Psychology

My heart is pounding, my hands are shaking and there’s a leaden feeling in the pit of my stomach. My pupils are dilated and my digestive process has ground to a halt. My sympathetic nervous system is kicking in and activating its ‘fight or flight’ response. And how do I know all this? Because the subject of ‘Stress, and the Body’s Reaction to It’ is one of the topics on the AQA AS-level psychology syllabus — an exam I’m just about to sit. Stress? I don’t just know about it. I’m living it. Three decades after I last took an exam, I am standing outside the sports hall of my

It’s not quite as bad as we feared: Sealed Air, the company in New Jersey that makes bubble-wrap, is not yet discontinuing poppable bubble-wrap. But its newly designed sibling, non-poppable bubble-wrap, surely spells the end for the real thing: it’s cheaper to ship, because it leaves the factory airless and thus can be ‘flat-packed for your convenience’. The companies who receive it will need to buy an expensive pump to fill the reams of polythene with columns of air, and that air will be beyond the popping power of human fingertips. Panic broke out among the bubble-wrap-popping millions across the globe on hearing the news of the threat to their

A year into his sentence on 12 counts of indecent assault, it doesn’t look like Rolf Harris has developed much of a sense of remorse. After seeing Mr Harris’s latest foray into song writing, his victims’ lawyer has said he mustn’t be given parole, and she has a point. Theodore Dalrymple (also known as Anthony Daniels), then a prison doctor, described in 1994 the baffling ability of violent criminals to avoid that uncomfortable emotion. A murderer came back from court having been sentenced to life imprisonment. A period of depression is, of course, to be expected after such a sentence, but this man was angry, not depressed. He was red

Go to a branch of Whole Foods, the American-owned grocery shop, and you will see huge posters advertising Whole Foods, of course, but — more precisely — advertising how virtuous Whole Foods is. A big sign in the window shows a mother with a little child on her shoulders (aaaah!) and declares: ‘values matter.’ The poster goes on to assert: ‘We are part of a growing consciousness that is bigger than food — one that champions what’s good.’ This a particularly blatant example of the increasingly common phenomenon of what might be called ‘virtue signalling’ — indicating that you are kind, decent and virtuous. We British do it, too. But

Have you noticed how often adults – particularly of the earnest, nagging variety who work in the public sector – are behaving like children? I don’t mean acting childishly, but literally behaving like children. Last week delegates to the NUS women’s conference were using ‘jazz-hands’ instead of clapping – in case it should trigger an anxiety attack. I can think of five-year-olds who would squirm at that spectacle. Meanwhile, Brown University in America recently debated sexual assault on campus. A serious topic, but the authorities deemed it necessary to create a ‘safe space’ full of play-doh, bubbles, calming music and colouring books. Yes, colouring books. But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. As the New York Times

Is it racist to be patriotic? Is patriotism, by definition, small-minded and exclusive? When you strip away the onion layers of sentiment about history and hymns, Shakespeare and lawn clippings, does it have a hateful heart? I ask because, as I’ve written before, I feel patriotic, and until recently I’ve considered this to be a good thing. I felt particularly patriotic at a service in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria, last week. I slid in late and guilty, amid snippy Sunday stares. After the sermon we trooped outside and in the suddenly sunlit graveyard the vicar whipped a trumpet from his cassock and began to play. A pair of starlings began their electric