Psychology research

We offer a well-resourced and stimulating intellectual environment for research, which includes competitive top-up scholarships, teaching fellowships and financial support to attend national and international conferences and other forms of professional development.

Our research students are vital contributors to our excellence in research. They enjoy a supportive and rigorous environment within both their area of specialisation and the wider school community.

Our researchers actively collaborate with other researchers across the University through multidisciplinary initiatives, including:

the Brain and Mind Centre, where researchers work together on mental health, cognition and brain sciences
the Charles Perkins Centre, which tackles the global issues of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and related conditions
the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics, investigating the medicinal use of cannabinoids
a world-renowned psycho‑oncology research group Psycho-oncology Cooperative Research Group
Centre for Medical Psychology & Evidence-based Decision-making

Our research groups and labs

Clinical

Our clinical psychology research broadly examines the psychological, sociocultural, emotional, intellectual, neuropsychological and behavioural aspects of human functioning in an effort to promote understanding of various disorders, evidence based treatments, healthy development and adjustment.

Training and research clinics provide assessment and intervention for a range of presentations for the university and broader community, as well as facilitating research. Specialist clinics within the School include the Psychology Clinic, the Child Behaviour Research Clinic, the Gambling Treament and Research Clinic and the Healthy Brain Ageing Clinic.

Researchers

Associate Professor Maree Abbott

Assessment, maintaining factors and enhancing treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder.
Assessment, maintaining factors and enhancing treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Meta-cognitive processes and anxiety disorders.
The maintenance and treatment of rumination in Social Anxiety Disorder.

Professor Sally Andrews

Reading disability
Reading/language impairments in developmental or neuropsychological disorders
Using reading to track

Professor Alex Blaszczynski

Gambling Disorders
Impulse control disorders
Non substance behavioural addictions
Gambling Research Treatment Clinic

Associate Professor Ben Colagiuri

Placebo and nocebo effects
Expectancy and treatment interactions
Cue-induced craving for food and other drugs

Professor Mark Dadds

Developmental psychopathology
Parenting and family processes
Family therapy
Childhood emotional and behavioural problems
Learning theory
Psychological genetics and epigenetics
Child Behaviour Research Clinic

Dr Ilan Dar-Nimrod

Death anxiety among clinical populations
Aetiological explanations for mental illness and their cascading effects
Psychological challenges related to sexuality (e.g., LGBTQI, non-monogamy etc.)
Social cognition and individual differences lab

Dr Frances Doyle

Developmental psychopathology
Parenting practices (including discipline practices), and parent training
Social cognitive theory (e.g., investigating moral disengagement, and self-efficacy)
Childhood emotional problems (e.g., excessive anxiety) and behavioural problems

Dr Sally Gainsbury

Disordered gambling and addictions
Internet risk taking and problematic use
Internet gaming addiction
Internet treatment
Harm minimisation, responsible gambling and prevention
Warning signs

Dr Micah B. Goldwater

Understanding the commonalities and differences in cognitive and neural development between children with and without mental health issues
Effects of stressful and impoverished home environments on child development, particularly on cognitive, neural, and educational outcomes
How to improve transfer from is learned and experienced in therapy to the "real-world"
Seedling Lab

Associate Professor Irina Harris

Visual perception and memory in temporal lobe disorders
Scene perception and scene construction
Short-term memory processes in early dementia
Visual Cognition Lab

Associate Professor David Hawes

Early childhood development and psychopathology
Antisocial behaviour and conduct problems across the lifespan
Parenting processes & the parent-child relationship (including attachment)
Family-based interventions (including parent training)
Emotional and moral development, empathy, callous-unemotional traits

Dr Fiona Hibberd

A critical review of the network theory of mental disorders
Integrating models of psychotherapy
Reviewing assumptions that underpin psychotherapeutic practices
The DSM: classification and definition
How philosophies of science inform clinical research and practice

Professor Alex Holcombe

Attentional biases and attentional mechanisms
Disorders of visual imagery and visual memory
Palinopsia (persisting afterimages)

Professor Caroline Hunt

Assessment, risk and protective factors, and interventions targeting school-based bullying
Assessment, risk and protective factors, and interventions targeting adolescent anxiety and depression
Cross cultural aspects of mental health and wellbeing
Overcoming barriers to mental health care access and use

Dr Ian Johnston

Using virtual reality tools to assess and treat mood and cognitive disorders.
Assessing a smart-phone app delivered alcohol sobriety program.
Assessing the effect of junk food on self-control, and its role in obesity.

