|
|
Jennifer's research interests focus on the socialization of children's emotions. With Dr. Karen Rosen, she is examining the role that parents and siblings play in a young child's capacity to regulate their emotions. In a separate line of research with Professor Ellen Winner, she is exploring visual and spatial abilities in children gifted in drawing realism. |
|
|
|
|
|
My current research focuses on how people want to feel. In particular, I study the extent to which people want to (and try to) feel emotions that are useful to them, regardless of how pleasant those emotions are to experience. I'm also interested in the extent to which this kind of "instrumental" emotion regulation is linked to psychological well being, emotional intelligence and other measures of health and adaptive functioning. |
|
|
Maria's current research focuses on language and the construction of emotional percepts. |
|
|
Thalia’s research interests are in two main areas: 1) cognitive development, particularly the study of children’s theory of mind, imagination, and pretense as these capacities relate to fiction, narrative, and theatre (both viewing theatre, and acting in theatre); and 2) the study of emotion regulation in actors as a way of understanding the underpinnings of exceptional ability in emotion regulation. In addition, she also does some work on creative organizational response in disaster situations. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mary’s main research interest focuses on the cultural component of emotion development and how the social environment—including the presence or absence of war and conflict—affects children’s perception of emotion and the breadth of their emotion categories. |
|
|
Kristen's research focuses on the psychological underpinnings of emotion experience. In particular, this work seeks to understand how people experience discrete emotion states (such as fear, anger, joy, etc.), and how they perceive such discrete emotion states in other people. Implicit in this work is the idea that the language a person speaks (and the emotion concepts it encodes) shapes the emotions that are experienced. |
|
|
Katherine's primary area of research focuses on the understanding the role of emotional processing in memory, and how emotional processing changes as adults age. By combining behavioral testing and functional neuroimaging, Katherine's research examines both the cognitive (thought-level) and neural (brain-level) processes that guide young and older adult’s attention toward, and memory for, emotional information. |
|
|
I am interested in understanding what roles dopamine plays in learning and motivation, and how these two elements relate. During learning, dopamine appears to strengthen cortical inputs to the striatum according to their relevance to the organism. If so, is dopamine still necessary once a behavior has become a habit? What is dopamine’s contribution to motivation? How does dopamine mediate goal-directed behavior, and the ability to make self-initiated, spontaneous choices according to what is important to the organism? |
|
|
|
|
|
My interests focus on children's development of emotion concepts, the manner in which these change across childhood, and how children interpret emotional displays (facial expressions, body language etc.). I am also interested in understanding how the acquisition of theory of mind relates to the understanding of emotion in others. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shannon is a fifth year doctoral candidate studying Developmental Psychology at Boston College. Her primary area of research is adolescent development, with a particular focus on the social and emotional development of adolescent girls. Her dissertation research explores the lives of high achieving super girls and how they compare to their male peers. Shannon also conducts research on the sexual behaviors and motives of college students. Further, she explores protective factors related to body image among diverse high school and college populations. Overall, she is committed to improving the lives of young adults by working collaboratively with researchers, educators, and community organizations. |
|
|
|
|
|
Kyle is interested in spatial cognition, human navigation and spatial updating, and spatial memory. |
|
|
My research program aims to address philosophical questions from the perspective of conceptual development. I am developing studies that examine children's construction of imaginary and fictional worlds as a means for the exploration of possibility and perfection. I am also studying children's intuitive theories of biology, and how growing up in a computational culture may be altering conceptions of what it means to be human. |
|
|
Jill's research interests focus on changes in memory ability and content over the age span. Specifically, her research investigates the impact of emotion upon memory processes using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. |
|
|
