Claire Lawrence

I am a Chartered Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and hold a Certificate of Competence in Occupational Testing:Level A (Ref:T9692).

Research

My main interests lie in three areas-all relating to the study of aggression.

Individual Differences and Aggression

I am interested in the following question: Why do some people appear to get aggressive in response to a certain trigger (e.g. insult or frustration) while other people, in the facce of the same situation do not. To this end, I have developed the Situational Triggers of Aggressive Responses (STAR) scale (Lawrence, in press), which measures individuals sensitivities to two main types of trigger: (1) provocations from other people and (2) frustrations. I am currently evaluating the validity of the STAR scale experimentally, and in offender populations. In addition, I am examining the behaviour of psychopathic individuals within secure settings -DSPD (Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorders), to examine the impact of therapeutic and other interventions on daily behaviour over time. This work is being conducted with Chris Beeley and Todd Hogue at Rampton Hospital and Eamonn Ferguson. Finally I am looking at the relationship between psychopathy and empathy, perspective taking and risk taking in general populations (with Nadja Heym).

Aggression and Stereotypes

I examine (with Kate Threapleton) the extent to which the activation of aggressive stereotypes or other aggressive primes influence the way in which we attend to, encode and remember related information using dot-probe tasks, identification of subliminal stimuli and dual task methodologies. In addition, I have examined the role of sterotype inconsistent information on the memory for aggression related material (Lawrence and Leather, 1999)

Contextual influences on the perception of aggression

Prison Crowding and perceived aggression

I have also examined the impact on crowding in prison environments on the perception of aggressive incidents and general well-being (Lawrence & Andrews, 2004). This is the first work to demonstrate the influence on perceived crowding on the interpretation of an aggressive episode-suggesting a cognitive as well as an arousal route between crowding and aggression.

Environmental influences on perceived aggression

The role of environmental incivilities on the fear of crime has been established. In the work I have conducted to date, this research has been extended to demonstrate that in poorly maintained environments, aggression is perceived and understood differently. (Lawrence and Leather, 2003;Leather and Lawrence,1999, Lawrence and Green, 2005).

Car type and responsibility for accidents

I have recently examined the way in which responsibility judgements following road accidents are made as a function of (amongst other dimensions) car type. (Lawrence and Richardson, 2005)

Relevant Papers

http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/cl

PhD Students

• Julia Fossi (1999-2003)
• Kate Threapleton (2002- 2006)
• Chris Beeley (2004- )
• Nadja Heym (2005 - )

Grants

I currently hold an HSE grant with Professor Eamonn Ferguson and Peter Bibby examining lay perceptions of occupational diseases.

I also hold an ESRC CASE Studentship award for Chris Beeley (2004-2007) with Todd Hogue, DSPD unit, Rampton Secure Hospital.