Social Psychology Group

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PhD Study

Overview

We warmly welcome prospective PhD applicants to study with us in the School of Psychology.  Our PhD candidates benefit from personalized mentorship, access to cutting-edge resources, and one of the largest and most supportive community of scholars in social psychology in Europe.

Our current students work on a variety of topics including conspiracy beliefs, nationalism and inequality, partner violence, leadership in organisations, and trust in artificial intelligence. Our past students have gone on to use their skills in a variety of industries and organisations in addition to academia.

Choosing a topic

Although sometimes we have specific PhD research projects related to funding awards, most of our research students choose their own research topics. Once you have decided on the nature of your project, it is important to contact a staff member whose expertise matches your area of interest with a CV and research proposal to discuss your proposed project and potential supervisory arrangements.

Training

Through the University-wide Graduate School, you have access to training in research-specific and broader transferable skills, including academic writing, career management and presentation skills. The Statistics and Methodology module from our taught MSc programme is available for doctoral students who have not already completed an advanced statistics and methods course.

PhD funding

The School attracts excellent visiting scholars and postgraduate students from both within the UK and overseas. Some of our PhD students are self-funded, and others are funded by grants or awards either from the School, the University, UK research councils or their countries of origin.

Many of our students will be funded through the South East Doctoral Training Arc (SEDarc): a partnership of six leading UK universities funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and includes the University of Kent. Students apply directly through Kent, and the studentship include fees and stipends at the UK home fee rate on a full-time rate or part-time basis.  Applications are typically due in around December, so we encourage students to reach out to potential supervisors well before then. More information can be found here.

PhD Profiles

Explore some of the research projects that our current PhD researchers are working on in the Social Psychology group.

Penelope Agranov

Intimate Partner Violence, Gender Stereotypes, Feminism

Penelope is a second-year Social Psychology PhD researcher. Her research explores the stereotypes surrounding intimate partner violence, their intersections with gender stereotypes, and their impact on perceptions and responses to abuse cases. While grounded in social psychology, her work also engages with forensic issues and is supervised by Professor Robbie Sutton (Social Psychologist) and Dr. Afroditi Pina (Forensic Psychologist).

Supported by a Graduate Teaching Studentship, her research so far has involved capturing stereotypes of IPV perpetrators and victims through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Penelope began this line of research during her Social Psychology MSc at the University of Kent, where she received the “Tomorrow’s World Academic Excellence” scholarship and was subsequently awarded the Brian Mullen Prize for the highest marks in the course. She chose to continue her PhD at Kent because of its welcoming and supportive approach to interdisciplinary collaboration, providing an ideal setting for research on complex social issues.

Dylan de Gourville

Climate change conspiracy theories

Dylan is a PhD student supervised by Prof. Karen Douglas and Prof. Aleksandra Cichocka. He holds an MSc in Applied Psychology from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago and was drawn to the School of Psychology at the University of Kent for its commitment to rigorous, research-intensive training within a collaborative and community-oriented environment.

Funded by a scholarship from the European Research Council’s CONSPIRACY_FX project, Dylan leads the environmental research package, focusing on the impacts of conspiracy beliefs related to climate change. One chapter of his PhD examines the contrasting consequences of two opposing types of climate change conspiracy beliefs across the political spectrum. He is also exploring conspiracy beliefs surrounding veganism and their effects on meat-consumption behaviours.

As an active member of the Political Psychology Lab, Dylan values the opportunity to share research, receive constructive feedback, and benefit from mentorship by experienced researchers. He is grateful to work alongside such a supportive and inspiring team.

Tamino Konur

Identity, inequality, and their political consequences

Tamino Konur has received an MSc in Psychology from Philipps-University Marburg in Germany as well as an MSc Political Psychology from the University of Kent. In 2023, Tamino was awarded a Research Scholarship from the Division of Human and Social Sciences, to conduct his PhD with Dr Nikhil Sengupta. Tamino is interested in perceptions of social inequality and identity, examining how their interaction influences political attitudes. For instance, one of his recent projects investigates how perceptions of losing out to ethnic minority groups can foster nationalist attitudes among white people.

Tamino’s work utilises large-scale datasets from multiple countries combined with advanced statistical methods. He was drawn to Kent for its reputation as a leading centre for political psychology, where political questions are connected with social-psychological theory. The department’s open, welcoming, and dynamic environment – both academically and socially – played a key role in his decision to continue at Kent after completing his Master’s. Tamino values the supportive environment and collaborative culture and is excited to be working toward finishing his PhD in 2026.

Sarah Lily Resanovich

Social-psychological antecedents of pro-environmental behaviour

Sarah is a 2nd year PhD student supervised by Prof Tim Hopthrow, Prof Georgina Randsley de Moura, and Dr Angela Nyhout. Her research uses a mixed-methods approach to explore the social-psychological antecedents of pro-environmental behaviour and the impact of leadership and identity on environmental behaviour change in groups and organisations. She is the lab manager for GroupLab and has also worked on air-quality projects with other researchers in the Centre for the Study of Group Processes, partnering with the local city council and community groups. Sarah’s PhD is funded by a Graduate Teaching Assistantship through the School of Psychology. She came to Kent for the collaborative research community and enjoys discovering the plants and animals that call the Canterbury campus home.

Pierce Veitch

Trust in policy-making AI

Pierce Veitch is a first-year ESRC-funded PhD student at the University of Kent, supervised by Dr. Jim Everett and Prof. Aleksandra Cichocka. His research focuses on public attitudes towards the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in policy-making and the perception of leaders who incorporate AI into governance. So far, his work has primarily examined the relative importance of concerns about ethicality and effectiveness in policy-making AI—an area of study he began exploring during his MSc. This research earned the Prize for the Best Applied Research Project for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Pierce is an active member of the Multidimensional Trust in Moral Machines research group, which investigates how, when, and why people trust AI agents. Alongside his PhD research, he collaborates on research exploring the psychology behind adopting and maintaining plant-based diets.

Pierce chose to continue his academic journey at the University of Kent due to its strong reputation for high-quality social psychology research and its diverse range of research interests.