Previous guest lectures and seminars

2022

How to counter misinformation using psychology

Time and place: July 6, 2022 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Teams

The #Webimmunization research project team invites you to an open midterm seminar.

The #Webimmunization research project team have the pleasure to announce that the guest speaker at the seminar will be Dr Jon Roozenbeek.

During the seminar, he will speak on how to counter misinformation using psychology. After the presentation, the discussion will be moderated by prof. Jonas R. Kunst from the University of Oslo.

The event will take place online via Teams platform and will be held in English. It will be recorded and published on our website and social media.

Dr Jon Roozenbeek is the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. His research focuses on misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, online extremism and inoculation theory. As part of his research, he co-developed the award-winning fake news games Bad News, Harmony Square and Go Viral.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

From Humiliation to Dignity: Research since 1997 at the Department of Psychology

Time and place: June 22, 2022 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM, S328, Harald Schjelderups hus

Research on humiliation began at the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo in 1997.

In this colloquium, Evelin Lindner will briefly sketch the chronological path of this work since 1997, then share some core findings, before opening for dialog. She just finished a book that ends with the question: "How must we, humankind, arrange our affairs on this planet so that dignified life will be possible in the long term?"

Organizer: Department of Psychology

UiO PSI Pride 2022

Time and place: June 16, 2022 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Litteraturhuset

In celebration of Pride 2022, the Department of Psychology at Oslo University is organizing a series of talks from 12:00 to 4:00 PM on 16th June at Litteraturhuset.

The event will feature keynote presentations from 12 to 3 PM (Wergeland room) and two parallel discussion panels lead by LGBTQIA+ academics, advocates and authors from 3 to 4 PM (Wergeland and Kverneland rooms). The event will be followed by informal chat and drinks from 4 to 6 PM. Attendance through a hybrid online option is also available, and the in-person location is wheelchair accessible.

Organizer: Department of Psychology and The University of Oslo

Programme

Talks (Wergeland room)

12-12.30 PM: Welcome Speech
12.30-1 PM: Reidar Jessen: "Subjective experiences of gender: What can we learn from gender diverse youth?" Reidar Schei Jessen is clinical psychologist and is postdoctoral fellow at the interdisciplinary project Living the Nordic Model. He defended his PhD in 2021 on subjective experiences of gender dysphoria amongst transgender and gender non-conforming youth
1-1.30 PM: Esra Ummak: "Where to Belong: Being sexual and ethnic minority in Norway" Esra Ummak is an associate professor at VID Specialized University and worked as a visiting researcher at the psychology department of the Oslo University. Their research center on the social identity groups of LGBTIQ+, racialised people and ethnic minorities.
1.30-2 PM: Break
2-2:30 PM: Jacob Evje: "Disparities Between LGB and Trans Experiences and Deconstructing Anti-Trans Mobilizations in Europe" Jacob Evje is a master student at the University of Oslo whose aim it is to identify the disparities between trans and LGB experiences of violence, discrimination, and support in school, as well as how these experiences are affected by disability and ethnic minority identity.
2.20-3 PM: Victor Hugo da Silva Santos: "League of Gaymers: Meaning and (re)existence of homosexual players in the context of digital games" Victor Hugo da Silva Santos is a PhD candidate in Psychology at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil. He is a part of the Human Social Interaction Lab (LabInt) in UFPE. His current research covers gender and sexuality, social interaction, human development, fandom practices and digital games.

Discussion Panels (Wergeland and Kverneland rooms)

3:15-4 PM: Mental Health and subjective experiences of gender: the heterogeneity within LGBTQIA+
3:15-4 PM: Belonging as LGBTQIA+: How can sexual and ethnic minorities occupy the physical and digital spaces

2020

On Dignity and Humiliation

Time and place: Feb. 27, 2020 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Evelin Lindner has explored the theme of humiliation, or what she calls "the nuclear bomb of the emotions," for 45 years.

From terrorism, war, and genocide to hatefully polarized societies to bullying and domestic violence, they often have their roots in the same dynamics of humiliation. How many of the world problems can be explained by humiliation? What happens when people feel humiliated or trampled on? If dignity is an antidote to humiliation, how can dignity be promoted?

Does a country like Norway carry a particular responsibility? Is the cultural heritage of Norway of any significance, the heritage of likeverd, dugnad, and global responsibility (Fridtjof Nansen)? What is the role of academia in this context? What is the position of psychology as a field of inquiry and as a practice?

This talk is based on Evelin Lindner's most recent book titled Honor, Humiliation, and Terror published in 2017, and the book she is finalizing just now, titled From Humiliation to
Dignity: For a Future of Global Solidarity.

She will also share some of her experiences from the Amazon Rainforest in August and September last year.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

2019

Living in Pasteur’s Quadrant: Navigating the Uncharted Waters between Basic and Applied Research

Time and place: Oct. 17, 2019 3:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest lecture by Professor Roberta Golinkoff, University of Delaware, USA.

How can social scientists balance the need to do basic science with a desire to be relevant to the questions and issues of their time? In his classic book, Pasteur’s Quadrant, Daniel Stokes proposes an answer. Cross-cutting two dimensions - a quest for understanding and considerations of use, Stokes offers 4 quadrants that capture the areas of scientific progress.

This talk signals a migration towards Pasteur’s quadrant, that exemplifies what Stokes called use-inspired basic research. Using data from the science of learning and early development, I offer examples of how my work in language, and literacy fits neatly within this quadrant. I also question how, in a world filled with social media and distorted messages about our science, more of us can entertain working in Pasteur’s Quadrant, while also jumping beyond use-inspired work to take dissemination of science seriously. It is imperative that our institutions learn to share our science in a way that preserves its integrity while increasing its utility for the wider community.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

2018

Why are we all different? Why does personality exist?

Time and place: Nov. 6, 2018 2:15 PM – 3:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest lecture by Professor Daniel Nettle, Newcastle University, England.

All humans are born with ten fingers, ten toes, one nose, one mouth, and two ears (unless affected by a congenital disorder). Those physical traits are fixed; they are hard-wired in the genetic makeup of humans. This is a result of selective evolution. The fixation of these physical traits has increased our “fitness”, i.e. our reproductive success.

This is different with personality. We all have unique personalities. We are all different from each other. Each one of us represent a unique mix of different personality traits. No other person has the same mix of big five personality traits (and their facets) as you have. What kinds of evolutionary processes maintains this variation in personality? Why are we not all born with the same personality?

These – and others related - are questions professor Nettle will address in his lecture. Daniel Nettle is a professor of behavioral science at Newcastle University, where he is a member of an interdisciplinary center for behavior and evolution. He studies a variety of topics related to behavior, aging and health, both in humans and in non-human animals. He is particularly interested in how social adversity can affect individuals throughout their lifetime. He approaches these questions both as a biologist and as a social scientist. He has published extensively within many different areas such as evolution, adaptive plasticity, personality, and telomere length.

Directly following the lecture there will be a round-table discussion on professor Nettle’s lecture.

Moderator: Vibeke Ottesen

Participants:

Bjørn Grinde, chief scientist, National Institute of Public Health
Lotte Thomsen, professor, University of Oslo
Espen Røysamb, professor, University of Oslo
Thomas Kleppestø, PhD student, University of Oslo

Organizer: Department of Psychology

The "Big Five": Personality in Everyday Life

Time and place: Sep. 5, 2018 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Guest lecture by Professor Oliver P. John, University of California, Berkeley.

Oliver P. John, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the most prominent researchers in personality psychology. He is director of the Berkeley Personality Lab and author of the widely used personality test “Big Five Inventory”.

In his guest lecture he will talk about the impact of personality on our everyday life. Welcome to an unique opportunity to learn more about personality and the Big Five personality traits!

Image politics of the Arab uprisings: A study of Egyptian street art

Time and place: Apr. 24, 2018 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest lecture by Professor Brady Wagoner, Aalborg University.

