JEPS Bulletin

Ethics – The Science of Morals, Rules and Behaviour

Ethical boards are in place to evaluate the ethical feasibility of a study by weighing the possible negative effects against the possible positive effects of the research project (Barret, 2006). When designing your research project, it could be that you need to apply for ethical approval. This is a challenging task as there are strict guidelines to abide to when drawing up a proposal. This is where your supervisor can help – with their experience, they have a clear idea of what would be accepted for someone applying for ethical approval for an undergraduate or master study. There is a great importance to abiding by ethics, in research and in practice.The importance lies in the fact that care is taken for the participant, researcher and wider society. It creates a filter for good standard of research with as minimal harm being done as possible. Continue reading →

Elena Felice

Currently Elena is reading for an MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy and works as a Psychology Assistant at the Maltese general Hospital. Her main areas are in Perinatal Mental Health and Staff Support. Her research interests include Mental Health, Perinatal Psychology, Developmental Psychology and Health Psychology amongst others.

”Writefull” Can Help Your Academic Writing!

Have you ever done a Google search to check if your writing is correct? Many of us do it all the time – especially when writing in our second language. The idea behind this approach is simple: The more results Google gives us (i.e. the more often our chunk is found on the Internet), the more ‘accepted’ it apparently is. For example, if we are not sure if the correct form is ‘looking forward to seeing you’ or ‘looking forward to see you’, Google will tell us it might be better to use the first (148,000,000 versus 15,800,000 results). This way, Google can serve as an incredibly useful tool to help us in our (academic) writing. Continue reading →

Juan Castro-Gutierrez

Juan Castro is a research associate in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, UK. He has a strong interest in psychology, and in particular in natural language processing and acquisition. His work focuses on artificial intelligence and on the development of language tools.

Engaging in a Research Project with an International Team – Opportunities and Problems

Doing science is great, but doing it together with people you can learn from and who share your research interests – that’s fantastic! Add the cross-cultural dimension to the project and it grows even better! Why doesn’t everyone do that? Regrettably the projects involving collaborative work with other young scientists and/or students who love research can often be hard to begin and even tougher to maintain. Although undeniably rewarding, working in a traditional team already has a number of difficulties, while doing it with people who you can’t communicate with face-to-face adds a whole new pile of concerns. Let’s face it – even with a great concept writing a paper doesn’t always go smoothly and it can turn into tough, uninspiring work; keeping up with an international team and all the things that come with being part of one (things we often don’t even have to think of when working alone, such as communication problems, file storage, different ethics procedures than these in our academic institution, other people’s needs, skills and motivation, etc.) can quickly turn our initial enthusiasm into disillusionment. Well, thanks to the advances in technology and some good old tips and ideas – it doesn’t have to be so bleak and discouraging! Read on for some useful strategies, ideas and tools to help start off your collaboration efforts, keep your team together, your productivity high and your experiences positive while conducting cross-cultural research with peers from abroad! Continue reading →

Etien Benov

Etien Benov is currently a BSc Psychology student in Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and he is serving as a Bulletin Editor in the Journal of European Psychology Students. His interests are mainly in neuroscience research and philosophy of science.

Why Would Researchers Skip Peer-Review? Media Reports of Unpublished Findings

‘You love your iPhone. Literally.’ ‘This is your brain on politics.’ ‘Overclock your brain using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS).’ There are many other claims in psychology which have been publicised by the media, yet remain unchecked by academic experts. Peer-reviewed publications – papers which have been checked by researchers of similar expertise to the authors – are produced very slowly and only occasionally make instant impacts outside the walls of academia. In contrast, media publications are produced very quickly and provoke immediate reactions from the general public. Continue reading →

Robert Blakey

Robert Blakey is a third year undergraduate student of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and was a member of the 2012-2013 cohort of EFPSA's Junior Researcher Programme. He is currently carrying out a research project on the effect of interaction on estimation accuracy and writing a dissertation on consumer neuroscience. He is also interested in social cognition and specifically, public perceptions of influences on behaviour.

Twitter in The University: How Using Twitter Can Benefit Students and Early Career Researchers

Twitter is stereotypically portrayed as a website for following celebrities and posting mundane tidbits. Recently, I realized that Twitter could be used as an academic tool – to share and receive ideas and information in an educational context. Indeed, students and early career researchers should be capitalizing on Twitter to learn new information, connect with others, and share interesting thoughts. Continue reading →

Julie Lee

Julie Lee (@synapticlee) is a second year psychology undergraduate at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Her research interests are in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience.

