Nikki Hayfield

University of the West of England, Psychology, Faculty Member

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Nikki Hayfield is a Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology in the Department of Health and Social Sciences at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK, where she is a member of the Social Science Research Group. Nikki’s research interests include lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual sexualities, identities and relationships. Most recently she has focused on heterosexual and non-heterosexual women’s lived experiences of being childfree by choice. She is a chartered psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society.

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“Friends? Supported. Partner? Not so much …”: Women's experiences of friendships, family, and relationships during perimenopause and menopause

Feminism & psychology, Apr 23, 2024

Once Upon a Time …

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Oct 3, 2017

Using photographs in psychology research on appearance: An exploration of bisexual women’s appearance and visual identity

Recently there has been an increased interest in visual methodologies within psychology, and this... more Recently there has been an increased interest in visual methodologies within psychology, and this paper reports on the use of photographs within semi-structured qualitative interviews with self-identified bisexual women. The key aim of using a photo methodology was to empower the women to be more involved in the interview process, and to provide a focus for discussion. Within these interviews, the women were asked a range of questions about their appearance, with the broad aim of exploring bisexual women’s (lack of) visual identity. We envisaged that a visual methodology would correspond well in the exploration of visual identity, and anticipated that the women’s visual worlds could be brought to life through their photographs (for example, of clothes, social spaces, or of theirs and others’ appearance). The photographs enabled some more participant led interviews, which corresponded well with our feminist approach, which was chosen because of the potential it holds to reclaim, validate, legitimise and name (bisexual) women’s experience. This paper reports on the practical aspects of using photographs within a research project, and reflects upon the ways in which photographs enhanced (and restricted) the research.

The impact of language and culture on gender salience

Languages vary in the information they convey due to cross-linguistic differences in the structur... more Languages vary in the information they convey due to cross-linguistic differences in the structure of linguistic information. According to the Whorfian hypothesis (Whorf, 1956), these cross-linguistic differences can affect speakers' cognitive processes (e.g., perception, memory, categorization). One linguistic feature that demonstrates distinct cross-linguistic differences is gender marking. For example, English speakers commonly code gender of the referent when using third person pronouns (she/he). The same is true of Polish, but in addition to gender information on pronouns, Polish also uses systematic gender information in surnames, job titles and other human descriptors (in a similar way an English speaker makes a distinction between, e.g., actor vs. actress, but for all occupations, whereas most are gender-neutral in English (e.g., accountant). On the other hand, Finnish does not systematically distinguish between males and females in human descriptors, and Finnish uses a gender-neutral animate pronoun 'hän' when referring to males and females. Thus, when referring to animate entities, syntactically, Finnish encodes human referents more like 'people' rather than men/women. These linguistic differences make these three languages (English, Finnish, Polish) ideal test cases for investigations as to whether linguistic differences affect cognitive processes. The fact that Polish, and English to a lesser extent, necessitates its speakers to pay attention to gender information and to retain this information in order to talk about human referents, Polish and English speakers may expend more cognitive resources processing and retaining gender information than Finnish speakers, who can omit this information. In addition to monolingual speakers (e.g., Bylund & Athanasopoulos, 2017; Fausey & Boroditsky, 2011; Kirjavainen, Kite & Piasecki, 2020), studies investigating bilingual/second language speakers have shown Whorfian effects (e.g., Athanasopoulos, 2006; Borodistky, 2001; Cook, et al., 2006). These studi [...]

Civil Partners: The (Re)Configuration of Intimacy in Same-Sex Relationships

An exploration of bisexual, lesbian, and heterosexual women's body dissatisfaction, and body hair and make-up practices

Body image pressures for heterosexual women are well established. However, lesbian body image is ... more Body image pressures for heterosexual women are well established. However, lesbian body image is less well understood, while bisexual women have largely been overlooked with the psychological literature. Further, women's investment in 'traditional' appearance practices associated with femininity are underexplored. The current study explored differences between 472 heterosexual, lesbian, and bisexual women on measures of body satisfaction, body hair practices, and cosmetics use. While there were no significant differences between body satisfaction scores, lesbian and bisexual women had more positive attitudes to body hair, and were less likely to remove hair from particular parts of their bodies, than heterosexual women. Cosmetics use was highest among heterosexual women, significantly lower among bisexual women, and lowest among lesbians. We argue that these results highlight the importance of exploring the distinctiveness of bisexual, lesbian and heterosexual women's appearance concerns and appearance practices.

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