Associate Professor Ilona Juraskova

Doctor-patient-family communication and development/evaluation of decision-making resources
Psychosexual adjustment and quality of life (cancer, HIV)
Evaluating a psychological assessment template of women considering risk‐reducing mastectomy
Hoarding disorder

Associate Professor Sunny Lah

Neuropsychological rehabilitation
Nature and mechanism of neuropsychological disorders arising from brain insults
Memory deficits in neurological disorders
child neuropsychology
sleep and treatments of sleep disorders
social cognition

Associate Professor Carolyn MacCann

Emotion regulation
Emotional intelligence
Coping
Appraisal theories of emotion

Dr Caroline Moul

Psychopathy – the cognitive, neural and genetic roots
Anxiety from a perspective of basic cognitive function (associative learning and attention)
Childhood obesity – psychological perspectives
Seedling Lab

Professor Sharon Naismith

Ageing and dementia
Depression
Parkinson’s Disease
Early intervention
Cognitive training
Sleep and circadian rhythms
Neuroimaging
E-health
Healthy Brain Ageing Clinic

Dr Helen Paterson

The effects of stress/trauma on memory
The impact of post-incident debriefing on psychological wellbeing
iWitnessed
Forensic Psychology Lab
Not Guilty: Sydney Exoneration Project

Associate Professor Paul Rhodes

Embodiment, feminism and eating disorders
Decolonisation of clinical psychology
Community based approached to mental health
Art-based approached to mental health education and activism; including poetic inquiry, creative writing and fine arts
Sociopolitical approaches to mental health

Professor Olivier Piguet

Frontotemporal dementia
Dementia: Early diagnosis and prognosis
Social cognition
Neuroimaging
FRONTIER Lab

Dr Rebecca Pinkus

Romantic relationships and wellbeing
Social comparison
Weight stigma
Social control of health behaviours

Professor Louise Sharpe

The efficacy of cognitive and/or behavioural treatments in the management of chronic pain and rheumatoid arthritis
Understanding the process of adjustment in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and other illnesses
The role of hypervigilance in the development, maintenance, prevention and treatment of chronic pain

Dr Marianna Szabo

Worry, stress and generalised anxiety disorder
Mindfulness: effectiveness and mechanisms

Dr Niko Tiliopoulos

Schizotypal personality disorder
Psychopathy and the Dark Triad of personality
Psychology & psychopathology of religion and spirituality

Professor Stephen Touyz

Eating disorders from the perspective of:

clinical psychology
psychiatry
neuropsychology
behavioural medicine

Research groups

Woman undergoing cognitive psychology experiment

Cognition

Cognitive psychology explores the internal brain processes that people use to store, process, retrieve, transform and use information to interpret objects and events in the world and to solve problems, make decisions, speak and act.

Researchers

Professor Sally Andrews

Language: reading, spelling, word recognition
Memory: lexical memory, working memory, implicit memory
Bilingualism, cross language comparisons
Expertise

Dr Damian Birney

Cognitive training and self-regulatory mediators
Working memory
Fluid intelligence and reasoning
Cognitive Individual Differences and Training Lab

Dr Bruce Burns

How streaks of events affect decision making
Biases in the interpretation of financial data
Hormonal influences on risky choices
Cognitive illusions in reasoning
Complex problem solving

Associate Professor Thomas Carlson

Neural Coding
Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI)
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Multivariate Pattern Analysis (Brian decoding)
Object and Face recognition.
Body Perception
Social Perception
Visual Attention

Dr Karen Croot

Speech perception and production, foreign accents
Motor learning

Dr Micah B. Goldwater

The nature and acquisition of knowledge in children and adults
Concept & language learning
Science and math education
Seedling Lab

