Dr. Alexa Spence

Alexa worked as a research fellow with Eamonn Ferguson, Ellen Townsend and Ken Lowe on an EU funded project examining public perceptions of blood substitutes (see www.eurobloodsubstitutes.com ). This research draws on literatures from within the fields of social psychology, risk research and medical research to examine likely future acceptance, as well as factors that influence acceptance, of new blood substitutes currently under development.

Alexa’s other research interests include attitudes towards risk, the affect heuristic, implicit measures of attitude, and dual process models of attitude.

Alexa now works at Cardiff University.

Publications

Spence, A. and Townsend, E. (in press). Spontaneous evaluations: Similarities and diffferences between the affect heuristic and implicit attitudes. Cognition and Emotion.

Spence, A. & Townsend, E. (in press). Predicting behaviour towards genetically modified (GM) food using implicit and explicit attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology.

Spence, A. & Townsend, E. (2006): Implicit attitudes towards genetically modified (GM) foods: A comparison of context-free and context-dependent evaluations. Appetite. 46, 67-74

Spence, A. & Townsend, E. (2006). Examining consumer behaviour towards genetically modified (GM) food in Britain. Risk Analysis,26, 657-670

Spence (2005): Using implicit tasks in attitude research: A review and guide. Social Psychology Review. 7: 1: 2-17