They’re killing my participants!

Sue Nieland writes about an under-valued group of UK citizens, and the consequences of that undervaluing. I started my PhD last October with hope, excitement and some disbelief that, after so many years of collecting Masters degrees, I had the opportunity to join the elite group of postgraduate researchers within the OU. I knew it…

Bias against witnesses?

Are all witnesses equal, or are some given more attention because of how they sound, and look? In new, highly topical research, Lara Frumkin and Anna Stone used mock witness statements and showed they are received differently depending on the witness's accent, age - and race. Is justice blind? Criminal trials should be based on…

With us or against us? New research directions

The Culture and Social Psychology group met online last week to discuss new research by two of its members. Karen Hagan presented her ongoing work on the ways that people assert dominance in discourse, including the practices that are commonly labelled as bullying. To explore this further, the group looked at a piece of transcript…

The Covid-19 pandemic as a liminal hotspot

A new paper by Paul Stenner and David Kaposi reflects on the Covid-19 pandemic and the special difficulties that it poses for thinking about the future. Here, David Kaposi presents an abridged version of the paper. He begins by considering the Queen's recent address to the nation: 'While we have faced challenges before, this one…

Using the eyes of eyewitnesses

Graham Pike and Camilla Elphick talk about recently published research on eyewitness identification and pupillometry.  Working out how many people are convicted of a crime they did not commit is difficult for a variety of reasons, but estimates suggest that the number of miscarriages of justice may be something like 7% (in Australia) or 11%…