There is much research that shows that playing violent video games like Halo: Reach and Grand Theft Auto increases a person's aggression. New research is now showing that this potential for aggression can last as long as 24 hours.

Psychology teachers who are thinking about classroom activities to use for teaching eyewitness memory next year may be interested in a new video produced by the Open University and the BBC. At only £15 this is a bargain!

This week's resource is a video clip that can be used to show "real life" examples of children imitating the behaviour of their parents. It is a fantastic illustration of Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory.

This week's resource is a video clip showing one of Edward Thorndike's experiments with his puzzle box. Thorndike put hungry cats in these boxes and put pieces of tasty fish outside them to motivate them to escape. To escape, the cats had to push a lever and pull on a string. When first put in the box, the cats would behave in a fairly random way, pacing up and down, scratching at the sides etc., but eventually, by chance, they would push the lever and pull on the string in the correct sequence. They would then be rewarded by being able to eat the fish.

This week's resource is a very powerful talk by Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a neuroanatomist who specialises in the post-mortem analysis of human brain tissue. In this video, she talks about her personal experience of having a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain.

Stanley Milgram (1961) was interested in why millions of Germans blindly obeyed orders that resulted in the mass slaughter of millions of Jews during WWII. One theory at the time was that Germans were different to people of other nationalities in that they were more likely to have a personality type that makes them defer to those of higher authority (the Germanic Personality). Milgram tested his technique by carrying out a pilot study in the US. He advertised in the newspaper for volunteers to take part in a “study on memory”, for which he would pay them $4.50 for travel to the university, they would be paid no matter what happened when they got there. I.e., even if they refused to take part in the study or wished to withdraw at any point. 37 participants took part (Hence Peter Gabriel's song: "We Do What We're told (Milgram's 37)" see video clip below), from a range of occupations, including postal clerks, school teachers, salesmen, engineers and labourers. They came from the full range of educational backgrounds.