This chapter first describes how we measure data, and how its creation has skyrocketed in recent years. We then define Big Data and psychology for the purposes of the book, and motivate why their intersection is important to study. The chapter ends with a guide to how to use the book, and brief summaries of the upcoming chapters.

Arches, hoodoos, buttes, mesas … these are the picturesque landforms that most tourists and landscape-lovers know about, and which are the focus of many parks and recreation areas. All of these landforms are bedrock-controlled, with rock at or immediately beneath the surface. This chapter introduces a wide array of bedrock-controlled landforms. Most have formed on sedimentary rock, the most common rock in Earth’s upper crust. Thus, much of the focus in this chapter will be on landforms developed on flat-lying bedrock strata (layers) that have experienced minimal tectonic disturbance throughout their history. Chapters 9 and 10 focus on bedrock-controlled landforms formed on much more tectonically active landscapes.

Weathering is central to geomorphology; without it, landforms would not exist. Weathering sculpts rocks and landscapes at all scales, from producing tiny pits on rock surfaces to forming large valleys. It is everywhere.

However, weathering does not work alone. Instead, it operates alongside other surficial processes to produce the landscapes we see around us. Weathering is often defined as the in situ (meaning “in position”) breakdown of rocks and minerals. It is distinct from erosion, which involves the removal and transport of material, usually downslope. Often, weathering preconditions rocks for erosion by making them weaker and less coherent. Together, weathering and erosion operate to form landforms via denudation – the overall lowering of the land surface.

G. K. Gilbert is considered one of the founders of modern geomorphology (see Chapter 2). In his 1877 report on the geology of the Henry Mountains of Utah, he wrote that (p. 109).

This chapter covers the problems with current norms in the participants we recruit for psychology experiments, and how to solve some of these problems by taking a Big Data approach. Specifically, many psychology experiments use very restricted and similar samples – such as American college students. However, this sample differs greatly from the global adult population, in many ways described here. The chapter then discusses how we can move toward more representative groups using Big Data, while also highlighting caveats that we will never be able to make a perfect sample, and sometimes we may want to intentionally restrict the people we recruit. The chapter finishes with a look at the big ethical questions surrounding participant recruitment, and discussion on imbalances in the demographics of psychology researchers themselves.

How old is the Grand Canyon? When did the glaciers last retreat from this area? How long does it take to form an inch of topsoil? When did the earthquake occur that formed these rock scarps? These are the questions that geomorphologists ponder. This chapter will outline the tools and approaches we use to answer such questions.

Establishing how old a landform might be, that is, when it formed, has always occupied the mindset of geomorphologists. If we know how OLD a landform is, then we can begin to understand how it is evolving, how fast it might be changing, and how it formed in the first place. Fortunately, various dating principles and techniques now exist to address these issues. These techniques require the ability to measure change in a system or a landform over time, with the (usual) goal of establishing the age of a sediment package or a landform.

Geomorphology is the study of landforms – their evolution, shape (morphology), and composition. The word comes from the Greek (geo, Earth, morphos, referring to form, and ology, a branch of knowledge). Landforms come in all types, shapes, sizes, compositions, and ages. There is a landform for everyone, and no two are exactly alike. Understanding Earth’s landforms – how they are formed, altered, destroyed, and/or buried by various geologic processes – is at the core of geomorphology. This textbook will teach you the language and concepts that will help you to understand the workings of many of Earth’s physical systems. Our goal is to equip you with the vocabulary and toolkit for understanding why Earth’s physical landscapes look the way they do. This knowledge will help us all to better manage our fragile natural resources.

In this chapter we explore concepts and practices related to diversity. This is a complex terrain to navigate as we are all ‘diverse.’ However, diversity (or our differences) have personal, social and political effects; many of which involve power and engender various forms of inequality, privilege and oppression. Critical social workers have been considering the ‘dilemma of difference’ for decades. In 1985, for example, Martha Minow observed that, rather than avoiding this dilemma, we should ‘immerse ourselves in it’, not necessarily to seek a final resolution, but to engage in a ‘more productive struggle’ for equitable processes and outcomes’. Challenging privilege and oppression is at the heart of critical social work and our journey is both personal and professional as we grapple with how to respectfully listen, learn and engage in mutual consciousness-raising across difference, while advocating for social and systemic change to address inequality.

