Handbook of Social Media Use Online Relationships, Security, Privacy, and Society Volume 2. Volume 2

Authors

John McAlaney Associate Professor of Psychology, Bournemouth University, UK. John McAlaney is a Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Scientist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Bournemouth University. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Stirling, his MSc at the University of Strathclyde and then his PhD at the University of West of Scotland in 2007. Dr. McAlaney's PhD was on the topic of social psychology and substance use, looking particularly at misperceptions of peer norms. Following this he worked on an AERC funded post-doc position at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before moving onto a lecturing post at the University of Bradford in 2008. He joined the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University in 2014. Since joining Bournemouth he has collaborated extensively with colleagues in the Department of Computing and Informatics to explore psychological factors of cyber security, including participation in hacking and hacktivism, group dynamics in cyber security actors and decision making processes in relation to phishing emails and other mediums. As part of this work he collaborates extensively with government, military and commercial organisations. In 2018 he led the authorship of the British Psychological Society's briefing paper on the role of psychology in informing cybersecurity practices.