Research
Kurt Lewin famously said, “Nothing is so practical as a good theory.” In my work, I have found that nothing is so theoretical as an effective application. Throughout my career, I have sought to both build basic social psychological theory and apply theory to address pressing social issues related to education, intergroup relations, equality, and well-being.
In ongoing work, my collaborators and I are partnering with educational institutions across the country to understand how organizations and teachers can go beyond default perspectives and bridge group divides in the classroom. Our hope in doing so is to make educational settings more effective and inclusive for all students. Currently at the California Civil Rights Department, I am leveraging insights from the social sciences to combat hate, bias, and discrimination within the State of California through evidence-based policy recommendations and interventions.
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Across all of my research, I adopt a social-cognitive perspective. Broadly, I am most interested in topics related to social influence, social learning, social interaction, and social coordination. Within this, I am particularly interested in interactions that happen with diverse others. What influence do distant, dissimilar, and diverse others have over our thoughts, motivations, beliefs, and behaviors? How do people learn from those who are different or distant from ourselves? How do groups, communities, and societies effectively manage the varying interests of diverse individuals to coordinate action towards shared collective goals?
In a complimentary line of research, I explore social influences on self-regulation to understand how individual mindsets, strategies, and social environments interact to shape people's goal-directed behavior and self-control.
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I believe that the most interesting and important phenomena to study are those that can be observed through a variety of means. In my own research, I adopt a variety of methods ranging from online experiments and surveys, to lab-based behavioral experiments, to in depth qualitative interviews and focus groups, to large-scale applied interventions in real-world contexts.
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Overall, by combining theory and application, I seek to pursue research that contributes substantively to scientific knowledge while making real-world impact that moves the needle on some of the most important challenges and issues we face in our time.
