Research
My research interests are at the intersection of clinical and forensic psychology and psychiatry. Our work examines social-cognitive and affective processes and their association with various forms of psychopathology, aggressive and antisocial behaviour, including sexual offending, and personality disorder. We use a variety of research methods to answer questions in these areas, including experimental and survey methods, use of eye-tracking to measure eye-movements and gaze location, and measures of autonomic reactivity (e.g., pupil dilation).
Psychopathic traits, attention, and emotion
I am interested in psychopathic personality traits in both offender and non-offender samples, and how heightened levels of these traits can affect the processing of social and affective cues. For example, I am interested in how psychopathic traits affect the recognition of others emotional facial expressions, the visual exploration of faces, and physiological responses to threatening and other affective stimuli. I am also interested in how psychopathic traits affect our judgments of other peoples intentions, beliefs and emotions. In recent work we have examined how co-morbid traits (e.g., psychosis) affects the relationship of psychopathic traits with these abilities.
Sexual offending and treatment given to people who have offended
I also research the characteristics of people who have committed sexual offences, including male and female perpetrators of sexual abuse, and users of online child sexual exploitation material. Our work explores the cognitive and affective mechanisms that differentiate people who have sexually offended from people who have committed other types of offences, and people living in the community without a history of offending. Our work has also focussed on improving the effectiveness of treatment given to people who have sexually offended, with a particular focus on improving emotion regulation (e.g., through the use of mindfulness techniques).
Research grants
Do theory of mind, affective resonance with others' pain, and response inhibition distinguish online-only from contact child sexual offenders?
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
October 2020 - November 2023
Learning from the impact of and recovery from COVID within prison settings
UK RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
January 2021 - July 2022