Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology/Self and Identity

I'm really impressed to see this project here. I want to congratulate Aiden and Claire for this bold experiment in education, and the students for the really good content they are putting in (from what I've seen so far). You will have seen that Psychology articles are in a dire, often misleading state, and there are few of us editors here to improve them. Your coming here seems to be a real win-win situation, as the Psychology content of Wikipedia is improved and, though unexpected and sometimes unwelcome things can happen, I think the process can be very educational in writing and researching academic topics.

Some points that might be helpful, take or leave them:
 * Parapsychology is no longer a featured article: it has been delisted and the consensus seems to be it should never have been an FA in the first place. Hence it is not a good example of what you should be working towards. I could delete it from the list on your project page, but I don't want to interfere with your course.
 * Confirmation bias was very recently rated as a Good Article. Take a look at its Good Article Review to see what I had to do to bring it up to that standard.
 * References are super-important. I see some of you putting content in articles and then references later. It's best to put the references in first, upfront. A long article with no references will attract suspicion and people will try to delete it (crackpots create such articles all the time). On the other hand, a tiny article with lots of academic-looking references will be presumed to be "under development".

Thanks once again! I hope you all have positive experiences with Wikipedia and continue to take part in it after this course. MartinPoulter (talk) 20:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice to see this project. I myself have been working on some of the articles being worked on. See my user page User:Penbat for a list of most of the articles which are of interest to me. I am plugging away trying to do at least a bit of significant work on Wikipedia every day in these areas. I actually live close to Southampton.


 * I notice that Narcissism is one article that may be worked on. I have done tons of work on this article and have turned it around from a disaster to something better. Narcissism is potentially a vast subject and I am not sure if you were intending to include the narcissism daughter articles see . For example, I only separated out History of narcissism for convenience. --Penbat (talk) 11:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Great project. I tried a couple of years ago to interest some academics in getting their psych. students to do this but it fell on deaf ears. I really hope your project succeeeds. The psychology side of wiki is shamefully thin. Maybe your project will be worth a wiki article itself one day if you publish the results. Fainites barley scribs 13:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I have recently turned Abuse around from a shambles of a disambiguation page to a proper article, although some important sections relating to the collective concept of "Abuse" still needs to be done. Also some individual abuses are just written from the legal angle. I suppose you could say it is Social Psychology rather than pure psychology. It is very strange that we have very well written Wiki articles on things like talking animals and animals with diplomas but important stuff like "Abuse" was a shambles. "Abuse" has a vast impact on the modern world yet the science of abuse is all too often overlooked. As a consequence i think it is no accident that most of the population dont have a clue about the mechanics of abuse or bullying and just believe various mythologies and fallacies. --Penbat (talk) 14:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, Cycle of abuse is in a serious mess and needs expert attention.--Penbat (talk) 14:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Psychological manipulation is an extremely worthwhile subject but it didnt even exist on Wikipedia and i had to create it. Attention seeking is still missing but i am working on it. --Penbat (talk) 14:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Great work guys - what a fantastic idea... totally echo what Martin and Faintes say. I have been very impressed by the content I've seen so far. Imagine if only 1% of university courses did this.... I personally find editing rewarding and a great way to learn about subjects that I'm interested in, and it looks like your students have benefited too.Finereach (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for Comment: The Milgram Experiment
I am trying to remove the section "Inapplicability to the Holocaust" from The Milgram Experiment. The section rests on a couple questionable citations. Unsurprisingly, the controversial nature of the topic has spurred an edit war.

In order to summarize my reasoning for removing the section I quote Daniel Kahneman, “Changing one’s mind about human nature is hard work, and changing one’s mind for the worse about oneself is even harder."  I have provided more explanation on the talk page.  Since at the moment, there are only two sides to the current debate, I would greatly appreciate any comments especially from anyone who is familiar with self and other bias.  Thanks for your time.  Aetherist (talk) 13:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)