Clinical and Applied Behavioural research group (CABRG)

About us

The Clinical and Applied Behavioural research group brings together psychologists who are investigating a wide range of topics related to health, clinical, behavioural and neuro psychology. Research expertise encompasses several aspects of human behaviour in clinical and non-clinical populations, and has led to the publication of more than 100 research articles in refereed journals. The group is currently home to a number of PhD students who are all carrying out research with either clinical or analogue populations. The group members have, over the years, attracted substantial research funding from both the private and public sector, and several members have current and ongoing research funding.

Research is conducted in purpose-built laboratories in the department or through an extensive network of collaborating clinicians in the NHS. Much of the research is conducted in collaboration with colleagues at other universities and with national and international institutions.

Current projects

  • Addiction: drug and alcohol misuse, smoking
  • The role of conditioning in substance misuse, and smoking behaviour
  • Behaviour change interventions targeting diet, exercise, and alcohol consumption, impulsivity and risk-taking in clinical and non-clinical groups
  • Emotion: coping and burnout
  • Health inequalities
  • Metacognitions in emotional disorders
  • Psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Professional quality of life, well-being and quality of care
  • Schizophrenia: neurobiology in high-risk populations, cognitive functioning and genetic risk
  • Influence of mindfulness on cognitive processes and wellbeing
  • Cognitive function in lymphoma patients.

Current grant awards

  • Vandrevala T (co-PI). Developing and Delivering targeted SARS-CoV-2(COVID-19) health interventions to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities living in the UK. (2020-21), UKRI/NIHR.
  • Vandrevala T (co-PI). Primary prevention of cytomegalovirus in pregnancy: addressing the gaps (2020-21), National Institute of Health Research, Policy Research Programme.
  • Vyas NS (PI). Cognitive testing facilities. UKRI World Class Laboratories (WCL) Fund (2020-21).
  • Vyas NS (PI). Cognitive functioning in patients with lymphoma. CResCID grant (2020-21).
  • Vyas NS (PI). Neurocognition in psychosis. CResCID grant (2020-21)

Staff

Postdoctoral researchers

  • Lailah Alidu
  • Victoria Barber
  • Kristin Hanson
  • Dawn Leach

PhD students

  • Anna-Marie Degas
  • Amy Montague
  • Lara Quartel
  • Helen Chrissie Pike

Collaborators and affiliated research groups

Representative publications

  • Butler, G., Chapman, D., & Terry, P. (2016). Attitudes of intravenous drug users in London towards the provision of drug consumption rooms. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 25, 31-37.
  • Leach, D., Marino, C. & Nikcevic, A.V. (2019). An evaluation of maladaptive attitudes specific to motherhood and metacognitions in perinatal depression. Psychiatry Research, 274, 159-166.
  • Martinelli, Cristina, Rigoli, Francesco, Dolan, Ray J. and Shergill, Sukhwinder S. (2018) Decreased value-sensitivity in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research, 259, 295-301. ISSN (print) 0165-1781
  • Martinelli, Cristina, Rigoli, Francesco and Shergill, Sukhwinder S. (2017) Aberrant force processing in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 43(2), 417-424. ISSN (print) 0586-7614
  • Nikcevic, A.V. & Spada, M.M. (2020). The COVID-19 Anxiety Syndrome Scale: Psychometric properties and initial validation. Psychiatry Research, 292, 113322.
  • Nikcevic, A.V., Marino, C., Kolubinski, D.C., Leach, D. & Spada, M.M. (2021). Modelling the contribution of the Big Five personality traits, health anxiety, and COVID-19 psychological distress to generalised anxiety and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Affective Disorders, 15, 578-584.
  • Pavey, L., & Churchill, S. (2014). Promoting the avoidance of high-calorie snacks: priming autonomy moderates message framing effects. PloS One, 9, e103892.
  • Pavey, L., & Sparks, P. (2012) Autonomy and defensiveness: experimentally increasing adaptive responses to health-risk information via priming and self-affirmation. Psychology & Health, 27, 259-276.
  • Rotella, A. M., Varnum, M. E. W., Sng, O., & Grossmann, I. (2020). Increasing population densities predict decreasing fertility rates over time: A 174-nation investigation [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zpc7t
  • Vandrevala, T., Barber, V., Calvert, A., Star, C., Khalil, A., Griffiths, P., Heath, P.T., Jones, C.E. (2019) Understanding pregnant women's readiness to engage in risk reducing measures to prevent infections in pregnancy. Journal of Health Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105319884609
  • Hendy, J. Vandrevala, T., Ahmed, A, Grey, L. Kelly, C., Ala, A. (2019) Feeling misidentified: Understanding migrant's readiness to engage in health care screening, Social Science and Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112481
  • Vandevala T., Pavey, L. et al. (2017). Psychological rumination and recovery from work in Intensive Care Professionals: Associations with stress, burnout, depression, and health. Journal of Intensive Care, 5, 16.
  • Vyas N.S., Buchsbaum, M.S., Lehrer, D.S., Merrill, B.M., DeCastro, A., Doninger, N.A., Christian, B.T., & Mukherjee, J. (2018). D2/D3 dopamine receptor binding with [F-18]fallypride correlates of executive function in medication-naïve patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 192, 442-456.
  • Vyas, N.S., Ahn, K., Stahl, D.R., Caviston, P., Simic, M., Netherwood, S., Puri, B.K., Lee, Y., & Aitchison, K.J. (2014). Association of KIBRA rs17070145 polymorphism with episodic memory in the early stages of a human neurodevelopmental disorder. Psychiatry Research, 220 (1-2), 37-43.
  • Vyas, N.S., Birchwood, M., & Singh, S.P. (2015). Youth Services: Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Adolescents. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 32, 13-19
  • Walker, S., Higgs, S., & Terry, P. (2016) Estimates of the absolute and relative strengths of diverse alcoholic drinks by young people. Substance Use and Misuse, 51, 1781-1789.

Research in the Department of Psychology

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Baby Lab

Clinical and Applied Behavioural research group (CABRG)

Developmental Psychology research group

Social Psychology research group

Department of Psychology

Research in the Department of Psychology