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Dr Ian Tucker

Reader, School of Psychology

Mental Health and Social Change Research Group , Psychology

Ian is a social psychologist with expertise in digital media, emotion and mental health

    Ian’s research focuses on the social psychological elements of digital media, emotion and mental health. He has held grants from the EPSRC (Social Media and Austerity: Online Peer Support in Mental Health Communities) and The Mental Health Foundation (Transitions through the Lifespan: Older People’s Experiences of Community Mental Health). He is Core Member of the EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+, and Expert Member of the EU Cost Action Living in Surveillance Societies.

    Ian has published over forty articles and book chapters, and has a book entitled ‘The Social Psychology of Emotion’ recently published for Sage (with Darren Ellis UEL).

    Ian is currently supervising two PhD students, and is interested in supervising PhDs in the areas of social media, community mental health, and surveillance.





    Higher Education Academy Fellow

    Overview

    Digital and Social Media

    As a social psychologist Ian is fundamentally interested in how people connect, communicate and relate to one another, individually and in groups. Digital technologies offer new and rapidly advancing ways to do this. His research aims to investigate the impact of digital technologies on individual and social activity, and the benefits,
    challenges and risks involved. Projects include:

    Ian is Principal Investigator for an EPSRC funded project investigating the use of social media for online peer support for mental health service users.
    Further details about the project can be found here:

    http://www.communitiesandculture.org/projects/social-media-austerity/

    ‘Socially mediated bodies’, with Lewis Goodings (UEL) the project explored the impact of social media on identity.


    Surveillance and Everyday Life

    The rise in the levels of surveillance in all parts of society has led to the claim that we are now living in a 'surveillance age'. This involves traditional CCTV surveillance along with the rapid increase in 'information surveillance' through internet and mobile technologies (e.g. social media, internet shopping). Ian's research is developing
    understanding of the psychological impacts of mass surveillance. Projects include:

    ‘Experiencing Surveillance’ project, which investigates the impact of digital media on people’s sense of privacy and identity in relation to surveillance and how social media (re)calibrate boundaries of privacy and personal identity, with Dr Harper (Psychology) and Dr Ellis (SS).


    Everyday spaces of community mental health

    Ian's research aims to identify the multiple relations between mental distress, and the material environments in which they are experienced on a day-to-day basis. Mental health service users face many challenges in terms of employment, living arrangements, and social and personal relationships. Understanding how these problems are manifest in a range of spaces and places (e.g. home, public space, in-patient wards) is important for the design and implementation of viable and productive interventions. He is currently undertaking a project entitled:

    ‘The Scenes and Spaces of Hospital Life: Staff and psychiatric inpatients’ experiences of care and distress’, which is focused on investigating the relationships between mental distress and space in a variety of inpatient wards in the Royal Bethlem Psychiatric Hospital, London. The project is in collaboration with Prof Reavey (LSBU), Prof Brown (Leicester), Dr McGrath (UEL) and Dr Kanyeredzi (UEL).




    Collaborators

    • Psychology
      Ava Kanyeredzi
    • Psychosocial Studies
      Darren Ellis
    • Psychology
      John Reid
    • Psychology
      Laura McGrath
    • Psychology
      Lewis Goodings
    • Psychology
      Dave Harper

    Research

    Selected publications Publically available research outputs are available to download from UEL's Research Open Access Repository (ROAR).

    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)
    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



    Publications

    Social media and austerity: Online peer support and mental health communities, EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+, 3/14-09/14, £32901 - Principal Investigator

    'The impact of life transitions on older mental health service users', Mental Health Foundation, 10/06 - 04/08, £11853 - Principal Investigator.


    Funding



    Interests

    Portfolio

    Ian teaches on the BSc Psychology, BSc Clinical and Community Psychology and MSc Psychology programmes. He teaches on the following 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



    Teaching