Lecturer in Social Psychology & Behavioural Science - 0679-26

Lecturer in Social Psychology & Behavioural Science

Location:

Bailrigg, Lancaster, UK

Salary: £47,389 to £56,535 (Full-time indefinite)

Closing Date:
Monday 31 August 2026

Interview Date:
To be confirmed

Reference: 0679-26

The Department of Psychology at Lancaster University is currently seeking to recruit a Lecturer in Psychology in the area of Social Psychology/ Behavioural Science to join our thriving Social Processes research group. The group explores the role of Trust, Identity, Morality and Ethics in a range of key societal challenges — from policing in the digital age and deepfake detection, to bystander behaviour and human-animal interaction.

Members play leading roles in major UKRI-funded networks including NABS+, SPRITE+, L-PACE and PHAIR.

You should be able to draw on both traditional and novel digital data sources to understand real-world behaviour and be comfortable moving between rigorous quantitative approaches (e.g., experimental design, digital/behavioural data analysis) and qualitative methods (e.g., discourse, conversation analysis, ethnography).

You will contribute to our research-led teaching, including our distinctive MSc in Psychology and Behavioural Analytics (), which equips students to integrate psychological insight with digital data — covering identity, decision-making, behaviour change, behavioural data ethics, and placement-based dissertations with partners including policing organisations, charities and NGO’s.

All applicants must have a track record of research and teaching excellence, commensurate with stage of career, demonstrated by:

• publications,
• research grant acquisition,
• engagement and socio-economic impact, and
• teaching and leadership experience.

The Department holds an Athena Swan Silver award and is committed to Lancaster University’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and Widening Participation. We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups and seek to provide a work environment that supports the individual needs of each employee and promotes a healthy work-life balance. Applicants are encouraged to detail any career breaks or significant periods of leave (e.g., for caring responsibilities) in their CV.

Our early career lecturers have reduced teaching and administrative allocations and experience success in funding acquisition, teaching awards, and career progression.

Informal enquiries about this post are welcome and should be addressed to either the Head of Department, Prof Gert Westermann (email: ps) or the Social Processes group lead, Prof. Mark Levine ().

Interviews and selection activity for the position are currently expected to take place during late summer 2026, with a start date in December 2026.

The Department of Psychology at Lancaster University has a core complement of over 35 members of academic staff and a thriving community of post-doctoral researchers and PhD students across the four research areas of Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience and Neurocognition, and Social Processes. Details of our research interests and facilities can be found here:

We embed research reproducibility and R-based teaching across the taught curriculum and actively support open science initiatives.

The Department has a strong tradition of collaborative research across traditional boundaries within Psychology and beyond. We have a research building dedicated to behavioural and neurophysiological testing across the lifespan, supported by Psychology research technicians. One floor houses labs devoted to infant and childhood studies including equipment for EEG/ERP (EGI), fNIRS, eye tracking, fetal 4D scanning, motion tracking and behavioural observation;

the other is devoted to adult studies, housing much of our neuroscience equipment (e.g., TMS, EEG, Multi-channel Transcranial electrical brain stimulation, eye-trackers, functional Transcranial Doppler), as well as basic computing labs.

We support our research through personnel as well as facilities. A dedicated technical and resources team support the implementation of our research, including on-site, off-site,…