Research

Our 33 members of academic staff consistently produce and publish high impact research spanning all subdisciplines of psychology. The Department of Psychology provides a world-class research environment for postgraduate students in Biological, Cognitive, Social or Developmental Psychology along with more applied aspects such as Educational Psychology, Forensic/Criminological Psychology, Neuroscience (including Neurorehabilitation) and Health Psychology. Much of our research is interdisciplinary both within the department and outside of the department.

The last Research Assessment Exercise (RAE2008) rated 95% of our output as being of International Quality with 60% of our output being World Leading (3* and 4*). This puts the Durham University Psychology Department in the top 6 departments in the country. The Department has active research grants with the ESRC, MRC, BBSRC, NIHR as well as charities such as The Stroke Association and the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research. The research activities in the Department fall within five research groupings:

• Applied, Clinical and Health Psychology
• Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Social, Emotional and Evolutionary Psychology
• Neuroscience of Learning and Memory

In addition, members of the Department play leading roles in the following research institutes, centres and units:

• Biophysical Sciences Institute
• Centre for the Coevolution of Biology and Culture
• Centre for Vision & Visual Cognition
• Centre for Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit
• Durham University Neuroimaging Centre
• North East Consortium for Developmental Research and Training
• Wolfson Research Institute
• Durham University Baby Lab

Recent Publications from the Department of Psychology

• Muñoz, L.C. , Kimonis, E.R. Frick, P.J. & Aucoin, K.J. (2013). Emotional reactivity and the association between psychopathy-linked narcissism and aggression in detained adolescent boys. Development and Psychopathology 25(2): 473-485.
• Schultz, J & Bülthoff, H H (2013). Parametric animacy percept evoked by a single moving dot mimicking natural stimuli. Journal of Vision 13(4): 15.
• Lane, A.R., Ball, K., Smith, D.T. , Schenk, T & Ellison, A. (2013). Near and far space: understanding the neural mechanisms of spatial attention. Human Brain Mapping 34(2): 356-366.
• Poulter, S.L., Kosaki, Y., Easton, A. & McGregor, A. (2013). Spontaneous object recognition memory is maintained following transformation of global geometric properties. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 39(1): 93-98.
• Evans, E.H., Tovee, M.T., Boothroyd, L.G. & Drewett, R. (2013). Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes in 7 to 11-year-old girls: testing a sociocultural model. Body Image 10(1): 8-15.
• Flynn E.G., Laland K.N., Kendal R.L. & Kendal J.R. (2013). Developmental niche construction. Developmental Science 16(2): 296-313.