One way of saying thank you

After I’d cross-posted my last blog entry onto the B07 Facebook group, some one asked me if I was still using the notes I’ve published here to help support a charity. Back in 2010 I asked readers of this blog to think about contributing to the HOPEHIV charity – and we jointly managed to raise around £700.

The justgiving page I created for this purpose is long since closed, but if you’d like to make a donation to HOPEHIV I know that it would be appreciated by them and used well. Their own donation page is here should you wish . . . → Read More: One way of saying thank you

Mopping up week

There’s nothing like an OUPS revision weekend to reignite my enthusiasm for psychology and focus my mind on the task in hand – the exam on the afternoon of 13th October. When I got home on Sunday evening, I decided that this week needed to be ‘mopping up week’. My list of tasks was/is as follows:

1. Decide which three of the four blocks from the course I’m going to revise. That task was easy and I’d already come to the conclusion that the block on social selves (2) was going to have to go, as it has four chapters . . . → Read More: Mopping up week

Nearly there

I didn’t manage to get DD307 TMA05 done before I set off on holiday, so my laptop and books all came with me. It somehow felt appropriate though to be writing about intergroup conflict while I was watching the news from home. I hope everyone who reads this blog has managed to stay safe.

In the end, I managed to write what I hope is a half decent essay. Billig’s criticism of SIT is quite a slippery one to get to grips with. I’m just concerned that my essay really wasn’t critical enough and rather repetitive in some places. . . . → Read More: Nearly there

DD307 Block 5 – Group Processes

It’s amazing how a little thing like an approaching holiday can concentrate the mind.

In the last few days, I’ve managed to read and make notes on two of the three ‘group processes’ chapters of DD307. So it’s farewell to prejudice & conflict and intragroup processes! I’m even managing to get through the TMA05 chapter on intergroup processes too. This is just as well, as I only have this weekend left in which to write my essay if I’m not going to be scrabbling around for an internet connection while I’m in Cyprus. It wasn’t too difficult to find one . . . → Read More: DD307 Block 5 – Group Processes

DD307 – Attitudes

I’ve been catching up with a bit of note making today by finishing off my scribbles on the attitudes chapter of the critical readings book. As I was reading it, I was reminded of an old episode of “Yes Minister” where Sir Humphrey demonstrates that depending on the sequence of questions being asked (or the context, as Potter and Wetherell might call it), the same person can appear to have an entirely different and contradictory attitude in response to the same question “are you in favour of reintroducing national service?”

 

1-0 to the discursive psychologists I think!

. . . → Read More: DD307 – Attitudes

DD307 – Sniggering at the Social Psychoanalytical approach

I’ve just finished making my notes on ‘Self’ – chapter 5 of the DD307 Social Psychology Matters course book. Again, it’s been an interesting and thought-provoking read. I was particularly taken by the phenomenological approach to self as illustrated by the Ashworth and Ashworth research into how carers can better relate to Alzheimer’s sufferers. It struck me as being an eminently sensible and reasonable approach – and one which was generating “proper” knowledge that was genuinely useful.

However, I found myself sniggering all the way through the case study on “Vince” (and “Esther” too for that matter), which formed one . . . → Read More: DD307 – Sniggering at the Social Psychoanalytical approach

SD226 and DD307 – first week progress report

I know it’s not really my first week on either of these courses, but with the official start dates for both DD307 and SD226 behind me, I can feel the clock ticking towards the DD307 exam and the SD226 ECA. Or whatever it’s now officially called. Even after four years I can’t keep on top of all of the OU acronyms and abbreviations and their changes; I know that both DD307 and SD226 are now modules, yet I’ve already called them courses in this post.

Progress on DD307 is good, I think. I have a fairly reasonable effort at TMA01 . . . → Read More: SD226 and DD307 – first week progress report