Subject overview

Specialist facilities

The School has well-equipped labs for carrying out research in all its main areas of interest, and links with local schools and hospitals that greatly facilitate research, for example, on cognitive development and cognitive neuroscience. Psychologists share the use of the Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre (MRI and PET/CT) with Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). 

We have excellent lab facilities in cognition, developmental psychology, feeding and drinking, human psychophysiology, psychoacoustics, psychopharmacology, social psychology, and vision. Our Human Psychophysiology Laboratory houses EEG/ERP and TMS equipment, as well as eye-trackers and GSR facilities. The Human Psychopharmacology Unit has facilities for the study of alcohol and nicotine use, and for research into eating behaviour. There is a dedicated unit for the laboratory study of rodents. 

Specially converted rooms are available for the observation of children and group interactions. Most rooms are audio-, video- and data-linked, and a number have built-in one-way observation screens. There is an excellent range of audiovisual equipment, particularly for video recording, analysis and editing. 

Programmes

• PhD in Psychology
• MPhil in Psychology

The School of Psychology has a thriving community of research students who enjoy excellent facilities. At any time we have 80 or more students studying for research degrees. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and countries and make a major contribution to the life of the School. 

You will be working in a highly rated research-active school. You will have a desk in a shared office, a networked computer with internet access, and technical support for your research. 

We offer excellent supervision in all areas of psychology in which School faculty specialise, and train students for academic and research careers. If you are interested in applying for a self-funded place, the first step is to contact potential supervisors in our research groups to see if any of them would be interested in your proposed area of research. 

Research course entry routes

There are two modes of entry for research students. Most students enter directly into a PhD. Others spend one year taking a Masters qualification followed by three years studying for a PhD (known as 1+3). The University and most of the Research Councils support the first mode of entry, and may provide funding for between three and four years. The ESRC supports 1+3 for most of its funded students. The 1+3 mode is also particularly suited to candidates whose background does not equip them to embark immediately on a doctorate. Visit Doctoral training. 

Students who are not taking a Masters qualification will also be expected to undertake methods training and their needs will be assessed before they begin their research degree. 

Research course structure

You are expected to prepare a research outline with your PhD application. On arrival, this will be developed more fully in collaboration with your supervisor. Most students conduct a series of discrete studies that follow on from each other, but others may conduct larger-scale studies over several years (eg involving longitudinal data). All students are encouraged to write up their results and literature reviews for publication as they go along. 

There are opportunities to present your work internally and, more formally, at conferences (including overseas). You will be part of the wider research community through laboratory meetings, seminar series and postgraduate training events. Progress is monitored annually through written work, an interview with an assessor, and via presentations (a poster presentation in Year 1 and an oral presentation in Year 2). 

Entry requirements

MPhil in Psychology

UK entrance requirements

An MSc is preferred but not essential. A first or upper second-class undergraduate honours degree in psychology or a closely related subject such as neuroscience may also be considered.

Overseas entrance requirements

If you are an international student and wish to find out if you have the necessary qualifications for this degree, please refer to Overseas qualifications.

English language requirements

IELTS 7.0, with not less than 6.5 in each section. Internet TOEFL with 95 overall, with at least 22 in Listening, 23 in Reading, 23 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.

For more information, refer to English language requirements.

PhD in Psychology

UK entrance requirements

An MSc is preferred but not essential. A first or upper second-class undergraduate honours degree in psychology or a closely related subject such as neuroscience may also be considered.

Overseas entrance requirements

If you are an international student and wish to find out if you have the necessary qualifications for this degree, please refer to Overseas qualifications.

English language requirements

IELTS 7.0, with not less than 6.5 in each section. Internet TOEFL with 95 overall, with at least 22 in Listening, 23 in Reading, 23 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.

For more information, refer to English language requirements.

Related subjects

• Neuroscience
• Social work and childhood and youth studies
• Sociology

Fees and funding

Fees

MPhil in Psychology

Home UK/EU students: £3,900¹
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,900²
Overseas students: £16,200³

¹ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
² The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
³ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.

PhD in Psychology

Home UK/EU students: £3,900¹
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,900²
Overseas students: £16,200³

¹ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
² The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
³ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.

