Looking back on the Festival of Psychology

We were glad to receive a number of reflections from attendees of our Festival of Psychology. Here are just two, from Rachel Czyzewska and Leila Ainge. Thoughts from some of our student members will follow in due course.

Leila Ainge

Washing up bowls of ice, sports puns, humour at protests and in the classroom. Wow! Friday's Festival of Psychology in the Midlands did not disappoint. 

Our morning Keynote from Dr Emma Vardy and Dr Helen Breadmore looked at lessons learned from trials to support comprehension in schools through Peer Assisted Learning Strategies. A 20 week whole class intervention where children work as reader and coach in pairs. 

I attended the 'Cold pressor' workshop, where researchers Rachel Cyzewska and Samantha Lloyd demonstrated (on a very hot day!) how submerging hands in ice can help us understand pain tolerance. It was interesting to see how the idea of competition effected pain thresholds in the workshops. 

I loved Chris Day's research on Intelligent humour, looking at ways in which 'Remoaners' get the last laugh by coming up with funny banners, and ways in which this alleviates 'in group' based anger. 

Hannah Robinson then took us on a whistle stop tour of seven types, of humour used by teachers in classroom settings. 

Our final keynote was delivered by Robert Dempsey and Dr. Philip Clarke, who talked about Social Norms in elite sport, and how we underestimate positive behaviours and overestimate negative behaviours. They are exploring how this shows up in the context of Irish rugby. 

Our keynotes showcased how Psychologists are applying research in real-world settings and the challenges that occur in doing so (Covid/time constraints etc). 

This event would not have happened without lots of volunteers including student ambassadors and committee members in the East and the West. I finally had the opportunity to meet with East Mids committee members face to face!

Planning for our 2024 Conference is starting shortly - we will be hosting in the East Midlands.

Rachel Czyzewska

We (myself, Dr Rachel Czyzewska and Samantha Lloyd, pictured left) attend the Festival of Psychology conference, where we presented a Masterclass on using the cold pressor task. 

We were first interested in the conference as we felt it would be a varied conference to be involved in. We submitted our abstract and was pleased to be accepted to give the Masterclass. We thought in advance the best way to get people engaged and have a chance to take part in the cold pressor task. An actual cold pressor would not have been possible to bring so we came up with the washing up bowls with ice! It is safe to say these were well received and lots of delegates took part. 

It was Samantha's first conference talk and the experience was lovely. It was such a supportive and friendly conference to have had the pleasure to take part in! We felt the talk went really well and we got such good feedback and enjoyed the rest of the conference and listening to all the inspiring talks and varied research!

We would advise people to give it a go, you will not regret going to the conference and taking part in a supportive environment. We most enjoyed the lightning talks and the variety of research presented.