Dementia affects increasing numbers of people as they age (one in 14 people over the age of 65 suffer from dementia). It changes how the brain functions, gradually stopping brain cells and brain connections from working so that people progressively struggle with remembering things, thinking and speaking. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and is characterised by the build-up in the brain of two proteins, beta-amyloid and tau, which are thought to damage cells and cause them to die. Up to now, most drugs have targeted these proteins, but have not been successful and there is still no cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
However, changes happen in the brain years before people start reporting problems with memory and thinking. It is therefore likely that the most effective treatments will act early in the disease process to interfere with its progression before brain cells become damaged making it important to understand what happens to cause the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Increasing evidence suggests that damage to blood vessels feeding the brain might first trigger the disease. Firstly, risk factors for dementia are the same as risk factors for cardiovascular disease (e.g. obesity, lack of exercise, high blood pressure, and the main genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, APOE4), suggesting that unhealthy blood vessels could cause both diseases. Secondly, brain blood vessels show the first signs of dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease, as brain blood flow is disrupted before the build-up of beta-amyloid and tau, and before neurons are damaged and memory is impaired.
Pericytes and smooth muscle cells (red) regulate blood vessel diameter (in green). This process may go wrong early in Alzheimer’s disease
In a project funded by the Medical Research Council, my lab is trying to understand how changes in blood vessels in the brain are linked to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Brain cells need a constant supply of energy in the form of oxygen and glucose provided in the blood, and previous research has shown that if they have only low levels of oxygen, brain cells accumulate more beta-amyloid. We are creating new genetically modified mice that allow us to investigate whether the critical trigger for Alzheimer’s disease is if blood vessels in the brain stop working properly, producing a decrease in brain oxygen levels which causes the build-up of beta-amyloid.
Our previous work, funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Wellcome Trust, shows that the main genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (APOE4) causes some blood vessels to become dysfunctional even in young mice. However normal mice cannot make beta-amyloid, so we have not yet been able to study how this damage to blood vessels affects beta-amyloid production. Our new genetically modified mice can produce beta-amyloid but in a controllable way (by changing the amount of a drug we feed the mice), and also carry the APOE4 gene. This allows us to first identify which blood vessels are not working correctly, and then turn on beta-amyloid production. We can then study whether beta-amyloid accumulates near the dysfunctional vessels and in areas with low oxygen levels. Because beta-amyloid itself can stop blood vessels from working well, we expect that affected vessels will gradually become even more dysfunctional, accelerating beta-amyloid accumulation until nearby brain cells are damaged.
These experiments will reveal how changes in blood flow lead to the build-up of beta-amyloid and damage to brain cells. The new mice will allow us to test the effect of drugs and lifestyle interventions such as exercise on this process, identifying new approaches for treatments targeting the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Covid-19 restrictions haven’t just stopped us meeting in person – instead, they have nudged us into new ways of connecting. Humans are the ultimate social species: evolutionary biologists regard the human tendency towards cooperation as having created the complex coordination we manage in politics, the arts, economy and belief systems. At the micro-level, we know that people in conversation talk and move in fine synchrony together: the more synchronised the interactive dance, the better people get on and the happier they are to help each other. A conversation is as much the work of the body as the mind.
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash
So what happens when our interactions suddenly shift online? For many, work in a Covid-19 world now consists of sitting in front of a screen interacting with a succession of talking heads. Parents and toddlers join their playgroups with online singing and dancing from home. Schoolchildren spend some time in small social bubbles with the same peers, and some time at school online, maybe joining in a virtual class assembly or talking individually to a teacher via Skype. Health appointments such as diagnostic assessments may be held via Zoom, with the practitioner having a glimpse into our personal space at home, a window into our world, raising some new possibilities for social faux pas. Will anyone notice my polka dot pyjama trousers on a Zoom call? What happens if my online delivery driver rings the doorbell? Who might appear in the room, and will they be properly dressed?
These experiences are starkly different from their previous incarnations. For example, a medical appointment would involve preparing for a trip to the local hospital, sitting with strangers in the waiting room and taking part in a conversation – and the necessary interactional dance – with a nurse in the pared-down public space of a clinical setting.
What difference does moving online make to the attunement that skilled therapists and practitioners can build into their conversations with clients? On the Zoom or Room project, funded by the National Institute of Health Research through the Applied Research Collaboration Kent Surrey Sussex, we are looking at exactly this question. The aim is to provide guidelines and good practice to support practitioners in this situation. We are analysing videos of therapeutic conversations taken from in-person and online settings for the same kind of intervention, Video Interaction Guidance. VIG is the perfect setting for this project because trainee practitioners routinely record their meetings and have moved from in-person to online, so there is a ready source of data. What’s more, VIG itself is based on the principle that practitioners and clients will learn and change through observing and reflecting on videos of their own interactions. Much of our work in the ChatLab involves coding video interactions in very fine detail. The quality of interaction often rests on small but significant moments of attunement or disruption. By seeing how these patterns might be different in online meetings, we can understand what factors contribute to people feeling connected when they need to meet online. As well as analysing the videos, we are conducting interviews and surveys with practitioners and their clients.
