Graduate Students
Nicole Koefler
Nicole is in her second year of the Ph.D. program in Social Psychology at the University at Buffalo and is the lab manager for the Self and Motivation Lab. She earned her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Theology & Ethics from the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. Nicole’s research interests include understanding how individuals successfully (and unsuccessfully) seek connection with others, and the ways in which people make sense of the world through their moral and religious convictions. In her leisure time, she enjoys perusing used-book stores, exploring Buffalo, and increasing her collection of house plants.
Selected Works:
Koefler, N., & Park, L. E. (2023, February). Threats to morality increase moral convictions and decrease prosocial behavior. Poster presented at Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference. Atlanta, GA.
Park, L.E., Ward, D.E., Naragon-Gainey, K., Fujita, K., & Koefler, N. (2022). I’m still spending: Financial contingency of self-worth predicts financial motivational conflict and compulsive buying. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Ya-Hui Chang
Ya-Hui is in her fourth year of the Ph.D. program in Social Psychology at the University at Buffalo. She received her B.A. in Public Finance from National Chengchi University and M.A.s in Psychology from NYU and in Marketing from the University of Kansas. Her research interests include understanding aspects of shared experiences, the self, and meaning in life.
Selected Works:
Huang, K-J., Chang, Y-H., & Landau, M. (2023). “Pandemic nostalgia: Reduced social contact predicts consumption of nostalgic music during the COVID-19 pandemic” Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Park, L.E., Lin, G-X., Chang, Y.-H., O’Brien, C., & Ward, D.E. (2022). Burning the candle at both ends: The role of financial contingency of self-worth and work-family conflict on job and parental well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 199, 1-6.
Chang, Y-H., & Park, L. (2022, July). Imagining shared experiences with human and non-human agents boosts interpersonal closeness. Virtual talk presented at the International Association for Relationship Research Conference.
Chang, Y.-H., & Park, L.E. (2021, February). Imagining shared experiences boosts interpersonal closeness and well-being. Virtual data blitz talk at Society for Personality and Social Psychology Preconference on Shared Reality and Authenticity.
Leslie Mei
Leslie is a third year PhD student interested in narrative, empathy, and identity. They earned their B.A. in Psychology and English from Carleton College and their MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. Their research interests primarily include how people engage with displays of suffering, both in relation to fictional characters and to real life cross-cultural interactions. In their free time, they play DnD, study Victorian fashion, and try to craft the perfect latte.
Selected Works:
Mei, L. (2023, April). Do cultural norms for suffering displays predict judgments of character? Midwestern Psychology Association Conference, Chicago, IL.
Mei, L. (2019, May). Exploring a framework of personality, identity, and time perspective. MAPSS Graduate Student Academic Conference, Chicago, IL. Collaborated and presented on a panel entitled “(Re)constructing Knowledge.”
Esha Naidu
Esha is a fifth year doctoral student in University at Buffalo SUNY’s Social-Personality Psychology program. She received her BA in Psychology from Arizona State University in 2017 and her MA in Social-Personality Psychology from the University at Buffalo in 2022. Esha’s research interests broadly concern 1) how features of social contexts and individual differences (e.g. culture, physical space, religious beliefs, and personality) influence feelings of belongingness and 2) how different kinds of pathways to a fulfilled sense of belongingness (e.g. technologically mediated relationships, symbolic social relationships, group memberships and close relationships) importantly differ. In her free time, Esha likes trying out new recipes, working out while complaining about working out, and desperately trying to keep her house plants alive.
Selected Works:
Park, L. E., Naidu, E.S., Lemay, E., Canning, E., Ward, D. E., Panlilio, Z., & Vessels, V. (in press). Social evaluative threat across individual, relational, and collective selves. In B. Gawronski (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press.
Naidu, E.S., Gabriel, S., Wildschut, T., & Sedikides, C. (2023). Reliving the good old days: Nostalgia increases psychological wellbeing through collective effervescence. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Naidu, E.,S. Koefler, N., Park, L. E., & Lee, D. (2023, February). Lay beliefs about social media use and frequency of use. Poster presented at Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference. Atlanta, GA.
Naidu, E. S., Gabriel, S., Paravati, E. (2022). Social flexibility: Extroversion and social adaptability during a global pandemic. Personality and Individual Differences, 190, 111549. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2022.111549
Zaviera Panlilio
Zaviera is in her last year of the Ph.D. program in Social Psychology at the University at Buffalo. She received her Masters from San Francisco State University where she majored in Social Psychology. Zaviera’s research interests include understanding how motivation and identity impact decision making processes and behaviors in a variety of domains including social justice, health goals, and academic engagement. Zaviera enjoys anything to do with animals including her lovebird Burbie and using her creativity and comfort speaking in large groups to share research with academic and non-academic audiences.
Ji is in his last year of the Ph.D. program in Social Psychology at the University at Buffalo under Dr. Ken DeMarree. Ji is originally from China, and received his B.S. (in 2013) and M.S. (in 2016) degree from the University of Iowa. Ji’s research focuses on how motivational forces (goals, evolutionary needs, etc.) shapes people’s cognitions and behaviors. Primarily, he’s interested in motivational factors that hold the potential to influence how people react to persuasive information, how they perceive their own reactions (metacognition), and how these processes subsequently affect the ways people form/change their attitudes.
Selected Works:
Park, L. E., Fujita, K., Naragon-Gainey, K., Radsvick, T., Jung, H., Xia, J., Ward, D. E., Paravati, E., Weng, J., Italiano, A., & Valvo, A., (2023). Happiness – to enjoy now or later? Consequences of delaying happiness and living in the moment beliefs. Emotion, 23(1), 138-162.
DeMarree, K. G., Petty, R. E., Briñol, P., & Xia, J. (2020). Documenting individual differences in the propensity to hold attitudes with certainty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119, 1239-1265.
Xia, J., Murray, S. L. (2018 April). Motivational tradeoff: Disease threat vs. social exclusion. Presentation at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
Valerie Vessels
Valerie is the NSF grant project coordinator for the Self and Motivation Lab. She received her B.S. in Psychobiology and B.A. in Gender Studies from UCLA, and M.A. in Psychological Research from California State University, Long Beach. Her research interests include intergroup relations, aggression, and collective action. Outside of work she enjoys baking new recipes, listening to true crime podcasts, and going to amusement parks.
Selected Works:
Park, L. E., Naidu, E., Lemay, E., Canning, E., Ward, D. E., Panlilio, Z., & Vessels, V. (in press). Social evaluative threat across individual, relational, and collective selves. In B. Gawronski (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press.
Park, L. E., Italiano, A., & Vessels, V. (2023). Managers’ frequent displays of busyness predict employees’ job disengagement, burnout, and turnover intentions. International Journal of Social Psychology, 1-48.