Professor Geoff Beattie
Geoff Beattie is Professor of Psychology at Edge Hill University and was formerly Professor of Psychology and Head of School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester. He was awarded the Spearman Medal by the British Psychological Society for ‘published psychological research of outstanding merit’ and the Mouton d’Or prize for his groundbreaking multimodal research on deception. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
His psychological research focusses on multimodal communication, implicit processes in decision-making, prejudice, neurodiversity, and the psychology of climate change with various books in these areas as well as articles in journals including Nature, Nature Climate Change, Journal of Experimental Psychology, and Semiotica. He has written several ethnographic books, including ‘Survivors of Steel City’ (Chatto & Windus), ‘We are the People: Journeys Through the Heart of Protestant Ulster’(Heinemann) and two books on the lives of boxers in Sheffield (‘On the Ropes: Boxing as a Way of Life’, Gollancz, and ‘The Shadows of Boxing’, Orion). The boxing books were optioned by a Hollywood studio and the movie ‘Giant’, starring Pierce Brosnan, is now in production. Sylvester Stallone is Executive Producer; Geoff is Consulting Producer.
He has also published two novels (‘The Corner Boys’, Gollancz and ‘The Body’s Little Secrets’, Gibson Square) and a memoir (‘Protestant Boy’, Granta) - he grew up in a mill house at ‘the turn of the road’ in North Belfast and was the first in a generation from his primary school to pass the Eleven Plus. He attended Belfast Royal Academy and did his PhD at Trinity College Cambridge. The memoir is about his Protestant working-class background and his move away from the turn-of-the-road gang. ‘We are the People' and ‘The Corner Boys’ were both shortlisted for the Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize; ‘On the Ropes' was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award; ‘Trophy Hunting: A Psychological Perspective’ (Routledge) was shortlisted for the Taylor & Francis Outstanding Book Award. His books have been translated into Chinese, Taiwanese, Portuguese, Italian, Finnish, German, Romanian etc.
In his first year as a Visiting Scholar at OCLW he worked on a book on lying, which has just been published by Routledge (‘Lies, Lying and Liars: A Psychological Analysis’). Currently he is working on a book on climate change anxiety (also for Routledge) and is particularly interested in narrative, understanding, and coping in this area.
