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Directories for:
Emily Balcetis
Assistant
Professor of PsychologyPh.D. (2006) Cornell University
Research Area:
Social Judgment & Behavioral Decision Making
Specializations:
Motivation, Self and Social Judgment, Visual and Social Perception, Social Cognition, Automaticity
Contact Information:
- Office:
227 Porter Hall
- Phone: (740) 593-1064
- E-mail: balcetis@ohio.edu
- Phone: (740) 593-1064
Research Interests:
I am interested in the conscious and nonconscious ways people fundamentally orient to the world. In particular, I focus on how the motivations, emotions, needs, and goals people hold impact the basic ways people perceive, interpret, and ultimately react to information around them. For instance, when hoping for a passing grade, does the student see the squiggle at the top of the exam as a B or 13%? I advocate for an interactive cognitive system where psychological states constrain the basic manner in which we perceive and react to our worlds. In doing so, my research represents an intersection among social psychology, judgment and decision-making, social cognition, and perception.
MOTIVATED PERCEPTION
People assume perceptions of the world are veridical representations of reality. Much research, however, questions this supposition and instead suggests the vantage is “cloudy” at best. The way people perceive their environment is both selective and malleable. I argue that perception is dependent on a broader context—one established by such social psychological factors as motivations, individual differences, and goals.
STATES and GOALS GUIDE ATTENTION and PREDICT BEHAVIOR
The ways we act within our social world are dependent upon how we interpret it but also the goals we hold within that world. Social goals, such as the desire to engage in successful social interactions, can change the way we perceive members of our social worlds but also the ways in which we interact with them. I am investigating the functional value and strategic yet nonconscious use of verbal mimicry within dyadic communication to repair troublesome interactions while the possibility for repair still exists with that partner.
PERCEPTION of and ACTION in THE SOCIAL WORLD
I am also interested in more traditional social cognitive concerns, such as biases in social perception and judgment. In particular, I focus on the biased views we come to hold of others and ourselves in addition to looking at the consequences of such errors. In addition, I am examining cross-cultural differences in the accuracy of perceptions of the self and others.
Selected Publications:
- Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2006). See what you want to see:
Motivational influences on visual perception. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 91, 612-625.
Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2005). Judging for two: Some connectionist proposals for how the self informs and constrains social judgment. Invited chapter for M. Alicke, D. Dunning, & J. Krueger (Eds.), Self and social judgment. New York: Psychology Press.
Balcetis, E. & Dale, R. (2005). An exploration of social modulation of syntactic priming. In Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 184-189). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Balcetis, E., & Dale, R. (2003). The eye is not naked: Context clothes visual perception. In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 109-114), Erlbaum: Mahwah, NJ.
Balcetis, E., & Dale, R. (in press). Conceptual set as a top-down constraint on visual object identification. Perception.
Recent or Upcoming Presentations:
Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2006, May). Losing track of time: Dissonance induced arousal biases time perception. Poster presented at the American Psychological Society, New York City.
Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2006, January). Motivated perception: Cognitive dissonance reduction influences visual processing. Paper presented (as symposium chair) at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference, Palm Springs,
Dunning, D., & Balcetis, E. (2005, October). Motivational influences on vision. Paper presented at the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, San Diego, CA.
Balcetis, E., & Dale, R. (2005, July). An exploration of social modulation of syntactic priming. Poster presented at Cognitive Science Society, Stresa, Italy.
Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2005, May). What naked eye?: Motivated perception in visual object identification. Paper presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Conference, Chicago, IL.
Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2005, January). The eye of the beholder:
The influence of motivational states on visual object identification.
Poster presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Conference, New Orleans, LA.
Courses Taught:
- Undergraduate:
Introduction to Psychology
Graduate:
Automaticity
Personal Homepage : http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~balcetis/index.html
