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Institution
University of SussexCurrent Position
Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology Highest Degree
Ph.D. in Psychology from University of Exeter, 1996
Research Interests
 | Applied Social Psychology |
| Group Processes |
| Intergroup Relations |
| Persuasion/Social Influence |
| Political Psychology |
| Self/Identity |
Laboratory Home Page
Online Studies
Courses Taught
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John Drury
School of Psychology
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9QH
United Kingdom
Home Page
Phone: +44 (0)1273-872514
Fax: +44 (0)1273-678058
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The core of my research interests is the study of crowd psychology. Crowd events are a locus of both psychological determination and transformation. I have carried out research on processes of crowd conflict and change in relation to anti-poll tax protests, anti-roads direct actions, anti-capitalist events and football crowds. Some of my recent research has examined how participants might feel empowered through crowd experiences, and how such positive emotional feelings might affect other areas of their lives. With colleagues and research students, I am currently extending some of the ideas developed in the research on crowd dynamics to two related areas. First, for the last five years I have been working on the psychology of emergency mass evacuation. Early models suggested that irrational panic was a generic reaction to collective threat. However, in the literature there are numerous examples of co-operation and even helping behaviours amongst crowd participants escaping from danger. My research sought to examine the extent to which a shared social identity might encourage such co-operative behaviours, and hence more efficient collective escape. This research was carried out using interviews, archive data, laboratory simulations and an innovative computer visualizations. For details, see my research web-page: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/affiliates/panic/ Second, we have carried out a number of studies investigating the mediating role of social identity in cognitive, behavioural and emotional reactions to situations of crowding. We have used an original experimental paradigm to explore the way that one's 'tolerance' for crowding, or 'personal space', isn't a given of situation, person or culture, but is variable depending on whichever of one's multiple identities is salient in relation to the identities of others present. We have also begun to explore this topic using field work, surveys and interviews. While the experimental method is useful for examining the impact of given contexts and experimenter-induced identities on action, it is less useful for exposing the chronological process whereby power is challenged and some of the alternative ways of construing such power relations. Much of my research, therefore, has been ethnographic, since this approach allows us to trace interactive and historical aspects of intergroup relations. Further, since power is partly sustained through systems of meaning, I also use critical discourse analysis as a way of understanding exposing and subverting domination, and thereby creating the space for 'liberatory' discourses. An example of this is the way that crowds - particularly working class crowds, protest crowds and mass emergency crowds - are routinely pathologized and/or criminalized; such constructions have important implications for policy and practice. In my research, I have sought to problematize such accounts and hence suggest a language for the crowd that recognizes and indeed celebrates its positive role in the social world.
 Journal Articles:
- Cocking, C., Drury, J. & Reicher, S. (In press, 2008). The psychology of crowd behaviour in emergency evacuations: Results from two interview studies and implications for the Fire & Rescue Services. Irish Journal of Psychology. Special Edition: Psychology and the Fire & Rescue Services.
 Drury, J. (2002). "When the mobs are looking for witches to burn, nobody's safe": Talking about the reactionary crowd. Discourse & Society, 13, 41-73.
- Drury, J., Cocking, C., Beale, J., Hanson, C., & Rapley, F. (2005). The phenomenology of empowerment in collective action. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 309-328.
- Drury, J., Cocking, C., & Reicher, S. (in press). Everyone for themselves? A comparative study of crowd solidarity among emergency survivors. British Journal of Social Psychology.
- Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2005). Explaining enduring empowerment: A comparative study of collective action and psychological outcomes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 35-58.
- Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2000). Collective action and psychological change: The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 579-604.
- Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (1999). The intergroup dynamics of collective empowerment: Substantiating the social identity model. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 2, 381-402.
- Drury, J., Reicher, S., & Stott, C. (2003). Transforming the boundaries of collective identity: From the "local" anti-road campaign to "global" resistance? Social Movement Studies, 2, 191-212.
- Drury, J., & Stott, C. (2001). Bias as a research strategy in participant observation: The case of intergroup conflict. Field Methods, 13, 47-67.
- Drury, J., Stott, C., & Farsides, T. (2003). The role of police perceptions and practices in the development of "public disorder." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 1480-1500.
- Drury, J., & Winter, G. (2004). Social identity as a source of strength in mass emergencies and other crowd events. International Journal of Mental Health (special issue on "Coping with Disasters: The Mental Health Component"), 32, 77-93.
- Smith, A., James, C., Jones, R., Langston, P., Lester, E., & Drury, J. (in press, 2008). Modelling contra-flow in crowd dynamics DEM simulation. Safety Science. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2008.05.006
- Stott, C., & Drury, J. (2004). The importance of social structure and social interaction in stereotype consensus and content: is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 11-23.
- Stott, C., Hutchison, P., & Drury, J. (2001). "Hooligans" abroad? Inter-group dynamics, social identity and participation in collective "disorder" at the 1998 World Cup Finals. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 359-384.
Other Publications:
- Drury, J., & Cocking, C. (2007). The mass psychology of disasters and emergency evacuations: A research report and implications for practice. University of Sussex.
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