Associate Professor Irina Harris

Object recognition and interpreting object orientation
Visual attention and selection
Capacity limits in encoding visual information, repetition blindness, attentional blink
Visual Cognition Lab

Dr Fiona Kumfor

Social cognition
Face processing
Emotion perception
Ageing and dementia
Neuroimaging
Memory: emotion memory, episodic memory, semantic memory

Dr Evan Livesey

Implicit learning and automaticity
Associations and reasoning in causal learning
Action preparation and cognitive control
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab

Professor Sharon Naismith

Ageing and dementia
Depression
Parkinson’s Disease
Early intervention
Cognitive training
Sleep and circadian rhythms
Neuroimaging
E-health
Healthy Brain Ageing Clinic

Dr Caleb Owens

The involuntary capture of visual and auditory attention
Top-down modulation of attentional capture
Inattentional blindness
Locus of selection in visual attention
False memory and eye-witness testimony
Gullibility, reasoning, and problem solving

Dr Helen Paterson

Eyewitness memory
Interviewing strategies
iWitnessed
Forensic Psychology Lab
Not Guilty: Sydney Exoneration Project

Dr Gareth Roberts

The role of oscillatory activity in complex goal-directed behaviour
Frontal lobe function across the lifespan

Dr Celine van Golde

Reliability of children as eyewitnesses
Eyewitness memory in children and adults
False memories in forensic context
iWitnessed
Forensic Psychology Lab
Not Guilty: Sydney Exoneration Project

Research groups

Developmental

Developmental psychology is concerned with describing and explaining psychological changes that occur as individuals progress from conception to death. Such changes have many sources, including physical maturation, learning, social interaction and other experiences. Developmental Psychology is thus best described as an approach to psychological investigation which can concern itself with typical and atypical development in all domains of psychology, from language and cognition to emotion and social behaviour.

Researchers

Dr Frances Doyle

Social cognitive theory (e.g., investigating moral disengagement, and self-efficacy)
Children’s truth- and lie-telling
Parental discipline practices

Associate Professor Sunny Lah

Impact of epilepsy, epilepsy surgery and head injury on memory and learning ability in children
Cognitive fatigue, executive functions and social/moral reasoning in prematurely born children or children who have sustained a head injury

Dr Micah B. Goldwater

The nature and acquisition of knowledge in children and adults
Concept & language learning
Science and math education
Seedling Lab

Professor Caroline Hunt

Understanding factors involved in school-based bullying

Dr Caroline Moul

The development of psychopathy, behavioural genetics and epigenetic processes
The developmental mechanisms of disorders, childhood obesity
Seedling Lab

Dr Marianna Szabo

Children: developmental aspects of worry, anxiety and depression

Professor Fiona White

Developmental aspects of prejudice and discrimination
The SUPIR Lab

Dr Celine van Golde

Reliability of children as eyewitnesses
Eyewitness memory in children and adults
False memories in forensic context
iWitnessed
Not Guilty: Sydney Exoneration Project

Research groups

Forensic

Forensic psychology is the application of psychological knowledge and theories to all aspects of the justice system, including the processes and the people.

Researchers

Dr Helen Paterson

Associate Professor Pauline Howie

Metacognitive factors in children's testimony and event recall
Interview techniques to facilitate accurate reporting in children
Memory development
Source monitoring and imagery

Dr Celine van Golde

Reliability of children as eyewitnesses
Eyewitness memory in children and adults
False memories in forensic context
iWitnessed
Not Guilty: Sydney Exoneration Project
Forensic Psychology Lab

Research groups

Health

Health psychology relates broadly to questions about how people stay physically well, and how to optimise their experience and that of their families, when they become ill. Overall, Health Psychologists study the factors which promote and maintain good health and prevent illness, lead people to take up optimal screening to detect illness at an early stage (such as mammograms for the detection of breast cancer), and ensure early and accurate diagnosis, effective treatment, good psychological adjustment to acute and chronic illness, optimal quality of life and optimal end-of-life care.