Brady Wagoner, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Director of the MA and Doctoral programs in Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University.

He received his MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he co-created the Sir Frederic Bartlett Internet Archive and the journal Psychology & Society.

He is now also associate editor for the journals Culture & Psychology and Peace & Conflict.

His publications span a wide range of topics that focus on the cultural and constructive dimensions of mind, including memory, imagination, social change, creativity, dynamic methodologies, development and the history and philosophy of psychology.

Brady Wagoner will be visiting the Cultural and Community Psychology research group on Tuesday April 24. His guest lecture will be integrated into the PSY2500 course schedule.

Symbolic tools: Vygotskian approach

Time and place: Apr. 12, 2018 2:15 PM – 3:00 PM, Seminarrom 8, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest lecture by Professor Aleksander Veraksa, Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Overview of the cultural-historical theory development in terms of cultural tools usage in psychological research will be presented. Developmental educational practice will be discussed. Special attention will be given to symbolic tools acquisition on example of different content.

Aleksander Veraksa, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University. He is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education and vice-president of the Russian Psychological Society. His main interest is cultural-historical research in child psychology.

This talk is a joint venture of the Affective Science Group and the Literature, Cognition, and Emotions Group.

On Dignity and Humiliation

Time and place: Mar. 2, 2018 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, Seminarrom 6, Harald Schjelderups hus

Evelin Lindner has explored the theme of humiliation, or what she calls "the nuclear bomb of the emotions," for 40 years.

This talk is based on Evelin Lindner's most recent book titled Honor, Humiliation, and Terror published in 2017.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Mindfulness and Psychological Science

Time and place: Jan. 23, 2018 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer: Emeritus Professor Mark Williams, University of Oxford.

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was developed by Zindel Segal, John Teasdale and Mark Williams based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness-based stress reduction programme for chronic pain. Their aim was to apply Kabat-Zinn’s insights from a physical health setting to mental health; to find a cost-effective approach to preventing new episodes of depression for people who were highly vulnerable to experience repeated episodes.

One in five people suffer serious depression during the course of their lives, and repeated episodes can cause depression to become more ‘autonomous’ i.e. it requires smaller and smaller amounts of stress to trigger another episode. Although first developed for depression, MBCT is now being used to help people with health anxiety, and those who have been through a crisis in which they felt suicidal and/or attempted suicide.

This lecture asks how mindfulness-based approaches fit with basic psychological science over the last 50 years. In particular, we will consider four areas of cognitive science that mindfulness addresses: the costs of dividing attention, how the mind affects the body (and vice versa), how we succeed or fail to remember to do things we plan to do, and the effects on the mind of trying to prevent unpleasant experience.

Organizer: Department of Psychology and Oxford Mindfulness Centre

2017

Open Lecture on Clinical Care of People who Self-harm

Time and place: Sep. 26, 2017 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer: Professor Keith Hawton, Centre for Suicide research, University of Oxford.

Clinical management of self-harm (intentional self-poisoning or self-injury) patients is rightly receiving increasing attention. This is understandable given the large numbers of people who present to hospitals following self-harm, growing awareness of the problems they face, the extent to which self-harm is repeated, and the risk of future suicide and other fatal outcomes. Evidence to guide clinical practice is slowly but surely growing.

In his talk, Professor Keith Hawton will give an update on recent advances in clinical management of self-harm, and challenges facing research in this area. Key areas are attitudes of medical and nursing staff towards patients, the pivotal role of psychosocial assessment in hospital, and the significance of aftercare. Finally, the impact of self-harm on families will be discussed.

Professor Hawton will share findings from the Multicentre Study of Self-Harm in the UK, and the lecture will include some resources that have been developed as a result to help parents and carers. The lecture will be followed by an opportunity for Q&A.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

"There are no children here": Trauma and memory in children exposed to violence

Time and place: Aug. 29, 2017 12:15 PM – 1:30 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Honorary Doctorate Open Lecture by Distinguished Professor of Psychology Dr. Gail Goodman.

Professor Goodman’s research started an international movement for society and scientists to join hands in answering critically important questions about childhood victimization: How accurate are children’s disclosures and memories of past traumatic incidents, such as child sexual abuse? How suggestible are children when asked about abusive experiences? What are the emotional effects on children of legal involvement? After many years - perhaps even decades - have passed, how accurately can adults remember traumas experienced in childhood?

Answers to these questions are vital for societies’ efforts to protect children from trauma and maltreatment, while at the same time protecting innocent adults from false accusations.

In Dr. Goodman’s Open Lecture, she will discuss her research in the scientific quest to answer such questions. Theoretical and applied implications will be discussed, and the importance of this research will be exemplified through case examples of children and adults exposed to childhood violence.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology and University of Oslo

Rumination and cognitive control in depression

Time and place: Aug. 17, 2017 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM, Auditorium 3 and Seminarrom 6, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest lecture and seminar by Professor Jutta Joormann, Yale University.

Jutta Joormann is a Professor at the Department of Psychology (Yale University), where she also is the Director of the Affect Regulation and Cognition Lab. Her main areas of interest include the identification of cognitive risk factors for depression, research on the comorbidity of anxiety and depression, and research on social anxiety disorder. Her current work examines attention and memory processes in depression and how these are linked to rumination and emotion dysregulation. In her work, she integrates a multitude of measures, including cognitive tasks, psychophysiological measures of stress reactivity and regulation, eye tracking, neuroendocrine assessments, genotyping, and brain imaging.

10:00-11:00: Open guest lecture by Jutta Joormann: "Rumination and cognitive control in depression" (aud. 3)

12:00-14:00: Open seminar “Depression and cognition” (sem.rom 6)

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

What Makes Psychotherapy Work?

Time and place: May 16, 2017 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

And how can psychologists be better therapists? In psychotherapy, there is much debate on whether or not specific treatment components make some treatments more effective than others for specific mental disorders.

The commmon factors theory hold that all psychotherapies are equivalent because the effective ingredients are shared in all treatments (e.g. therapeutic alliance, expectation of success).

Others argue that specific techniques used in different therapies are indeed important, and that therapies do not produce equivalent outcomes.

Another line of discussion has been to what extent psychotherapists develop expertice, i.e. if therapist become better at what they do with age (time) and experience (number of patients treated). Research suggest that this is not the case. Is this correct, and if so, what can be done about it?

Welcome to an open breakfast seminar by Professor Bruce Wampold on how psychotherapy works and how psychologists can be better therapists.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Programme

08.30: Coffee, a bite, mingle
09.00: Bruce Wampold: What Makes Psychotherapy Work? A Contextual Model
09.45-10.30: Panel discussion moderated by Associate Professor Ole Andre Solbakken. Panel of experts:
- Bruce Wampold
- Asle Hoffart
- Hanne Weie Oddli
- Terje Ogden

Psychology for peace, health and development

Time and place: May 9, 2017 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

How can psychological insights make a difference in a country torn by war?

About forty years of war has made Afghanistan to one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. The conflict today is primarily between a westerly supported regime in the capital Kabul and rebel groups with the islamist group Taliban. The people have experienced violence and loss, millions have fled the country, and there is still a lack of sufficient health care and educational opportunities. May psychological insights be useful in reaching for positive change? If yes, then how?

Together with PRIO and the Department of Psychology, UiO, we proudly present the last seminar this semester in the series PSYOPS - The Psychology of Political Struggle.

This time you will have the chance to meet Kristian Berg Harpviken (Director at PRIO), Ragnhild Dybdahl (Psychologist/Associate Professor at HiOA) and Kenneth Sandin (Psychologist for Doctors Without Borders) who come to discuss how psychological insights may contribute to peace, health and development in Afghanistan.

Organizer: Psykologstudenter uten grenser (PUG), Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and The Department of Psychology

The Conflict in South Sudan

Time and place: Apr. 6, 2017 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

This seminar will take a closer look at the current situation in South Sudan, the social identities that are underlying the separation of South Sudan from Sudan, and the psychological consequenses of the ongoing conflict in the country.

