Professor Richard Crisp BA, PhD, C.Psychol, FBPsS, FAPS, AcSS

Professor of Social Psychology

Research interests

My research resides on the interdisciplinary interface characterised by the social, cognitive and behavioural sciences. It focuses on the psychological processes that compel people to resist or embrace intercultural contact, and the impacts of such experiences on individuals (confidence and creativity), organizations (innovation, productivity and performance), and society at large (tolerance and social inclusion). Findings from our laboratory are showing how intercultural contact has tangible benefits for individuals in domains central to personal, professional, physical, and psychological well-being. Three cross-cutting and complementary themes define this work:

1. Cognitive Adaptation to Social and Cultural Diversity

Diversity is a defining characteristic of modern society, yet there remains considerable debate over the benefits that it brings. My research on intercultural contact advances an entirely new psychological perspective on this debate. The core hypothesis is simple: Engaging with social and cultural diversity - under the right conditions - not only encourages greater egalitarianism in social attitudes and behaviour, but through a process of cognitive adaptation, enables benefits that extend beyond tolerance and more positive intergroup relations (Crisp & Turner, 2011). Research from our lab is supporting this hypothesis: New studies show that intercultural experiences enhance creativity, innovation and original thinking, promote more effective negotiation strategies, and enable a lesser susceptibility to the cognitive biases that hamper judgment and decision-making in multiple domains. Intercultural contact may therefore have much broader significance than previously thought, and hold the yet untapped potential to address the political, cultural and economic challenges that face and frame contemporary social policy.

2. Promoting Tolerance Through Mental Simulation

60 years since Gordon Allport’s seminal work on intergroup contact we now understand psychological processes to be key in the formation, perseverance, and perhaps most importantly, the reduction of prejudice. Crisp and Turner (2009) recently proposed a new perspective on intergroup contact, a perspective that provides an original cognitive model for promoting tolerance, as well as an entirely new approach to diversity training in education and in industry. Our lab tests this imagined contact hypothesis, the effectiveness of cognitive interventions that foster and facilitate a capacity for mental simulation, and the power and potential such techniques hold for efforts to promote, encourage and enhance group processes and intercultural communication.

3. Removing Social Psychological Barriers to Academic and Career Success

Women are chronically underrepresented in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) occupations, representing only 12.3% of the UK workforce in this area (UKRC, 2010). This underrepresentation may, in part, be attributable to psychological phenomena that lead to disengagement with academic and occupational domains heavily defined by social stereotypes. Our research in this area examines ways to mitigate the detrimental impact of social stereotypes on women’s entry to STEM domains, as well as the generalized and enhanced cognitive flexibility observed for people who challenge stereotypic ways of thinking.

Professional activities

I am Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology

Distinctions

I am past winner of the British Psychological Society’s Spearman Medal (2006) and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize (for the best paper of the year on intergroup relations; 2012). I am also an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.  Finally, I am the 2013 winner of the British Psychological Society's Social Psychology Section Mid-Career Prize in recognition of "outstanding research in social psychology".

Publications

A list of key publications can be found below.  For a full list of publications please click here