• Faculty Research
• Student Research
• Resources

Faculty Members:

• John Baugh, jbaugh@wustl.edu
• Tom Oltmanns, toltmann@wustl.edu
• Desiree White (Diversity CMMTE Chair), dawhite@wustl.edu

Students Members:

• May Okada, mokada@wustl.edu
• Tatiana Pollo, tcpollo@artsci.wustl.edu
• Veronica Shead, vishead@artsci.wustl.edu
• Christie Spence, ctspence@artsci.wustl.edu
• Elena Stepanova, evstepan@artsci.wustl.edu

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Please feel free to contact members of the Diversity Committee if you have questions about our diversity initiative or about our program in general. 

Diversity refers to individual differences that include ability, culture, ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. The Department of Psychology at Washington University welcomes the richness that diversity brings to our community. We hope to model and enhance the appreciation of diversity by:

Click the link below to view Chancellor Wrighton's Statement on Diversity and Inclusiveness http://diversity.wustl.edu/chancellor.html

John Baugh, Ph.D.

I study the social stratification of linguistic diversity in advanced industrialized societies, with particular attention to the linguistic plight of socially dispossessed populations. My initial interest in this area began with quantitative and experimental studies of linguistic variation among African Americans. These studies evolved into applied linguistic research devoted to policy issues in medicine, education, and law. Gradually my research expanded to include populations who suffered various forms of linguistic discrimination, including deaf communities, as well as speakers who lack fluency in the dominant linguistic norms of their respective societies. Most of my research is interdisciplinary, drawing extensively upon related work in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, linguistics, and sociology. These experimental investigations are tailored to have practical applications when possible. My most recent work focuses on the racial identification of speakers based on the sound of their voices during telephone conversations, a process I term "linguistic profiling." Very often these discriminatory acts have legal implications in civil and criminal court cases involving the denial of housing, predatory lending practices by financial institutions, and related forms of "covert discrimination" in which linguistic factors play a key role. In 2004, I received a Pioneer of Fair Housing award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for my work in this area. I have continued to promote awareness and discussion on the subject as the director of the American Linguistic Heritage Survey, an ongoing study sponsored by the Ford Foundation to examine the prevalence of linguistic profiling in the United States.

Baugh, J. (2006). Review of the development of African American English. Language in Society, 35, 152-155.

Baugh, J. (2002). African American language and literacy. In M. J. Schleppegrell, & M. C. Colombi (Eds.), Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages: Meaning with Power. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Pascal Boyer, Ph.D.

I am the Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory. The aim of the Luce Program in Individual and Collective Memory is to provide a forum where processes of individual and cultural memory can be studied as an integral field transcending disciplinary boundaries. In my research I examine cognitive development and the influence of early developmental conceptual structures on culture. The goal of this research is to describe young children's most fundamental concepts (e.g., number, animacy, or the minds of others) and examine how these facilitate the acquisition of cultural knowledge in a variety of domains (e.g., numeracy, biological knowledge, religious categories). I have also conducted anthropological work on the transmission of technical and religious knowledge in Africa.

Boyer, P. (2007). The envelope of human cultures and the promise of integrated behavioral sciences. In S. W. Gangestad & J. A. Simpson (Eds.), The Evolution of Mind: Fundamental Questions and Controversies. New York, NY: Guilford.

Lienard, P., & Boyer, P. (2006). Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection model of ritualized behavior. American Anthropologist, 108, 814-827.

Brian D. Carpenter, Ph.D.

One aspect of my research focuses on sexual orientation, age identity, and social support. The social climate in which gays and lesbians live has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Gays and lesbians are, to a certain extent, more open about their sexual orientation and more visible to family, friends, coworkers, and society. This change has meant that young gays and lesbians matured in an environment vastly different from that of their predecessors. The purpose of my research is to examine the impact of cultural changes via cohort differences among gays and lesbians of different ages. To do so, my colleagues and I compare age identity in homosexual and heterosexual individuals of different ages. Previous studies have suggested that homosexual men demonstrate "accelerated aging," meaning that their subjective age is older than their chronological age because of the value gay culture places on youth. It is unclear whether a similar phenomenon occurs for lesbians and whether accelerated aging is more or less prominent in younger cohorts of individuals. In addition, we are comparing the relative importance of family versus friend social networks in social support. Previous theorists suggested that gays and lesbians rely more on friendship than family networks because of inconsistent support offered by families. It is unclear whether this trend remains true for younger cohorts of individuals.

Brett Kessler, Ph.D.

At present I study the psycholinguistics of reading and spelling. I am particularly interested in computational and statistical approaches to language, especially in the fields of phonology, historical linguistics, and the lexicon. My research has also explored how to statistically test the historical connections between languages.

Treiman, R., Levin, I., & Kessler, B. (2007). Learning of letter names follows similar principles across languages: Evidence from Hebrew. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 96, 87-106.

Alan Lambert, Ph.D.

