Mark Matthews
Mark completed his BA in psychology at The Ohio State University-Mansfield and his MA in experimental psychology at the University of Dayton. He is currently a first-year in the social psychology program. Mark is interested in pursuing questions related to (a) one’s openness to counter-attitudinal information and truth-seeking, (b) the relation, or lack thereof, between one’s attitudes and their identity and self-worth, and (c) attitudinal development more broadly. Currently, Mark is examining how unconditional self-acceptance, a belief that one has an inherent sense of worth and value no matter what, influences openness to counter-attitudinal information.
Aviva Philipp-Muller
Aviva received her B.Sc. from the University of Toronto in 2016. She is interested in the consequences of moral conviction and how feeling that an issue is morally charged might affect one’s attitude. Along with Profs. Wegener and Petty, she is currently looking at how possessing strong moral conviction about an issue affects behavioral outcomes as well as how moral conviction affects individuals as recipients of persuasive messaging. Her other research interests include attachment in relationships and environmental sustainability messaging.
Mark Susmann
Mark received his BA in psychology from SUNY-Geneseo in 2015 and he is currently a second year student in the social psychology Ph.D. program. Mark’s research interests broadly lie in the examination of how attitudes influence one’s perceptions of information and why people rely on certain peices of information about others. Recently, Mark has been examining how attitudes and perceptions of the source can affect people’s reaction to numeric anchors. Additionally, Mark has been investigating how and why people continue to rely on retracted misinformation and the consequences this continued reliance may have.
Laura Wallace
Laura received her BA in Organizational Communication from Xavier University in 2012 and her MA from Ohio State in 2015. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the social psychology program. Her research primarily asks two questions: (1) What factors make an advocate more or less effective, and (2) What makes people work for social change. Recently, Laura has been exploring when people will perceive an advocate as biased and what consequences that might have for persuasion attempts. Laura has also been exploring how people manage the choice to defend or change their social systems when they learn that the system is flawed.