Research

Overview:

My research has focused on responses to threats in the context of social norms, tolerance of deviance, and morality. I am currently studying how threat appraisals function in the context of trigger warnings in classrooms.

• One line of work focuses on norms and threat. Despite correlational work on the topic, the causal relationship between threat and enforcement of norms is not well established. Contrary to evidence from correlational studies, I found that those who read a threatening article (vs. a safety oriented article) expressed more tolerance of deviance and less enforcement of norms.
  • I have continued this line of work in my dissertation, which tests threat appraisals as a mediator of the effect of trigger warnings on engagement with potentially threatening material. Despite popular debate about trigger warnings, there is not a consensus on their effectiveness. Fully understanding the role of trigger warnings is not just of empirical interest. Trigger warnings are part of a broader conversation on classroom access and pedagogy.
• Another line of work explores how political affiliation influences moral language. I have found that in ads for senate campaigns, factors such as incumbency and tightness of the race (a subjective measure of threat) predict the use of morality-related words more than a senator’s political party (as would be predicted by a major theory in moral psychology), which has implications for advertising. This line of work is especially fruitful in that all of the tools needed are freely available and undergraduates can be involved at all stages.
• I am interested in perceptions of morality and how people respond to moral violations. In particular, what influences perceptions of morality and immorality. I have investigated contextual factors such as how (im)moral situations are worded to determine the influence of priming on perceptions. This line of work breaks moral violations into five foundations (per Moral Foundations Theory) and looks at how political affiliation influences perceptions and reactions.

Research Questions:

• How does threat influence normative tightness and perceptions of morality?
• Are behaviors that are perceived as more immoral more likely to incite social control?
• How does the framing of norm transgressions influence perceptions of morality and the likelihood of behavioral reactions?
• For all of the above questions, there is an additional component: does political affiliation moderate any of these effects?
• How do appraisals of course material and stress mindsets influence the relationship between trigger warnings and student outcomes?