UCL Psychology MSci student projects
A University College London blog
(Word count: 932) Ever clicked “no thanks” online and immediately felt like a bad person? Imagine you’re buying a first aid kit online. You’re about to check out when a pop-up appears asking for notifications. You expect a simple “Deny” Continue reading When Saying ‘No’ Feels Like a Crime: The Internet’s Favorite Trick
Exploring empowerment and regret in the wake of whole genome sequencing (WGS) for children with rare conditions. Beyond the Gene: The Emotional Terrain of Genomic Testing Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is often hailed as a breakthrough for families seeking answers Continue reading When Genomic Answers Arrive: How Do Parents Really Feel?
(987 words, 5-minute read) Why do we laugh 🙂 ? Everybody laughs, but why? The simple answer is that laughter is a non-verbal way of expressing positive emotions. People laugh at many things, watching humorous videos, joking around with Continue reading Would You Laugh With Me? What We Learned From Laughter In Interactions Involving Autistic and Non-Autistic People
Have you ever wondered why some words make you feel instantly happy while others make you pensive? For example, “happiness” directly conjures positive emotions, while “gift” may imply a pleasurable expectation. These two types of words are known in psychology Continue reading How do emotional words affect our thinking? An In-depth Exploration on Word Semantic Density
(996 words, 5-minute read) Imagine this: You’ve got an interview for your dream job in two hours. You’ve spent the week preparing — practicing answers, researching — and you feel rock solid. To calm your nerves, you grab lunch with a Continue reading Confidence Is Contagious: How Other Minds Quietly Infect Your Own
999 words, 6-minute read Imagine your phone buzzes—a game notification says your friend unlocked a rare item in a time-limited event. How does it make you feel? Are you excited to unlock it yourself, or do you feel pressured? However Continue reading Fear of Missing Out in Game: Why Some Players Feel More Stress Than Fun
(998 words, 5-minute read) “Could you watch the pot for me?” is a sentence my flatmates and I say to each other on the regular. Even without putting in any physical help, they’re doing me a favor: not having to Continue reading “Watch that for me”: How others’ social presence shapes our memory
New UCL study reveals how your body can predict ad effectiveness — before your brain does. According to Forbes, the average person now encounters between 4,000 and 10,000 adverts per day, whether scrolling Instagram, riding the Tube, or watching Continue reading The Silent Signal That Knows Which Advert You’ll Remember
Imagine being dropped into a virtual arena. Your mission? To hunt down a fast-moving target with a teammate without being able to talk to each other. You’ve got one minute. Go. That’s the challenge I gave participants in my project, Continue reading Tracking Prey and Navigating Space: What Virtual Hunting Can Teach Us About Cooperative Human Navigation
Navigating Adolescence in the Wake of Crisis: Understanding Depression Prevalence Among Youth During the COVID-19 Pandemic We’ve all had our lives changed significantly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of us are pretty resilient. — but for children and adolescents, Continue reading Navigating Adolescence in the Wake of Crisis: Understanding Depression Prevalence Among Youth During the COVID-19 Pandemic