Research

Published Research
Education

Jump-starting early childhood education at home: Early learning, parent motivation, and public policy.

Authors: Benjamin Converse, Chloe Gibbs, E.A. Mahoney, S.C. Levine, S.L. Beilock

By the time children begin formal schooling, their experiences at home have already contributed to large variations in their math and language development, and once school begins, academic achievement continues to depend strongly on influences outside of school. It is thus essential that educational reform strategies involve primary caregivers. 

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Published Research
Social Psychology

Suspicion of White People’s Motives Relates to Relative Accuracy in Detecting External Motivation to Respond without Prejudice

Authors: Sophie Trawalter, Jennifer LaCosse, Taylor Tuscherer, Jonathan W. Kunstman, E. Ashby Plant, Brenda Major

As a result of prevalent pressure to inhibit prejudice, racial minorities may wonder whether White people’s nonprejudiced behavior is primarily motivated by personal commitments to egalitarianism (i.e., internal motivation) or superficial efforts to appear nonprejudiced (i.e., external motivation). The present work investigated whether minority group members chronically suspicious of White people’s motives (i.e., those who believe White people are more externally than internally motivated), are more accurate than those who are less suspicious in detecting the motives behind White individuals’ pleasant behavior toward minorities. 

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Published Research

On Rivalry and Goal Pursuit: Shared Competitive History, Legacy Concerns, and Strategy Selection

Authors: Benjamin Converse, David A. Reinhard

Seven studies converge to show that prompting people to think about a rival versus a nonrival competitor causes them to view current competitions as more connected to past ones, to be more concerned with long-term legacy, and to pursue personal goals in a more eager, less cautious manner. These results are consistent with a social–cognitive view of rivalry that defines it as a competitive relational schema. 

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Published Research

Not so lonely at the top: The relationship between power and loneliness

Authors: Eileen Chou, Adam Watz, Joe C. Magee, Adam D. Galinsky

Eight studies found a robust negative relationship between the experience of power and the experience of loneliness. Dispositional power and loneliness were negatively correlated (Study 1). Experimental inductions established causality: we manipulated high versus low power through autobiographical essays, assignment to positions, or control over resources, and found that each manipulation showed that high versus low power decreased loneliness (Studies 2a–2c). 

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Published Research
Leadership

Introducing the LEAD Dataset

Authors: Allan C. Stam, Cali Mortenson Ellis, Michael C. Horowitz

The Leader Experience, Attribute, and Decision (LEAD) data set provides a rich source of new information about the personal lives and experiences of over 2,000 state leaders from 1875–2004. For the first time, we can combine insights from psychology and human development with large-n data on interstate conflict for a new theory of leadership and inter-state relations.

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Published Research

Reforming Housing Assistance

Authors: Edgar O. Olsen

Getting better outcomes with less public spending is always desirable, and our current fiscal situation adds urgency to this task. Low-income housing assistance is fertile ground for such reforms. 

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Published Research

U.S. Housing Policy

Authors: Edgar O. Olsen, Jeff Zabel, Giles Duranton, J. Vernon Henderson, William Strange (Eds.)

Governments throughout the world intervene heavily in housing markets, and most have multiple policies to pursue multiple goals.  This chapter deals with two of the largest types of housing policies in the United States, namely, low-income rental assistance and policies to promote homeownership through interventions in mortgage markets.

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