Research Projects

Current and Ongoing Projects

Interpersonal Perception Accuracy Project

How do other people judge us based on our appearance, behaviour and interaction content? Does the context that we are in affect how other people view our personalities? If so, how do people's judgements of our personalities change when they view our behaviour online such as via Facebook and Twitter? Critically, do these perceptions agree with how we view ourselves? These types of questions fascinate me and I am currently investigating these research questions with Professor Paul Taylor (Lancaster University), Dr Claire Campbell (University of Ulster), Dr Linda Kaye and Dr Rebecca Monk (Edge Hill University). To date, we have examined how differences in contexts varying in cue availability (i.e., email, telephone, face to face) shape first impressions and have also investigated whether impression management concerns impact on personality judgements in addition to how this varies across different personality traits. Currently, we are exploring the role of ego depletion on accuracy across contexts. An overarching aim across these studies is to increase our theoretical understanding of how people actually form judgements of other people. Specifically we ask a number of questions: What behavioural and linguistic cues do people use? How do people interpret these cues, and how does knowledge of trait-behaviour relations shape our perceptions.

Personality and Behavioural Manifestations in Virtual Contexts

Personality affects how we think, feel and behave but context is important too. The growth in Social Networking Sites (SNS’s) and variety of virtual platforms through which people can present themselves and interact with others presents exciting research opportunities. Myself, Dr Linda Kaye and Dr Stephanie Malone (Australian Catholic University) have recently examined the behavioural correlates of personality in Facebook, in particular emoticon use. In addition to the correlates of emoticon use we have also explored the reasons why people choose to use emoticons and how this may change across different virtual platforms. It appears that usage varies across online contexts (e.g., email, Facebook) and that these differences in online behaviour afford a number of important communicative functions such as reducing ambiguity and aiding emotional expression. We plan to explore emoticon use in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to see if emoticons could be a useful aid for emotional expression so as to reduce miscommunication (e.g., misunderstanding sarcasm).

Personality and Persuasion

Are you someone who is easily persuaded to do things you don’t really want to? If so, could organisations use this information to persuade you to engage in certain behaviours such as purchasing certain products? One of the reasons I love studying personality psychology is that it has so many practical applications. Integral to the topic is an understanding of past, present and future behaviour. Predicting what others will do based on who they are is interesting and personality differences interact with contexts in fascinating ways. Understanding what makes us ‘tick’ can offer useful techniques for behavioural change (when based on theory and evidence, of course!). I am currently involved in some ongoing work with Dr Claire Campbell, Dr Andy Levy, and Dr Linda Kaye that seeks to identify the personality correlates of our susceptibility to persuasion. This research goes beyond the Big-5 traits and examines the more ‘anti-social’ aspects of personality known as Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism (the dark triad). We plan to use these findings, along with recent research in the area, to devise behavioural change techniques tailored to the individual - watch this space!

Personality and Cognitive Processes

My interest in personality extends beyond first impression accuracy. As personality relates to differences in how people think, feel and behave I am involved in a number of projects that seek to explore the effects of personality on cognitive processes (with Dr Motonori Yamaguchi and Professor Bernard Hommel) and emotional responses (with Pat Hornby-Atkinson).

There are many occasions when two or more people need to work cooperatively and achieve a common goal such as when a person drives a car and another navigates. In these types of shared tasks the work involved must be divided between individuals, or co-actors. We are currently investigating whether co-acting individuals co-represent their task context and share a mental representation to construct a complete picture of the task. In other words, do co-actors represent their co-actors task context as if it were their own? Additionally, we are examining how individual differences (e.g., Big-5 traits, cognitive empathy, state-trait anxiety) and contextual demands (e.g., cooperative and competitive tasks) affect task sharing.

Personality and Emotional Responses

The psychological contract is described as a person’s perception and expectation about the mutual responsibilities in an employment exchange relationship. When contracts are ‘broken’ a variety of negative responses can occur such as quitting a job, burnout, or not fulfilling duties appropriately. Given the huge pressures placed upon NHS nursing staff myself, Pat Hornby-Atkinson and Demetria Darbyshire explore how the 6 personality factors of honesty-humility, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience are related to nurses’ coping styles and behaviours when contracts are perceived to be ‘broken’. For example, do extroverts tend to approach others and talk through their issues? If so, does this ‘social approach’ lead to effective outcomes in terms of their individual coping strategies or is it counterproductive? Our research is based on nursing students from HE institutions and involves quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry.