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Home | Social Science & Public Policy | Department of War Studies | People | Dr Julia Pearce

• Risk and crisis communication
• CBRN Terrorism
• Intergroup conflict and prejudice
• Social and national identity
• Social representations
• Moral panic
• Media influence
• Applied social psychology
• Quantitative and qualitative research methodology

Biography

Dr Julia Pearce is a Research Associate in the Department of War Studies, working on an EPSRC/ESRC funded project, ‘Resilient Futures’, which focuses on the resilience of critical national infrastructure and its interdependencies. Her recent research has focused on public information needs following terrorist events (through the EU funded PIRATE research project) and risk and crisis communication following a chemical incident emergency (through the EU-DG SANCO funded CIE toolkit project). These projects examined factors and developed/tested interventions that impact on public levels of knowledge and intention to perform protective health behaviours before, during and after terrorist events.

After completing her MSc in Social Psychology with Distinction at the LSE, Julia was employed as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at London Metropolitan University where she delivered quantitative research methods workshops and lectured in qualitative research methods and social psychology whilst completing her PhD research entitled 'Asylum in the UK: A Social Psychological understanding of a Moral Panic'. This thesis critically investigated the concept of ‘moral panic’ in relation to the UK response to asylum seekers and considered how social psychological theory could be used to understand the cause, content, spread and impact of a moral panic response.  During this period she was also an examiner for the Elements of Social and Applied Psychology course for the University of London External Programme at LSE and was External Moderator on the Interpersonal Communication Skills Cert at Birkbeck College, University of London. She has also contributed to Advanced Research Methods teaching in the Psychology Department at Westminster University and was Course Director for the Year 11 Psychology Summer School at LSE for five years.

Current Teaching

Social Dimensions of Terrorism (Department of War Studies, KCL)

Current research

Julia has recently commenced work on the social sciences stream of ‘Resilient Futures’, an EPSRC-funded multi-institution interdisciplinary research project which considers the resilience of the UK’s future energy and transport infrastructure to national and malicious threats. This project will deliver a) fresh perspectives on how the inter-relations amongst our critical infrastructure sectors impact on current and future UK resilience, b) a state-of-the-art integrated social science/engineering methodology that can be generalised to address different sectors and scenarios, and c) an interactive demonstrator simulation that operationalises resilience for key stakeholders and decision makers (including government, emergency services and national infrastructure managers). The social sciences work stream will use the simulation model as an instrument for eliciting greater understanding of infrastructural resilience from relevant stakeholders in a series of events and participatory focus groups. This will encourage a step change in stakeholders’ understanding of UK infrastructure and its interdependencies, and their ability to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience now and in the future. More information about this project is available at  http://r-futures.ecs.soton.ac.uk

Selected publications and conference papers

• Pearce, J.M. and Charman, E. (in press) A social psychological approach to understanding moral panic. Crime, Media, Culture
• Critcher, C. and Pearce, J (in press) A missing dimension: The social psychology of moral panics. In C. Krinsky (Ed.) The Ashgate Research Companion to Moral Panic. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Group
• Pearce, J and Rogers, M.B. (2011) ‘I’ll just pop to the shop’: The role of risk and crisis communication in enhancing public compliance with health advice during a chemical incident emergency. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference: Fire Related Research and Developments (RE11), 17th-18th November, 2011.
• Rogers, M.B. and Pearce, J. (2011) Risk Management and Communication for Chemical Incidents and Emergencies. Paper presented at The CIE Toolkit Pilot workshop, Athens, 5th-6th April, 2011.
• Pearce, J. and Charman, E. (2010) Asylum seekers in the UK: A social psychological understanding of a moral panic. Paper presented at Moral Panics in the Contemporary World conference, Brunel University, 10th – 12th December 2010.
• Pearce, J., Mowbray, F., Selke, P., Amlôt, R., Rogers, B., Rubin, J., Wessely, S., Renn, O., and Simpson, J. (2010) The PIRATE Project: Public Information and Responses After Terrorist Events. Paper presented at the HPA Health Protection 2010 conference, University of Warwick, 14th-15th September, 2010.
• Rogers, M.B, Pearce, J.M., Amlôt, R., Rubin, G.J., Wessely, S. and Krieger, K. (2010) Communicating with the public about CBRN Terrorism. Magazine for National Safety & Security and Crisis Management. The Directorate General for Public Safety and Security of the Netherlands Ministry of the Interior.
• Pearce, J.M. and Stockdale, J.E. (2009) UK responses to the asylum issue: a comparison of lay and expert views. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, Vol 19 (2), 142-155.
• Pearce, J and Charman, E (2008) Perceptions of ‘Britishness’: asylum seeker and refugee experiences in the UK. Paper presented at the CRONEM Annual Conference: ‘Nationalism, Ethnicity and Citizenship: Whose Citizens? Whose Rights?’, University of Surrey, 30th June – 1st July 2008.