IB Psychology.com

Jerry Yang just won 8.25 million dollars playing poker. Jerry’s profession: Clinical psychologist and social worker. Yang credits his professional background for his winning. Mindhacks has an interesting take on whether psychologists make better poker players:

In
other words, psychologists were better at understanding how people
actually behave, as opposed to how they should behave if they were
choosing the most mathematically correct strategy. Mind Hacks: Psychologist wins world poker championships

Of course my own personal experience does not make this true.

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Primary sources is a great collection that bills itself as the Psychology in the New Millennium! Presently it contains 19 classic experiments often used in IB psychology:

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60 Minutes has a fascinating exclusive on sexulaity. It is provoking a lot of responses such as:

THIS IS BULL!!! IF A CHILD IS TREATED LIKE THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT IS HOW THEY WILL CONTINUE THEIR LIFE.

or

Thank you for this segment and for putting it online.
If being gay is not a choice then it cannot be a sin, this is why
Evangelicals fight the idea that being gay is inborn tooth and nail,
regardless of the evidence. Their notion that being gay is ‘unnatural’
and a ‘perversion is all based on the belief that being gay is a
choice. I hope that intelligent Evangelical Christians will see this
and realize the harm they are doing by codemning gays for something
they have no control over, something God made them.

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PsyBlog has a great annotated list of psychology blogs:

PsyBlog | Psychology Blog: Guide to Psychology Blogs - Part 1

Best all-round performer
Some blogs focus on quite specific areas, others are more general. Top of the accessible general blogs is MindHacks which manages to cover a wide range of areas, often in detail. This is really the best all-round performer the psychology blog-o-sphere has to offer. Largely written by a psychology PhD now training in clinical psychology - MindHacks is frequently updated, sometimes two or three times a day. This is your first stop.

Best established cognitive psychology blog
Two joint winners in this category. First is Cognitive Daily which makes complicated topics in cognitive psychology look easy. Great writing, loads of content, a knowledgeable audience of commenters and graphs you can understand. It’s frequently updated and wide-ranging but mostly within cognitive psychology. Co-produced by a Professor of psychology.

Second is Mixing Memory which tends towards longer less frequent articles. Written in an open conversational style, this blog tackles all kinds of subject, generally getting stuck into the details. Best for people with a background in psychology but still very accessible.

Best multimedia psychology blog
Channel N has links to all kinds of audio and video files. It’s only updated every now and then (who am I to talk?) but worth returning to. Here’s links to an interview with Kay Redfield Jamison on suicide and V. S. Ramachandran talking about neuroaesthetics.

Best psychiatrist’s blog
While the tag line of The Last Psychiatrist is ‘depression, bipolar, suicide, drug companies and medications’, this blog certainly won’t cause any of these conditions. Well, at worst you’ll want to start your own drug company. This provides a much needed critical approach to all the above topics and more. Less frequent but longer posting. Recommended.

Best humorous (but still scientific) psychology blog
The danger with mixing science and humour is slipping into the ‘geek trap’ where clever people try to be too clever. Omni Brain easily avoids this. Funky finger pictures on this post about sexual orientation and finger length.

Best newcomer
The Phineas Gage Fan Club, named after one of the most famous cases in neuropsychology, is a new blog (to me) written by an undergraduate at the University of York. This clearly written blog focusses on neuroscience and psychology. It’s still grappling with the question of whether to pitch articles at experts or novices. Hopefully it won’t go too far towards the expert. We need inclusive science explanation everyone can understand.

» Part 2 has a look at some more newcomers to psychology blogging, accessible neuroscience blogs and much more.

» Part 3 now available which uncovers the best social media sites for psychology and points you to more of the best psychology blogs around.

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