My research interests lie in a few broad domains: specifically, self-processes, narcissism and ego threat, and identity negotiation.
I am currently focusing my research efforts in the domain of information avoidance within health contexts. Operating from an Information Avoidance framework developed in the research lab of James Shepperd, I am examining reasons why people avoid information and the underlying processes that serve as pathways between our thoughts, decisions, and actions. Current studies will be assessing the impact of expectation of a negative outcome on the decision to gain (more concrete) information about that outcome.
For more information on research along these lines, please contact me at cnovell@ufl.edu or visit the website of Dr. James Shepperd.
People with narcissistic tendencies- that is, people who maintain elevated self-views through a variety of affective, cognitive, and behavioral strategies- have been shown to be more sensitive than non-narcissists to ego threat; presumably because their self-concept is more at stake due to a vested interest in maintaining a superior status in relation to others. Research has also shown that when people's egos are threatened, they often take the opportunity to derogate the source of the threat. In my undergraduate work at The University of Georgia, I examined a potential, very subtle threat to one's ego: misspelling a person's name. II found that, given an opportunity to derogate the experimenter, narcissists were more likely to do so than non-narcissists, those people whose names were misspelled derogated the experimenter more than those who names were spelled correctly, and these effects were qualified by a marginally significant interaction. That is, narcissists whose names were misspelled gave the experimenter the lowest evaluation of any participants. Future research will be conducted to replicate, substantiate, and extend these promising initial findings.
Identity negotiation was coined by Bill Swann at UT Austin, and rests on the premise that competing sets of expectations from two people in an interaction regarding roles for oneself and for the other will strike a balance at some point. The pressure to maintain one's own self-view (self-verification) may meet resistance from another's expectations for you (which could lead to you behaviorally confirming their expectations). Although I have not yet begun research on this particular topic, I plan to pursue several lines of inquiry within this theoretical framework. I am also interested in self-regulation and self-esteem.
In my first year at UF in collaboration with John Chambers, I conducted a series of studies for my Master's thesis that examined the extent to which our own self-views influence how we process incoming information that should be suggestive of others' views about us. Preliminary analyses suggest that when people have private information (positive or negative) about their performance on a task, feedback from an evaluator who people were told does not have the private information will nonetheless be interpreted in accordance with the person's private information.