Practising psychologists across a range of disciplines are known to frequently work with individuals who have complex emotional difficulties. Excessive job demands and lack of resources are known to impact on the well-being of these professionals (Hannigan, Edwards, & Burnard, 2004) with consequences for the individual, clients, and organisations at a wider level. This thesis examines some of the factors which can affect wellbeing in psychologists. Section 1 presents the findings from a systematic literature review including 22 papers that looked at the experience of burnout in practising psychologists (e.g., clinical, counselling, and school psychologists). Psychologist burnout was within the moderate to high range in at least half of the studies examined. Variables including gender, practice setting and level of experience were related to burnout, as were several psychosocial variables. Methodological quality of studies varied hugely and compared to other professions, the literature on burnout for psychologists was generally lacking. Relevance to clinical practice and implications for future research are discussed. Section 2 comprises the quantitative research study, which explored whether job demands predicted psychological well-being in clinical psychologists, and whether the quality of the supervisory relationship was capable of moderating that relationship. A total of 194 clinical psychologists participated in the online study consisting of a questionnaire gathering demographic information and information on job characteristics, and five standardised self-report measures including a measure of job demands, a measure of the supervisory relationship, and three measures of psychological well-being. Job demands significantly predicted psychological well-being, but that relationship was not moderated by the strength of the supervisory relationship. A discussion of the findings, including possible reasons for the lack of moderation, are presented, along with suggestions for further research. Section three presents a critical appraisal of the research. It discusses the findings of the literature review and research study, as well as a critique of the methodology. Reflections on the research process are given and implications for clinical practice are discussed.

This thesis examines the working memory (WM) function of authorised firearms officers (AFOs) after participation in a variety of simulated armed confrontations. In the UK, AFOs are required to operate and make decisions during situations in which there is a high degree of threat, novelty, time pressure, a large volume of perceptual information and a requirement to multi-task. A small amount of anecdotal evidence details the numerous perceptual distortions encountered by police officers in such situations. Whilst naturalistic decision making theories detail the cognitive heuristics employed by professionals who operate in comparable environments (e.g. fire fighters and military personnel), an investigation of the precise cognitive adaptations which occur during such demanding situations has not (to the knowledge of the researcher) been conducted. AFOs are required to use the conflict management model (CMM) to guide decision making; one of the main hypotheses in the present thesis is that the adequate use of the CMM requires Working Memory (WM) processing. As the multi-store model of WM is the accepted gold standard for behavioural experimentation; this was invoked as a template for the systematic examination of WM function in AFOs. To explore these issues, the researcher attended a variety of tactical training packages involving AFOs. In total over 200 training days were attended, including theoretical inputs. Discussions with firearms officers and their trainers facilitated the development of studies and subsequent interpretation of results. A total of 75 AFOs participated in 9 studies conducted around highly immersive simulated armed confrontations. Which were designed by firearms trainers to test AFOs tactic completion and decision making. A variety of standardised measures of WM function were sourced and administered to AFOs at various time points in relation to a simulated armed confrontation. This provided a body of work with high replicability and ecological validity. A variety of physiological measures were also collected, the rationale for which was as a test to establish if the simulated armed confrontations placed the anticipated level of demand on the officers. These measures were also used to make tentative inferences concerning the relationship between cognitive adaptations and physiological arousal which is well documented in the literature. The results suggest that the completion of tactics which are over learned (e.g. standard operating procedures) leads to a reduction in executive cognitive functioning whilst non-executive cognitive functioning simultaneously increases. It is reasonable to suggest that the available information processing capacity was devoted to following the standard operating procedure rather than making tactical decisions from scratch, hence the relative increase in non-executive functioning. The completion of novel and more complex tactics resulted in an increase in executive cognitive function whilst non-executive function decreased. It is also possible that the absence of experiential learning led to the allocation of information processing capacity to executive functioning in order to facilitate making novel tactical decisions in the absence of the ability to pattern match the cues from the environment. The demand placed on AFOs during a simulated armed confrontation appeared to lead to a shift in cognitive function. An increase in the processing of visuo-spatial information was observed, at the cost of phonological processing. The literature suggests this may represent a shift from left hemispheric cortical function to right hemispheric and more posterior activity. Information from two sources and particularly from different modalities cannot be simultaneously processed and attended to. In situations of high demand a faster speed of information processing and increased attention focus is achieved through decrease in PFC function. Attention is directed to the perceptual cue(s) most likely to facilitate with the coping/removing of the source of threat. It is suggested that these cognitive adaptations are defensive behaviours placing the officers in the optimum state to deal with the perceived threat. For example, the cognitive adaptations may reflect evolutionary responses to facilitate survival in situations of increased demand/threat. Hence these changes (even when decreases were observed) should not necessarily be viewed as deficits. Increases in physiological arousal demonstrated that the simulated armed confrontations placed increased demand on the AFOs resulting in a general adaptive response. Nevertheless, at all time points, in every test, performance was maintained at a relatively high level compared to control situations. The simulated armed confrontations conducted during the tactical training of authorised firearms officers provided a rare platform to investigate defensive behaviours in humans. The applications of the findings are discussed in terms of police training/policy, inputs to theory and methodological progress. It is also argued that, as well as demonstrating that defensive adaptations in humans result in cognitive shifts, more generally, the current studies may provide a foundation for the ethological study of human defensive behaviour.

