To be offended or not to be… that is your decision
There is a sense that we, as a society, are taking offence more readily and with more passion than in previous times. Trolling on Twitter and ranting threads on Facebook are becoming more common and are often the result of one person’s opinion differing from another’s. One example of this is that, at Universities, there…
Optimal Functioning: How can we help people perform to the best of their abilities?
This boils down to effective goal achievement, and an overarching research perspective of my lab concerns the interface of motivation with cognition and behaviour. The components of interest to me are: (1) Motivation (as defined through Self-Determination theory); (2) Individual differences in future- oriented thinking (e.g. strategic optimism vs defensive pessimism); (3) Behavioural and Cognitive…
Giving Health Purpose
Historically, the discipline of psychology has been devoted to the practice of healing. Aligned with a disease model of human functioning in which ‘mental health’ is described purely as the absence of illness, traditional psychological study has prioritised the alleviation of mental disorder. However, this approach fails to consider the importance and value of pre-emptively…
When Happy Met Healthy
Adjacent possibility theory describes how small alterations can achieve great impact. It is argued that by mapping the current dispositional state of a population, and identifying patterns of behaviour that are adjacent but more desirable to the current, individuals can be directed to a more achievable alternative. This gradual approach to change is thought to be…