Senior Research Associate

The Role:

The School of Psychology, Sport and Health Science and seeking to appoint a Senior Research Associate, for a fixed term to 30 June 2028.

The Senior Research Associate will work under the guidance of Principle Investigator Dr Sophie Milward and Co-Investigators Prof Simon Kizito (Makerere University, Kampala) and Prof Eunkyung Jo (Dongguk University, Seoul) to carry out research, including:

• Managing the progress of the project
• Seeking ethical approval
• Recruitment of participants and data collection in the UK
• Overseeing recruitment and data collection by local research assistants in the Republic of Korea and Uganda
• Analysing complex datasets involving multiple participants engaged in a coordinated activity
• Disseminating project results via high-quality journal publications and conference presentations
• Collaborating on writing applications for future funding
• Communicating with team members and liaising and networking with relevant others, including any collaborators, to ensure effective working relations.
• Contributing to research culture within the School.

The postholder will partly oversee two local Research Assistants in Uganda and the Republic of Korea, respectively. The post will be based in Portsmouth, but will require short periods of travel (fully funded) to Uganda and the Republic of Korea, as well as to conferences.

The Project

To truly understand the human mind, we need to embrace the diversity and complexity of human social interactions. However, our current understanding is vastly restricted to interactions between just two people, and within Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) cultures. This project will break from tradition by identifying the mechanisms we use when faced with a group of diverse co-actors with multiple different, interacting relationships, as is often the case in real-life.

We have proposed using ‘task co-representation’ as a test case, to identify whether there are limits on the number of mental states that can be tracked at a given time, and what factors influence our ability to coordinate with multiple group members.  This will provide a springboard for research on other social cognitive mechanisms to capture the true complexity of human sociality.

This project will use experimental methods to measure error rates and response times from multiple co-actors in a Joint Simon task, across three cultures (Uganda, Republic of Korea and UK).  We will investigate the role of group size and culture, as well as other factors of interest, such as inter-personal relationships between group members and physical features of the interaction environment.  There is scope for the successful candidate to build on the current proposal depending on their interests and background.

Hybrid working may be available 2-3 days per week from home.

There is a requirement for occasional overseas travel and weekend working.

For an informal discussion about the role please contact:

Sophie Milward, Principal Investigator: sophie.milward@port.ac.uk

Interviews are anticipated to be held 28 April 2025.

Discover the advantages of joining our university. We offer a range of attractive benefits and opportunities to enhance your work experience:

• Competitive salary, including incremental progression within your scale.
• Generous pension scheme.
• Generous leave entitlement of 32–35 days a year, plus bank holidays, and an additional Christmas closure.
• Family-friendly policies supporting flexible working.
• Staff discounts and loyalty schemes.
• Staff car parking and discounted public travel.
• Long service milestones, and recognition awards which may be awarded to staff for exceptional performance.
• Recreation facilities, including discounted gym membership, food on campus schemes, use of the Library and staff social activities.

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