Prf Lisa Lazard

Professional biography

I am a Professor in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the Open University. I have a long-standing interest in gendered power dynamics in everyday life. This interest has led me to my current role as co- lead for the Human Behaviour stream of The Centre for Protecting Women Online which aims to understand and address challenges to women’s safety online. It has also been the basis for my co-leading roles in Research Groups, including Networking Families which explores how gendered power relations shape the digital lives of families.

My work on gendered power dynamics began with my PhD research on sexual harassment. My thesis examined people’s, particularly, women’s reluctance to name their experiences as sexual harassment.  Since joining the Open University in 2012 as a Lecturer in Psychology, I have extended my focus to how gender shapes everyday experiences of family, particularly mothering. While my early work examined these issues in offline contexts, my current research focuses on gender and intersectionally shaped power dynamics in digital spaces. 

I have been an active member of Psychology of Women Section of the British Psychological Society and have had the privilege to serve as Chair of this section. I have also had the pleasure of serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Psychology of Women & Equalities Section Review.

Research interests

My work is concerned with how people negotiate their digital lives in various spheres of their everyday experience (e.g. work, family, social networks). Based on my broad interest in gendered dynamics online, one strand of my research has focused on the impacts of #MeToo, including victim-survivor resistance and contemporary understandings of perpetration of sexual violence. Alongside a focus on violence against women and girls, my research examines the impact of gender and intersectionally dynamics on sexual victimisation of men and boys. 

Given how photo-sharing online is now an everyday practice, another strand of my research began with research on how women curate their identities on social media using photo sharing. Building on this, I have examined how mothers curate their identities and a sense of their family by posting sharing. This has also included an examination of how the phenomenon of ‘sharenting’ (parents who are seen to ‘overshare’ photos/information about their children) impact parental sharing practices and how children and young people make sense of being the subject of adult-led posting. These areas of focus are reflected in my current projects: 

The Centre for Protecting Women Online for which I co-lead the Human Behaviour stream. Funded by Research England, the centre is a vehicle for understanding and addressing challenges posed to women’s safety online through a novel, interdisciplinary and ambitious research agenda. 

GEiO - Gender Equitable Interactions Online is a European Union funded (CHANSE/ESRC) project with Germany, Iceland and Spain looking at the role of gender in online work meetings. (PL and PI)

Supporting children’s mental health through familial online relationships funded by eNurture/ESRC looked at how children make sense of their parents/carers social media use. (CO-I) · 

Networking Families Research Group takes a critical psychological perspective to examining the phenomenon of social media practices through the lens of gender and relationships.

The Intersectional Violences Research Group takes a critical psychological approach, using insights from feminist, queer, trans and anti-carceral approaches to the study of sexual and domestic violence.

Selected Publications

Lazard, L. (2023). Saying It like It is? Sexual Harassment, Labelling, and# MeToo. In: Zurbriggen, E. L., & Capdevila, R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Power, Gender, and Psychology (pp. 461-475). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Lazard, L., Capdevila, R., & Turner, J. (2023). Calling it out? A Q Methodological Study of Sexual Harassment Labelling. Violence Against Women, 0(0). Online first.

Lazard, L. (2022). Digital mothering: Sharenting, family selfies and online affective-discursive practices. Feminism & Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1177/09593535221083840

Lazard, L. & Capdevila, R. (2021). She's so vain? A Q study of selfies and the curation of an online self. New media & Society, DOI: 10.1177/1461444820919335.

Capdevila, R. & Lazard, L. (2021). The big picture: using visual methods to explore online photo sharing and gender in digital space. In: Reavey P (ed.) A Handbook of Visual Methods in Psychology. London: Routledge.

Lazard, L. (2020, November). Sexual Harassment, psychology and feminism: #MeToo, victim politics and predators in neoliberal times. Palgrave MacMillian.

Lazard, L., & McAvoy, J. (2020). Doing reflexivity in psychological research: What’s the point? What’s the practice?. Qualitative research in psychology, 17(2), 159-177.

Lazard, L., Capdevila, R.,  Dann, C., Locke, A and Roper, S. (2019). Sharenting: Pride, affect and the day to day politics of digital mothering. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(4), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12443. 

A repository of research publications and other research outputs can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.

Teaching interests

I have recently served as Chair of the new level 1 production team (D120). Previous to this I have been a module team member of Investigating Psychology 1 (DE300) and the postgraduate production team for the module Evaluating Psychology: Research and Practice DD803. I have also contributed to the production of undergraduate modules  Investigating Psychology 2 (DE200) and Investigating Psychology 3 (DE300).

Selected Teaching Publications

Lazard, L. (2023) ‘Liking and Loving’ in: L. Lazard & A. Strathie (eds). Investigating Psychology in Context). Milton Keynes: Open University. 

Lazard, L. (2023) ‘Perspectives on Aggression’ in: L. McGrath & J. Turner (eds). Exploring psychological worlds: thinking, feeling, doing (pp.191-233). Milton Keynes: Open University. 

Lazard, L. (2021) 'Sexual Harassment' in: A. Strathie, J. Turner, & M.J. Barker (eds). Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary, Volume 2. Milton Keynes: Open University.  

Impact and engagement

My research on sexual harassment has led to impact work with UK parliament. I was invited to give a keynote address in the House of Commons on ‘Effecting Positive change in Climates of Uncertainty’ in 2018 and ran workshops designed to raise awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace and acted as a parliamentary consultant on these issues. My research on gender and violence has informed articles I have written for The Conversation (a global online news provider) which has had significant reach (over 305,000 readers). One article was subsequently republished in both national and international broadsheets including The Independent.  With respect to impact and engagement work around digital cultures, I have produced an OU mini documentary on selfie-posting online and have recently appeared on the BBC documentary Inside Out to talk about social media influencers. Together with colleagues from the newly established Networking Families Research group, I have written articles on parental posting for The Conversation which have been translated for international audiences. 

Media

• Supporting children’s mental health through familial online relationships with our partner Parent Zone. This talk is from the eNurture Showcase for funded research projects
• Playing across generations This short film reports the results from a study into online family relationships conducted by The Open University with Fundamentally Children. 
• Are you sharing too much online? (BBC Ideas, 2020) – academic consultant & contributor. This short film explores the impact of parental online sharing of their children’s images and activities and had 30,000 views in the first month
• Social Influencers (Inside out, 2019) – interviewee. This episode investigated the impact of being a social media influencer
• Selfies are not the root of all evil (OpenLearn, June 2018) – academic consultant & contributor.  his OU production examined the ‘selfie’ phenomenon and was based on my research on young women’s use of social media to curate their online identity.
• Digital mothering (Student Hub live, 2018) – interviewee. A panel discussion of digital mothering in which I participated with two colleagues as part of the successful Student Hub live series.

Public engagement

        Research based Interactive displays as part of the award-winning OU 50^th Anniversary celebrations: 

• OpenFest (October 2019)
• TedX (November 2019)

OpenLearn modules

• Are selfies a terrible thing? 
• Sharenting: What is it and are you doing it?