Professor Thomas Webb
BA, MSc, PhD
School of Psychology
Professor of Psychology


Full contact details
School of Psychology
Floor G
Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences (ICOSS)
219 Portobello
Sheffield
S1 4DP
- Research interests
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Research interests
I am a social psychologist, interested in self-regulation and behaviour change. Specifically, I am interested in how people achieve their goals and make changes to their behaviour.
The usual answer is that people need to be motivated. However, . In short, and is likely paved with good intentions.
As a result, much of my research to date has investigated how the effects of motivation can be boosted by strategies such as , responding with self-compassion to lapses, or forming specific plans - known as "implementation intentions" - that link good opportunities to act with suitable responses to those opportunities.
Current research
I am part of the Leadership Team for (BR-UK, funded by the ESRC) and work with a number of organisations to understand behaviour in various contexts.
For example, I am interested in strategies for reducing single use plastics and am part of large multidisciplinary projects that bring together scientists from across the 9 1免费版下 with stakeholders across Europe. You can read more about our current project (Buddie Pack) and watch a video about the Many Happy Returns project .
I work with Purina to support dog owners to keep their pets healthy. You can download a free eBook describing how we are using behavioural science to tackle obesity in pets and hear me speculate about why the owners of pets may not protect them against fleas .
Click on the following links to hear me talk about my research on , , and .
- Publications
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Show: Featured publications All publications
Featured publications
Journal articles
All publications
Journal articles
Chapters
Conference proceedings papers
Reports
Theses / Dissertations
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
Preprints
- Research group
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Current postgraduate students
- Poppy James
- Xavier McNally
- Michael Pan
- Laurynas Rutkauskas
- Alisha Suhag
- Grants
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- 2023 - 2028: (BR-UK)
- 2022-2026: Business-driven systemic solutions for sustainable plastic packaging reuse schemes in mass market applications ()
- Teaching activities
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I teach social psychology at Level 1 (PSY1001) and Level 2 (PSY2001) and supervise Undergraduate research projects (PSY346) and MSc projects (PSY6009 / PSY6110 / PSY6233)
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am currently Associate Editor for and am on the Editorial Boards of:
I was formerly Associate Editor at the (2018-2019), the (2010-2014) and (2016-2017).
- PhD Opportunities
I am not currently accepting applications for PhD study.
We advertise PhD opportunities (Funded or Self-Funded) on
For further information, please see the department PhD Opportunities page.