Friday Headlines
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Psychologists enter Royal Holloway competition
06 July 2018
On Monday 2 July, four enthusiastic Year 12 girls set off on a two-hour journey to the Royal Holloway University of London, on the outskirts of the city with our psychology teacher, Mrs Parsons. Upon arrival we were free to roam around the beautiful campus of the university, enjoying our lunch in the warm weather and making the most of the local shops found on the grounds of the brand new library.
After hanging our poster at our allocated stand, we were warmly welcomed by Dr Eilidh Cage, giving us an excellent introductory talk into the uses of psychology in the future. The competition required us to apply our knowledge to the question “Why is psychology important for future generations?” This was a challenging question, but with perseverance and determination we managed to gather sufficient resources relating to our topic of anti-weaponry. We constructed a video and designed a poster highlighting the psychological applications that can be used to change peoples’ attitudes and behaviours to casual use and possession of weaponry, with the knowledge that the increasing incidents of knife crime in the UK can be tackled by implementing strategies such as the social norms approach in which misperceptions about weapon use are challenged.
The next activity on our itinerary was the main event of the day, the ‘Poster Display’ session. With a 20-minute slot allocated, we had the challenge of presenting our poster to the judges and the head judge of The Royal Holloway psychology department. In true EHS style, we scored 5/5 in our communication skills. During this period, we also had the opportunity to view the work of other participants.
At the end of such a busy day, we had the pleasure of having a lecture from Dr Marco Cinnirella addressing the question “What use is social psychology anyway?” This chance to experience a formal lecture from a leading social psychologist was the highlight of the day.
Sadly, our day came to end at 4pm after attending the prize giving ceremony. We faced some very tough competition and sadly did not win on this occasion.
All four psychology students thoroughly enjoyed the experience and next year we hope this competition will enrich another group of enthusiastic psychology students.
Psychology competition
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