Conference Posters
The social cognition lab runs each fall — student-driven, theory-curious, unafraid of the harder questions. Recent projects have carried students to the Eastern Psychological Association on topics ranging from self-compassion and religion to vegan identity and our obligations to non-human animals.
EPA 2025
In an online sample of vegans (n = 91) and non-vegans (n = 77), vegans reported reliably higher self-compassion and more prosocial tendencies. Compassion for others did not differ—suggesting it is the self-directed and behavioral correlates of vegan identity, not other-compassion, that distinguish the group.
EPA 2025
Omnivores (N = 150) were randomly assigned to read a persuasive paragraph emphasizing animal suffering, environmental impact, or human-health consequences of industrial agriculture. The suffering condition produced significantly lower compassion for animals than the environmental condition—consistent with defensive disengagement and compassion fatigue.
EPA 2024
The first test of the self-compassion–animal-compassion link. Among vegans and vegetarians (n = 106), the two correlate negatively, r = −.35; among meat-eaters (n = 91) there is no relationship—mirroring the broader pattern in which people extend more compassion to others than to themselves.
EPA 2024
Religious Christians (n = 303) reported higher self-compassion than Atheists (n = 328) on all six SCS-SF subscales. They also reported higher grandiose narcissism, driven almost entirely by the exhibitionism subscale. No differences emerged on fragile narcissism or shame.
EPA 2024
Among graduate trainees for caring professions, trait self-compassion correlated strongly with practicing self-compassion (r = .74), gratitude (.54), taking action on emotional needs (.62), and meditation (.50). The self-care behaviors that predict a compassionate stance toward oneself are the same ones trainees most need to sustain a career caring for others.
EPA 2022
In a sample recruited from Prolific (N = 631), self-compassion accounted for roughly 43% of the total effect of fragile narcissism on shame (mediation) and significantly moderated that relationship at low vs. high levels. First empirical support for self-compassion as a clinical lever against the shame component of fragile narcissism.
EPA 2020
Liberal participants (N = 174) were randomly assigned to view either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. A significant 2×2 interaction emerged: exposure to Trump raised personal need for structure only among liberals whose political beliefs were unshared with their fathers. Extends shared-reality theory from religious to political beliefs.
