Samuel Finnerty

Senior Teaching Associate

Profile

I am an interdisciplinary social and environmental psychologist whose work examines individual and collective responses to the climate and nature crisis. My research focuses on how identities, moral commitments, and social norms shape engagement with climate action, including participation in activism, responses to protest, and the way scientific communities and institutions position themselves in relation to the climate crisis. I am trained in anthropology (BA, MA), cognitive science (MSc), and social psychology (PhD), and have published high-quality research using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and ethnography.

My work spans three intersecting domains. First, I study science, communication, and society, with a particular focus on scientist climate advocacy, activism, and questions of credibility and public trust. Second, I examine collective climate action from two perspectives: 1) from the perspective of those engaged in collective action and 2) examining public responses to climate protest and civil disobedience. Third, I investigate institutional climate responses and leadership. My current work at Lancaster University, supported by the Wellcome Trust, explores the ethical and cultural dimensions of sustainability in UK higher education, including how universities conceptualise their responsibilities in addressing the climate crisis.

I have held senior research roles at both the University of Bristol, where I worked across the Schools of Psychology and Policy Studies researching public attitudes to disruptive climate protest, and at Lancaster University, where I am based in the Social Processes Group within the Department of Psychology conducting research on scientist advocacy and activism, research culture, and universities’ climate responses. These positions have allowed me to combine interdisciplinary research, applied policy engagement, and collaborative projects with academic and non-academic partners.

Research Interests

Background and Training

I am an interdisciplinary social psychologist with formal training across anthropology, cognitive science, and social psychology. This background shapes both the questions I ask and how I approach theory-building. My work sits at the intersection of identity, morality, and collective action, with a particular focus on how scientists and other professional groups respond to the climate crisis. Across my research, I examine how moral commitments, professional identities and norms, and institutional contexts shape engagement in pro-environmental and collective action over time.

My doctoral research established a mixed-methods programme combining surveys, interviews, and ethnography, with a particular emphasis on studying forms of engagement that are difficult to capture using standard psychological designs. This training continues to inform my work, allowing me to move between fine-grained analysis of lived experience and theory-driven psychological explanation.

Research Approach

My research approach is grounded in methodological pluralism, with different methods used to address distinct analytic questions within a coherent theoretical programme. Rather than treating methods as interchangeable tools, I use qualitative and quantitative approaches in a complementary and sequential way.

Ethnography and in-depth qualitative interviews allow me to examine how identities, norms, and moral commitments are enacted and negotiated in situ, particularly in high-stakes contexts of collective action and environmental mobilisation. This includes close attention to interactional dynamics, how processes unfold over time, and the practical dilemmas actors face as they navigate competing expectations.

Quantitative and experimental methods are then used to test, refine, and generalise insights generated through qualitative work. In my PhD and subsequent projects, ethnographic findings directly informed the design of surveys and interviews, ensuring that psychological measures were grounded in the lived realities of the groups under study.

This approach reflects a view of social psychological theory as something that should be generated from, and remain accountable to, real-world social processes. Drawing on anthropological sensibilities, I attend closely to context, practice, and meaning-making; and from social psychology, I draw on established theories of identity, norms, and collective action.

Selected Publications

Scientists’ identities shape engagement with environmental activism
Finnerty, S., Piazza, J., Levine, M. 8/05/2024 In: Communications Earth & Environment. 5, 1
Journal article