I am an interdisciplinary researcher broadly interested in human social competition. I'm particularly interested in how socio-ecological factors shape competitive strategies (e.g., inequality, population density, reputation), and how, in-turn, competition influences cooperation, moral behaviours, and fertility decisions.
Before joining Northumbria University as an Assistant Professor in 2022, I was a Lecturer in social and health psychology at Kingston University, London. I also worked as as postdoctoral researcher at the University of Waterloo with Dr Igor Grossmann on a variety of topics, including cultural change, forecasting, and wise reasoning. I previously completed my PhD in 2020 at the University of Guelph, advised by Dr Pat Barclay, investigating when and why people make cooperative decisions.
Broadly, I am an interdisciplinary researcher interested in how social, situational, and ecological factors shape human social competition (i.e., how, when, and why we compete), and, in-turn, how competition influences people's behaviours and decisions. I am interested in a variety of topics, including cooperation, cultural change, inequality, morality, reputation, social signals, and wise reasoning.
- Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
- Affordances in Social Ecologies: A Biological Markets Extension, Rotella, A., Twardus, O., Barclay, P. 7 Oct 2025, In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
- Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences, Aczel, B., Szaszi, B., Clelland, H., Haigh, M., Rotella, A. 31 Oct 2025, In: Nature
- Observation moderates the moral licensing effect: A meta-analytic test of interpersonal and intrapsychic mechanisms, Rotella, A., Jung, J., Chinn, C., Barclay, P. 1 May 2025
- Observation moderates the moral licensing effect: A meta-analytic test of interpersonal and intrapsychic mechanisms, Rotella, A., Jung, J., Chinn, C., Barclay, P. 8 Jul 2025, In: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Moral obligation, autonomous motivation, and vaccine hesitancy: Highlighting moral obligation increases reactance in hesitant individuals, Pavey, L., Rotella, A., Vallee-Tourangeau, G. 1 Nov 2024, In: Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being
- The Wise Mind Balances the Abstract and the Concrete, Grossmann, I., Peetz, J., Dorfman, A., Rotella, A., Buehler, R. 28 Jun 2024, In: Open Mind
- Insights into the accuracy of social scientists’ forecasts of societal change, Grossmann, I., Rotella, A., Hutcherson, C., Sharpinskyi, K., Varnum, M., Achter, S., Dhami, M., Guo, X., Kara-Yakoubian, M., Mandel, D., Raes, L., Tay, L., Vie, A., Wagner, L., Adamkovic, M., Arami, A., Arriaga, P., Bandara, K., Banik, G., Bartoš, F., Baskin, E., Bergmeir, C., Bialek, M., Børsting, C., Browne, D., Caruso, E., Chen, R., Chie, B., Chopik, W., Collins, R., Cong, C., Conway, L., Davis, M., Day, M., Dhaliwal, N., Durham, J., Dziekan, M., Elbaek, C., Shuman, E., Fabrykant, M., Firat, M., Fong, G., Frimer, J., Gallegos, J., Goldberg, S., Gollwitzer, A., Goyal, J., Graf-Vlachy, L., Gronlund, S., Hafenbrädl, S. 1 Apr 2023, In: Nature Human Behaviour
- On the Accuracy, Media Representation, and Public Perception of Psychological Scientists’ Judgments of Societal Change, Hutcherson, C., Sharpinskyi, K., Varnum, M., Rotella, A., Wormley, A., Tay, L., Grossmann, I. 1 Nov 2023, In: American Psychologist
- Public engagement on childhood vaccination: Democratizing policy decision-making through public deliberation, Chuong, K., Rotella, A., Cooper, E., O'Doherty, K. 29 Apr 2023, Democratizing Risk Governance, London, Springer
- Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data, Delios, A., Clemente, E., Wu, T., Tan, H., Wang, Y., Gordon, M., Viganola, D., Chen, Z., Dreber, A., Johannesson, M., Pfeiffer, T., Uhlmann, E., Al-Aziz, A., Abraham, A., Trojan, J., Adamkovic, M., Agadullina, E., Ahn, J., Akinci, C., Akkas, H., Albrecht, D., Alzahawi, S., Amaral-Baptista, M., Anand, R., Ang, K., Anseel, F., Aruta, J., Ashraf, M., Baker, B., Bao, X., Baskin, E., Bathula, H., Bauman, C., Bavolar, J., Bayraktar, S., Beckman, S., Benjamin, A., Brown, S., Buckley, J., Buitrago, R., Bution, J., Byrd, N., Carrera, C., Caruso, E., Chen, M., Chen, L., Cicerali, E., Cohen, E., Crede, M., Rotella, A. 26 Jul 2022, In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Aashira Sial The ‘Mean Girl’ effect: Investigating how economic inequality fosters competition and aggression in women Start Date: 01/10/2024
- Psychology PhD June 30 2020
- Psychology MSc September 15 2015
- Biological Sciences BSc (Hons) June 07 2011
