Psychology

The School of Psychology is a collaborative and inclusive environment where staff and students apply their knowledge and skills to the challenges faced in modern day work and society.

We aim to influence contemporary societal issues through impactful, rigorous, and collaborative research and evaluation that is based on our psychological, public health, and counselling expertise.

Our objectives

Engage in innovative, high-quality research and knowledge-advancement activities with clear potential to make a positive difference on local, regional, and/or national issues.
Work inclusively with people who have lived experiences representing the inherent diversity of life to co-create understanding. 
Leverage our expertise through inter-disciplinary collaboration with the wider University community and external stakeholders.
Foster a vibrant research and knowledge-production community that inspires development from student to professional within academia and wider society.

There over 30 staff active in research and scholarly activity and a growing cohort of PhD students. Consistent with our interprofessional approach to inquiry, we often bridge thematic areas within and across faculties and play active roles in the University’s Helen McArdle Nursing and Care Research Institute and Institute for Economic and Social Inclusion. Externally, we work with a range of partners including local Councils, Changing Lives, Health Innovation North East and Cumbria, Liebherr, NIHR ARC North East and Cumbria, Nissan, Northumbria Police Federation, Northumbrian Water, (formerly) Public Health England, and South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Trust.

Research in the School of Psychology is shaped around four thematic areas across the full range of Psychology and our cognate disciplines of Counselling and Public Health.

Research areas

Health and public health

Health and Public Health is a central aspect of research and scholarly activity of the school and it is a key focus of collaboration between psychology, counselling, and public health staff, together with external partners.

We conduct research across areas including male psychology, health behaviour change, family and early-years mental health, and health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Running across all these strands is a strong commitment to understanding and challenging health inequalities, issues of access to optimal mental and physical health, and equality, diversity, and inclusivity for individuals, marginalised communities, and the wider population.

We use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods including medical statistics to conduct both theoretical and applied research in this area.

Biological, cognitive, and developmental processes over the lifespan

We engage in research linked with attention and perception such as visual attention, memory, and human face and eye movement research. Examples include the role of biological motion, ageing and the inability to recognise faces, as well as the interplay between emotion and thought and how this colours, biases and prejudices the impressions we make of other people.

Other areas of research are related to our focus on male psychology with a strong evolutionary strand including investigating the role of male attractiveness and male life outcomes.

Diversity in social identities, personality, and intelligence

This area focuses on the nuance and variation of personal experiences related to self and others.

We draw on theories and evidence from social and individual differences psychology and counselling to explore equality, gender, sexualities and sexual practices, and close relationships.

We also investigate how personality, trait characteristics, and dispositional influences affect our thoughts, emotions, behaviours using methods ranging from social surveys and interviews to experiments involving face perception, emotion recognition, and eye tracking.

Applied research areas

Our applied research areas include environmental, forensic and health psychology, psychology in the workplace, and pedagogy.

Topics include improving the forensic interview processes with officers and for victims of crime, understanding the influence of built and natural environments on health and wellbeing, the impact of social work environments on employee safety and wellbeing, and enhancing the uptake of health interventions by marginalised community groups.

We also undertake a range of commissioned project evaluation, knowledge exchange, and research innovation activities with external stakeholders regionally and nationally.