Lab Director
Cynthia Pickett, PhD
Email: cpickett@ucdavis.edu
Current Graduate Students
Mark Kurai, MA
PhD Candidate
Email: mmkurai@ucdavis.edu
Web: http://markkurai.wix.com/markkurai
Three interrelated themes—social identity, emotion, intergroup behavior—are woven into my research. The thread that links these domains of research is the idea that social identity is multifaceted, fluid, and influences how individuals interact with their social environment. I focus on basic questions regarding how social identity is constructed and maintained while satisfying important psychological goals and motives.
Katherine Sorensen, MA
PhD Candidate
Email: kssorensen@ucdavis.edu
Web: https://kssorensen.wordpress.com/
Using both social psychological experiments and surveys, I study topics under the broad fields of social identity and social emotions. I investigate cultural characteristics associated with emotion dispositions and attitudes. What cultural values lead to the endorsement of trait pride? What can culture tell us about prejudicial attitudes? Further, I investigate contempt at the level of personality – who is the contemptuous person? What might culture tell us about contempt? Additionally, I investigate the emotional correlates of social identity – how does one feel when belonging and distinctiveness needs are met or are not met? At the core of my research is the person: how dispositions in the form of emotional profiles, cultural values, and social identity affect the person.
I also work in the Personality, Self, and Emotion Lab with Richard Robins, PhD.