People Overview

Based in St Andrews

Ken Mavor: Principle Investigator. Ken moved to St Andrews in 2013 and continues to supervise students at the ANU while establishing the new lab in St Andrews.

PhD students based at the University of St Andrews

Brenda Marin: Commenced in 2017. Brenda is exploring the nature of Christian identity and understanding and representations of different types of Christians.

Aisha Al-Sulaiti: Commenced in 2017. Aisha is looking at theatre of Medical professional identities (particularly Doctors and Nurses) and how their identities are linked to the stress associated with medical practice.

Alumni and Associates

Bashar Albaghli (St Andrews): Submitted July, 2017. Bashar comes to St Andrews on a scholarship from Kuwait University. He will be exploring “Personality, individual differences and social identification as explanatory factors in the relationship between religion, racism and other social attitudes”. 

Kerry O’Brien (ANU):  PhD awarded June, 2017 (ANU). Kerry examined different effects of framing manipulations on both the relevant identities and associated meanings in the context of political social influence.

Dora Sharp-Davidson (ANU): Clinical PhD awarded October, 2016 . Co-supervised by Kate Reynolds (ANU) and Ken Mavor.  Dora  examined the role of identity and self-complexity as a buffer against the threat of social stigma on wellbeing.

Sean Talamas (St Andrews): PhD Awarded March, 2016. Sean examined various aspects of the attractiveness halo effect in face perception, and has explored the effects of malleable facial cues on intelligence judgements (controlling for attractiveness); The accuracy of judgements of academic performance (controlling for attractiveness) and the effect of the perceiver’s own intelligence on the link between judgements of intelligence and attractiveness.  (Co-supervised by Dave Perrett and Ken Mavor)

Lillian Smyth (ANU): PhD awarded May 2013. Lillian is looking at the dynamic interplay of discipline social identification, a deep learning approach, and perceptions of learning norms among university students.

Kathy McNeill (ANU): Clinical PhD awarded . Kathy used social-psychological process models to investigate the high prevalence of wellbeing problems in medical students.

Daniel Skorich (ANU): PhD awarded May 2013. Daniel completed his PhD with Ken Mavor, entitled “Motivated but confounded tacticians: Revisiting the relationship between categorization and cognitive resources”.

Michelle Quee (ANU): PhD awarded April 2013. Michelle completed her PhD with Ken Mavor, entitled “Multiple Categorization: Choices and Constraints in the Perception of Individuals and Groups”.

Emma Thomas (ANU): Completed her PhD with Craig McGarty (co-supervised by Ken Mavor) in 2009, entitled “Aligning identities, emotions and efficacy to boost support for international development activism”.  Emma is now a Senior Lecturer and Discovery Early Career Research Fellow at Murdoch University.

Caroline Blink (ANU): Completed her PhD with Craig McGarty (co-supervised by Ken Mavor) in 2011, entitled “Ideology is a Double-Edged Sword: The Role of Ideology in Helping and Hindering the Interactive Development of Support for Social Change”.

Katrina Anderson (ANU): Completed her Clinical PhD with Barbara David (co-supervised by Ken Mavor) in 2008.

Continuing project students

Some students doing psychology honours or a medical student research project with the lab continue their involvement in the lab projects and publications.  We are pleased to currently have the ongoing involvement or Erin O’Reilly and Annelise Kerr (both in medical training) in the medical student wellbeing project.