Dr Amber Copeland
BSc, MSc, PhD
School of Medicine and Population Health
Research Fellow
A.copeland@sheffield.ac.uk
Regent Court (ScHARR)
Full contact details
Dr Amber Copeland
School of Medicine and Population Health
Regent Court (ScHARR)
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA
School of Medicine and Population Health
Regent Court (ScHARR)
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA
- Profile
-
I am a Research Fellow in the Sheffield Addictions Research Group, funded by the Wellcome Trust. My background is in Psychology, and my research has largely focused on understanding the cognitive mechanisms that underlie behaviour change and recovery from addiction, with applications to alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis use. I have been at the University of Sheffield since 2018, joining the School of Medicine and Population Health in 2025.
I recently secured funding to develop a new computational model to explore how environmental factors influence people’s attempts to reduce their alcohol consumption, and to use this model to appraise novel alcohol policies. The project combines two computational approaches: drift-diffusion models, which capture immediate, moment-to-moment decision-making processes, and agent-based models, which simulate how individual decisions aggregate into population-level trends over time. While my project focuses on alcohol, the modelling infrastructure I develop will be adaptable to other public health challenges, including diet, vaping, and gambling.
- Qualifications
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- PhD in Psychology (University of Sheffield)
- MSc in Research Methods (University of Liverpool)
- BSc in Psychology (University of Liverpool)
- Research interests
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- Behavioural Economics
- Conceptual Modelling
- Individual & Population-Level Modelling
- Policy Appraisal
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood.. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. View this article in WRRO
- The effect of proportional pricing on alcohol purchasing in two online experiments. Addiction, 120(5), 860-870. View this article in WRRO
- The iterative development and refinement of health psychology theories through formal, dynamical systems modelling: a scoping review and initial expert-derived ‘best practice’ recommendations. Health Psychology Review, 19(1), 1-44. View this article in WRRO
- Value-based decision-making in regular alcohol consumers following experimental manipulation of alcohol value. Addictive Behaviors, 156. View this article in WRRO
- Modeling the value-based decision to consume alcohol in response to emotional experiences. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 31(5), 920-932. View this article in WRRO
- Recovery from nicotine addiction: a diffusion model decomposition of value-based decision-making in current smokers and ex-smokers. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 25(7), 1269-1276. View this article in WRRO
- Meaning in life: investigating protective and risk factors for harmful alcohol consumption. Addiction Research and Theory, 31(3), 191-200. View this article in WRRO
- Behavioral economic and value-based decision-making constructs that discriminate current heavy drinkers versus people who reduced their drinking without treatment. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 37(1), 132-143. View this article in WRRO
- Methodological issues with value-based decision-making (VBDM) tasks: The effect of trial wording on evidence accumulation outputs from the EZ drift-diffusion model. Cogent Psychology, 9(1). View this article in WRRO
- Raising the bar: improving methodological rigour in cognitive alcohol research. Addiction, 116(11), 3243-3251. View this article in WRRO
- Raising the Bar: Improving Methodological Rigour in Cognitive Alcohol Research.
- The association between meaning in life and harmful drinking is mediated by individual differences in self-control and alcohol value. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 11. View this article in WRRO
Book chapters
- Recovery from addiction: A synthesis of perspectives from behavioral economics, psychology, and decision modeling, The Handbook of Alcohol Use (pp. 563-579). Elsevier
Conference proceedings
- A diffusion model decomposition of value-based decision-making in regular drinkers following experimental manipulation of alcohol demand. ALCOHOL-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH, Vol. 47 (pp 75-75)
Preprints
- Attentional Bias and Tobacco Smoking Frequency: A Reflection on Bartlett et al. (2022), Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood, Center for Open Science.
- Attentional Bias and Tobacco Smoking Frequency: A Reflection on Bartlett et al. (2022), Center for Open Science.
- Attentional Bias and Tobacco Smoking Frequency: A Reflection on Bartlett et al. (2022), Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood, Center for Open Science.
- How people decide to consume (more) alcohol when feeling stressed, Center for Open Science.
- How people decide to consume (more) alcohol when feeling stressed, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in people with and without history of cannabis use: A drift–diffusion model approach, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in people with and without history of cannabis use: A drift–diffusion model approach, Center for Open Science.
- The iterative development and refinement of health psychology theories through formal, dynamical systems modelling: A scoping review and initial expert-derived ‘best practice’ recommendations, Center for Open Science.
- The iterative development and refinement of health psychology theories through formal, dynamical systems modelling: A scoping review and initial expert-derived ‘best practice’ recommendations, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in regular alcohol consumers following experimental manipulation of alcohol value, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in regular alcohol consumers following experimental manipulation of alcohol value, Center for Open Science.
- The effect of proportional pricing on hypothetical alcohol purchasing in two online experiments, Center for Open Science.
- The effect of proportional pricing on hypothetical alcohol purchasing in two online experiments, Center for Open Science.
- Recovery from nicotine addiction: A diffusion model decomposition of value-based decision-making in current smokers and ex-smokers, Center for Open Science.
- Recovery from nicotine addiction: A diffusion model decomposition of value-based decision-making in current smokers and ex-smokers, Center for Open Science.
- Modeling the value-based decision to consume alcohol in response to emotional experiences, Center for Open Science.
- Modeling the value-based decision to consume alcohol in response to emotional experiences, Center for Open Science.
- Behavioral economic and value-based decision-making constructs that discriminate current heavy drinkers versus people who reduced their drinking without treatment, Center for Open Science.
- Behavioral economic and value-based decision-making constructs that discriminate current heavy drinkers versus people who reduced their drinking without treatment, Center for Open Science.
- Meaning in life: Investigating protective and risk factors for harmful alcohol consumption, Center for Open Science.
- Meaning in life: Investigating protective and risk factors for harmful alcohol consumption, Center for Open Science.
- Methodological issues with value-based decision-making (VBDM) tasks: the effect of trial wording on evidence accumulation outputs from the EZ drift-diffusion model, Center for Open Science.
- Raising the Bar: Improving Methodological Rigour in Cognitive Alcohol Research, Center for Open Science.
- The association between meaning in life and harmful drinking is mediated by individual differences in self-control and alcohol value, Center for Open Science.
- The association between meaning in life and harmful drinking is mediated by individual differences in self-control and alcohol value, Center for Open Science.
- Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood.. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. View this article in WRRO
- Grants
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2025–2030: A novel interdisciplinary approach to understanding how contextual factors influence alcohol consumption. Wellcome Trust (£591,755). Principal Investigator.
2022–2025: Reinforcer-specific value-based decision-making in persistence of and recovery from alcohol use disorder. UK Medical Research Council (£662,584). Researcher Co-Investigator.