psychology – Page 2 – projects

150 years old

Living longer – to do what?

Dr. David Sinclair is at the leading edge of understanding, and possibly not only slowing but reversing the ageing process. I leave several links to podcasts and science papers at the end of this blog. Maybe you watched my recent 3 minutes response to a question of future-skilling for project in 2030 {LinkedIn or here}. With Sinclair’s 2017 book Lifespan in hand, my own perspective was to challenge the relatively recent phenomena of retirement as a social norm. Whether a longer life, even as a possibility, should be the societal prompt to rethink the second half of life. To which the question of a contemporary up skill seems suddenly almost a necessity if a 40 year career suddenly becomes 60 years or more.

This is neither a science-fiction dystopia or utopia. This is science today. The science literature is deep, and widespread across top tier academia. Dr. Sinclair and his lab for example are at Harvard Medical School. He is pretty adamant that humans are already walking among us who will live to 150. Controversial, but mainstream in discourse. Some of the everyday practices that are promoted are as simple as fasting, low to no meat diets, exercise, and supplements that are already available on the high street. We are also promised something more is in the ether. For now however, simply living a lifestyle that the longest living communities on earth have followed for generations – with some 21st Century science – is all that is deemed necessary for now.

My lingering questions are already shifting toward societal implications. Imagining the impact of a whole workforce gifted time to retrain, re-educate, reset, rather than retire. Seeking to be self motivated in endeavour into a much deeper term in life. The value we could all add with more time. But is that really what we will be doing with such a gift? Or such a curse?

One thing it will do is recalibrate social consciousness. Maybe I’m too idealistic in my hope that this will be for the better. But few pensions could hope to last long – and trust funds may not get passed on quite so quick. What would therefore emerge? An even greater desire to accumulate more materials, consume more, do less on harder working cash. Or does a sense of purpose become more central to a longer time at the wheel?

Most projects have a forced time line. Derived from hidden agenda of something or someone we never get to see. Does time become more valued – as a tool not a constraint – if we have more of it available? Do asset management decisions become more long-term? Is asset life-cycle and whole asset life thinking finally to see the light of day? Now that we are potentially not only still alive but also still involved when it comes to the long-term impacts of short-term decisions? Imagine having to explain your decisions from 50 years ago and still be threatened with societal scorn for 50 years more. What would our politics look like if we were to start demanding accountability of the long-term goals? Demanded because we were still likely to be around to pay the toll. Do we cry foul more reverently when its our future at stake? What happens when our parents and our children are all grown up and actively working – 3 generations looking the same age? The saga holiday replaced by the 18 to 80 holiday. Do the wider imbalances in society and globally become more exaggerated or diluted as lifetimes of grudges never fade, or altruistic sentiments are given longer to take centre stage. Does the planet now have a say? Or does our political map end our play?

There is a psychology theory that states our decision options are directly related to our sense of mortality. It’s an interesting experiment you can all play at home. Introduce the idea of death into a conversation. The “Terror” of death psychologically directing a more colloquial point of view. In this context, is a more distant death a gateway to a more rational account of what we really cannot live without.

I’ve no interest in living that long. But I’m happy enough to plan to be working on. And well into the days that others have to assume it is them – not their children’s children – that must work these 21st Century realities out.

Below: David Sinclair website and podcast. Plus one paper that offers some of the science, dated 2014.

https://www.lifespanpodcast.com/nmn-nr-resveratrol-metformin-and-other-molecules-for-longevity/

The Intersection Between Aging and Cardiovascular Disease. North, Brian J ; Sinclair, David A PHILADELPHIA: American Heart Association, Inc Circulation research, 2012-04-13, Vol.110 (8), p.1097-1108

In the shadows

Neuroscience or psychoanalysis

That seems to be the question at large for me this term. I have no idea where I’ll land between the two, or indeed if the two can be reconciled. But 21st Century neuroscience and early 20th Century ideas, earlier philosophical perspectives, all getting plenty of attention until May.

I’ve plenty of prior experience of the later. First hand experience of its validation as a recovery tool. And as a means to model much besides. But it’s the neuroscience that’s making the breakthroughs.

I hope to offer some insight to both as I progress. I anticipate project management could only stomach the science. But let’s see. There’s much that gets repressed in any project, that makes itself known from the shadows at the worst possible time.

Perspectival challenges await…

Examination of learning

Did I miss the party?

My final examination from my first semester concluded today. I am delighted to be back with a little time to blog again. It’s perhaps also for the best that I remained silent through party-gate. Nearly two years into a lockdown to protect my wife from SARS-Covid-19 leaves little room to laugh at covert shenanigans and overt abuses of power.

My examination frenzy leaves me a little shell-shocked this evening. A gap left as revision and wider reading in huge volume is replaced by a realisation of just how much of slog that really was.

All worth it though. It’s a good stress in the short term which always leaves me feeling empowered with learning I can apply – having been given every chance to know what to know and why. My occasional LinkedIn engagement intentionally finding overlap between new learning and professional interest.

I now have a decent first layer of grounding in contemporary cognitive psychology. The current positions explaining pathways of information from the outside world to conscious or subconscious thought; the written and spoken mechanics we use; and the manners of recall that arise. I have a decent foundational understanding of the socialised psychology that is helping explain why and how we interact. Plus a statistical grounding on how experiment is analysed in psychology, neurology, and the sciences at large. I can therefore now read such academic papers with some semblance of what the analytics are attempting to convey.

Next is developmental psychology; neuroscience in more depth; and intermediate level statistics. Psychology is in transition. As is our understanding of the human condition. And I am getting a front row seat. A project of change, indeed.

To be continued…

Is distraction good for you?

Distraction as an action, not a reaction

I am constantly distracted, when I want to be. My early years school reports concluded it was a trait to tame. But these days it is quite intentional. Or at least with my adult brain, I kid myself the same. Because we are each distracted whether we like to be or not.

As I continue to stretch my understanding of projects, and of people, and the paradigms that connect them both, so the distractions constantly bombard my mind. Not that I am unusual. It is the natural tendency of all of us. Part of our innate complexity, the brain’s counterpoint, constantly optioneering. It is only the awareness of this fact that we get to change.

We can train a warrior-like discipline. Learn to control urges and withstand pain. But there is more to this than will-power, at least if we want to be more than just a summation of sub-routines to repeat and engrain.

This is what we can do when meditating. We are taking interest in distraction. Even if that interest is just intending means to not be distracted. Or, we may be learning to positions ourselves behind distraction, sitting along-side it, or taking perspective from it. We may simply be learning to confront it, or finds ways to calm it. Both ancient practices and modern science are informing us we need to spend as much time outwardly focused as we do inwardly aware.

This is also what we do when we communicate. We invite, or attempt to initiate, distraction. We are presenting new perspective to another. We are receiving new perspective from another. We may be sharing or discovering new perspectives with each other. Meditating is one example of an active means of understanding this. Communication is an active way of doing much the same beyond our individual minds.

A distraction reaction, in action

By way of example of this in practice, I offer an observation I wrote in passing in a post on LinkedIn today. At the time, I had been reviewing some documents for work. On my mind were preparations for exams for my MSc in January. Yet my eyes and hands conspired to click onto LinkedIn. Subconsciously, my brain was asking for a dopamine hit to feed the addiction that now claims us all. So this was itself a distraction from the tasks upon my desk.

This is most pertinent to those who say yes too much. It’s important to find yourself doing so, and consider why. If being helpful is your curse, consider what you are not able to do because of all you have agreed to do. Crucially, check if the things you cannot now do are actually more important. Even more importantly, be honest with yourself and challenge your answer. Because behind all of this may be fear of that bigger thing. The more important thing. The thing that is harder to say yes to, maybe closer to your goal. Being busy serving others without clarity of why this is your best path, may be taking a heavy long-term toll.
Chances are the one thing someone has asked you to do that challenges you the most, is the one thing you find reason to say no to.
Saying no more often is step two. Step one is saying yes to those rarer opportunities that you doubt you can do, and that people less regularly request.
Step three is finding your own yes. Then its other people that think twice about saying no, to you.
My observations on LinkedIn 22 Dec 2021

This was my response to a poll on LinkedIn, asking “are you a “YES” person? How often do you say NO?”

It was only from responding to this post, and then returning to a specific query I was fielding, that brought both items together. The recurring project problem I was looking at was one part feeling obliged to say “yes” to even more formal reporting, when their better perspective could be offered by doing more, and reporting less. Which therefore required them to find constructive ways of saying “no”.

Learn how to channel your distractions

This is what we do in every moment of every day. We manage distraction, demands of attention, but in doing so we encourage a lateral connectivity. Each brain is wired slightly differently, nature makes this inevitably the way. We are the aggregation of our experience, and no two are therefore the same. The machinations of experiences creating happenstances that a more mechanised and optimised singular focus would not.

