periodiCALS, Vol. 9, Issue 1, 2019
As a social scientist, you explore how people’s identities and their social context shape the meaning they make of their experiences and how that affects their behavior. What’s the biggest takeaway from your research?
I really try to understand what motivates people to pursue their various goals in life and try to figure out what are things that we could do to help people achieve those goals. The domains that I focus on the most are education and health because the implications of that work are very clear. I want as many people as possible to attain a good education and good health. My research examines just how much the interactions between people’s identities and their social context influence the meaning they make and their behavior. These interactions can matter a lot in trying to predict how people behave in particular situations.
American life is much different today than it was even 20 years ago. Do you feel as if we are moving in the appropriate direction to sustain the progress that has been made?
That’s a tough one. I’d say yes and no. On the optimistic side, I see more companies and policy makers incorporating scientific evidence into their decisions and policies, and that can help us sustain some progress. The pessimistic side is that we sometimes overestimate the amount of progress that we have made. Americans tend to overestimate progress in economic and racial issues. And that’s a problem because if we perceive more progress than has really been made and don’t understand the reasons behind (lack of) progress, then we can start to think we don’t actually need those policies—the very policies that enable progress to happen. That’s a big problem.
Why is there that misperception? Is it because Americans are optimistic in general, or do we not realize the depth of the problem?
Both, actually. One example that comes up a lot when thinking about racial progress is Obama’s presidency. His election has led many to believe that things must be fine now. Don’t get me wrong—a lot of good things have happened. We’ve had a great deal of economic growth for instance. But at the same time, there’s rising inequality; not everyone is benefiting equally from that growth. So if we are only looking at part of the picture, then we can misperceive what the whole reality is.
How does your work drive progress to make the world better?
I study basic communication and psychological processes, but I also have a broader goal of making that work useful. That often involves going out in relevant real-world settings—whether that’s a school, a health clinic or the community where the issues are happening—and studying those processes there. And that allows us to figure how useful the work can be in addressing the problems that we are facing. But then, in addition, we sometimes have to go outside of the academic box to communicate more broadly. Writing op-eds, meeting with policy makers, engaging on social media—these are a few ways that I engage with communities more broadly to make sure the results of our work gets out there and makes a difference.
These are huge, systemic problems you are tackling. What keeps you motivated?
One of my mentors in graduate school, Professor Frank Yates, used to tell us that we should study the things that keep us up at night. Whenever I pick up a new report—about education, health and/or increasing environmental disparities—I have a hard time sleeping, and I feel as if I have to do something. The thing I know how to do best is research, so I put those skills to use to study the issues. Then, when we learn something useful, we work with practitioners and policy makers to disseminate the research results so that it can hopefully move the needle on some of these disparities.
