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Professor Chris McVittie, Director of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences

Director of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences

Professor of Social Psychology at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

Professor Chris McVittie has worked with Queen Margaret University for 15 years in the area of social psychology. His main specialist areas are identities, prejudice, social inclusion/exclusion, discourse and communication.

Over the last year, Professor McVittie has worked in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh and Coventry University on a project which looked at the views of refugees who had settled in the UK; people working in agencies which were involved in refugee support; and the general public’s views on refugees’ experiences and rights. The results of this research were published by Palgrave Macmillan in the book ‘ The Language of Asylum: Refugees and Discourse’, in November 2015.

Professor McVittie is currently working on research looking into how people express and respond to prejudice in social media, in particular, issues related to trolling on sites such as Twitter and YouTube. His current research work also involves exploring how frontline healthcare workers in Africa makes sense of issues on AIDS and bereavement in their daily working lives. Other current research areas include how patients make sense of their lives following, for example limb loss or diagnosis of diabetes. This research examines how people deal with their changing identities following diagnosis and treatment.

He is co-author (with Andy McKinlay) of several books including ‘Social Psychology and Discourse’ and ‘Identity in Context: Individuals and Discourse in Action’ both published by Willey-Blackwell.

The Centre for Applied Social Sciences

Professor McVittie is Director of The Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) at Queen Margaret University. The Centre conducts research into social issues that affect people’s lives locally, nationally, and internationally. Its applied approach produces research that has a theoretical and practical focus and that brings together interdisciplinary expertise in addressing issues of individual and social relevance.

CASS brings together researchers from a diversity of disciplines, with wide-ranging expertise across a number of fields. It includes members of the Consumer Dispute Resolution Centre who have extensive experience of providing training in and analysis of all aspects of consumer complaint handling and dispute resolution throughout the UK and internationally, and the Forum for the study of Planned Events which has contributed to and researched major events both in the UK and worldwide. CASS also includes researchers from Business, Enterprise and Management, Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Arts Therapies, and Psychology and Sociology, who share an interest in researching social topics in ways that have a theoretical and applied focus. Drawing on this expertise and an established track-record of producing research and engaging in knowledge exchange, the work of CASS has real-world application across a range of areas and disciplines. Research conducted within CASS is focused around the following strategic areas:

1.         identity, social inclusion/exclusion, citizenship and social participation;

2.         individual and social meanings of health and well-being;

3.         discourse, communication, mediation and negotiation in applied settings; and

4.         individual information-processing and decision-making.