We also have much going on within the brain that is intentionally acting without our awareness. There is no conscious decision-making in temperature control or heart-beat, but nor is there is cognitive function of reading, or recoiling from something hot. We may not even need the brain at all to regulate the gut. We are however, a rarity of biological sets of processes to have some illusion of awareness at all. It is this awareness that enables each of us to compare. To be situationally aware. And by our abstraction of the real, both mull over internally but also externally share.

This is where much of the psychological, philosophical, and neuroscience debate still rages on. There is still plenty of room too for the debates of ethical, moral, theological, and physical. Objective, subjective, or existential.

For me, these are each fascinating discussions and debates. Some have been ebbing and flowing for 2,500 years. It is the cause of much of the distraction I now welcome every day. For it is this awareness of the perspectival, the conflicting, and the nuanced, that keeps me at my desk. Typing away.

Relate better to your distractions. Learn when to say “yes”, and when to say “no”. It is just part of the happenstance we may invite but not intend, in our human way.

Something for the weekend

Moderna and flu cocktail – that’ll do

A few quiet days post vaccines is a minimal price to pay for some added protection in casa Beardall. Essay writing and research limping along. Here is one part of a question (with only 750 words permitted) which seems nicely appropriate, all things considered:

Steven travels a short distance to a shop and then realises he doesn’t have a face mask, although current guidelines state that it is compulsory to wear in the shop. He feels a strong uncomfortable tension between going inside anyway and returning home to get a mask, but eventually he decides to go inside anyway. Subsequently he decides to stop wearing masks so often and does not feel bad about it. Use social psychology theory to explain to Steven why he might feel and behave this way.
Ongoing essay

I will blog about this at a later date, because the wider subject matter here is fascinating and relevant to much besides. I would not give it justice today. Plus, I suspect it would be bad form to present too much on live and graded homework.

Instead, a little mindfulness share. Day 6 of advent, and this note is one of those I remember through the year and seems to grow in resonance each advent.

Think of all that has brought this to your plate

With jabs and fevers on the wain, maybe I’m started to feel a hint of Christmas. Back with more cheer tomorrow.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

advent, christmas, psychology

National shame – but it will happen again

It could have been worse

If England had won the European Cup Final in 2020, people may well have died. So says the findings of the Baroness Louise Casey report into the events surrounding England fans shameful scenes around Wembley stadium last year. BBC article here. What a sentiment that is. Conclusions based upon “up to 6,000 people planning to storm the stadium at full-time to celebrate as the gates opened”.

The report suggests there were preparation failures. Failure to plan for “foreseeable risk”. Indications that additional strain on resources from Covid19 related issues played a role. But ultimately concluding that a large number of people’s behaviours were fuelled via externally sourced chemicals (alcohol and cocaine I assume), not internally generated excitement for an event. No great surprise there, perhaps. At least not to anyone who has visibility of what normal is deemed to be for many revellers in 21st Century Britain.

The report’s recommendations are mainly behaviourally focused:

Empowering authorities to act more strongly
“a sea-change in attitudes towards supporter behaviours”
Better communication between agencies
increased awareness of the unique challenges of such major events

My own view on these recommendations is they represent a misunderstanding of social psychology. They also mistake unpredictability of behaviours and the possibility of control. In this mis-placed behavioural assessment, I think we just invite rhetoric without real change. Much as other reports into other incidents fall into this same trap.

Three of these recommendations are based upon the temporal interface between prior planning and real-time adaptability. Visibility of a plan is best supported by the shared nature of its creation. This is communication in advance, the sharing of expected range of possible outcomes, and the collaborative nature of what is to be implemented. The empowerment element here then offers a change to the constraints, or better awareness of what they are, and what the systems of control are thereby intended to manage.

But none of these measures are relevant unless the planning is backed up by training and practical empowerments at ground level in real time. This is what the High Reliability Organisation (HRO) reflects. Increased visibility of the bigger picture based upon clarity of goals, clarity of roles and responsibility, and empowerment of those closest to the situation to act. It is also empowerment to act whilst accountability remains at the senior positions that have overseen the development of both plan and the control environment that contain all. Itself an expectation on leadership to serve, be authoritative rather than just have authority, and a shared understanding that pushing upwards rather than demanding more downwards, requires more understanding of layers of leadership intent on serving, not being served.

The “sea-change of attitude” of fans is a nonsense. It is a wishful remark with no actionable end. The only attitude that can be managed is the attitude of authority to be more cohesive, collaborative, and accountable for the functionality of control. I am all for addressing wider changes of attitude. But this is a societal level aim, and cannot possibly be targeted simply in the name of an event.

