Rate My Professor Abigail Locke

Professor Abigail Locke is the Professor of Social and Health Psychology and Head of School in the School of Psychology at Keele University, joining in October 2020. She holds a BSc (1993) and PhD (2001) in Psychology from Loughborough University, specializing in discursive psychology, and a PGCE (1995) from the University of Leicester. Before Keele, Locke was Professor of Psychology at the University of Bradford from 2016, serving as Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Transfer and Head of Psychology. She previously held lectureships at Coventry University, the University of Derby, Loughborough University, the University of Huddersfield, and the University of Bradford, and was Visiting Professor in Social and Health Psychology at the University of Derby.

Locke is a critical social and health psychologist whose research interests encompass gender, parenting, health, and identities. Her work employs qualitative methods including Critical Discursive Psychology, Discourse Analysis, thematic analysis, and data from interviews, focus groups, and media. Specific foci include discursive and experiential accounts of motherhood and fatherhood, infant feeding decisions, social media's role in gendered identities and relationships, and constructions of good parenting. She has supervised PhD students on topics like postnatal depression, maternal-infant relationships, diasporic identities, and rape stereotype acceptance. Notable publications include the co-edited "Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice" (2024, 984 citations), "Sharenting: Pride, Affect and the Day-to-Day Politics of Digital Mothering" (2019, 165 citations), "Applying Critical Discursive Psychology to Health Psychology Research: A Practical Guide" (2020, 118 citations), and "Trying Similarity, Doing Difference: The Role of Interviewer Self-Disclosure in Interview Talk with Young People" (2006, 259 citations). Professionally, she is Editor-in-Chief of Health Psychology Open, and editorial board member for Feminism & Psychology and Journal of Health Psychology. Locke is a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol), Associate Fellow of the BPS, and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She has led BPS sections as Past Chair of Social Psychology and Psychology of Women & Equalities, served as Deputy-Chair of the BPS Research Board and Trustee, and is Secretary of the International Society for Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP), with founding roles in European qualitative psychology associations.