In each area there are a number of projects currently being funded along with postgraduates conducting their research. Our funding comes from a variety of sources including the ESRC, the Home Office, The Leverhulme Trust, The Royal Society of Edinburgh, The British Academy, and The Scottish Executive.

 

Antecedents and Consequences of Discrimination

In studying the social psychological processes involved in group discrimination, we focus not only on those who perpetrate prejudice and discrimination but also takes the perspective of those who are the targets of discrimination.

Previous work in this area has included the BBC Prison Study with Professor Alex Haslam. This study is currently included in the A Level syllabus. Full details on the study including exercises, additional materials and publictaions can be found on our website - www.bbcprisonstudy.org

Current work in this area examines the role of attribution and group identification processes in determining experiences of discrimination among ethnic minority young people.

 

Intergroup Processes

Our work on intergroup relations centres on intergroup contact and its consequences on cognitive, behavioural, and affective variables at different levels of categorization and identification.

Together with collaborators we have also examined how intergenerational contact can mitigate the detrimental effects of stereotype threat, race differences in contact and attitudes between the public and the police, and the experience and intergroup attitudes of international students in Britain over time.

Current projects deal with (a) group membership and audience effects in embarrassment and (b) authority-community encounters and their impact on youth disengagement versus youth agency in Scotland.

This research has been conducted with the generous support of the British Academy, British Council, Leverhulme Trust, and Nuffield Foundation.

GPIR - Special Issue on Extended Contact
Intra- and intergroup aspects of embarrassment
St Andrews Scottish Studies Network

 

Social Identity and Group Processes

This work is broadly in the social identity tradition. One strand concerns the nature of social identity processes - how identities are defined, how they become salient and how they relate to social reality - and how they impact on both intra- and inter-group action. A second strand deals with intergroup contact and its consequences on cognitive, behavioural, and affective variables at different levels of categorization and identification.

Amongst other things, our research has looked at:

• how crowds behave and how they interact with the police (work which has transformed public order policing both in the UK and across Europe),
• how Scottish identity is changing in the period of devolution and how this impacts on such things as the willingness of Scots to leave the country and to accept ethnic minorities as part of the country (work which is now informing the approach of the equalities and Human Rights Commission in Scotland),
• how ethnic minorities themselves experience social exclusion and how they respond to it.
• We have also examined how intergenerational contact can mitigate the detrimental effects of stereotype threat, race differences in contact and attitudes between the public and the police, and the experience and intergroup attitudes of international students in Britain over time.

Currently, we are particularly interested in the way the people experience collective events and the consequences of participation in terms of increasing commitment to the group, reshaping social identities and also influencing individual well-being. We are involved in a major project looking at the Magh Mela in Allahabad, Northern India (possibly the largest collective gathering in the world), we are studying the impact of participation of parades in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and we are also investigating how people experience a range of crowd events in Scotland, from football matches to anti-globalisation protests.

This research has been conducted both through research grants from the ESRC, British Academy, British Council, Leverhulme foundation, the Rowntree Trust and the Scottish Executive and also by Ph.D. researchers on grants from the ESRC, the Commonwealth Foundation and our own School of Psychology.

 

Social Memory

Memory plays a critical role in our ability to function effectively in a social world that is both complex and subject to continuous change. Our relationships with others depend not only on our ability to remember what we have said and done in the past but also what we intend to do in the future.

In this field of research we are currently exploring the extent to which memory is goal-directed (i.e., are the things that we forget dependent upon immediate or anticipated goals?); active forgetting and the nature of inhibitory mechanisms in memory; and the consequences of social identity on memory for self and others.

This research has been supported by the ESRC, The Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Leverhulme Foundation, and The British Acedemy.

 

Collaborations

One of the strengths of social psychology at St. Andrews is the way that we work as a group with numerous collaborations between members. In addition we have active collaborations with researchers outside St. Andrews both in psychology and in other social sciences.

We have joined with the social psychologists in nearby universities to form the Tay Social Psychology Group. We also have active research links with colleagues elsewhere in the UK and also in Europe, Australasia and the US. We are keen to build on these links and we especially welcome applications from potential Ph.D students, postdoctoral researchers, and visiting academics.