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Centre for Psychology and Social Sciences

The Centre for Psychology and Social Sciences reflects research excellence across the social sciences in the specialisms of: diversity, community and identity; exceptional experiences and consciousness studies; and health education and behaviour change. Ongoing research has national and international reach, drawing on funding from a range of external partners to produce work that has a direct impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals and their communities. The Centre supports a balanced and sustainable team of committed researchers working collaboratively within a nurturing research culture that gives rise to world-class research in target areas of specialism.

Highlights
  • To enhance the reputation of the University of Northampton for conducting high quality research with international reach through the production of high quality outputs and generation of significant research income
  • To align our research and enterprise activity to the University of Northampton’s Changemaker Plus Challenge 2 (to make Northamptonshire the leading county in the UK for Health and Wellbeing)
  • To support the professional development of CP&SS members by providing opportunities for collaboration, mentoring, sharing of good practice, and creative use of resources for research activity
  • To enhance the learning experience of undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students by drawing on direct experience of contemporary primary research methods, findings and theory
  • To develop and disseminate accurate and balanced information concerning research activity for academic, professional practice and lay public groups
    • CHILD-UP. Researches the social conditions of migrant children’s integration through social participation.  Federico Farini Farini (Lead) with Evangelia Prokopiou, Jane Murray, Angela Scollan &  Kim Woodbridge-Dodd. Funded by: Horizon2020, £313,000 (3-years).
    • Early intervention for depression and anxiety in 16-18 year olds. Jynna Yarrum. Funded by: National Institute for Health Research, £1.6m with £160k coming to UON.
    • Lucid dreaming and sensory deprivation project. Glenn Hitchman & David Saunders. Funded by: Perrott-Warrick Fund, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, £60k.
    • Developing sustainable, scalable, sector-specific programmes for postgraduate character virtue formation. Liz Gulliford. Funded by: Oxford character project, $100k.
    • Children Caring on the Move (CCoM). Eva Prokopiou. Funded by: ESRC, £1m with £30k to UON.
    • The role of exemplar narratives in cultivating character. Liz Gulliford. Templeton Foundation, $1.7 m with $206k to UON.
    • Research Programme to explore the psychology of mediumship. Chris Roe. Research Foundation, Geneva, £170k.
    • Does Ganzfeld stimulation elicit a shift away from normal waking consciousness, and is this associated with ESP task success. Tests the claim that Ganzfeld stimulation induces increased alpha activity rather than a hypnagogic state, using a less intrusive EEG system and more standard Ganzfeld-ESP protocol, mapping EEG changes against subjective measures, individual differences and psi task outcome. Chris Roe & David Saunders. Funded by: Bial Foundation, Porto. €48k.
    • Extrasensory perception and altered states of consciousness:  A re-examination. The project explores the conditions under which experiences occur, using content analysis of accounts of spontaneous cases, surveys and experimental methods. Chris Roe. Funded by: Perrott-Warrick Fund, Trinity College, Cambridge, £230,000
    • Investigation of the phenomenology and impact of spontaneous After-Death Communications. Chris Roe & Cal Cooper. Research Foundation, Geneva, £70k.
    • Empowering Young Language Brokers for Inclusion in Diversity (EYLBID). Evangelia Prokopiou. Funded by: Erasmus+ €153k with €18k to UON.
    • Bartos, S.E., & Hegarty, P. (2019). Negotiating Theory When Doing Practice: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research on Interventions to Reduce Homophobia. Journal of Homosexuality, 66, 1262-1286.
    • Cooper, C.E., Saunders, D. & Hitchman, G., (2020). Reconsidering sensory isolation in floatation tanks as a method of promoting psi-conducive imagery. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research., 84, 1-19
    • Crafter, S., Cline, T., & Prokopiou, E. (2017). Young adult language brokers’ and teachers’ views of the advantages and disadvantages of brokering in school. In R. Weisskirch (Ed.), Language Brokering in Immigrant Families: Theories and Contexts. Routledge.
