M.A. THESIS ADVISEES
Rongxin Cheng (2019 - 2021); currently a Ph.D. student at UC Davis
Rongxin explored the characteristics of people who are attracted to paradoxical knowers, namely, people who claim to know what is unknowable to the world or others. In her thesis, she examined attraction to paradoxical knowing within the context of COVID-19 (knowing the future of COVID-19 with high certainty). She is interested in understanding the role of people's vulnerabilities (e.g., perceived victimhood, anxiety) during the pandemic in attraction to paradoxical knowers.
Murat Hosgor (2019 - 2021); currently a Ph.D. student at Fordham University
Murat's research lies at the intersection of Psychology and Media. Specifically, he relies on theories of self-regulation in Social Psychology to understand social media use and engagement. In his thesis, he employed the WOOP strategy to enhance self-regulatory mechanisms on social media use. On a broader scope, he is interested in exploring the relationship between college students' academic/social goals and the patterns of their social media use.
Brandon Neglio (2019 - 2021); currently a data manager at the Family Translational Research Group at NYU
Brandon's research investigated the relationship between paradoxical knowing and self-regulation tendencies. Specifically, he looked at whether there is a connection between the use of Mental Contrasting (MC) strategy in goal attainment (reflecting on one's current internal obstacles in the context of the desired future) and paradoxical knowing. He asked whether those that use high amounts of paradoxical knowledge in their daily lives ("I know things that are unknowable") would be less willing to use MC, a self-regulation strategy that has been shown to be effective in facilitating goal-directed behavior in various contexts (e.g., health, education).
Young Ju Ryu (2019 - 2021); incoming Ph.D. student at the University of Kansas
Young-Ju's research compared the two different types of epistemic convictions; intellectual humility and paradoxical knowing. Specifically, her thesis focused on how people with high intellectual humility vs. paradoxical knowing react in the face of intellectual failure, for example, by adopting distinct social comparison motivations (e.g., self-improvement vs. self-enhancement). In another study, she examined the relationship between intellectual humility and preventive health practices for COVID-19 (e.g., social distancing, handwashing, mask-wearing) through correlational and experimental methods.
Neharika Nair (2019-2020); currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois at Chicago
Neharika investigated rejected victimhood (feeling like a victim though most others do not recognize it) and its antisocial outcomes in her thesis. In another project, she worked on the phenomenon of choice overload.
Jay Reynolds (2021-2022)
Jay's research has examined the relationship between social media use and intellectual humility among college students.
George Ryan Ghorayed (2021-2023/expected)
UNDERGRADUATE HONORS THESIS ADVISEES
Jiaxuan (Leah) Li (2021 - 2022); currently an M.A. student at New York University
Amy Huang (2021 - 2022)
RESEARCH ASSISTANT MENTORSHIP
Current Research Assistants
Florida State University: Martha Cooper, Cassidy Doane, Elisya Rosa
New York University: Aleyna Dogan, Sophia Guo, Zhiheng Liu, Kiril Kiselev, Samantha Toma