Department of Psychology
PSYC 260: Introduction to Social Psychology
Q: Where did you get your degrees?
A: Well, I got my Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I got my bachelor's degree from Hampshire College in Massachusetts.
Q: How did you become interested in social psychology?
A: I kind of led a meandering route as an undergraduate. I went from thinking I would be a music major to a biology major to many other things, but really through my coursework, I just fell in love with social psychology from a course I took at Williams College where I started out.
Q: What's the most surprising thing you have learned through your research?
A: Probably research on self-knowledge. In fact, I have a book that just came out about this topic called "Strangers to Ourselves." I think how little we sometimes know ourselves is the most surprising thing to me. Why that is, is not necessarily because of Freudian repression or these terrible things we don't want to know, but more that there's a large part of our minds that's just inaccessible to us. That's just the way the mind works.
Q: Do you think it's worthwhile to analyze your dreams
A: Dream analysis is a very interesting thing. I teach an undergraduate course sometimes in which one of the assignments is to analyze your own dreams, and I do think dreams tell us important things. It turns out they are a very hard thing for psychologists to study vigorously. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions about what dreams tell us. I personally think they can tell us a lot, but I can't point to a lot of really well controlled studies that tell us that.
Q: What's your favorite topic of psychology?
A: Since most of my research is on the topic of self-perception and self-knowledge and how the self develops in a social context and cultural context -- how we define ourselves in a vast social world -- that's what fascinates me the most.
Q: What's your favorite book and movie?
A: One of my favorite books, actually, is one of the novels that I assign for this class, which is "A Yellow Raft on Blue Water" by Michael Dorris. It's a very rich book, psychologically, and it's just a very interesting novel. I've always enjoyed that book and enjoyed the papers my students write about it.
I have lots of favorite movies. One of my favorites is "Groundhog Day."
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