Applying for a PhD in the UK in 387 easy steps

You cannot get enough of all the research and had such a blast writing your bachelor or master thesis? You want to join the scientific side of things (although they don’t have many cookies), and pursue a PhD? You also want to enjoy cricket, tea and Kate Middleton?

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Katharina Brecht

After finishing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, Katharina is currently a Postdoc in the Institute of Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen. Her research interests revolve around the mechanisms of social and causal cognition in animals.

What Do Whigs Have To Do With History of Psychology?

The 2013 December issue of the journal Theory & Psychology saw a forceful exchange between Kurt Danziger and Daniel N. Robinson on the nature of psychology’s disciplinary history. For those unfamiliar with the names, both are eminent scholars in (among other things) history of psychology. The exchange boils down to Danziger accusing Robinson of creating a romanticized history of psychology, tying the discipline down to Ancient Greek philosophies. What Danziger cannot forgive in such a way of writing history of science is the idea of a concept that stays the same throughout history, and then finds its way into psychology. For example (Danziger, 2013, p. 835): “This understanding of psychology’s history has always relied on the belief that the concept of ‘human nature’ represents some historically unchanging essence guaranteeing continuity, no matter how great the gulf that appears to separate the present from the remote past.” Robinson, in turn, answers with two articles in the same issue defending his position with insinuations that Danziger and his supporters are not familiar enough with Aristotle’s body of work to mount such a criticism. His repartees, sans the scholastic posturing, can be summed up well with the sentence (Robinson, 2013a, p. 820): “It is worth noting in order to make clear that the past can be highly instructive without being causally efficacious.” Continue reading →

Ivan Flis

Ivan Flis is a PhD student in History and Philosophy of Science at the Descartes Centre, Utrecht University; and has a degree in psychology from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. His research focuses on quantitative methodology in psychology, its history and application, and its relation to theory construction in psychological research. He had been an editor of JEPS for three years in the previous mandates.

Collaborating With Researchers in Other Fields

As students and young professionals by now we have come to realize how working with other people is essential for the completion of many goals in the pursuit of scientific relevance. Sometimes it is through the insight, know-how and/or dedication of others that we can push forward a project that was stuck at a roadblock. So how do scientists in the field of psychology collaborate with other scientists and what strengths and disadvantages they may have in a team of researchers with diverse backgrounds? The following piece attempts to outline some such possible opportunities and hurdles.

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Etien Benov

The Best of JEPS Bulletin in 2013

Throughout this year, the JEPS Bulletin brought to you a number of research stories and experiences that hopefully served to deepen our knowledge of psychological research and scientific publishing. Allow me, then, to point out a handful of the favorite Bulletin posts of 2013. Although it’s a shame to miss out on any of our contributors’ exceptional work, please make sure you don’t overlook this baker’s dozen, which are ranked among the favorite posts of the year.

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Pedro Almeida

Pedro Almeida is a graduate student and research assistant at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. His main research interests are evolutionary psychology and the intersection between marketing and psychology. Previously, he worked as an Editor for the Journal of European Psychology Students (JEPS).

Enunciation on Open Access: The practitioners’ perspective

A continually growing body of student organizations, as well as scientists, have been advocating for an Open Access to scientific publications. The European Federation of Psychology Students Associations (EFPSA) has been part of this effort for a long time and this blog hosts an extensive cover of the numerous aspects of the Open Access initiative. Checking the Open Access tag, here at the bulletin, will give you a comprehensive list of the already covered topics by the JEPS editors and their associates.

To begin, in working for advocating and raising awareness, the collaboration of many organizations and institutions has already produced results and we have seen governmental and intergovernmental bodies already taking steps to favour open publication policies. For instance, the United Kingdom’s Research Councils’ policy on Open Access and EU Commission’s inclusion of Open Access as a general principle in the Horizon 2020 projects are high level decisions that will ensure extended access to scientific knowledge and awareness of the issues amongst researchers.

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Dimitris Parperis

Dimitris is a master student at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and has a degree in Psychology from the University of Cyprus. His main research interests focus on health, social, and clinical questions around sexuality and gender issues. He has served EFPSA from a number of positions and is a former Vice-President of the organisation.

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