societal psychology lab

The Societal Psychology Lab at the LSE's Department of Psychological & Behavioural Science is a community of researchers working with me in examining the psychology of poverty, inequality, politics, and intergroup relations. The lab name acknowledges a long line of tradition at the LSE in investigating the interface of psychological and societal phenomena, and grounding theory in issues of real world consequence.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

The lab is occasionally open to enthusiastic new members who would like to join as an intern or research assistant (RA) to gain experience in the kind of research we do. Where possible and for those for whom finances are a barrier, we try to support positions with limited lab funds. We ensure that all interns and RAs receive training, mentorship, and letters of recommendation to support their onward steps. See News for specific calls for support.

RESEARCH SUPERVISION

I am not taking on PhD students for the 2024-2025 academic year, though I would consider options for secondary supervision, in collaboration with another PBS faculty member (who would act as primary supervisor). For those interested, my lab will be focused in the coming years on the following themes:

1. The link between socioeconomic status and decision-making, including:

   1. The impact of material and social adversity on cognitive and/or self-regulatory processes;

   2. The link between socioeconomic status and prejudice, trust and social relations;

   3. Psychological consequences of rising levels of economic inequality and related political-economic systems (in particular, neoliberalism).

2. The political psychology of intergroup relations, including:

   1. The role of innate cognition for basic relational forms (i.e. dominance, equality, communality, proportionality) in shaping sociopolitical attitudes and behaviours;

   2. Understanding the rise of political populism, the extreme right, and anti-immigrant sentiment through a social dominance theory framework;

   3. The psychology of the spread, acceptance and challenge of ideologies and narratives (discourse) legitimising societal relations.

I would be happy to supervise students using experimental, survey and panel data methods, and am keen to use more longitudinal, multilevel, and computational analytical techniques. I can also support students using qualitative methods as a secondary approach, or to be second supervisor for a student using qualitative methods as a primary approach.

As I am on academic leave for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years while visiting NYU Abu Dhabi (see News), I will not be supervising MSc dissertations.

current lab members

Jessica Rea - Visiting Fellow (former post-doc)

Jessica managed the evidence review of poverty & decision-making for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and is now focused on writing it up into several journal articles, as well as advancing her own research on mental health and psychosocial well-being among people dealing with homelessness and low socioeconomic status. Jess holds a BA in Psychology and Industrial & Organisational Psychology from the University of South Africa and an MSc and PhD in Psychology from Royal Holloway, University of London. Jess is currently lecturing in social psychology and individual differences at the University of Reading and on the MSc in Social Cognition at UCL.

Denise Baron - Visiting Fellow (former PhD student)

Denise graduated with her PhD from the LSE Methodology Department, supervised by Ben Lauderdale (primary) and Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington (secondary), and has since completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings (with Manos Tsakiris). She is currently an Associate Director on the polling team at Public First. Her research uses a mixture of discrete choice experiment and secondary data analysis to examine the role of group-related concerns, such as egaltiarianism and authoritarianism, in shaping political candidate preferences and voter behaviour. Past work in the last included leading a team of research assistants working on perceptions of economic inequality for a series of studies funded by the Tobin Project, while also conducting data collection and analysis for our studies of the psychology of scarcity and low social status. Denise holds a BA in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame and an MSc (with distinction) in Social & Public Communication from the LSE. She has previously worked as a political strategist in the United States, and her Masters dissertation investigated the phenomenon of ‘nationalistic nostalgia’ among UK voters in the wake of the Brexit referendum. Alongside her academic work, Denise is a freelance consultant in political strategy and communications, while developing a line of products in politically-themed printmaking. 

Iván Cano - PhD Student

Iván is an LSE PhD Studentship recipient at the PBS department, supervised by Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington and Sandra Jovchelovitch. He holds an MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford, an MSc in Community-Based Psychosocial Intervention and a five-year degree in Psychology complemented with a Diploma in Psychosocial Interventions in Crisis, Emergency and Disaster Situations from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Iván’s Ph.D. research focuses on the psychosocial components of poverty. Specifically, he is exploring the relationship between poverty, fatalism, and shame, the influence of cognitive construal on memory reconstructions and feelings of shame, and how these components may differ between individualistic and collectivist societies. In the future, Iván plans to develop three strands of research: behavioural economics and social justice, stigma and prejudice reduction, and wellbeing and social change.

Julia Buzan - PhD Student

Julia is an International Inequalities Institute PhD studentship recipient, supervised by Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington and Matteo Galizzi. She is also a Masters graduate from LSE PBS, having completed a dissertation in the lab focused on the impact of the salience of low relative socioeconomic standing on cognitive functioning. Previously, Julia worked in the lab as a research assistant, driving forward our research on perceptions of economic inequality, overseeing the coding of UK and US commuting data and matching it with official statistics on inequality, diversity, and deprivation. Before coming to the LSE, Julia worked on behavioural projects with Innovations for Poverty Action and the World Bank Gender Innovation Lab in Côte D'Ivoire, and in the technology for development space in India and South Africa, supporting social impact organizations to design and implement data systems. Julia holds a BA in Political Science with a Concentration in International Economic Development from Yale University and an MSc (with distinction) in Psychology of Economic Life from the LSE.

