I am a Postdoctoral Research Officer working in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science (DPBS) at The London School of Economics. My research is informed by both Social Identity Theory and principles of cultural psychology, and is best placed at the juncture of several areas of psychology, including human factors, and social, organizational, and health psychologies.
I currently have several lines of research:
Safety culture: How do social identities at the national cultural level and the occupational level influence safety culture within an organization? How do broad national cultural values shape the formation of social identities?
Mental health: How is stress perceived by individuals who undergo changes in their social identities?
Violent media: To what extent should there be societal concern regarding media violence? How robust is the violent video game effect?
I completed an Honours degree in Human Factors, and a PhD in Social Psychology, both at The University of Queensland in Australia.
My Honours thesis in Human Factors examined multimodal advanced displays and their best-practice for safety-critical contexts. In this work we showed that top-down cognitive processes may override expected benefits of multimodal displays.
My doctoral research examined societal issues of media violence. Through several experiments, I showed that the expected processes by which violent media are thought to influence behaviour were washed out by everyday social contexts.
Before coming to the LSE, I was a Senior Research Technician investigating social identity and mental health, and a Sessional Lecturer teaching a third-year undergraduate social psychology course, both at The University of Queensland.
My present research focuses on safety culture within the European air navigation industry. Funded by the European Commission, my main project involves the roles of identities and group dynamics in safety culture. Specifically, I examine how national cultural identities and occupation identities shape the uptake of safety culture values in the Air Traffic Management sector. I also address the broader question of how national cultural values shape, and are shaped by, individual identity formation.
After completing my PhD in 2015, I began working with Tegan Cruwys on several questions applying Social Identity Theory to health and clinical applications. Specifically, we evaluate the role of social identities, multiple group memberships, and overall connectedness in mental and physical health. With access to the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survery (HILDA) – a massive longitudinal dataset that includes measures of psychological distress, subjective well-being, perceived social support, and felt belongingness – we seek to answer questions about the temporal order of stress experience and wellbeing change. Preliminary results suggest that events are only perceived as stressful to the extent that they entail an identity loss.
My doctoral research investigated effects of violent video games on social behavior. A large body of work from the 1990s and early 2000s makes the claim for violent video games increasing aggressive states (thoughts, feelings, arousal), leading to increases in aggressive behavior and other negative social outcomes. More recent research, however, has not been able to replicate this once clear picture. I investigated boundary conditions in which violent video games effects manifest (e.g. trait aggression, provocation, political ideology), while also trying to address methodological concerns that surround the field (e.g. characteristics of video game stimuli, variations in experimental procedures). An aim of my work is to help inform the level of concern that parents and the general public ought to have about violent video games.
My teaching spans many topics of psychology, including social and developmental psychology, cognitive psychology and decision-making, and psychological research methods:
Lecturer and course coordinator:
Semester 2, 2015
PSYC3032 - Topics in Social Psychology
Course Tutor:
Semester 1, 2015
PSYC4050 - Psychological Research Methodology IV
Semester 1, 2014
PSYC2371 - Everyday Thinking
Semester 1, 2014
PSYC2030 - Developmental Psychology
Semester 2, 2014
PSST0000 - Psychology Student Support Tutors
Semester 3, 2014
PSYC1030 - Introduction to Psychology
Semester 2, 2013
PSYC3052 - Judgment & Decision-Making
Semester 1, 2013
PSYC3010 - Psychological Research Methodology III
Semester 1, 2012
PSYC1040 - Psychological Research Methodology I
Semester 2, 2012
PSYC3052 - Judgment & Decision-Making
Semester 2, 2012
PSYC1040 - Psychological Research Methodology I
Semester 2, 2011
PSYC1040 - Psychological Research Methodology I
Tear, M. J. & Nielsen, M. (under review). A test of the ‘tipping point’ hypothesis of violent video game effects.
Tear, M. J., & Nielsen, M. (2014). Video games and prosocial behavior: A study of the effects of non-violent, violent and ultra-violent gameplay. Computers in Human Behavior, 41, 8-13. [pdf]
Tear, M. J., & Nielsen, M. (2013). Failure to demonstrate that playing violent video games diminishes prosocial behavior, PLoS One, 8(7). [pdf]
Arnold, D. H., Tear, M. J., Schindel, R. & Roseboom, W. (2010). Audio-visual speech cue combination. PLoS One, 5(4). [pdf]
Thompson, M. B., Tear, M. J., & Sanderson, P. M. (2010). Multisensory integration with a head-mounted display: The role of response method. Human Factors, 52(1), 92-104. [pdf]
Tear, M. J., Thompson, M. B., & Tangen, J. M. (2010). The importance of ground truth: An open-source biometric repository. Proceedings of the 54th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. San Francisco, CA: 27 September – 1 October. [pdf]
Tear, M. J., Harrison, W. J., Thompson, M. B. & Sanderson, P. M. (2009). Head-mounted displays and multisensory integration: Replications and challenges. Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. San Antonio, TX: 19-23 October. *Short-listed for Alphonse Chapanis Best Student Paper Award [pdf]
Tear, M. J., & Nielsen, M. (2014). Violent and ultra-violent video games: No linear effect of increasing levels of violence. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (SASP). Canberra, Australia: 10-12 April.
Tear M. J., & Nielsen, M. (2014). Further failures to demonstrate violent video game effects: Extending Tear & Nielsen (2013). Proceedings of the 15th Annual Meeting of The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). Austin, TX: 14-16 February. *Runner-up for Student Poster Award [poster]
Tear, M. J., & Greenaway, K. (2013). Misattributing arousal disrupts the violent video game effect. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (SASP). Cairns, Australia: 11-13 April.
Tear, M. J., & Nielsen, M. (2013). Violent video games and prosocial behavior: Important implications for the applied value of violent video game research. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). New Orleans, LA: 17-19 January [poster]
Tear, M. J., & Nielsen, M. (2012). The priming effect of video games: The sensitivity of prosocial measures to the characteristics of contemporary video games. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (SASP). Adelaide, Australia: 12-14 April.
Tear, M. J. (2011). Video games and aggression: The measurement problem. Presented at the School of Psychology RHD Day. Brisbane, Australia: 16 September.
Thompson, M. B., Tangen, J. M., McCarthy, D., & Tear, M. J. (2010). Ground truth: On certainty in forensic decision-making research. Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society (ANZFSS). Sydney, Australia: 5-9 April.
Tangen, J. M., Thompson, M. B., McCarthy, D., & Tear, M. J. (2010). Enhancing performance in human decision making: The role of similarity in forensic identification. Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society (ANZFSS). Sydney, Australia: 5-9 April
Arnold, D. H., Tear, M. J., Schindel, R., Roseboom, W. (2009). Barry and Gary: Audio-visual speech cue combination. Proceedings of the 36th Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference. Wollongong, 17-19 April, 2009.
Tear, M. J. (2008). Head-mounted displays: Multisensory information response modes.Proceedings of the 14th Annual School of Psychology Honours Conference. The University of Queensland, 27 September, 2008.