In response to requests from some of our applicants, our academic staff have come up with this great suggested reading list! Please note that this is not required reading for our courses so enjoy reading what you can.
Dr Caoilte O Ciardha is Senior Lecturer in Forensic Psychology and Undergraduate Admissions Team member. These are his recommendations:
Robert A Forde’s Bad Psychology takes a critical look at the discipline of forensic psychology. Many would disagree with some of his conclusions, but it’s so important to be open to this type of criticism. Review in the BPS’ Psychologist magazine.
Though not directly about forensic psychology, The Secret Barrister’s book gives great insight into the British Legal system and the many ways in which it’s in crisis.
If you’re interested in personality disorders and psychopathy, The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson is a compelling read. For broad reading around sexuality with implications for sexual offending Perv by Jesse Bering is great.
One that’s been on my reading list for ages but that I haven’t gotten round to yet is Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side by Dr Julia Shaw. Perhaps I’ll be able to remedy this during the current lockdown.
The commute from Canterbury city to Kent Psychology is so short, that I haven’t much time to get into podcasts. However I recently listened to the (now pretty old) Serial podcast and loved how it examined motive, truth, memory, police interviewing, etc.
Professor Karen Douglas is Professor of Social Psychology and Director of Graduate Studies (Taught). These are her recommendations:
Here you will find lots of pages about different topics, journals, books, and online studies related to social psychology. At present there are a several resources related to the psychological dimensions of the coronavirus: https://socialpsychology.org.
Simply Psychology delivers many engaging articles and resources for students of psychology, including social psychology.
The Conversation features many articles on various topics in social psychology. The Conversation is also currently featuring an interesting podcast on the psychology of conspiracy theories that two of our staff members have contributed to.
The popular Psychology Today blogs regularly feature social psychology research.
Psychmovies highlights several films on topics relevant to social psychology.
Finally, the BPS Research Digest gives “bite-sized” and accessible summaries of recent research in psychology, and social psychology is regularly featured.
Dr Hannah Swift is Senior Lecturer in Social and Organisational Psychology, Academic Lead for Undergraduate Admissions and MSc Organisational and Business Psychology Programme Director. These are her recommendations:
Our Business Psych degrees are accredited by the Association for Business Psychologists (ABP) and they have great resources for aspiring business psychologist including these podcasts.
You should check out our Business Psychology Newsletters which showcase our own research.
Ted talks are always fun and easy to watch, here’s a top-ten list for Organisational and Business Psychology.
The Conversation features many articles on various topics in social and business psychology.
You’ll find lots of articles and resources on Prof Steve Nguyen’s workplace psychology blog.
Frontiers in Psychology is an open access publisher of research. Here you will find lots of research papers on different organizational psychology topics, including some of our research on gender and age bias in the workplace.
There are some great articles here showcasing the many applications of psychology to solving societal, but also business and organisational problems: https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/virtual-reality-to-the-rescue-or-not/.
Dr Dawn H Nicholson is a Lecturer in Business/Organisational Psychology and is an Undergraduate Admissions Team member. These are her recommendations:
You can get great insights into the challenges business are facing and where we can apply business psychology by joining LinkedIn – a free, professional networking site. This will give you great insights into what topics are hot in the business community. Setting up an account is easy.
Once you have signed up, you can then connect with me on LinkedIn (Dr Dawn H. Nicholson). This will then give you access to all of our Business Psychology Newsletters and my blogs. You can see a few examples of the Business Psychology Newsletters here:
My LinkedIn blogs focus on different aspects of decision-making, my own area of research. Here are a couple of examples:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/making-better-decisions-move-frame-forward-dawn-h-nicholson/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/knowing-when-how-change-direction-dawn-h-nicholson/
Many of the big consulting and professional services firms produce material with some really useful business insights. Reading these will help begin to understand business challenges and the role of the business psychologist – check out McKinsey, PwC, E&Y, KPMG and Deloitte, to name but some. You can follow them in LinkedIn.
For a great book on decision-making, check out Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow – it’s very accessible.
Other useful resources: The Association for Business Psychology website; and University of Kent News Centre story about School of Psychology’s trio of accreditations.
Professor Heather Ferguson is a Professor of Psychology and MSc Cognitive Psychology/Neuropsychology Programme Director. These are her recommendations:
The PLOS Cognitive Neuroscience Channel
Lisa Feldman-Barrett’s book, How emotions are made. The secret life of the brain
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s book, Inventing ourselves. The secret life of the teenage brain
TED talks on cognitive science
Dr Kirsten Abbot-Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and MSc Developmental Psychology Programme Director. These are her and her colleagues’ recommendations.
Documentaries: The Beginning of Life (Netflix); and Three Identical Strangers (Netflix) – riveting, shocking and provokes thought around the ethical implications of developmental research though, it doesn’t depict the current field.
Articles/blogs: The Conversation; and BPS Research Digest.
Non-fiction: Nurture Shock by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman; The Work of the Imagination by Paul Harris; The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik; and Children’s Friendships: The Beginnings of Intimacy by Judy Dunn.