It’s too early to give definitive results yet but some things are already clear. First, there are the technical barriers to moving online. Some clients simply don’t have the equipment, internet service or suitable private space to join a meeting online, and there are important data protection and privacy issues, with different agencies making different judgements about what is possible. Second, having to move online has been very disruptive, but has also led to creative solutions being adopted, such as using phone or text-based media for clients who find it uncomfortable to talk via video and having greater flexibility, such as a health visitor ‘popping in’ later in the day if the baby is asleep on the first visit. Then there are those matters of etiquette already mentioned: they might seem trivial but they make a difference to how comfortable people feel.
Our survey is live now for practitioners and educators who meet clients or students online in a supportive capacity. For those who meet students online, we ask that supportive interactions are considered, such as mentoring or supervision meetings, rather than online education.
Nicola Yuill is a professor of Developmental Psychology and director of the Chat Lab. In addition to Prof Yuill, the Zoom-Room project includes Research Fellow Dr Devyn Glass (Chat Lab) and Education Psychologists Zubeida Dasgupta.
Paloma Manguele is a PhD student in the Attention Lab. She studies mind wandering, a concept she is cautious to translate into her first language, Portuguese. “I guess the word could be ‘divagaçao’ – digression – but not exactly,” she explains. There are not many studies about mind wandering in Portuguese. In fact, there are only a few people researching mind wandering around the world. One of them is her supervisor, Dr Sophie Forster, here at Sussex. Paloma’s research involves cutting edge neuroscience techniques such as functional neuroimaging and electrophysiology to understand the brain underpinnings of spontaneous thoughts.
Paloma’s interest in Neuroscience started in Mozambique when she had just come back from completing a year of postgraduate studies in Norway, and she had secured a teaching position at the Eduardo Mondlane University, a very esteem institution in her country. She thought she would be teaching Clinical Psychology, her undergrad specialisation, but instead, they asked her to teach Neuropsychology and, now from a teacher’s perspective, she fell in love with the subject. “I was teaching about the brain, this amazing device that exists in the Universe, which is so beautiful and fits in our hands. I just wanted to know it more and more.” At the same time, she was also working at the University’s Centre for Studies and Psychological Support providing counselling to students: “I noticed that many of the students’ psychological problems came from the way they perceived the world and how they thought. A bit in line with cognitive theories of mental health. I was very interested in this aspect, why do we think the way we do and how the contents of our thoughts can affect our mental health.” Cognitive Neuroscience was calling her.
“Do you know what I’m thinking,” Paloma would be continuously asked in Mozambique. Obviously not, but what if we could somehow predict or infer what people are thinking? What tools would we need? “I was thinking a lot about spontaneous thoughts and how intrusive they are. How they just pop in our minds when you least expect them and sometimes distract us from whatever we’re doing. So, I was leaning towards mind wandering, although at the time I didn’t even know there was a term for it.” And this is how the idea for her PhD started.
Paloma arrived at Sussex in May 2017, on Neuroscience Day, and she went straight to attend the annual conference organised by Sussex Neuroscience. When Paloma got into the lecture theatre, she realised she was the only Black person in the large room and started doubting whether she belonged there. But the next day her lab mates took her out for a coffee and a hot chocolate at the Bridge Café, and despite the usual awkwardness of meeting people for the first time, they made her feel welcome and part of the community. It’s with a smile that she tells me: “We’re lab sisters now, we support each other”. And she continues: “Even during the lockdown, apart from lab meetings, we kept having our ‘sister’s meetings’ over Zoom, sometimes just to know how each other was doing and to offer help.”
However, three years in she’s still the only Black PhD student at the School of Psychology. “I wonder about that. A percentage of the British population is Black. I’ve taught Black students in the undergraduate and masters courses here. How come I’m still the only Black PhD student? Where do those UG and MSc students go? Where are the British and the international Black students? Wouldn’t they want to continue to a PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience?”
Paloma adjusting the electrodes of a participants
The lack of diversity in academia goes beyond a simple problem of representation. It has a real impact on research. On the first year of PhD, Paloma volunteered in an EEG experiment ran by one of her lab mates. EEG stands for electroencephalography, and it uses electrodes placed on the scalp of the participant to record electrical activity in the brain. Even though at the time Paloma had short hair, the electrodes could not reach her scalp well enough to create good impedance, which is the measure of how good the electrical signal is, so her data had to be discarded. At first, Paloma thought that she was the problem, but when she started running her experiments, she discovered the same pattern with other Black participants. She realised that EEG electrodes were designed with White people’s hair in mind, and they didn’t work as well with her coarse hair. This means that even if researchers are not being purposefully racist, the results will be biased because the data from Black participants will have to be discarded.
