Rick O'Gorman, PhD
Lecturer

Contact Details

Room 4.713
Department of Psychology
University of Essex
Colchester CO4 3SQ
U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)1206 - 872128
Fax: +44 (0)1206 - 873801

personal home page

Biography

Rick initially studied psychology for his BSc at University College, Cork, in Ireland. He then completed a MA at University College Dublin on nonverbal behaviour in 1996. After a brief sojourn for fieldwork in The Gambia, Rick commenced a PhD at the State University of New York, Binghamton, in the US. His PhD examined social norms from an evolutionary perspective, working with David Sloan Wilson. After completing his PhD in 2003, he moved to Essex to work with Marco Perugini on implicit attitudes before moving to the University of Kent to work with Mark van Vugt on leadership. He joined the psychology group at Sheffield Hallam University as a lecturer in 2007 before moving to the University of Essex in August 2009.

Research Overview

Topics of interest:

   *  evolutionary psychology
   * altruism
   * morality
   * prosocial behaviour
   * applications of social cognition techniques to evolutionary questions
   * leadership and group functioning
   * multilevel selection

Broadly, my research interest is in studying human behavior as a functionally adaptive system, that is, evolutionary psychology--the study of human behaviour and cognition from an evolutionary perspective. My research topics have been diverse, including leadership, attitudes, social norms, altruism, social policing, nonverbal behavior and animal behavior. I adopt an integrative approach, drawing on research and theory in evolutionary psychology, primatology, animal behavior, behavioral ecology, and social psychology.

I am particularly interested in within-group dynamics and interactions. My current research focuses on questions that relate to group functioning within the parameters of pressures for self-oriented behaviour. Whew! What does that mean? Most evolutionary psychologists assume that humans are evolved to be reproductively selfish--they argue that we act in ways that maximise our reproductive success ( genetically selfish). The only exception to this is if we can maximise our kin's reproductive success by being altruistic toward them (which can mean more of our kin-altruism genes getting into the next generation than if we just try to achieve that ourselves!).

However, some evolutionists think that we are also willing to be altruistic to others (non-kin) in our groups, within certain conditions. In the last decade, a substantial body of work has emerged from a number of disciplines (particularly psychology and economics, complemented by theory from biology and fieldwork from anthropology) that suggests that humans are fundamentally cooperative. That is, we are willing to be altruistic to people in our own groups, such as friendship circles or communities, even if we won't be compensated (think, volunteering for a psychology experiment).

So I am interested in looking at when we will be altruistic to non-kin, and why this happens. Being altruistic can take many forms, so this can take in many behaviours if the behaviours benefit the relevant group. Along these lines, I have done, and am doing, work looking at whether being watched is necessary for cooperation, whether we prefer to help family over friends, behaviourally or cognitively, and whether social norms are something to which we are evolved to respond.