Research

I study self-regulation: not just whether people succeed at controlling themselves, but how that control fits the resources they have, and how it comes to be read, by themselves or by others, as authentic, costly, or admirable.

Self-Regulation

As a Cognitive Process

My dissertation tracks participants over eight weeks to test whether cognitive reappraisal actually helps people make progress on goals they care about, and whether executive functioning and working memory determine who benefits. This resource-based logic runs through related projects: whether a smartphone's mere presence raises the subjective cost of effortful tasks (under review, Computers and Human Behavior), and how task difficulty and incentives shape mind wandering via multilevel modeling (under review, Scientific Reports). Two further projects in preparation extend this lens to trait authenticity and socioeconomic status as predictors of who benefits from reappraisal training.

As a Social Signal

Another line of work flips the question: rather than asking how well people regulate themselves, I ask how that regulation is perceived by others. Across a multi-study project, I find that people often judge impulse as more authentic than self-control, especially toward distant others, and that visible self-control can carry a social cost, read as less warm or less human even as it's admired. A related project extends this to emotion regulation, asking how expressing versus suppressing anger, fear, happiness, and sadness shapes judgments of authenticity and likability.