“I want to take Neuroscience to Mozambique because it’s not a field there yet and EEG is a very affordable way of conducting neuroscience experiments to answer the questions I’m interested in,” Paloma explains. “It’s more affordable than fMRI and other techniques, but the way it’s currently designed I cannot use it with Black people, who are the majority in Mozambique. The same way science developed EEG with White people’s hair in mind, we can design a similar instrument that can be adapted to other types of hair. This goes back to taking it seriously and doing actual research to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and how it can be fixed.”
I wanted to know Paloma’s opinion about being the only Black PhD student in the School of Psychology and what we could do to encourage other Black students to continue to postgraduate studies. This is what she told me:
Why do you think Black students don’t continue their studies into a PhD?
I’ve never looked at myself as a minority. I come from a country where I am the majority, therefore I do not have racism always on my mind. When I came here and realised that I was the only Black PhD student, it was quite a shock. I knew I was coming to the UK and I didn’t expect there would be many of us, but I was not expecting the underrepresentation to be so shocking. Of course, I should not be expecting for all my mentors to be Black or female, but it would be good if I could have the opportunity to see another Black person in Neuroscience, Cognitive Science or Psychology just to be able to look and think ‘yes, what I’m doing is possible for people who look like me’. It would have been important. I think not having Black people as academic staff could make the students a bit shy to apply.
I started teaching as a doctoral tutor, and I feel that I kind of have this role of being ‘the Black teacher’ and I hope it does make a little difference for some of the BAME students. For most of my PhD, I’ve also taught Clinical Psychology at the International Summer School and the American students are the most vocal ones. They would tell me directly how important it had been for them to find a person from Africa teaching in England. So even if I didn’t have that referent, I can be that person for other minority students. I really hope it helps inspire them to apply.
What can we do to encourage and support more Black students into academia?
We need to do what we do best: research, rigorous research. Because, unfortunately, one Black person can only speak about their own experience and it’s very personal. To understand what the shared experience is, we need to do some research and learn how to categorise things. Conversations like this are a small step, but we need to think on a bigger scale. There are a lot of assumptions on what it means to be a Black student. Those assumptions must be rigorously tested for meaningful changes to occur. They can be tested the same way we test our other research questions, with funding, with research teams, and with collaborations. It should not be the sole role of people within the group to test these assumptions. Racism exists, we live with it, but it impacts society.
We also need to address our personal biases more assertively, in our modules, and maybe even in our lab meetings. My lab does that. We must talk about it. For example, in a school seminar (where I was again the only Black person in the room), someone showed faces of people and categorised them in groups according to their power and, unintendingly (I hope) pointed out that probably some faces would be considered as having less authority in a context of teaching, and those happened to be Black and female ones. Well, I am a Black female teacher in the UK, and I’ve never imagined myself as having less authority than my White counterparts, or when I was teaching in Mozambique. Anyways, I would be delighted to see more research on this before a person makes assumptions and carries them to a seminar.
Do you have any advice for Black students who are thinking of doing a PhD?
I would like to tell BAME students not to be scared, that this path is open to them too. That it might not be the easiest thing, but it is okay, we can do it anyway. Black people have come a long way in history, despite insurmountable circumstances.
Paloma is currently focusing on writing up her thesis, to submit in a few months. But she already has some plans for the future: last academic year she received a grant from the British Experimental Psychology Society to carry out cross-cultural research on mind wandering in Queen’s University Belfast and in Mozambique. They had to postpone it due to Covid-19, but Paloma hopes to resume it once the pandemic is over and extend it to include children. She’s also applying for post-doctoral funding with her supervisor.
Overall there were 85 Black Professors in the UK’s Professoriate of 21,000 in 2019 (Rollock, 2019). Whilst 11.2% of White faculty occupy the senior role of Professor, at 4.6%, Black faculty are two and a half times less likely to make to this position (Advance HE, 2018). There are just 25 Black (African Caribbean) female professors in the UK today, making them the most under-represented group in academic faculty (Rollock, 2019). Research has shown that there are significant barriers to progression including injustices and systemic racism to prevent progress (Arday, 2020). In these circumstances, a celebration of the 25 Black female Professors in our UK Professoriate is significant and important. Especially when we consider the arduous journey’s they have seemingly overcome to arrive at these positions. Earlier this year, photographer Andrew Knight hosted an Exhibition in London called ‘Phenomenal Women’ showcasing portraits of some of these Professors.
Nicola Rollock (2019) of Goldsmiths College led a study to understand reasons for lack of progress in Black female faculty by interviewing 20 out of UK’s 25 Professors, which then led to the release of the ‘Rollock report’. There are repeated accounts in this report by this group of being undermined regularly in meetings, ignored during daily interactions by colleagues and repeatedly being passed over for progression in favour for lesser skilled faculty. Passive bullying and racial micro-aggressions are reported as being normal place for most of these academics throughout their career. A staggering 72% of Black and Minority ethnic (BAME) members, working in higher education, have been subject to bullying and harassment from managers. Unsurprisingly, quite a few of this group have considered leaving HE institutions altogether at some part of their career (Rollock, 2019). It is likely that most do, as at entry-level the representation of BAME staff is comparable to percentages in the general population in the UK (Advance HE, 2019).
