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Julia Shaw (psychologist)

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Julia Shaw
Shaw in March 2018
Born (1987-01-20) January 20, 1987 (age 37)
Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany
Alma materUniversity of British Columbia
Known forFalse memory syndrome
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology

Julia Shaw (born January 20, 1987) is a German-Canadian psychologist and popular science writer who specialises in false memories. Shaw has been an honorary Research Associate in Psychology at University College London (UCL) since 2017 and was a contributor to Scientific American between 2015 and 2017. Since 2020, she has co-hosted the BBC Sounds true crime podcast Bad People with Danish comedian Sofie Hagen.

Education and academic career

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Shaw was born on January 20, 1987[1] in Cologne, West Germany and grew up in Germany and Canada. In 2004 she started a BSc in psychology at the Simon Fraser University.[2] She went on to complete a master's degree in Psychology and Law at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.[3] In 2009, she returned to Canada and was awarded a PhD at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her doctoral thesis was entitled "Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime".[4] Shaw remained in Canada and was a lecturer at UBC until 2013[5] when she became a lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Bedfordshire.[6] She joined London South Bank University as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in 2015, before becoming an honorary[7] Research Associate in Psychology at UCL in 2017.[5][8] She is the founder of the Bisexual Research Group and completed an MA in Queer History at Goldsmiths, University of London.[9]

Shaw specialises in false memories and how law enforcement can use "tactics [that] may lead people to recall crimes that never occurred".[4] In one of her studies, she stated that in a controlled setting she was able to construct false memories of childhood events in 70% of participants using suggestive memory-retrieval techniques.[2][10][11] The validity of this 70% finding has, however, been criticised by colleagues who recoded the data to conclude 26–30% of participants had false memories (with those with false beliefs without memory details not being counted as false memories in this recoding).[12] Shaw addressed the criticism in a 2018 article in Psychological Science, where she explained that the original coding categorized false beliefs as false memories, in keeping with past research that argued memory and belief are difficult to truly distinguish.[13]

Public engagement

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Shaw was a contributor to the popular science magazine Scientific American between 2015 and 2017.[14] She contributed to the PBS documentary Memory Hackers (2016).[15] In the same year Shaw released her first popular science book The Memory Illusion, which was about false memories.[16] In 2017 she gave TEDx talks on false memories.[17][18]

Shaw's second book Making Evil was about true crime. A review in The Guardian described it as "chattily written" but criticised her use of discredited experiments such as the Stanford prison experiment to illustrate her points.[19] A reviewer for The Herald called it "fascinating" and "convincing".[20] A review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung criticised its simplistic writing and felt that it only provided discussion points for small talk at parties.[21]

In July 2020, Shaw started to co-host the true crime podcast Bad People with Danish comedian Sofie Hagen, on BBC Sounds.[22] She also co-hosts the German language true crime podcast Böse with singer-songwriter Jazzy Gudd which started in January 2022.[23] In June 2022, she released her third book Bi, about the history of bisexuality. A review in The Guardian commented that it was "an impassioned attempt to bring decades of serious academic research out of the shadows" but criticised its use of terms interchangeably such as queer and LGBT+ which could lead to confusion. The Independent reviewer called it "well-researched, cogent, and compelling".[24][25]

Personal life

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Shaw came out as bisexual in 2019.[26][27] She entered a civil partnership with employment law barrister Paul Livingston in 2020.[28][29][30]

Bibliography

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  • The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory. Random House, 2016, ISBN 978-1847947628
  • Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side. Canongate Books Ltd., 2019, ISBN 978-1786891303
  • Bi: The Hidden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality. Canongate Books Ltd., 2022, ISBN 978-1786898760