I conduct research on the expression versus suppression of stereotypes. A primary goal of my research is to understand how aspects of the "situation," the perceiver's personality, as well as transitory mood states (e.g., happiness versus sadness) might lead people to either use or avoid using stereotypic knowledge as a basis for responding to others. In addition to my work on stereotyping, I am interested in the processes underlying perceptions of risk and self-vulnerability.

Payne, B.K., Jacoby, L. L. & Lambert, A. J. (2004). Memory monitoring and the control of stereotype distortion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 52-64.

Lambert, A. J., Payne, B. K., Jacoby, L. L. Shaffer, L. M., Chasteen, A. L. & Khan, S. K. (2003). Stereotypes as dominant responses: On the “social facilitation” of prejudice in anticipated public contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 277-295.

Joel Myerson, Ph.D.

In the Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray argued that the relationship between education and intelligence is negatively accelerated, so that efforts to improve the quality of education above its current levels or to increase the amount of education beyond 12 years will pay increasingly diminishing returns in terms of raising intelligence or reducing racial differences in intelligence test scores. Our reanalysis of the same dataset as that analyzed by Herrnstein and Murray revealed that amount of education has a strong positive effect on cognitive ability in both whites and blacks.  In particular, blacks benefited much more than whites from a college education, substantially narrowing the racial gap in test scores. These findings contradict the hypothesis that racial differences in intelligence are relatively immutable, as implied by Herrnstein and Murray’s hypothesis of diminishing returns from increases in education.

Myerson, J., Rank, M. R., Raines, F. Q., & Schnitzler, M. A. (1998). Race and General Cognitive Ability: The Myth of Diminishing Returns to Education. Psychological Science, 9, 139-142.

Tom Rodebaugh, Ph.D. & Carol Woods, Ph.D.

In collaboration with researchers at Temple University and a graduate student in our Department of Psychology (Steve Balsis), we are using Item Response Theory to investigate whether common self-report measures of anxiety and depression function similarly in participants from different ethnic groups. Initial results suggest that apparent differences on these measures associated with ethnicity must be interpreted with caution because people from different cultural backgrounds appear to respond to many items quite differently, despite similar levels of the underlying latent constructs.

Rebecca Treiman, Ph.D.

I conduct research on language and language development. My major focus is on the development of reading and spelling skills in children. One line of research examines children’s spelling errors and the reasons behind these errors. Other research looks at the linguistic skills and knowledge that children bring to the learning of literacy, including phonological awareness and knowledge about letters. These studies include typically developing children, children with dyslexia, deaf children, and those learning to read and write in English as well as those who speak other languages. Other lines of research look at the processes involved in single-word reading and spelling in adults and the nature of spelling-sound relationships in English and other languages.

Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Pollo, T. C. (2006). Learning about the letter name subset of the vocabulary: Evidence from U.S. and Brazilian preschoolers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 211–227.

Cassar, M., Treiman, R., et al. (2005). How do the spellings of children with dyslexia compare with those of nondyslexic children? Reading and Writing, 18, 27-49.

Desirée White, Ph.D.

My research focuses on the development of executive abilities in typically developing children and children with damage to frontal brain regions. A population of particular interest is children with sickle cell disease. Stroke occurs in approximately 1/3 of children with sickle cell disease before they reach their 12th birthdays, and most of the strokes damage frontal regions of the brain. At present we are conducting studies to examine inhibitory control, working memory, strategic processing, and academic achievement in these children. We have an ongoing tutoring program to improve school performance by providing rehabilitation for impairments in working memory and strategic memory processing. In another study, we are examining the utility of blood transfusion in preventing the recurrence of stroke and further decline in cognitive abilities in this underserved population of children.

Christ, S. E., Moinuddin, A., McKinstry, R. C., DeBaun, M., & White, D. A. (2007). Inhibitory control in children with frontal infarcts related to sickle cell disease. Child Neuropsychology, 13, 132-141.

White, D. A., Moinuddin, A., Mckinstry, R., Noetzel, M., Armstrong, M., & DeBaun, M. R. (2006). Cognitive screening for silent cerebral infarction in children with sickle cell disease. Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, 28, 166-169.

Yerys, B. E., White, D. A., Salorio, C. F., McKinstry, R. C., Moinuddin, A., & DeBaun, M. R. (2003). Memory strategy training in children with cerebral infarcts related to sickle cell disease. Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, 25, 495-498.

Laura Nesse

Research has shown that people evaluate aspects of their environment automatically, outside of conscious control. At times, unwarranted negative associations toward people and groups are formed, and these automatic associations may result in biased and prejudiced behavior. My work takes a more optimistic view and assumes that automatic associations depend on more than superficial dimensions such as skin color and gender. Instead, I hypothesize that automatic associations are also influenced by social contexts, such as a person's achievements and personality.

Elaine Tamez

In a recent study I examined the extent to which pulmonary function, as measured by expiratory flow, was related to performance on seven cognitive measures. Analyses were conducted on a sample of 396 African-American adults ranging in age from 22 to 89 years. Results revealed significant differences in expiratory flow between younger and older adults, with older adults performing more poorly. Expiratory flow was not uniquely associated with cognitive performance in younger adults, although it emerged as a significant predictor of individual differences in performance on the Telephone Interview of Cognitive Status, even after controlling for age, education, and smoking history. Biobehavioral assessments provide important insights into the sources of individual differences in cognition observed in this understudied population.

