My Research

My research interests spread across multiple areas, such as intuition, false confessions, and the effects of discrimination in employee contexts.

Intuition-based performance has been my primary area of study. With the help of Dr. Markman, I study how factors such as analytical mindsets, confidence, or emotion alter one's ability to rely on intuition. The process of intuition remains a greatly misunderstood construct within psychological research. Recently theories have emerged that provide a cogent structure underlying factors that contribute towards the intuitive experience, where concepts such as cognitive fluency, analytical thinking, and emotion play an active role in intuition-based decision-making. Themes emphasizing analytical mindsets, implicit learning, intuition mastery, and motivation encompass my research, with the overarching goal of identifying the contexts that optimize intuitive decision-making.

Coercive confessions are a pervasive psychological problem in the Unites State, as well as abroad. They are problematic not only regarding the injurious outcomes to innocent people who become imprisoned for a crime of which they are innocent, but also to the society that has wasted taxpayer’s money in an effort to punish the wrongdoer and the family of the victim who has yet to see justice. Scholars in the field of criminology and social psychology have examined false confessions through the police behavior that precipitated the confession, and contextual cues that bias a potential juror’s perception of voluntariness. Camera angles in videotaped confessions have been extensively employed as a moderating factor in perceptions of guilt and coercion. With the help of Dr. Lassiter, I examine how police interrogations influence false confessions of innocent suspects. My research emphasizes the role of individual differences in collusion with confession presentation formats as factors that lower perceptual biases of guilt based on confession evidence.