{"id":160,"date":"2017-12-22T18:11:13","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T18:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/professor-example\/?page_id=160"},"modified":"2025-09-19T18:04:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:04:04","slug":"social-perception-lab","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lee-jussim\/social-perception-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Perception Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

(Last updated 9\/19\/25)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

2019 – 2020 Social Perceptions Lab Members<\/p>\n

We call ourselves The Social Perception Lab (SPL) because nearly all of our research once addressed how people think about, understand, judge, evaluate, and perceive other people (“Social” — about people; “perception” — perceiving, inferring, understanding; “lab” — we get data on these things rather than merely spouting opinions). FOR A SUMMARY OF WORK COMPLETED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, <\/span>GO TO MY BIO PAGE<\/a> (The second half of my bio focuses largely on research conducted in the last few years).\u00a0 And we are still doing this work.\u00a0 But much of my recent and current work focuses on various issues of <\/span>scientific integrity, <\/i>see my <\/span>work in progress<\/a> and <\/span>selected publications<\/a> pages for more details.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Go to my Congratulations Page!<\/a> for news about recent students’ successes and milestones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT WORK CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS,
\n<\/span>GO TO MY WORK IN PROGRESS PAGE<\/a> PAGE<\/span><\/p>\n

The SPL is located in room 301 Tillett Hall on Livingston Campus.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

CURRENT GRAD STUDENTS<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

Danit Finkelstein:<\/strong> Political extremism and other psychological dysfunctions manifesting in online social media.<\/p>\n

Sonia Yanovsky<\/strong>: Political extremism.<\/p>\n

Ohad Fedida:<\/strong> Political extremism.<\/p>\n

Noah Booker<\/strong>: Political psychology.<\/p>\n

SPL ALUMNI STILL ACTIVE COLLABORATING\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nathan Honeycutt<\/strong> (PhD, 2022). Currently research scientists at TheFIRE.org.<\/p>\n

Rachel Rubinstein<\/strong> (PhD, 2019). Currently tenure track at Towson University, Maryland.<\/p>\n

Sean Stevens<\/strong> (PhD, 2013). Currently, Director of Polling and analytics at TheFIRE.org.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

OTHER SOCIAL PERCEPTION LAB ALUMNI
\n<\/b>
\nStephanie Anglin, <\/b>currently a tenure track assistant professor at William Hobart & Smith College. <\/span>Science Daily coverage of Stephanie’s work<\/a>.\u00a0
\nElizabeth Salib, <\/b>PhD 2014.\u00a0 Research associate, Catalyst.
\nSean Stevens, <\/b>PhD 2013. Research Director, Heterodox Academy\/NYU-Stern School of Business.
\nFlorette Cohen<\/b>, PhD 2008.\u00a0 Associate Professor, Psychology.\u00a0 CUNY profile<\/a>.
\nJarret Crawford, PhD 2008.\u00a0 Professor, The College of New Jersey.\u00a0 TCNJ profile.<\/a>
\nStacy Robustelli, PhD 2006 (Educational Psychology).
\nRobin Freyberg, PhD 2005 (primary advisor, Jeannette Haviland).\u00a0 Yeshiva University in NYC.
\nCelina Chatman-Nelson, PhD 1999.\u00a0 Associate Director, Graduate Career Development and Diversity and Inclusion, University of Chicago.
\nStephanie Madon, PhD 1998. Professor and Graduate Chair, Iowa State U.\u00a0 Home page.<\/a>
\nKathy Aboufadel, PhD 1995. Senior Project Manager, Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids, Michigan
\nRebecca Yen, PhD 1993, Yuan-Ze Institute of Technology, Taiwan.
\nLaura Pople, PhD 1993.<\/span><\/p>\n

CURRENT AND SOME FORMER HONORS STUDENTS<\/u>
\nNote: All recipients of the Henry Rutgers Scholar Award were primarily advised by Sean Stevens, except Bryan Loh, who was adviced by Rachel Rubinstein and Brett Byll, who was advised by Akeela Careem.<\/p>\n

