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Last broadcast on Wed, 27 May 2009, 16:30 on BBC Radio 4 (see all broadcasts).
Synopsis
Claudia Hammond hears from scientists who built their own 'haunted room' in an attempt to show that they could induce a haunting by manipulating energy fields and sound.
Therapists 'Treating' Homosexuality
As the Church of Scotland bans the ordination of gay ministers for the next two years, it is clear that in some circles homosexuality remains unacceptable. And it is still the case that people sometimes approach therapists or psychiatrists asking them to rid them of their gay or lesbian feelings. In the past, homosexuality was a psychiatric diagnosis. So researchers decided to ask psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, therapists and counsellors whether they would try to change a person's sexuality, despite there being no evidence that it is possible. Now the research has been published and although only four percent said that they would attempt to change a client's sexual orientation, one in six admitted that they had actually tried to help reduce a client's lesbian or gay feelings. Claudia speaks to one of the report's authors, Dr Annie Bartlett, consultant psychiatrist at St Georges Hospital Medical School in London, and to Philip Hodson, spokesperson for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Witnessing Rudeness Stunts Creativity, Harms Memory and Makes You More Aggressive
Every week on TV we can watch Sir Alan Sugar on The Apprentice, chewing out his would-be new assistants. Many believe that being rude to staff is part of the cut and thrust of business and that it motivates people to do well, but new research completely contradicts this view. As well as showing that rudeness stunted the creativity of the victim, this new study by Dr Amir Erez at the University of Florida goes one step further, and shows that even witnessing incivility and rudeness makes you less creative, more aggressive, less helpful and harms your memory.
Could Geo-Magnetic Fields Give Us That Spooky Feeling?
According to a MORI poll, 40 per cent of us believe in ghosts and 37 per cent claim to have even seen, heard or felt one. But two psychologists think there might be an altogether less spooky explanation for these experiences and they are determined to get to the bottom of what is going on. One theory is that people might get strange feelings because they are in fact detecting naturally-occurring patterns of electromagnetic fields or very low level sounds. But casting around for an explanation for the spooky sensation, people often decide it must have been a ghost. Professor Chris French from Goldsmiths, University of London has tested this theory by building a haunted room, beaming geomagnetic fields into it, and asking participants to record what sensations they detected. He explains his results while Dr Jason Braithwaite from the University of Birmingham describes the bizarre geo-magnetic anomalies he has recorded at one of the UK's reputedly most haunted locations, Muncaster Castle in Cumbria.
Broadcasts
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Tue 26 May 200921:00
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Wed 27 May 200916:30
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