I study identity, action and emotional response. I’m interested in the basic question of how identities affect social interaction. I use experimental, observational, survey and simulation methods to describe how identities, actions and emotions are interrelated. The experiments I do usually involve creating social situations where unusual things happen to people, then seeing how they respond behaviorally or emotionally. I observe small task group interactions to see how identities influence conversational behavior. My survey work often focuses on gender and other social positions that influence the groups and networks in which people are imbedded. My simulations studies involve affect control theory, a mathematical model of how identities, actions and emotions affect one another. Now, I’m putting affect control theory together with McPherson’s ecological theory of affiliation to show how social systems, identities, and emotional experience are connected.
Areas of Interest
Social Psychology, Emotions, Gender, Group Processes
Education
PhD,
Sociology/Social Psychology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1978
MA,
Communications Research,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1976
BA,
Journalism (with honors),
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1973
Recent Publications
with
Steven Foy, Robert Freeland, Andrew Miles, Kimberly B. Rogers.
(2012).
"Emotion and affect in the social psychology of inequality.".
In Edward Lawler, Jane McLeod and Michael Schwalbe (Eds.),
Social Psychology of Inequality
Springer.
with
Kimberly B. Rogers.
(2012).
"Answering the call for a sociological contribution to a multilevel social construction of emotion".
Emotion Review
,
4
(3)
,
1-20.
with
Jody Clay-Warner and Dawn T. RObinson.
(In progress).
Emotional Reactions to Over-Reward.
Social Psychology Quarterly
.
with
Miller McPherson and Jeff A. Smith.
(in process).
Social Distance in the United States: Homophily from 1985-2004.