Welcome to the third breakfast seminar in the series PSYOPS: The Psychology of Political Struggle - organized jointly by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Department of Psychology, University of Oslo & Psychology Students Without Borders (PUG).

Programme

08:30: Breakfast and coffee
09:00: Speakers
- Reasearch Assistant Fanny Nicolaisen, PRIO, will present an update on the current situation in South Sudan.
- Associate Professor Sigrun Marie Moss, UiO, will talk about social identities in Sudan, and processes before the separation of the country. Drawing on interview data from Sudan and South Sudan, she will show how respondents presented the national identity strategies of the government of Sudan, and comment on the role of social identities in South Sudan today.
- Psychologist Kay Oxholm, Doctors Without Borders, will talk about experiences from his psychological fieldwork in 2014, and how psychologists work in the field, as well as psychological consequences of the conflict.
10:30: Questions from the audience

Epigenetic pathways to early onset conduct problems

Time and place: Mar. 30, 2017 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open presentation by Edward Barker, King’s College London.

Title: Epigenetic pathways to early onset conduct problems.

Barker received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and completed postdoctoral training at the Research Unit for Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) and the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre (King’s College London). Prior to returning to the IoP, he held posts at the University of Alabama (USA) and Birkbeck, University of London.

He has received several grants from the ESRC and NIH, UK and his research focuses on examining how stressful environments exacerbate underlying genetic vulnerabilities to affect children’s development. He is particularly interested in the role of prenatal and postnatal risk exposures and how epigenetic processes mediate these risks on child conduct problems and comorbid disorders.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Migration and Psychology

Time and place: Mar. 9, 2017 8:45 AM – 10:30 AM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

“Migration and Psychology: Research on Migration and Clinical Work with Refugees” presents research and work with migration issues and refugees.

Welcome to the second breakfast seminar in the series «PSYOPS: The Psychology of Political Struggle».

Among the topics is how we can look at migration issues in a larger context, and treatment of refugees who have been subjected to torture. The major refugee crisis in recent times makes this a very topical and important theme.

PSYOPS is a collaboration between the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Psychology Students without Borders Oslo (PUG Oslo), with focus on current topics in the borderland between psychology and politics.

Organizer: Psykologistudenter uten grenser - Oslo, PRIO and The Department of Psychology

Programme

08:45: Breakfast
09:15: Jørgen Carling, Research Professor at PRIO: Migration as a research field, and awareness of broader migration themes.
09:40: Nora Sveaass, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, UiO: Work with refugees and the treatment of refugees who have been subjected to torture and other abuses.
10:05: Questions from the audience

Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation

Time and place: Mar. 2, 2017 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Harald Schjelderups hus

In this talk, Evelin Lindner reports from her personal experience.

The background is the 25th Annual Dignity Conference that Evelin Lindner and her network organized in Kigali, Rwanda's capital, in June 2015, and the 27th Annual Dignity Conference that took place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in September 2016.

Lindner embeds the case of Rwanda into a larger context that is relevant for all world regions. Mutually dignifying dialogue is the path to the human rights ideal that "every human being is born equal in dignity and rights."

However, in an atmosphere of fear, traditional power-over strategies that seemed long forgotten tend to re-surface even in the most peace-minded social contexts. Traditional authoritarian strategies for securing power and stability may emerge when people face adversity, and complex psychological dynamics of humiliation may be set in motion.

Lindner calls for a global citizens movement that takes its inspiration from the Norwegian cultural heritage of likeverd, dugnad, and global solidarity (Nansenpasset).

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Autobiographical Memory and Emotional Disorders

Time and place: Jan. 24, 2017 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer: Emeritus Professor Mark Williams, University of Oxford.

When attempting to remember events from their past, people with emotional problems often retrieve summaries of events rather than an individual event (e.g. they recall an 'overgeneral' memory such as “my grandmother used to take me out for walks” rather than "the time my grandmother took me to a football match").

What causes this to happen? What are the mechanisms that explain it? What consequences does this memory deficit have?

The talk will discuss research showing that over-general memory is closely associated with a history of trauma and depression. These result in attention Capture by self-relevant concerns and Rumination on these concerns, together with Avoidance and reduced Executive function. Over-general memory has important consequences for mental health and well-being: it exacerbates the effect of mood on problem-solving in suicidal patients, increases the impact of life-stress on the risk of depression, and delays recovery from episodes of affective disorders.

The talk will review the implications of these data both for theories of autobiographical memory, and for clinical work with patients, where it has been found that both mindfulness and specific memory training can decrease over-generality.

Organizer: Department of Psychology and Oxford Mindfulness Centre

2016

Facial Electromyography Workshop

Time and place: Dec. 9, 2016 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminar room V417, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer: Leah Mayo, Post.Doc., the Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience at Linköping University.

The workshop will touch upon the conceptual need for an objective, quantitative measure of affective responding, as well as provide examples of facial EMG use in empirical research studies. Finally, it will include a practical account of how to use facial EMG in the lab, including task design, data collection, and analysis.

Leah Mayo received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of Chicago in 2015, where she worked with Dr. Harriet de Wit to create a novel paradigm to study de novo drug conditioning in healthy humans, integrating self-report, behavioural, and psychophysiological methods. Currently, she is a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience at Linköping University, where her research focuses genetic and environmental factors that influence affective responding, and how dysregulation of affective responses can contribute to clinical pathologies.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Nature, nurture, and human autonomy: the meta-theory of intelligence

Time and place: Sep. 6, 2016 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Scjelderups hus

Guest lecture by James R. Flynn, professor emeritus at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Professor Flynn has for many years been the most influential researcher in the field of intelligence. In his research he has documented that intelligence has increased over time in the Western World (the so called “Flynn-effect”) and continues to increase in the developing world.

Although he is now 83 years old, he is an active writer and lecturer and has recently published a new book titled «Intelligence and human autonomy».

On Tuesday September 6th. he will visit us giving a lecture where he sums up his present position with regard to genes and environment and human autonomy.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

The problem with traditional psychiatry and a vision for reform

Time and place: Mar. 17, 2016 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Scjelderups hus

Welcome to open guest lectures with James Davies and Peter Kinderman entitled "The problem with traditional psychiatry and a vision for reform".

James Davis: The Book of Mental Disorders (the DSM) – a work of fact or fiction?

Why is psychiatry such big business? Why are so many psychiatric drugs prescribed, and why, without solid scientific justification, has the number of mental disorders risen from 106 in 1952, to around 370 today?

In this talk, Dr James Davies takes us behind the scenes of how the psychiatrist's bible, the DSM, was actually written - did science drive the construction of new mental disorder categories like ADHD, major depression and Aspergers? – or were less-scientific and unexpected processes at play? His exclusive interviews with the creators of the DSM reveal the answer.

Peter Kinderman: "A manifesto for mental health: why we need a whole new approach to mental health and wellbeing"

This talk will introduce a radical new approach to mental health and wellbeing. It will challenge some of our current assumptions about mental health and mental illness, and recommend transformational evolution in how we could deliver care better, more humanely and more scientifically.

Starting from the psychological perspective that our beliefs, emotions and behaviours – including our mental health – are the product of the way we have learned to make sense of the world, it will argue that mental health problems are fundamentally social and psychological issues.

It follows that we should therefore replace ‘diagnoses’ with straightforward descriptions of people’s problems, radically reduce use of medication, and use it pragmatically rather than presenting it as ‘treatment’. Instead, we need understand how each person has learned to make sense of the world, and tailor help to their unique and complex needs. We need to offer care rather than coercion, and establish the social prerequisites for genuine mental health and wellbeing.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Nudging the best feeling: Using road markings to unconsciously influence drivers

Time and place: Mar. 1, 2016 12:00 PM, V-417, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer: Associate Professor Pål Ulleberg.

