Dr Warwick Hosking

Dr Warwick Hosking is a Senior Lecturer in psychology in the College of Health & Biomedicine and a Research Fellow in the Institute for Health and Sport (IHES). His general research area is gay men’s health and wellbeing, with a focus on relationships, sexual health, and body image.

He has published a number of research articles about agreements gay men have in their relationships about sex with outside partners, and the factors that influence satisfaction with these agreements. He authored an entry on sexual agreements in gay men’s relationships in The SAGE Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Issues.

Warwick is currently involved in a new project examining the association between levels of physical activity and mental health among gay men, with a focus on a variety of factors that either enhance or inhibit this association. These factors include body dissatisfaction, motivations for exercise, and experiences of discrimination and victimisation.

Warwick is also currently involved in a large international project comparing the health and wellbeing of young Australian gay men with that of young Chinese gay men, in collaboration with the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University. This project examines a number of aspects of Australian and Chinese gay men’s lives and lifestyles, including:

• mental health, physical health, and sexual health
• relationships
• body image and exercise
• perceptions of social support and discrimination
• aspects of gay identity.

An additional research interest is personality psychopathology in the general population. The DSM-5 describes several personality disorders that impair psychological, social, and occupational functioning; however, the traits that characterise these disorders can also occur to varying extents within individuals who do not qualify for a formal diagnosis, and can similarly impact on intra- and interpersonal functioning. Warwick is especially interested in narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability and their relation to self-regulation and mental health.