Social Psychology Section Annual Conference 2022

Submissions

Key submission dates

How to Submit

Please ensure you read the submission guidelines below before submitting, including the reviewer guidelines. These allow you to see how your submissions will be reviewed.

Please make your submissions via  the online application portal by clicking the button below. You will need to create an account if the the first submitting. 

If you any queries about submissions please contact us at [email protected]

Registration

Registration is online only and payable by card, we are unable to accept registrations over the phone and invoices cannot be provided.

Registration closing date is 29 August 2022.

ECR and PhD Student Networking event 

After the success of last year's ECR and PhD student Networking event at our virtual conference, we will be holding a similar networking event (in-person) specifically for Early Career Researchers and PhD students at this year's BPS Social Psychology Section Annual Conference.  

To register please select 'Yes' when asked about the event on the registration page. 

This event requires you to register for it separately as spaces are limited. You will receive an email from the committee confirming your registration.

 

 

 

 

 

• Additional item - Conference dinner (Tuesday, 6 September): £40

Returning Customers (Members and non-members)

In order to register for the event, you will need to sign in using your BPS website log in details. We have implemented a new Membership Database (CRM) recently and if you haven't received your pre-registration email please contact [email protected] to request a re-send and follow the instructions received. Once pre-registered on the CRM use your USERNAME and PASSWORD to log in to register for the event.

Non-returning customers (Members and non-members)

If you are not a returning customer, you will need to create a free account. Once set up use your USERNAME and PASSWORD to log in to register for the event.

BPS Social Psychology Section Conference Bursaries

Eligibility Criteria: You need to be a PhD Student or an Early Career Researcher (within 5 years of being awarded your PhD).

Deadline for application: 5pm on Friday 29th July 2022.

Further details can be found on the BPS Social Psychology Section page.

Location

• Devonport House, University of Greenwich (Maritime Campus), London

Download a map of the venue

Accommodation 

Hotel bookings at a discounted rate can be made via our partner HotelMap, please see the available rates.

Please note the bookings are made through a third party and we recommend you check the cancellation policy at the time of booking.

Speakers and Award Winners

Professor Ann Phoenix – Keynote

Title: Disrupting the taken-for granted in knowledge production: Intersectional glocal challenges 

Abstract: One of the major ways in which social psychology has pushed existing knowledge boundaries over the last 150 years has been through in-depth focus on one aspect of social life at a time. While this has undoubtedly produced much that is illuminating and generated impact, this view of the social has ontological as well as epistemological implications. In particular, the taken-for-granted notion that social processes can be understood by focusing on research participants at one time point, often in simplified contexts, is itself decontextualising. This talk argues that, at the very least, temporality is a central feature of everyone's lives, differentiating the meanings of social processes for different participants. As a result, both personal and sociostructural histories are inextricably part of contemporary social processes.

Over the last twenty years or so, it has become painfully evident that marked inequities of the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, environmental racism, the UK hostile migration policy, and Wars, including in Ukraine, have all separated the experiences of people who are apparently positioned in similar ways. If we are to address the global challenges they pose, we need to disrupt taken-for-granted modes of knowledge production to understand that, ontologically, everybody is simultaneously situated in histories that differentiate them and that 'haunt' the present.

The talk draws on intersectionality in order to reflect the complexity of everyday social positioning and to bring together the sociohistorical with the global and local as well as social categories such as racialisation, gender, and social class. The paper argues that recognition of ontological and epistemological complexity requires disruption of taken-for-granted modes of knowledge production. It draws on a diverse range of methods to illustrate possibilities for generating new theoretical understandings.  

Bio: Ann Phoenix is Professor of Psychosocial studies at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Social Research Institute, UCL Institute of Education. Her research focuses on the ways in which psychological experiences and social processes are linked and intersectional. It includes racialised and gendered identities, mixed-parentage, masculinities, consumption, motherhood, families, migration and transnational families. Her latest books include Environment in the Lives of Children and Families: Perspectives from India and the UK. Policy Press, 2017. (with Janet Boddy, Catherine Walker and Uma Vennan) and Nuancing Young Masculinities: Helsinki boys' intersectional relationships in new times (with Marja Peltola), Helsinki University Press, 2022.  

Dr Anne Templeton - Early Career Award

Title: Using social psychological theory and methods to inform models of collective behaviour for crowd management

Abstract: Research from social psychology offers insights into how and why people behave in psychological crowds and shows how understanding group processes can be used to facilitate safety in mass events and emergencies. Computer models of collective behaviour are used to plan for crowd events such as how attendees will move through stadiums or evacuate from public spaces. Most of these computer models attempt to simulate group behaviour but until recently these simulations have been based on atheoretical or outdated assumptions. In this talk, I will present how research from social psychology can by used to create more realistic models of collective behaviour to assist safety planning. I will focus on how aspects of social identity theory and self-categorisation theory can be tested and their effects implemented into the models, and present examples of how experiments on group behaviour can be designed specially to inform the models as well as advance our knowledge about crowd psychology and event safety management.

Bio: Dr Anne Templeton is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and leads the Identities and Collective Behaviour research group. Her research primarily focuses on using the social identity approach to improve crowd safety in emergencies and at mass events. Anne does this through exploring a) the role of social identities on feelings of safety and group cohesion, b) processes underlying communication between crowd members and safety personnel, and c) incorporating the role of social identities into pedestrian models of collective behaviour. Anne has either conducted research for, or advised on crowd safety and crowd psychology to: the UK Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; UK Sport; the Sports Grounds Safety Authority; the Scottish Government COVID-19 Nosocomial Review Group; the UK Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Local Communities; the Hajj; PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games; Rail Safety and Standards Boards; the UK Ministry of Defence; and the Local Authority Building Control.

Professor Steve Reicher – Distinguished Contribution to Psychology Award

Title: Who's afraid of the social group? On the psychology of collectivity, solidarity and power.

Abstract: In this talk I shall reflect upon how the social group is seen within social psychology and within society more generally. I shall argue that both anti-collectivistic fears of the group and pro-collectivistic movements for social change are rooted in a recognition of groups as a source of social power. I shall argue for a reading of the social identity approach as an analysis of how such power is produced, how it is articulated and with what consequences (in this sense, social identity theory is quintessentially a political psychology). I shall also consider the conditions under which group power is used to establish, maintain or else challenge structures of social inequality. I shall conclude with some thoughts about where we need to go with the study of the social group.

Bio: Stephen Reicher is Wardlaw Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews. His work addresses issues of social identity and collective action and he has investigated a series of associated topics including crowd behaviour, social influence, political rhetoric and leadership, nationalism, intragroup solidarity and intergroup behaviour, tyranny and toxic behaviour. 

The Social Psychology Section conference will be held over three days, from Monday 05 September to Wednesday 07 September.

Download the conference programme