Projects of control to support change

These same sentiments can be examined at other scales. I look at the Grenfell aftermath with the same concerns for what is now being challenged. I look at the sad, sad, story of Arthur Labingo-Hughes. Sitting alongside a ridiculous fiasco of failed safety controls behind Alec Baldwin’s “it just went off in my hand, guv” defence.

We can always find someone or something to blame. But for me we keep coming back to a failure of control. A failure to adequately contain, and the permission of authority to look away. Not because of the event, but because of the manner of constraint, empowerment, colloquial interest, and evasion of accountability by those not motivated to think beyond themselves.

Every single one of us fails this test each time we look to an individual entity to shoulder the blame. If we are serious about a “sea-change of attitude” that puts us all in the frame.

I think we should be expecting more challenge to the infrastructure of control, when it is shown to have failed. Otherwise, what trust should we have that controls are now better placed to adapt. We should be asking “what is now different” so that it will be better contained, when it inevitably happens again…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

behaviour, being present, communication, control, psychology

The advent of mindfulness

Being more, not having more

Here’s a little psychological trick to prompt a cheerier mood.

When something or someone important is about to arrive, it is the advent of this arrival we are experiencing. In itself therefore, advent is a reflection upon change. A state of being, becoming something new. This concept is completely scalable, to make it more meaningful to you.

I struggle with the commercialism of Christmas. Once warmed by the spirit of the Christmas season, I tend to be more thoughtful to what it can instead represent beyond faith or materialism. So here I present my first day of the advent calendar, with a nod to perspectives that makes most sense to me.

Be attentive to what goes into a moment

Being loving – and taking a moment to be thankful for all that entails.

My wife and I met nearly 30 years ago. She is so thoughtful. And organised. She bakes great mince-pies (and knows my taste in chocolate)…

She presented me a wonderful gift in 2019. An advent jar. Containing a little mindfulness message each day.

Approaching the advent, mindfully

Below is the message from that first mindfulness advent message. I re-ordered and numbered each re-useable message – an old self thinking of my future self. I can read each daily message with some semblance of order that make the most sense to me. In this first message, keeping perspective on tasks is a great message to kick-off the month.

Tree Beardall

It takes me about a week to warm-up to the idea of Christmas. I am the Grinch in November, and possibly early December.

My own house rule is that I can only consume Christmas foods once the Christmas Tree is up. That helps shift my mindset the right way – even if under duress. This year, our tree went up on Saturday 27th November…

Is it beginning to feel a lot like Christmas? Not quite, but getting there… …mindfully.

v | b | t

That’s a little window (visibility) into how I start early to get to Christmas in good cheer. Psychologically, this is pre-emptive behavioural change to induce attitude change. The current self trusting in a prior known process, and encouraging the advent of my festive self… (or is that the Festive Elf?).

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

behaviour, christmas, mindfulness, psychology

Mentally healthy

What’s going on in there?

‘tis the season to be jolly. La la la la … meh

Depressions can build to breaking point this time of year. Our tree went up yesterday but it did little to lift my cheer. I reminded myself of some basics tonight, and have opted to link to the resources here.

I’m doing fine. But I know how willingly I stayed blind. It’s an open mind that learns more. It’s a depressed mind that knows this best, and does everything to not want to know. I’ve been there. But in knowing, I have ways and means these days.

Here’s a few links to explain the brain processes involved. I’m not qualified to make more informed comment. At least not yet. Although experience perhaps counts too.

Khan Academy showing brain areas of note

Dirty Medicine explaining depression types and how medication helps

Dr. Robert Sapolsky explaining all, in detail and in plain English

Keep an open mind to keeping a healthy mind. Talk. Find expert help. Rebuild.

Action today gifts a better tomorrow.

Congratulations! You’ve just made it through the first step. And it’s not even December yet…

—-//—-

PhD and me

PhD funding – plan B

Many postgraduate students are not fully funded on their course. This can be a tough ask when taking research through a PhD. This blog presents some sources and options of funding not always known or publicised.

My thanks to University of Nottingham and Postgraduate-Funding.com for permission to share these insights. UoN for hosting. Postgraduate-Funding.com (the alternative guide to postgraduate funding) for presenting a detailed UoN student session on-line, this month.