Inspired by Damasio’s notion of "the best feeling", the present study investigated whether road markings, in particular making the road appear narrower than it actually is, can influence both driving speed and bodily autonomous responses, measured through Skin Conductance.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

What should you sound like to sound like you belong? And what should you look like?

Time and place: Feb. 16, 2016 12:00 PM, V-417, Harald Schjelderups hus

An experimental visual-verbal study of young people’s attitudes towards immigrants' use of Norwegian.

We have the pleasure to announce a talk by Unn Røyneland who is Deputy Director of MultiLing, a Center of Excellence at UiO funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Delineating the active ingredients in psychological therapies for PTSD in youth

Time and place: Jan. 15, 2016 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest seminar with Richard Meiser-Stedman about treatment of PTSD.

Several treatment approaches for PTSD in children and adolescents have been shown to be efficacious - trauma-focused CBT in particular, but also prolonged exposure, narrative exposure therapy, cognitive therapy and EMDR.

Further treatment refinement - in particular the development of more cost-effective interventions - may be enhanced by understanding in greater detail the mechanisms that underpin the onset and maintenance of PTSD in youth, as well as the mechanisms involved in treatment recovery.

This lecture will provide an overview of how recent studies have addressed these issues, including the speaker's own prospective longitudinal and treatment studies.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Interpersonal Accuracy in the Context of Power

Time and place: Jan. 12, 2016 12:00 PM, V-417, Harald Schjelderups hus

Speaker: Marianne Schmid Mast, Université de Lausanne.

The talk provides an answer to the question whether leaders or subordinates are better at judging others' emotions and thoughts, and it reveals the consequences of interpersonal accuracy of leaders on their leadership.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

2015

Psychological Perspectives on Prejudice, Torture, and Intergroup Contact

Time and place: Dec. 11, 2015 10:15 AM – 1:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open guest seminar with internationally leading scholars.

We invite scholars and students interested in the topics of prejudice, racism, intergroup contact, social protest and torture to this guest seminar. Internationally distinguished scholars will present cutting-edge work on intergroup relations relevant for multicultural societies and implications of the refugee crisis.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Programme

10:15: Beneficial Effects of Intergroup Contact on the Societal Level, Dr. Oliver Christ, Professor of Psychology, Hagen University
11:15: Subtle Bias and Strategic Inclusion: Included but Invisible, Dr. John F. Dovidio, Professor of Psycholog, Yale University
12:15: Coffee and Lunch
12:30: Torture, Accountability and Denials, Dr. Nora Sveaass, Professor of Psychology, University of Oslo, Member of United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture

Guest lectures on H2020

Time and place: Dec. 9, 2015 9:15 AM – 4:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Department of Psychology

Dr. Leo Klomp, Director of Grant desk VU University and VU Medical Center Amsterdam, is visiting us in December and giving a series of lectures on grant writing & support within the Horizon2020 framework.

09:15-11:00 Of FET and KET: Connecting your fundamental ideas to a successful funding strategy

Target: Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (others are also welcome).

Primary audience: Senior research staff; open for postdocs and administrative staff.

Content:

Advanced tips and tricks for successful proposals in FET open and Industrial Leadership.
Building a successful funding portfolio to support fundamental research in the natural sciences

11:30-13:00 Training Training Training: What makes up a Successful ITN proposal?

Target: Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences; Faculty of Medicine; Faculty of Social Sciences.

Primary audience: Administrative staff and senior research staff; open for postdocs.

Content:

Results of a comprehensive analysis of H2020 ITN proposals and evaluation reports
How to Impact the knowledge-research-innovation triangle
Advanced tips and tricks for successful MSCA Training Network proposals
Supporting researchers to write the best proposals

14:15-16:00 Personalized Medicine Dissected: Opportunities in the 2016-2017 Health Societal Challenge 1 WP

Target: Department of Psychology; faculty of Medicine; also open for selected groups in Faculty of Social Sciences; faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

Primary audience: senior research staff; administrative staff and open for postdocs.

Content:

Analysis and Interpretation of topics in the 2016-2017 work program Health
Challenges and opportunities in building multidisciplinary consortia
Innovation: how to achieve societal impact

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Guest Lecture by professor Jan Dul

Time and place: Nov. 5, 2015 9:00 AM – 10:15 AM, Seminar room 4, Department of Psychology

Professor Jan Dul, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), the Netherlands is giving a lecture on the topic: "Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA)".

Theoretical "necessary but not sufficient" statements are common in the social sciences. Traditional data analyses approaches (e.g., correlation or multiple regression) are not appropriate for testing or inducing such statements. In his talk Jan Dul will present Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) as a general and straightforward methodology for identifying necessary conditions in datasets.

The "necessary but not sufficient" logic implies that necessary contributions of determinants (e.g., events, characteristics, resources, efforts) to a desired outcome (e.g., good performance) must be present for achieving that outcome, but their presence is not sufficient to obtain that outcome. Without the necessary condition, there is guaranteed failure, which cannot be compensated by other determinants of the outcome.

This logic and its related methodology are fundamentally different from the traditional sufficiency-based logic and methodology. Professor Dul will present examples of necessary but not sufficient conditions in every-day life, as well as in business practice, and will show how necessary but not sufficient hypotheses can be empirically tested or induced. Also, if time allows, he will demonstrate a software tool that can offer support to researchers to apply NCA.

If time allows, Jan Dul will also talk about ergonomics and creativity.

Organisations can only gain a sustainable competitive advantage if they constantly innovate their products, services and processes. All innovations begin with creative ideas of people, and creativity is needed in all phases of the innovation process. Jan Dul will discuss several factors in the work environment that can stimulate creativity. All factors can be influenced by design or management, e.g., supported by practitioners, including human factors and ergonomics professionals, environmental psychology professionals, and health and safety professionals.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

An overview of cerebellum and cognition

Time and place: Oct. 7, 2015 3:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Psykologisk institutt

Professor Richard Ivry from University of California, Berkeley is visiting our department and will give a guest lecture: An overview of cerebellum and cognition.

Professor Richard Ivry is the chair of the Department of Psychology, and professor at Department of Psychology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley.

He is director of The Cognition and Action Lab at UC Berkeley engaged in research projects covering diverse areas of behavior and cognition in healthy participants and patient populations, including visual, auditory, and time perception, language and speech, and motor coordination combining a diversity of methods of behavioral/perceptual/cognitive tasks with neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and non-invasive brain stimulation such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Prof. Ivry has authored numerous scientific papers and textbooks, among these are Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind which is well known to our master students and students at the professional programme of psychology.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Illusions - present and future

Time and place: Sep. 18, 2015 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Open, international seminar on perceptual Illusions. Researchers from Italy, Japan, U.S.A. and Norway to present their research (past, present and future).

This will be an opportunity for everyone to learn about an area of psychological research which has great relevance for understanding cognition and perception, but that is also fun to experience!

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Programme

09:45: Coffee/tea, croissant
10:10: Welcome
10:15: "Perceiving the present and a grand unified theory of illusions", Dr. Mark Changizi, 2AI Labs, USA, Key-note speaker
11:00: "...et lux facta est: The perception and the representation of light", Dr. Daniele Zavagno, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
11:30: "Bright illusions", Professor Bruno Laeng, University of Oslo, Norway
12:00: Lunch
13:00: "...The Uznadze aftereffects: From haptics to visual", Olga Daneyko, University of Parma, Italy
13:30: "When perception is in the hands of the observer: Embodiment and illusion", Professor Luca Tommasi, University of Chieti, Italy
14:00: "The Race Face Illusion": Ass. professor Matia Okubo, Senshu University, Japan
14:30: " Hearing illusory sounds: the role of transformations in auditory cortex", Ass. professor Tor Endestad, University of Oslo, Norway

Open lecture on the Emotional Brain

Time and place: Mar. 6, 2015 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: "Face to Face with the Emotional Brain"

Lecturer: Associate professor Paul Whalen, Dartmouth College

Dr. Whalen uses brain imaging to study the emotional brain. Specifically, he measures the response of the human brain to the facial expressions of others in normal subjects and subjects with anxiety disorders. He will present data in normal subjects and subjects with anxiety disorders showing how the healthy brain processes ambiguous facial expressions (i.e., surprise, fear) and how this processing goes awry in emotional disorders.

