Dr Alex Gillespie

I was born in Norway, grew up in Ireland, did a B.A. in Psychology at Trinity College (Dublin), an MSc in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and a PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge. After finishing my PhD in 2004 I began lecturing at the University of Cambridge, and then moved to the University of Stirling in 2005.

My core interest is communication, especially in relation to the coordination of joint activity. Put simply, it seems to me that many big contemporary problems are essentially problems of social coordination. At a societal level, I have studied misunderstandings and trust/distrust between groups. At an interpersonal level, I have studied perspective taking in relation to situated tasks. And, at an individual level I have been interested in internal dialogues and the social resources used to solve problems of action. I also like to use these ideas to reflect on the process of research itself as a collaborative activity (pdf).

At a theoretical level I am committed to the early pragmatists (Mead, Dewey and James), and I like to mix their work with that of Bakhtin and Vygotsky. But, in accordance with a pragmatist epistemological stance, I evaluate theoretical knowledge in terms of its more practical consequences.

The aim of my research is to produce enabling knowledge. To this end I have worked with colleagues to produce a package to facilitate communication with people with communication disorders (funded by the ESRC and winner of an Advancing Healthcare Award 2010) and a novel technology called Guide (with new CSO funding, 2010-2013) which simulates the interactive verbal support provided by carers to people with cognitive impairments and experts to novices to enable independent activity.

Recently I was co-chair of the Organising Committee for the Fifth International Conference on the Dialogical Self. We have also just finished constructing the on-line and open-access Frederic Bartlett Archive funded by the British Academy.

I am on the editorial boards of Culture & Psychology, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, The Journal of Social, Evolutionary, & Cultural Psychology, Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, and Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. I have been invited to give talks and attend workshops in many places including the Italiano per Studi Philosofici Instituto, University of Neuchatel, University of Cambridge, University of Chemnitz (ppt), Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, University College Dublin, Château de Schengen, University of St. Andrews, University of Uppsala, Aberystwyth University (video podcast), and the University of Oslo.

I have also been involved in some Psy-Art collaborations with colleagues Robb Mitchell and Brian O'Neill. We have expanded upon Stanley Milgram's work on 'cyranoids' and have done a solo show for Generator Projects in Dundee and a joint show in the St Andrews Museum and a presentation for the Thursday Club, Goldsmiths Graduate School, and recently contributed to the St Unicorn's trust performance.

Marková, I. & Gillespie, A. (Eds.) (under contract). Trust and Conflict: Representations, Culture and Dialogue. London: Routledge.

Gillespie, A., Murphy, J., & Place, M. (minor revisions). Divergences of perspective between people with aphasia and their family caregivers. Aphasiology.

Martin, J. & Gillespie, A. (in press). A neo-Meadian approach to human agency: Relating the social and the psychological in the ontogenesis of perspective-coordinating persons. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science.

Gillespie, A. & Cornish, F. (2010). What can be said? Identity as a constraint on knowledge production. Papers on Social Representations 19, 5.1-5.13.

Gillespie, A. (in press). The dialogical turn: Turning the corner? Theory & Psychology

O'Neill, B. Moran, K. & Gillespie, A. (2010). Scaffolding rehabilitation behaviour using a voice-mediated assistive technology for cognition. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 18, 1-19.

Gillespie, A. & Cornish, F. (2010). Intersubjectivity: Towards a dialogical analysis. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaivour , 40, 19-46.

Gillespie, A. (2010). Position exchange: The social development of agency. New Ideas in Psychology.

Gillespie, A. & Zittoun, T. (2010). Using resources: Conceptualising the mediation and reflective use of tools and signs. Culture & Psychology, 16, 37-62.

Gillespie, A. & Zittoun, T. (in press). Studying the movement of thought. In Aaro Toomela and Jaan Valsiner (Eds.), Methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray?

Zittoun, T. & Gillespie, A. (in press). Using diaries and self-writings as data in psychological research. In Emily Abbey & Seth Surgan (Eds), Developing Methods in Psychology

Gillespie, A. (in press). Self. In N. Azari et al. (Eds), Encyclopaedia of Sciences and Religions. New York: Springer.

Cornish, F. & Gillespie, A. (2009). A pragmatist approach to the problem of knowledge in health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 14 (6), 800-809.

Gillespie, A. (2009). Autobiography and identity: Malcolm X as author and hero. In R. Terrill, The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gillespie, A. (2009). The intersubjective nature of symbols. In B. Wagoner (Ed.), Symbolic Transformations. London: Routledge.

Zittoun, T., Gillespie, A. & Cornish, F. (2009). Fragmentation or differentiation: Questioning the crisis in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 43, 104-115.

O’Neill, B. & Gillespie, A. (2009). Framework for conceptualisation of assistive technology for cognition. Brain Impairment, 10, 2, 210.

Gillespie, A. (2009). Returning to James: A methodological challenge. Psychology & Society, 2, 33-35. (link)

O’Neill, B. & Gillespie, A. (2009). Theory and efficacy of a voice mediated assistive technology to support performance of complex sequences. Brain Impairment, 10, 212-213

Gillespie, A. (2008). Social representations, alternative representations and semantic barriers. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 38, 4, 376-391.

