Social Psychology:  The study of attitudes and persuasion; Media Effects and Political Attitudes; Safer Sex Advertising and Behavior;  The influence of evolution on social behavior.

My primary research program examines the impact of the media on peoples’ attitudes toward current news issues.  Specifically, we are examining the extent to which news stories presented in a fearful or threatening way are automatically perceived by audiences as more important.  Using a combination of survey and laboratory experimental methods, we have been exploring the range and robustness of this phenomenon. These studies have several crucial implications: First,  although the news media frequently uses fearful and sensationalistic news presentation to attract an audience (and does so quite effectively), the long-term consequences of such presentations can have severe implications for both people’s general world-views, as well as for the way politics is conducted in this country.  Since political campaigns frequently rely on issues that the public perceives to be “most important”, the fearful presentation of some issues may unduly influence how politicians develop their campaign agendas (hence, for example, in the early 1990’s, even though the crime rate began to drop, it went unnoticed by the publicand by politiciansbecause the media continued to present an abundance of news stories about crime).

A second implication of this “fear connotes importance” phenomenon involves a radical departure from traditional social psychological research.  That is, the fact that we rely so strongly on fearful imagery in our calculation of what is perceived to be important suggests that perhaps this is something that is not learned, but, rather, that this may be an inherent tendency derived from past evolutionary needs.  That is, our automatic focus on fearful information may stem in part from a behavior pattern that developed in our evolutionary past to help us avoid danger and protect ourselves from harm.  Such speculation, while seeming wild at first, may be supported by cross-cultural findings of similar attentiveness to fear-arousing stimuli.  In addition, the reliance on converging findings across both cultures and species may help to provide a broader context for what has traditionally been examined as a purely human social reaction. 

Current projects addressing these concerns include:

1) A laboratory experiment examining the extent to which people specifically evaluate television new teasers on the basis of fear versus other emotions when determining their perceived importance and newsworthiness.  

2) An exploration into the development of vocabulary words that serve to reduce uncertainty.  A new project just starting is exploring the hypothesis that users of language will develop new words that help them to reduce uncertainty (and the sense of threat that such uncertainty involves) in their environment.  Hence, those cultures in which certain types of threats are frequently posed (e.g., avalanches or snowfall) may have more developed vocabularies for dealing with these events. While experience alone may account for some of the increase in vocabulary, it is conjectured that fearful events will be associated with an even more finely-developed vocabulary.  

3) The influence of emotional cues on the effectiveness of safer-sex advertisements.  Threat is also involved in this research, but in a slightly different way.  For years, the CDC has pointed out that, while accurate knowledge about AIDS and HIV are more widely held by young people, this has not translated into more widespread safer-sex behavior.  Indeed, recent years have seen an alarming increase in unsafe sexual behavior among young people.  This study is examining the effectiveness of traditional safer sex advertisements (which typically contain a threatening message) versus safer sex messages that contain more sex-positive messages. Relying on mood-congruence theory, it is hypothesized that many traditional safer sex ads fail because, at the point at which people need to decide whether or not to be safe (e.g., use a condom), they are actively attempting to shut out negative information.  Hence, when trying to cultivate a romantic environment, one plays soft music, dims the lights, and tries to convey a relaxing atmosphere.  As a result, any safer sex messages associated with threat may be temporarily repressed in favor of more positive, relaxing thoughts.  This research is exploring the thoughts, feelings and behavioral intentions of young people in response to threatening versus more sexually-arousing/sex-positive safer sex advertisements.

Required skills vary depending on the project. Overall, however, what is listed below is good general background.

Essential:  Sense of initiative and creativity, ability to work and be productive independently, reliability, perfectionism in routine tasks, experience conducting library research, ability to communicate clearly, very good interpersonal skills (for working with research participants)

Desirable:  Past coursework and/or experience with statistics, experimental psychology, social psychology, and basic or advanced computer skills (especially with SPSS).

Assisting in the following: Helping conduct library literature searches to help develop materials, Recruit and schedule participants, Collect data either via phone or in the laboratory, Coding and analyzing data using SPSS.  In all likelihood, students working in my lab for credit will also write a complete laboratory report based upon their research, due by the end of the semester.  I also have openings for students working in my lab in the following capacities: undergraduates for credit (Psych 201/395), undergraduate volunteers, and work-study students.

I encourage students to get as involved as possible in the theoretical development of all research conducted in my laboratory.  In addition to acquiring valuable research skills such as developing, collecting, and analyzing research material, students in my lab can expect to gain first-hand experience in analyzing, developing, and critiquing various theoretical perspectives to understand the benefits, limitations, and compromises involved in empirical investigations.