To elaborate, neural responses to fearful facial expressions can be interpreted as a response to the lack of predictive clarity associated with these expressions, in addition to a response to negative valence per se. This source ambiguity gives rise to numerous possible interpretations of a fearful expression observed in another person. For example, from the viewer's perspective, a fearful expression might mean that they themselves are in danger (anxious interpretation). Alternatively, this expression could be a call for help (empathic interpretation).

Finally, the viewer may perceive that this expression is in response to their dominance in this situation (dominant interpretation). Dr. Whalen will describe behavioral and neuroimaging data addressing how the amygdala and prefrontal cortex handle facial expressions of ambiguous predictive value (generally), as well as the multiple meanings of fear (specifically). Dr. Whalen's talk will provide you with a new way to think about your own emotional life and what exactly is happening between your ears when you succeed and/or fail at emotional regulation.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Open Lecture on Mindfulness and Depression

Time and place: Feb. 26, 2015 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: "Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and the Prevention of Depression"

Lecturer: Professor Mark Williams, University of Oxford

Professor and co-author of the international best-seller "The Mindful Way Through Depression and Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World" Mark Williams will hold an open guest lecture at the Department of Psychology.

This talk will examine the psychological mechanisms underlying the approach and overview current evidence on who responds best to MBCT.

There is a high risk of relapse and recurrence in patients suffering a first episode of major depression. Once an episode has recurred, the risk of a further episode is substantially increased. There is accumulating evidence to suggest that this risk of recurrence is highest for those people who react to small shifts in negative mood with a re-triggering of old habits of negative thinking formed during previous episodes.

In previous work, we have developed a new psychological treatment (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy - MBCT) to help patients deal skilfully with the re-emergence of depressive modes of mind and switch to a more adaptive mode. MBCT has been shown in several randomised controlled trials to reduce risk of recurrence in major depression. MBCT is now included in the UK Government’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guidelines for prevention of recurrence for patients who have suffered three or more previous episodes.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

2014

Guest Lecture on the Effects of Psychiatric Medication

Time and place: Nov. 26, 2014 1:15 PM – 3:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: "History, Science and the Long-term Effects of Psychiatric Medications"

Lecturer: Science Journalist Robert Whitaker

Science journalist and author of the books "Mad in America" and "Anatomy of an Epidemic" will hold an open guest lecture at the Department of Psycholgy. Some of the questions he raises are:

Why has the number of adults and children disabled by mental illness skyrocketed over the past fifty years?
The astonishing increase in the disability numbers during the past fifty years raises an obvious question: Could the widespread use of psychiatric medications–for one reason or another–be fuelling this epidemic?
Do the studies tell of a paradigm of care that helps people get well and stay well over the long term? Or do they tell of a paradigm of care that increases the likelihood that people diagnosed with mental disorders will become chronically ill?

Robert Whitaker has won numerous awards as a journalist covering medicine and science, including the George Polk Award for Medical Writing and a National Association for Science Writers’ Award for best magazine article. In 1998, he co-wrote a series on psychiatric research for the Boston Globe, that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Anatomy of an Epidemic won the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Lecture on Affective Touch: Brain and Behavior

Time and place: Nov. 5, 2014 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Room A04-14, Harald Schjelderups hus

The Social Psychology Research Group invites to a presentation by India Morrison, University of Skövde.

The talk will describe neuroimaging investigations of the affective component of interpersonal touch, focusing on the possible functional role of tactile neural subsystems in social behavior and bodily regulation.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Society in Mind – The impact of power and socioeconomic status on cognition and self-regulation

Time and place: Sep. 16, 2014 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM, Seminar Room 2, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer: Postdoc Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Where one stands in society matters for how one feels, thinks, and behaves. I will explore this claim from the perspective of basic social cognitive mechanisms sensitive to status, power, and coalitions.

First, I will present evidence that the subjective experience of low socioeconomic status, induced through novel experimental manipulations, decreases self-reported personal control. The effects are specific to status-related perceptions, and to control-related self-evaluation.

A second set of studies investigates how the same rank sensitivity affects cognitive performance, by showing that experimental inductions of low subjective socioeconomic status disrupt executive functioning processes, as well as performance on a realistic financial decision-making task that employs such processes.

Moving from status to social power, a third set of studies examines how activation of the behavioural approach system draws on a generic coalitional psychology. They demonstrate that when modulating behaviours along the approach-inhibition axis, one draws on cues not only as to one’s own level of power, but that of others sharing a currently salient coalition. This applies across group types, is enhanced with greater ingroup identification, and diminishes when ingroup others are portrayed as disloyal.

The aim of this research programme is to use the study of basic social cognitive sensitivities to understand how societal structure and position shape psychological processes, thus shedding light on the behavioural dimension of poverty, inequality, and social hierarchy.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Music and Brains

Time and place: Sep. 15, 2014 9:00 AM – 3:45 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Scheldrups hus

Four of the best “brains” in the field of the cognitive neuroscience will gather in the Music and Brains workshop to show how current research is beginning to solve the mystery of our brain’s fascination with music. The seminar is open to all, but If you would like coffee/lunch.

Music and Brains is a workshop on how the human brain makes possible the experience of music and music making. Music may be commonly thought as a domain of the Arts and aesthetics, a surplus human activity that is meant to entertain us and it may have no particular biological meaning, being just an accident of human brains’ propensity to conjure up virtual worlds (in this case, panoramas made of sounds).

However, the above view has changed radically since both cognitive psychology and the neurosciences begun in recent years to investigate intensely music from science’s viewpoint. It is now clear that music perception or performance has specific neural correlates, it has a genetic basis and it is heritable, it is strongly related to the evolution of language and yet it has its specificity. It is a complex communication and cognitive process, requiring sophisticated perceptual analyses by the brain as well as the development of expert sensory-motor systems in the brain of musicians that control their actions’ timing and precision of coordinated motion.

In particular, expert musicians provide a special paradigm for understanding brain plasticity, since musicians spend a great deal of their lifetime – often from an early age - practicing and refining their actions and perceptions.

Music is also a complex emotive process that recruits networks of the brain that are at the basis of our experience of emotion, rewards, and the sense of beauty. Music – somewhat mysteriously - evolved to move the body and mind of humans.

Organizer: Department of Psychology, Department of Musicology, BeRG-AP (UiB). The workshop is supported by The Faculty of Social Sciences and the Department of Psychology

Programme

09:00: Coffee and croissants
09:30: Welcome and introduction by the organizers
09:40: "The nature of music: Evidence from congenital amusia", Isabelle Peretz, Université de Montréal, Canada.
10:40: “Towards a neural basis of musical semantics?", Stephan Koelsch, Free University of Berlin, Germany
11:40: Lunch
12:40: Askil Holm
12:55: "Music across the life span: learning and well-being?", Mari Tervaniemi, University of Helsinki, Finland
13:55: "I've got rhythm", . . . or do I? - What musical training does to the brain and its processing of challenging rhythms.", Peter Vuust, Royal Academy of Music, Denmark
15:00: Mini Jazz concert, with something to drink ext. Aud., Peter Vuust (bass), Bjørn Vidar Solli (guitar) and Anders Thorén (Drums)

Guest lecture on morality and relations

Time and place: June 24, 2014 1:15 PM – 2:45 PM, Room A04-14, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: Morality and its connections to relational models

Lecturer: Professor Alan Fiske

Guest lecture on reward in empathy

Time and place: June 17, 2014 1:15 PM – 2:45 PM, Room A04-14, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: The role of reward in empathy: Insights for and from autism

Lecturer: Bhisma Chakrabarti

Organizer: Department of Psychology

The Unforgettable Life of Amnesiac Patient H.M.