The Grad-Funding team would also like me point out the accompanying “Alternative Guide” on their website is freely accessible to the majority of students in the UK. This service has nearly 100 subscribing universities. Students can check if their university subscribes on the website under ‘List of University Subscribers‘. I was also advised that other subscribing universities are rather less proactive in publicising the Guide to their students than Nottingham. The Postgraduate-Funding team concluded that all publicity is welcome – therefore please feel free to share this blog.

My thanks to Lucy as the presenter on the day. Her first tip was to check out a few bios on their website. There will always be someone there who has been where you are now. Here is the link to the alternative funding homepage.

Plan B – What to do if the full funding option is not attained.

Building a portfolio of awards.

Research costs can be an unexpected reality check. External factors, or necessary changes from the research itself. This may be as study expenses, write-up challenges, the robustness to disaster recovery (many PhD students had to rework their post-Covid realities). Before starting any funding applications you will need to have clear ideas of what costs are in the pre-planned – but there are always unknowns – and more need to know beyond applications for loans.

Key first step is what is cash needed for. Tuition, maintenance, or costs associate with the research itself. Funding very often needs this disclosed upfront. Some funding will only include or expressly exclude:

tuition (UK or beyond)
maintenance: rent costs, bills, food, clothes, mobile
dissertation costs (field work, travel)
conference costs
books
printing

Portfolio funding

A portfolio approach is normal. Meaning there is an expectation that more than one source of funding is being sourced, particularly if larger sums are required. Funding sources may range from £50 – £8,000. The more typical range is £500-£2.000. Hence the portfolio approach becomes the typical strategy. Some will fund year to year. Some will be more responsive before course starts (with offer) others once course has started.

PhD Government loans up to £27,570 1st August 2021 – these are not means tested but not such loans tend to be loaned in draw-down amounts, at least yearly. A loan will not preclude funding. Funding will not preclude a loan. But each is informing the other. All in (i.e., course and research costs and living and studying) a 3 year PhD is going to need more than this loan.

Blitz or targeted – either way this will take some time

Expect a need to spread widely if seeking large amounts. The example offered was 120 applications; 24 responses; converting to 4 successful applications. This is termed the industrious approach. Width of reach.

The targeted approach is advised if smaller sums needed and better success rate. Depth of understanding of the nature of the funder concerned.

Some key sources to seek out

There are more avenues of funding. This alternative guide to graduate funding gives a good scope of what they may include.

100’s of funding charities. This includes education charities specifically aimed at students looking for post-graduate help.

Crowdfunding – can be successful with good sales pitch and with clear goals that people will be excited by. Sharing the journey is generally a key part of the process.

Specific university assistance – Nottingham University will have more information to inform what is available directly from the graduate school or department. Note the Student Hardship Funds and the associated national assessment guidelines. Worth approaching to see if PG applications are permitted or more information on what else in available at this institutional level.

Alternative funding – Charities, Foundations, Learned Societies, and Trusts

1,000s in UK. Many set up by private benefactors with specific causes or interest in mind. Check the following – and build your own database

criteria
eligibility (or close fit)
history of the charity – understand why it was established (their goals)
minimum and maximum grants – (rule of thumb is ask for 25%-50% of max). Asking for the maximum may make your case less likely to be chosen over four cases each asking for 25% vs your 100% of max.
deadlines – note many trusts may be small and only work with paper applications. Have in mind that many of these trusts are administered from private charitable trusts or foundations. Expect to be applying with stamped addressed envelopes not email or websites.
All applications will want to know what the career path looks like post this education. Contact thereafter may also become a means to pay forward.

Building the list

Have in mind flexibility beyond the parameters of a charity or trust. Note many charities will only pay to an organisation (e.g. the university).

institution
alternative guide online
other universities
scholarship search, cf. postgraduatestudentships.co.uk; researchprofessional.com; unigrants.co.uk
Research and Development Funding List
General Charity Search Engines (e.g., Turn2us)

Other information resources to check out

It is worth looking at other websites. Nottingham website has a list of external funding resources. Kings College and University of Birmingham have good resources to read through.

Remember the Postgraduate funding student stories look at the individual stories where people look in similar situation to yourself. Then check out the funding database (e.g., search by age or key words). Also useful for pro forma statements. Also, google “examples of” and many pdf examples will appear. Checking what others have done by experience (blogs, crowdfunding).

Also, go to your local public library – ask specifically for:

the educational grants directory;
the charities digest;
the grants register
the directory of grant making trusts (not always in library)
they are reference books and can only be reviewed in situ.

Also check Google for “grantsregister.pdf” for a 2016 version someone has uploaded.

