Ian Tucker_410 x 410

Professor Ian Tucker

Professor in Psychology

Professor in Psychology

Department of Psychological Sciences , School Of Psychology

Ian is Professor and Director of Impact and Innovation in the School of Psychology at UEL. He has expertise in digital media, emotion and mental health, and teaches across undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD programmes in these areas.

Ian Tucker_410 x 410

OVERVIEW

Ian has developed applied approaches that study the ways that psychological processes are shaped through relations with social, technological and environmental practices. This includes a specific focus on how emotion and affect operate in increasingly digitally mediated environments. This ranges from experiences of digital media use through to highlighting the impact of new digital technologies on psychological thought and practice more broadly. Ian has also studied the relations between individual and institutional practices in a range of environments for mental health care and support, from community day centres to forensic psychiatric units.

Ian has held grants from the EPSRC and Mental Health Foundation and is currently working on two related EPSRC NewMind Network+ funded projects to develop a digital peer support mobile app for mental health communities. He is reviewer and rapporteur for EU Cost Action and British Council Newton Fund funding programmes and has reviewed for a number of European and UK funding agencies.

Ian has published over forty-five articles and book chapters and has a monograph book entitled 'The Social Psychology of Emotion' published for Sage in 2015 (with Darren Ellis UEL). He is currently co-authoring an 'Emotion in the Digital Age' monograph for Routledge's Studies in Science, Technology & Society Series.

Ian is currently supervising three PhD students and is interested in supervising PhDs in the areas of digital media, emotion and affect, mental health, and surveillance.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Ian is currently involved in the following projects:


1. The Empathy Agent (AI)

This involves designing and developing a digital app utilising artificial intelligence to provide peer-to-peer support for mental health communities and patients. The project is funded by EPSRC NewMind Network+, and involves working with colleagues from the University of Sheffield, a service user co-researcher and a UEL Student Research Intern (Hounsell).

2. Digital Community Assets in Mental Health

This project focuses on the role of digital media in the development and maintenance of community assets for mental health recovery and resilience. The project is part of a newly formed Special Interest Group I lead as part of the £1.4m ESRC Social, Cultural and Community Assets for Mental Health (MARCH) Network+ (PI is Dr Daisy Fancourt at University College London).


3. Emotion in a Digital Age

This is focused on the role of emotion in key areas that are taken as central to life in an increasingly digital age. Currently, this involves undertaking systematic reviews of the role and uses of emotion in the areas of artificial intelligence, social media, and digital surveillance. This work will form the basis of a co-authored Emotion in a Digital Age monograph contracted to Palgrave's Science and Technology Series.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

  • Ellis, D, & Tucker, I. M. (2015) Social psychology of emotion. London: Sage

Book chapters (since 2014)

  • Tucker, I.M. Digitally mediated emotion: Simondon, affectivity and individuation. In D. Ellis, S. Maddison & T.D. Sampson (eds.) Social Media and Affect. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. In press.
  • Goodings, L., & Tucker, I.M. (2018) Social media and mental health: A topological approach. In L. McGrath & P. Reavey (eds.) Mental Health and Space: Clinical & Community Applications. London: Routledge (pp200-213).
  • Tucker, I. M. 'Shifting landscapes of care and distress: A topological understanding of rurality'. In K. Soldatic and K. Johnson (Eds.) Disability and rurality: Identity, gender and belonging. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
  • Harper, D., Ellis, D. & Tucker, I. M. (2014) 'Surveillance'. Encyclopaedia of Critical Psychology. New York: Springer. (pp. 1887-1892).

