Dear colleagues:
It my pleasure to announce our fourth Hebb Lecturer of the year: Professor James K. McNulty from Florida State University. Dr. McNulty’s research is aimed at understanding how strong beliefs change or remain stable over time. Much of his work on this question focuses on close relationships, where initially positive beliefs frequently become negative over time, despite the strong motives people have to maintain those positive beliefs. In addition to understanding the mechanism people use to maintain desired beliefs, and their limits, his research can also suggest directions for promoting the resilience of initially satisfying beliefs about close relationships. Dr. McNulty has earned numerous awards including the Relationship Researchers Interest Group Early Career Award. The main talk (title and abstract below) will take place at 3:30pm on Friday, February 17th, in MCMED 522.
“How theories of social cognition can inform relationship science, and vice versa.”
For several decades now, the science of close relationships has been operating relatively independently of the science of social cognition. Yet, it is impossible to completely understand close relationships without understanding how people think about one another, and it is quite possible that no other context offers more insights into social cognition than close relationships. This talk will describe data from several longitudinal and experimental studies of married couples that illustrate the usefulness of drawing on models of implicit social cognition to understanding close relationships, as well as the usefulness of studying close partnerships to understanding implicit social cognition. In particular, I will describe research demonstrating that automatic partner attitudes, the evaluations of one’s romantic partner that are activated immediately and spontaneously upon seeing that partner, are a crucial source of relationship functioning. As will hopefully become clear, studying these implicit evaluations in the context of close relationships offers novel insights not easily observed in the relatively asocial contexts in which they are typically studied.
IN ADDITION to the afternoon presentation, there will be a morning session--open to all--during which Dr. McNulty will be discussing some of his other research interests. The morning session will take place from 10:30am-12pm, room TBA.
Finally, graduate students who are interested in going to lunch with Dr. McNulty should contact Emilie Auger at: emilie.auger(a)mail.mcgill.ca.
We hope to see you there!
Jennifer
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Jennifer A. Bartz, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
McGill University
1205 Docteur Penfield
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1
jennifer.bartz(a)mcgill.ca<mailto:jennifer.bartz@mcgill.ca>
514-398-7626 (t)
514-398-4896 (f)
http://www.bartzlab.com/
