C. Nathan Dewall PhD

The first line of research in my lab examines social exclusion and acceptance. The need for positive and lasting connections with others is among the most fundamental of all human motivations. What happens when people experience social exclusion? My research has explored how social exclusion influences aggression, pro-social behavior, self-regulation, emotional responses such as empathy, and physical sensitivity to pain. To explore these and other phenomena, I use measures such as eye-tracking, physical pain responses, reaction time, self-report, and behavioral responses. The second line of research in my lab focuses on self-regulatory depletion. Most problems in society can be traced back to problems with self-regulation. My research in this area has examined how prior acts of self-regulation impair later attempts to self-regulate. For example, self-regulatory depletion increases the likelihood of behaving aggressively in response to provocation. In two recent lines of inquiry, my colleagues and I have examined the physiological basis of self-regulatory depletion and have applied the phenomenon of depletion to the domain of romantic relationships. I also have interests in attitudes and persuasion, evolutionary psychology, interpersonal power, and the manner in which people cope with the prospect of their own mortality. I am becoming increasingly interested in how the questions in my research can be applied to clinical psychology.