Time and place: June 10, 2014 12:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Don't miss this great opportunity to learn about the famous life of amnesiac patient Henry Molaison (H.M.) through the lecture with Suzanne Corkin.

Suzanne Corkin is a Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience, Emerita, in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and is head of the Corkin Lab. Her research has focused on the study of patients with neurological disease, with the goal of linking specific cognitive processes, particularly memory, to discrete brain circuits.

Corkin is best known for her investigation of the famous amnesic patient, H.M., whom she met in 1962 and studied until his death in 2008.

Corkin has collaborated with Professor Ivar Reinvang at the Department of Psychology. Her lecture is part of a seminar honoring his 70th anniversary.

Organizer: Department of Psychology and Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition (LCBC)

Programme

12:15: Welcome and introduction to the seminar by Kristine Beate Walhovd and Nils Inge Landrø
12:20: Presentation of the special issue of Scandinavian Journal of Psychology in honor of Ivar Reinvang by Astri Lundervold
12:30: Suzanne Corkin: Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient H.M.
13:45: Lars Nyberg: Beyond Cognitive Reserve: Brain Maintenance as the Key to Preserved Memory and Cognition in Older Age
14:45: Anders Martin Fjell: Brain Development and Aging: Insights from Comparative Neuroimaging
15:15: Thomas Espeseth: Cognitive Neurogenetics – Are We Making Progress?
15:45: Epilogue by Head of Department, Kjetil Sundet

Guest lecture on female leadership

Time and place: Apr. 29, 2014 1:15 PM – 2:15 PM, Room A04-14, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: Women positioned up and left: Using spatial symbols of leadership to influence the construal of leader role and female leadership aspirations.

Lecturer: Maria-Paola Paladino, University of Trento

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Guest lecture in cultural psychology

Time and place: Mar. 3, 2014 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Title: Psychology as the casualty in the Great War for Science

Lecturer: Professor Jaan Valsiner

Psychology as science has been caught over the 19th century in-between the conflict between the Naturphilosophie and mechanistic natural science. The result was the discourse of "discipline in crisis" that has lasted through the 20th century and arrives to our time in the form of division between neurosciences and "the rest".

The transformation of the field is further guided by social processes of move unto consumer society and the imperative of "social usefulness" of psychology. The result is a hybrid discipline that is empirically hyperproductive while failing to learn from its own history in addressing and answering theoretical questions.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

2013

Seminar on Suicidal Behaviour

Time and place: Nov. 21, 2013 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Harald Schjelderups hus

Expert on suicide causes and treatment, professor Keith Hawton from University of Oxford, UK and Dr. med. Fridtjof Heyerdahl from Oslo University Hospital will give a seminar on suicidal behaviour.

The title of Professor Hawton’s lecture is "Deliberate self-harm: Nature, Treatment and Outcome”. Professor Hawton is a world leading expert on causes and characteristics of suicide and deliberate self-harm, has led the UK multi-centre study on deliberate self-harm consecutively over the last 30 years and has published extensively on causes and treatment of suicidal behaviour.

Dr. Heyerdahl will present data on characteristics of deliberate self-poisoning patients admitted to Oslo University Hospital. Dr. Heyerdahl is a clinical consultant toxicologist at the Intensive Care Unit at Oslo University Hospital, Ullevaal, with a longstanding research interest in patients engaging in repeat deliberate self-poisoning.

The seminar is connected to the doctoral disputation of Bergljot Gjelsvik, who will defend her thesis on November 20th.

Children: protective factors against mental health problems

Time and place: Nov. 7, 2013 4:15 PM – 5:30 PM, The Science Library, Vilhelm Bjerknes' hus

Speaker: Head of Research Anne Inger Helmen Borge, Department of Psychology

Scarcely a week goes by without some news reports in media on mental health problems among children who experience environmental risk. Bad things do and can happen. However, there is a huge heterogeneity in children’s responses to all kinds of stress and adversity. Some suffers greatly, others seem relatively little affected and again others seem to benefit from their negative experiences. Psychological resilience refers to good developmental outcomes despite exposure to adversity.

Protective factors are identified in the child, family, daycare, local neighborhoods and the green nature. In the future, interventions to facilitate optimal child development and resilience are most effective when they reflect the complexity of protective factors from neurons to neighborhoods.

Redundancy in referential expressions: the case of colour adjectives

Time and place: Oct. 10, 2013 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, seminar room A04.004, Harald Schjelderups Hus

The Neuroscience of Language Discussion Group has invited Paula Rubio-Fernández from University College London to talk about Redundancy in referential expressions.

Research in experimental pragmatics shows that unlike other types of adjectives, colour adjectives tend to be used and interpreted over-informatively; that is, not necessarily in relation to a contrast set. For example, in a situation where there is only one bowl, people would ask for ‘the blue bowl’, using the colour term redundantly. Likewise, in looking for the blue bowl in a display of objects, people wouldn’t do a faster search if there was a contrasting red bowl in the display than if there was only one bowl (Sedivy, 2003, 2004, 2007).

In this talk I will present various eye-tracking studies on the interpretation of colour adjectives in simple object requests (e.g. ‘Click on the blue triangle’), as well as various language production studies on the use of these adjectives. The results suggest that even in those cases where colour is strictly speaking redundant, it is used in contrast with the other colour objects in the display. I argue that, because of its perceptual properties, colour is a very efficient cue in an object search and therefore, using colour redundantly can be a cooperative move – rather than a violation of the Gricean Maxim of Quantity.

Organizer: Neuroscience of Language Discussion Group

Two open lectures on therapy research and adolescent depression

Time and place: Oct. 8, 2013 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups hus

Lecturer, Stephen Shirk, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Denver.

10:00 - 12:00: What’s new in the therapeutic alliance research?

13:00 - 15:00: Recent Developments in the Treatment of Adolescent Depression

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Lecture on experience in semantic representation of tools

Time and place: Sep. 26, 2013 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Seminar room A04.004, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to an open seminar in the Neuroscience of Language Discussion Group.

Title: The role of experience in the semantic representation of tools.

There is an ongoing debate in cognitive neuroscience about the organization of semantic knowledge in the brain. While some researchers argue that the brain is pre-wired to process different categories of objects in particular brain regions, so-called modality-specific accounts propose that the neural representations of object knowledge are tightly linked to modality specific brain regions and that they are depending on individual object-related experience.

Tools, for example, would thus be represented in fronto-parietal brain regions which are involved in using them. The main aim of the studies presented in this talk was to determine the role of individual sensory-motor experience in neural representations of tools.

Subjects received experience with previously unfamiliar tool-like stimuli in standardized training sessions. Brain activity during the processing of tool pictures, assessed by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG), was then compared between pre and post training assessments to investigate the emergence of new tool representations.

We could show that learning to manipulate the tools leads to a stronger recruitment of fronto-parietal brain regions in processing tool pictures than mere visual exploration. We further found a reduction of fronto-parietal effective connectivity for visually explored objects and an increase for manipulated objects.

A second study focused on temporal aspects of processing of tool stimuli and therefore entailed EEG. Effects of training were found in the N400 over left frontal brain regions, probably reflecting a modulation of processes related to action planning.

Finally, a third study looked at representations induced by observation of manipulation. Here it was shown that fronto-parietal cortex involvement in tool processing can also result from mere observation of tool manipulation.

In summary, the studies suggest that experience does play a role in neural representations of objects. However, active manipulation is not necessary for the induction of a tool representation in fronto-parietal cortex.

Lecturer: Christian Bellebaum, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, UiO.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Lecture on language, categories and perception

Time and place: Sep. 12, 2013 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Seminar room A04.004, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to the first open seminar in the Neuroscience of Language Discussion Group.

Title: Do categories affect our perception?

