Sue Widdicombe

Senior Lecturer

  • Psychology
  • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

Room UF35, Psychology Building

City
7 George Square, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9JZ

Availability

  • Office hours:
    Please email for an appointment.

Undergraduate teaching

  • I currently teach Social Psychology at second year level
  • At third year level, I teach Qualitative Methods in Psychology.
  • At fourth year level, I supervise final honours projects on a variety of topics which employ a discourse or conversation analysis approach.

Postgraduate teaching

  • I teach Qualitative Methodologies in Psychological Research
  • I also teach and organise Problem-based Social Psychological Research
  • and supervise MSc research projects.

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

Please do get in touch if you are interested in pursuing discursive psychological/conversation analysis research on self and identity, climate activism and public engagement, psychology in social interaction or you want to discuss your ideas.

Current PhD students supervised

  • Paula Greenlees (Lead)
  • Lasse Schaefer (Lead)
  • Kayleigh Smith
  • Miranda Heath

Research summary

My work focuses on language used in social interaction as the medium and resource for doing psychological work such as claiming identities, denying prejudice, holding others to account for actions, even conducting research. This perspective is a unifying theme in all the projects in which I’ve been involved.

Current research interests

My work on self and identities is concerned to show how individuals ‘do’ identity, that is, how they construct and mobilise particular identities in interaction with others, and with what effects (interpersonal, social, ideological). This interest is manifest in early work with members of youth subcultures on claiming individuality and in my study of self-description and identities conducted in Syria. More specifically, I have looked at how people achieve self-authenticity, how they resist identity ascriptions, and at the delicate work of producing self-praise. I am also interested in how people manage agency, self-continuity and change, and uniqueness. One aspect of this interest lies in the way that theories and methodologies have contributed to the understandings of self which are found in the literature. This extends an earlier interest in the productive role of methods, as shown in work on interviewing as interaction, examining how the questions are influenced by the social agenda and how the interviewer’s efforts at neutrality can shape the subsequent interaction. I am also interested in the practical application of the study of interaction through conversation analysis and discursive psychology. For example, I helped set up several workshops involving academics and practioners: on interactional issues in telephone helplines (with Eric Laurier); in managing the non-uptake of antiretroviral drugs among people who have been diagnosed as HIV positive (with Bregje de Kok and Eric Laurier); and on reporting racism (with Yarong Xie, Eric Laurier and Steve Kirkwood). I have also worked with students studying online support groups, and on ‘trial by social media’ as people react to alleged domestic violence (with Isha Mangurkar). Recently, I have been examining broadcast news interviews with UK climate activists. Research suggests that when climate action attracts media attention, it is successful in raising public awareness of the issues and may facilitate policy change. However, research shows the media focus on reporting disruptive acts diverts attention from talk of climate crisis. This project asks what happens when activists are given the opportunity to speak directly about their actions in TV news interviews. It asks how activists’ identities are ascribed, used and resisted, and how public opinion is mobilised and negotiated by both parties in the interaction. I am also working (with Cristina Marinho and Rahul Sambaraju) on public engagement with climate change news in the UK, India, Portugal and Brazil.

Project activity

Public engagement with climate news: a four country feasibility study (with Cristina Marinho & Rahul Sambaraju).

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