General Research Interests

· Motivated social cognition

· Self-control

· Self-regulation, goal pursuit

· Judgment & decision-making

Research Overview

My research examines why people, when they possess remarkable intelligence and reasoning capacity,  make decisions and act in ways that undermine their best interests.  For example, why do consumers continue to spend more money than they can afford?  Why do dieters continue to eat indulgent foods?  Why do smokers continue to smoke when they are aware of the health risks?  Although people have admirable values and goals, their decisions and behaviors “in the moment” often fail to live up to these lofty aims.  These failures of self-control have immense costs, both economically and psychologically to both the individual and to the larger collective.  Understanding why we fail at self-control is thus an important research question.  To address this question, my research draws from a number of areas in psychology, including motivation, cognition, self-regulation, attitudes, and judgment & decision-making.

One of the most important insights in psychology is that despite observing exactly the same event, no two people alike have exactly the same experience.  In one famous example, Princeton and Dartmouth students to were asked to watch the same Princeton-Dartmouth football game and count the number of dirty plays they saw (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954).  Students from each school thought that the team from the other school committed more cheap shots.  The researchers noted that when questioned about the game, students from each side appeared to describe two completely different games!  Decades of research like this has demonstrated that what is important to people’s decisions and actions is not what is actually reflected in reality, but how they subjectively construct or construe the event in their minds (e.g., Griffon & Ross, 1991).

My work focuses not on school allegiances or team membership, but rather how the same person can subjectively construe the same event differently.  For example, one might construe reading this website as “learning more about someone’s research” or “reading words on the screen.”  Both accurately describe reading this website, but these subjective construals differ in level of abstraction.  “Learning more about someone’s research” is a more abstract, high-level construal of the situation, whereas “reading words on the screen” represents a more concrete, low-level construal of the situation.  My research indicates that low-level construals of events tend to lead people to miss the proverbial forest-beyond-the-trees, causing them to become distracted with irrelevant things and miss the “big picture.”  This enhances the likelihood of making decisions one will later regret, and thus leads to self-control failures.  High-level construals of events, on the other hand, allow people to keep their “eyes on the prize,” promoting goal-relevant decisions and actions, and increase the likelihood of successful self-control.

My research at present can briefly be summarized as addressing the following questions:

· What causes people to construe events at high- vs. low-levels?

· What are the consequences of these subjective construals, particularly with respect to self-control decision-making and action?

· What is it about subjective construals that lead to changes in decision-making and action?  What exactly is different about making decisions from high- vs. low-level construals?

· Can people use subjective construals strategically?

· Beyond construals, what are other ways people can promote and improve their self-control?

More information about my work can be found in my publications.

Last updated June 26, 2008