The Emotion & Self Lab

In the Emotion and Self Lab at the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, we study the evolutionary function, nonverbal expression, and psychological structure of emotions and self.

Latest News

In research led by Zak Witkower, smile variation is shown to accurately leak personality. See here for the article in press at PNAS-Nexus. 

New research led by lab collaborator Ashley Martin shows that gender cognition-- the tendency to see gender in non-human entities, and to see those entities as more human to the extent that they are gendered-- is a human universal...

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Research Team

Director

Jessica L. Tracy, Ph.D.

Professor – Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
Lab Personnel

Cai Taylor

Lab manager – Research assistant

Gabrielle Ibasco

Graduate Student

Ian Hohm

Graduate Student

Latest Publications

Kuper_etal_Culture_Personality_Triad_JPSP

Kuper, N., Gardiner, G., Baranski, E., Funder, D. C., … Cheng, J. T., …. Tracy, J. L., … & Rauthmann, J. F. (in press).

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Witkower et al in press Emotion, Robot fear contagion manuscript Emotion R&R 8-29-25.docx

Witkower, Z., Cang, L., Bucci, P., MacLean, K., & Tracy, J. L. (in press).

Emotion.

Featured Books

A leading psychologist reveals how our most misunderstood emotion—pride—has shaped our minds and our culture, and shows how we can harness its power.
Our society has achieved extraordinary scientific insight, yet many feel that our lives don’t matter. Our scientific worldview confirms this belief, telling us we’re accidents in a meaningless universe. But as Tracy shows, this view is based on scientism, not science, and it’s wrong. She offers a scientifically accurate and more hopeful vision…
The Psychology of Social Status
The Psychology of Social Status outlines the foundational insights, key advances, and developments that have been made in the field thus far.
The Self-Conscious Emotions - Theory and Research
Timely and authoritative, this volume reviews the breadth of current knowledge on the self-conscious emotions and their role in psychological and social functioning.

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