The School of Psychological Science at La Trobe University currently has four key areas of research concentration; Clinical and Health Psychology; Cognitive and Developmental Psychology; Psychobiology and Neurosciences; and Social. This website has been designed to provide information specific to the Social Psychology area of research concentration.

The Social Psychology Unit in the School of Psychological Science , La Trobe University, is an active research group composed of teaching and research staff of the School and their postgraduate students. Our goal is to maintain a stimulating and supportive environment for researchers who aspire to advance social psychological approaches to understanding the world and to dealing with social issues.

We hold weekly meetings throughout the year, during which we discuss theoretical and empirical articles, exchange new information and ideas, practice presentation skills, learn from interstate and international visitors, and, importantly, give support to each other. Members' research interests cover a wide range of topics, from intrapersonal processes (including cognition and motivation, both implicit and explicit) to interpersonal and communication processes to group, organizational, and cultural/intercultural processes, often with an emphasis on pressing social issues and problems. Please visit our staff/student research interests page for details.

Like most social psychologists, members of our group conduct research by taking a variety of approaches: in the field, the laboratory, on-line, and even using computer simulation and archival library research! Similarly our studies are both quantitative and qualitative, experimental and non-experimental, longitudinal and cross-sectional. We maintain a designated laboratory space including three computer labs and two group interaction labs. These facilities are suitable for running computer-mediated communication tasks, face-to-face or “telephone” dyad and group interaction studies, computer-based surveys and experiments, focus groups, as well as interviews and questionnaire studies. They are serviced by several technical staff of the School. Together, we help to administer and often access the School of Psychological Science Participant Registry , a list of potential student volunteers gathered from undergraduate classes across campus. We participate in a local community of Melbourne Social Psychologists as well as being active members of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (SASP), among other international organisations. Our students have successfully obtained positions, both academic and non-academic.