Recent discourses and academic debates have started to unearth deeper levels of institutionalised racism that systemically disadvantage BAME groups (Arday & Mirza, 2018; Rollock, 2016). One such problem arises out of the label ‘BAME’ itself. This category holds all non-White people including- Asian – Asian or Asian British; Bangladeshi, Asian or Asian British; Indian, Asian or Asian British; Pakistani, and other Asian backgrounds, Black – Black or Black British: African, Black or Black British; Caribbean, and other Black backgrounds, Chinese, mixed, other ethnic backgrounds, including Arab. Even the word ‘Black’ is often used interchangeably to refer to people of other BAME backgrounds (i.e. Chinese and Indian ethnic groups) and is reflected in the varying statistics for this group. This blind acceptance of thinking that such a diverse range of ethnic groups can fall into just one category is problematic. Advance HE, the body that reports on statistics in HE has recognised this limitation and started reporting data disaggregated by more detailed ethnicity categories (Advance HE, 2019). Universities UK and National Union of Students in a combined report, have also recognised the barriers to creating realistic equitable outcomes for students due to limitations that arise out of the current system of categorisation (UUK-NUS, 2019).
Moreover, Eurocentric Epistemological perspectives dominate HE curriculum in most disciplines in what Delaguo et al (2002) call an ‘Apartheid of Knowledge’. More Universities are talking about decolonising the curriculum to address this, in a call to challenge long-standing biases and omissions that limit how we understand knowledge and society (Muldoon, 2019). In addition, research methods are also largely dominated by Epistemologies from the Global North where they were initially developed. Research with marginalised communities in the UK and elsewhere are helping us to understand threats to validity that arise out of these limitations. We are starting now to use methods guided by decolonised approaches to understand the lived experiences of ethnic minorities in a way that is true to their authentic lived experience, instead of trying to interpret them through a predetermined lens (Wimalasiri, 2020). Widening participation by deliberately finding ways to engage and include more individuals from BAME communities is also seen as a key to improving inclusion in HE (UUK- NUS, 2019) and is likely to have an impact on retention and progression of BAME communities in HE in the future. Race Charters and Diversity programmes are some of the effective instruments at our disposal to allow us to make effective and lasting changes to redress balances and provide equitable solutions. Seemingly, we are at a pivotal moment in HE history where we are openly starting to acknowledge limitations and shortfalls and actively looking to change these. Changes are afoot, yet there is a long way still to go.
In reaching academic excellence despite of the significant barriers they have faced these 25 women are making history in UK’s professoriate today! Their stories help our awareness and understanding of not just Black Faculty but of the strength of the human spirit told in a way to empower us to consider how we might all be part of this change. They are an inspiration to us all and the true embodiment of the acclaimed poem by Maya Angelou, ‘And Still We Rise’!
References
Delgado Bernal, D. & Villalpando, O. (2002) An apartheid of knowledge in academia: the struggle over “legitimate” knowledge of faculty of colour, Equity & Excellence in Education, 35 (2): 169-180.
Rollock, N. (2019), ‘Staying Power’: Career experiences and strategies of UK Black female Professors. UCU report.
Arday, J. (2020) Fighting the tide: Understanding the difficulties facing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Doctoral Students’ pursuing a career in Academia. Educational Philosophy and Theory: 1-8.
Arday, J. & Mirza, H.S. (2016) Dismantling Race in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan.
Wimalasiri, V. (2020) Ethical and Methodological dilemmas in research with Refugee populations: At the intersection of Gender, Displacement and Work. British Academy of Management, Conference on the Cloud,2020.
For the past two years, I have been researching young people’s experiences of inclusive music-making and the psychology behind it. I have worked closely with a variety of inclusive music projects also known as the Our Future Music programme, funded by Youth Music and run as a collaboration of five music education hubs across the south of the UK. This has been the biggest focus of my PhD so far, the results of which are currently being reviewed for publication by an academic journal and summarised in this blog.
You can follow Maruša on Twitter @LevstekMarusa
The main aim of this research was to better understand not only the effects music-making has on the young people and their wellbeing, but also how these changes take place and what particular aspects of such environments drive them. I have worked with young people, parents, and creative practitioners involved with inclusive music projects targeting young people recognised as marginalised, at risk, or otherwise in need of support. We used music tutors’ session notes and surveys about young people’s personal and social progress. I have conducted several focus groups and interviews with the staff members, parents, and young people themselves, which discussed how making music affects young people and why. The results enabled us to model the route of youth empowerment through music, which consists of identified developments, psychological mechanisms driving these changes as well as the environmental factors that appeared to be crucial in supporting these processes.
