This submission spans my work undertaken over the course of recent years on sub-clinical narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sub-clinical psychopathy: the Dark Triad of personality. Across this thesis, I present a series of published and unpublished materials that cover these overlapping yet distinct personality traits in relation to their attractiveness to women, short- and long-term mating preferences, broader personality and lifestyle correlates, general and sexual competitiveness (in women), verbal and non-verbal behavioural outcomes in a mate-attraction scenario, and health-related behaviours and longevity. I also apply a form of scale analysis to establish how well these traits are measured across sex and age groups by a short inventory that has seen widespread use in the field. Broadly, I consider these issues against a backdrop of evolutionary psychology, individual differences in personality, sex- and age-related differences, and the perception and measurement of personality traits. Specifically, I consider the need to look beyond self-reports, especially when over-claiming is a serious risk, to simultaneously evaluate sex similarities, as well as sex differences, to develop an understanding of the particular behaviours that are demonstrated by individuals with personalities associated with higher levels of mating success, and the need to subject inventories to rigorous scrutiny, across both classical, and item response testing. In each chapter, I have sought to contribute to the on-going discussions that researchers active in this field are engaged with regarding the future of this rapidly-advancing area of study. Interest in this personality constellation shows no sign of abating – its rise to prominence within evolutionary and personality psychology to date has been swift – and I conclude with thoughts and suggestions as to which areas future research could explore in order to further our understanding of the Dark Triad.

Background: Previous research has indicated that helping professionals working with traumatised individuals are susceptible to adverse effects which can be recognised as Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional, quantitative design. An online questionnaire was completed by 101 Child Abuse Investigation Unit (CAIU) police officers in England and Wales. STS, coping strategies, anxiety, depression and demographic information was collected for all participants. Results: It was indicated that increased exposure to Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA), measured by number on interviews in the past six months, was associated to higher levels of STS. Positive coping strategies, negative coping strategies, anxiety and depression all had a strong, positive relationship with STS. Conclusions: This paper is a first step to understanding STS in CAIU police officers in the England and Wales. This area of research remains under-developed and would benefit from further attention in the future.

South Asians have been neglected from studies exploring help-seeking related to sexual problems. This experimental case vignette study aimed to explore the role of ethnic group and gender on the beliefs held about the causes, consequences and possible solutions to sexual problems. The study examined the impact of ethnic group (South Asian versus White British), gender of the person in a fictitious case vignette (male versus female), and participant gender (male versus female) on beliefs about sexual problems and coherence between beliefs. 291 participants randomly received a single sentence case vignette depicting either a male or female with a sexual problem and completed measures online concerning their beliefs about causes, consequences and solutions to sexual problems. South Asian and White British participants equally endorsed a psychological causal model, however South Asians showed greater endorsement for biological and social factors for the causes, consequences and solutions to sexual problems. Participants considering the male case vignette perceived greater psychological consequences and biological solutions compared to those who received the female case vignette. Female participants showed greater endorsement for biological, psychological and social causes, and biological and social consequences. Both ethnic groups showed a coherent model between beliefs about the causes and the solutions to sexual problems. The findings provide theoretical support to cognitive models of help-seeking and offer clinical implications to improve help-seeking behaviour and management of sexual problems.

This portfolio was submitted to the University of Surrey for the completion of the Practitioner Doctorate in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology. The research dossier contains a literature review about ecopsychology and existential therapy as approaches for trauma, followed by two empirical studies using qualitative methodologies. The first study uses Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore the client experience of existential therapy, while the second study explores how the existential dimensions manifest when women talk about becoming mothers for the first time. This was achieved through Content Analysis.

The literature review provides a history and a review of the online counselling and therapy literature. This is followed by two qualitative research projects. The first explores how counselling psychologists perceive the online therapeutic relationship. The second research project explored nonverbal communication in the online therapeutic relationship.

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This thesis examined associative implicit learning in dyslexic young adults. Dyslexic adults' associative implicit learning has been examined from three perspectives: what, when, and how. More specifically, it has been investigated if dyslexics have deficit in learning more complex knowledge, such as longer chunks or abstract knowledge (i.e., 'what'); if learning occurs at different stages in dyslexics compared to non-dyslexics (i.e., when); how dyslexics learn, and especially the role of both implicit and explicit processes (i.e., 'how'). The empirical findings from 9 experiments in 5 studies are: i) implicit learning deficits in dyslexic people are more manifest in second-order learning than first-order learning, with both motor and perceptual stimuli; ii) when only zero and first-order information is required, dyslexic people developed abstract learning under implicit learning condition as well as, and as fast as nondyslexics; iii) dyslexic participants had different sequence learning profiles compared to matched controls: dyslexic participants' expression, but not learning per se was impaired under resource-demanding condition compared to controls. Moreover, implicit learning was found to correlate with word reading score, phonological awareness, and working memory. This thesis is the first comprehensive study to consider a wide range of associative implicit learning with different learning content on a dyslexic population. The findings contribute to the current framework of explanatory theories of dyslexia, suggesting a new route through which cerebellar dysfunction can lead to phonological impairment, and eventually lead to reading difficulties.

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Mnemonic operations are vital in our everyday life and comprise a vast array of sub-processes that need to be co-ordinated constantly to ensure smooth functioning. The goal of this work was to investigate the superimposed control component responsible for the co-ordination of those individual sub-processes. Furthermore, by using neuroscientific methods like electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the underlying oscillatory signatures were explored and their behavioural relevance tested. It will be shown that increase in theta frequency (4-8 Hz) over medial frontal cortical areas is a local indicator of increasing task demand and task complexity. Moreover, findings will be presented that indicate that the phase of this local oscillation (frontal-midline theta, FMtheta) enables task-relevant processes in posterior cortical areas (represented by increased activity in the gamma frequency range, 30-80 Hz) to flexibly access prefrontal cognitive resources. This mechanism is implemented in a way that bursts of posterior gamma frequency are locked to specific phases of a FMtheta cycle. The higher the task complexity, i.e. the more prefrontal control processes are needed for its execution, the closer to the excitatory phase of FMtheta (trough) the posterior gamma bursts are nested. In contrast, when only very little cognitive control needs to be employed, the posterior fast frequency bursts are locked near the inhibitory FMtheta phase (peak) rather. By using repetitiveTMS it was furthermore possible to show the behavioural relevance of this mechanism and how the disruption thereof has a highly selective and immediate deteriorating effect on working memory performance. Moreover, it will be demonstrated that this mechanism does not only depend on task difficulty but can be influenced and controlled voluntarily by information prioritisation. Finally, based on these findings a model will be introduced that could potentially explain the mechanism of such flexible allocation of and access to prefrontal control processes.