Dr Lydia Kearney

About

Dr Lydia Kearney obtained a PhD in Psychology from Kingston University in 2013, focusing on cognitive features of social anxiety, and how these impact both the individual experiencing them, and those interacting with the socially anxious person.
She has been a member of the School of Psychology since September 2013 and has held various admin roles including Director of Studies, Senior Tutor, and Placement Lead. 

Research interests

Lydia's main areas of interest are social anxiety and the experience of mental imagery. Particularly, the ways in which anxious self-imagery reflects cognitive biases in attention and interpretation. Her research has also included the links between imagery and rumination, and between imagery and emotion. She is also interested in investigating cognitive and behavioural precursors of depression and anxiety.
Lydia has utilised mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, and is keen to expand in the application of these methods to understand dyadic and small-group interaction processes. As a part of this, she is interested in ways of evaluating qualitative research, and integrating this with experimental data to provide a detailed overall picture of a person's experience.

Teaching

PSYC4001 – Big Questions in Psychology
PSYC5006 – Understanding Distress: A Normal Reaction to Adverse Experiences?

Professional