Chair in Psychology
- 51cg
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- Email Address
- louise.phillips@abdn.ac.uk
- Telephone Number
- +44 (0)1224 272229
- Office Address
School of Psychology
Room F23, William Guild Building
Kings College
Old Aberdeen
AB24 3FX- School/Department
- School of Psychology


Qualifications
- BSc (Hons) Psychology1990 - University of Edinburgh
- PhD Psychology1993 - University of Manchester
Memberships and Affiliations
- Internal Memberships
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- Course co-ordinator for PS3011 Psychological Assessment
- Steering group of Aberdeen Birth Cohort and Aberdeen Children of the 1950s
- Lead for the Aberdeen Ageing Well group
- External Memberships
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Vice-President of the European Cognitive Aging Society (EUCAS)
Member of British Psychological Society
Member of Experimental Psychology Society
Latest Publications
Self-reported social and motivational factors in health-related future intentions amongst older adults
European Journal of AgeingContributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Assessing empathy in adults: A Malay language validation and measurement invariance of the Empathy Quotient (M-EQ)
PloS ONE, vol. 21, no. 5, e0349335Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [OPEN ACCESS]
How social media use and abuse are related to social cognition and loneliness in older adults
European Journal of AgeingContributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Expression ambiguity leads to greater influence of predictive context during face emotion perception
Cognition & EmotionContributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Now you see it, now you don't: The age-related positivity effect to faces disappears in naturalistic settings
Emotion, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 707-716Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [OPEN ACCESS]
- [ONLINE]
- Research
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Research Overview
I am interested in adult aging, in particular the effects of aging on cognition, emotion and social functioning. In the Aging, Cognition and Emotion Lab we address questions about age differences in communication, looking at how younger and older adults might differ in: expression and interpretation of emotional signals, the use of eye contact and gaze following in social interaction, understanding and empathy for others' mental states. We often find age differences in these aspects of communication - so this raises issues around why there are age differences: Generational changes in social norms? Changes in neurocognitive function? Differences in experience and motivation? And what impact might such changes have for everyday life in relation to intergenerational engagement, social relationships and quality of life? I also love getting involved in interdisciplinary projects on aging, looking at links between cognition, mental health, physical health, genetics, brain changes and social functioning.
Research Specialisms
- Cognitive Psychology
- Gerontology
- Psychology of Communication
- Affective Neuroscience
- Psychology of Ageing
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is , published under the licence.
Current Research
- Adult aging, social cognition and emotional skills
- Intergenerational communication
- Effects of degenerative diseases on social and emotional processing
- Age, planning and prospective memory
Funding and Grants
2027-2036: Leverhulme Trust Centenary Doctoral Programme on Social Connectivity in Later Life. (Lead applicant). REF DS-2026-01 Awarded £5,000,000. See here!
2023-2025: Leverhulme Trust (Applicants Yong & Phillips). Theory of Mind in older adults: Links to fiction, cognition and social function. Awarded £188,476.
2022-2026: Dunhill Medical Trust (Lead applicant). Building interventions to improve quality of life in old age. Multiple PhD Studentship Award. Awarded £199,564.
2018-2020: Newton-Ungku Omar Fund Institutional Links UK-Malaysia grant (Applicants Phillips and Yong). Social cognition and executive function in older adults in the UK and Malaysia: links to socio-economic factors. Ref: 331745333. Awarded £128,461.
2017-2021: ESRC (Applicants Phillips, Tatler & Henry). Adult aging and social attention: the role of cognitive decline and social motivation. Ref: ES/P005330/1. Awarded £500,492. https://www.socialattentionesrc.co.uk/
2015-2018: ESRC/BBSRC.(Applicants Haggarty, Murray, Phillips, Staff, Hocking, Ferguson-Smith & Richards). Imprinting methylation; early life influences and later cognition and mood. Ref: ES/N00048X/1. Awarded £446,636.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
- Level 1 Lifespan Development
- Level 3 Psychological Assessment
- Level 4 option course: Emotion and aging in social cognition
- BM4301 The Science of Aging
- Publications
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Page 7 of 17 Results 61 to 70 of 162
Links between emotion perception and social participation restriction following stroke
Brain Injury, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 122-126Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Exploring own-age biases in deception detection
Cognition & Emotion, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 493-506Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [ONLINE]
Global and Local Processing Biases in Healthy Ageing
The Scottish Vision Group (SVG) Meeting 2014Contributions to Conferences: Abstracts- [ONLINE]
Importance effects on age differences in performance in event-based prospective memory
Gerontology, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 73-78Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [ONLINE]
A meta-analytic review of age differences in theory of mind
Psychology and Aging, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 826-839Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Development of affective theory of mind across adolescence: disentangling the role of executive functions
Developmental Neuropsychology, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 114-125Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
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The emotional eyewitness: the effects of emotion on specific aspects of eyewitness recall and recognition performance
Emotion, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 118-128Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Depressive symptoms in late life and cerebrovascular disease: the importance of intelligence and lesion location
Depression and Anxiety, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 77-84Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Ongoing development of social cognition in adolescence
Child Neuropsychology, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 615-629Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
Older adults have greater difficulty imagining future rather than atemporal experiences
Psychology and Aging, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 1089-1098Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI:
- [ONLINE]