• ‘Wear red, get noticed’ – and other subtle psychological ways colour affects us

    Geoff Beattie, Edge Hill University I notice that my office is mainly colourless, or perhaps more accurately insipid in colour, a dull brown, the colour of old tea – the desk, the shelves, the table. A once bright red bromeliad now dead or dying on the window sill has turned a dull autumn brown. Beyond…

  • The psychology behind Trump’s awkward handshake … and how to beat him at his own game

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84se4fc4KU?wmode=transparent&start=0] Geoff Beattie, Edge Hill University Handshakes are meant to be relatively simple affairs, at least in terms of their signalling function. “Shake hands on it,” we are told. “Shake and make up.” They have been used as a civilised greeting for at least 2,500 years. But Donald Trump is now in the process…

  • Why I wish I’d listened more to mum

    Why I wish I’d listened more to mum

    I miss her terribly; she told me that I would. I can’t say that she didn’t warn me. “Your mother should be number one. You’ll regret not taking me out more,” she used to say. Then the emotion and the tears would come. “I’m way down the list; I think that you care more about…

  • Why we need to look for the creative spaces to be innovative

    Professor John Diamond (Director of the University’s I4P) welcomes Professor Carolyn Kagan’s lecture on ‘Disruptive Change’: The core message for me last night listening to Carolyn Kagan’s very informative reflection on the ways in which key policy initiatives in the areas of anti-racism, gender and disability have been constrained and limited, was how those advocating…