Description: Research ethics in place around psychological studies require that participants be asked for and provide informed consent before they take part in the study. What would you say it mean to provide informed consent? How does this sound? Participants should be provided with a reasonable description of what their participation in the study will… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Uncategorized
You Can Learn Happy
Description: A lot of people are not doing very well these days, and this was true even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. We can certainly see that the levels of stress, anxiety and uncertainty in the general population and among young, emerging adults in particular are sky high. Given this I do not imagine that… Read more »
Access to Therapy: Are AI-Chatbots Part of the Solution?
Description: Consider this premise. These days (in what we hope is the latter parts of the COVID-19 pandemic) there are troublingly high rates of loneliness, anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges among the general population. Therapy is hard to access both due to isolation and to its not being routinely covered as health care… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid-19: All In!
Wiley Weekly Psychology Updates is a blog maintained for Wiley Publishers by me (Mike Boyes) in relation to the topical contents of nine Psychology textbooks aimed at different content areas within Canadian Psychology courses and covering Introductory Psychology, Child, Adolescent and Life Span Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Health Psychology. The… Read more »
Screen Time: An Existential Developmental Challenge
Description: You would have to have been under a non-internet enabled rock lately to have missed the rising tide of concern about the extent of smartphone use, social media use, and screen time in general. We though concern over television use was a big deal 30 to 40 years ago but that looks positively rural… Read more »
Indigenizing Programs and Courses: A step closer to Psychology
Description: In my previous post I went on at some length about ways in which I am going to try and create some context and related understanding of what we might understand the term “indigenization” to mean as applied to Universities and to Disciplines like Psychology. The article linked to the previous post provided an… Read more »
Autism Diagnosis and Culture: Context or Difference?
Description: I’m not sure what your impression is, but if you’ve had some class discussion or have done some reading in relation to the process of diagnosing autism and young children then think for a minute about how such a diagnosis proceeds. What would you think of the suggestion that some of the core diagnostic… Read more »
Cat Ownership and Schizophrenia: Not Straightforward
Description: So what is the first thing that pops to mind when you think of “cat people”? Crazy? Weeellll it’s a bit more complicated. Read this discussion by Andre Picard of an article suggesting that childhood cat ownership increases the chances that one will show symptoms of schizophrenia in adulthood. Source: Andre Picard Column Globe… Read more »
OPA comments on Globe and Mail Open Minds series on Canada’s Current Mental Health Treatment Picture
Description: So how do psychologists feel about the issues raised in the Globe and Mail’s Open Minds series on the state of mental health treatment in Canada? Read this Ontario Psychological Association (OPA) Facebook page post to see their specific response to an Op Ed (opinion/editorial) column by Andre Picard a Globe and Mail health… Read more »
The State of Canada’s Mental Health Treatment System: Broken? Fixable?
Description: The Globe and Mail has produced a series of articles on the current state of mental health treatment in Canada. It does not so much focus on the quality of the treatment options available (they are pretty good) but rather on the general availability (or lack thereof) of such services. You can think of… Read more »
Books for Success!
