Research interests include blame and responsibility attribution; self-blame and coping in victims and socially marginalized persons; social cognition and individual differences (e.g., regulatory focus, counterfactual thinking, motivation, creativity, wisdom); decision-making in forensic evaluation; clinical-forensic treatment outcomes; and, emotional disclosure, narrative, and healing.
Research Program
The Laboratory for the Study of Self-Perception and Other-Attribution in Context (SPOAC) conducts research that integrates clinical, personality, and social psychology. We are interested in the way people view themselves, others, cultures, and social norms, and the way these perceptions affect attributions, judgments, decision making, quality of life, and behavior. Primary research within the lab concerns blame and responsibility attribution; self-blame and coping in victims and socially marginalized persons; and, individual differences in social cognition (e.g., regulatory focus, counterfactual thinking, motivation, creativity, wisdom). Topics of current research in the laboratory include:
- Posttraumatic growth following sexual assault.
- Ethnicity and victim-blame.
- Counterfactual mindset priming: Debiasing solutions to complex social problems.
- Sociolegal context and victim-blame.
- Regulatory focus in clinical context.
- Therapist-client commonality and clinical outcome.
Laboratory for the Study of Self-Perception and Other-Attribution in Context (SPOAC)
Front Row: Di Wang*, Antoinette King**, Emily Kennedy*, Michelle Stein*
Back Row: Tasha Menaker*, Erika Canales*, Tamika Backstrom*, Leandro F. Velasco*,
Jason Duncan*, Amanda Amacker*, Audrey K. Miller
Not Pictured: Kristina Nungaray**, Joanna Shaw Rose**, Maverick Wagner**
*Graduate student in clinical psychology
**Ronald E. McNair Scholar, undergraduate student