Primary Concentration: Social Psychology
Research Interests
For the most part, I study behavior from a self-presentation perspective, with a specific focus on: (1) the subjective logic of aberrant behavior; (2) social influence (e.g., norms); and (3) the formation and updating of beliefs (e.g., selecting and processing view-point relevant information).
Dr. Hart’s research focuses on social cognition and attitudes, with an emphasis on the cognitive and motivational processes involved in gathering information about and responding to social stimuli. This program of research involves analyzing how personality interacts with social circumstances to determine action, how language influences thought and action, and how information is sought and used for judgment. Therefore, he examines topics that are of broad interest to psychologists such as attitudes, language, memory, motivation, personality and person perception, and topics that are often relevant to improving human performance and decision making.
Keywords: social cognition; the relation between personality and self-presentation; how people form and update ideas.