Funding

The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree.

Faculty interests

Research interests are briefly described below. For more detailed information, visit the School of Psychology. 

Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience

The Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience research group has interests in:  

• addictive behaviours 
• ageing and dementia 
• appetite and obesity 
• influences of early developmental insults on adult behaviour. 

The human work benefits from the developing strength of cognitive neuroscience at the University, including links with Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trusts, and the Sackler Centre for Consciousness and the Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, both based on the Sussex campus. 

On the animal side, the Sussex group is one of the strongest groups in any UK university for the behavioural characterisation of transgenic mice, and enjoys collaborative links with molecular neuroscientists in the School of Life Sciences and with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). 

Professor Aldo Badiani Drug addiction: clinical and preclinical research, environmental influences on drug reward and drug abuse, therapeutic intervention. 

Professor Pete Clifton How brain systems regulate feeding behaviour, side effects of antipsychotic drugs on body weight.

Dr Hans Crombag Neurobiological and behavioural mechanisms of appetitive learning and memory, contextual learning processes in relapse.

Professor Theodora Duka Alcohol and nicotine addiction: human studies of conditioning, adaptive mechanisms. 

Dr Sarah King Techniques to investigate the mechanisms underlying the effects of stress and drugs on brain and behaviour. 

Dr Eisuke Koya Neuronal ensembles, associative learning, obesity, addiction, synaptic physiology, immunohistochemistry. 

Dr Michael Morgan Substance misuse, impulse control in adolescence and adulthood, psychopathology in substance misusers. 

Dr Tamzin Ripley Changes in neuronal plasticity, using behavioural and electrophysiological techniques, and its role in drug abuse. 

Professor Jennifer Rusted Psychopharma-cology of human memory, prospective and action-based memory in ageing and dementia. 

Professor David Stephens Neurobiological and behavioural mechanisms underlying drug dependence. 

Professor Martin Yeomans Appetite control, development of food preferences, dieting as a model of disordered eating and obesity. 

Cognitive Psychology

This Cognitive Psychology group has interests in:

• attention, visual perception and cognition 
• language and communication 
• learning, memory and consciousness 
• mammal vocal communication and cognition. 

This group has wide-ranging interests in language and communication, including mammal vocal communication, learning, memory, attention, visual perception and cognition, and consciousness. As well as normal adult cognition, we study both developmental issues and various pathologies. We use a variety of techniques, including traditional behavioural methods, and modern neuroscientific methods, such as EEG/ ERP, TMS, and fMRI. 

Dr Chris Bird Cognitive processes examined through comparing the performance of brain-damaged adults with neurologically healthy controls. 

Professor Zoltan Dienes How people acquire knowledge they are not aware of having, computational modelling of such learning. 

Dr Sophie Forster Attention, distraction, executive control and mind-wandering; individual differences. 

Professor Alan Garnham Language comprehension, particularly inference; sentence processing; reasoning; mental models theory. 

Dr Graham Hole Face recognition, age perception from faces, perceptual aspects of driving (especially ‘looked but failed to see’ accidents). 

Dr Ryota Kanai Neural processes and computational principles underlying subjective conscious experiences and qualia. 

Dr Beena Khurana Visual cognition, the role of attention in motion perception, processing of human faces. 

Dr Karen McComb Mammal communication and cognition, functional questions about animal communication and the nature of animal minds. 

Dr Romi Nijhawan Compensation of neural delays in perception and action, flash-lag effect in vision and action. 

Professor Jane Oakhill Mental models theory of text comprehension and reasoning, and children’s text comprehension. 

Dr David Reby Vocal communication, sexual communication, crossmodal abilities in non-human animals. 

Dr Jamie Ward Human cognitive neuroscience using neuropsychology, fMRI, TMS and EEG. Synaesthesia. 

Developmental and Clinical Psychology

The Development and Clinical Psychology research group has a common aim of advancing theoretical approaches to human development and clinical psychology, often through studying applied questions. Approaches include observational and experimental studies, longitudinal analyses of child development, comparative perspectives, dynamic systems, neural network modelling, and experimental clinical psychopathology. We work closely with clinicians and educationalists, and with typical and special child populations. 

