Line of Duty: A Psychologist’s View

Dr Zoe Walkington from the School trains police officers in investigative interviewing techniques as part of her work for the Centre for Policing Research and Learning at the Open University. Utilising this insider perspective, she writes about the tv series that Britain is watching on Sunday evenings, Line of Duty. Read the article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5cNwtbKsjtQPG33ZV4Wrmj2/in-the-line-of-duty-our-love-affair-with-tv-detectives…

How to talk about conspiracy theories without starting an argument

The spread of coronavirus has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories, linking it, for example, to business interests and patents, or the 5G network. Dr Jovan Byford from the School contributes to a new short film on the BBC news website How to talk about conspiracy theories without starting an argument https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-53395619/coronavirus-how-to-talk-about-conspiracy-theories Read more…

Good criminal, bad criminal

Over on the Advancing social psychology (DD317) blog, a new post considers the relevance of a key psychological concept, the essential person, for a recent tv series about the new face of international crime. A recent BBC drama depicted the takeover of global crime networks by new 'Harvard-educated', business-focussed criminals. It was about how the graceless…

Written In Blood: OU Psychologists on Catching Criminals

On Sunday night, the CBS show 'Written in Blood' includes material from our forensic psychology team. In this television series crime fiction authors explore the real life crimes which influenced them to write their novels. This episode focuses on “The Rotherham Shoe Rapist” and includes material on photofit psychology which our team helped them with. If you're interested…