Ivana Markova

British psychologist

Ivana Marková FBA (born 1938) is a Czech born social psychologist known for her work on language and the constructs of communication.

She was born in Czechoslovakia and studied philosophy and psychology at Charles University in Prague. In 1967 she moved to the United Kingdom. She initially worked as Research Fellow at Industrial Training Research Unit, University of London (1968–70) before moving to the University of Stirling, from which she retired in 2003 as an emeritus professor. She then took up the post of Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science and Research Associate in the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences. at the London School of Economics. She is also a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. She has served at various national and international committees, e. g. she was a member of the Chief Scientist's Health Services Research Committee, Scottish Home and Health Department, a chairperson of the Social Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society, President of Section J (Psychology) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Scientific Committee of the Academia Istropolitana, a newly established Centre of Advanced Studies in Central Europe, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Her main theoretical research interests are the ontology and epistemology of theory in social psychology, and the interdependence between social thinking, dialogue and semiotics. Empirical research concerns social representations of democracy, individualism and responsibility in post communist Europe and the study of dialogues between people with impaired speech and their partners. In the 1990s she became increasingly interested in developing a dialogical approach to the study of social representations.

She is the mother of Professor Ivana S. Marková, a distinguished psychiatrist in her own right.