What do psychologists read?
NTU Psych lecturer, Lydia Harkin, posed that question to the department after being asked by her own students for some psych-related lockdown reading ideas. It got an enthusiastic response from NTU academics and Lydia kindly collated all the recommendations for us to share here. In fact, the response was so good we can’t cover them all in a single post. So, if you’re looking for some inspiration, or – in some cases – what got our academics so inspired it sparked a lifelong passion, you’re in the right place (all books and articles mentioned in the post are listed in the table at the end).
To kick us off, we’ve got recommendations from our colleagues in the Addiction, Bullying, Crime and Desistance and Brain, Cognition, and Development research groups.
I wanted to be like that – challenge, understand, to do real research that unravelled stuff that people might just take for granted, with excluded and vulnerable populations…
Belinda Winder
When we see the knowledge and passion lecturers have for their subjects, we might assume it’s always been there: they were destined to be doing what they do. However, last term, we held an academic careers session for students, where some of our lecturers discussed their (very) varied routes to NTU and a key message was that inspiration and opportunity can come from anywhere; a chance conversation, an inspiring lecturer, and even the occasional mishap. And for some of us, as you’ll see, it started with a book…
David Rosenhan’s On Being Sane in Insane Places challenged Belinda Winder, Professor in Forensic Psychology, to re-evaluate her faith in mental health diagnoses and led her to “[want] to be like that – challenge, understand, to do real research that unravelled stuff that people might just take for granted, with excluded and vulnerable populations…”. Something she certainly has in her research and role as head of the Sexual Offences, Crime and Misconduct Research Unit here at NTU. Rosenhan’s research also resonated with Mark Griffiths, Distinguished Professor and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit, while Mark’s entire career direction and interest in world of psychological extremes was heavily influenced by his other recommendation. Thigpen and Cleckley’s article exploring multiple personality, drew Mark towards the study of personality: Thigpen, C.H. & Cleckley, H. (1954). A case of multiple personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49, 135-51
For those with an interest in Child Development (or open to releasing a dormant passion for it), Associate Professor, Andy Grayson, recommends Margaret Donaldson’s classic Children’s Minds as a fascinating and accessible introduction to the subject. Also in Child Development, Rebecca Larkin, Principle Lecturer and course leader for the MSc in Applied Child Psychology, highlights Conti-Ramsden and colleagues’ (1997) article on the limitations of psychometric tests assessing Specific Language Impairment. Like Belinda, Rebecca credits her recommendation with changing the way she thought about diagnoses and diagnostic labels.
It’s interesting that several recommendations have challenged us, whether that’s changing our assumptions or just making us think more deeply about something. Duncan Guest, Associate Professor and cognitive psychologist, also reflects on a couple of articles that caused him to question his views on the nature of the mind and where we reside. His recommended articles (Mead, 1912 and Clarke & Chalmers, 1998) span an entire century, so although science and research can move quickly it shows there’s no sell-by date on work that can make you ask the big questions.
There’s plenty more where that came from and here’s the full list from our Addiction, Bullying, Crime and Desistance and Brain, Cognition, and Development research groups, with ideas for inspiration, interest, and enjoyment.