In particular, over the time of their engagement with the sessions, young people appeared to improve musically and socially, especially in their communication skills and ability to work in a team. Growth in confidence was mentioned in every single discussion, visible in young people gradually becoming more comfortable around others and increasingly more active in their engagement with the sessions. Music-making also appeared to have a huge positive impact on its participants’ wellbeing. Many described how young people became calmer and better at managing their moods and emotions while making music. Interestingly, such benefits were visible the most in those young people who seemed to particularly struggle at first. I have encountered incredible stories of socially anxious young people making new friends, non-verbal young people singing out loud and individuals with symptoms of ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) sitting still and just listening to music.
When exploring the underlying processes of such developments, there appear to be two main routes, one happening internally and the other in the context of the community formed around music. Making music, writing lyrics and developing personal music taste allows young people to explore and express their emotions and who they are. For this process to take place, I have learnt that it is crucial for tutors to allow the young people freedom of dictating their own musical learning within a structured framework (e.g. session regularity). This remarks the route of self-development, visible in increased wellbeing and calmness described above. The second route of development emphasises the significance of the community formed around the young people, practitioners and in some cases parents and youth workers. Although these young people come from different schools, friendship groups or neighbourhoods, there was always an incredible sense of connectedness, where everyone feels accepted and enough. Many reflected on the power of music in bringing people together, which was further nurtured by the incredible support participants offered each other, especially by those older or more able ones. Additionally, support, acceptance and validation offered by the staff members can be an unusual and unique experience for participants stigmatised by various sources of their marginalisation, for example disability, who might experience new versions of able and competent selves for the first time.
Working with such incredible music projects and being able to combine my love for music and psychology degree has made the best part of my PhD extremely enjoyable and unique. I was astonished by how welcoming and keen to share their experiences everyone has been, which has enabled me to not only survey but observe and experience the transformative power of music on everybody around it. Through this research, I realised how inclusive music projects provide marginalised young people with the tools for becoming active agents in dictating their own development and supporting others around them. Such opportunities can change the ways young people view themselves and even challenge the views of a wider audience through performance. This is why projects like Our Future Music can not only empower individuals, but also communities as a whole.
Please feel free to email me if you would like to reference the results of this project, read the academic paper, or just chat about my research. I truly hope these results will enable the continuation of such amazing projects and motivate for more in the future.
Since the beginning of March 2020, COVID-19 pandemic related news has been the main topic in the media. Medical experts have explained different methods to prevent the spread, and authorities in each country have implemented various strategies to deal with the effects of the virus in their country. However, certain groups are still affected disproportionately around the world. People with lower socioeconomic statuses and ethnic minority backgrounds are affected more because of various issues related to social and systemic inequality.
First, socio-economically lower ethnic minority groups are at higher risk considering their underlying health conditions. Because they have less economic resources, they can only receive minimal support from the health systems. Therefore, they are at greater risk of hospitalisation and death during the COVID-19 pandemic process. Second, overcrowded housing conditions also prevented them to make social distancing and self-isolation. Third, working-class ethnic minority groups are over-represented in key worker jobs such as nursing and medical jobs, cleaning-related jobs (e.g., hospital cleaners), and health care assistants. Therefore, they were not able to take all of the steps that authorities expect everybody to take.
On the news and media, we see that people are being blamed for spreading the pandemic. However, the reality was that communities often created their own strategies to adhere to the COVID-19 pandemic precautions, to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, and to keep the resources in the community while they were not able to follow the necessary steps from the authorities.
In Turkey, between the end of March and beginning of June, the time that people could spend outside was restricted by the authorities. During the weekends, Eid, and National holidays, the lockdown was applied. Before the restriction, we saw on the media and social media that while people who were under 20 were blamed for spreading the disease by being outside all the time, people who were over 65 were also blamed as if they were ignorant and uncaring. However, the reality was that many of those age groups had to either work in public places (such as open markets) or they had to do their shopping by themselves because there was nobody to take care of their needs. On the media, they voiced their concerns and government gave the responsibility to local authorities and police to address the needs of those people (e.g., in some cities police did the shopping for people who were over 65 years old). However, since different communities may have specific needs, community members needed to identify what type of support was needed because they were already familiar with the available resources and what was missing in the community. Therefore, they took their action by themselves instead of receiving support from the police.
Research suggests that in the case of an emergency or crisis, social support, solidarity, and cooperation can be seen at the collective level to increase the well-being of the community and serve a protective role. In addition, group members can decide which behaviours are safe and unsafe; therefore, they can self-regulate unsafe behaviour and encourage each other to engage in safe behaviour. Considering the COVID-19 situation in Turkey, in some communities, instead of getting help from government agencies, community members and neighbourhoods established some community rules to help each other.
