of Online or Just Good Teaching and Learning.

But resources, both physical and virtual are only a small part of the kinds of change required in the higher education landscape. Carl Badenhorst, Head of Learning Design and Online Teaching at SACAP, brings to light the idea that it’s not so much about the introduction of technology in the ‘classroom’, but about innovation in teaching and learning, regardless of the mode. Badenhorst argues that while:

“Some have hailed this as the age of online learning but I don’t think it’s ever useful to dichotomise teaching and learning in this way. Misperceptions run deep, from the ideas of ‘going to class’ and attendance as a measure of learning through to equating the adoption of technology with ‘how-to’ guides. I think it may be presumptuous to make predictions at this stage, but what we should see is educators who start to see that learning innovation is about learning innovation and not about technology. This context is forcing us to be far more intentional about teaching and learning and to realise the extreme limitations that four walls can and do have on teaching and learning.”

Badenhorst goes on to suggest that the pandemic has brought to light the complacency that exists around teaching and learning generally in higher education, as the publish or perish culture ultimately related to the bottom line has become the focus of many universities globally. He believes that the current crisis has highlighted how critical good teaching is to the success of the university, suggesting:

“Institutions have had to decentralise themselves and the most critical success factor in this has been educators who have been able to adapt, to be empathic and to engage their students in the work of teaching and learning. These have proven to be the real leaders of higher education.”

Perhaps we are seeing the beginnings of what Creston Davis, founder of The Global Centre for Advanced Studies, calls ‘an optimistic way forward for education’. That is a decentralised model built on the value of co-ownership where the strength lies in a global network of educators, and students who are able to immerse teaching and learning into our everyday day lives.

COVID-19 Did Not Disrupt Teaching and Learning. Being Accustomed with the Status Quo Did.

Finally, Dr Ngoni Chabuda, Business Professional and Educator in the Management and Leadership Faculty on the Pretoria campus, emphasises the need for an entrepreneurial mindset in education as we turn our attention the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Dr Chabuda offers a positive outlook for the future of higher education stating:

“If the truth be told, teaching and learning in general will NEVER be the same again post COVID-19. Whilst we drench ourselves in the misfortunes of C19, lest we forget about the opportunities it also presents. Educators are presented with opportunities to tap into their entrepreneurial, creative and innovative mindset to develop solutions that will influence teaching and learning. Education policy formulators are presented with the opportunity to implement blended learning. Teaching and learning as we know it in higher education has been presented with an opportunity to fully embrace 4IR or 4.0 to the extent that it revolutionises the industry. As educators we are agents of change and therefore should consider the upside of this pandemic and apply it in embracing the future”.

Time will tell what the full impact of the Coronavirus on higher education will be, both positive and negative. That being said, it is important that policy and decision makers, administrators, faculty and students don’t waste this opportunity to reflect; not just on the immediate solutions, but to seriously interrogate many of the often outdated and sometime harmful educational practices of the past. It is often said that it is in our most challenging times that we are able to make our greatest innovations. In these times, when our circumstances extend beyond anything we could have imagined, we see the world in a new light and with new clarity. We are in a position to imagine a new future for higher education in what will undoubtedly be a new world.

Written by: Dr Jaclyn Lotter (Deputy Dean)

The post How Will the Coronavirus Change Higher Education in the Future? appeared first on SACAP.

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Feeling Sleepy? Six Findings That Reveal The Nuanced Effects Of Poor Sleep

By Emma Young

We all know that too little sleep is bad for us. Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley sleep scientist and author of the best-selling Why We Sleep, has gone so far as to declare: “The shorter you sleep, the shorter your life.” However, some researchers fear that our concerns about not getting enough sleep are becoming overblown — and that, ironically, they could be making the problem worse. In this feature, we take a look at evidence that “too little” sleep isn’t always the disaster that it’s held up to be.

It’s not always about a lack of sleep

You’ll be familiar with the chronotype concepts of larks (early to bed and early to rise) and owls (late to bed, and late to rise). Most kids start out as larks, but during adolescence, many shift to becoming owls. Waking up late is fine for teenagers at the weekends, but not during the school week. Unsurprisingly, then, various studies have found that delaying the time school starts improves academic results for this age-group, and many sleep scientists and paediatricians support such a policy. It’s been assumed that this is because it allows teens to get a decent night’s sleep. But there’s some evidence that this may not be the reason. A recent study of Dutch secondary school pupils, published in Scientific Reports, found that owls did get poorer exam grades, but this effect was largely independent of sleep duration.