    • Culpepper, P.D., Havlícek, J., Leongómez, J.D., & Roberts, S.C. (2018). Visually Activating Pathogen Disgust: A New Instrument for Studying the Behavioral Immune System. Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 9, Article 1397.
    • Dann, C. (2018). Constructions of regulation and social norms of tattooed female bodies. In Holland, S. (ed.) & Spracklen, K. (ed.), Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces: Essays on Alternativity and Marginalization. Bingley: Emerald Publishing, p. 103-118.
    • Elliott-King, J., Peel, E., & Hogervorst, E. (2019). Acute Cognitive Effects of Physical Activity for People who have Dementia. International Journal of Neurodegenerative Disorders, 2:009. DOI: 10.23937/2643-4539/1710009
    • Farini, F. (2019). Inclusion Through Political Participation, Trust from Shared Political Engagement: Children of Migrants and School Activism in Italy. Journal of International Migration and Integration. pp. 1–16.
    • Fullwood, C., Wesson, C., Chen-Wilson, J., Keep, M., Asbury, T., & Wilsdon, L. (2020). If the Mask Fits: Psychological Correlates with Online Self-Presentation Experimentation in Adults. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0154
    • Gibbs, J., & Lehtonen, A. (2019). I, Daniel Blake: Vulnerability, Care, and Citizenship in Austerity Politics. Feminist Review, 122(2), 49-63. doi.org/10.1177/0141778919847909
    • Hill, K. M., Pilling, M. and Foxcroft, D. R. (2018) Affordances for Drinking Alcohol: A Non-Participant Observation Study in Licensed Premises. European Journal of Social Psychology. 48(6), 747-755.
    • LeBlanc, S., Uzun, B., Pourseied, K. & Mohiyeddini, C. (2017). Effect of an Emotion Regulation Training Program on Mental Well-Being. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 67, 108-123.
    • McAllister, L., Fellin, L. & Callaghan, J. (2018). Masculinities and emotional expression in UK servicemen: “Big boys don’t cry”? Journal of Gender Studies, 1-14.
    • Maunder, R., & Monks, C. (2019). Children’s friendships in middle childhood: how number of friends, reciprocity and friendship quality relate to peer and school identification, and general self-worth. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 37, 211-229.
    • Morgan, B., Gulliford, L., & Kristjánsson, K. (2017). A new approach to measuring moral virtues: The Multi-Component Gratitude Measure. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 179–189.
    • Salamino, F., & Gusmini, E. (2017) A shift in narratives: From ‘attachment’ to ‘belonging’ in therapeutic work with adoptive families. A single case study, European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 19, 22-42.
    • Sarantakis, N.P., (2020). Rediscovering Meaning When Entering “Older Age”: A Counseling Case Study Based on a Lifespan Development and a Pluralistic Approach. Practice Innovations, 5, 1-18.
    • Saunders, D., Clegg, H., Roe, C.A., & Smith, G.D. (2017). Exploring the role of need for cognition, field independence and locus of control on the incidence of lucid dreams during a 12-week induction study. Dreaming, 27(1), 68-86.
    • Smith, L-A., & Tucker, I. (2015). “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know”: The pervasive socio-medical and spatial coding of mental health day centres. Emotion, Space and Society, 14, 3e9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2014.10.002
    • Storm, L., Sherwood, S.J., Roe, C.A., Tressoldi, P.E., Rock, A.J., & Di Risio, L. (2017). On the correspondence between dream content and target material under laboratory conditions: A meta-analysis of dream-ESP studies, 1966-2016. International Journal of Dream Research, 10(2), 120-140.
    • Thompson, C., & Ong, E. (2018). The association Between suicidal Behavior, attentional control, and Frontal asymmetry. Frontiers in Psychiatry, Volume 9, Article 79.
    • Turner, D., Callaghan, J., & Gordon­Finlayson, A. (2017) Being the other: A creative exploration of the identity of the other. British Journal of Play Therapy, 12, 22­34.
    • Volkovyskaya, E., Raman, I., & Baluch, B. (2017) Age of acquisition (AoA) effect in monolingual Russian and bilingual Russian (L1)-English (L2) speakers in a free recall task. Writing Systems Research, 9, 148-163, DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2017.1405136
    • Wells, A.E., Hunnikin, L.M., Ash, D.P., & van Goozen, S. H.M. (2020). Children with Behavioural Problems Misinterpret the Emotions and Intentions of Others. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 48, 213–221.
    • Carey Allen

