Psychology

We often intuitively feel that we possess stable attitudes and beliefs about the world, yet we also find that they fail to guide us in many everyday social situations. From moment to moment, our evaluations and opinions are pushed and pulled by social influence. Much of my research centers around questions of why, when, and how our attitudes shift in response to the immediate social context. For instance, in one line of research, I examine how changing the way people mentally represent a political or social issue can lead their opinions on that issue to shift or remain stable in response to other people around them. Ongoing projects explore the implications of this perspective for understanding flexibility and stability in explicit and implicit attitudes, as well as how diverse variables such as time, similarity, and expertise may all similarly impact the extent to which attitudes shift in response to social influence.

In other research, I focus on attitudes in intergroup conflict situations. Although land and other forms of property lie at the heart of intergroup conflicts around the globe, research on the social psychological processes that underlie group members' fierce devotion to property is relatively rare. My research in this area is geared toward elucidating the relationships between group identity and property, in order to help explain why such conflicts arise and escalate, as well as how they might be ameliorated.