Bennet Shepard (expected, 2026).\u00a0 The psychology of support for political murder.<\/p>\n

Brett Byll (2020). Thesis: Understanding protest in 2020.\u00a0 Essay based on this thesis can be found at FreeBlackThought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bryan Loh (2019). Thesis: The effects of counterstereotypic individuating information on stereotype bias in implicit and explicit person perception.\u00a0 Henry Rutgers Scholar Award.
\n
\nRachel Lisner (2016), Thesis: Are political areas in psychology vulnerable to questionable research practices?\u00a0 <\/span>Henry Rutgers Scholar Award, Phillips Award for Outstanding Thesis in Psychology. Rachel performed a slew of the “new forensics” (e.g., pcurves) on politicized and unpoliticized areas of psychological research, and found little evidence of problematic statistical or methodological practices in either.<\/p>\n

Brittany Finn (2015), Thesis: Do researchers’ high moral purposes undermine scientific integrity? Henry Rutgers Scholar Award, Shah Award for Research Promise. <\/span><\/span>Brittany performed a slew of the “new forensics” (e.g., pcurves) and found that evidence regarding stereotype threat and the relationship of implicit prejudice to discrimination is, at best, far weaker than usually cracked up to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Greta Jankauskaite (2012):\u00a0 Thesis:\u00a0 One Nation Under Whose God?\u00a0 Greta’s thesis distinguished between religiosity and spirituality and linked both to Haidt & Graham’s Moral Foundations Theory. This was a highly original thesis and won just <\/span>about every major undergraduate award at Rutgers, including the prestigious Henry Rutgers Scholar award.\u00a0 Greta was also selected to be Psychology’s Commencement Speaker at graduation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Wang (2012): Thesis: The role of propaganda in genocide and polarizing group perceptions.\u00a0 He exposed people to hateful propaganda but found no effect — he concluded that the propaganda he used was so outlandish that it was just dismissed as silly.<\/p>\n

Kristin Vick (2011).\u00a0 Thesis: Assessing a Scale Measuring Lying to Appear Unprejudiced. Kristin performed research validating the PC Scale (see Work in Progress<\/a> for more details). The higher people scored on the PC Scale (a new scale assessing lying to appear unprejudiced) the more they claimed to know about nonexistent civil rights leaders and organizations. This thesis won a Henry Rutgers Scholar Award, which is the highest
\naward Rutgers gives for an undergraduate thesis.<\/p>\n

Esti Sonnenblick (2011).\u00a0 Thesis: The Effect of Ongoing Suffering on Prejudice. Esti’s thesis attempted to replicate a German study showing that making salient that Jews continue to suffer today from the after-effects of the Holocaust actually increases anti-Semitism.\u00a0 Her results partially replicated the Germany study.\u00a0 The effect did occur among Republicans, but not among the rest of the sample.\u00a0 Esti speculated that elevated levels of belief in a just world among conservatives (well-established in other research but not tested here) explains why, after reading about ongoing suffering, anti-Semitism increased among Republicans.\u00a0 Esti received Psychology’s Alice M. and Walter Phillips Award for Outstanding Thesis.<\/p>\n

Rachel Rubinstein (2010).\u00a0 Thesis: The Effects of Individuating Information and Stereotypes on Implicit and Explicit Social Perceptions of Individuals and Groups. Rachel examined whether individuating information or stereotypes were stronger influences on implicit and explicit person perception, and found individuating information was much stronger.\u00a0 This thesis won a Henry Rutgers Scholar Award, which is the highest award Rutgers gives for an undergraduate thesis.\u00a0 Rachel is currently a graduate student in Rutgers social psychology program.<\/p>\n

Karin Negele (2008).\u00a0 Thesis: Do Stereotypes Dominate Social Dominators? Karin examined whether people who endorse exploiting others were more biased in their stereotyping.\u00a0 It turns out that they were not.<\/p>\n

Laura Ragusa (2007). Thesis: Stereotype Accuracy Regarding Incarceration. Laura examined the (in)accuracy of people’s beliefs about the incarceration rates of various different demographic groups (African-Americans, Whites, Latinos, Men, Women, mentally ill).<\/p>\n

Christoph Schierle (2006).\u00a0 Thesis: Measuring Brain Activity While Lying to Appear Unprejudiced: An ERP Study Chris performed the first social cognitive neuroscience study associated with my lab.\u00a0 ERP’s are Event Related Potentials, which are pattens of electrical activity in the brain.\u00a0 Lying has been demonstrated to evoke a unique pattern of ERP’s. In this study, people’s ERP responses to the PC scale (see Romain Walker, below)
\nwere found to be similar to those occurring when telling blatant lies (e.g., it is 90 degrees outside today — when “today” is a typical December day in New Jersey).<\/span><\/p>\n

Gautam Bhasin (2006).\u00a0 Thesis: Mortality Salience and Anti-Semitism. Gautam’s study tested these ideas, and found that under mortality salience, people: 1. became more hostile to Jews. 2. became more hostile to Israel.
\n3. viewed Israel as looming large (an effect occurring with no other country). 4. increased their willingness to punish Israel for human rights violations more than they increased their willingness to punish other countries (India, Russia) for the identical violation. This research was part of a series of studies published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.<\/p>\n

James Delaguila (2006).\u00a0 Thesis: Political perception.\u00a0 Ideology (liberal\/conservative) biases people’s interpretations of news articles purporting to oppose racial profiling or support the war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Reshma Stafford (2005).\u00a0\u00a0Thesis: Bending Over Backwards: When White\u2019s Threatened Egalitarianism Causes Excessive Leniency towards African Americans.\u00a0\u00a0 Reshma performed an experiment examining hypothesis about why Whites often are more lenient (favorable) in their evaluations of the work of African Americans than in their evaluations of work of Whites.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Kennedy (2005)\u00a0 Thesis:\u00a0 Social Support Opinions Validation Study.\u00a0 Katie performed two studies validating a new questionnaire, the Social Support Opinion Survey.\u00a0 Two validation studies examined the relationships of people\u2019s support styles to their personality, world view, gender, and the amount and type of support that they receive themselves. These studies found significant correlations between both the SSOS Direct and Nondirect subscales and several measures of personality, received support, and world views.\u00a0 In addition, both men and women were more likely to provide nondirect than direct support, but women were more likely than men to provide nondirect and less likely than men to provide direct support.\u00a0 These findings support the validity of the SSOS as a measure of individuals\u2019 support giving style.\u00a0 This has become part of a paper that was published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology.\u00a0 Katie went to graduate school at Princeton and is now an assistant professor at the business school at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

Sachelle Heavens (2005).\u00a0\u00a0Thesis: The Political Correctness (PC) Scale: Measuring Lying to Appear Unprejudiced. Sachelle performed a combined experimental and correlational study testing the validity of the PC scale.\u00a0 And found that the scale correlated beautifully with prejudice (higher pc, lower prejudice against African-Americans, Asians, and women); it correlated beautifully with three measures of lying to make one appear better than one really is; and it was highly responsive to situational pressures to appear unprejudiced. This study is part of a series (see Romain Walker, below) that is on the verge of being submitted for publication.<\/p>\n

Romain Walker (2002).\u00a0 Thesis: Politically Correct Responding.\u00a0 Romain’s honors thesis involves two experimental studies assessing the validity of the PC Scale.<\/a>\u00a0 Romain’s thesis received an award for being one of the top psychology theses of 2002, and a slightly revised version was published in The Rutgers Scholar, volume 4.\u00a0 His thesis is currently being expanded and combined with Sachelle’s and will soon be submitted for publication.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

(last updated, 7\/16)<\/small><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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