The Social Development Lab at Royal Holloway, University of London now has it’s very own twitter account. Want to keep up to date with what we’re up to? Follow us at;
News
Latest Newsletter!
The Social Development Lab now has its very own Newsletter! The Newsletter shows what the lab has been up to, as well as upcoming projects, ways to get involved, and recent publications within the lab.
The Newsletter can be accessed by clicking on the picture to the left.
Welcome Rachel Nesbit to the Social Development Lab!
We would like to welcome Rachel who has joined the Social Development Lab following graduation (BSc Single Honours Psychology, at Royal Holloway University of London). She is working as a Research Assistant over the summer and will be beginning her PhD in the lab in September exploring what factors may influence adolescent emotion recognition.
Psychology Pupil Conference Day
On the 6th July, the Developmental Studies Centre hosted a Psychology pupil conference for Year 6 students from 3 local schools. Children took part in several fun psychology experiments throughout the day and got an insight into what psychology was. The day was thoroughly enjoyed by all, with positive feedback from students and teachers.
“Thank you for a super day! We all enjoyed it and it was a great opportunity for everybody!” – Teacher
Using mentoring to support transition into and out of higher education
Dr Alana James discusses how cross-age mentoring, can be used as a way of supporting the transition into University. This blog has recently been published on the Higher Education Academy website and can be accessed here; https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/using-mentoring-support-transition-and-out-higher-education
Psychology Pupil Conference
On July 6, 2015, the Social Development Lab is hosting a Psychology Pupil Conference. Three local schools are bringing their Year 6 classes to take part in a range of psychology activities.
Equity and Justice in childhood and adolescence conference
On May 23, 2014, Patrick and Anna attended a one-day British Academy conference on ‘Equity and Justice in childhood and adolescence’ at Goldsmiths. We enjoyed international networking and sharing ideas on topics such as racism, prosocial behaviour, and multiculturalism. Fascinating discussions with others who also found that children’s and adolescents’ behaviour shapes their values over time!
In the photo, you can see Patrick discussing career opportunities for young researchers. Discussion panel (from left to right): Professor Robin Banjeree (University of Sussex), Professor Dominic Abrams (University of Kent, Canterbury), Professor Patrick Leman (Royal Holloway, University of London), Professor Melanie Killen (University of Maryland), Professor Peter Smith (Goldsmiths, University of London), and Professor Adam Rutland (host).
BPS Developmental Conference in Amsterdam
Alana, Patrick and Dawn will be attending the BPS Developmental conference in Amsterdam. Dawn will be presenting one of her undergraduate projects by Ramona DaCruz, Bethany Elms, Iesha Ginn, and Zehra Saifuddin this year. The presentation is titled: Children’s recognition of emotion through body language: Is recognition enhanced with cartoon drawings? This presentation will highlight that children’s emotion recognition has traditionally been explored using facial expressions of emotion; however, much information about emotion is conveyed through body language. From local and central London schools, we had 272 children between 6 and 12 years complete an emotion matching task of the six basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, fear, surprise, and disgust), where they matched emotive body posture with facial expressions of emotion. The stimuli were either cartoon drawings or human images (both reflecting the same body posture).
We found that children had better matching ability for the cartoon drawings than human figure, but this was particularly true when matching cartoon body to the cartoon face. We will be discussing the findings with regard to the emergence of emotion recognition skills and the nature of drawings versus human figures.
Gender and Development
New book – Gender and Development – published as part of the Psychology Press Series on “Current Issues in Developmental Psychology”, edited by Patrick Leman and Harriet Tenenbaum.