Psychology PhD student Bori Vegh has been awarded a grant from the British Psychological Society (BPS) to support her research on racist hate speech. The funding, provided by the BPS Social Psychology Section’s Pump-Priming and Dissemination Fund, is for her project investigating how bystanders react and/or intervene when witnessing derogatory remarks made by someone from their own social group.
The project is the first empirical stage of Bori’s PhD, and will involve four studies investigating the psychological processes underpinning witnesses’ reactions to racist and antisemitic hate speech.
The studies will address a gap in the social psychology literature by examining the psychological impact of hate speech on those who witness it despite not being the target of the hostility. Gaining a better understanding of the emotional and attitudinal responses – towards both the person expressing hate and the group being targeted – will inform subsequent studies in her PhD, which aim to develop ways of fostering allyship and solidarity between the victims and witnesses of hate speech.
Bori’s application was supported by the Social Psychology Lab in the School of Human Sciences, who helped with piloting her study design and providing detailed feedback. Bori has also secured co-funding for the project from the Competitive Funding Scheme from the Institute for Lifecourse Development, University of Greenwich. As part of the award, Bori will have an article on her work published in a future edition of the BPS Social Psychological Review.
Previous receipients of the BPS Social Psychology Section’s Pump-Priming and Dissemination Fund awards have typically been established social psychology academics, making Bori’s success as a first year PhD student even more impressive.
Bori is a former student on our BSc Psychology programme, and her PhD is supervised by Prof Sofia Stathi, Dr Jo Kenrick and Prof Jill Jameson.
Congratulations, Bori! A fantastic start to the empirical phase of your PhD!