Dominic is a Professor of Social Psychology and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Group Processes in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent. His research examines all aspects of relations between different social groups and the behaviour of groups in general.
Dominic has extensive experience in the areas of social cohesion, leadership, equality and human rights, prejudice, discrimination, social attitudes, attitude change, and social development across the life course. His expertise spans social, organisational and developmental psychology, gerontology and related areas. His research uses a wide array of methods, ranging from laboratory and field experiments to national and international surveys.
Dominic has worked closely both with the charitable sector (notably Belong, Age UK, the Anne Frank Trust, and People United), and in advisory, consultative or research roles for different areas of UK government (DWP, MHCLG, DCMS, Cabinet Office, GO Science, DeFRA, Home Office). He has been involved in design of national surveys with ONS, NatCen, and the European Social Survey, as well as with the Equality and Human Rights Commission for which he and colleagues at Kent developed the UK’s Benchmark surveys of Prejudice. He has authored and coauthored over 300 papers and numerous books on groups, identity and social inclusion, and is co-editor and founder (with Prof Michael A Hogg ) of the journal Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.
Dominic is also a fellow of numerous professional associations including the BPS, SPSP, SESP, and SPSSI. He served as vice president (Social Sciences) for the British Academy, and subsequently was cochair of its Cohesive Societies programme, then Academic Lead the BA’s substantial review of the long term societal implications of the COVID-19 pandemic (The COVID Decade), invited by the Government Office of Science. Currently he is cochair of the Nuffield Foundation/British Academy research programme on Understanding Communities, and is academic lead on the BA’s programme on Social and Cultural Infrastructure. He received the British Psychological Society’s Presidents’ award for distinguished contribution to psychology, and the distinguished contribution award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, for which he also served as President. He was also a founding member of the Academy of Social Sciences. In 2023 he received an OBE for services to the Social Sciences.
Recent Key Publications
Davies, B., Abrams, D., Horsham, Z. & Lalot, F. (2024). The causal relationship between volunteering and social cohesion: Secondary analysis of large scale longitudinal data. Social Indicators Research (Accepted Nov 13th 2023). doi: 10.1007/s11205-023-03268-6
Lalot, F., Abrams, D., Heering, M.S, Babaian, J., Ozkececi, Hl, Peitz, L., Davies-Hayon, K., & Broadwood, J.. (2023). Distrustful complacency and the COVID-19 vaccine: How concern and political trust interact to affect vaccine hesitancy. Political Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12871
Drury, L., Abrams, D., & Swift, H.J. (2022). Intergenerational contact during and beyond COVID-19. Journal of Social Issues, 78 (4), 860-882. doi: 10.1111/josi.12551
Lalot, F., Abrams, D., Broadwood, J., Davies Hayon, K, & Platts-Dunn, I. (2022). The Social Cohesion Investment: Communities that invested in integration programmes are showing greater social cohesion in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 32 (3), 536-554. doi:10.1002/casp.2522
Abrams, D., Lalot, F., & Hogg, M.A. (2021) Intergroup and intragroup dimensions of COVID-19: A social identity perspective on social fragmentation and unity. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 24, 2, 201-209. doi: 10.1177/1368430220983440
Abrams, D. Lalot, F., Hopthrow, T., Templeton, A, Steeden, B., Ozceceki, H, Imada, H, Warbis, S, Sandiford, D, Meleady,R., Fell, E., Abrams, Z, Abrams, A, Ngan, X Q, 1, Celina, S., Tanye
Dominic's main areas of current research are in the broad area of group processes and intergroup relations. Themes and topics include:
Dominic would welcome applications from potential doctoral students in these areas.
Current PhD students:
| 2023 | DLUHC Rapid Evidence Review on Measuring Social Cohesion | £9,000 |
| 2023-2024 | Lead Designers, Swift & Abrams A Nationally Representative Survey on Ageist Attitudes in England | £2,000 |
| 2022-2024 | DCMS The Power of Connection - Volunteering to Strengthen Social Cohesion | £44,000 |
| 2022-2023 | Medway Council Switch off Signage Project | £13,000 |
| 2022-2025 | Anne Frank Trust Empowering Young People to Challenge Prejudice – Social Developmental Tests of Anti-Prejudice Strategies | £71,000 |
| 2020-2022 | Nuffield Foundation Beyond Us and Them | £500,000 |
| 2020 | British Academy Changes in Social Trust | £10,000 |
| 2017-18 | A.Templeton, D. Abrams, F. Neville and K. Still DTSL Improving crowd resilience - using social identity to enhance detection and response to threats | £79,369 |
| 2013-17 | D. Abrams European Commission FP7 MOPACT: Mobilising the potential of active ageing in Europe | €166,294 |
| 2012 | D.Abrams and M.Vasiljevic Department for Business, Innovation and Skills DR 12 - What happens to people's identities when the economy is suffering or flourishing? | £6,000 |
| 2012 | D. Abrams and M. Vauclair ESRC Psychological and societal bases of attitudes to age: A multilevel cross-national analysis | £112,000 |
| 2012 | M. Weick, T. Hopthrow, D. Abrams, P. Taylor-Gooby ESRC Risk perception and behaviour in business: What we know and what we need to know | £44,692 |
| 2010 | L. Lima and D. Abrams European Social Fund Strategic Workshop on Social Identity, Health and Equality | €20,000 |
| 2010 | D. Abrams Department for Work and Pensions Multilevel modelling of the European Social Survey module on Age Attitudes | £75,000 |
| 2010 | D. Abrams Department for Work and Pensions Developing an Age Attitudes indicator set for the ONS Omnibus | £10,000 |
| 2010 | D Abrams Age UK Age discrimination across Europe | £10,000 |
| 2009 | D Abrams and A Rutland The British Academy The role of group status and social norms in children's peer exclusion behaviour | £115,875 |
| 2009 | D Abrams Department of Work and Pensions Measuring attitudes to ageing over time | £98,546 |
| 2005-06 | G T Viki and D Abrams Economic and Social Research Council Identification and evaluations of confessions by in-group and out-group members | £46,750 |
| 2003-06 | D Abrams and A Rutland Economic and Social Research Council Children’s evaluations of deviant ingroup and outgroup members | £106,000 |
| 2003 | D Abrams and A Rutland The British Academy The effect of accountability to the peer group on children’s judgements of deviant group members | £5,000 |
| 2001-03 | D Abrams (Co-director) ESRC Social Inclusion and Exclusion: The Contribution of Social Psychology to Policy. ESRC seminar series | £12,000 |
| 2001-02 | D Abrams and L G Hulbert Economic and Social Research Council The impact of alcohol consumption on group processes | £39,997 |
| 2000 | D Abrams Unilever Research, Colworth The Delayed Evaluation Paradigm | £4,400 |
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