About the Project

This project will investigate the contemporary influence of positive psychology on management discourse and training programmes in the workplace. It maps the expansion of positive psychology consultancies within the UK (in light of their wider international significance) and examines the conceptual assumptions of positive psychologists’ accounts of the human condition, behaviour and social interaction. Connections are made between neuroscience, positive psychology, Buddhist mindfulness practices, self-help publishing, management theory, and the policy discourses of happiness and wellbeing. Psychometric testing, performance management and self-assessment have become de rigeur in workplace settings but rarely do these work-based practices appreciate the governmental logics of positive psychology.

The project examines how positive psychology produces new worker identities in relation to specific socio-economic contexts and changes in global and local labour markets. Specifically, such practices serve to responsibilise workers for the management of their time-spaces at work, and it is the relationship between psychology, space and time that provides this project with its thematic focus. Just as the government of spatial arrangements has important implications for setting behavioural norms and delimiting human agency, the (self-) government of time and space in the workplace suggests the complicity of ideas from human resource management in relations of power. The project will consider how positive psychology training programmes negotiate the time spent by workers on self-knowledge and wellbeing with the demands of time-constrained productivity in the workplace. The complex question of how work spaces are ultimately controlled will shed new light on some of the practical techniques by which the psychological sciences produce entrepreneurial forms of citizenship and marketised forms of social governance.

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Funding Notes

Applicants should apply via http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/gees/courses/postgraduate/phd-projects.aspx and click on ‘Apply to study here’ and choose the option ‘PhD in Geography and Environmental Science (Human Geography)’ and give the PhD title in the ‘Funding details’ section of the online application.

Open Days

June

2026

University of Birmingham

Postgraduate Open Day

Birmingham (United Kingdom)

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Where will I study?

University of Birmingham

For more than a century, the University of Birmingham has been pursuing and sharing knowledge through outstanding teaching and research. As a founding Russell Group member and the original ‘redbrick’ university, our high-quality teaching will help you take your career to the next level. We are of the country’s most consistently sought-after universities by the UK’s top graduate employers, and have been for the last decade. With a wealth of opportunities to choose from across study and research, Birmingham has one of the most extensive postgraduate course portfolios in the UK. Hosting an international community of more than 8000 staff and 38,000 students, you’ll work alongside world-leading academics in a diverse community.

Career overview

Professor Jessica Pykett is a social and political geographer at the University of Birmingham, where she has been a faculty member since September 2012. She holds a PhD, MSc in Society and Space, and BSc in Geography, all from the University of Bristol. Prior to her current position, she was a lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, where she worked on a Leverhulme funded grant focusing on the ‘Time-Spaces of Soft-Paternalism’. She has also served as an ESRC research fellow at The Open University and has held research positions at the University of Bristol and Futurelab Education. Professor Pykett''s research interests encompass governance, knowledge practices, policy innovation, and political subjectivities, with a particular focus on affective and emotional techniques of governance. She investigates the influence of neuroscience and behavioural science on public policy and economic theory, and her current work explores the intersections of neuroscience and geography, urban stress, urban wellbeing, and political technologies of emotional regulation. She has organised and chaired several international seminars on these themes, as well as on vitalist methodologies and embodied technologies. In addition to her research, Professor Pykett has published several books, including *Neuroliberalism. Behavioural Government in the 21st Century* and *Brain Culture*, and is currently working on a forthcoming book titled *Governing Global Emotions*, which examines how digital emotion sensing technologies are reshaping our understanding of emotions. She is also actively involved in various research projects, serving as Principal Investigator for the ESRC Ethics and Expertise project and Co-Investigator for projects related to precision education and sociodigital futures. Professor Pykett is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has contributed to numerous academic journals and editorial boards. She is engaged in interdisciplinary research aimed at enhancing community wellbeing in urban settings and is a qualified Citizens Advice Bureau adviser.

Research interests

Professor Pykett''s research focuses on social and political geography, particularly in the areas of governance, knowledge practices, policy innovation, and political subjectivities. Her work has examined affective and emotional techniques of governance, as well as the influence of neuroscience and behavioural science on public policy and economic theory. Current research includes the intersections of neuroscience and geography, urban stress and wellbeing, and political technologies of emotional regulation. She has organised international seminars on these themes, exploring vitalist methodologies and embodied technologies. Professor Pykett is also interested in emotional politics, behavioural public policy, digital affective governance, and the geographies of welfare and mental health. She serves as Principal Investigator for the ESRC Ethics and Expertise project and is Co-Investigator on several other projects related to precision education and sociodigital futures.

Social Geography Political Geography Governance Knowledge Practices Policy Innovation Emotional Techniques Neuroscience Behavioural Science Public Policy Urban Stress Urban Wellbeing Emotional Regulation Digital Affective Governance Critical Neuroscience Psychological Governance Citizenship Welfare Mental Health Emotional Politics Embodied Geographies Government Advertising Social Marketing Ethics Advisory Bodies Future Worlds

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Positive Psychology in spaces of work

University of Birmingham School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

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About the Project