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Stress on Behavior
Jeansok Kim investigates how stress influences behavior. His work has shown that stress likely affects learning and memory by changing electrical activity in a section of the brain called the hippocampus. Research in Kim’s lab has also revealed that these electrical changes are mediated by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors that are found in the brain. Kim’s laboratory also uses behavioral animal models to test what forms of learning are affected by stress and to study the processes that allow animals to learn. He is the recipient of a James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship.
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Emotions and How We Remember
Elizabeth Kensinger's research focuses on how emotions affect the way we remember information. She is interested in understanding how the emotional part of information affects the cognitive and neural processes that we use to remember it. Kensinger studies memory in young adults and how memory changes over time. Her research challenges the common understanding that “memory declines with age,” and shows the complex ways in which memory does and does not change as we get older. In 2010, Kensinger was among the inaugural recipients of the APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. Q&A with Elizabeth Kensinger
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Treatment for Aggression and Antisocial Child Behavior
Aggressive and antisocial behavior (e.g., fighting, destroying property, stealing) among children and adolescents comprise one of the most expensive mental health problems in the United States and the most frequent basis of referral to clinical services for children. Alan Kazdin has drawn on basic and applied research in learning and cognition to develop two effective evidence-based interventions for these children that improve child functioning at home, at school, and in the community.
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Motivational Success
Ruth Kanfer’s research examines the role of motivation, personality, emotion, and self-regulation in training, performance, and work transitions across the lifespan. Her work investigates the structure and influence of motivational traits such as mastery, desire to learn, competitiveness, and worry on goals and skill training, consequences of job search behavior, and the predictive validity of traits for academic and job success. Her research also explores emotion regulation, motivation in an aging workforce, and person determinants of contextual work behaviors.
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Modeling Cognition
Philip Johnson-Laird, studies how people infer and deduce the possibility and probability of something happening. He has developed computer programs which quantify the validity of certain deductions, paving the way toward greater understanding of deductive reasoning and thinking that challenge the idea that people have the laws of logic and probability in their heads. Johnson-Lairds book Mental Models: Toward a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference, and Consciousness unifies theories of comprehension, inference, and consciousness. He also studies emotions and cognition.
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Culture and Health
Where we come from and the cultural environment we were raised in has a big impact on many aspects of our lives. James Jackson's research focuses on how culture influences our health (both mental and physical) during our lives, attitude changes, and social support. Jackson has contributed enormously to our understanding of race relations and racism, not just in the United States, but around the world. For example, his research has highlighted how racial discrimination can affect physical and mental health and treatment. He has conducted very comprehensive social, political behavior, and mental and physical health surveys on African American and Black Caribbean populations.
