Research in Psychology

There are active research programmes in psychology and related areas in New Zealand universities.  Click on the links below

University of Otago

University of Canterbury

Victoria University 

Victoria Research Activities

The University of Waikato

Auckland University of Technology

Massey University

Click on the link below to find about current research at Massey University  

This three-year research project commenced in March 2007 and is led and jointly co-ordinated by Professor Stuart Carr (Poverty Research Group, Massey University) and Professor Mac MacLachlan (Centre for Global Health, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland).

According to the Paris Declaration best practice in aid work means pay should be aligned and harmonised across worker groups (World Bank, 2005). Although pay may not be a primary motive for development workers, discrepancies in pay nonetheless have the potential to influence perceptions of organisational justice, which can in turn affect work performance. Moreover, because injustice is a motivation for much aid itself, perceptions of unfairness in aid work may inherently undermine its necessary constituents, especially cooperation and capacity building.

This project explores the effects of aid salary discrepancies in the health, education and business sectors of six countries: the landlocked economies of Malawi and Uganda; the transition economies of India and China; and the island economies of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Bringing together an international team of psychologists, sociologists, management experts, educationalists, and economists from 10 different countries this project focuses on the human dynamics of aid salary discrepancies and their significance for capacity building in low-income countries.

The ADD-UP Project is funded by the Joint DFID-ESRC Scheme for Research on International Poverty Reduction.

Collaborative Research

Wellbeing Study 

Call for collaboration from academics and graduate students

There is considerable research measuring negative health indicators (such as depression and disease) and negative economic indicators (such as growth and wealth). However, there is only a modest amount of research measuring positive indicators - such as wellbeing, strengths, engagement, and happiness. Most studies only measure wellbeing at the surface level, and only provide a snapshot in time as they do not follow people and how they change over time.

The Wellbeing Study (www.wellbeingstudy.com) will look in depth at wellbeing, with the aim being to learn more about the positive aspects of human nature, and how these change. This will help us to unpick some of the most tantalising questions that our society faces today!

The study begins in March 2009, has nine assessment points, each three months apart, and ends on March 2011. Participants are required to complete five consecutive assessments (i.e., over one year).

This study will be open to the general population to participate in, and specific populations will also be targeted. A number of intervention studies may be aligned with this main assessment study.

In collaboration, academics from the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, the Auckland University of Technology, and Victoria, Massey, and Canterbury universities, the Open University United Kingdom, George Mason University USA, as well as NZAPP members are collaborating in this international longitudinal assessment study focusing on wellbeing. Others are yet to be confirmed.

This study is lead by Aaron Jarden, who is a lecturer in psychology at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and president of the New Zealand Association of Positive Psychology.

If you would like to know more or discuss potential involvement in this research project, e-mail: Aaron Jarden - aaron.jarden@openpolytechnic.ac.nz