Psychology - March 2015

Our Year 10 GCSE Psychology students recently greatly enjoyed a talk from Mrs Tracey Grimshaw who is a Chartered Psychologist at QinetiQ in Farnborough who was able to offer our students this unique experience under the QinetiQ’s STEM Programme (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths).

Mrs Grimshaw talked to our students about the very varied and extremely interesting careers that become available with a qualification in psychology.  She explained that psychologists work in many different fields, including forensics, clinical settings, education, sports psychology and occupational psychology. In fact, psychology is useful in many careers because it gives those with a qualification in psychology the ability to follow scientific methods by conducting analytical research; analysing problems, handling data, and producing concise reports.

To show students the value of psychology, Mrs Grimshaw explained how psychologists are trained to examine evidence rather than take ideas at face value.  She also talked about a few ‘brain myths’ or common ideas which actually have no foundational evidence.  Mrs Grimshaw gave several examples of these ‘brain myths’.  One example she gave is that of ‘right-brained’ people being more creative and ‘left-brained people’ being more analytical.  Another ‘brain myth’ is that most of us only use 10% of our brains. Mrs Grimshaw pointed out that none of these brain myths have sound, factual evidence to back them up and that psychology is a science rooted in intensive research.

During the course of her presentation Mrs Grimshaw also challenged our Year 10 Psychology students on a number of levels. As she discussed a concept referred to as ‘colour constancy’, many students were dismayed at her revelation that in fact both squares A and B in the ‘chequerboard illusion’ were grey although they might appear to us as black and white.

Being convinced that the squares were black and white, every single student was at great pains to carry out Mrs Grimshaw’s simple experiment to prove that they were in fact both the same shade of grey. 

The experiment is reproduced here for those who wish to try it out for themselves.  Our thanks to Mrs Grimshaw for allowing our students to extend their knowledge and understanding in psychology.

Mrs Timms-Blanch
Head of RE

 

 

 

To find out whether it is true that both Box A and B are in fact ‘grey’, place a white sheet of paper over the whole checker board.  Then cut out the space over Box A and B.  Replace the paper over the checker board and you will see that, in fact, both boxes are grey.