Research & Projects

People use others' emotional expressions to form broader, lasting impressions of them, but what happens when someone’s expression deviates from expectations? In one line of research, I examine the trait impressions people form of individuals who express emotions in norm-violating ways, particularly in the context of disgust. I’m interested in how different forms of emotional deviance lead to specific trait judgments, resulting in downstream consequences for the targets of those perceptions.

Previous research demonstrates that people feel more comfortable engaging in pathogen-risky behaviors with those they value most. I am interested in how such displays of contact comfort shape the way we perceive and navigate our social networks. In this line of research, I study how people make inferences about social relationships, both their own and others’, based on displays of pathogen-risky sharing behaviors. 

Ecology-driven stereotypes (i.e., beliefs about how the environments people live in shape their behavior) exist across many societies. Much of the existing research examines these stereotypes using static information about where a person is from (e.g., being born and raised in a particular environment and living there their entire life). But often, people move. In this line of work, I study how people form stereotypes of individuals who move between ecologies, and whether the time someone has spent in a given environment influences how those stereotypes are applied.

Ecological threats often require collective action, but are the behaviors and strategies needed to address a resource scarcity threat the same as those needed for a natural disaster? How about a disease outbreak? Prior work has shown that cultures historically exposed to various ecological threats tend to report stronger preferences for norm tightness. In this line of research, I examine how people's perceptions of the cooperation and coordination required to address different ecological threats may shape downstream responses to, and preferences for addressing, norm violations.