Research
My research focuses on two related topics, self-regulation and free will belief. My research on self-regulation has examined how people’s ability to exert self-control and make decisions can be replenished by glucose. My work on belief in free will is a matter of understanding how people’s basic, philosophical beliefs affect their cognitions and actions. I have studied how people’s belief or disbelief in human free will influences such things as how they judge moral responsibility and whether they forgive someone who misbehaves. These topics are related because actions of self-control are often based on the assumption that different courses of action are open to the person, who may choose which course to follow.
Self-Regulation
American citizens now have more debt than wealth, a problem that plagues the economic system. Waistlines are expanding more quickly than ever, with the majority of Americans being overweight or obese. Although it has been known for years that cigarettes are bad for health, people are still smoking. People want to save their money, maintain a healthy weight, and quit smoking, but their attempts to perform these actions often fail. Research on self-regulation examines how and why people fail at controlling themselves.
Self-regulation, which is defined as the ability to exert control over the self by the self, is often compared to a muscle. Immediately after use, a muscle is weakened. Likewise, after self-regulating, people experience resource depletion, the inability to exert self-control on future tasks. People who are depleted have less self-regulatory strength than people who are not depleted. Exerting self-regulation regularly over time increases one’s resistance to depletion. My work looks at ways that people can replenish their depleted self-regulatory strength and how they can increase their baseline self-regulatory strength.
Glucose, a chemical in the bloodstream, is the brain’s fuel. It is involved in numerous biological processes, and, as my research has shown, also influences psychological processes. Across several studies, we found that participants’ blood glucose levels dropped after performing a task requiring self-regulation but not after a similar task that did not require self-regulation. Additionally, after depleting participants of their self-regulatory resources, participants who drank a lemonade drink made with real sugar (glucose), rather than Splenda®, a non-glucose sugar substitute, did not show the depletion effects on a second task demanding self-regulation (Gailliot et al., 2007). Together, these studies provide evidence that glucose is the biological fuel for self-regulation.
I love incorporating students into my research on self-regulation. Many undergraduates have worked with me as research assistants, developing their own testable hypotheses or elaborating on mine. Students get firsthand experience running laboratory sessions, using well recognized measures to assess self-regulatory strength. I teach them how to use stimulus generation software (e.g., MediaLab, SurveyMonkey). Students working with me also learn about data analysis using the data they helped to collect. Further, I encourage students to present our work at regional and national conferences. During my time at FSU, I supervised over 60 research assistants and have several research assistant currently at the College of Idaho. Many of my students completed honors theses or independent projects, for which I was the primary mentor. It has been very satisfying to see these students get as excited as I do about conducting psychological research on the topic of self-regulation. I would like to continue getting undergraduate students involved in research.
Belief in Free Will
The philosophical debate as to the existence of free will has raged for centuries, with some believing that free will exists and others believing that all events are determined. I am less interested in whether free will exists than how one’s belief about free will influences thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions. In my research, I have sought to understand the relationship between free will belief, cognitions, and intentions by experimentally reducing people’s free will belief and measuring their thoughts and actions.
Some philosophers assert that people must have free will in order to be held morally responsible for their actions. Others, however, argue that people can be held morally responsible even if determinism is true. Although it may never be known whether humans actually possess free will, we can assess folk intuitions about the relationship between belief in free will and moral responsibility, which provides some insight into how the masses perceive this relationship. To do this, we surveyed participants about their belief in free will and their perceptions of moral responsibility, in general. We found that those who believed more, rather than less, strongly in free will also reported believing that people, in general, were morally responsible for their actions (Baumeister & Brewer, 2012). In experimental studies designed to establish causation, we reduced some participants’ free will belief by having them read an essay refuting the possibility that free will could exist. For others, we had them read an essay about an unrelated topic. Participants then completed a scale assessing their general perceptions of moral responsibility. We found that participants, whose free will belief had been experimentally reduced, thought that other people were less morally responsible for their actions than did people whose free will belief had been unaltered (Baumeister & Brewer, 2012).
Students really enjoy doing research on free will belief, because it allows them to use what they know about psychological research to test philosophical claims. Students learn the value of using self-report and behavioral measures in laboratory research. The also see how interdisciplinary psychological research is. Research assistants help me devise new ways of manipulating free will belief and measuring other outcome variables. Together we analyze the data to be presented at regional and national conferences. My goal is spark students’ interests in research by giving them hands on experience studying how free will beliefs affect our thoughts, intentions, and actions.
