Quantitative Social Psychology

A research group of the Department of Psychology.

Members of the Quantitative Social Psychology (QSP) research group study the reciprocal relationship between the social world and mental processes.

We adopt different levels of analysis and study physiological and brain processes, interpersonal processes, and cultural processes to uncover the foundations of human judgement and behaviour. We also seek to translate basic science into solutions to tackle organisational and societal challenges.

Topics of study include performance and behaviour in groups and teams; leadership, status, and power; the social transmission of culture; the perception of emotional states; motivation and reward; aggression, fear and impulsivity; mechanisms of mate choice; body image; arts and kindness; inequality and health behaviour; nudging; and free will and moral judgement. 

Our work benefits from state-of-the art research facilities and we frequently draw on behavioural, psychophysiological and neuroimaging (e.g. EEG/ERP, fMRI, TMS) techniques. Our research has been funded by many sources including the UK Research Councils (ESRC, EPSRC, BBSRC), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Cancer Research UK (CRUK), Leverhulme Trust, AFOSR and Nuffield Foundation.

Staff

Academic Staff

• Dr Anthony Atkinson
• Professor Lynda Boothroyd
• Dr Mike Burt
• Dr Cory Clark
• Dr Zanna Clay
• Dr Judith Covey
• Professor Richard Crisp
• Dr Niklas Ihssen
• Dr Ana Leite
• Dr Thuy-vy Nguyen
• Dr Paddy Ross
• Professor Graham Towl
• Dr Julie Van de Vyver
• Dr Milica Vasiljevic
• Dr Mario Weick

Teaching Staff

• Ms Nazire Duran
• Dr Andrew Marcinko

Emeritus Staff

• Professor David Over

Associated Staff

• Mr James Good

Research Student

• Miss Diane Austry
• Miss Kristina Habjan
• Miss Linda Lidborg
• Miss Jiawei Liu

Publications by staff in this group

Journal Article

• Boothroyd, L.G., Gray, A.W., Headland, T.W., Uehara, R.T., Waynforth, D., Burt, D.M. & Pound, N. (2017). Male facial appearance and offspring mortality in two traditional societies. PLoS One 12(1): e0169181.
• Boothroyd, Lynda G. & Cross, Catharine P. (2017). Father absence and gendered traits in sons and daughters. PLOS ONE 12(7): e0179954.
• Jucker, J. L., Thornborrow, T., Beierholm, U., Burt, D. M., Barton, R. A., Evans, E. H., Jamieson, M. & Boothroyd, L. G. (2017). Nutritional status and the influence of TV consumption on female body size ideals in populations recently exposed to the media. Scientific Reports 7(1): 8438.
• Boothroyd, L.G., Jucker, J.L., Thornborrow, T., Jamieson, M.A., Burt, D.M., Barton, R.A., Evans, E.H. & Tovée, M. J. (2016). Television exposure predicts body size ideals in rural Nicaragua. British Journal of Psychology 107(4): 752-767.
• Boothroyd, L.G. & Cross, C.P. (2016). The Impact of Parenthood on Physical Aggression: Evidence from criminal data. Aggressive Behavior 42(6): 577-584.
• Vukovic, J., Boothroyd, L.G., Meins, E. & Burt, D.M. (2015). Concurrent parent–child relationship quality is associated with an imprinting-like effect in children’s facial preferences. Evolution and Human Behavior 36(4): 331-336.
• Robinson, L.J., Gray, J.M., Burt, M., Ferrier, I.N. & Gallagher, P. (2015). Processing of Facial Emotion in Bipolar Depression and Euthymia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 21(09): 709-721.
• Sutherland, Clare A. M., Oldmeadow, Julian A., Santos, Isabel M., Towler, John, Michael Burt, D. & Young, Andrew W. (2013). Social inferences from faces: Ambient images generate a three-dimensional model. Cognition 127(1): 105-118.
• Sedda, A., Rivolta, D., Scarpa, P., Burt, M., Frigerio, E., Zanardi, G., Piazzini, A., Turner, K., Canevini, M. P., Francione, S., Lo Russo, G. & Bottini, G. (2013). Ambiguous emotion recognition in temporal lobe epilepsy: The role of expression intensity. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 13(3): 452-463.
• Gray, Alan W. & Boothroyd, Lynda G. (2012). Female facial appearance and health. Evolutionary Psychology 10(1): 66-77
• Boothroyd, L.G., Tovée, M.T. & Pollett, T. (2012). Visual Diet versus Associative Learning as Mechanisms of Change in Body Size Preferences. PLoS ONE 7(11): e48691.
• West, J. T., Horning, S. M., Klebe, K. J., Foster, S. M., Cornwell, R. E., Perrett, D., Burt, D. M. & Davis, H. P. (2012). Age Effects on Emotion Recognition in Facial Displays: From 20 to 89 Years of Age. Experimental Aging Research 38(2): 146-168.
• Jones, B.C., Boothroyd, L.G., Feinberg, D.R. & DeBruine, L. (2010). Age at menarche predicts individual differences in women’s preferences for masculinized male voices in adulthood. Personality and Individual Differences 48(7): 860-863.
• Boothroyd, Lynda G, Lawson, Jamie F & Burt, D Michael (2009). Testing immuncompetence explanations of male facial masculinity. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 7(1): 65-81.
• Lau, J. Y. F., Burt, M., Leibenluft, E., Pine, D. S., Rijsdijk, F., Shiffrin, N. & Eley, T. C. (2009). Individual Differences in Children's Facial Expression Recognition Ability: The Role of Nature and Nurture. Developmental Neuropsychology 34(1): 37-51.
• Boothroyd, L.G., Jones, B.C., Burt, D.M., DeBruine, L.M. & Perrett, D.I. (2008). Facial correlates of sociosexuality. Evolution & Human Behavior 29(3): 211-218.