Dr Sue Widdicombe

Co-lead (female talent)
The University of Edinburgh
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Dr Sue Widdicombe is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh.

Sue is a discursive social psychologist whose work focuses on language in social interaction as the medium and resource for doing psychological work such as claiming identities, denying prejudice, holding others to account, and justifying (in)action. She has led ESRC‑funded comparative identity studies in Syria, Britain and Egypt; examined the power of questions in research and news interviews; and identified how people manage challenges in online and verbal interactions, for example, in reporting racism or making judgements of others’ misconduct. She is currently working on how activists’ talk of the climate crisis can be silenced by protest framing, by mobilising identities and constructing public opinion. She is also co-investigating public engagement with climate change news in the UK, India, Portugal and Brazil. She is passionate about building an empirical basis for co-producing better public conversations about climate change.