Children’s risky play experiences, parental anxiety and the development of childhood fear and anxiety

PhD studentship available for September 2017

Supervisors: Dr Kathryn Lester (School of Psychology, University of Sussex)

Over the past 50 years, opportunities for children to engage in risky play (thrilling play with a possibility of physical injury e.g. play at heights) have continually declined. However, depriving a child of risky play opportunities may increase risk for mental and physical health concerns. Childhood anxiety is highly prevalent and distressing, affecting up to 20% of children during their lifetime and is known to run in families. Despite this, the function of risky play in the context of childhood anxiety, and the impact of parental anxiety on children’s risky play opportunities are unknown.

The successful candidate will join the Children’s Relationships, Emotions and Social Skills Lab (CRESSLab) and the broader community of students within the Developmental and Clinical Psychology group. The student will contribute to developing a program of research focused on children’s play experiences, and the development of fear and anxiety, and related outcomes across childhood. This research will use a multi-methods approach to investigate children’s participation in play activities, and parental attitudes, behaviours, and cognitions around risky play using both naturalistic observations and laboratory based experimental approaches. Broadly, these studies will investigate whether parental anxiety influences children’s participation in risky play and how both relate to fear and anxiety across childhood. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop his/her own ideas within the scope of the study.

Applications should be made by 10th March 2017. The award of the studentship will be based on a competitive process. If awarded, it would be a full-time studentship (funded for a duration of three years) covering tuition fee (at the UK rate, currently £4,121 per annum) and a maintenance allowance (currently £14,296 per annum).

Guidance for applicants:
Application procedures can be found here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/pgstudy/psychologyphdstudentships2017

Please submit an online application for the ’PhD in Psychology’ programme, for September 2017 entry through this link: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/applyhttp://www.suhttp://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/applyssex.ac.uk/study/phd/apply

State in the ’Funding information’ section of your online application that you are applying for this studentship, giving the title of the project as above and mention the supervisors, Dr Kathryn Lester and Prof Andy Field, in the ’Supervisor suggested by applicant’ section.
The proposed source of funding should be specified as ’School of Psychology’.

Candidates should provide:
A research statement that briefly outlines your current state of knowledge, hypotheses that could be addressed, and an outline of potential methods. Your answer should not exceed 2 pages including references, be set at minimum 10-font type with margins a minimum of 1cm.
A current degree transcript(s) with full details of performance on all completed courses.
Two academic references.
An up-to-date CV.

To discuss the details of this PhD project further, please contact Dr Kathryn Lester: [Email Address Removed]

Timetable
Deadline for applications: Tuesday 10th March 2017.

Further information
The School of Psychology is one of the largest centres for the study of psychology in the UK. We have nearly 40 academic faculty, about 100 research students and the same number of postgraduate students taking Master’s degrees. Our undergraduate intake is about 250 a year, which gives us an academic community of nearly 1000 people working in a rich and supportive learning environment.

Psychology is a diverse discipline and our size means that we span major research areas in social, cognitive, biological, developmental and clinical psychology. Psychology at Sussex was rated 10th in the UK for research in the 2014 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). 91% of our research at Sussex is ranked as world-leading or internationally significant.