Masi Noor

Biography

• University of Sussex, United Kingdom, Ph.D. in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Forgiveness across Chile and Northern Ireland
• University of Ulster, United Kingdom, BSc (Hons, First Class) Applied Psychology
• Co-founder of the Forgiveness Toolbox (www.theforgivenesstoolbox.com)
• German Abitur
• Born in Kabul, Afghanistan
• Speaks Farsi, German, & Dari

Research and scholarship

I am a social psychologist. My main line of research is to understand the psychology of forgiveness. I study why people forgive, what enables them to forgive and what stops them to forgive. Most centrally, I am interested in studying when forgiveness may heal and when it may actually harm; and how forgiveness is best to be communicated?

To understand the psychology of forgiveness, one has to understand the psychological experiences of victimhood and perpetratorhood. Surprisingly, there is a great deal of overlap between such experiences. One such overlap concerns both parties' motivation to compete over their suffering. Hence, I developed the concept of Competitive Victimhood in 2008 and since then studied it across different conflicts settings, such as Northern Ireland, Chile, and Palestine-Israel. Our work shows that competitive victimhood is a major obstacle to forgiveness and conflict resolution in general.

Public service

The above work has led to a collaboration with the Forgiveness Project, a London-based charity, who kindly helped to me develop a Forgiveness Toolbox based on real-life stories of victims and perpetrators from around the world. The website has so far attracted nearly 17,000 visitors from 141 countries. 

You can listen to my interview on the toolbox with the BBC Word Service's Health Check Programme here: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01lw89n

Motivated Ph.D. candidates are welcome to contact me to discuss possible research ideas along my research interests.   

Successfully completed PhD supervision:

• Mark Carew (2015)
• Caroline Wood (2012)

Teaching

I mainly teach basic and advanced modules on (applied) social psychology, including applied intergroup conflict. 

• Module Leader PSY-10033 Introduction to Social and Developmental Psychology
• Module Team Member PSY-20043 Qualitative & Survey Research Design
• Module Team Member PSY-40077 Advanced Study in Applied Social & Political Psychology

Awards and grants

Awards

• 2013 - Recipient of the ‘Rising Star’ title of the Association of Psychological Science.
• 2011 - Recipient of the Early Career Award of the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence.

Grants

• 2016 - Uncovering laypeople’s beliefs of suicide: Enabling better early suicide detection British Academy (£8,600)
• 2016 - Ph.D. scholarship grant from Liverpool John Moores University (£42,000)
• 2015 - Can real-life drama protect LGBT adolescents from stigma?
• Richard Benjamin Trust (£10,000)
• 2015- Determinants of intergroup contact quality in mixed physical ability context 
• British Academy (£10,000)
• 2015 - Reviving the practice of field experiments: Developing a network of field researchers European Association of Social Psychology (2,000 Euro)
• 2014 - International conference on collective victimhood in Verona, Italy 
• European Association of Social Psychology (6,000 Euro)
• 2013 - Skills acquisition & development of collaborative research network at the Dept. of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
• British Academy (£10,000)
• 2012 - Ph.D. scholarship grant from Christ Church University (£36,000)
• 2010 - Travel grant to develop collaborative research network in Israel
• Tel Aviv Yaffo Academic College in Israel ($6,900) 
• 2008 - Ph.D. scholarship grant from Christ Church University (£30,000)
• 2008 - Competitive Victimhood & Forgiveness in post-Pinochet Chile British Academy (£6,000)

Roles (editorial and Keele-based)

Keele roles

• MSc Applied Social and Political Psychology Programme Lead
• Research Group Leader (Social Psychological Research Group)

Editorial

• Incoming Co-Editor in Chief at the European Journal of Social Psychology (2021-)
• Associate Editor at the European Journal of Social Psychology (2018-2020)
• Virtual Special Issue Editor at Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (2017-2020)
• Member of the Editorial Advisory Board (History/Philosophy) at Social and Personality Psychology Compass (2020-)