References

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  1. ^ @drjuliashaw (January 20, 2017). "It's my 30th birthday today. For some, turning 30 is like the end of the world. For me, it's the day of Trump's inauguration. Oh, wait..." (Tweet). Retrieved February 17, 2022 – via Twitter.
  2. ^ a b Bryce, Emma. "False memories and false confessions: the psychology of imagined crimes". Wired. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  3. ^ "Julia Shaw Speaker, Speeches, Booking Agent | MFL Global". MFL Global. Archived from the original on January 3, 2018. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  4. ^ a b Julia Shaw; Stephen Porter (March 1, 2015). "Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime". Psychological Science. 26 (3): 291–301. doi:10.1177/0956797614562862. ISSN 0956-7976. PMID 25589599. S2CID 4869911.
  5. ^ a b "Julia Shaw – Research Associate – UCL". LinkedIn. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
  6. ^ Siegel, Nathan. "Give This Woman 3 Hours and She'll Have You Confessing to a Crime You Didn't Commit". OZY. Archived from the original on January 3, 2018. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  7. ^ "Dr Julia Shaw". UCL. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
  8. ^ "Dr Julia Shaw Senior Lecturer – Criminology". London South Bank University. Archived from the original on March 16, 2017. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
  9. ^ "Researchers". Bisexual Research Group. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  10. ^ Shaw, Julia; Porter, Stephen (2015). "Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime". Psychological Science. 26 (3): 291–301. doi:10.1177/0956797614562862. PMID 25589599. S2CID 4869911.
  11. ^ Starr, Douglas (March 5, 2015). "Remembering a Crime That You Didn't Commit". New Yorker. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
  12. ^ Wade, K. A.; Garry, M.; Pezdek, K. (2017). "De-constructing rich false memories of crime: Commentary on Shaw and Porter (2015)". Psychological Science. 29 (3): 471–476. doi:10.1177/0956797617703667. PMID 29315022. S2CID 41506359.
  13. ^ Shaw, Julia (2017). "How Can Researchers Tell Whether Someone Has a False Memory? Coding Strategies in Autobiographical False-Memory Research: A Reply to Wade, Garry, and Pezdek (2018)". Psychological Science. 29 (3): 477–480. doi:10.1177/0956797618759552. PMID 29451430. S2CID 3933199.
  14. ^ "Stories by Julia Shaw". Scientific American.
  15. ^ Memory Hackers. PBS. Event occurs at 38:12.
  16. ^ Lunau, Kate (September 14, 2016). "A 'Memory Hacker' Explains How to Plant False Memories in People's Minds". Vice.
  17. ^ "How False Memories Corrupt Our Identities, Politics, and Justice System | Julia Shaw | TEDxBergen". YouTube. November 9, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  18. ^ "Is Your Memory Just an Illusion? | A Tua Memória é Apenas Uma Ilusão? | Julia Shaw | TEDxPorto". YouTube. October 30, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  19. ^ Poole, Steven (February 20, 2019). "Making Evil by Julia Shaw review – the 'science' behind humanity's dark side". The Guardian.
  20. ^ Smith, Mark (February 17, 2019). "Review: Making Evil, by Dr Julia Shaw". The Herald. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  21. ^ Rinn, Angela (October 6, 2018). "Hinweise für Partygeher" (PDF). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 19, 2020.
  22. ^ "New true crime podcast Bad People presented by Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen, comes to BBC Sounds". BBC. July 23, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  23. ^ "Böse - der True Crime Podcast mit Dr. Julia Shaw und Jazzy Gudd" (in German). Retrieved February 17, 2022.
  24. ^ Guest, Katy (June 22, 2022). "Bi by Julia Shaw review – the past and present of a maligned minority". The Guardian. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  25. ^ Chilton, Martin (June 13, 2022). "Books of the month: From Miriam Toews' Fight Night to Michelle Gallen's Factory Girls". The Independent.(subscription required)
  26. ^ @drjuliashaw (July 5, 2019). "Happy #LGBTSTEMDay! I first came out publicly as bisexual this year..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  27. ^ Clarke, Laurie (June 4, 2022). "Julia Shaw: 'I had so many questions about bisexuality'". The Guardian. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
  28. ^ @drjuliashaw (December 2, 2019). "We just gave notice of our intent to form a civil partnership!..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  29. ^ "Paul Livingston". Outer Temple Chambers. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
  30. ^ @drjuliashaw (March 2, 2020). "We were so lucky to have @VanessaIfeoma at our #civilpartnership..." (Tweet). Retrieved May 7, 2022 – via Twitter.
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