Rate My Professor Mick Finaly

Professor Mick Finlay serves as Professor of Social and Applied Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in the Faculty of Science and Engineering, School of Psychology, Sport and Sensory Sciences, a position he has held since 2011. He leads the Applied Health and Social Justice Research Group within ARU's Research Centre for Better Living. Previously, Finlay was Associate Professor at the University of Surrey's School of Psychology from 1998 to 2009 and contributed to teaching at the Open University. Prior to his academic career, he worked for several years in local authority and NHS support services for adults with intellectual disabilities. Finlay earned his PhD in Psychology and MSc in Social Psychology.

Finlay's research spans two main domains: the communication, interaction, identity, support, empowerment, and agency of people with intellectual disabilities, particularly those with severe or profound disabilities; and political communication in contexts of group conflict, including hate speech, prejudice, intergroup violence, political discourse, denunciation, conformity, and loyalty. His projects include United Nations-funded research on transitional justice following witch-hunts in Gambia and studies on non-verbal signs of resistance and self-determination in supported mealtimes for individuals with severe intellectual disabilities. Finlay has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, Political Psychology, British Journal of Social Psychology, Sociology of Health & Illness, and Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. Key publications include 'Experiences of Individual and Collective Stigma Resulting From the 2008–9 Witch‐Hunts Carried Out by the Gambian Dictatorship: Implications for Transitional Justice' (2025, with co-authors), 'Language and civilian deaths: denying responsibility for casualties in the Gaza conflict 2014' (2018), 'Forms of resistance in people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities' (2021, with Nicholson and Stagg), and 'Denunciation and the construction of norms in group conflict' (2014). His scholarship has accumulated over 2,800 citations according to ResearchGate. In addition to his academic output, Finlay has published four novels in the Arrowood historical crime series with HQ HarperCollins (2017-2021).