On a wide range of measures and across cultures and societies, women tend to be more religious than men. Religious beliefs are associated with evolved social-cognitive mechanisms such as agency detection and theory-of-mind. Women perform better on most of these components of social cognition, suggesting an underlying psychological explanation for these sex differences. The Existential Orientation Scale was developed to extend the measurement of religion to include non-religious beliefs (Study 1). Factor analysis extracted two dimensions: religious orientation and science acceptance. This new scale was used to investigate the hypothesis that the dimensions of empathizing, a measure of social cognition, and systemizing can explain the sex differences in religious orientation (Study 2). The sex differences in both religious orientation and science acceptance disappeared when empathizing and systemizing were entered. This indicates that underlying dimensions of individual differences can explain existential orientation better than being male or female.
New undergraduate students embarking on a psychology degree face a host of potential challenges when making the transition from school to university. The School of Psychology at Newcastle University introduced a peer mentoring scheme in 2008 in order to support students in making this transition, help them develop academic skills and facilitate social integration within the cohort. In order to improve the scheme, the peer mentoring was integrated into a new academic skills module called Psychological Enquiry, in 2010. Evaluation showed that the three deliveries of the peer mentoring (2008, 2009 and 2010) were generally well received by both students and mentors. The students especially valued the opportunity to get to know peers on their course in a small group setting. Attendance at the mentoring sessions was higher in 2010 compared with the previous years. Integrating the peer mentoring within a formal module structure allowed for greater interplay between staff-led teaching and peer-based support, and contributed to making the sessions more relevant to the students.
Identifying a topic for a dissertation is widely considered to be one of the most important, challenging, and stressful parts of the research process. Students often find it difficult to navigate this early yet pivotal stage due to heightened pressures, a lack of structural guidance, increased independence, and more pressing time constraints. In efforts to support students’ topic selection in a way that does not circumvent the independent nature of the activity and process, a ‘self-guiding navigation tool’ (process map) – published in Holliman and Jones (2018, Psychology Teaching Review) – was developed. This was presented as a ‘Masterclass’ session (a workshop style with a mix of presentations and practical group activity) to an academic audience at the Division of Academics, Researchers and Teachers in Psychology Annual Conference at Cardiff University, Wales, 2019, where critical feedback was obtained via anonymous comment cards. A template analysis (a form of thematic analysis) revealed that while the ‘map’ was considered an important starting point, it required significant amendment in order to enhance its utility for a wider audience and account for differing practices/circumstances both within and across institutions; such as time differentials (programme of study and allocation of supervisor), level of autonomy available (whether a project is student or staff-led), and whether the project is part of a group project. As a result of this evaluation, we offer some revised (and more flexible) guidance for users, which accounts more effectively, in our view, for the diversity among students, supervisors, and institutions with respect to the dissertation. As with the original ‘map’ and its associated guidance, we welcome feedback from students and our peers along with further empirical evaluation of its effectiveness.
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