My first current line of research examines the role of apologies in person perception. We look at whether Japanese and U.S. participants’ perception of transgressors is affected by whether they make apologies or take responsibility for their actions - it is possible that apologies may not be necessary following a transgression to be perceived positively.

The second line grew out of teaching, specifically the difficulty in teaching scientific literacy concepts such as “correlation does not equal causation.” This research examines how well students understand claims made in the media, specifically their ability to distinguish correlation from causation.