PhD Topic: Why and how the value of outsiders erodes
PhD Supervisors: Dr Tom Reader and Professor Alex Gillespie
Alex is an applied behavioural scientist. She has worked in or founded/led behavioural science teams at Which?, the Financial Conduct Authority and NatWest. She has an MSc from UCL in Cognitive and Decision science and is a published author of ‘Poles Apart’ - on why people divide and how to bring them back together. The book emerged from Alex and her co-authors’ 'Changed my Mind' podcast and subsequently led to an online course with Cambridge University.
Alex’s PhD research is on why the considerable value of outsiders erodes. It starts with the observation that for thousands of years, humans have relied on outsiders to accurately evaluate other individuals, groups or activities, to diagnose problems and improve the status quo. For example: Juries; Boards; Audit; Judges; academic peer review; 360-degree performance evaluations; therapy; consultants and regulators. Although the concept of outsiders (and insiders) has different names across a range of social sciences (including psychology, sociology, anthropology and political science), in the broadest sense it is about how we construct similarities and differences between ourselves and others.
Regulators are an exemplar of how outsiders have been instantiated in institutional form across our social, environmental and financial systems to provide independent, objective evaluation of others. Regulators touch every aspect of our lives, yet they are largely invisible. We only notice these sleeping giants when they fail, by virtue of the institutions they regulate blowing up or collapsing.
Alex’s thesis focuses on why and how the value of outsiders is eroded in the context of regulatory failure. She hypothesises that it is because regulators, in some form, gradually stop being outsiders and become more like insiders. This is an important and timely topic; because of their unique backstop role controlling risks that lead to societal, economic or environmental catastrophe, when regulators fail the impact can be amplified beyond a single organization to whole markets or systems.
Alex has two children and tries to run occasionally.