Over the next two weeks the BPS Research Digest will be publishing articles by leading psychologists on the greatest psychology experiment that’s never been done.
Each contributor was asked to think of a psychology study they would love to see completed, even if it would be so impractical, it would never be possible.
Two will be published each day over over the coming week, and the first ones have just appeared online.
Susan Blackmore suggests we could brain scan people as they die to understand near-death experiences, while Pam Maras thinks we should do a social psychology experiment that looks at every possible interaction in everyday life.
During the week, the authors will suggest studies on the mind of the unborn child, resisting oppression, kindness-centred care for psychosis, the effect of switching parents, and radically reshaping the mind to improve its performance, to name but a few.
Other authors include Richard Gregory, Will Meek, Richard Bentall, Chris Chatham, Martin Seligman, Jeremy Dean, Alex Haslam, Judith Harris, Scott Lilienfeld and Annette Karmiloff-Smith.
So keep tabs on the BPS Research Digest over the coming week to catch the latest releases.
I’ve also been asked to contribute, and an article on using detectives to find the line between reality and psychosis will be appearing in the next few days.
I realise that means I included myself as a ‘leading psychologist’ in the opening line, but the more accurate description of “articles by leading psychologists and one over-caffeinated keyboard monkey” made the intro a bit clumsy. Either way, it should be a great series.
Link to ‘The most important psychology experiment that’s Never been done…?’
Mind Hacks 
Have you ever wondered why you have so few comments on your blog? It’s because of the baroque and clandestine proprietorial spider’s web of your chosen blog platform. I hope you are not paying for their service.
It would be better if you got rid of the comments option altogether, frankly, rather than inviting comments within a system that makes commenting virtually impossible to all but the extremely determined and the quantum-lucky.
Not everyone wants to be forced to register with TypePad before they’re allowed to comment, you know. And even those of us who get that far do not want to be repeatedly told that we need to sign in when we already have signed in.
I’m a quite persistent person, and after 17 tries to post a comment here, I have just given up. I imagine most people give up a bit more easily. It was only when checking the link for a post on my own blog about how crap TypePad is that you have suddenly decided to allow me to comment.
I tried to get help from TypePad themselves, but it wouldn’t even allow me to send them a question, because I refused to sign up to their 14 day free trial, but yet my name and email address are already registered with them.
All I can say is what a crock, because otherwise your blog looks pretty and has loads of interesting stuff on it.