Department of Psychology

Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan on Contemporary Family Dynamics

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Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, Professor of Developmental Psychology, discusses her research on family dynamics, particularly focusing on father-child relationships, co-parenting, and the transition into parenthood. She talks about the New Parents Project, which has followed nearly 200 couples from pregnancy through their child’s early years, examining the impact of factors like maternal gatekeeping and parental leave on father involvement and parenting quality. Schoppe-Sullivan also touches on her research methods, including the use of video observations and time diaries, and how these methods provide novel insights into family interactions.

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Kentaro Fujita Asks, “Can YOU Resist a Marshmallow?”

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Ken Fujita, Professor of Psychology, researches self-control in the Ohio State University Motivation and Cognitive Science Laboratory. He explores how motivation and cognition intersect to affect decision-making and behavior, such as the influence of thinking patterns on desires, as famously shown by the marshmallow test (can a child resist eating a marshmallow for 15 minutes?). Fujita looks at situational factors and strategies for self-control, arguing that self-control is a skill developed through practice rather than an innate ability. The interview ends with Fujita sharing his journey into psychology and discussing his commitment to mentoring students.

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Amy Brunell: How to Deal with Narcissists

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Amy Brunell, Professor of Social Psychology at The Ohio State University, researches narcissism in social contexts. In this interview, she discusses with host David Staley the clinical definition of narcissism versus its understanding from a social psychology perspective and details the three different types of narcissism. Brunell describes how narcissistic traits manifest in individuals, the impact of narcissism in various relationships, and the lack of systematic research on coping mechanisms for dealing with narcissists. She shares her academic journey, teaching experiences, and future research directions, including uncovering public perceptions of narcissism and discrepancies between self-reported and actual risky behaviors in narcissists.

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Categories Keep Us Alive, Says Vladimir Sloutsky

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Vladimir Sloutsky, Professor of Psychology, researches conceptual development and interrelationships between cognition and language. His most recent publication describes how humans can learn about categories without explicit teaching.

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Mindfulness Meditation Can Improve Mental and Physical Health, Says Ruchika Prakash

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Ruchika Prakash, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging, researches neuroplasticity in the context of healthy aging, and neurological disorders, specifically, multiple sclerosis. Her lab’s findings include ways that meditation can improve your behavioral and neural functioning.

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Russ Fazio On Whether We Mean What We Say On Surveys

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Russ Fazio, the Harold E. Burt Professor of Social Psychology, researches attitude formation, change, and accessibility, attitude-behavior consistency, and social cognition. His work in social cognition seeks to understand the thought processes that underlie social psychological phenomenon.

Independent Voters Respond More To Negative Ads, Says Richard Petty

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Richard Petty, Distinguished University Professor of Social Psychology, researches the situational and individual difference factors responsible for changes in beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. He joins host David Staley on this week’s Voices of Excellence to discuss his recent work on how political partisans (those who strongly identify as liberal or conservative) differ from independent voters in the overall strength of their attitudes. He’s found that independent voters often have greater animosity toward one candidate than they have liking toward the candidate that they were going to vote for, and this negativity is growing.

Julie Golomb Looks at How Our Brains Make Sense of the World

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Julie Golomb, Associate Professor of Psychology, researches the interactions between visual perception, attention, memory, and eye movements using human behavioral and computational cognitive neuroscience techniques. She’s especially interested in questions like, “How do our brains convert patterns of light into rich perceptual experiences, and what can we learn from perceptual errors?”

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Laura Wagner Says It Had a Story to Tell

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Professor of Psychology Laura Wagner studies how children acquire language and learn about meaning, such as the progression of time in storytelling. Their interpretations of even simple stories like the famous chicken joke reveal hidden meanings about complicated linguistics and complex concepts of time.

Can We Teach Hope? Jennifer Cheavens Says “Yes”

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Jennifer Cheavens, Associate Professor of Psychology at The Ohio State University College of the Arts and Sciences, joins David Staley this week on Voices of Excellence podcast to discuss positive psychology, prosocial behavior, and how hope is defined as a research topic. 

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Can’t Make Decisions? Prof. Ellen Peters’ Research Can Help You Understand Why

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Ellen Peters, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Decision Sciences Collaborative, joins David Staley to discuss judgment, decision making and choice architecture, as well as Prof. Peters’ forthcoming book, Innumeracy in the Wild: Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers.

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