O’Neill, B. & Gillespie, A. (2008 ). Simulating naturalistic instruction: The case for a voice mediated interface for assistive technology for cognition. Journal of Assistive Technology, 2, 22-31.

Gillespie, A. Cornish, F., Aveling, E. & Zittoun, T. (2008). Conflicting community commitments: A dialogical analysis of a British woman's World War II diaries. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 35-52.

Aveling, E-L. & Gillespie, A. (2008). Negotiating multiplicity: Adaptive asymmetries within second generation Turks’ ‘society of mind’. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 21, 200-222.

Gillespie, A. (2007). Collapsing Self/Other positions: Identification through differentiation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 579-595.

Cornish, F., Gillespie, A., Zittoun, T. & Baucal, A. (2007). Editorial introduction. Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Science, 41, 121-123.

Marková, I. & Gillespie, A. (Eds.) (2007). Trust and distrust: Socio-cultural perspectives. (Monograph series, Advances in cultural psychology). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. (review)

Zittoun, T., Baucal, A., Cornish, F. & Gillespie, A. (2007). Collaborative research, knowledge and emergence. Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Science, 41, 208-217.

Wagoner, B., Gillespie, A. & Duveen, G. (2007). Bartlett in the digital age. The Psychologist, 20.

Zittoun, T., Cornish, F., Gillespie, A. & Aveling, E.-L. (2007). Using social knowledge: A case study of a diarist’s meaning-making during World War II. In T. Sugiman, K. Gergen & W. Wagner (eds.) Meaning in action. Springer Verlag.

Marková, I., Linell, P., & Gillespie, A. (2007). Trust and distrust in society. In I. Marková & A. Gillespie, Trust and distrust: Sociocultural perspectives. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Gillespie, A. (2007). Trust in everyday interaction. In Ivana Marková and Alex Gillespie (Eds.), Trust and distrust: Sociocultural perspectives. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Gillespie, A. (2007). The intersubjective dynamics of trust, distrust and manipulation. In Ivana Marková and Alex Gillespie (Eds.), Trust and distrust: Sociocultural perspectives. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Gillespie, A. (2007). In the other we trust: Buying souvenirs in Ladakh, north India. In Ivana Marková and Alex Gillespie (Eds.), Trust and distrust: Sociocultural perspectives. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Zittoun, T., Aveling, E-L., Gillespie, A., & Cornish, F. (in press). People in transitions in worlds in transition: Ambivalence in the transition to womanhood during WWII. In A. Bastos, K. Uriko and J. Valsiner (Eds.), Cultural Dynamics of Women’s Lives. Rome: Carlo Amore Edizioni.

Zittoun, T, Gillespie, A., Cornish, F. & Psaltis, C. (2007). The metaphor of the triangle in theories of human development. Human Development, 50, 208-229.

Cornish, F., Zittoun, T. & Gillespie, A. (2007). A cultural psychological reflection on collaborative research. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8, 3, art. 21. (link)

Gillespie, A. (2007). The social basis of self-reflection. In Jaan Valsiner and Alberto Rosa (Eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Socio-Cultural Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (review)

Gillespie, A. (2007). Time, Self and the Other: The striving tourist in Ladakh, north India. In Livia Simao and Jaan Valsiner (eds) Otherness in question: Development of the self. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. (review)

Gillespie, A. (2006). Becoming other: From social interaction to self-reflection. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. (review 1, review 2, review3 )

Gillespie, A. (2006). Descartes’ demon: A dialogical analysis of Meditations on First Philosophy. Theory & Psychology, 16, 761-781.

Gillespie, A. (2006). Games and the development of perspective taking. Human Development, 49, 87-92.

Gillespie, A. (2006). Tourist photography and the reverse gaze. Ethos, 34 (3), 343-366.

Gillespie, A. (2005). G.H. Mead: Theorist of the social act. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 35 (1), 19-39.

Gillespie, A. (2005). Malcolm X and his autobiography: Identity development and self-narration. Culture & Psychology, 11(1), 77-88.

Gillespie, A. (2005). Giving the future form: Non-reflective and reflective uses of symbolic resources. In A. Gülerce, I. Steauble, A. Hofmeister, G. Saunders and J. Kaye (Eds), Theoretical Psychology. Toronto: Captus Press.

Gillespie, A. (2004). The Mystery of GH Mead’s first book. Theory & Psychology 14 (3), 423-425.

Gillespie, A. (2003). Supplementarity and surplus: Moving between the dimensions of otherness. Culture & Psychology 9 (3), 209-220.

Zittoun, T., Duveen, G., Gillespie, A., Ivinson, G. & Psaltis, C. (2003). The use of symbolic resources in developmental transitions. Culture & Psychology, 9 (4), 415-448.

Gillespie, A, Peltzer, K & MacLachlan, M. (2000). Returning refugees: Psychosocial problems and mediators of mental health among Malawian returnees. Journal of Mental Health 9 (2), 165-178.