The British Psychological Society

The Psychologist Vol 26 No 4 April 2013

Rate
  • Affiliate price £0.00
  • Member price £0.00
  • Non-member price £3.00
  • eSubscriber price £0.00

This is a PDF download licensed for personal use only - read full licence terms.

By placing your order you agree to the British Psychological Society’s Terms and Conditions. Please also see our Privacy Notice and Cookies Information.

Terms and Conditions

By using the BPS Shop website, you are signifying your agreement to these Terms and Conditions.

Document downloads

  1. If you encounter problems downloading a document, please contact the Customer Support Team at [email protected] for support.
  2. The document download service is provided ‘as is’ with no warranties implied, either express of implied.
     

Copyright and permissions

  1. The British Psychological Society is the copyright holder for all documents available to download from this website, unless otherwise stated.
  2. Unauthorised copying, distribution, public display, public performance, and derivative works from downloaded documents are prohibited by copyright law, unless the publication has a Creative Commons licence.
  3. Publications marked with a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence are copyright of the British Psychological Society, but can be freely shared, in whole or in part, in digital or printed formats, for non-commercial purposes as long as the British Psychological Society is credited, and according to the same licence terms. Users are not permitted to distribute any adaptations of the work, including translations.
  4. For Translation requests please email [email protected]
  5. You may reproduce any downloaded document as many times as you wish for personal use, or quote short sections for the purposes of criticism or review, under the terms of ‘fair dealing’ and ‘fair use’ under UK and EU copyright laws. If you wish to republish an article downloaded from this website please visit our clearance service https://plsclear.com/
  6. If you require institutional licensing please email [email protected]


Customer accounts

  1. Customers are responsible for making sure that their account details (e.g. email and postal address) are up-to-date.
  2. Customers are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their username and password, and preventing authorised access to their accounts.
  3. Users must inform the Customer Support Team at [email protected] immediately if they suspect that their password has become known to someone else or has been (or is likely to be) use in an authorised manner.
  4. By providing personal information on the ‘checkout’ page, you are agreeing to the BPS processing and holding it as per our privacy policy www.bps.org.uk/privacy-policy
  5. The email address you provide as part of your account information may be used by the British Psychological Society to communicate with you in matters relating to your order (and if you are a member of the British Psychological Society, in other matters relating to your Society membership).

Description and price of goods

  1. Every effort will be made to ensure that the description and price of products are correct at the time of purchase.
  2. Product images are for illustrative purposes only and may differ from the actual product.

    Whilst The British Psychological Society has made all reasonable efforts to ensure that the information available on its websites is true and accurate in all material respects, it is essential that you verify all such information with The British Psychological Society before taking any action in reliance upon it. It is a condition of The British Psychological Society allowing you free access to the material on this site that you accept that The British Psychological Society will not be liable for any action you take in reliance on the information on the site.
     

Upon leaving this website through a link, The British Psychological Society will not be liable for any subsequent actions you take, or liable for any information not on this website. Please also note that the services described in this website are provided in England and the statements governed by English Law. On no account shall any statement on this website constitute an offer to provide services.

We will do our best to ensure uninterrupted access to the BPS Shop website and error-free transmission of data, but due to the nature of the internet this cannot be guaranteed. We will do our best to notify you of any planned outage.

 

 

Quick Overview

Members receive The Psychologist in hard copy each month, plus online access.

Not eligible to join the Society as a full member, but you still want to receive The Psychologist? Become a Society e-subscriber  to gain access online, or an Affiliate Member to receive a hard copy.

Contents

American author E.B. White once said: 'Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process, and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.' Well, given the audience of fine and pure scientific minds that we have, I thought we would risk it.

I am quite a comedy buff, so it is to my chagrin that we have always struggled to do 'funny' in The Psychologist. I've been in enough late-night conference bars to know that psychologists are a funny lot, but it's not easy to capture that in print. This month we have a bash, with a collection of pieces about humour, comedy and laughter, which will hopefully raise the odd smile to boot. In editing it all, I laughed out loud a fair few times, proving I am not agelastic (word of the month, courtesy of Larry Stern on p.310).

If what you read inspires you to make a contribution to The Psychologist yourself, entertaining or otherwise, why not have a look
at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute. The months are flying by faster than a speeding cabinet minister and your publication needs you!
Dr Jon Sutton

How many  psychologists does it take... to explain a joke?
Christian Jarrett investigates the psychology of humour

This is improbable    
Marc Abrahams, Guardian columnist and founder of the Ig Nobels, or research to make you smile and think

Laughter - the ordinary and the extraordinary    
Is laughter a universal emotion? Sophie Scott investigates

Rich pickings    
Richard Wiseman interviews the comedian Richard Herring

Opinion: No laughing matter    
Mike Page does his bit for the planet in his own inimitable style

Letters
Can we be lobbyists for social change?; retirement; intelligence; abortion; unpaid posts; #overlyhonestmethods; humour and health; and more

News and digest
Towards an activity map of the brain; new open access psychology journal; the divided brain; anorexia; the cognitive and social benefits of video games; and nuggets from the Society's free Research Digest service, this month on the psychology of humour

Big picture
Our pull-out poster - funny little man, seriously big points

Society
Meet the Trustees; Annual Conference preview; Spearman Medal; and more

Careers and appointments
We hear from Stephanie Davies on her work with Laughology, and Elizabeth Sullivan on gallows humour

Reviews
How to think like Sherlock Holmes; Desert Island Discs with Uta Frith; big questions from little people; Derek; Barbican Weekender; and much more

New voices 
Comedy and psychology - a personal perspective. Rob Bailey with the latest in our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices)

Looking back
The Worm Runner's Digest - Larry Stern on an extraordinary satirical and subversive journal

One on one
...with comedian, blogger and neuroscientist Dean Burnett

SKU: PUB-CAT-1172

BPS Shop – Licence terms for document downloads

Unless marked with a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence, all electronic publications downloaded from the BPS Shop, whether free or for a charge, are copyright of the British Psychological Society and are for personal use only. Any downloaded document may not be distributed, republished or reproduced (either electronically or by other means) without permission, other than as allowed by ‘fair dealing’ and ‘fair use’ under UK and EU copyright laws. If you wish to republish or redistribute an article downloaded from the BPS shop, or if you would like any other kind of licence, please email [email protected] with your request.

Publications marked with a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence are copyright of the British Psychological Society, but can be freely shared, in whole or in part, in digital or printed formats, for non-commercial purposes as long as the British Psychological Society is credited, and according to the same licence terms. Users are not permitted to distribute any adaptations of the work, including translations.