Calum James Campbell Cook

I joined the University of St Andrews in 2022 as a Research Computing Technician within the School of Psychology and Neuroscience, supporting research and research-based teaching. Since then, I have begun a PhD, working with Prof Steve Reicher (School of Psychology and Neuroscience) and Dr Fergus Neville (Department of Management, St Andrews Business School).

Prior to arriving at St Andrews, I spent five years at the University of Dundee working as a Research Assistant across multiple labs. In that time, I also completed a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and a MSc in Psychological Research Methods.

I am state-educated, a trade union rep for UCU, and a member of the British Psychological Society.

My research interests are inherently social: how we interact with our world and how that world affects us. More specifically, I am interested in group behaviour, leadership, and rhetoric. Alongside this, I have a keen interest in historical psychology and the history of psychology, as well as how we conduct research.

My PhD explores the relationships between performers and audiences at live music events. Within crowd psychology much work has been done exploring the crowd’s importance as social phenomena, as well as the psychological processes we undergo when we enter a crowd (Drury and Reicher, 2020), however little work exists looking specifically at music audiences, a type of crowd. My thesis explores this in detail. Specifically, I am interested in whether audiences see themselves as a unified group, and if so when; where leadership exists at these events; what are the boundaries and directions of influence in performer/audience interactions; and what characterises occasions when conflict occurs. 

In my work, I use a mixed-methods approach combining both qualitative and quantitative techniques. 

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