Journal Articles (since 2014)

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  • Reavey, P., Brown, S.D., Kanyeredzi, A., McGrath, L., & Tucker, I.M. Living 'in between' outside and inside: The forensic psychiatric unit as an impermanent assemblage. Health and Place, in press.
  • Tucker, I.M. (2018) Deleuze, Simondon and the problem of psychological life. International Journal of Critical Psychology Special Issue, 127-144.
  •  Read, J., Harper, D., Tucker, I. M., & Kennedy, A. (Online First) 'How do mental health services respond when child abuse or neglect become known? A literature review'. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12498.
  • Tucker, I. M., & Goodings, L. (2018) 'Medicated bodies: Affection, distress and social media'. New Media & Society, 20, 2. 549-563 DOI: 10.1177/1461444816664347.
  • Read, J., Harper, D., Tucker, I. M., & Kennedy, A. (2018) 'Do mental health services find out about child abuse and neglect? A systematic review'. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 27, 7-19. DOI: 10.1111/inm.12369.
  • Brandibas, G., Tucker, I, Sudres, J-L., Bernoussi, A. and Njiengwe, F. (2017) 'Psychic envelopes among adolescents: A test of modelling with a projective test in relation to school refusal.' Journal of Psychology and Clinical Psychiatry, 8, 1, 00470.
  • Tucker, I. M., & Goodings, L. (2017) 'Digital atmospheres: Affective practices of care in Elefriends'. Sociology of Health and Illness, 39, 4, 629-642.
  • Tucker, I. M., Ellis, D. & Harper, D. (2016) Experiencing the 'surveillance society'. The Psychologist, 29, 682-685.
  • Chase, M., Tucker, I. M., Goodings, L., & Jobber, N. (2016) Young people's mental health in the UK: A 'preventative turn' emerging from crisis, European Health Psychologist, 18 (3), 134-138.
  • Tucker, I. M., & Goodings, L. (2015) Managing stress through Stress Free App: Practices of Self Care in Digitally Mediated Spaces, Digital Health, 0 (0), 1-10.
  • Smith, L-A. & Tucker, I. M. (2015) '"Mad, bad and dangerous to know": The pervasive socio-medical and spatial coding of mental health day centres', Emotion, Space and Society, 14, 3-9.
  • Tucker, I.M. & Goodings, L. (2014) 'Mediation and digital intensities: Topology, psychology and social media', Social Science Information, 53 (3), 277-292.
  • Tucker, I. M. & Goodings, L. (2014) 'Sensing bodies and digitally mediated distress', Senses & Society, 9 (1), 55-71.
  • Tucker, I.M. & Smith, L-A. (2014) 'Topology and mental distress: Self-care in the life spaces of home', Journal of Health Psychology, 19 (1), 176-183.
  • Goodings, L. & Tucker, I. M. (2014) 'Social media and the co-production of bodies online: Bergson, Serres and Facebook Timeline'. Media, Culture & Society, 36 (1), 37-51.
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FUNDING

  • Building and Testing a Demonstrator System for the Artificial Intelligence Empathy Agent, EPSRC Newmind Mental Health Technology Network+. £30,000. Co-Investigator. 2019
  • Developing an Artificial Intelligence Empathy Agent, EPSRC Newmind Mental Health Technology Network+. £15,000. Co-Investigator. 2018
  • Online support for psychiatric medication. EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+. £9801. Principal Investigator. 2015
  • Social media and austerity: Online peer support and mental health communities, EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+. £32901. Principal Investigator. 2014
  • 'The impact of life transitions on older mental health service users'. Mental Health Foundation. £11853. Principal Investigator. 2006-2008

TEACHING

BSc (Hons) Psychology

Studying for a BSc in Psychology, you will develop a good knowledge of the influences on, and factors involved in, human functioning in all the core areas of psychology.

Read more about this course

BSc (Hons) Clinical and Community Psychology

Clinical and Community Psychology is all about learning from, and initiating positive change with, vulnerable and marginalised people and groups.

Read more about this course

MSc Psychology

A conversion course for students with a first degree in another subject area. It means you could go on and train to be a professional psychologist.

Study MSc Psychology

MODULES

  • PY4108 - Clinical and Community Psychology Foundations 1
  • PY5210 - Clinical and Community Psychology Foundations 3
  • PY5201 - Researching Psychological Worlds 2
  • PY7153 - Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology

Publications

The last four years of publications can be viewed below. 

Full publications list

Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications

Research repository