Editorial
Welcome to your July issue. I am delighted to have been asked by the Editor, Dr Jon Sutton, to write this editorial as your new President.
The Psychologist is received by all 48,000 members, plus many outside agencies. It serves a vital function in informing and provoking debate. This month, in addition to the plethora of regular features, announcements and adverts, there are articles on weird beliefs and conspiracy theories. Stuart Wilson asks whether we are hardwired to believe in supernatural agents and to seek meaning in our existence. Scepticism, it seems, is unnatural, 'unsexy' and cognitively demanding. In a similar vein, Swami and Coles ask why some people are prone to conspiracy theories while others are not. The answer may lie in individual differences in intellectual curiosity, an active imagination and a proclivity for new ideas. Enjoy!
Dr Gerry Mulhern (President)
Contents
The truth is out there
Viren Swami and Rebecca Coles on belief in conspiracy theories
Stuart Wilson on the naturalness of weird beliefs
Between a rock and a hard place
Miranda Horvath and Jennifer Brown look at the vicious cycle for rape victims
Social exclusion - an addictive context
Matt Baker, joint winner in our student writer competition, shares his views on drug use and rehabilitation
Images of the future, drawn from the past
Stefania de Vito, joint winner in our student writer competition, on episodic future thinking
On loss and mourning
Renee Lertzman talks with psychoanalyst and author Darian Leade
Plus...
Forum
Frontal lobe dysfunction; misrepresentation; Richard Gregory; and more
News and digest
Healthy behaviours; assisted suicide; MRC research strategy; Royal Society fellowship; nuggets from the Research Digest; and more
Media
Ethics, children and reality television, with Kairen Cullen
Book reviews
A history lesson with attitude; mindsight; the newborn brain; and rehabilitation psychology
Society
The first column from new Society President Gerry Mulhern; Spearman Medal 2010; promoting global awareness; consultations; and more
Careers
An interview with Mark Griffiths on academia and addiction; pathways into occupational psychology; featured job; plus all the latest vacancies, and how
to advertise
Looking back
The odd couple: Arthur I. Miller on a meeting of minds between Carl Jung and the physicist Wolfgang Pauli
One on one
...with David Lane