Research Labs
Students often participate in faculty research as student research assistants. We offer a wide variety of research programs.
Acculturation and Immigrant Health Research Lab
Dr. Kevin Chun's research and publications focus on processes of adaptation and their relation to health and psychosocial adjustment for Asian American immigrants and refugees.
Aging and Diversity Research Lab
Dr. Lisa Wagner’s Aging and Diversity Lab includes a team of undergraduate interns and research assistants who study stereotyping and prejudice relating to age and other elements of diversity. Current projects include examining whether there are age differences in how gender pronouns affect the perception of gender, and the effects of aging-related course material on attitudes toward different age groups. Students also assist with all aspects of the revision of two textbooks, Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination (Kite, Whitley, & Wagner, 2023), and Aging & Diversity (Mehrotra & Wagner, 2018).
Cognition and Emotion Lab
Dr. Marisa Knight's research interests are focused on the interplay between motivation, emotion, and cognitive functioning across the lifespan.
Creative Brain Lab
Dr. Indre Viskontas' lab aims to understand and ultimately unleash our creativity. We work towards this aim by focusing on three goals:
- To understand and mitigate the effects that stress and anxiety might have on creative work.
- To evaluate and optimize technological tools designed to interface with creativity.
- To explore ways in which creative work might be used to heal or improve our well-being.
Family Research Lab
Dr. Shirley McGuire's research involves using a biocontextual approach to study children's social and personality development and adjustment during middle childhood and adolescence.
MORE ABOUT THE FAMILY RESEARCH LAB
Foster Care Research Group (FCRG)
Overseen by Dr. Saralyn Ruff, FCRG studies the well-being of current and former foster youth and best practices in mental health prevention and intervention.
MORE ABOUT FOSTER CARE RESEARCH GROUP
I AM Research Lab
Dr. J Garrett-Walker utilizes quantitative and qualitative methodologies to examine the intersections of multiple identities, specifically racial, religious, and sexual identities for 2SLGBTQI+ youth and emerging adults. She is most interested in the ways in which Black LGBT young adults navigate and negotiate social marginalization in their multiple communities through negative religious rhetoric, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and heterosexism. Dr. Garrett-Walker’s 2nd line of research seeks to raise student, faculty, and staff awareness around social inequalities and privilege. She has become increasingly interested in the ways in which shared educational privilege impacts colorblind racial ideologies and privilege awareness (i.e., white, male, class).
Learning and Reasoning Lab
Dr. Ed Munnich's research focuses on whether, and to what extent, statistics influence people’s beliefs and preferences about personal and public policy issues.
Love and Communication Lab
The Love and Communication Lab's research examines the idea that relationships and conversations are complex - maybe more complex than we expect. Our ongoing research examines questions such as:
- What are the consequences of hiding versus revealing news from others?
- How do other people's accomplishments and downfalls make us feel about ourselves?
- How does gaming alone versus in groups affect one's mental health?
- How do conversations with our romantic partners impact our health?
- What are the consequences of trash-talking and being trash-talked?
- How do our siblings challenge and inspire us throughout adulthood?
Mass Emotion and Intergroup Conflict Lab
Dr. Violet Cheung's research focuses on anger, fear and anxiety in concrete contexts such as terrorist attacks, cyber insecurity and the migrant crisis.
REACH Lab
Dr. Joyce Yang focuses on understanding and addressing the mental health needs and unjust barriers to accessing healthcare experienced by communities of color. The REACH Lab utilizes community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods to name and understand disparities, as well as develop and implement sustainable interventions to reach towards health equity.
Social Cognition and Judgment Lab
Dr. Saera Khan explores how individuals’ motivation and their processing of social information act to influence their use of stereotypes when judging others.
Social Reasoning in Childhood (SeaRCH) Lab
Dr. Aline Hitti's research focuses on developing concepts of fairness, justice, social inequalities, and other’s well-being when it comes to social exclusion of peers and decisions about peer relationships.
MORE ABOUT SOCIAL REASONING IN CHILDHOOD
Spirituality and Health Lab
Dr. John Pérez's primary research interest is exploring how spirituality and religiousness influence mental and physical health across the lifespan.