Psychology on the box…Week beginning 17th January

January has heralded the arrival of lots of programmes on eating behaviours...specifically diets but there's a resurgence of documentaries too, which is always good news for stockpiling resources.

Today there is a programme on Channel 4 at 7.30 pm called 'The World's Best Diet'. Researchers have travelled the world looking at the nutritional content of diets in various tribes and countries. Exactly which diet they deem to be the best is revealed in the programme, but this could give you some good footage for class when you are covering food preference and evolutionary explanations. There are still two years of delivery for this content so this programme could be an opportunity to add to your resources.

Don't forget too that BBC iplayer has last week's offering of 'The right diet for You'. That too contained a lot of the psychology behind eating and overeating, so is worth a look if you missed it last week. It's in three parts and made interesting viewing.

On Tuesday on BBC3 ( 9pm ) there is 'Excluded:Kicked out of school'. The content is exactly 'what it says on the tin', examining the world of children who cannot conform to the school system. This could provide a great stimulus for when you are covering the approaches next year as part of the new AQA specification, or indeed for now, if you have the approaches as a topic in your current specification. It will show behaviourism in action but equally provides the chance for students to explain why the children behave the way they do using as many approaches as possible. Get students to debate which is the most plausible explanation. There is, of course, no right answer!