Ryan McKay

9.8k total citations · 2 hit papers
120 papers, 5.5k citations indexed

About

Ryan McKay is a scholar working on Cognitive Neuroscience, Sociology and Political Science and Social Psychology. According to data from OpenAlex, Ryan McKay has authored 120 papers receiving a total of 5.5k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 48 papers in Cognitive Neuroscience, 37 papers in Sociology and Political Science and 35 papers in Social Psychology. Recurrent topics in Ryan McKay's work include Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (33 papers), Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments (17 papers) and Mental Health and Psychiatry (15 papers). Ryan McKay is often cited by papers focused on Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (33 papers), Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments (17 papers) and Mental Health and Psychiatry (15 papers). Ryan McKay collaborates with scholars based in United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland. Ryan McKay's co-authors include Robyn Langdon, Max Coltheart, Daniel C. Dennett, Orla McBride, Todd K. Hartman, Jamie Murphy, Richard P. Bentall, Mark Shevlin, Harvey Whitehouse and Kate Bennett and has published in prestigious journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications and Psychological Bulletin.

In The Last Decade

Ryan McKay

112 papers receiving 5.3k citations

Hit Papers

align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom

2021 889 citations Jamie Murphy, Frédérique Vallières et al. profile →
Anxiety, depression, traumatic stress and COVID-19-related anxiety in the UK general population during the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 534 citations Mark Shevlin, Orla McBride et al. BJPsych Open profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
Ryan McKay United Kingdom	38	1.6k	1.5k	1.5k	1.5k	1.1k	120	5.5k
Robert D. Latzman United States	35	949 0.6×	3.4k 2.3×	678 0.5×	312 0.2×	1.2k 1.1×	136	5.2k
Manuel Eisner United Kingdom	41	2.3k 1.4×	3.2k 2.1×	413 0.3×	878 0.6×	714 0.7×	264	6.5k
Sheila T. Murphy United States	32	1.8k 1.1×	635 0.4×	1.1k 0.8×	384 0.3×	795 0.7×	97	5.6k
Christian S. Crandall United States	47	4.4k 2.8×	2.5k 1.6×	1.2k 0.8×	347 0.2×	950 0.9×	97	9.3k
Roland Imhoff Germany	31	3.5k 2.2×	926 0.6×	1.5k 1.0×	678 0.5×	436 0.4×	124	4.7k
Paul T. P. Wong Canada	40	1.6k 1.0×	2.9k 1.9×	553 0.4×	982 0.7×	911 0.8×	156	7.8k
Becca R. Levy United States	41	1.7k 1.1×	1.0k 0.7×	427 0.3×	3.4k 2.3×	848 0.8×	118	10.2k
Joseph Bulbulia New Zealand	33	2.2k 1.4×	644 0.4×	929 0.6×	986 0.7×	623 0.6×	129	4.5k
Laurence Claes Belgium	61	1.7k 1.0×	9.3k 6.2×	558 0.4×	473 0.3×	1.4k 1.3×	359	12.6k
Geraldine Downey United States	49	3.4k 2.1×	7.6k 5.0×	729 0.5×	1.4k 1.0×	2.5k 2.3×	87	13.4k

Countries citing papers authored by Ryan McKay

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Ryan McKay's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Ryan McKay with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Ryan McKay more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Ryan McKay

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Ryan McKay. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Ryan McKay. The network helps show where Ryan McKay may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Ryan McKay

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Ryan McKay. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Ryan McKay based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Ryan McKay. Ryan McKay is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

Lloyd, Alex, Ryan McKay, & Nicholas Furl. (2025). Stochastic decisions support optimal foraging of volatile environments, and are disrupted by anxiety. Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience. 25(3). 868–885.

Gervais, Will M., Ryan McKay, Jazmin L. Brown‐Iannuzzi, et al.. (2025). Belief in belief: Even atheists in secular countries show intuitive preferences favoring religious belief. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 122(13). e2404720122–e2404720122. 1 indexed citations

Wildman, Wesley J., Robert M. Ross, Ryan McKay, et al.. (2024). Religion, Brain & Behavior adopts stricter transparency standards. Religion Brain & Behavior. 14(4). 341–344.