Recommendations from members of the Addiction, Bullying, Crime and Desistance research group
| NTU academic | Recommendation | Reasons |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Griffiths | ||
| On being sane in insane places, by David Rosenhan (Rosenhan, D. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science 179 (4070): 250–258 | “The Rosenhan study is a real eye-opener, innovative methodology and ground breaking in relation to the topic (a sane person living among those deemed by others to be insane and recording how staff treated him)“ | |
| Thigpen, C.H. & Cleckley, H. (1954). A case of multiple personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49, 135-51. | “As a teenager, the Thigpen and Cleckley study was one that just hooked me into psychological extremes and made me want to learn more about psychology generally and personality more specifically.” | |
| Belinda Winder | ||
| On being sane in insane places, by David Rosenhan (Rosenhan, D. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science 179 (4070): 250–258 | “This made me want to be a psychologist and try to duplicate the study! The idea that experts could not actually tell the difference between ‘real’ patients and pretend ones was mind-blowing for me. My faith in mental health diagnoses and mental health institutions was shaken (maybe things are not as fixed and precise as they appear), whereas my admiration of psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists getting out there and doing such brave research to test and understand the system grew exponentially. I wanted to be like that – challenge, understand, to do real research that unravelled stuff that people might just take for granted, with excluded and vulnerable populations…” | |
| Craig Harper | ||
| Johann Hari: The Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – And the Unexpected Solutions | “This is available as a book or audio book – and so I am currently listening to Johann Hari’s ‘Lost Connections’ about the social origins of depression.” | |
| Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind | “I recommend this for a political psychology perspective“ | |
| Sam Harris: Free Will | “For a neuroscience perspective“ | |
| James Ball: Post Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World | “For a view on fake news and media psychology“ | |
| Jenny MacKay | ||
| They Fuck You Up by Oliver James; Breaking Down the Wall of Silence by Alice Miller; Any Irvin Yalom books; Why Love Matters, by Sue Gerhardt; Just Babies, by Paul Bloom; The Philosopher and The Wolf, by Mark Rowlands | “My go-to books like this are always developmental or mental health related. Some of my favourites are listed here“ | |
| Loren Abell | ||
| Love’s Executioner by Irvine Yalom; The Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron; Inventing Ourselves by Sarah Jayne Blakemore | “If interested in clinical psychology or an aspiring clinical psychologist“ |
Recommendations from members of the Brain, Cognition, and Development research group
| NTU academic | Recommendation | Reasons |
|---|---|---|
| Nadja Heym | ||
| We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – by Karen Joy Fowler | “A great introduction to comparative psychology; development/theory of mind in chimps“ | |
| The Joy of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadly Sins – by Simon Laham. | “Sinner or saint? This book examines the extent to which sinning not only feels good, but is actually good for you. In so doing it gives a fascinating introduction to social psycholog“ | |
| Andy Grayson | ||
| Grayson Children’s minds – by Margaret Donaldson | “The first psych book I read and it inspired me into the subject. A great background to Piaget, it makes you think, and it is short!“ | |
| Clare Wood | ||
| Morton Hunt – The Story of Psychology | “‘The Story of Psychology’ by Morton Hunt is a really interesting read“ | |
| Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar | “If you want a bit of semi-fiction, I always recommend The Bell Jar for an insiders perspective on mental illness, set at a very specific point in American history. Lots of potential triggers though so please be mindful when selecting this one.” | |
| Rebecca Larkin | ||
| Conti-Ramsden, G., Crutchley, A., & Botting, N. (1997). The extent to which psychometric tests differentiate subgroups of children with SLI. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40(4), 765777 | “This paper sparked my interest in developmental language difficulties, as it made me realise that diagnostic labels are far from straightforward. I remember nervously discussing the results at my PhD interview!“ | |
| Mark Torrance | ||
| Gardner, Howard (1984, and later editions). The mind’s new science. New York: Basic Books | “Lively account of the underpinnings of cognitive science. Not so new anymore, but perhaps better for that reason. Essential beach reading for anyone who want to think and talk coherently about mind and thought.“ | |
| Mark Andrews | ||
| The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature – by Steven Pinker | “Although the nature versus nurture debate may seem trite and that every reasonable person now understands that human psychology arises from an interaction of both genes and environment, nonetheless deep rooted dogmas in favour of environment-only explanation are still extremely prevalent in academic social sciences. In this book, Pinker outlines the science behind what is known about how both genetics and the environment shape our psychology. He then traces the rise and development of environment-only dogmas and discusses how these explanations have come to be seen as morally and socially desirable while explanations that acknowledge that genetics also plays a role are sometimes seen as dangerous, racist, sexist and even fascist. This book was highly critically acclaimed and is likely to be fascinating to anyone interested in psychology generally, including cognitive psychology. More generally it shows how political or moral perspectives in academic social science can have a stultifying effect on scientific progress“ | |
