2017-18 Colloquium Schedule

Speaker: Brian Gunia – Associate Professor, The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School (website )

Location: WGR 311

Title: Deception as Competence: The Effect of Occupation on Ethical Judgment and Behavior

Abstract: Existing research assumes that deception is perceived negatively and limits a person’s career prospects. Yet, in some occupations, deception seems rewarded and rampant. The current research unpacks this puzzle by exploring how deception is perceived and enacted across occupations. Drawing from research on selling, stereotypes, and negotiation, we first demonstrate that judgments about deceivers depend critically on an aspect of the deceiver’s occupation: the extent to which effective members of the occupation are stereotypically perceived to adopt a selling orientation, i.e., to focus on closing immediate self-interested sales. In occupations stereotyped as high (versus low) in selling orientation (HISO vs. LISO), deception by an occupational member may signal their willingness to stretch ethical boundaries, and thus their occupational competence. Finally, we show that the association between deception and competence in HISO occupations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as individuals aspiring to join these occupations respond by engaging in elevated deception. In addition to offering an explanation for persistent deception and suggesting potential interventions, these results extend theory, particularly by identifying selling orientation as an occupational stereotype and documenting occupational variation in the perception and enactment of deception.

Faculty host: Fathali Moghaddam

You can find this event on the GU Events Page !

Speaker: Amy Halberstadt, North Carolina State University (website )

Location: WGR 311

Title: Socialization of Emotion in Families, Schools, Culture: A story in three parts

Abstract: Socialization of children is a complex process, involving families, schools, and the culture in which families and schools are situated. What is being socialized is also complex, as are the outcomes. In this talk, I try to provide a scaffold with which to consider the socialization of emotion. Along the way I describe the importance of parents’ beliefs about emotion as a guiding influence on children’s emotion-related behaviors, teachers’ racialized beliefs with which they may be judging children’s emotion-related behaviors, and beliefs represented in two cultures that seem to differentially affect socialization of negative emotions, specifically sadness and fear.

Faculty Host: Yulia Chentsova-Dutton

You can find this event on the GU Events Page !

Speaker: Seth Pollak, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Location: WGR 311

Title: The Emergence of Children’s Emotions: Learning, Development, Biology, and Risk

Abstract:TBD

Faculty Host: Deborah Phillips

You can find this event on the GU Events Page !

Speaker: Luke Butler, University of Maryland

Location: WGR 311

Title: How children reason about evidence in a social world

Abstract: A common metaphor for thinking about cognitive development is the “little scientist.” On this view, children approach the world much like scientists do: formulating hypotheses, generating and keeping track of data, and making inductive inferences on the basis of that data. But this view often misses the fact that science is a fundamentally social process, with the evidence we notice, pay attention to, and use as the basis for inference shaped by social context in which they encounter it. In this talk, I will discuss two lines of research showing how children reason about what I call the social history of evidence. I will show both that children use social cues to guide their reasoning from evidence, and that children use their understanding of evidence and inference to guide their social reasoning. I will conclude by discussing implications for science education and science literacy.

Faculty Host: Rachel Barr

Speaker: Nim Tottenham, Columbia University

Location: WGR 311

Title: Development of Emotion Regulation Circuitry and the Role of Early Experiences

Abstract: Signals in the early environment are potent effectors of brain development. Variations in early species-typical experiences, such as parental caregiving, reveal the profound effects on the development of neurocircuitry involved in affective learning and regulation (e.g., amygdala, hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex). This talk will focus on both typical development as well as development following caregiver deprivation showing that early life early environments may influence development through learning as well as altering developmental pacing of this circuitry. These age-related changes will be discussed in terms of potential developmental sensitive periods for environmental influence.

Faculty Host: Abigail Marsh

Speaker: Jennifer Radesky, University of Michigan

Location WGR 311

Title: Digital Media and Parent-Child Interaction

Abstract: Families’ excessive use of digital media (e.g., television and videos) has been shown to reduce the quality and quantity of parent-child verbal interaction and play. However, as digital media become more interactive, immersive, and persuasive, the nature of parent and child media use – and effects on awareness of and interaction with the social environment – is changing substantially. This colloquium will review the research on parent mobile device use and parent-child interaction, including naturalistic, laboratory-based, and survey-based studies. It will also discuss the design affordances of interactive media that influence parent cognitive and emotional responses to their devices, as well as child behavioral responses to mobile devices-based play. Relevance for research, clinical practice, tech design, and policy will be discussed.

Faculty Host: Rachel Barr