Practice leads to performance gains in speed and accuracy. Investigations have indicated these may occur due to use of cognitive strategies. One such strategy, previously investigated with an Alphabet Verification task, is called Information Reduction (Haider and Frensch, 1996). It involves attending to and processing only information relevant to the task in hand. Information Reduction has been proposed to be consciously and abruptly adopted and applied consistently. However, it has been observed that not everyone makes use of this strategy. This could be due to the nature of the task, the conditions under which learning takes place or characteristics of the participants. Using new tasks developed for this study, plus post-testing questionnaires, further investigations were carried out. These confiffi1ed Information Reduction is not a task-specific phenomenon, but demonstrated that the instructions and feedback given have considerable effects on whether irrelevant information in the stimuli is ignored. When instructed that a shortcut could improve performance, only one-third of participants could verbalise Information Reduction use, although another third adopted it, apparently without awareness. Using Inforn1ation Reduction without awareness is at odds with Haider and Frensch's hypothesis about the mechanism. However, experiments testing transfer to other stimuli where the same regularity occurs or with similar stimuli obeying a slightly different rule suggested that conscious knowledge may be required for transfer to be successful. One notable result from all experiments is that Information Reduction is often not used consistently. Whilst this may seem to be in line with the idea that it is consciously applied, it is not with other aspects of the proposed mechanism. Overall it does seem to be less robust than has been suggested and there seems to be some way to go before an adequate theory to explain Information Reduction can be developed.

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The default network refers to a network of brain regions more active in the resting state than during active engagement in a task. The anatomy and functional behaviour of the network has been well established through a decade of work which has a heavy bias towards fMRI-based investigation. EEG has great potential to increase our understanding of the default network, however to date the application of EEG in the area has been sparse and uncoordinated. Where it is deployed, often authors will attempt to make new inferences about the default network before their EEG signal has been established as truly reflecting activity in the network. The establishement of an agreed default network marker in the EEG signal would allow for much more coordination in the investigation of the network and allow the integration of results into a coherent whole. The present work aimed to construct a robust and replicable approach to investigating whether aspects of the EEG signal may be reflective of default network activity. A three stage process was used. Firstly, the existing fMRI literature was studied to create a 'template' of default network activity during task and rest states. Secondly, the broader default network literature was studied to identify EEG signals which have been suggested to be reflective of default network activity. Finally, experiments were conducted collecting EEG data in simple task and rest states. The behaviour of the EEG signal was compared to the default network template. Very low frequency EEG and frontal midline theta were assessed on this basis. The former was not found to demonstrate identifiable default network-like acitivty, however the interpretation of this negative finding was made difficult by the lack of a general understanding of EEG in the sub 1Hz frequency range. The latter was found to bear some hallmarks of default network activity – a change in overall power and a change in low frequency power fluctuations between conditions – however these changes were in the opposite direction from those predicted. This partial fit to predictions was found to highlight strengths and weaknesses of this template matching approach. The weakness is that ambiguous results cannot readily be interpreted within an approach designed to make judgements one way or the other. The strength is that this ambiguity was not resolved with reference to the default network literature. The new aspect of the present work is that task-state signal was extracted purely from pretrial baseline periods free from the influence of event related activity, an approach does not appear to have been adopted in the fMRI literature which was used to construct the template. The benefit of these results, then, is that they pose a question which the existing literature cannot answer, suggesting future directions in both EEG and fMRI work.

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Intractable conflicts have extremely harmful consequences for security, property, and well-being. One of the unique characteristics of such conflicts is the perception of irresolvability held by all those involved, and the associated emotion of hopelessness, which dominates the collective narrative. Despite this, relatively little research has investigated the role of hope in changing attitudes in intractable conflicts. This thesis reports a programme of research that systematically investigates the psychology of hope and change in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, I examine the effect that hope has on attitudes for peace, and develop ways in which hope can be experimentally induced within such extreme and violent situations. The results of 9 studies provide evidence that by promoting generalised perceptions of change, hope for peace can be induced. Additionally, results revealed that experiencing hope for peace led to support for conciliatory policies needed for conflict resolution. Further findings suggest that when outgroups express hope for peace, these expressions can, under specific conditions, promote ingroup hope for peace. Overall, this thesis contributes to a greater understanding of the role of hope and change in intractable conflicts, and how hope can be used as a tool for peace-making and reconciliation.