Psych Conference 2014 Debates
Introduction
There are three debates. All students will take part in a debate.
 choose and prepare for only ONE debate per person
 (schools must split their attendees equally between all three debates)
 research generally in as broad a range of areas as you can
 the focus is on IMPLICATIONS of psychological findings for the real-world issues described
 all students should prepare arguments for BOTH SIDES of the debate as you will NOT be allowed to choose a side
This last point is critical. The debates are all phrased negatively, that is to say they promote a claim that failures or problems are
occurring or have occurred. But remember that these are argumentative positions designed to stimulate debate. It is CRITICAL in
your research to seek at least as much evidence to counter as to support these claims. Look for holes in the evidence presented in
support of these claims, and take critical readings of arguments for them. It’s at least as possible to argue (for the three debates
below) for the opposite as for the motion: that an understanding of social psychology empowers us to manage or resist exploitation
and manipulation; that young people have shown tremendous and versatile adaptation to the modern world that raises them above
their parents in terms of skill and prospects; and that cruelty can be the result, simply, of moral evil, and inefficiency a natural effect
of social organisation, rather than needing to be attributed to psychology.
A note about linking psychology and real-world issues
The aim when we write these debates is threefold:
(a) to produce controversial topics and which allow both sides of an argument to be presented
(b) to ensure the topics are extremely broad-ranging (ie which relate to multiple areas of discussion / examples and can cross
many other subject boundaries )
(c) to focus on a question or area which is not present in any psychology syllabus or curriculum (A-level or IB) but to which
psychological findings from any syllabus can be applied – showing the relevance and breadth of psychology
The skills therefore required are to (a) be able to argue effectively for either side, (b) to draw on multiple areas of knowledge to do
so and – and here is the difficult thing – (c) to be able to take theories and findings from psychology and show you can “plug them
in” to these broader real-world issues. This final task is the really difficult skill so focus on this:
 what psychological theories do I know that explain human physiology, behaviour or thinking that might relate to this?
 what do research findings in that and related psychological fields tell us?
 how can I “lift” those conclusions over to the contexts suggested in the real-world list of issues for each debate? how can I
make what we know from psychology relevant to these other issues?
 so in other words – what can psychologists tell us about these issues from biology, politics, management, sociology,
economics, chemistry, history – that the experts of those fields may not know themselves?
Champion the importance, insight, breadth and relevance of psychology. Beyond that – take it where you like as long as you make it
relevant to the debate title!
A note about “the competition of ideas”
This is a competition in ideas and their presentation, and the ideas are the important thing. It is only slightly a competition between
individuals as the most skilled speakers. It is not AT ALL a competition between schools (as every team, for and against each debate,
will include a mix from different schools.) Don’t go all Model United Nations or UK House of Commons on us. Whilst presentational
style is of value in making a case, this is not about being more forceful than other speakers, interrupting aggressively, or just being
louder or more populist than others. Aim to make a skilled, contextualized argument for your case which will convince people on an
intellectual level.
The aim is not to “win.” The aim is, to some extent, to make the arguments that prove powerful enough, and skillfully-constructed
enough, to change the viewpoints of many other people. But the real aim is for a room of psychology-studying peers to come out
feeling intrigued, enriched, informed, and possibly pleasantly even more uncertain than before about complex issues they’d
probably ignored or not thought about much hitherto.
Debate 1: Social, political & management psychology
“This house believes that the abuse of social psychology is creating a zero-security world.”
Real-world issues that may relate to this:
 the dramatic rise in zero-hours contracts in the UK workforce and the cognitive, affective and social effects on people
 the increasingly coercive techniques employed by UK private sector firms to drive people off benefits however possible
 the effective elimination in the UK of worker rights / trade unionism since the 1980s (and the extent, if any, to which the
laws and business culture of the UAE reflect the direction the UK is moving in?)
 the public discourse on immigration in the UK, including political and social outcomes from it
 natural human and animal behaviours in response to competition for scarce resources
 the use of conspicuous ghettoization in multiple societies worldwide (eg treatment of Palestinians, walling off the favelas
for the World Cup in Brazil etc)
 the increasingly universal use of CCTV and the effects of people knowing their behaviour is observed
 the Snowden revelations / NSA and GCHQ abuse of civil liberties and the effect on people’s perception of their freedom
 advertising for ethically-questionable products (unhealthy foods, payday loans) utilizing techniques exploiting our
knowledge of cognitive psychology
Areas of psychology you may wish to research in and / or apply to these issues: conformity, including with regard to differences
between compliance / identification / internationalization; obedience and / or the agentic state; resistance to authority /
independent behaviour; in- vs out-group evidence; moral psychological stage theories; explanations of graduated commitment /
immoral or irrational decision-making; cognition and media psychology (esp systematic vs heuristic processing models); the
psychology of fear; Hawthorne effect; deindividuation; NLP.