Professional learned societies

Royal Academy of Engineering
Royal Historical Society
Royal Society of British Artists
British Psychological Society
but also think of other organisations that might have interest in your work

Students should also liaise with their university to understand which societies are best to join. Check the bursary details for each – they may fund research, travel or course costs. Also networking opportunity can be significant.

Ask local council (education division), local parish council, or directly to the university department.

—//—

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

Academics, funding, PhD, psychology

Read what I say

Cognitive Psychology – language forum week 2

Is written word and what is heard cognitively comparable in any way? This is a question I’m offering to my forum to unpack this week.

Generating spoken word

This week our cognitive psychology is exploring word production in verbal exchange. We are marvelling at the speed of the spoken word and the processing complexity and power required to support such a phenomena. And it is a marvel to consider how close to immediate our sentences are formed.

Processing written word

Last week, we were looking at how quickly we digest the written word. We explored several hypothetical models pondering how our brain may be extracting the essence of such written word.

Bridging the gap

Between the two I see a gap. And to connect the two requires the spoken word to be turned into written word. We only bridged that gap 5,000 years ago. Yet in our lectures we are moving seamlessly from one to the next.

We have moved from reading to speaking. A visual receipt. A verbal transmission. Writing and listening sit opposed to each. How interchangeable can they be? Verbal dialogue is constantly evolving in near real time. Written exchange can be one way, perhaps indefinitely. At the very least, audio transmission is required to be captured in the visual coding we chose. Or written word to be read aloud and converted from visual to audio wavelength somehow.

Preparing to speak or write

What do we consider distinguishes our wider preparations when engaging in dialogue vs conversing in written form? The first is a marvel of speed of thought. The second a longer more singular task. Is the second more careful and considered perhaps? Certainly, more time to revisit each phrase and tone, should one wish to hold more in reserve.

I suspect next week’s lectures will be attempting to make this connection. In the interim, we have been asked to introduce our own discussion piece into the weekly forum. So, connecting these two weeks, this has me thinking of how differently I engage with people over zoom meetings (or face to face once upon a time) compared to how I engage with people by email, or social media, or in written reports. Or indeed written form via this forum or my daily blog – to which this note serves both.

This is what I do

I love unpicking a problem or moving discussion somewhere new. I enjoy writing. I enjoy listening. I enjoy talking too. Reading I do plenty of, but it is my least preferred way to download another point of view. In my opinion this reflects more than cognitive preference. Reading is impersonal to the author. I have less perspective on motives and feelings connected to the words. I am seeking more information from an exchange of perspectives than these formal cues.

This seems an important expansion to make to cognitive function. Language choices are more than just packets of code moving from one automaton to the next. I am therefore struggling to connect to the models we are being presented as working theories. To me, they are constrained unnaturally against this wider process. I therefore find myself instinctively rejecting these models at source.

Let me expand on both verbal and written words – the way I think I prepare for both.

Preparing to speak

If in a meeting, and if the format allows, I like to be the strong finisher rather than the strong starter when in spoken form. I like to gauge a room. I take the tone, the hierarchy, the touch points, and make best guesses as to positions people are taking and perhaps why. If there is need for preparation, it is as likely to be this anticipation of people and likely positions taken that I prepare towards – because I turn up to meetings as a shared process – I watch as others make their mark. Within a meeting, I have in mind all that has been said and seek to find the common themes. If there is clear conflict or obvious positions widening, I seek to find the higher level battle that must be had – but more likely seek out the better way – and ensure all have had their say. In my own way I am seeking time but with the room in mind.

Writing (and rewriting)

This time I also seek in written form. I may write something early, but it may not go very far. If something is complex, I may not write anything at all. I am minded to seek more perspectives if there is unknowns, or allow myself more time to let more scenarios and angles to make themselves known. This takes an inner confidence that I have something building. I am thinking fast and slow. I am resisting the temptation just to do. In my lowest moments, this can simply be an escape. Thankfully, I now have plenty of ways to maintain a confidence and counter such nagging doubt.

Language belongs outside

So how does all that relate to these two sets of lectures? What does that say of the planning of writing vs the spontaneity of conversation? What does it say of the process of communication at all? How completely can we hope to map out the cognitive elements of language, without bringing such wider factors into play? How homogeneous can we hope to be able to make our theories, or present the neurological mapping to call them more? How will this be part of the wider shared experience in verbal or written form? What is cognitive psychology to language, if not accounting for what it is for?

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

cognitive, communication, MSc, psychology