Health behaviours are key to good health, and are amendable to psychological interventions, so these are a key interest for health psychologists. Health psychologists are also interested in the analysis and improvement of the health care system and health policy formation.

Researchers

Professor Phyllis Butow

Risk perception
Psycho-Oncology
Medical decision-making
Stress and burnout in cancer health professionals
Medical and health communication
Decision aids to assist decision making for cancer patients
Centre for Medical Psychology & Evidence-based Decision-making
Psycho-oncology Cooperative Research Group

Dr Margaret Charles

Relationship between social capital and psychological wellbeing
Psychological aspects of palliative care

Associate Professor Ben Colagiuri

How are placebo and nocebo effects formed?
How long do placebo and nocebo effects last?
How do cues influence reward-seeking behaviour?
Do we need to be aware for learning to occur?
How does variability affect our learning?

Dr Ilan Dar-Nimrod

Genes by environment interactions and health
Cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease
Health and risk communication and decision making
Social cognition and individual differences lab

Associate Professor Ilona Juraskova

Medical decision-making
Doctor-patient communication
Quality of life outcomes of cancer patients
HPV vaccination: psychological impact

Professor Madeleine King

Quality of life outcomes of cancer patients
Measurement issues in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and other self-reported health outcomes (PROs)
Optimising study design and data quality of HRQOL/PROs endpoints in clinical studies, including randomised trials and longitudinal studies
Patient preferences and utility estimation in health context, particularly cancer
Sydney Quality of Life Office

Dr Rebekah Laidsaar-Powell

Psycho-oncology
Medical decision-making
Health professional-patient communication
Family caregivers
Qualitative research

Dr Rebecca Pinkus

Social cognition
Social comparison
Close relationships
Social control of health behaviours

Dr Claudia Rutherford

Patient-reported outcome (PRO) assessment
Develop and evaluate quality of life (QOL) measures
Develop and evaluate PRO symptom indices and cancer-specific modules
Develop decision-making resources for ductal carcinoma in situ

Professor Louise Sharpe

Psychological impact of disease
Development of interventions to facilitate adjustment to illness
Evaluation of interventions for preventing physical and psychological morbidity in patients with ill health

Joanne Shaw

Psycho-oncology
Medical and health communication
Psychophysiology
Communicating bad news
Medical decision-making
Psychological intervention development and evaluation
Clinical trial consent

Research groups

Learning

The psychology of learning is concerned with understanding how experience shapes behaviour. Learning research with humans and other animals examines the effect of external stimuli and events, internal physical states, motivation, attention and higher order cognition on the performance of a wide range of simple and complex behaviours, from reflexive biological responses to reasoned decision making.

The study of learning seeks to reveal the theoretical, functional and neurophysiological underpinnings of these behavioural changes.

Researchers

Professor Robert Boakes

Activity and body weight in rats or humans
Flavour/odour preference/aversion learning in rats or humans
Placebo effects
Conditioning in rats or humans
Australian Learning Group

Associate Professor Ben Colagiuri

How are placebo and nocebo effects formed?
How long do placebo and nocebo effects last?
How do cues influence reward-seeking behaviour?
Do we need to be aware for learning to occur?
How does variability affect our learning?

Professor Justin Harris

Simple associative learning
Vision and touch perception
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab

Dr Ian Johnston

Goal directed behaviour
Habit formation
Executive processes

Dr Evan Livesey

The relationship between learning and attention
Implicit learning and automaticity
Discrimination learning and stimulus generalization
Associations and reasoning in causal learning
Australian Learning Group

Research groups

Method and theory

This group is concerned with the philosophical, theoretical and methodological aspects of research in psychology. These include: the analysis of philosophical and theoretical assumptions that underpin psycho-social research; theory construction; the concept of measurement; evaluating research designs, research types, and the use of descriptive and inferential statistics.

