planned projects

positive mental health promotion

Community mental health promotion in Central Lowlands:
Co-designing an equitable well-being research agenda

This project aims to improve community mental health in the Scottish Central Lowlands through co-designing a population survey to evaluate and monitor well-being. The co-design component engages residents from diverse contexts and backgrounds (i.e., those who experience multiple and intersecting health/social inequities) in the selection of factors to measure. This pilot study is the first phase of a 5-year research plan, where the end goal is for strong enough community connections to scale up a sustainable mental health promotion research network in Scotland. We will utilize a systems science approach, embedding co-design principles in primary data collection, analysis, and knowledge translation. We will work with community organizations to identify the levels, needs, and assets of community well-being, which will create the foundation for public mental health survelliance and the development of healthy public policy, practices, and programs.

From Data to Action: Place-Based Wellbeing

This study investigates how individual, community, and geographic factors combine to shape mental well-being and distress across the UK. Linking the Global Flourishing Survey and Understanding Society, it uses advanced multilevel models to identify socioecological risk and resilience patterns. Partnering with community organisations across Tayside, the project co-designs locally relevant mental health priorities, translating data insights into actionable, place-based strategies to promote equitable population well-being.

Social Health: Systems Science for Connected Communities

This 5-year study plan adapts the world’s first public health guidelines for social connection to the Scottish context. Using participatory systems science, it maps community networks across the Central Lowlands and works with local organisations to identify barriers and opportunities for strengthening social connection. The project will generate a national blueprint for socially connected and equitable communities, positioning Scotland as a global leader in social health promotion.

psychological richness

Quantifying the varied life

This methodological project develops new computational and conceptual tools to capture the diversity, balance, and coherence of people’s lived experiences. Drawing on text-mining, entropy indices, and mixed-method validation, it measures how varied and complex an individual’s activities, emotions, and life domains are across time. The approach allows researchers to quantify “experiential richness”—the structural and temporal diversity of daily life—and link it to well-being outcomes. Drawing on computational text analysis, human coding, and entropy-based metrics, the study will generate indices that capture how broad, balanced, and coherent individuals’ lives are across time and domains. By linking these measures with established indicators of well-being, the project will create a reproducible analytic framework for assessing “experiential richness.” In doing so, it advances the measurement of complex, dynamic life patterns and enables future research on how variability contributes to flourishing.

Novelty need satisfaction as a broadening process

This study tests the micro-level mechanisms through which novelty contributes to psychological growth. Building on Broaden-and-Build Theory, it examines whether engaging in novel and interesting activities triggers momentary positive emotions that broaden cognition and resource development over time. Using four-wave longitudinal data and multilevel mediation models, we will test how exposure to novelty shapes attention, curiosity, and meaning over time, integrating both longitudinal and experience-sampling approaches. Conceptually, the project seeks to clarify the micro-level processes by which novelty contributes to psychological flourishing and sustained motivation in everyday life.

positive psychology

The Architecture of Well-Being

This mixed-methods study explores how people define and pursue well-being in everyday life. By asking participants to share their own definitions and tracking daily experiences over ten days, the study examines how the complexity of these definitions shapes motivation and success in daily well-being efforts. Combining thematic coding with experience sampling methods, the research refines theory by situating universal models—such as self-determination and broaden-and-build theories—within the reality of individual variability.

Co-Designing a Positive Activity Intervention in Dundee

This study co-designs and evaluates a positive activity intervention within Dundee’s community mental health infrastructure. It tests how personal and contextual factors—such as personality, motivation, and social support—influence the effectiveness of well-being activities. Using a mixed-methods design, the study integrates evaluation, practitioner feedback, and knowledge mobilisation to inform how community-based positive psychology interventions can be scaled equitably across low-resource settings.

meta-science

Programming Wellbeing

This project develops an open-source R toolkit to automate the processing and analysis of large-scale well-being datasets, such as the UK Household Longitudinal Study and Global Flourishing Study. The toolkit supports reproducible, longitudinal, and cross-national analyses of well-being. Alongside this, the project establishes the Tayside Coding Club, a mentoring community for early career researchers learning open science and data analysis in R. Together, these initiatives strengthen reproducible quantitative research in psychology and beyond.

Network of influence and ontegration in positive psychology

This meta-scientific study maps the intellectual architecture of positive psychology using bibliometric network analysis of over 5,000 articles spanning two decades. It visualizes the connections among key theories, constructs, and research communities, identifying the most influential clusters and cross-disciplinary bridges. The aim is to clarify how ideas, theories, and methodologies have evolved and interacted across the field’s development. Ultimately, the project seeks to provide an empirical foundation for understanding how well-being science is organized—highlighting opportunities for synthesis, collaboration, and conceptual advancement.

Diversity audit of well-being science

This project provides the first large-scale, systematic assessment of diversity and inclusion within empirical well-being research. Through systematic coding of roughly 1,000 empirical studies, we will assess geographic, cultural, and demographic diversity in both participant samples and research teams. The audit will quantify where the field’s evidence base is strongest and where key populations remain underrepresented. The resulting dataset will provide the first quantitative benchmark for diversity in positive psychology, guiding future policy, editorial standards, and funding decisions toward a more equitable global science of well-being.

Replication and reproducibility practices in well-being science

This project evaluates the current state of open and reproducible research practices in well-being science. Using a structured content analysis of published articles from 2010 to 2025, it will document the adoption of key open science indicators such as pre-registration, data and code sharing, replication, and analytic transparency. The study aims to identify barriers and facilitators of methodological reform, situating well-being science within the broader movement toward credibility and cumulative progress in psychology. Its outputs will provide a data-driven roadmap for strengthening rigor and transparency across the field.

Temporal trends in methodological sophistication

This meta-science study investigates how methodological practices in positive psychology have evolved over the past two decades. By coding over 1,200 empirical articles for study design, analytic complexity, and reporting standards, it will trace the field’s progression from early correlational studies to contemporary multilevel, longitudinal, and computational approaches. The project’s goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of methodological change, documenting the field’s ongoing maturation and highlighting areas for future improvement in design, measurement, and analysis.

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