Is human perception bound by the language one speaks? Although many cognitive psychologists, linguists, and anthropologists have been attracted to this debate for more than half a century, the topic is still controversial.

Postdoctor Takashi Suegami will present data from his potdoctoral studies; some of them support the idea that human perception is indeed categorical, other data do not. The group will then discuss how such a “discrepancy” can be solved.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Female genital cosmetic surgery

Time and place: June 17, 2013 1:15 PM – 2:45 PM, Seminar Room 1, Harald Schjelderups hus

Can there be a critical psychological response from clinical psychologists?

You are welcome to attend our critical psychology seminar on clinical psychological responses to female genital cosmetic surgery.

Dr. Lih-Mei Liao is a consultant clinical psychologist at UCLH Women’s Health Division, where she contributes to multi-disciplinary care for gynecology and maternity patients and leads the divisional psychological services group.

Lih-Mei Liao is qualified both as a clinical psychologist and a health psychologist. Since completing her PhD (on menopause), she has maintained broad academic interests in women’s reproductive health, illness and healthcare experiences.

Her work in the past decade reflects a more specific concern about medical and psychological responses to bodies that are deemed insufficiently gendered. She draws attention to the dilemmas and contradictions in clinical interventions to hetero-normalise/-'enhance' anatomy and sexuality.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

The social child – Shyness, social anxiety and victimization

Time and place: May 13, 2013 10:15 AM – May 14, 2013 3:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

Associate Professor Evalill Bølstad Karevold and Associate Professor Mona Bekkhus
invite you to seminar and discussion led by Professor Robert J. Coplan, Carleton University and Dr. Lucy Bowes, Oxford University.

This seminar is intended to gain knowledge about social relationships influencing child development and shyness. We aim to raise questions about peer victimisation and shyness, and focus on both clinical practices and new advances within the field of developmental psychology. Cross-cultural differences will also be discussed.

Organizer: Department of Psychology, Associate Professor Mona Bekkhus and Associate Professor Evalill Bølstad Karevold

Open seminar: The hedonic brain – How rewards shape our decisions and social lives.

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2013 12:00 PM – 3:30 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups Hus

Welcome to an open workshop with Professor Morten Kringelbach, University of Oxford.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Programme

12:00: Coffee and sandwiches
12:30: Morten Kringelbach, The pleasures of progeny and procreation
13:30: Siri Leknes, The endorphin system optimises human reward behaviour
13:55: Guido Biele, How the brain weighs costs and benefits
14:20: Break
14:40: Lotte Thomsen, Infants and the basic building-blocks of the social-relational mind
15:05: Bruno Laeng, Hormones, pupils and human attraction

Evelin Lindner's annual lecture

Time and place: Jan. 23, 2013 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Psykologisk institutt, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to Evelin Lindner's annual lecture "Dignity and Humiliation: Norway and the Concept of likeverd".

Evelin Lindner's work focuses on human dignity and humiliation. She is the Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS), a global transdisciplinary fellowship of concerned academics and practitioners who wish to promote dignity and transcend humiliation. She is also a Co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative.

Organizer: Human Dignity & Humiliation Studies and Psykologisk institutt

2012

Cognitive neuroscience seminar

Time and place: Nov. 1, 2012 12:30 PM – 4:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to a cognitive neuroscience seminar at the Department of Psychology. The cognitive neuroscience group is proud to present an open seminar wtih four distinguished researchers.

The lecturers are all renowned within their fields. This is is a great opportunity to get new insight in what is happening at the forefront of cognitive neuroscience. The speakers are from this term affiliated with Center for the study of human cognition as adjunct professors.

Organizer: Department of Psychology and Center for the study of human cognition

Programme

12:30: Kristine B. Walhovd, Dep of Psychology, Oslo: Welcome and introduction
12:45: Catherine J Harmer, Oxford: A cognitive neuropsychological model of antidepressant drug action
13:30: Lars Nyberg, Umeå: Mapping age-related changes in functional brain networks
14:15: Coffee and refreshments
14:30: Heidi Johansen-Berg, Oxford: Imaging and stimulating human brain remodeling
15:15: Ragnhildur Karadottir, Cambridge: Glutamatergic signaling to oligodendrocytes in health and disease.

Relational Models and Virtuous Violence

Time and place: Oct. 16, 2012 9:15 AM – 11:00 AM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups hus

This talk will be an informal discussion of ethnographic, sociological, and psychological evidence that most violence is “morally” motivated. The thesis is that most harm and homicide are moral actions to create, sustain, redress, and terminate social relationships. Although hurting and killing are often aversive and traumatic for the perpetrators, people sometimes feel morally compelled to violence. The obligations to violence may be generated by the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, or relationships between the perpetrators and third parties. Conversely, these relationships may prevent violence, depending on its meaning in the relationships. I will briefly sample from accounts in diverse cultures and historical periods of homicide, suicide, rape, robbery, torture, warfare, sports, genital surgery and castration, body marking initiation, religious mortification and asceticism, human sacrifice, and related practices. One major question to resolve concerns when and why people are motivated to moral violence to constitute relationships, and when people constitute relationships in other ways.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

How Do People Coordinate? Relational Models Theory of the Elementary Forms of Social Relations

Time and place: Oct. 15, 2012 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to the first of two open lectures by Professor Alan Fiske at the Department of Anthropology, U.C.L.A.!

Nearly all social coordination in nearly all domains of sociality in all cultures are organized by just four generative relational models: Communal Sharing, Authority Ranking, Equality Matching, and Market Pricing. Humans have innate motivated cognitive dispositions to coordinate with each of these mods, and children innately know how to recognize, communicate, and constitute each mod. But the mods can only be implemented with reference to culturally acquired preos that specify when, where, how, and with whom to use each mod. Implemented according to diverse cultural preos and in innumerable combinations, the four fundamental mods make cooperative social life possible, while also structuring conflict and violence in meaningful ways.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Environment & Community: Critical and community psychologists as global citizens

Time and place: Sep. 19, 2012 1:15 PM – 2:00 PM, Seminarrom 5, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to a local lecture at the Department of Psychology in the series Global Citizen!

Through a series of open lectures this fall, the University aims to raise student awareness of overall, global challenges.

The idea of the lecture series is to provide interdisciplinary, overall perspectives on our history and culture, in order to promote what we call global citizenship among students.

What is a Global Citizen?

A Global Citizen is one that sees himself or herself as a member of a wider community – locally, nationally and internationally, realizing that the world is fundamentally intertwined. By encouraging critical thinking and ethical discussion on global issues among the students, the university seeks to educate such citizens.

The open lecture series are primarily aimed at students, but are open to anyone who finds the subjects interesting. All UiO faculties will be giving lectures, so there should be something here for everyone.

Researching and Consulting with Work Groups: How One Thing Led to Another

Time and place: Aug. 28, 2012 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, Seminarrom 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to an open lecture in Work and Developmental Psychology by Dr. Susan Wheelan!

Susan Wheelan is an experienced researcher, consultant, and lecturer within the field of team and team development. She has published numerous journal articles and written several books. She was Professor of psychological studies at Temple University, and is currently the President of GDQ Associates.

Dr. Susan Wheelan is President of GDQ Associates, Inc. Until 2001, she was professor of Psychological Studies and Faculty Director of the Training and Development Center at Temple University. A psychologist, she has worked in a number of hospital and clinical settings. Dr. Wheelan received Temple University's Great Teacher Award in 1992.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Majority and immigrants: Social psychological aspects

Time and place: May 31, 2012 9:30 AM – 12:15 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to an open seminar in reference to professor Reidar Ommundsen's retirement this summer.

Together with colleagues in other countries professor Reidar Ommundsen have developed measures with cross-cultural utility to gauge attitudes toward so-called "illegal” immigrants. They have also conducted experimental simulations to see if these attitudes could be changed.

Lately his focus has been directed towards measuring xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners in general in several countries. In addition, they try to identify what attitudes may predict the wish to emigrate in “sending countries”.