Your physical state communicates a lot about you. For, example your heart rate and skin conductance can indicate whether you are in fear. This chapter demonstrates how innovations in hardware and sensor technologies allow us to take physiological measurements that can reflect your cognitive state. The chapter discusses readily available sensors in popular devices like smartwatches and phones that can be used to collect physiological data. We then describe what each sensor – accelerometers, GPS, thermometers, heart rate monitors, and their combination – can reveal about the mind. The chapter also provides advice on how to analyze such richly sampled data, and we discuss privacy concerns that can come with such deep data collection.

Plants and animals are, unquestionably, important geomorphic agents. Nonetheless, their key roles in the geomorphic system have only recently been properly appreciated and studied. In fact, the term biogeomorphology was only introduced in 1988, by Professor Heather Viles, as an approach to geomorphology that explicitly considers the role of organisms.

Biogeomorphology focuses on the influence of plants, animals, and microorganisms on landforms and geomorphic processes, and vice versa. This chapter examines how the field of biogeomorphology has expanded since its formal definition in 1988. We will discuss the role of plants in geomorphology, usually simply referred to as phytogeomorphology, as well as the role of animals, whose role in landscape evolution is captured by the term zoogeomorphology. Despite the emphasis that researchers have placed on the role of macroorganisms in geomorphology, some more recent, pioneering work has also shown that microorganisms are also important.

While we have already touched on several fields of practice throughout this text, this chapter draws on our own and other authors’ research and experience to go somewhat deeper in relation to three social work practice fields: aged care and working with older people; child protection; and men’s violence against women. We consider some of the current debates that exist within these fields and contextualise them within wider social and political contexts. We acknowledge the challenges for critical practice, particularly when it seems to be at odds with the dominant discourses and associated institutional structures and cultures.

Social work practice may be conceptualised in a variety of ways. Sometimes practice is referred to as ‘methods’. Some social work texts have tended to refer to different levels of practice: micro methods, including methods for working with individuals, such as casework, counselling and case management; methods for working with couples and small groups, such as family group conferencing, mediation and group work; and macro methods, which are more collective methods of practice, such as advocacy, community development, policy development and analysis, research and social action. Practice is also sometimes referred to in terms of the processes that characterise it from beginning to end – for example, engagement, assessment, intervention, termination and evaluation. This tendency to conceptualise practice in terms of ‘processes’ is mostly relevant for micro methods, and some have argued that this conceptualisation represents the imposition of ‘corporate management techniques’ and a ‘case management approach’ onto social work.

Many of the psychological topics we have discussed have focused on the mind of the individual, but humans are a fundamentally social species. Recently, the nature of our social interactions has transformed, through our new abilities to connect with people online. This chapter discusses psychological principles of social networks, and how to quantify social networks via graph theory. The chapter examines the small-world phenomenon and the role of social ties via these graph theory measures. We then look at the case of online social networks, what can be learned about you from your profile, and how their use impacts psychological measures. The chapter concludes by showcasing findings on social network representations in the brain, and touching on ethical questions related to social media privacy concerns and AI-based social interactions.

This chapter provides an overview of some of the key practice strategies that social workers use to try to challenge and arrest the massive social inequalities we explored in the previous chapters. The theory and practices of critical social work help us to devise creative and effective ways to contest and resist the harms created by oppressive social forces. Developing our capacity for critical analysis is an important first step that underpins all other practices outlined in this chapter: social policy analysis and development; social activism, allyship and participation in social movements; critical practice in organisations; and undertaking social research. These practices connect practitioners with discretionary spaces in which they can work towards social justice and emancipatory aims.

Exploration of planetary bodies beyond Earth is occurring at an ever-increasing rate. What used to be points of light in the night sky are now amazing, complicated, and intriguing objects of geologic study. For extraterrestrial bodies with solid surfaces – such as rocky planets, asteroids, and icy bodies – the study of planetary bodies as geologic objects includes careful scrutiny of their surfaces. Planetary exploration is an examination of geomorphology, as our interpretations of other planetary surfaces are largely guided by geomorphic studies done on Earth. At the same time, planetary landforms developed in different geologic conditions than on Earth – such as under different gravities, in different materials (like ice instead of rock), and beneath different atmospheric pressures or compositions.

This chapter illustrates that various geomorphic processes observed on Earth occur on other planets as well, and also how the resultant landforms contrast with those found on Earth.