Professor Ian Tucker
Professor in Psychology
Professor
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.
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)
- 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.
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
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
- Temporalities of peer support: the role of digital platforms in the ‘living presents’ of mental ill-health Health Sociology Review. 33 (1), pp. 59-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2024.2322531
- Digitally mediated psychotherapy: Intimacy, distance, and connection in virtual therapeutic spaces European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. In Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642537.2024.2313193
- The emotional in-formation of digital life: Simondon, individuation and affectivity Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory. In Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2023.2224523
- Digital community assets: Investigating the impact of online engagement with arts and peer support groups on mental health during COVID-19 Sociology of Health & Illness. 45 (3), pp. 666-683. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13620
- Muting, filtering and transforming space: Autistic children's sensory ‘tactics’ for navigating mainstream school space following transition to secondary school Emotion, Space and Society. 42 (Art. 100872). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2022.100872
- Simondon, emotion, and individuation: The tensions of psychological life in digital worlds Theory & Psychology. 32 (1), pp. 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543211055199
- Covert Aspects of Surveillance and the Ethical Issues They Raise in: Iphofen, R. and O’Mathúna, D. (ed.) Ethical Issues in Covert Research, Security and Surveillance. Emerald Publishing, pp.177-197
- (Re)thinking body-technology relations with Michel Serres: Emotion, sense and the emergence of algorithmic appropriation Media Theory. 5 (1), pp. 219-230
- Peripheral recovery: Keeping safe and keep progressing as contradictory modes of ordering on a forensic psychiatric unit Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 39 (4), pp. 704-721. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758211013032