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Dr Kate McCulloch
Lecturer in Psychology
- Phone
- +44 (0)1473 338339
- k.mcculloch2@uos.ac.uk
- School/Directorate
- School of Social Sciences and Humanities
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Kate is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Suffolk, having joined the team in September 2019. She initially studied BA English at the University of Leicester before completing the Psychology Conversion MSc at the University of Essex. After working as an Assistant Clinical Psychologist in a community mental health team, Kate returned to the University of Essex to complete her PhD, working with Dr Rick O’Gorman. Her expertise lies primarily in Biological Psychology, with a focus on Evolutionary Psychology and Psychophysiology.
Kate currently lectures on the following modules: Questionnaire Design and Analysis (Level 5), Biological and Cognitive Psychology (Level 5), Social Science Research Skills (Level 4), and Foundations in Biological and Cognitive Psychology (Level 4). Additionally, she is the module leader for Biological and Cognitive Psychology and supervises final year dissertation students.
Kate’s research uses a biological and evolutionary approach to understanding morality and moral emotions. Her research uses self-report, economic games, and pupillometry to investigate disgust and anger in response to immorality. Her most recent work investigates the utility of pupil diameter as a measure of autonomic arousal accompanying physical and moral disgust. This line of research opens new avenues of investigation into moral reactions which are less reliant on self-report measures.
Publications
McCulloch, K. & O’Gorman R. (2019) Pathogen Risk. In: Shackelford T., Weekes-Shackelford V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham
Presentations
McCulloch, K. & O’Gorman, R. (2019, May). Disgust, Anger, and Contempt in Response to Harm and Incompetence. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society, Boston.
O’Gorman, R., Rieger, G., McCulloch, K., & Whitaker, L. (2019, May). The Westermarck Effect: Measuring Incest Aversion by Pupil Dilation. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society, Boston.
McCulloch, K., O’Gorman, R., Knutsen, D., & Rieger, G. (2018, July). Pupil Dilation as a Measure of Disgust. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society, Amsterdam.
McCulloch, K., O’Gorman, R., Knutsen, D., & Rieger, G. (2018, April). Pupil Dilation as a Measure of Disgust. Poster session presented at the Annual Conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, Pécs.
O’Gorman, R., Rieger, G., McCulloch, K., & Whitaker, L. (2015, September). The Westermarck Effect: Measuring Incest Aversion by Pupil Dilation. Poster session presented at the Annual Conference of the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience, Colchester.
Workshops
Eye Tracking Workshop: Eye Tracking as an Experimental Tool. (2019, June). Workshop run as part of the Essex Cross-Disciplinary Experimental Methods Conference, Colchester.
Qualifications
PhD Psychology (University of Essex, 2020) – Thesis: Distinguishing moral disgust and anger using pupillometry and responses to economic behaviours
MSc Psychology Conversion (University of Essex, 2014)
BA (Hons) English (University of Leicester, 2013)