Mind Psychology: From Politics to Serial Killers

Michael Fallon accused Ed Miliband of stabbing the UK in the back just as he had done to his own brother. Donald Trump called Ted Cruz a ‘nasty guy, a hypocrite’. These are examples of negative campaigning, a practice parties (or candidates) resort to in an attempt to diminish positive feelings for rival parties and thus become voters’ most preferred party. Practitioners of negative campaigning generally believe it to be an effective campaign tool. However, is this supported by scientific evidence, or could it perhaps backfire?

How do we relate to the person who has murdered?  Do we have more compassion for the person who killed as an act of passion vs. the serial killer, indeed what is the difference?  In this lecture we will look at how we categorize the different types of murderer and address research and theory that helps us to understand the varying profiles.

Ever found yourself binging episodes of yet another Netflix series? Maybe you, like so many others, fear the worst at the prospect of no morning coffee? If the answer to either of these was yes, you may be tapping in to a crucial yet potentially dangerous part of your primal brain’s workings. Despite millions of years of evolutionary fine tuning, what is arguably our most important survival tool - the brain - can all too easily be fooled into using it's own tricks against us.