We welcome research collaborations with scholars and students (PGR, PGT and UG) who are interested in the psychological determinants of political phenomena at the global level. We are currently working on the following projects – please contact us if you want to join any of our research projects, gain valuable research experience, share expertise, and develop your own research alongside ours.
The Challenge of Building Trust between Adversaries: this project pioneers the application of the concept of interpersonal trust to the international level, focusing on the psychological dispositions and interactions that lead political leaders to accept vulnerability in their interactions with the leaders of states with whom their state is in an adversarial relationship. The project examines how new trusting relationships that overcome the barriers to trust can be made possible (e.g. peaceful/defensive self-images, and bad faith models of the adversary). For more information, contact Nicholas Wheeler
Institution-based Trust (the Moscow Washington Hotline) in Cold War superpower relations: this project investigates the interaction between interpersonal and institution-based trust and their relationship to cooperation in international crisis situations. It examines two cases: the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. For more information contact Eszter Simon
Social Identity and Trust: this project applies psychology models of social identity to issues of trust and cooperation in post-'Troubles' Northern Ireland. For more information contact Sumedh Rao
The Creation of the Hotline: this project focuses on the interaction of trust in different levels, but looks at this interaction more from the direction of the micro (interpersonal) level than on the mezo (group/state) level, taking into account insights from psychology. For more information contact Eszter Simon
The Hungarian-American visa crisis of Autumn 2014: this project uses insights of social psychology, particularly role theory. For more information contact Eszter Simon
Public sector reform and psychological analyses of behaviour. This project focuses on public sector and civil service reform, drawing on insights from social and political psychology to understand and improve reform efforts. For more information contact Sumedh Rao
Political Radicalization, Emotionality and Political Values: this project examines the psychological determinants of political radicalization in the context of the recent economic crisis. It explores whether there is a structure of attitudes and values that turns citizens towards political violence, or prevents them from supporting radical actors, on the right or left, when public morale is low and extreme politics are gaining ground. Here we are interested in identifying the ‘borders of radicalization, by mapping the circumstances under which citizens are more likely to resist radical ideologies and behaviors. For more information contact Tereza Capelos
Public Perceptions and Media Representations of Groups in the UK: this project uses an approach grounded in political science and psychology to explore how the rights of different groups (women, people with disabilities, asylum seekers, LGBT+ people, and people receiving benefits) are approached by the public and the media in the UK, and how these approaches interact. This study involves content analysis, conducting experiments, and collecting interview data. For more information contact Thomas Stocks
Emotions, Political Tolerance and the Young: this collaborative project combines political science and psychology research to understand the impact of anger and fear on young people's perceptions of asylum seekers and reasoning about their rights. We conduct experiments and collect interview data with young people to measure how specific emotions can change how we reason about the rights of minorities. For more information contact Tereza Capelos
Organizational Reputations and Media Responses to Blame: this project investigates how organizational reputations can predict the types of responses international business organizations provide when implicated in scandals or allegations of bad business practice, such as child labour or unsafe working conditions. For our data analysis we match data on international organizational reputations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) with content analysis data of organizational scandal and account coverage. For more information contact Tereza Capelos
Threat Perception In Populist Securitization Narratives: This project aims at unpacking the support for populist argumentations on security by determining the relation between the way we appraise a populist message and the way we process information. By investigating the psychological impacts of populism’s representation of security, the project sheds light on the processes characterizing the populist construction of security narratives, as well as the audience’s internalization of such representations of threats. For more information contact Donatella Bonansinga