Area of Concentration

Interacting With The World

A woman pointing towards a computer screen, with another person's head visible over the top of the computer.

How are we shaped by our culture? How can we understand and improve social relationships? How can we improve our health and our well-being? How does sexual orientation develop and how does it affect our lives? What psychological processes are at play when we observe people experiencing potentially unfair or unjust outcomes? What are the social and psychological mechanisms that foster our attempts to find meaning in life?

Some of the specific lines of inquiry that you’ll find addressed in this area of concentration include:

Our unique approach to understanding our place in the world leverages an interdisciplinary programme of research, which benefits from the use of multi-methodological strategies.

Some of the methodologies and facilities employed by our researchers focused on ‘Interacting With the World’ include an observation lab, two virtual reality suites, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for conducing neuroimaging experiments during real time human interactions, and a group testing suite.

A row of old looking library books
Explore our research

Discover cutting edge research from the University of Essex. Browse our site to find relevant publications, projects, groups, centres, postgraduate opportunities for research supervision and wider areas of interest. Simply search our site to find information relating to your subject.

Search our research