Dr Luiz Silva Souza

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Luiz Silva Souza
About
Teaching and learning
Research
Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact
Leadership and management

About

I trained as a social psychologist in Brazil with a PhD internship at Aix-Marseille University, in France. My teaching, research and knowledge exchange activities have centred on social psychology, health psychology, and group dynamics. I investigated the social representations and practices toward alcoholism in Primary Health Care. In collaboration with a Primary Health Care Centre, I implemented health promotion groups focused on alcoholism and masculinity. My current research focuses on the social representations of Covid-19 and the community responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. I am interested in social representations, social identities, social practices, participant observation, psychosocial interventions, action research, the social psychology of human-animal relations, veganism, and social movements. I am enthusiastic about the application of social psychology to real-world problems and the contribution of critical social psychology to the analysis of ideology in daily life.

Academic responsibilities

Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology

Qualifications

  • PhD in Psychology, Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil
  • MSc in Psychology, Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil
  • BSc in Psychology, Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil

Teaching and learning

Undergraduate courses taught

Postgraduate courses taught

Research

Souza, L. G. S., & O'Dwyer, E. (2022). Social Distance and Social Connection: A Psychosocial Approach to the Community Responses to Covid-19. In E. O'Dwyer, & L. G. S. Souza (Eds.). Psychosocial Perspectives on Community Responses to Covid-19. Networks of Trust and Social Change (pp. 1-12). Routledge.

O'Dwyer, E., & Souza, L. G. S. (2022). Psychological, social, and political implications of UK Covid-19 mutual aid groups. In E. O'Dwyer & L. G. S. Souza (Eds.). Psychosocial perspectives on community responses to Covid-19: Networks of trust and social change (pp. 133-144). Routledge.

E. O'Dwyer & L. G. S. Souza (Eds.). (2022). Psychosocial perspectives on community responses to Covid-19: Networks of Trust and Social Change. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003301905

Souza, L. G. S., & O'Dwyer, E. (2022). Animal rights, environment, or health? Effects of argument type and dissonance on the attitudes toward the consumption of animals. Appetite, 176, 106129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2022.106129

O'Dwyer, E., Souza, L. G. S., & Beascoechea-Seguí, N. (2022). Rehearsing post-Covid-19 citizenship: Social representations of UK Covid-19 mutual aid. British Journal of Social Psychology, 61(4), 1245-1262.  https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12535

Souza, L. G. S., O'Dwyer, E., Coutinho, S. M. S., Chaudhuri, S., Rocha, L. L., & Souza, L. P. (2021). Social representations and ideology: Theories of common sense about COVID-19 among middle-class Brazilians and their ideological implications. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 9(1), 105-122. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.6069

O'Dwyer, E., Beascoechea-Seguí, N., & Souza, L. G. S. (2021). The amplifying effect of perceived group politicization: Effects of group perceptions and identification on anxiety and coping self-efficacy among members of UK COVID-19 mutual aid groups. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 32(3), 423-437. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2582

Hanson, K., O'Dwyer, E., Chaudhuri, S., Souza, L. G. S., & Vandrevala, T. (2021). Mitigating the identity and health threat of COVID-19: Perspectives of middle-class South Asians living in the UK. Journal of Health Psychology, 27(9), 2147-2160. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053211027626

Souza, L. G. S., Atkinson, A., & Montague, B. (2020). Perceptions about veganism. (Peer-Reviewed Technical Report) Birmingham, UK: The Vegan Society. 50p. https://www.vegansociety.com/get-involved/research/research-projects/perceptions-about-veganism

Souza, L. G. S. (2020). Places from which we speak: The concepts of consensual and reified universes and the interpretation of the outcomes obtained with ALCESTE and IRAMUTEQ. Papers on Social Representations, 29(2), 11.1-11.25. https://psr.iscte-iul.pt/index.php/PSR/article/view/504/466

Areas of specialism

  • Social Psychology
  • Health Psychology

Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact

Societal impact

From 2010 to 2013, I developed a program of research and psychosocial intervention in partnership with a Brazilian primary health care Centre. This program included the investigation of social representations and social practices toward alcoholism, masculinity, and male patients, as well as action research. In partnership with health care professionals, I set up a series of interventions to approach the working-class male population covered by the mentioned health Centre, especially alcoholic men (action research published as a peer-reviewed article: https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-3703001562013). This research program included quantitative and qualitative studies and contributed to the construction of new spaces of care for the male population living in the nearby underserved communities and played an important role in challenging the gender (masculinity) stereotypes constructed by the health professionals themselves. 

From 2013 to 2018, I coordinated the practices of psychology students in educational and social welfare services in collaboration with their professional teams, in the city of Campos, Brazil. The psychosocial interventions included professional guidance workshops with students in secondary education and operative groups with mothers of people with learning disabilities and with adolescents at risk. 

Academic impact 

  • Associate Editor of the journal Papers on Social Representations, published by the ISCTE-IUL (Portugal), LSE (UK), and Johannes Kepler Universität (Austria). 
  • Consulting Editor of the journal Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations, published by the PHAIR Society. 
  • Member of the Vegan Society (UK) Researcher Network. 
  • Researcher invited by The Vegan Society (UK) to coordinate the study Perceptions about Veganism (2019, technical report). 
  • From 2012 to 2016, at the Postgraduate Program in Psychology of the Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil, supervision of one concluded PhD thesis and five concluded Masters dissertations. 

Leadership and management

Head of Department at Fluminense Federal University, Brazil (2017-2018)

Coordinator of Practices in Psychology (students' internships) at Fluminense Federal University, Brazil (2020-2022)