Alex Wood
Reserach
Alex's key aim is to improve the understanding and treatment of well-being through better integration of this area of research and practice with other sub-fields of psychology and allied disciplines. Many methods and theories, whilst being widely validated and accepted within a given discipline, have yet to make any impact on the study of well-being. Similarly, the area of well-being offers opportunity for theories from other fields to reach new audiences and impact directly on practice - much as perspectives from well-being can inform theory and practice in other fields. Such an integration can often promote faster advances than were each field to progress on its own. This key aim has lead to research into how well-being interfaces with personality, social, cognitive, clinical, health, counselling, and positive psychologies, in addition to other disciplines such as economics and medicine. For more information see www.alexwoodpsychology.com.
Biography
Alex completed a BSc in Psychology at the University of Leicester in 2005 and a PhD in Psychology at the University of Warwick in 2008, before working at the University of Manchester as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer. He has 50+ publications since 2007 and has attracted over £500,000 in research funding. Alex currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Personality, having previously been the senior editor of a special issue of Clinical Psychology Review and preformed ad hoc reviewing for over 30 journals and funding bodies. He has worked extensively with industry, including Unilever, HMRC (the tax collection division of the UK government), and Saudi Iron and Steel. Over the last 5 years he has presented 20+ seminars, skills classes, workshops, and keynote speeches to conferences, other university departments, and industry partners. He has supervised two successful PhD completions and currently supervises a further eight doctoral students. He teaches on seven courses on undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programs. His research has been covered in over 50 news outlets, including US News and World Report, BBC Radio, and Good Housekeeping USA. Alex lives in an apartment in central Manchester, dangerously close to the nice bars and restaurants. His hobbies include literature, philosophy, travelling, and outdoor pursuits.
Primary Interests:
- Applied Social Psychology
- Causal Attribution
- Emotion, Mood, Affect
- Health Psychology
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Life Satisfaction, Well-Being
- Personality, Individual Differences
- Social Cognition
Journal Articles:
- Boyce, C. J., & Wood, A. M. (in press). Personality prior to disability determines adaptation: Agreeable individuals recover lost life satisfaction faster and more completely. Psychological Science.
- Boyce, C. J., & Wood, A., M., & Brown, G. D. A. (2010). The dark side of conscientiousness: Conscientious people experience greater drops in life satisfaction following unemployment. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 535-539.
- Geraghty, A. W. A., Wood, A. M., & Hyland, M. E. (2010). Attrition from self-directed interventions: Investigating the relationship between psychological predictors, intervention content and dropout from a body dissatisfaction intervention. Social Science & Medicine, 71, 31-37.
- Higginson, S., Mansell, W., & Wood, A. M. (2011). An integrative mechanistic account of psychological distress, therapeutic change and recovery: The Perceptual Control Theory approach. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 249-259.
- Johnson, J., Gooding, P. A., Wood, A. M., Taylor, P. J., Pratt, D., & Tarrier, N. (2010). Resilience to suicidal ideation in psychosis: Positive self-appraisals buffer the impact of hopelessness. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 883-889.
- Johnson, J., Gooding, P., Wood, A. M., & Tarrier. (in press). Trait reappraisal amplifies subjective defeat, sadness and negative affect in response to failure versus success in non-clinical and psychosis populations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
- Johnson, J., Wood, A. M., Gooding, P., & Tarrier. (2011). Resilience to suicidality: The buffering hypothesis. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 563-591.
- Joseph, S., & Wood, A. M. (2010). Assessment of positive functioning in clinical psychology: Theoretical and practical issues. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 830-838.
- Taylor, P. J., Gooding, P. A., Wood, A. M., & Tarrier, N. (2010). Memory specificity as a risk factor for suicidality in non-affective psychosis: The ability to recall specific autobiographical memories is related to greater suicidality. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 1047-1052.
- Taylor, P. J., Gooding, P., Wood, A. M., & Tarrier, N. (2011). The role of defeat and entrapment in depression, anxiety, and suicide. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 391-420.
- Wood, A. M., Brown, G. D. A., & Maltby, J. (2011). Thanks, but I'm used to better: A relative rank model of gratitude. Emotion, 11, 175-180.
- Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J, & Geraghty, A. W. A. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 890-905.
- Wood, A. M., & Joseph, S. (2010). An agenda for the next decade of psychotherapy research and practice. Psychological Medicine, 40, 1055-1056.
- Wood, A. M., & Joseph S. (2010). The absence of positive psychological (eudemonic) well-being as a risk factor for depression: A ten year cohort study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 122, 213-217.
- Wood, A. M., & Joseph, S. (2007). Grand theories of personality cannot be integrated. American Psychologist, 62, 57-58.
- Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., Lloyd, J., & Atkins, S. (2009). Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 66, 43-48.
- Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55, 385-399.
- Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Gillett, R., Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2008). The role of gratitude in the development of social support, stress, and depression: Two longitudinal studies. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 854-871.
- Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Stewart, N., Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2008). A social-cognitive model of trait and state levels of gratitude. Emotion, 8, 281-290.
- Wood, A. M., & Tarrier, N. (2010). Positive Clinical Psychology: A new vision and strategy for integrated research and practice. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 819-829.
Alex Wood
School of Psychology
Leeds Trinity University
Brownberrie Ln, Horsforth
Leeds LS18 5HD
United Kingdom