Dr Liz Gulliford is Associate Professor in the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. She currently teaches on the University of Birmingham’s MA in Character Education. She is also an Associate Fellow of the Oxford Character Project. Liz has an interdisciplinary background with an MA in Theology (Trinity College Oxford), MPhil in Theology and Religious Studies (Queens’ College, Cambridge), and a BPS-accredited BSc in Psychology from Anglia Ruskin University. Her PhD (Queens’ College, Cambridge, 2011) established a firm, critical foundation for theoretical and practical work in positive psychology, positive education, and character education, upon which she has progressively built an international reputation.
During her tenure as an Associate Professor in Positive Psychology at the University of Northampton (2018 – 2023), Liz was Co-Pi on a John Templeton Foundation funded research project on ‘The role of exemplar narratives in cultivating character’ (2019 – 2023), which was part of a larger network grant on moral exemplars.
Liz has carried out extensive conceptual and empirical work on gratitude, forgiveness, hope, optimism, courage, compassion, virtue ethics, moral development, positive psychology, positive education, character education and exemplarism. She has published in a wide range of journals in psychology, education, and philosophy. She has also given numerous invited presentations internationally to both academic and lay audiences.
Email: l.z.gulliford@bham.ac.uk
Telephone: 0121 414 4813
- FHEA (2018)
- PhD Queens’ College, University of Cambridge (2011)
- BSc Psychology (Hons), Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (2003), accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS)
- MPhil Theology and Religious Studies, Queens’ College, University of Cambridge (1999)
- BA (Hons), now MA, Theology, Trinity College, University of Oxford
Park, R., Brooks, E., & Gulliford, L. (2026). Character and Competence: A Prototype Analysis of Good Leadership in UK Business. International Studies of Management & Organization, 56(3), 333-352.
Maile, A. J., Brooks, E., Gulliford, L., & Park, R. (2025). Tech Ethics, Organizational Values, and Ethical Work: Insights from a Qualitative Study of Five UK-Based Digital Technology Businesses: Journal of
Brooks, E., Coates, O., & Gulliford, L. (2024). The use of biographical narratives in exemplarist moral education. Journal of Moral Education, 53(1), 176-194.
Gulliford, L., Brooks, E., & Coates, O. (2023). Symposium Introduction: The Pedagogical Potential of Exemplar Narratives in Moral Development and Moral Education. Educational Theory, 73(5), 692.
Morgan, B., Gulliford, L., & Waters, L. (2022). Taking “thanks” for granted: A cross-cultural exploration of gratitude in the UK and Australia. Cross-Cultural Research, 56(2-3), 185-227.
Gulliford, L., & Morgan, B. (2021). The concept of gratitude in philosophy and psychology: an update. Zeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie, 4(1), 201-212.
Gulliford, L., Morgan, B., & Jordan, K. (2021). A prototype analysis of virtue. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(4), 536-550.
Gulliford, L., Morgan, B., Hemming, E., & Abbott, J. (2019). Gratitude, self-monitoring and social intelligence: A prosocial relationship?. Current psychology, 38, 1021-1032.
Darnell, C., Gulliford, L., Kristjánsson, K., & Paris, P. (2019). Phronesis and the knowledge-action gap in moral psychology and moral education: A new synthesis?. Human Development, 62(3), 101-129.
Gulliford, L., & Roberts, R. C. (2018). Exploring the “unity” of the virtues: The case of an allocentric quintet. Theory & Psychology, 28(2), 208-226.
Morgan, B., Gulliford, L., & Kristjánsson, K. (2017). A new approach to measuring moral virtues: The Multi-Component Gratitude Measure. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 179-189.
Morgan, B., Gulliford, L., & Kristjánsson, K. (2014). Gratitude in the UK: A new prototype analysis and a cross-cultural comparison. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(4), 281-294.
Gulliford, L., Morgan, B., & Kristjánsson, K. (2013). Recent work on the concept of gratitude in philosophy and psychology. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 47, 285-317.