In the apartment building where my family live, there are eight families and some of those family members are considered to be in the risky group (who have chronic lung and heart problems and who are over 65). In addition, we have three employees (my friends) who have to work every day who are also concerned about putting their family members at risk. In addition, we have one high school student who is forbidden to go out because she is under 20. Therefore, we had to take actions together to help our neighbours to be safe and healthy. In order to keep people safe by maintaining distancing, my friends, who had to go to work every day, found separate houses. One of them stayed with her brother and the others stayed with their friends from their workplaces. Considering the ages and health statuses, a high school student and I were two people who had the lowest risk of being affected by the disease. In addition, besides employees, I was the only young person who had a driving licence. Therefore, buying essentials from the shopping centre was my duty. After I washed the resources that I bought from the market, I gave them to the high school student; thus, she could deliver each bag to our neighbours.
After a while, we realized that in other apartments around our building, there were also other people who are not able to go shopping because of their health conditions. They contacted our families and we were also able to help those people too. We included those neighbours in our apartment’s WhatsApp group, so we could be sure that we meet everybody’s needs. As it was observed in different communities of different countries, in the case of COVID-19, mitigating virus spread became our shared goal so we could make distancing normative (see Templeton et al., 2020 for further examples).
What we have done with our neighbours was an example of how people unite and help each other during emergencies rather than being ignorant and careless. Even though the public was often misrepresented in the media, in many emergency contexts and different communities, people usually act as one and create ingroup norms to protect their community members to achieve shared goals. In other words, instead of selfish and thoughtless behaviours, we observed solidarity among people who help their community members during an emergency and disasters.
Green Impact is a University-wide scheme, run by the NUS, to encourage Schools to undertake sustainability activities.
This was Psychology’s first year taking part, and over the last year we have been working on various projects, big and small: maybe you noticed ‘switch off’ lights going up around Pevensey & BEED, our new catering policy, or our digital ‘Go Green Week’ celebrations.
We are delighted to announce that our sustainability work this year has been given a Gold in the 2020 Sussex Green Impact awards earlier this summer. Not only that, we were also given the special commendation of ‘Best Newcomer’, recognising how much we have done in just a short time. A big thank you goes to Fran B, Jolyon, Kiki, Lina, Lisa, Mar, Nicola, and Sophie for everything they have done for Psychology Green Impact this year.
If you are feeling inspired and fancy joining us next year (we are hoping to involve more students), you can join our Green Impact Officer, Dr Charlotte Rae, on Wednesday 29 July at 11am at our Green Impact Summer Social. Charlotte will talk about sustainability, and we’ll learn and share ideas, experiences and tips. No contribution too big or too small to make a difference! Share your ideas and help us live up to that Best Newcomer title!
Find out what the School of Psychology has been doing to be more sustainable and the School’s strategy for the future.
As always, if you have an idea for a sustainability change you would like to see in the School, send it to Charlotte Rae to get it on our to-do list for 2020-21.
Protests and riots that began in Minneapolis after police killed an unarmed African American have now spread to over 23 states. I recently led a large-scale programme of research on the wave of riots in England in 2011 to address the question of how such events spread. The UK and US waves were different in important ways – most obviously, in the US many of the collective events have been peaceful protests, whereas in England only the initial protest was peaceful. Yet there are some striking similarities between them, as well as with other waves of riots. This similarity suggests that some of the same processes are operating.
Black Lives Matter peaceful protest on 3.6.20 end of March from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square by Katie Crampton (WMUK) / CC BY-SA
It’s necessary to begin by examining the meaning of the precipitating incident and the social categories involved. What did ‘they’ do, and who are ‘we’?
In Minneapolis 2020, as in Tottenham in 2011 (and as in Watts 1965, Brixton 1981 and many others), actions by police officers against an individual encapsulated the whole relationship between a wider group and an institution. In each case, the violence inflicted was seen as embodying the history of relations between police and Black / African-American people, where police harassment, assault, and collective humiliation were a daily experience.
Our research found that a local history of police harassment was key predictor of which districts rioted in London in 2011. Other predictors were local deprivation and negative attitudes to the police. Research in the US has found that race is another predictor of where riots occur. These factors correlate, of course: African-Americans are more likely to live in deprived districts and to be subject to police harassment and killing.
But these factors are relatively constant. They help explain which cities riot, but they don’t tell us when and how protest or rioting in one city influences people in other cities to join a wave.
We found three types of social-psychological processes that helped explain how a wave occurs.
First, there is spread via a shared identity with those in other cities. This is where people in different locations each define themselves in terms of a similar shared history of injustice at racist policing and resistance to that injustice. Our interviewees said of the police killing of Mark Duggan in 2011, ‘that could have been me’ and ‘that could have been my friends’. This shared identity with those rioting in response to the killing provided a normative motivation to do the same in their own district: the police needed to be shown that they cannot get away with murder. In the case of the George Floyd events, African American identity, defined in terms of a history of police violence, is clearly a key factor leading people in many cities to feel the same sense of injustice and anger as those in Minneapolis. For these people, and for others who feel solidarity with African Americans, action to express that sense of injustice – including punishing the police – is an enactment of common identity.
