Centre for Applied Psychological Science

CAPS achieves this by ensuring our research is ethical and socially responsible, evidence-based, and inter/multidisciplinary in its approach to meeting societal challenges.

Our attention is focused on tackling gender-based violence, improving criminal and judicial systems, processes, user experiences and outcomes, and applying human-computer interactions to health, well-being, and safety.

CAPS specialises in applied psychological research that contributes knowledge to the academic community as well as being relevant to the public, practitioners, policymakers and wider communities. CAPS shares psychological knowledge and perspectives through collaboration with other Schools at Teesside University, and various other industry partners, local authorities and third sector organisations. The work of the Centre is also embedded within our teaching programmes and aligned with the strategic aims of the University.

The research conducted by members of CAPS is currently organised into three themes/research foci which have achieved national and international prominence:

• Health, well-being and illness across the lifespan
  uses clinical, health and counselling psychology to conduct research that applies psychological principles (for example, cognitive, neurological, behavioural) to the improvement of mental and physical well-being of populations, including long-term conditions.
• Crime and conflict
  uses forensic and trauma psychology and victimology, to conduct research to better understand and improve experiences and judicial outcomes (for example, for victims, offenders, witnesses, suspects, and other users) in investigations, the courts, prisons, and community settings, and in the pursuit of justice. Our work also informs and develops interventions to prevent crime and ameliorate harm to both primary and secondary victims of crime, and that utilise trauma-informed practice.
• Cognition and decision-making
  This research theme is underpinned by behavioural science and human data science in areas of cognitive and behavioural psychology (for example visual perception, language and learning, thinking and reasoning) and combines experimental approaches (including cognitive, neurological, physiological and behavioural techniques) to address a range of applied questions surrounding, such as safe decision-making, online privacy, cybersecurity, human-computer interactions and face recognition.

These themes are underpinned by our strong methodological expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methods, intervention development and evaluation, systematic reviews, service evaluations, co-production, toolkit design, and embedded research.

More about our people and projects