Research spans three intertwined themes: 

• development of cognition and communication 
• mental health through the lifespan 
• social and emotional development. 

We have several focused labs: Child Anxiety Theory and Treatment (CATT) Lab • Children and Technology (ChaT) Lab • Children’s Relationships, Emotions, and Social Skills (CRESS) Lab • Sussex Baby Lab • Sussex Family Research Lab • Word and Object Reasoning Development (WORD) Lab. 

The group is well-supported with lab facilities, including testing rooms for audio-visual recording, software for video editing and analyses, questionnaire scanning facilities, environments for conducting controlled experimental psychopathology studies, and specialised spaces for conducting a range of studies from habituation to clinical interviews. The group has good links with local daycare, schools and colleges. 

Professor Robin Banerjee Social and emotional development of pupils at school, self-conscious cognition and emotion, self-presentational behaviour. 

Dr Kate Cavanagh Cognitive biases and reasoning processes in emotional disorders, increasing access to psychological therapies. 

Professor Graham Davey Experimental psychopathology and anxiety disorders, the causes of perseverative psychopathologies. 

Professor Andy Field The role of childhood experience in fear acquisition, parenting and child anxiety. 

Dr Anna Franklin The development of colour perception and cognition, broader issues in cognitive and developmental science such as how language and thought interact. 

Professor Gordon Harold Developmental psychopathology, family processes and child development, child and adolescent mental health, prevention science. 

Dr Jessica Horst Cognitive development in children under the age of five; language acquisition, infant and toddler categorisation. 

Dr David Leavens Non-verbal communication by apes and humans, joint attention, mother-infant interaction, evolution of language. 

Dr Bonamy Oliver Child behaviour, using longitudinal, behavioural genetic designs to better understand environmental influences on behavioural outcomes. 

Dr Alison Pike Antecedents and consequences of variation in family relationship quality, including marital, parent-child and sibling relationships. 

Dr Nicola Yuill Typical and atypical social cognitive development, autism; technology to support children; children’s language development. 

Social and Applied Psychology

The Social and Applied Psychology is a field that concerns itself with the attitudes and behaviour of people in their social environments. Above all, it focuses on how people’s relationships – with others in their groups or with those who belong to different groups – affect behaviour and, in turn, how relationships are affected by the social context in which people find themselves. 

This Group is one of the largest groups of social and applied social psychologists in the UK. Its work is concerned with theory development, testing and application in four main areas: 

• health psychology and behaviour change 
• identity, culture and well-being 
• intergroup relations, group processes and collective behaviour 
• pro-social and moral engagement. 

Dr Rod Bond Group processes, particularly social influence and reaction to deviants; subjective well-being. 

Professor Rupert Brown Intergroup relations: prejudice and prejudice reduction, acculturation processes, hate crime, collective guilt. 

Dr Richard de Visser Young people’s health behaviour, sexual health and sexual behaviour, gender and health-related behaviour. 

Dr Helga Dittmar Social and psychological dimensions of material goods, compulsive buying; sociocultural influences on body image. 

Dr John Drury Crowd behaviour, empowerment and positive psychological change, crowding/ density, celebration and ‘atmosphere’. 

Dr Tom Farsides Factors that facilitate (duty or empathy) or inhibit (moral phobia or selfishness) positive other-concern. 

Professor Peter Harris Cognitive, emotional and behavioural response to risk, especially health risks. 

Dr Donna Jessop Impact of personally relevant health-risk information on behaviour change, fear appeals. 

Dr Karen Long Inter- and intragroup relations, social identity theory, social and personal identity as sources of self-esteem. 

Dr Eleanor Miles Self-regulation: emotion regulation, self-control, physical and psychological consequences. 

Dr Paul Sparks Attitude theory applied to environmental and health issues: normative influences and self-identity, decision making. 

Dr Viv Vignoles Self and identity, motivational processes and culture and context influences on identity construction; life transitions.

Careers and perspectives

Our graduates have gone on to careers in research and education, and hold roles including behavioural scientist, lecturer, researcher, scientist, health psychologist, and statistician. 

School and contacts