SOCIAL PERCEPTION LAB

(revised 1-09)
We call ourselves The Social Perception Lab (SPL) because nearly all of our research addresses how people think about, understand, judge, evaluate, and perceive other people. FOR A SUMMARY OF WORK COMPLETED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, GO TO MY BIO PAGE (The second half of my bio focuses largely on research conducted in the last few years).

FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT WORK CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS,
GO TO MY WORK IN PROGRESS PAGE PAGE

The SPL is located in room 301 Tillett Hall on Livingston Campus. 

CURRENT GRAD STUDENTS
Tom Cain.  Interests: Stereotypes and person perception; fear and judgmental biases. PhD expected 2009.
Sean Stevens.  Interests: Stereotypes, ingroup bias, political psychology. Masters expected 2009.
Heather Nofziger: Interests: Gender, self-fulfilling prophecies, genocide, propaganda.  Masters expected 2009.
Liz Salib: Interests: Bias against Jews, Muslims, Arabs.  Self-fulfilling prophecies.  Masters expected 2010.


GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SUCCESS
(Social Perception Lab Alumni)

Florette Cohen, PhD 2008.  Currently assistant professor at CUNY--Staten Island.
Recipient of numerous research and teaching awards.  Completed her PhD with
12 publications.  CUNY profile.
Jarret Crawford, PhD 2008.  Currently assistant professor at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).
Recipient of numerous research and teaching awards.  Also highly published,
though this is amazing.  He received his B.A. at TCNJ, and returning there was his ideal
job.  No one ever accomplishes that; academic jobs are just too tight and difficult.
He did.  TCNJ profile.
Stacy Robustelli, PhD 2006 (Educational Psychology).  Currently a consultant for ETS. 
Interests: Motivation and academic achievement, self-fulfilling prophecies.
Robin Freyberg, PhD 2005 (primary advisor, Jeannette Haviland).  Currently an assistant professor
at Yeshiva University in NYC.  Interests: Social development.
Celina Chatman-Nelson, PhD 1999.  Associate Director, Center for Human Potential and Public Policy, University of Chicago.
Interests: Urban education, educational policy, resilience.
Stephanie Madon, PhD 1998.  Currently an associate professor at Iowa State U.
Interests: Self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotypes, social cognition.  Highly published, recent recipient of
an NSF grant to study accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecies.  Home page.
Kathy Aboufadel, PhD 1995. Senior Project Manager, Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Rebecca Yen, PhD 1993, Associate Professor at the Yuan-Ze Institute of Technology, Taiwan.
Laura Pople, PhD 1993, Psychology Editor, Worth Publishers.


CURRENT AND SELECT FORMER HONORS STUDENTS
Karin Negele (2008).  Thesis: Do Stereotypes Dominate Social Dominators?
Karin examined whether people who endorse exploiting others were more
biased in their stereotyping.  It turns out that they were not.  She is currently
preparing for applications to graduate schools.

Laura Ragusa (2007). Thesis: Stereotype Accuracy Regarding Incarceration.
Laura examined the (in)accuracy of people's beliefs about the incarceration rates of various different demographic groups
(African-Americans, Whites, Latinos, Men, Women, mentally ill).  This thesis is on the verge of being
submitted for publication.  Laura is currently at RU-Newark's Criminology graduate program.

Christoph Schierle (2006).  Thesis: Measuring Brain Activity While Lying to Appear Unprejudiced: An ERP Study
Chris performed the first social cognitive neuroscience study associated with
my lab.  ERP's are Event Related Potentials, which are pattens of electrical activity
in the brain.  Lying has been demonstrated to evoke a unique pattern of ERP's.
In this study, people's ERP responses to the PC scale (see Romain Walker, below)
were found to be similar to those occurring when telling blatant lies
(e.g., it is 90 degrees outside today -- when "today" is a typical December day in New Jersey).

Gautam Bhasin (2006).  Thesis: Mortality Salience and Anti-Semitism.
Gautam's study tested these ideas, and found that
under mortality salience, people:
1. became more hostile to Jews.
2. became more hostile to Israel.
3. viewed Israel as looming large (an effect occurring with no
other country).
4. increased their willingness to punish Israel for human rights
violations more than they increased their willingness to punish
other countries (India, Russia) for the identical violation.
This research was part of a series of studies recently accepted for publication
in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  Gautam is currently
in the Clinical Psychology Program at Columbia Teacher's College.

James Delaguila (2006). 
Thesis: Political perception.  Ideology (liberal/conservative)
biases people's interpretations of news articles purporting to
oppose racial profiling or support the war in Iraq.
James has recently worked in marketing research
and is currently applying to grad schools in economics.

Reshma Stafford (2005).  Thesis: Bending Over Backwards: When White’s Threatened
Egalitarianism Causes Excessive Leniency towards African Americans. 
Reshma performed an experiment examining hypothesis about why
Whites often are more lenient (favorable) in their evaluations of
the work of African Americans than in their evaluations of work
of Whites.  (Lots of folks may find the mere existence of this
basic pattern surprising, but see Harber, 1998, Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology for some of the earlier evidence).  Her
hypothesis was that Whites do so because they are motivated
to prove that they are egalitarian and not racists.  To test this,
she either threatened Whites' egalitarianism or affirmed it.
Exactly as predicted, Whites were most lenient when their
egalitarianism was threatened (because they then really had to prove
how non-racist they were); and they were no more lenient when
evaluating African Americans than when evaluating Whites
when their egalitarianism had been affirmed (because they no
longer needed to prove they were not racists).
This has become part of a paper that was recently accepted for publication
in Journal of Applied Social Psychology.  Reshma is currently applying
to grad schools in clinical psychology.

Kathleen Kennedy (2005, currently attending Princeton's graduate
program in social psychology)
Thesis:  SOCIAL SUPPORT OPINION SURVEY (SSOS) VALIDATION STUDY
Katie performed two studies validating a new questionnaire, the Social Support Opinion Survey.
 Two validation studies examined the relationships of people’s support styles to their personality, world view,
gender, and the amount and type of support that they receive themselves. These studies
found significant correlations between both the SSOS Direct and Nondirect subscales
and several measures of personality, received support, and world views.  In addition,
both men and women were more likely to provide nondirect than direct support, but women
were more likely than men to provide nondirect and less likely than men to provide direct support. 
These findings support the validity of the SSOS as a measure of individuals’ support giving style. 
This has become part of a paper that was accepted for publication in Journal of Applied
Social Psychology.  Katie is currently a graduate student in Princeton's Social Psychology
Program.

Sachelle Heavens (2005).  Thesis: The Political Correctness (PC) Scale:
Measuring Lying to Appear Unprejudiced.
Sachelle performed a combined experimental and correlational study
testing the validity of the PC scale.  And found that the scale
correlated beautifully with prejudice (higher pc, lower prejudice
against African-Americans, Asians, and women); it correlated
beautifully with three measures of lying to make one appear
better than one really is; and it was highly responsive to
situational pressures to appear unprejudiced. This study
is part of a series (see Romain Walker, below) that is on the verge of being submitted for publication.
Sachelle is currently a graduate student at CUNY in social psychology.

Romain Walker (2002).  Thesis: Politically Correct Responding.
Romain's honors thesis involves two experimental studies
assessing the validity of the PC Scale.  Romain's thesis
received an award for being one of the top psychology
theses of 2002, and a slightly revised version was published in
The Rutgers Scholar, volume 4.  Click here to read this paper.
His thesis is currently being expanded and combined with Sachelle's
and will soon be submitted for publication.  Romain is currently
a law student at Rutgers-Newark.


 

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