New JPSP Paper by Emma McGorray, Lydia Emery, Alexandra Garr-Schultz, and Eli Finkel

This paper examines the sample diversity and reporting practices in 1,762 studies published in 8 mainstream psychology and relationships journals at two timepoints—(1) 1996–2000 and (2) 2016–2020—and centers on five focal sample characteristics: gender, sexual orientation, regional context, socioeconomic status, and race. The paper finds that reporting practices and representation have not improved for some core demographic characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status) and that even in domains for which reporting practices have improved (e.g., sexual orientation), reporting remains limited. Further, the paper highlights reporting practices and offers recommendations for cultivating a more representative and inclusive discipline.

McGorray, E. L., Emery, L. F., Garr-Schultz, A., & Finkel, E. J. (in press). “Mostly White, heterosexual couples”: Examining demographic diversity and reporting practices in relationship science research samples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Leila Foulon Receives Thesis Award

Leila Foulon won the Fletcher Award for her undergraduate honors thesis titled, “Do you have a type or just a lack of choice? Measuring the stability of physical attraction types across environments.” The award honors outstanding undergraduate research supported by an academic year undergraduate research grant.

New Self and Identity Paper by Erin Hughes, Erica Slotter, and Lydia Emery

This paper examines when relational self-expansion is especially beneficial for relationship outcomes. Relational self-expansion is most strongly associated with commitment among people with an especially strong motivation to self-expand, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally.

Hughes, E. K., Slotter, E. B., & Emery, L. F. (in press). Expanding me, loving us: Self-expansion preferences, experiences, and romantic relationship commitment. Self and Identity.

Erin Hughes Won the SPSP Inside the Grant Panel Competition

Erin came in first place in SPSP's Inside the Grant Panel for her project titled, "Contributors to relationship quality of those whose partners are incarcerated." The project will involve both qualitative and quantitative methods to learn about what helps sustain their relationship, what hinders their relationship, and what factors into stay/leave decisions for those with incarcerated romantic partners.

New SPPS Paper by Lydia Emery, Erin Hughes, and Wendi Gardner

This paper examines a potential tradeoff between self-expansion (adding new content to the self-concept) and self-concept clarity (having a clear and coherent sense of self). Past research (Emery et al., 2015) has found that people with low self-concept clarity resist self-expanding — is this because self-expansion can harm self-concept clarity? Not only is there no evidence for such a tradeoff, but self-expanding is associated with higher self-concept clarity and well-being among those whose self-concept clarity was initially low. In other words, the people who are most resistant toward self-expansion may be those who would benefit most from it.

Emery, L. F., Hughes, E. K., & Gardner, W. L. (in press). Confusion or clarity? Examining a possible tradeoff between self-expansion and self-concept clarity. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 

New JPSP Paper by Lydia Emery and Eli Finkel

The paper finds that because people in lower-SES contexts experience more precarious environments, they are more concerned about self-protection in their relationships than are those in higher-SES contexts, and they also think about their relationships in more self-protective ways. However, the links between social class and self-protection only emerge when people in lower-SES contexts feel vulnerable in their relationships.

Emery, L. F., & Finkel, E. J. (in press). Connect or protect? Social class and self-protection in romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

Lydia Emery Receives Paper Award

Lydia Emery received the Graduate Student Paper Award from the Relationship Researchers Interest Group (RRIG) within the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) for the paper “Who are ‘we’? Couple identity clarity and romantic relationship commitment” (Emery, Gardner, Carswell, & Finkel, 2020). She will present on the paper at the 2021 (virtual) Close Relationships SPSP Preconference.

New JESP Paper By Ivan Hernandez and Colleagues

This paper tests the hypotheses that guiding students towards recognizing their strengths originating from their specific background and experiences will have positive implications for their academic motivation and psychological well-being. Specifically, it presents evidence indicating that a brief experimental paradigm, guiding students to reflect on their background-specific strengths, leads lower-SES college students, as well as Black and Latinx middle school students from lower-SES backgrounds, to endorse the idea that they are assets to their schools and society because of their backgrounds and increases their inclinations to persist in the face of academic difficulty.

Hernandez, I. A., Silverman, D., Destin, M. (In press). From deficit to benefit: Highlighting lower SES students’ background-specific strengths increases their academic persistence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

 

Lydia Emery Begins Postdoc

Lydia Emery is now a postdoctoral scholar at the Kellogg School of Management, working with Eli Finkel and Nicole Stephens. She will be researching how social class background shapes people’s experiences in their close relationships.

New Book Chapters by Erin Hughes, Lydia Emery, and Colleagues

Erin Hughes and Lydia Emery, along with collaborators, contributed chapters to a new edited volume on Interpersonal Relationships and the Self-Concept. Their respective chapters focused on predictors of self-concept change, and the interplay between self-concept clarity and self-concept change.

Slotter, E. B., & Hughes, E. K. (2020). You complete me: Antecedents and moderators of relationship-induced self-concept change. In B. A. Mattingly, K. P. McIntyre, & G. W. Lewandowski (Eds.), Interpersonal relationships and the self-concept (pp. 21-36). Springer Publishing: New York, NY.

Emery, L. F., & Gardner, W. L. (2020). Who in the world am I? Self-concept clarity and self-change in relationships. In B. A. Mattingly, K. P. McIntyre, & G. W. Lewandowski (Eds.), Interpersonal relationships and the self-concept (pp. 89-104). Springer Publishing: New York, NY.