Updated: 8/27/14
Self-Regulation
American citizens now have more debt than wealth, a problem that plagues the economic system. Waistlines are expanding more quickly than ever, with the majority of Americans being overweight or obese. Although it has been known for years that cigarettes are bad for health, people are still smoking. People want to save their money, maintain a healthy weight, and quit smoking, but their attempts to perform these actions often fail. Research on self-regulation examines how and why people fail at controlling themselves.
Self-regulation, which is defined as the ability to exert control over the self by the self, is often compared to a muscle. Immediately after use, a muscle is weakened. Likewise, after self-regulating, people experience resource depletion, the inability to exert self-control on future tasks. People who are depleted have less self-regulatory strength than people who are not depleted. Exerting self-regulation regularly over time increases one’s resistance to depletion. My work looks at ways that people can replenish their depleted self-regulatory strength and how they can increase their baseline self-regulatory strength.
Glucose, a chemical in the bloodstream, is the brain’s fuel. It is involved in numerous biological processes, and, as my research has shown, also influences psychological processes. Across several studies, we found that participants’ blood glucose levels dropped after performing a task requiring self-regulation but not after a similar task that did not require self-regulation. Additionally, after depleting participants of their self-regulatory resources, participants who drank a lemonade drink made with real sugar (glucose), rather than Splenda®, a non-glucose sugar substitute, did not show the depletion effects on a second task demanding self-regulation (Gailliot et al., 2007). Together, these studies provide evidence that glucose is the biological fuel for self-regulation.
I love incorporating students into my research on self-regulation. Many undergraduates have worked with me as research assistants, developing their own testable hypotheses or elaborating on mine. Students get firsthand experience running laboratory sessions, using well recognized measures to assess self-regulatory strength. I teach them how to use stimulus generation software (e.g., MediaLab, SurveyMonkey). Students working with me also learn about data analysis using the data they helped to collect. Further, I encourage students to present our work at regional and national conferences. During my time at FSU, I supervised over 60 research assistants and have several research assistant currently at the College of Idaho. Many of my students completed honors theses or independent projects, for which I was the primary mentor. It has been very satisfying to see these students get as excited as I do about conducting psychological research on the topic of self-regulation. I would like to continue getting undergraduate students involved in research.
Belief in Free Will
The philosophical debate as to the existence of free will has raged for centuries, with some believing that free will exists and others believing that all events are determined. I am less interested in whether free will exists than how one’s belief about free will influences thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions. In my research, I have sought to understand the relationship between free will belief, cognitions, and intentions by experimentally reducing people’s free will belief and measuring their thoughts and actions.
Some philosophers assert that people must have free will in order to be held morally responsible for their actions. Others, however, argue that people can be held morally responsible even if determinism is true. Although it may never be known whether humans actually possess free will, we can assess folk intuitions about the relationship between belief in free will and moral responsibility, which provides some insight into how the masses perceive this relationship. To do this, we surveyed participants about their belief in free will and their perceptions of moral responsibility, in general. We found that those who believed more, rather than less, strongly in free will also reported believing that people, in general, were morally responsible for their actions (Baumeister & Brewer, 2012). In experimental studies designed to establish causation, we reduced some participants’ free will belief by having them read an essay refuting the possibility that free will could exist. For others, we had them read an essay about an unrelated topic. Participants then completed a scale assessing their general perceptions of moral responsibility. We found that participants, whose free will belief had been experimentally reduced, thought that other people were less morally responsible for their actions than did people whose free will belief had been unaltered (Baumeister & Brewer, 2012).
Students really enjoy doing research on free will belief, because it allows them to use what they know about psychological research to test philosophical claims. Students learn the value of using self-report and behavioral measures in laboratory research. The also see how interdisciplinary psychological research is. Research assistants help me devise new ways of manipulating free will belief and measuring other outcome variables. Together we analyze the data to be presented at regional and national conferences. My goal is spark students’ interests in research by giving them hands on experience studying how free will beliefs affect our thoughts, intentions, and actions.
Updated: 8/27/14
