Bad people or people who do bad things?

A new ten-part OU/BBC podcast series of Bad People has launched and will be available weekly on BBC Sounds. FASS academics Dr Camilla Elphick and Dr Zoë Walkington consulted on the series, which also features Zoë and Stephen Akpabio-Klementowski as interviewed guests.

Camilla says: “This podcast has a refreshing approach to exploring both why people do bad things, and notions of what is bad.”

Presented by criminal psychology scientist Dr Julia Shaw and comedian co-host Sofie Hagan, the BBC Sounds Podcast deconstructs true crime, turning to psychological science to understand why people do bad things.

The first episode focusses on the case of Nadja Benaissa, a German popstar convicted of ‘recklessly transmitting HIV’. Correlations are inevitably drawn with the intentional transmission of COVID-19.

Dr Zoe Walkington, and Dr Camilla Elphick from the School of Psychology and Counselling are academic advisors on ten episodes of the series that dissects the criminal cases that shock, intrigue and scare us the most.

Zoe says: “This podcast is eclectic in its tastes and quirky in its approach to dealing with complex criminal cases.”

Listen in here (via BBC Podcast). 

Research links:

Find out more about Dr Camilla Elphick and her research.

Find out more about Dr Zoe Walkington and her research.

Curriculum / OpenLearn links:

This series was commissioned by Broadcast and Partnerships and is supported by Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, with particular relevance to Q07 BSc (Honours) Psychology, Q82 BSc (Honours) Forensic Psychology and F73 MSc in Forensic Psychological Studies.