| Matthew Belmonte | ||
| Ernest Becker – 1973 – The Denial of Death | “Becker recasts and generalises Freud’s Oedipal complex as a conflict not between child and parent but rather between the unbounded, spiritual idea and the mortal, corporeal reality of human existence, arguing that the things that fascinate and disgust us and that drive our myths and taboos arise from our need to maintain a state of denial of the very precarious nature of our existence — the same reason that, on eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the first action taken by Adam and Eve was to clothe themselves, to mask their animal, mortal natures.“ | |
| Sir James George Frazier / The Golden Bough | “A study of comparative mythology that takes advantage of nineteenth-century Britain’s worldwide plunder to extract universals in mythology, and by extension universals in human cognition. An excellent companion to Becker’s The Denial of Death.“ | |
Carl Jung / The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious | “Jung describes mythic archetypes that exist within the human psyche and appear in dreams and other narratives and representations, as a consequence of the very architecture of the human mind. Best read in combination with Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections.“ | |
| The Bhagavad Gita | “Arjun’s externalised conflct of arms between the Pandavas and the Kauravas functions as a metaphor for a conflict fully within the human psyche or atma, between wordly/bodily and spiritual/subtle existences. The Gita – especially chapter 2 – offers telling insights on the functions of rituals and symbols in cueing our finite, limited brains and minds towards recognition and understanding of the infinite, unbounded – and therefore not directly representable – nature of the divine. The Gita describes rituals as a sort of cognitive crutch, one that isn’t essential and can be discarded once the soul has grown to comprehend the divine. (Alas, we finite and limited humans are all too prone to latch onto the literal meanings, the symbols and rituals themselves, rather than the deep sense that they represent – thus the irony that the Gita, the Qur’an, the Bible and other sacred texts have been used the justify communal violence when they all, in the abstract, are saying the same thing.)” | |
| Thomas Pynchon / Gravity’s Rainbow | “Pynchon knows all about what poststructuralists have termed the “violence of representation”, in which the very act of symbolisation, replacing a concrete reality with an arbitrary sign, diminishes that reality. For me this violence of representation explains a great deal about the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of people with autism, in whom perceptual and cognitive representations are a bricolage built more of icon than symbol and who therefore excel at fidelity to the thing itself at the same time as they fail at generalisations and at counterfactual perspectives.” | |
| Paramahansa Yogananda / Autobiography of a Yogi | “Present-day psychiatry would describe him as schizotypal – but is that a bad thing? Yogananda’s visions lay a meaningful narrative atop human physical and spiritual life, revealing that there is, or at least can be, a reason behind the events in our lives — even if that reason is down to us to construct or to reveal, post hoc.“ | |
| Duncan Guest | ||
| Clark, A., and Chalmers, S (1998) The Extended Mind. Analysis. 58 (1). 7-19. Mead, G, H (1912) The Mechanism of Social Consciousness. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 9 (15), 401-406. | “As a third year undergraduate I came across the writing of Andy Clark on dynamical systems and George Mead on the self. Both led me to question my views on thought, the mind and the self in terms of the extent these are “things” that reside “in” me. These readings gave me an appreciation of the interconnectedness of things in a way that has stayed with me since.“ | |
| Christina Howard | ||
| Eye and Brain – Richard Gregory | “I just found it fascinating (and still do!) how our brains do so much computation to allow us to see the world around us that we’re not even aware of. An equivalent but more recent text would be Basic Vision by Snowden, Thompson and Troscianko.” | |
| Andrew MacKenzie | ||
| Adrian Furnham – 50 Psychology ideas Moheb Costandi – 50 ideas you really need to know: the human brain | “They’re quick to read and reasonably priced. Maybe perfect for these times. These two are of particular relevance to psychologists.“ | |
| Emma Vardy | ||
| The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse by Charlie Mackery | “This is a beautiful book to take the time to reflect on the words especially in the current times.“ | |
| One Child by Torey Hayden | “For any aspiring Educational Psychologist or Teachers. Torey was a special educational needs teacher and her books are based on her experiences. After reading this book in undergrad I wanted to become an EP.” | |
| Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel | “If you are interested in language and the human-animal bond this book is for you. It follows the story of a psychology experiment to see whether Chimps can learn sign language to communicate.” | |
| Socks are not enough and Pants are everything by Mark Lowery | “These books are to make you smile. It follows the story of a boy who finds out his parents are nudists and is sent to the local university to work with the cool trendy psychology lecturer on his issues, who you may think is one of us reading the book :-D” |
Psychology at Nottingham Trent University 