Post Doctoral
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Becca Franks, Ph.D.
I am interested in how basic motivations determine resource use, environmental need, and overall health in humans and other animals. With my post-doctoral research in the Champagne LabI hope to combine current social psychology theories, specifically engagement (Higgins 2006) and effectiveness (Higgins 2011), with animal behavior in order to build on our understanding of what it means to have good welfare or well-being.
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Shu Zhang, Ph.D.
My research aims to reveal the downsides of relying on social information across organizational domains (e.g. management effectiveness, business ethics, cross-cultural communication). One avenue of my research identifies the self-regulatory motive behind copying managing behaviors from a role model, even when these behaviors are unpleasant, ineffective, or unethical. Another avenue of my research studies how social cues automatically interfere with cognitive processing in a cross-cultural setting.
Graduate Students
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James Cornwell, 4th Year PhD
My primary research interest is investigating the motivational processes that underlie our moral judgments and ethical decision-making, in an attempt to clarify how we make those decisions and what goals are being met when we make them. I'm particularly interested in how motivation science can help us get at the concept of virtue, and how it behaves interactively and independently with respect to moral value understood as either ideals or obligations. I am also interested in how these concepts of virtue or "the good life" relate to happiness and well-being.
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Christine Webb, 4th Year PhD
How do humans and other animals resolve conflict? My research questions take an evolutionary approach to the study of conflict management and resolution. In the Higgins lab, I am interested in exploring the role of motivational processes in reconciliation behavior. I am particularly interested in how the different ways in which people seek to resolve conflicts and the quality of their social relationships influence the reconciliation process. I look forward to seeing how studies of conflict resolution in non-human primates can inform similar research on human social behavior and cognition, and how an understanding of motivational underpinnings can improve our study of both.
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Allison Turza Bajger, 3rd Year PhD
Coming soon...
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Honors Students
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Carl Jago, Senior
I'm interested in why we are who we are, do what we do, and feel what we feel. I like to explore questions of value as they relate to motivation, meaning, morality, and more generally, well-being. My current project is focused on morality from the perspective of Regulatory Fit Theory.
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Dana Neugut, Junior
I am interested in how the teacher-student relationship is affected by Regulatory Fit Theory. Through my research, I hope to better understand this dynamic and work on methods to improve student memory by increasing motivation and shared reality.
