Success for PhD Students with PsyPAG

FCRG PhD Students Charlotte Wesson and Craig Harper have both recently received good news in relation to this year’s PsyPAG Conference, to be held 22nd-24th July 2015 in Glasgow.

Charlotte has been awarded a bursary of £100 to attend the conference and to give a talk on her doctoral work, which examines the most effecive ways to measure sexuality and sexual interest.  Further, Charlotte will discuss developments in her PhD that seek to validate a new measure of sexual interest using tablet technology. She will also present a poster on the fluidity of female sexuality, data for which was collected for her undergraduate dissertation in 2013-2014.

Craig is this year’s winner of the PsyPAG Rising Researcher Award, which recognises up-and-coming researchers from the national pool of graduate-level psychologists.  As part of the award, Craig has won a prize of £100, and expenses to attend the conference in July.  He has also been asked to give a presentation on some of his work, and will be discussing a recent project undertaken with the Lincolnite into the concept of ‘ontological insecurity’ and political ideologies.

PsyPAG is a national organisation set up and run by postgraduates, for postgraduates, within the area of psychology.  For more details about the conference, please see the website.

Congratulations to both!

PhD Students Publish Book Chapter

PhD Students from FCRG have just had a chapter published in a new ebook, which looks at human-animal interactions.

Rachel Orritt and Craig Harper, both principally supervised by Prof. Todd Hogue, wrote their chapter entitled “Similarities Between the Representation of “Aggressive Dogs” and “Sex Offenders” in the British News Media” after Rachel presented their work at a conference last year.  This chapter explores the various similarites in media reports in relation to canine aggression (Rachel’s work) and sexual crime and its perpetrators (Craig’s work).

The ebook can be purchased here.

FCRG Student Gains Lincolnite Column

FCRG PhD student, Craig Harper, has recently started writing a weekly column for local news website, The Lincolnite.  In the run-up to the 2015 UK General Election, Craig will be writing a weekly column based around the work that he is conducting with Prof. Todd Hogue into the phenomenon of ontological insecurity.  This work, in addition to giving the research team access to a potential county-wide research sample, allows The Lincolnite are able to base their coverage of the General Election around soundly-collected survey data in what is hoped will be a long-running reciprocal relationship.

Craig’s column will be published every Friday in the lead-up to the election on Thursday 7 May.  You can read his posts here.

FCRG Research Mentioned in National Press

The Daily Mirror newspaper this week published a piece in response to the Channel 4 documentary “The Paedophile Next Door”, which asked whether UK society could do more to prevent reoffending by those convicted of committing sexual crimes against children.

As part of her research into the area, The Mirror’s technology editor, Olivia Solon, contacted FCRG’s Prof. Todd Hogue for comment on a range of issues, such as social rehabilitation, stigma, and media coverage of sexual crime.  On the issue of stigma and reintegration, Prof. Hogue stated that paedophiles “are alienated, poor and unhappy. It makes it harder to have relationships, harder to re-engage with society and have appropriate and normal relationships”, and thus the risk of reoffending is increased through a lack of social bonds.

Referring to research conducted with PhD student, Craig Harper, in relation to media coverage of sexual crime generally, Prof. Hogue is also quoted as saying that “in seeking to protect the identity of victims who know their perpetrator, papers go gung-ho every time they have a stranger perpetrator. This gives the public the false idea that the only people they have to worry about is strangers”, and hides the fact that the vast majority (up to 90% in cases of child sexual abuse) involve a perpetrator who is known to the victim.

You can view the Mirror article by clicking here, and watch the Channel 4 documentary on-demand here.

Dr Ruth Mann Presents at UoL

Dr Ruth Mann Presents at UoL

Dr. Ruth Mann (Head of Evidence at the National Offender Management Service [NOMS]) came to the University of Lincoln on Wednesday 22nd October to present some insights about sex offender treatment programmes as part of the School of Psychology Research Seminar Series.

As part of her talk, Dr. Mann suggested that some aspects of sex offender treatment (specifically around ‘victim empathy’ and ‘taking responsibility’) may be less suitable treatment targets than more general cognitive deficits in relation to generalised empathy and problem-solving. Some of the points raised also reflected Ross Bartels‘ view that general antisocial/criminal cognition be addressed in research as much as sex-related cognition is (see FCRG post here for more on this).

Dr Mann’s slides can be viewed here