Social integration is another theme, and together with a doctoral student he explore normative attitudes of members of the majority population concerning making adjustments with the aim of facilitating the integration of ethnic minorities.

Organizer: Department of Psychology

Programme

09:30: Welcome by Ingela Lundin Kvalem
09:40: "Attitudes toward the undocumented immigrants: Theory and scale development", Knud S. Larsen, Oregon State University
10:00: "Blaming the immigrants: the structure of xenophobia", Kees van der Veer, VU University Amsterdam
10:20: "Framing immigrants to Norway: How they are labeled affects how they are evaluated", Reidar Ommundsen and Dag Erik Eilertsen, Univ. of Oslo
10:40: "On unexpected collaborations: How an almost missed meeting led to years of meaningful international work", Oksana Yakushko, Pacifica Graduate Institute, California
10:50: Coffee
11:05: "Majority members’ attitudes toward proactive integration", Joshua Phelps, Norwegian Police University College
11:25: "Do we need concepts such as humiliation, dignity, and respect to understand majority/minority relations?", Evelin Lindner, Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies
11:45: Discussion

Welcome to a lecture with Prof Mark Howe!

Time and place: Mar. 28, 2012 2:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups hus

"The Role of Emotion, Stress, and Maltreatment in the Development of True and False Memories"

Prof Mark Howe at Lancaster University focuses on structural (representational) and processing (encoding, storage, and retrieval) components involved in the development of memory and long-term retention. As well, recent research is focused on the adaptive nature of memory and its development, with an emphasis on the positive consequences of memory illusions (particularly in priming problem solving success) and the role of memory in navigating future decision making and behavior.

Current work includes studies of:

Developmental changes and invariances in memory and forgetting from infancy to adulthood
Infantile amnesia and the development of autobiographical memory
Children's memory for distinctive (e.g., traumatic) events
Changes in basic memory development due to childhood stress and maltreatment
Development of false and implanted memories
Reasoning-remembering (in)dependence
Dynamic modeling of cognitive development
Adaptive memory

Organizer: EKUP

Humiliation and terrorism

Time and place: Jan. 25, 2012 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Harald Schjelderups hus

Please be warmly invited to an open lecture by Evelin Lindner! This lecture is part of the study programme PSYC3203 - Anvendt sosialpsykologi.

Lindner would love having your interest and your creative ideas with respect to the following points:

World Dignity University initiative: We very much welcome you with your themes and topics!
Dignity Press: Your book manuscripts are most welcome!
Our upcoming conferences in 2012 and 2013: We kindly invite you and your friends and colleagues!
New book A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet.

2011

Minds in the Making: Memory development

Time and place: Dec. 1, 2011 10:15 AM – 1:15 PM, Seminarrom 8, Harald Schjelderups hus

Memory is a fundamental cognitive ability. This seminar focus on how memory is developed from infancy, during childhood and adolescent years, into adulthood.

In addition, there are presentattions about development of brain structures important for memory function, and about memory training in elderly persons who experience subjective memory impairment.

About the guest lecturers

Professor Patricia Bauer at Emory University has done important research on development of memory from infancy through childhood, with special emphasis on the determinants of remembering and forgetting, including links to social, cognitive, and neural development.

Professor Astri Lundevold, UiB, does research on a variety of themes related to life-span changes in brain and cognition. Lundervold is also the leader of the Neuropsychological Phenotyping Group at UiB and among the leaders of the Bergen Child Study.

Organizer: Center for the Study of Human Cognition

Programme

10:15: Welcome and introduction by Kristine B. Walhovd, Center for the Study of Human Cognition (CSHC)
10:30: Patricia Bauer: Development of Memory
11:20: Astri Lundervold: The Bergen Child Study - a longitudinal study of mental health from childhood to late adolescence
11:50: Coffee and refreshments
12:05: Anders M Fjell: Emergence of constructive memory – Brain structural correlates
12:30: Stine Kleppe Krogsrud: Development of hippocampal subfields – preliminary results
12:55: Andreas Engvig: Hippocampal subfield volumes predict who benefits from memory training – a cognitive intervention study on subjective memory impairment

The Rise of Consciousness and the Development of Emotional Life

Time and place: Nov. 29, 2011 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, Auditorium 4, Harald Schjelderups hus

The Department of Psychology invites to an open guest lecture with Professor Michael Lewis from the University of New Jersey, Rutgers University. He will lecture on the topic "The Rise of Consciousness and the Development of Emotional Life".

Michael Lewis is University Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Child Development at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School - University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He is also Professor of Psychology, Education, and Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University.

Professor Lewis is one of the leaders in the study of emotional development. He has published over 350 articles and chapters in professional journals and scholarly texts. He has written and edited more than 35 books, including Social Cognition and the Acquisition of Self (1979), Children's Emotions and Moods (1983), Handbook of Emotions (1993), Shame, The Exposed Self (1992), and Altering Fate: Why The Past Does Not Predict The Future (1997). Currently, Professor Lewis is editing the Handbook of Environment and the third edition of the Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology (1990).

His latest book, The Rise of Consciousness and the Development of Emotional Life, will be published in 2013 by Guildford Press.

In 2009, Professor Lewis received the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the American Psychological Association.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology

Transnational lives - transnational landscapes?

Time and place: Oct. 28, 2011 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Grupperom 7, Georg Sverdrups hus

In this seasons first "Lenge LEVE lunsj seminar", Mariel Støen will present "Transnational lives - transnational landscapes? Understanding the links between international migration and the environment."

Mariel Støen will present some preliminary findings from the project "The effects of international migration on land use change in rural Guatemala and Mexico - Is there a forest transition?"

The links between international migration and the environment are complex and multiple.

Støen will discuss how migration and remittances are entangled in a process of transformation of a rural community in Guatemala. In this place, migration has driven a local process of land redistribution.

Migrant families have changed their main cash crops and are getting better prices for their coffee. New links with international organizations support the entry into new markets, labor relations have been re-shaped and the landscape is under constant transformation and re-negotiation.

The speaker

Mariel Støen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Development and the Environment - SUM and affiliated with LEVE.

Her main research topics are within migration, land use change and environmental governance in Latin America.

Organizer: LEVE - Livelihoods in developing countries

Dynamics of brain and cognition through the lifespan III

Time and place: Sep. 21, 2011 9:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups hus

Neurocognitive Development in Children Born to Mothers Using Opioids.

In this third seminar in the series Dynamics of Brain and Cognition through the Lifespan hosted by the Center for the Study of Human Cognition (CSHC), focus is on the important and timely topic of outcomes of children born to mothers using opioids. Both children of mothers using medication assisted therapy opioids (methadone, buprenorphine) as well as illicit opioids (heroin), is focus of the seminar.

Guest lecturer
Professor Lianne Woodward is the principal investigator of a multi-disciplinary research team at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. The group investigates critical child development issues with study populations ranging from high risk to general population samples. Professor Woodward has published unique and wide-spanning research on the developmental outcome of children at risk, including infants exposed to methadone during pregnancy.

In addition, there will be presenters from R-BUP, Seraf and CSHC.

Organizer: The Department of Psychology, Center for the study of Human Cognition, and Regionsenter for barn og unges psykiske helse

Double-blind lineup administration: Research and policy

Time and place: Sep. 15, 2011 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Harald Schjelderups hus

Welcome to an open lecture at the Department of Psychology (PSI) by Professor of Psychology Margaret Bull-Kovera at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York!

She will also hold a lecture at the Nordic Network for Research on Psychology and Law (NNPL). This is a two-day-conference starting september 16.

This meeting will consider the interplay between psychology and the law in many different areas.

Professor Margaret Bull Kovera is also one of the key note speakers at the NNPL-two-day-conference.

Organizer: The Nordic Network for research on Psychology and Law (NNPL)

Published May 24, 2024 12:51 PM - Last modified June 27, 2024 8:09 AM