Marital emotional functioning is one of the most important predictors of marital outcomes (e.g., marital satisfaction), which in turn has important consequences for wellbeing and health factors for both spouses and their children. Thus far, negative emotions (e.g., anger) have been the central focus in distinguishing dissatisfied from satisfied couples...
Affective science has long been interested in the coherence between different emotion response systems (e.g., subjective emotional experience, behavior, physiology). Although evolutionary functionalist accounts of emotion hold that emotional coherence should be related to greater adaptation, few studies have analyzed links between emotional coherence and wellbeing. Thus, in this laboratory-based...
This dissertation presents a program of research on cultural cognition of the natural world, involving long-term research with indigenous Ngöbe partner communities (Panama) and selected comparisons to Western samples (US). In two series of experiments focused on agency concepts, we show that cultural frameworks recruit distinct principles for inferring agency...
Traditionally, research on perception and sensory systems has considered the senses as independent and modular functions that only converge after sufficient processing in unisensory areas. Recently, however, that view has been called into question with a number of demonstrations of multisensory interactions that may occur as early as primary cortex....
A failure to effectively regulate emotions elicited by a stressful life event contributes to symptoms of psychopathology. This regulatory failure may result from a deficit in executive control. For some individuals, executive control is impaired following stress exposure. Thus, for some individuals, when executive control is needed to regulate emotions...
This dissertation aims to address a gap in the literature regarding the effect of the achievement-focused student identity on prosocial values and behaviors, specifically among students who predominantly value prosociality. Largely, research on identity and motivation addresses academic outcomes and psychological well-being outcomes (Settles, Sellers, & Damas, 2002; Jaret &...