Sabrina Paiwand - PhD Student

Sabrina is an International Inequalities Institute PhD studentship recipient, supervised by Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington and Frédéric Basso. Since completing her MSc (with distinction) in Social and Cultural Psychology from the LSE, Sabrina has been a research associate in the lab, carrying forward her dissertation research with Jennifer on the measurement and examination of neoliberal subjectivity with the Marketised Self Scale. Her PhD will examine how a neoliberal self construals relate to political participation in the UK and Chile. Before commencing her PhD, Sabrina worked as a Data Consultant at Hive3 in London, an Evaluation Manager the Youth Endowment Fund, and as a German-Pashto interpreter for the Center for Legal Advice for Asylum Seekers in Switzerland.

Sandra Obradovic - LSE Fellow

Sandra is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Open University, having completed a postdoctoral fellowship and PhD at LSE PBS, the latter under the supervision of Caroline Howarth (parimary) and Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington (secondary). She obtained her BA in Sociology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and her MSc (with distinction) in Social and Cultural Psychology at the LSE. Her research interests focus on how collective continuity is managed in times of socio-political change. Her work in the lab has focused on the anlaysis of emotional and temporal themes and tropes in right- and left-wing populist rhetoric. Sandra continues to focus her research on the role of national identity and nationalism in shaping political attitudes and beliefs, taking a mixed-method approach.

Monisha Dhingra - Research Associate

Monisha is a first year PhD student at Stanford University, workgin with Hazel Markus adn Greg Walton. She has been working in the lab since 2019 on projects that seek to contextualise findings from the psychology of poverty literature from a Global South perspective, with a focus on South Asia. In addition to a review paper on the psychology of inequality in a global context, Monisha is running online, field, and quasi-experimental studies of the intersection of SES and caste, with a view to addressing important policy questions concerning poverty alleviation and affirmative action in India. This is part of a wider interest in the psychology of inequality, which she has applied to understand depression (publishing a systematic review in World Psychiatry Journal), and altruistic punishment. Monisha has also worked as a critical writing preceptor at Ashoka University, where she taught a writing course with a thematic focus on social psychology of inequality. She has experience working on projects in education policy, and social inclusion with organisations such as Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, Center for Policy Research, UNICEF, and Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate, Haryana. Monisha completed her Masters in Social and Cultural Psychology (with distinction) from the LSE, and BA in Psychology from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University.

Maryam Khan - Research Assistant

Maryam is a Chevening scholarship recipient with an MSc in Psychological Research at the University of Edinburgh and a Bsc (Hons) in Psychology from Oxford Brookes University. She is working in the lab on a project that aims to understand decision-making for health in the context of poverty in Pakistan and seeks to contextualise these findings with the literature on the psychology of poverty and simultaneously audit theory to align with what is found in the field. Prior to this, she has worked in community engagement for the public health sector in Pakistan. As part of her interest in the psychology of inequality and critical psychology, she has applied this to understand the role of community engagement in collaborating with marginalised communities to co-produce action (publishing a theoretical framework in the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice). Maryam has also conducted an online study on the social and political attitudes of high-socioeconomic status groups in Karachi, with the aim of understanding the role of unique sociocultural factors in individual’s views on social responsibility and policy preferences. She is planning to pursue further study and research in the field of Social Psychology, especially in the context of South Asia.

Defne Yavuz- Research Assistant

Defne is currently a second year undergraduate student in the BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science degree programme at LSE. She is working at the lab as a research assistant and is interested in intergroup relations and voter behaviour.

Former Lab Members

Swarna Suresh Tyagi - Research Assistant

Swarna provided research support in the lab on projects investigating the psychology of poverty and perceptions of economic inequality. She is a graduate of the the LSE MSc in Organisational and Social Psychology and holds a B.A. in Economics from University of Madras (India).

Jimena Sanchez - MSc Supervisee

Jimena is a Licentiate in Political Science from the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After 4 years of work experience in her country, at the local government and in policy related- think tanks, she became a student at the MSc in Social and Public Communication at LSE. As part of her master's dissertation, she conducted a lab study to analyse the role of low socioeconomic status in cognitive performance and evaluate the potential psychological benefits associated to self-identify social status in group terms.

Philip Havmose - MSc Supervisee

Philip worked on lab studies investigating the impact of resource scarcity on construal level and temporal discounting, building on his dissertation for the LSE MSc in Social & Public Communication. Philip holds a BSc in psychology from the University of Southern Denmark, where he also worked as a research assistant for the PsychMeasure research group. Following his Master’s degree, Philip conducted a six-month internship with the UN World Food Programme in Myanmar.

Meherunissa Hamid - Research Assistant 

Meherunissa worked as a research assistant in the lab, supporting the evidence review of poverty & decision-making for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Meherunissa holds a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Newcastle, and two Masters degrees, one in Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases and one in Public Health in Developing Countries, both from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Rabia Yavuz - Summer Intern

As a summer intern, Rabia supported the analysis of surveys for our studies of perceptions of economic inequality, originally funded by the Tobin Project. Before joining the lab, Rabia was a summer research assistant in Utrecht University's ERCOMER (The Netherlands), and in the PAMER Research Center in Uskudar University (Turkey).

Natasha Ann Brigham - Research Assistant

Natasha worked as a research assistant on the evidence review of poverty & decision-making for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She holds BA in Psychology from Aalborg University, an MA in Psychology from the University of Copenhagen, and an MSc in Social & Cultural Psychology from the LSE.

OTHER LABS

I am also affiliated with the Social and Intergroup Relations Lab (SIRL) at the University of Oslo.