    An investigation into the effect of sound bath and mindfulness-based interventions on the wellbeing and heart rate variability in undergraduate students.

    • Deborah Babalola

    Exploring health literacy in the general population and healthcare providers in South West Nigeria.

    • Zak Baldwin

    An investigation into the effects of action video-games and gaming interfaces on visual selective attention and age-related cognitive declin.

    • Hayley Barton

    Cognitive decline across the adult lifespan: A role for sleep.

    • Scott Bradley

    Strengths-use in high-performance/elite sport teams.

    • Karen Brasher

    Male adolescents’ perceptions and experiences of being authentic.

    • Jacquie Bridgman

    Coping and Resilience in Women who parent alone; A narrative autoethnographic study of external factors relating to developing resilience.

    • Michelle Bye-Gannon

    Exploring the role of gender and identity in the experiences of male secondary school students.

    • Mike Daw

    An examination of the differential effect of omnivorous, vegetarian, vegan, and fasting diets on psi.

    • Iain Douglas

    Investigating technical and psychology concepts around nudges in Virtual Reality and 3D environments

    • Ana Sofia Machado Ferreira

    Induced near-death experiences in healthy volunteers: Phenomenology, psychophysiology, and after-effects

    • Lorna Freestone

    How do the experiences of supportive parents of transgender children affect parents’ identity, coping and wellbeing?

    • Sarah Hyde

    Collaborative goal setting for children with motor disorders: A transdisciplinary team approach

    • Sarah Ibordor

    How the creation and interactions of online identities impacts the well-being of mothers within social media.

    • Lesley Kalish

    What are therapists’ understandings of Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) and how is that reflected in their beliefs about how patients’ presenting with MUS can best be supported?

    • Fil Kinnersley

    Phenomenological study of neophyte practitioners developing mental mediumship

    • Ewen Maclean

    Clients’ experiences of mental mediumship

    • Michael Montgomery

    The Shifting Sound of Silence: A Grounded Theory Study

    • Chetak Nangare

    Parapsychology and Buddhism — to afford a comparison between descriptions of psychic experiences in Buddhist works and in parapsychological research

    • John Pendleton

    The experiences of men who work as midwives in the United Kingdom: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

    • Erika Domeika Pratte

    Wellbeing impacts and clinical implications of near-death experiences

    • Louise Spiers

    A Transpersonal Understanding of Spiritual Experiences in Individuals with Epilepsy

    • Emmett Tams

    Trauma, Dissonance and Dissent: A performance led investigation into the lived experience of refugees.

    • Alex Wilson

    The Transformative Nature of Altered States of Consciousness in Youth Subculture

  • Centre Lead

    Prof. Chris Roe
    Telephone: +44(0)1604 892623

    Lead for Diversity, Community and Identity

    Dr Evangelia Prokopiou
    Telephone: +44(0)1604 893549

    Lead for Exceptional Experiences and Consciousness Studies

    Dr Liz Gulliford
    Telephone: +44(0)1604 892388

    Leads for Health, Education and Behaviour Change

    Dr Josephine Chen-Wilson and Dr Kim Hill
    Telephone: +44(0)1604 892305

     

    Centre for Psychology and Social Sciences staff photo