Researchers

Dr Margaret Charles

Quantitative methods
Psychological measurement
Teaching and learning of statistics

Dr Damian Birney

Measurement of Cognitive Abilities
Rasch Measurement
Multi-level Models
Cognitive Individual Differences and Training Lab

Dr Fiona Hibberd

History and philosophy of psychology
Psychoanalysis
Conceptual issues in statistics and psychometrics

Associate Professor Sabina Kleitman

Using multivariate techniques for individual differences research
CODES Lab

Associate Professor Joel Michell

History and philosophy of quantitative methods in psychology

Associate Professor Paul Rhodes

Qualitative Research Methods
Narrative Inquiry
Critical and Post-Structural Psychology
Participatory Action Research
Philosophy and Clinical Psychology

Research groups

CODES Lab (Cognitive and Decision Sciences Research Lab)
Cognitive Individual Differences and Training Lab

Graphic visualisation of neural pathways

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the study of the biological basis of all aspects of psychology, and is both a basic science and a clinical process to understand and treat psychological and psychiatric disorders. The scope of neuroscience is extensive and neuroscientists employ a wide range of techniques:

Studying the physiology of neural tissue, using animal models of behaviour to investigate the molecular biology and neurochemistry of fundamental psychological processes, and application of neuroimaging techniques to associate brain activity with human perception, action, attention, memory, language, emotion and mood.

Researchers

Professor Robert Boakes

Activity and body weight in rats or humans

Dr Michael Bowen

Novel pharmacotherapies for psychiatric and neurological disorders
Treatments targeting the brain oxytocin system
Treatments targeting extrasynaptic GABAA receptors
Substance-use disorders and social disorders (e.g. autism spectrum disorder)
Novel neural systems involved in neurological and mental health disorders
Cannabinoid therapeutics
Cellular and animal models
The Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics

Associate Professor Thomas Carlson

Neural Coding
Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI)
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Multivariate Pattern Analysis (Brian decoding)
Object and Face recognition.
Body Perception
Social Perception
Visual Attention

Professor Ian Curthoys

The anatomy and physiology of the vestibular system
Vestibular loss and compensation
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
The role of the hippocampus in spatial memory
The role of the hippocampus in spatial learning

Associate Professor Irina Harris

Neural processes (using transcranial magnetic stimulation - TMS) underlying:
object recognition
Visual attention and selection
Capacity limits in encoding visual information, repetition blindness, attentional blink
Visual Cognition Lab

Professor Justin Harris

Neural coding in tactile and visual systems
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab

Dr Ian Johnston

Psycho-neuroimmunology
Neurochemistry of complex cognition

Associate Professor Sunny Lah

Neuropsychological rehabilitation
Impact of neurological disorders and/or brain injury on psychological functioning

Professor Iain McGregor

Drug discovery
Modulation of social behaviour by oxytocin and related systems
Therapies for treatment of addiction
Analytical chemistry
Novel synthetic recreational drugs
Pheromones and olfactory learning
The Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics
Psychopharmacology Lab

Dr Gareth Roberts

Methodological advances in electrophysiological data analysis
The role of oscillatory activity in complex goal-directed behaviour
Frontal lobe function across the lifespan

Professor Frans Verstraten

Functional Neuro-Imaging.
Adaptation and aftereffects
Motion perception
Search and eye-movements
Optic flow, heading and moving observers
Time perception
Visual delusion
Attention
Virtual Reality
History of cognitive neuroscience

Research groups

Organisational

Organisational psychology focuses on the application of the research, theory and practice of psychology to the enhancement of life experience, work performance and development of organisations and groups. Coaching psychology encompasses executive coaching, workplace coaching, leadership development and personal coaching at both group and individual levels.

In coaching the key theoretical frameworks include solution-focused, cognitive-behavioural, and psychodynamic theory, complexity/systems theory and adult developmental theory.

