General Research Interests
- Self-conscious emotions (pride, shame, guilt, embarrassment)
- Emotion recognition
- Nonverbal expression of emotions
- Self-esteem and self-esteem regulatory processes (e.g., narcissism)
- Trends in psychological science
Brief Research Summary
The majority of my research addresses questions that lie at the intersection of emotion and self. Much of this work has focused on a unique class of emotions, referred to as “self-conscious.” Self-conscious emotions, such as shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride, play a central role in motivating and regulating people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. These emotions drive people to work hard in achievement contexts and to behave in moral, socially appropriate ways in their social interactions and intimate relationships. Most people spend a great deal of time avoiding social approbation, a strong elicitor of shame and embarrassment. As Goffman (1955) noted, our every social act is influenced by even the slight chance of public shame or loss of “face.” At the same time, through our achievements, self-enhancement, and a wide range of pro-social behaviors, we engage in an almost daily pursuit of pride.
Self-conscious emotions have important implications for some of the most essential and psychologically interesting social processes and behaviors, ranging from self-regulation and narcissism to antisocial behavior and responses to stigma. By uncovering and understanding the distinct emotions (e.g., shame and pride) that permeate these processes, we can increase the precision and predictive power of major theoretical models in social/personality psychology. In my work, I aim to address five fundamental questions about emotions, and about self-conscious emotions in particular:
- How are self-conscious emotions expressed nonverbally? What cognitive processes underlie emotion recognition?
- What is the psychological structure of self-conscious emotions? How do people conceptualize and experience them?
- How are self-conscious emotions elicited? What is the underlying cognitive process?
- How are self-conscious emotions regulated? How does their regulation influence self-esteem and self-esteem regulatory processes?
- What are the evolved functions of self-conscious emotions?
I use a wide range of methods to address these questions, including (a) behavioral observation and coding systems to study nonverbal expressions; (b) social-cognitive techniques to assess emotion recognition; (c) cross-cultural comparisons to examine the universality of emotions; (d) cross-sectional and longitudinal designs to study the development of self and emotion processes; and (e) factor analysis, cluster analysis, and content coding to explore the psychological structure of emotions. In addition, my lab is now beginning comparative work, examining the evolutionary origins of self-conscious emotions by assessing their nonverbal display precursors in chimpanzees.
In a separate line of work, I also study broader issues in the science of psychology (and the psychology of science), such as the practice of psychological science among personality and social researchers (click here to view the survey I used in a recent study), and the psychological motives that influence people’s understanding of and belief in scientific theories such as evolution and intelligent design.
My research is currently funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR).