Psychology  PhD / MPhil

The Department of Psychology at City has a long and rich tradition of excellence in research and teaching, as well as service to the field of psychology. As a Department, we are strongly committed to rigorous intellectual and empirical work, building upon the traditions of the discipline and advancing new approaches, also involving interdisciplinary collaboration.

Our faculty members conduct cutting edge research on a variety of topics, including:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder - research on the cognitive and neurobiological characterisation of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with some focus on learning, memory and emotion-related processes. In addition, however, research also explores attention, perception, decision making and language in this disorder. For further details see the Autism Research Group (ARG) website.
• Coaching Psychology - developing the theory and practice of coaching psychology, effectiveness of coaching and coaching psychology practice, ROI of coaching in organisations, boundaries and the coaching relationship, leadership development, reducing stress and enhancing performance, internet coaching, health and wellbeing, positive psychology and coaching psychology.
• Cognitive Neuroscience - neurocognitive mechanism underlying attention, action perception, memory, emotion-related processes and aesthetics. In our research we work with neurologically normal individuals and people with expertise or acquired skills (e.g. dancers, musicians), as well as people with brain damage (e.g. neglect or split-brain patients) or sensory deficits (e.g. the blind). For more information see the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU) website.
• Cognitive Psychology - memory, concepts and categorisation, decision-making, emotion-related processes, writing and spelling.
• Counselling Psychology - research into the psychological factors in family dysfunction, stress, pregnancy, miscarriage.
• Developmental Psychology - psychosocial development across the life course, parent-child relationships and the psychological development of children raised in non-traditional families, risk and resilience; language acquisition and developmental disorders such as autism.
• Health  Psychology - pre-menstrual syndrome, health policy, health promotion, smoking, dementia, patient experience of revascularisation, the experience of caring for someone with a chronic illness, discursive constructions and sexual health in the context of HIV/AIDS.
• Organisational Psychology - power and politics in organisations; developing political leaders; barriers to career progression; leadership and diversity; employee and organisational innovation; empathy and emotional intelligence in the helping professions; employee engagement; promoting pro-environmental behaviour in the workplace; candidate perceptions of recruitment and selection processes; mindfulness-based worksite interventions; workers' leisure time recovery processes; understanding and enhancing employee resilience. For further details see the Organisational Psychology Group website.

Specialist Research Centres

All members of the Department have research interests that fall broadly into these areas, with a number having interests that cut across them. Based on the international profile of our research and to facilitate collaboration we have developed a number of specialist Research Centres and Groups that link closely to our main areas of research specialisation:

• Autism Research Group (ARG)
• Coaching Psychology Unit
• Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU)
• Developmental Psychology Research Group
• Health Psychology Research Group
• Memory and Cognition Research Group
• Memory Research Unit
• Organisational Psychology Group

The Department also has close links to the following Research Centres in the Department of Sociology, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of its research activities:

• The Social Research Methodology Centre, which has a strong interest in the application of both qualitative and quantitative social research methods to empirical and methodological issues.
• The Centre for Comparative Social Surveys which hosts the multi-nation European Social Survey (ESS) funded by the European Commission, European Science Foundation and national funding agencies.

MPhil/PhD programme

The MPhil/PhD programme is a research training doctorate mainly aimed at students who wish to pursue a career in academic research.  In addition to attending formal courses in advanced research methods, PhD students carry out an extended piece of original, empirical research under the direction of one or more members of academic staff.  The degree of PhD is awarded on successful completion of the research methods courses, the submission of a thesis embodying the results of the programme of research and successful performance in an oral examination based on the thesis.