Research Assistant in Developmental Psychology

Location: Stirling Campus
Contract type: Fixed term until 31st December 2027 
Working pattern: Part time (40%FTE)            

The Post

The Faculty of Arts and Humanities, in cooperation with the Faculty of Natural Sciences is offering a 15-month part-time 40% position as Research Assistant on the multidisciplinary research project entitled ‘Agency, Rationality and Epistemic Defeat’ funded by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship scheme.

The Research Assistant will work in collaboration with Dr Giacomo Melis (Philosophy, Principal Investigator), Dr Kresimir Durdevic ( Psychology, Postdoctoral Research Fellow) Dr Eva Rafetseder (Psychology, Co-Investigator) and Dr Zsófia Virányi (Animal Cognition, Co-Investigator) of the Messerli Research Institute (University of Veterinary medicine, Vienna) on a multidisciplinary research project entitled ‘Agency, Rationality and Epistemic Defeat’ funded by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship scheme.

Outline of the Project

The project is articulated in a broadly philosophical and broadly empirical part, which will progress in parallel and will be driven by the interactive work of the core team. The more philosophical part will develop a theory of rational belief-revision that will apply to the various agents discussed in philosophy and cognitive science, and which will focus on the notion of epistemic defeat. The more empirical part will use such theory to design and run novel comparative cognitive tests on pre-verbal children, pigs, and dogs aimed at assessing whether they may be capable of some form of reflective thinking. The experiments with human infants will be designed and executed in the psychology division of the University of Stirling.

Please visit www.ared.stir.ac.uk for more details.

Description of Duties

• Setting up and running experiments with young children, including corresponding with nurseries and managing testing schedules
• Assisting in supervising student research assistants
• Taking responsibility for participant recruitment including establishing and maintaining good relationships required to facilitate this
• Contribute to quantitative data analysis and management of datasets

• Have regular meetings with the project team to track progress, resolve any practical, technical or analytical issues
• Contribute to manuscript preparation as a co-author

Essential Criteria

• Bachelors (minimum 2:1) or Masters degree in Psychology or related fields
• Proficient use of Microsoft software (Word, Excel, Teams, Outlook) and statistical software (R, SPSS, Jamovi or similar) for the analysis of quantitative data
• Experience of experimental data collection with young children
• Strong organisational, data management, and data analysis skills

For further information, including a full description of duties, essential criteria and details on how to apply, please see Vacancy details | University of Stirling

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