Miranda Heath
Thesis title: How to be Good: An Exploration of the Moral Circle and its Relationship with Wealth and Individualism
PhD Psychology
Year of study: 3
- Psychology
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
- College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Contact details
- Email: miranda.heath@ed.ac.uk
PhD supervisors:
Background
Interdisciplinary PhD student in psychology and philosophy.
Qualifications
MSc Mind, Language and Embodied Cognition - The University of Edinburgh
BSc (Hons) Psychology - The University of Plymouth
Responsibilities & affiliations
Ideology Research Group (https://ideology.group/)
Altruistic Minds Lab (https://www.mattiwilks.com/lab)
Research summary
My work seeks to disentangle the influence of individualism and neoliberal ideology from altruism and moral expansiveness research. I hope this will help us to better understand collective moral regard and behaviour.
Current research interests
Ideology and its influence on knowledge production, collective intentionality and collective action, post-positivist and critical realist methodologies, economic philosophy, philosophy of science, sociology of scientific knowledgePast research interests
Non-directed (altruistic) kidney donation, network theories of mental illness, transformative learningConference details
Presenter
Heath, M. ‘Individualism makes us altruistic and happy’: How hyper-individualism in altruism research moralises markets and reifies neoliberal ideology. European Congress of Qualitative Enquiry. Edinburgh, 2025.
Lloyd, H., & Heath, M. A spotlight on safeguarding in trainee selection: The Plymouth programmes experience of safer recruitment. Plymouth, UK, 2018.
Heath, M. ‘I’m not exceptional’: How unspecified kidney donors construct their identity. BPS South West Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Plymouth, UK, Mar 2018.
Tim, A., Williams, L., & Heath, M. Unspecified kidney donor’s constructions of family: A membership categorisation analysis. CACE, Bristol, July 2017.
Contributer to Presented Work
Neve H, Hanks S. Heath M, & Smith W. “Today’s shook me up a lot inside…it’s definitely changed me”: Emotional responses and transformative learning through working with disadvantaged communities. AMEE Virtual Conference, Sep 2020.
Leyland R, Neve H, Heath M, Collett T, & Drake E. Preparedness for 2020 and beyond: final year students’ reflections on troublesome and important thresholds they have crossed. AMEE Virtual Conference, Sep 2020.
Smith W, Heath M, Neve H, & Hanks S. Transformational Learning in Community Settings. British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry Spring Scientific Meeting Addressing inequalities: Celebrating improvement, Cardiff, UK, Apr 2020.
Leyland R, Maynard V, Heath M, & Neve H. A different kind of conversation: supporting students to become shared decision makers through guided reflection on experience. 8th International Clinical Skills Conference, Prato, Italy, May 2019.