Office: McGuinn 326
Phone: (617) 552-0240
Email: brett.ford.1@bc.edu
Primary Advisor: Maya Tamir
Academic Interests: 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.
Undergraduate Institution/Degree: B.A. in Psychology, Boston College, 2009.
Publications
Tamir, M. & Ford, B. Q. (2009). Choosing to be afraid: Preferences for fear as a function of goal pursuit. Emotion, 9, 488-497.
Tamir, M. & Ford, B. Q. When feeling bad is expected to be good: Emotion regulation and outcome expectancies in social conflicts. Submitted manuscript.
Ford, B. Q., Tamir, M., Brunye, T. T., Shirer, W. R., Mahoney, C. R., & Taylor, H. A. Keeping your eyes on the prize: Anger and selective attention to threats and rewards. Submitted manuscript.
Presentations
Ford, B. Q., Tamir, M., Brunye, T. T., Shirer, W. R., Mahoney, C. R., & Taylor, H. A. (2010). The Angry Spotlight: The Effects of Anger on Selective Attention to Threats and Reward. To be presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference, Las Vegas, NV.
Tamir, M. & Ford, B. Q. (2009). What will I get out of it? Expected utility and preferences for anger. Symposium presented by Dr. Tamir at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference, Tampa, FL.
Ford, B. Q., Shirer, W. R., Brunye, T. T., Mahoney, C. R., Taylor, H. A., & Tamir, M. (2009) The Angry Spotlight: Selective Visual Attention to Rewards in Anger. The Neuroscience of Emotion: From Reaction to Regulation, Research Conference, Tufts University, MA.
Ford, B. Q. & Tamir, M. (2009) What do People Want to Feel? Emotion Regulation as a Function of Utility. Boston Undergraduate Research Symposium, Harvard University, MA.
Ford, B. Q. & Tamir, M. (2009) Choosing to be afraid: Preferences for fear as a function of goal pursuit. Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference, Tampa, FL.
Ford, B. Q. (2008) Running Scared: Emotional Preferences as a Function of Approach and Avoidance Goals. Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference, Boston College, MA.