Social Psychology Special Issue

Conference review
Left: The conference programme. Right: Inside The Palace Hotel, Manchester.
psychology. Dr Senju was awarded this prize
for his research investigating the development
of spontaneous social cognition. The
day then continued with more papers and
symposia including a social invited symposium
on the relevance of Social Representations
theory today, and papers discussing the
numerical/mathematical proficiency of
children (to name just a few). One of the
highlights of the afternoon was a paper that
was presented in ‘Copper Face Jacks’ (a pub
in The Palace Hotel). Here, Dr Alana James
presented her research on university
students’ definition of bullying. The paper
highlighted the issues around the lack of an
agreed definition of bullying in higher
education (HE). It was interesting to learn
that many people were unaware that bullying
is an issue within HE, and highlighted that
this research requires further exploration.
The first day of the conference ended with a
workshop led by the Chair and Conference
Officer of the SPS, Dr Abigail Locke and
Dr Jane Montague. The workshop discussed
‘Teaching Contemporary Social Psychology’,
with much emphasis on the need for an
increase of taught social psychology at
A-level. This was a particularly engaging
session as delegates were asked for their
input into the skills that psychologists may be
able to offer to the teaching of Psychology in
the A-level curriculum. Following the last
session of the conference, delegates
networked over drinks at the wine reception
and many stayed to take part in ‘Psychology
in the Pub’ hosted by the North West
Branch.
Thursday 10 September
The second day of the conference was an
early 9.00 a.m. start. Yet, with the range of
papers and symposiums, it was definitely
worth the early rise. The vast majority of
parallel papers meant that there was generally
something that would interest everybody,
but this also meant that it was a difficult
process to decide which talks to attend.
Luckily, the conference had its own smart-
Issue 97 December 2015 51