Bennett, Kate, Anna Panzeri, Sarah Butter, et al.. (2023). Predicting resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United Kingdom: Cross-sectional and longitudinal results. PLoS ONE. 18(5). e0283254–e0283254. 8 indexed citations

McKay, Ryan, et al.. (2022). Explaining human sampling rates across different decision domains. Judgment and Decision Making. 17(3). 487–512. 1 indexed citations

Lloyd, Alex, Ryan McKay, Todd K. Hartman, et al.. (2021). Delay discounting and under-valuing of recent information predict poorer adherence to social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific Reports. 11(1). 19237–19237. 10 indexed citations

Butter, Sarah, Jamie Murphy, Philip Hyland, et al.. (2021). Modelling the complexity of pandemic-related lifestyle quality change and mental health: an analysis of a nationally representative UK general population sample. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 57(6). 1247–1260. 5 indexed citations

Sulik, Justin, Robert M. Ross, & Ryan McKay. (2020). The contingency illusion bias as a potential driver of science denial. Cognitive Science. 829–835. 1 indexed citations

Mason, Liam, Kate Bennett, Frédérique Vallières, et al.. (2020). STUDY: Preparing for a COVID-19 vaccine: Identifying and psychologically profiling those who are vaccine hesitant or resistant in two general population samples. OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints). 10 indexed citations

10.

Shevlin, Mark, Orla McBride, Jamie Murphy, et al.. (2020). Anxiety, depression, traumatic stress and COVID-19-related anxiety in the UK general population during the COVID-19 pandemic. BJPsych Open. 6(6). e125–e125. 534 indexed citations breakdown →

11.

Bluemke, Matthias, Jamin Halberstadt, Jonathan Jong, et al.. (2019). Negative life experiences and religiosity. OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints). 1 indexed citations

12.

Gervais, Will M., Michiel van Elk, Dimitris Xygalatas, et al.. (2018). Analytic atheism: A cross-culturally weak and fickle phenomenon?. Judgment and Decision Making. 13(3). 268–274. 57 indexed citations

13.

Tappin, Ben M & Ryan McKay. (2018). Investigating the Relationship Between Self-Perceived Moral Superiority and Moral Behavior Using Economic Games. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 10(2). 135–143. 7 indexed citations

14.

Ross, Robert M., et al.. (2016). Analytic cognitive style predicts paranormal explanations of anomalous experiences but not the experiences themselves: Implications for cognitive theories of delusions. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 56. 90–96. 26 indexed citations

15.

McKay, Ryan, et al.. (2013). “Jumping to conclusions” in delusion-prone participants: an experimental economics approach. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. 19(3). 257–267. 15 indexed citations

16.

Bourne, Victoria J. & Ryan McKay. (2013). Paranoid males have reduced lateralisation for processing of negative emotions: An investigation using the chimeric faces test. Laterality Asymmetries of Body Brain and Cognition. 19(2). 235–252. 2 indexed citations

17.

McKay, Ryan & Marcel Kinsbourne. (2009). Confabulation, delusion, and anosognosia: Motivational factors and false claims. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. 15(1-3). 288–318. 24 indexed citations

18.

McKay, Ryan, Robyn Langdon, & Max Coltheart. (2007). Models of misbelief: Integrating motivational and deficit theories of delusions. Consciousness and Cognition. 16(4). 932–941. 39 indexed citations

19.

Coltheart, Max, Robyn Langdon, & Ryan McKay. (2007). Schizophrenia and Monothematic Delusions. Schizophrenia Bulletin. 33(3). 642–647. 101 indexed citations

20.

McKay, Ryan, Robyn Langdon, & Max Coltheart. (2005). “Sleights of mind”: Delusions, defences, and self-deception. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. 10(4). 305–326. 80 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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