Dr Alex Poll

Position: Lecturer
Discipline: Psychology
Location: Berwick Campus, B901
Phone: (03) 4313 7982
Email: a.poll@federation.edu.au

Qualifications

Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) – Swinburne University of Technology – 2011

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) (Psychology) – Swinburne University of Technology – 2012

PhD – Swinburne University of Technology – 2020

Graduate Certificate in Education (tertiary education) – Federation University – 2023

Teaching

Courses

  • Bachelor of Psychological Science
  • Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours)

Biography

Alex is an early-career psychology academic working in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing. Alex Joined Federation University in 2020 after working as a psychology tutor at Swinburne University since 2013.

Areas of expertise

Alex’s research is primarily in the field of social psychology where she uses quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. Broadly, her interests fall under two main areas:

  1. Feminist psychology and women’s experiences. Alex’s PhD explored the definition, measurement, and development of feminist social identity. Using the Feminist Social Identity Scale and Millennial Feminist Identity Development Model developed for her PhD, Alex has since further investigated the role that feminist identity plays in the lives of women, including its impacts on wellbeing, and attitudes towards the use of reusable menstrual products. Alex is also interested in women’s lived experiences more broadly including the impacts of sexism and objectification.
  2. Scholarship of learning and teaching. Alongside her colleague Dr Justin Timora, Alex conducts research aimed at improving the experiences of students at university. Alex is particularly interested in addressing barriers to help-seeking behaviours of students.

Research interests

  • Feminist psychology
  • Women’s experiences
  • Objectification theory
  • Student wellbeing

Supervision

Present doctoral students.

Molly Branson (Federation) - “#nowomanever: An Exploration of Women’s Experiences of Cyber Abuse” – Associate Supervisor

Publications

Refereed journal articles

March, E., Antunovic, J., Poll, A., Dye, J. & Van Doorn, G. (2022). High (in)fidelity: Gender, the dark tetrad, and infidelity. Sexual and Relationship Therapy.

Poll, A. & Critchley, C. (2022). Development and validation of the feminist social identity scale. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs12144-021-02590-x

Refereed conference proceedings

Society of Australasian Social Psychologists Conference 2023, University of Queensland, Noosa. Presentation title: Understanding menstrual product preferences: The impact of self-objectification on willingness to use reusable menstrual products.

Society of Australasian Social Psychologists Conference 2022, Flinders University, Adelaide. Presentation title: Feminist social identity scale: Capturing the complexity of feminist identity.

Society of Australasian Social Psychologists Conference 2019, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Presentation title: Young women’s feminist identity development: Understanding, embodying and enacting.

Associations

Member, Society of Australasian Social Psychologists

Member, Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association