Debate 2: Biological and developmental psychology
“This house believes that modern life is wiring young people’s brains for disaster.”
Real-world issues that may relate to this:
 the question of whether attention spans are shortening and / or children’s multitasking skills are increasing
 “dangerous” precocity: falling age of sexual onset and concerns about underage access to (increasingly “hardcore”)
pornography (especially any effect on reward pathways in the brain and / or behavioural patterns and / or cognitive
schemas of expectation in social contexts)
 the implications for stress, conformity pressure and social exclusion from young people always being “on the grid”
 the effect of screens on vision / headache and bluescreen light on sleep patterns
 issues of diet if they play into brain-related issues (eg PET effect on gender hormones, in utero diet effects on fetal neural
development etc)
 the rise in diagnosis of ADHD and related disorders or conditions (esp whether this is real or over-diagnosis)
 the controversies surrounding DSM5’s release, the power of Big Pharma and the dialogue around drugging young people
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whether Generation Y have been brought up to have unrealistic expectations and are cognitively ill-equipped for the brutal
realities of adult life, especially in an increasingly competitive world of economic stagnation
an argument as to whether technology facilitates and enhances learning, communication, self-awareness and skill
development so as to better insulate young people from traditional social and practical problems
Areas of psychology you may wish to research in and / or apply to these issues: attention and memory processing; cognitive
neuroscience, esp changes in neural pathways as a result of experience; the stress response, its causes and consequences; dopamine
and other reward pathways and the effects of behaviour or substance intake on them; developmental / biological interplay effects;
cognitive schemas; behavioural mechanisms esp classical and operant conditioning.
Debate 3: Psychopathologies of power
“This house believes that psychological ill-health usually underpins cruelty or inefficiency.”
Real-world issues that may relate to this:
 the tradition of analyzing major historical figures involved in terrible suffering in world history (Stalin, Hitler, etc), looking
for evidence of a particular personality disorder that explains their choices and therefore the consequences
 evidence that CEOs of top companies manifest APD / score highly on psychopath scales and are more similar to violent
criminals than a normal psychological profile
 the tradition amongst top politicians and businesspeople of promoting a “minimum sleep” culture vs the evidence of the
negative effects of undersleeping
 the “domino” management implications for any business / organisation if key senior managers are e.g. depressed,
paranoid, suffering the onset of an anxiety disorder etc
 whether undiagnosed disorders (ranging from personality disorders to autism) can explain either / both of lack of coping
skills or lack of empathy for others, with resultant effects on personal or professional relationships
 the mobile phone as the way your boss can always get hold of the average worker and the increasing expectations of fast
turnaround and any negative outcomes of resultant stresses; also whether organisations (including schools!) push their
staff (and students) too hard too often, resulting in inevitable performance failings / falling morale
 whether there is an inherent preference in our societies for one personality type or trait over others and whether that leads
to better wealth / work promotion / life prospects (eg by reference to EPI or MBTI etc)
 arguments from social loafing studies that people tend to work less hard if they can get away with it (and that there are
cultural differences in these effects)
 economic / game theories around “satisficing” (the concept that businesses rarely maximize profit and usually instead strike
a happy medium between profit and worker morale / motivation / stable culture)
Areas of psychology you may wish to research in and / or apply to these issues: psychopathology / abnormal psychology, esp with
reference to specific diagnostic criteria for specific disorders; personality profiling; stress response and the relationship between
psychological and physical well-being; psychology of motivation, perhaps including sports psychology; deindividuation; management
psychology; relationships psychology esp models of exchange / equity and / or breakdown; social influence and social loafing
studies; behavioural economics.