Who we are
The Social Psychology Research Group is a group of social and personality psychologists who are primarily concerned with research that supports and sustains positive interpersonal relations, equality, generous inclusion, and civil society.
To do so, we research the interplay of emotions with personality, cognition and behaviour.
Group members
Dr Fabio Fasoli
Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology
Biography
Fabio Fasoli works on language and communication. His main lines of research focus on voice-based categorisation and discrimination (auditory gaydar and ‘gay voice’ stereotype), derogatory language and its consequences, and women’s media portrayals and their effects on body image.
Dr Erica Hepper
Senior Lecturer in Personality/Social Psychology
Biography
Erica Hepper studies individual differences in self-related emotions and motivations in interpersonal contexts and relationships. Her main lines of research focus on self-enhancement and its personality correlate narcissism, including their consequences for close relationships and health; and the emotion of nostalgia and its role in maintaining well-being.
Dr Sophie Russell
Lecturer in Social Psychology
Biography
Sophie Russell’s research interests are in moralization and moral emotions, such as guilt, shame, disgust, anger, and gratitude. In particular, she examines how and when moral emotions can be utilized to foster positive social relations.
Professor Harriet Tenenbaum
Professor in Developmental and Social Psychology
Biography
Harriet Tenenbaum’s research is concerned with social justice for young people. She examines how young people are embedded in social systems in which varying levels of discrimination occur at the socio-cultural level (e.g., religious laws, state single-gender schools) and the microsystem of everyday conversations (e.g., parents explaining science to boys more than to girls).
Dr Angela Mazzone
Lecturer in Psychology
Biography
I obtained my PhD in Functional Neuroimaging (area of specialism: Developmental Psychology) from Gabriele D’Annunzio University, Italy. As part of my doctoral studies, I undertook a research stay at the University of Turku. Following the completion of my PhD, I held visiting researcher positions at various European universities and research institutes, including the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria in Linz, the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague and Linköping University. Prior to joining the University of Surrey, I was a post-doctoral researcher at Dublin City University (2018 to 2023) and the University of Florence (2016 to 2017).
Dr Gloria Wai Shan Ma
Research Fellow in Social Psychology/Relationship Science
Biography
I am a Research Fellow in Social Psychology/Relationship Science in the School of Psychology, currently working with Dr Erica Hepper on an ESRC-funded project investigating dyadic nostalgia in couples.
I was awarded two bachelor's degrees in psychology from Columbia University and City University of Hong Kong. After that, I moved to the UK to complete an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences at University College London and a D.Phil in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. During my doctoral studies, I investigated the consequences of social sharing of emotions associated with COVID-19 and the social effects of bivalent emotions (i.e., feeling positive and negative emotions at the same time). Between November 2023 and March 2025, I worked at the University of Surrey as a Lecturer A in Psychology.
Dr Lewis Doyle
Lecturer in Social Psychology
Biography
I completed my PhD in Psychology at the University of Sussex in 2023, with my thesis exploring the social psychology of educational inequalities. Following this, I had the roles of Research Fellow at the National Institute of Teaching and Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Université de Poitiers in France. I joined the University of Surrey as a Lecturer in Social Psychology in the summer of 2025.