Researchers

Dr Michael Cavanagh

Coaching; workplace, life and health
Meta-cognition and attention in self regulation and emotional regulation
Client coach relationships
Positive psychology, wellbeing and goal attainment
Leadership and adult development
Mindfulness
Group functioning and team development
The Coaching Psychology Unit

Professor Anthony Grant

Life, workplace and executive coaching
Socio-cognitive issues in the psychology of coaching and performance enhancement
Trans-theoretical model of change
Evaluation of personal development programs
Applied positive psychology
Insight and self-reflection
The Coaching Psychology Unit

Dr Sean O'Connor

Coaching; Workplace and Leadership
Positive Organisational Change
Positive psychology, wellbeing and goal attainment
Leadership and Network Cognitions
Social Network Analysis and Systems
Technology and Self development
The Coaching Psychology Unit

Research groups

The Coaching Psychology Unit

Perception

The process by which signals from the sensory periphery (receptors in the eyes, ears, skin etc) are interpreted and organised to produce a meaningful experience of the external world. By representing the objects and attributes of our surrounding environment, perception allows us to interact with our world.

We run an informal discussion group and journal club where we discuss a broad spectrum of topics in perception.

Researchers

Professor David Alais

Visual perception of motion & orientation
Binocular rivalry
Auditory movement
Auditory localization during head movements
interactions between visual and auditory movement
audio-visual attention
Models of cross-modal integration

Professor Bart Anderson

Perceptual organization
Computation of three dimensional shape of surfaces
Surface reflectance
Material properties of surfaces

Dr Ann Burgess

Eye position and visual perception
Vestibular perceptual judgments
Eye movements during linear accelerations
Eye movements and perception to bone conducted sound
Vestibular Research Laboratory

Associate Professor Thomas Carlson

Neural Coding
Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI)
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Multivariate Pattern Analysis (Brian decoding)
Object and Face recognition.
Body Perception
Social Perception
Visual Attention

Professor Ian Curthoys

The anatomy and physiology of the vestibular system
Vestibular loss and compensation
Vestibulo-ocular reflex
Eye movements, especially ocular torsion
Linear acceleration and angular acceleration stimulation
Vestibular Research Laboratory

Professor Alex Holcombe

Processing letters and words
Binding perceptual features
Temporal aspects of perception and visual cognition
Capacity limits on perceptual processing

Associate Professor Hamish MacDougall

Head-eye coordination during vehicle operation
Balance posture and locomotion
Human Factors Research Lab

Professor Frans Verstraten

Vision Science, perception: motion perception, adaptation, attention, binocular vision, illusions, neuro-imaging, Artificial Intelligence
Perceptual aspects of Advertising & Marketing Communication

Research groups

Large metal frame structure of a human head

Personality and intelligence

Our research focus is on the understanding of (a) trait theories of intelligence (including traditional notions of and emotional intelligence), metacognition and personality; (b) the core individual characteristics (cognitive/metacognitive abilities, normal and abnormal personality, mental and, religion and spirituality, and decision-making paradigms) that influence/predict different life outcomes; and (c) the ways these individual differences serve as the bases of much of contemporary psychological assessment in educational, clinical, cross-cultural, forensic, and organizational settings.

Researchers

Dr Damian Birney

Individual differences in Fluid Cognitive Functions
Cognitive training and self-regulatory mediators
Working memory
Fluid intelligence and reasoning
Psychometric Assessment
Cognitive Individual Differences and Training Lab

Associate Professor Sabina Kleitman

Meta-cognition
Decision-making
Cognitive styles/thinking dispositions and their role in cognition
Cognitive response-selection strategies and their role in academic achievements
CODES Lab

Associate Professor Carolyn MacCann

Emotional intelligence
Coping with stress
Methodological issues in personality assessment
Response distortion in personality assessment
Non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement

Dr Gareth Roberts

Individual differences in cognitive control, learning and fluid intelligence
Theoretical perspectives on human consciousness, attention and intelligence

Dr Niko Tiliopoulos

Personality - the traits approach
Adult attachment styles
Psychology & psychopathology of religion & spirituality
Cross-cultural psychological elements of faith

Research groups

CODES Lab (Cognitive and Decision Sciences Research Lab)
Cognitive Individual Differences and Training Lab

Social

What makes social psychology social is that it focuses on how people are affected by other people. In particular, social psychology is the scientific investigation of attitudes, feelings and behaviour, and the interactions between these components. A fundamental goal of social psychology is to understand the factors that shape people's interpersonal relationships and their experiences in the social world.