Professor John Dixon

About Me

Having grown up in Northern Ireland and South Africa, I have a particular interest in the social psychology of intergroup contact, conflict, desegregation, and re-segregation in historically divided societies. I also firmly believe that methods and concepts must adequately address the complexity of psychological processes as they unfold in everyday life contexts.

This has led me to explore a variety of methodological and conceptual frameworks, including those 'borrowed' from Linguistics, Geography, and Sociology. It has also led me to avoid the—for me, fruitless—polarization of ‘quantitative’ versus ‘qualitative’ research in social psychology in favor of conducting detailed case studies that combine various methodological strategies, approaches, and techniques. I have sought to bring this vision to my work as co-Editor (with Jolanda Jetten) of the British Journal of Social Psychology and Associate Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology.

I have been privileged to collaborate on several international projects and to have worked extensively with colleagues from other disciplines. My latest projects are funded by the Leverhulme Foundation and the Australian Research Council respectively. The Leverhulme project is an interdisciplinary collaboration (with Professor John Wolffe from OU History as Principal Investigator) that integrates psychological and historical perspectives on anti-Catholicism in the UK. The ARC project—led by Professor Stefania Paolini, Durham University—uses both psychological and geographic perspectives to understand everyday patterns of contact-seeking and avoidance. It combines survey, observation, and experimental methods with GPS tracking data and GIS analytics.

Research Interests

Working with longstanding collaborators Kevin Durrheim and Colin Tredoux, my early research in post-apartheid South Africa highlighted the lack of support for equality and desegregation policies.

This work:

• Developed understanding of the so-called ‘principle-implementation gap’ in white attitudes to social change (for a review, see Dixon et al., 2017).
• Challenged the dominant approach to social change in psychology by exploring the sometimes ‘ironic’ consequences of prejudice reduction interventions such as the contact hypothesis (Dixon et al., 2005,  2012).
• Developed now widely adopted methods and concepts for understanding the persistence of racial segregation as a ‘micro-ecological’ system (Dixon & Durrheim, 2003).
• Helped to drive the emergence of a ‘spatial turn’ in social psychology, as exemplified by a critical reworking of classic concepts such as ‘place identity’ and ‘place attachment’ (Dixon & Durrheim, 2000, 2004).

My more recent ESRC-funded research programme has integrated psychological and geographic perspectives on sectarian relations in Northern Ireland. This involved bringing together a team of geographers, anthropologists, GIS specialists, and psychologists to:

• Build a new approach to understanding ‘activity space segregation’ in divided cities, based around understanding everyday mobility practices  (e.g., Dixon et al., 2020, 2022).
• Develop a Boundary Transgression Model of resistance to desegregation (Dixon et al., 2025).

My work has also involved engagement beyond academia through public talks and exhibitions, policy workshops and briefings, community events, and open access websites (e.g., @Belfast Mobility Project). It includes collaborations with organisations such as the Belfast Housing Executive, the Belfast City Council, and the Northern Ireland Department of Justice.

Examples of some of our work:

Dixon, J., Durrheim, K., Tredoux, C., McKeown, S., Stevenson, C., & Huck, J. (under review). ‘Crossing the line’: A Boundary Transgression Model of resistance to desegregation. European Review of Social Psychology.

Dixon, J., Sturgeon, B., Huck, J., Hocking, B., Jarman, N., Bryan, B., Whyatt, D., Davies, G., & Tredoux, C. (2022). Navigating the divided city: Place identity and the time-geography of segregation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 84 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2022.101908

Dixon, J., Tredoux, C., Davies, G., Huck, J., Hocking, B., Sturgeon, B., Whyatt, D., Jarman, N. & Bryan, D. (2020). Parallel lives: Intergroup contact, threat, and the segregation of everyday activity spaces. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118, 457-480. DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000191

Dixon, J. Durrheim, K. & Thomae, M. (2017). The principle-implementation gap in attitudes towards racial equality (and how to close it). Advances in Political Psychology, 38, 91–126.

Dixon, J., Levine, M., Reicher, S. & Durrheim, K. (2012). Beyond prejudice: Are negative evaluations the problem and is getting us to like one another more the solution? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35, 411-425. 

Dixon, J. & Levine, M. (Eds). (2012). Beyond prejudice: Extending the social psychology of intergroup conflict, inequality and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Press.

Dixon, J., Durrheim, K., & Tredoux, C. (2007). Intergroup contact and attitudes towards the principle and practice of racial equality. Psychological Science, 18, 867-872.

Durrheim, K. & Dixon, J. (2005). Racial Encounter: The Social Psychology of Contact and Desegregation.  London: Psychology Press.

Dixon, J., Durrheim, K. & Tredoux, C. (2005). Beyond the optimal contact strategy: A ‘reality check’ for the contact hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60, 697-711.

Dixon, J. & Durrheim, K. (2004). Dislocating identity: Desegregation and the transformation of place. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24, 455-473.

Dixon, J. & Durrheim, K. (2003). Contact and the ecology of racial division: Some varieties of informal segregation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 1-23.

Teaching and Leadership

I have served for several years as Chair of DE200, the undergraduate module that delivers our core Level 2, BPS-accredited curriculum to a cohort of almost 4,000 students. I am now leading on the planning and production of its successor module, D220.

I have also contributed in various leadership roles across my career at the OU. For example, I served as

• Deputy Head of the Department of Psychology (2012–2014) and subsequently as Head of Department (2014–2017).
• Deputy Chair of the OU’s REF submission to the 2014 Sociology UoA and as Impact Lead for our REF 2021 submission to the Psychology UoA, a role I am reprising for the 2029 REF.