This suggests that even when owls get “enough” sleep, they don’t do as well as larks on exams. And this, it seems, is because exams are often administered in the mornings, when owls aren’t at their cognitive peak. When owls took exams in the afternoon, closer to that peak, they achieved similar grades as larks. This was especially true for science subjects. Of course, if the school day starts later, then exams start later — and this could be a better fit for many teens’ chronotype. What this all means, though, is that, in many cases, trying to get teens to go to bed earlier, to sleep for longer, may not make as much of a difference to their performance at school as has been claimed.

Cause or effect?

Anxiety, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia, PTSD… all kinds of mental health problems are associated with sleep problems, too. It’s now recognised that the relationship is circular, with mental illness and insomnia exacerbating each other. It’s not as simple, then, as a lack of sleep causing symptoms. And certainly, there’s evidence that stress early in life can set you up for insomnia much later. One study found that children who grew up in families with high levels of conflict went on to be more likely to have insomnia as adults. This held even when any sleep problems or depression during childhood were controlled for in the analysis — so it wasn’t a case of participants who’d had trouble sleeping as kids still having these difficulties as adults. And when it comes to depression, the links between sleep and symptoms can be surprising…

A surprising therapy

Depriving depressed people of sleep works as an effective treatment. This was shown in series of studies starting almost 50 years ago. But it has become a standard therapy only recently. Healthy people deprived of sleep will generally find that their mood worsens. But for people with depression, staying awake for at least a night can do the opposite (temporarily, anyway). The impacts are rapid, and work on most patients, as a study in Denmark, for example, has found. Exactly how the treatment works is still debated, but it’s thought to shock a sluggish biological clock.

Sleep doesn’t always improve memory

The evidence that sleep is important for memory is pretty overwhelming. But, recently, at least one study has challenged the idea that sleep always brings memory benefits. Given the experimental record, the researchers had expected to find that eye-witnesses who were given the chance to sleep would be better at identifying suspects the following day. But they weren’t…

This was a big study: 2000 participants watched a brief video of a man stealing a laptop from an office. Twelve hours later, they were asked to identify him from a line-up. Half had slept during this time, but, contrary to expectations, they were no more accurate than the others at picking out the perpetrator. More work is needed to try to clarify why not.

Effects can be indirect

No doubt you’ve heard that a lack of sleep isn’t just bad for your mental but your physical health. Women who get less sleep are indeed more likely to develop obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, for example. But the major reason for these effects seems to be indirect: women who sleep poorly tend to make poorer food choices, going for higher-calorie, energy-dense foods. These choices are certainly related to a lack of quality sleep, but they aren’t an inevitable result of it. The same team behind this finding suspect, meanwhile, that a poor diet can cause poor sleep: “It’s also possible that poor diet has a negative impact on women’s sleep quality”, notes lead author Faris Zuraikat, at Columbia University. “Eating more could also cause gastrointestinal discomfort, for instance, making it harder to fall asleep or remain asleep.”

Some poor sleepers don’t suffer at all

Just how bad is insomnia anyway…? There are a lot of people out there who technically do suffer from insomnia, but who don’t believe, or realise, that they do, and these people experience no distress or anxiety, and are no more impaired in terms of daily fatigue than those who get good sleep. What’s more, a massive increase in hypertension (high blood pressure) was observed among those who regarded themselves as having insomnia, but not among the “non-complaining poor sleepers”. The same review found that 37% of people who think they have insomnia actually sleep normally, and having an “insomnia identity” was more predictive of daytime impairment than poor sleep. Other research has found, meanwhile, that worrying about not getting enough sleep can itself lead to prolonged insomnia.

Headlines that make people worry that they’re not getting enough sleep could themselves, then, cause some of the problems they’re describing. Which brings me back to the start of this feature…. There’s plenty of evidence that a good quantity of regular quality sleep is important. But how we think about the way we sleep is important, too.

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com