Second, there is a process that social movement researchers call capacity to mobilize and protest researchers call collective efficacy. In our research, we use the term empowerment. This captures the experience of one’s social relations becoming transformed as power shifts from the police to the crowd. In the English riots, some participants didn’t necessarily identify with the original rioters. But they could see that a common outgroup — the police – were becoming weakened. This empowered them to participate in their own area, including going beyond the initial issue to enact long-standing grievances and desires.
People’s perceptions of the identity and empowerment of others was crucial. They came onto the streets when they not only identified with the other location or were empowered by police weakness but also believed that others locally felt the same way. This in turn was the basis of expectations of support for ingroup normative actions – in this case against the police and some properties.
The third process that helps explain riot spread concerns police perceptions. We found that previous rioting led to a heightened level of organizational vigilance in the police. This state of expectancy can lead to pre-emptive forms of police intervention — such as violent dispersal of a non-violent crowd. Where people in the crowd experience these police actions as illegitimate and indiscriminate, there are significant unintended consequences. Such actions by police serve to unite the crowd – both those who did not originally intend to fight and those who did — around a new norm of fighting back against the police.
Some of the coverage of the current wave of US riots has tried to suggest that powerful agitators are involved, with the implication that the crowd is easily swayed. Like the ‘contagion’ metaphor that is so frequently employed in these contexts, it suggests an unthinking crowd and therefore detracts from the meaningfulness of crowd action. Notions of mindless influence do not explain who joins in (and who doesn’t). Nor do they explain the widespread selectivity of targets. Such notions also let the authorities off the hook. As our research has shown, and the events across the US illustrate, the spread of riots is a complex social phenomenon grounded in collective definitions of identity, injustice, and changing power relations between groups.
John Drury is professor of social psychology at the University of Sussex. The Beyond Contagion project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, and carried out by John Drury, Roger Ball, Clifford Stott, Stephen Reicher and Fergus Neville
As part of our Green Commitment and to celebrate Gardening for Wildlife Week, we asked our School Administrator, Fran Barnard, to tell us about her wildlife garden and how she looks after it. Fran is a trained ecologist and in the past she has also led some of our student nature walks around the South Downs.
I am an accidental gardener.
I don’t recall ever making a conscious decision to become a gardener but
gradually over the years my garden has become more and more an integral part of
my being. I have amassed a wealth of
knowledge[1]
and a vast array of plant favourites. I
have also undergone a transformation in the way I garden and to coincide with
Garden & Wildlife week I’ve been asked to share some of the ways that I
encourage wildlife in my garden. As well
as writing this blog, I (and others) will share some garden wildlife pictures
on the School of Psychology Instagram account so do look out for these over the
coming week.
But first, a bit of context….
When I first started gardening, about 35 years ago, it seemed that most gardeners viewed wildlife as an enemy, a threat to everything they aspired to achieve: beautiful manicured lawns; ordered displays of bedding plants and old roses; riotously colourful herbaceous borders and plentiful crops of fruit and vegetables. Even now there are some who persist with the old ways but thankfully times and most gardeners have moved on. I was always uneasy about the way pesticides and herbicides were used in gardens – at University I studied Ecology which raised my awareness of the impact of chemicals on the environment. As a result, when I started gardening, I tried not to use too many chemicals. I still viewed wildlife as unwelcome in a garden setting though, just preferring to use less noxious[2] deterrents.
Just as I don’t recall ever deciding to become a gardener, I also don’t recall ever deciding to actively garden for wildlife. It just happened, organically[3] and today my garden is genuinely a haven to which I welcome all wildlife from slugs to silver-washed fritillaries and from snakes to the sinuous and snake-like cinquefoil that is ubiquitous[4]. This richness of life is supported by a richness of different environments and over the next few months in a series of blogs I thought I would share with you a little of the joy that these bring to me. I will start with my favourite – the compost heap.
“Compost?” I hear you say. I appreciate that this may not be everyone’s starting point but to me, my composting system is a thing of beauty. It took me about 8 years to establish a balanced and sustainable process, in part because of the challenge of becoming custodian of three mature oaks trees and having to learn by trial and error how to compost oak leaves, but now that it is established, each year it produces a wonderful supply of dark, rich and crumbly organic compost which gets used in planters and as a top dressing to improve soil quality in our flower and fruit beds.
For me, the beginning and end of the cycle is the annual turning of the composts in September which is something akin to the burning of the clocks[5] or a harvest festival. Truly a celebration, albeit one that involves a significant amount of work. There are six separate sections to my composting system and each year, each section is turned into the next. At one end of the system I collect leaves from the oak trees which get composted for three years. At the other end I collect green garden waste which is composted for two years. Finally, the 3-year old leaf litter and 2-year old green garden waste compost is sieved, by hand and mixed together in the central section ready for use. It is seriously hard work but incredibly worthwhile and fulfilling.
