Master of Science in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Investigation

Exploring Psychology



The University of Liverpool, and its School of Psychology, has drawn upon its global reach of international practitioners and academics to create its first online postgraduate programme in the field of forensic psychology and criminal investigation.

Their MSc in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Investigation is designed for individuals currently involved in the process of criminal investigation, or for those who have an active and passionate interest in the psychology of crime, criminals and investigation.

Graduates will be aware of the issues, skills and techniques required to become a highly competent psychology professional, or to apply psychological principles in their careers. The initial core modules of the programme cover the principles of leadership, critical incident management and crisis intervention, team effectiveness, judgement and decision making.

Click Here For More Information.

---

Please share this Psychology Blog Post with others by adding it to your social bookmarks.

---

www.all-about-psychology.com

A Free & Comprehensive Guide to The World of Psychology

---

Master of Science in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Investigation

Children as young as six can tell when you're faking a smile

Whether it's the awkward coincidence of meeting your boss in the supermarket aisle or a humourless joke by a new date, what would we do without the fake smile? It's not that the fake is all that convincing. Apparently most adults can tell the difference - the lopsidedness of the mouth and lack of creasing around the eyes gives it away. But the fact that the faker is trying their best to send a positive signal somehow saves face all round. Well, most of the time anyway.

Of course when you're dealing with a child you'd probably like to think you can pull a fake smile and they won't realise. 'Yes darling, that's a beautiful drawing' - big smile, encouraging voice. Indeed, past research suggested children can't tell a fake smile from a genuine one until about the age of nine or ten. But now a new study with a different methodology suggests that estimate may have to be brought forward to age six.

Pierre Gosselin's team at the University of Ottawa and Laurentian University devised a simpler paradigm than used previously. Sixty boys and girls aged six to seven and nine to ten watched pairs of videos of actors pulling either: a genuine smile (symmetrical, eyes creased); a lop-sided fake (eyes creased but asymmetrical intensity); or a mouth-only smile (symmetrical, no eye creasing). Each pair contained either two smiles of the same type or two different types. The children's task was to say whether the smiles were the same type or not.

Their accuracy wasn't great (around 60 per cent) but it was high enough to show that, based on either creasing around the eyes or symmetry, the kids were able to tell the difference between the smile types better than if they had simply been guessing. The younger children were also just as accurate as the older children.

Telling the different types of smile apart visually is only half the job. A second study tested whether another batch of children could read the appropriate meaning into the different smiles. The stimuli were the same as before but this time children successfully identified that the faces with genuine smiles were happier than those with lopsided or mouth-only smiles. At around 60 per cent, accuracy once again wasn't brilliant but was better than if they'd been guessing. This time, performance was better among the older children thus suggesting, as you'd expect, that detecting fake smiles is a skill that improves with age.

'The fact that six- and seven-year-old children are sensitive to the asymmetry of smiles and Cheek Raiser activity [creasing around the eyes] suggests they already have a significant amount of experience with social influence, and particularly with the use of smiles in social interactions,' the researchers said.
_________________________________

Gosselin, P., Perron, M., & Maassarani, R. (2009). Children's ability to distinguish between enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles. Infant and Child Development DOI: 10.1002/icd.648

Bloggers behind the blogs: David DiSalvo

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews with some of the world's leading psychology and neuroscience bloggers.

Next up, David DiSalvo of Brainspin and Neuronarrative.

How did you become a psychology/neurosci blogger?

I've always been curious about psychology and spent a lot of time in college reading Erickson, Piaget, Freud, Jung, Adler and others (though I wasn't pursuing a psychology degree). I eventually took a class on 'Neurobiology' that cemented my interest in the psych-neuroscience vector. I've been an active follower of research developments in those fields ever since -- and have applied the knowledge in research I've conducted to support public health and other public education outreach campaigns. A few years hence, I finally got around to documenting my interests in a blog.

What's your blog's mission?

My mission is to make research findings accessible to a broad audience, and to engage experts in various psych-neurosci related disciplines to share their knowledge with my blog's readers.

Are you also on Twitter - if so, how do the two outlets complement each other?

Yes, I'm on Twitter as @Neuronarrative and I find that the two complement each other very well. I use Twitter mainly to send new post updates, but also to generate interest for other blogs that I enjoy reading.

How does your blogging affect your day job?

At times it can be a difficult balance to maintain, but in general it works without too much difficulty. Very often I pull late nights working on posts, but it's worth it.

What are your weapons of choice - i.e. what blogging platform / hardware do you use and why?

I use Wordpress, chiefly because it was the easiest platform to launch quickly and change over time. I house the blog on their server, which means I don't have the same flexibility I'd have if I housed it myself, but the logistics of doing so just weren't practical when I launched. Eventually I may shift to a more customizable platform.

What advice do you have for any budding psychology bloggers out there?

My advice is that you should follow your passion for the subject and make that passion evident in your blog. But, never lose sight that the discipline deserves your full investment. Don't try to take on something you aren't prepared to thoughtfully, judiciously and honestly engage. There are too many mediocre and barely credible blogs out there (to say nothing of the flatly bad ones), so don't waste time creating another one. If you're going to do it, do it right —which includes (but is certainly not limited to) devoting a substantial amount of time to research and writing, and reading voraciously.

What blogs do you read (list up to five)?

Tough question because I read so many. If I had to limit the list to the top 5, I'd say: Mind Hacks, BPS Research Digest, Psyblog, The Neurocritic, and Changizi Blog.

What books or other traditional media are you reading at the moment? (up to five)

I'm reading Timothy Ferris' The Science of Liberty, and recently finished Shenna Iyengar's The Art of Choosing (for which I'm writing a review in Scientific American Mind), and also recently read The Vision Revolution by Mark Changizi. I enjoyed Mark's book so much that I asked him to do an interview with me for Neuronarrative, which he graciously did.

And finally, what blog post of yours are you most proud of and why?

You know, I'm not really sure how to answer that question, so I'm going to shift the emphasis just a little and say that I'm very proud of the interviews I've conducted with notables in psych, neuroscience and related disciplines. Taken together as a singular body of work, I'm most proud of them.