Research Interests: I have two lines of research interests. First, I am interested in how aging processes (physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional) influence individuals’ social judgment and decision making. Second, I am interested in the relationship between emotion, emotion regulation, health behavior, and health outcomes.
Current Projects: Current projects include the role of numeracy in adult decision making and age differences in stress, coping, and affective well-being.
Ph.D. University of Virginia
B.A. Williams College
Research Interests: My research focuses broadly on how children develop their attitudes and behaviors about food and body. For example, I am interested in how parents feed their young children and how this leads children to eat in healthy or unhealthy ways. I am also interested in what young children think about their own bodies (body esteem, for example) and the bodies of others (anti-fat bias, for example). I am ultimately interested in how we as a society can raise children who have healthy eating habits, healthy weights, and healthy attitudes about their own and others' bodies.
Current Projects: My research group is currently working on a project with preschool age children. We are looking at the role that fathers (who have been largely neglected in this field) play in feeding their children. We are also working on understanding how parents use food as a reward. We are hoping to understand the distinction between using food to reward children for eating (for example, "if you eat your vegetables, you can have dessert") and using food to reward behavior (e.g., "if you clean your room, you can have dessert"), as well as using non-food rewards. We are also investigating what positive practices parents use to encourage healthy eating habits in their children (such as involving them in food preparation and making healthy foods more fun for kids).
