Research
I am currently a second year graduate student with Professor Donal Carlston at Purdue University. Broadly speaking, my research focus is in the area of social cognition. More specifically, I study impression formation and person perception. The social cognitive factors influencing the development of impressions of both individuals and groups are the current focus of my program of research.
In one line of research I study the constructs of spontaneous trait inference and spontaneous trait transference. Research has shown that when people are presented with behavioral information in written form about individuals, they not only make inferences of individuals, but these inferences occur spontaneously and without conscious awareness (Carlston & Skowronski, 1994). Additionally, communicators take on the traits that they describe in others (and they are spontaneously inferred to posses that trait) in a construct known as spontaneous trait transference (Skowronski, Carlston, Mae, & Crawford, 1998).
My research involving spontaneous trait inference (STI) involves developing a new experimental paradigm, ostracism and STIs, impression generalization among groups of individuals (and STIs of these group members). I also have a separate line of research which focuses on incidental impressions that individuals form of other people, as well as the labeled associations we make about people.
References
Carlston, D.E., Skowronski, J.J. (1994). Savings in the relearning of trait information as evidence for spontaneous inference generation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 840-856.
Skowronski, J. J., Carlston, D. E., Mae, L.; Crawford, M.T. (1998). Spontaneous trait transference: Communicators take on the qualities they describe in others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 837-848.