Skip to main content

Our research predominantly takes an experimental approach to address questions of relevance to cognitive and social psychology. With a strong focus on experimental design to identify causal relationships our work addresses questions relating to social cognition, imitation, empathy, theory of mind, emotion, motivations, decision making, and learning. We use methods from experimental psychology, social psychology, associative learning and cognitive neuroscience to address questions including; 

  • Why do emotions shape social behaviour?  
  • Why do individuals differ when learning to be afraid? 
  • Does seeing the bigger picture make us happy?  
  • How do individual difference in motivations modulate cognition? 
  • What it the neutral basis of social interaction?  
  • Why do people not engage in behaviours that are good for their health? 
  • Can we make people make better decisions? 

Our Partners

University of Oxford

University of Oxford

Contact us

EASY Research Group Leads:  

Professor Mike Aitken  

Director of Undergraduate Psychology  

Dr Tim Rakow 

Reader in Psychology  

Professional Services Support:  

Katie Lowis  

Senior Operations Officer  

Susan Barwick 

Department Administrator 

Follow us