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academic psychology sheffield

We’re hiring!

The Department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield is hiring! Due to recent departures and a forthcoming expansion we have 6 academic posts to fill, for lecturers, senior lecturers/readers and chairs. Perhaps you, or someone you know, is looking for a job or a change – here’s why you should apply to work with us:

The Department: One of the very best Psychology departments in the UK for research, consistently rated ‘excellent’ (i.e. the top score) in the Research Assessment Exercises over the last 20 years. In the last RAE the department ranked 6th in the UK in terms of Research Power (i.e., quality × quantity of research activity). We have a strong tradition of interdisciplinary research and you’d be joining at a great time to renew that tradition of cognitive science. We have smart and enthusiastic Undergraduate students, 80% of whom have AAA at a-level (ie the top grades). We have one of the largest number of postgraduate students for any UK psychology department, which includes taught masters courses (I teach on this one) and PhD students. The academic faculty are dedicated and collegiate, small enough in numbers to be friendly, large enough to be a resource for you in your research. We have one of the best staff-student ratios of any UK psychology department…All this, and you get me as a colleague

The University: Times Higher Education University of the Year 2011, and globally one of the best universities in the world. The University of Sheffield has academic departments covering all major disciplines and is a ‘research intensive University‘, meaning you wouldn’t spend all your time teaching.

The City of Sheffield. Ah, Sheffield! More parkland within the city limits than any other UK city. 7 trees for every person. The so called “largest village in England”, a city renowned for its friendliness, for its sporting links, creative industries and generally too many good things to list here. And it’s in the middle of the country, so you can get about easily – two hours from the capital, three from Bristol, four Edinburgh. And cheap – I live in a house which makes my London friends who can’t afford a flat sick with jealousy. I can walk to work, or round to friend’s houses. I’m talking quality of life here people.

So, please pass the word around that we’re looking for psychologists of all types to apply for these positions. If you want to get in touch I’m happy to talk informally to anyone who is thinking about applying. Not that I have any significant power over the hiring decision, but I’m happy to spill the beans over what we’re looking for and what the department is like. You can contact me by phone or email.

(In sad, but unrelated news, we lost our Professor of Development Psychology earlier this week. These job adverts are obviously quite separate from this sudden gap we have in Developmental Psychology and about which no plans have yet been made).

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Tweets for 2012-02-23

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advertising politics psychology

Media Violence, Unconscious Imitation, and Freedom of Speech

I really enjoyed the ideas discussed in Susan Hurley’s 2006 article “Bypassing Conscious Control: Media Violence, Unconscious Imitation, and Freedom of Speech“. The basic argument is that if we realised that we tend to automatically and unconsciously absorb and imitate patterns of behaviour that we observe, then our views of freedom of expression would be quite different from what they are. Although the presentation of the empirical psychology is sophisticated, the language does tend to slip into conceding that there is a domain of unconscious, automatic influences on behaviour and a separate realm of conscious, deliberative, choice. This is a failure to recognise, in my opinion, that for all behaviour it is causation all the way down (or all the way through, perhaps). But this quibble aside, the article gives evidential and philosophical reasons for us to be more concerned than we appear to be about the mental environment our culture promotes.

I was sad to find out that we won’t be hearing any more from Prof Hurley: Obituary by Andy Clark.

Susan L. Hurley (2006). Bypassing Conscious Control: Media Violence, Unconscious Imitation, and Freedom of Speech. In S. Pockett, W. Banks & S. Gallagher (eds.), Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? MIT Press.

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advertising psychology

What if an evil corporation knew all about you?

Facebook have announced their first share offer. There was a fairly nuanced discussion on the BBC’s Today programme, which contained the useful maxim: if the service is free then you are the product. We pour personal information about ourselves – our locations, likes, friends and activities – into Facebook and Facebook sells that bit of us to advertisers. John Humphrys managed a grumble about whether we could trust a corporation with all that personal information, but nobody in the discussion seems to be able to raise much by way of concrete reasons not to give Facebook that information about yourself, they just had vague worries. Elsewhere, Cory has talked about the privacy bargain we make with corporations, and the dangers of making that bargain unknowingly or carelessly, but I want to leave that aside for a moment. Imagine a world where everyone was aware of exactly what Facebook were doing – ie selling information about our desires to advertiser. In this case, the vague worry about Facebook crystalises around a psychological question – can we be manipulated by corporations that know our desires? Imagine, if you will, that Facebook is the equivalent of the malevolent demon of Cartesian philosophy, still absolutely evil in intent, but different in that it can only control you through precisely targeted marketing messages, not through direct control of yours senses. Would you still sign up for a Facebook account? Say the Facebook Demon finds out you like lemons. Lemon Products Inc advertise you Lemon Perfume, LemonTech advertise you a lemon squeezer and Just Lemons Inc. offer you 10% off the price of lemons in their stores. Is this a bad world? The answer is only yes if you believe in the power of advertisers to make us do things we don’t want.