Allaire, J., Tamez, E., & Whitfield, K. E. (2007). Examining the association between lung functioning and cognitive performance in African American adults. Journal of Aging and Health, 19, 106-122.

Denise Zona

The purpose of my dissertation is to understand hemodialysis treatment compliance from a psychological perspective. I am collecting data at two clinic sites: (1) an inner city site primarily serving African-Americans and (2) a rural site primarily serving Caucasians. The aim is to predict compliance on the basis personality variables measured by self-report or informant-report. I will determine the source of information (including measures of personality disorders, personality traits, self- and other-report of personality) that is most useful in identifying traits or problems related to compliance. I will explore differences in treatment, compliance, and personality across the two clinical sites. With this information, treatment providers may better match hemodialysis management with individual patients to obtain optimal outcomes.

Heather Hayes

My population of interest is deaf children who wear cochlear implants. Cochlear implants are devices that provide auditory stimulation to children with profound loss, for whom hearing aids are not powerful enough. Children who meet certain criteria may be implanted as young as 12 months of age. The issue of when to implant a young deaf child to obtain optimal benefit is of considerable importance. My research focuses on spelling, reading, and language development in children who received cochlear implants at very young ages. Specifically, I am interested in whether the characteristics of spelling errors in children with implants are similar to those of children with intact hearing. Additionally, I am interested in determining the factors that predict reading, spelling, and language performance, particularly whether age at implantation affects a child's later literacy and spoken language.

Tatiana Pollo

My research focus is cross-language differences in literacy development. Cross-language studies play a crucial role in determining how specific properties of a language may make it easier or more difficult for children to read and spell. I am particularly interested in investigating how specific characteristics of writing systems influence children’s spelling development. One way in which languages differ is in terms of letter name systems and the ways in which the names of letters relate to spoken words and spellings. I am examining these issues by investigating early spelling acquisition in two writing systems: (1) Brazilian Portuguese and (2) American English.

Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (in press). Three perspectives on spelling development. In E. J. Grigorenko & A. Naples (Eds.), Single-word reading: Cognitive, behavioral, and biological perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Pollo, T. C., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2005). Vowels, syllables, and letter names: Differences between young children’s spelling in English and Portuguese. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 161–181.

Elena Stepanova

My research explores various aspects of cross-cultural phenomena, with a focus on the perception of mass media reports, media’s awareness of its own biases, and the directionality of these biases in cross-cultural contexts. In the most current project, I explored bias and its perception in Russian and American newspaper reports of the 2002 Olympics figure skating controversy. I am also interested in cross-cultural self-evaluations, implicit personality theories along the West-East dimension, and the transformation of culturally held implicit personality theories during periods of dramatic historical change. In an additional line of research I investigate the conceptualization of race using measures of implicit prejudice, racial typicality bias as a function of skin color, and attractiveness. Currently I am investigating the role of pictorial prime characteristics (e.g., mode of presentation, size of presentation, typicality, attractiveness) in measures of implicit prejudice/stereotyping.

Stepanova, E., Strube, M., & Hetts, J. (under review). They saw a triple lutz: Bias and its perception in American and Russian mass media coverage of 2002 Olympic figure skating scandal.

Stepanova, E., Strube, M., & Limes, D. (2006). Role of Skin Color and Facial Physiognomy in Evaluations of Racial Typicality and Attractiveness. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, New York, NY.

Stepanova, E., & Hetts, J. (2004). The Interactive Influence of Skin Color and Facial Prototypicality on Implicit Prejudice. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Chicago, IL.

Veronica Shead

I am interested in the effects of stroke across the lifespan. My research includes children with sickle cell disease, a population primarily of African decent. Children with sickle cell disease are highly susceptible to stroke, which occurs in approximately 30% before adulthood. I am examining both cognitive and academic outcomes in this group of children. In addition, I am investigating stroke in later life. African-Americans are three times more likely to experience stroke and comprise 47% of the stroke population at Washington University School of Medicine. To study this group more carefully, I performed neuropsychological testing with a matched control sample to realistically compare the cognitive performance of our stroke population to that of matched individuals without stroke.

Shead, V. L., King, A., DeBaun, M., & White, D. A. (in preparation). Grade retention in children with silent and overt stroke related to sickle cell disease.

White, D. A., Shead, V. L., King, A., & DeBaun, M. (2005). Pediatric Sickle Cell Disease: Stroke, Cognitive Outcome, and Race. Paper presented at the annual meeting of International Neuropsychology Society, St. Louis, MO

Connor, L., White, D. A., Morrison, T., Shead, V. L., Dromerick, A., Baum, C., & Edwards, D. (2005). How Mild is Mild Stroke? Impact on Executive Abilities. Poster presented at the annual meeting of theInternational Neuropsychological Society, Dublin, Ireland.

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