One of Fran’s cats checking the composting boxes are correctly packed
Whilst composting is in progress a haven is created for lots of different wildlife. From the creatures small (and not so small) that make the composting process happen to other creatures who make it their home. We have had wasps nesting, mice, shrews and voles and one year I found some already hatched grass snake eggs in one of the older sections. Imagine my joy and surprise when I found the adult with one baby in the next section I turned. Although I haven’t seen evidence of nesting since, I do see grass snakes once or twice a year in the garden which I think is really good evidence of just what a wildlife-friendly garden it is. As the photos show the freshly sieved compost also proves popular with some of the more domesticated wildlife that shares my life.
I hope you have enjoyed this brief insight into one of my
passions. Next time around, my second
favourite – the wildlife pond which I created (with just a little help from a
professional landscaper with a mini digger) from nothing.
Watch this space….
If you want to get more inspiration for your own wildlife garden, check our Instagram account where Fran will be sharing some tips all week.
[1] In the grand scheme of things my ‘wealth’ of knowledge is a tiny fraction of what there is to know
[2] The collection of very old garden chemicals awaiting disposal in my garage suggests that I may actually be rewriting history a little here.
“Be kind to your mind and your body, especially during these times.” This is one of the encouraging things my yoga teacher says every evening via our Zoom class. While there is a small part of me that feels reassured hearing these words repeated often, it is also with feelings of guilt and heaviness that I cannot shake.
New Delhi during COVID-19 lockdown
I arrived back to New Delhi in mid-March, after spending six weeks in Sussex where I am currently a distance PhD student. That was one week before the nation-wide lockdown was introduced in India, and one day before the international borders were closed (which I did not know when I changed my ticket to arrive back to India a few days earlier than planned!). It was a 40-hour journey instead of the usual 8-9 hours, with a long unexpected delay mid-way. I waited and slept in the airport wait areas, washed my hands obsessively every time I touched anything, worried constantly about the surface of the coffee table where I was working, and paced endlessly up and down the corridors of the eerily empty airport that is usually bustling with people and activity. I made it back to life in New Delhi that was “normal” for just a few days, as normal as self-quarantining can be I guess, until the national curfews were announced and normal life as I knew it changed.
Much like the rest of the world, India too has witnessed unprecedented and extraordinary times in the last three months. The situation has exposed, both, our individual struggle to cope and find resilience, and our shared struggle against what feels like an insurmountable set of structural inequalities and injustices. In India the COVID-19 situation has had a disproportionately adverse effect especially on those who are poor and vulnerable, in other words, a vast majority of Indians. The situation most Indians found themselves in overnight was unthinkable. So many were, and still are, separated from families, young children, elderly parents and loved ones who are in different states of the country. Even international media has been flooded with stories of thousands of Indian migrant workers walking, sometimes, hundreds of miles, to get home, with many dying or injured along the way, traveling with no food or provisions. Many have lost their entire income overnight and have no social security or welfare schemes to rely on, and will be plunged into destitution, if they are not already, as a result of the lockdown. India’s situation is a glaring example of a country where hasty policy decisions because of the potential health crisis have had unprecedented and potentially irreversible effects on the economic and social sectors. The last three months in India have been characterized by stress, anxiety and fear over the virus itself, the uncertainty of food security, recommencement of one’s employment or business, ability to access health care if you are sick, or access to travel back home to your family. Many have said, accurately, that poverty and starvation will kill countless more Indians long before any virus will.
Rajiv (name changed), a construction worker who migrated to Delhi for work, lives just next door to me in a house that is semi-demolished, without a proper roof and with limited electricity. He is there alone and does not have a phone and cannot read or write. He is making do with the erratic food distribution provided by the state government, and through food support I and other neighbours provide. The lockdown prevented him and many others in his predicament from even leaving the buildings they were in; with no clear understanding for the past three months about when his job will recommence. Rajiv, however, considers himself lucky as he has a roof and access to some food.
This has been a time where I have been forced to introspect, and reflect on the situation of both, what is happening in my mind, and also especially what is happening around me, situations I cannot fully comprehend or make sense of. When thinking about the plight of millions in my city and country, Rajiv next door, and my own worries or anxieties during this time, I think that the very least we can do as a community is try to exercise empathy and compassion towards each of these situations and people. We must extend a helping hand and listening ear to others wherever we can, but also, pause for a moment to reflect on the impacts that the situation unfolding around us has on our wellbeing too.
Pattie Gonsalves is doing a PhD under the supervision of Dr Daniel Michelson. She is also a Project Director at Sangath (India) with the PRIDE research programme, and leads It’s Ok To Talk, a national anti-stigma campaign for young people’s mental health in India.
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