Social Verification and Belonging
I study how people's needs for both understanding and belonging guide their interactions with others, particularly during conflict. This program of research explores many aspects of disagreement, such as language use, relationship roles, belief strength, and validation-seeking. The goal of this work is to help foster more collaborative disagreement between people and bridge ideological and communication divides.

Information Engagement
My research also focuses on how people engage with information and media. In particular, I study motivated and unmotivated biases in selection and processing of information. I am especially interested in how news and other informational media can be used to affirm verification and belonging needs, and how this tendency can lead to ideological polarization and exacerbate extremist tendencies.

Change and Narratives
Lastly, I'm interested in stories. Stories are among the oldest and most ubiquitous forms of social information. The main focus of this work has been exploring how people use stories (even fictional ones) as social information when they navigate their daily life. I have explored how this may reliably bias people's perceptions of change in a variety of domains and how these biases impact their behaviour such as willingness to engage in social action.