Current Lab Members & Research Questions

Director

Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D
Curriculum Vitae
blf@unc.edu
How do increases in daily positive emotions contribute to physical health?
Are co-experienced positive emotions more beneficial for health and well-being than solo-experienced positive emotions?

Graduate Students

Catherine Berman (she/her)
catherine.j.berman@unc.edu
How do shared positive affective processes and social connections influence the initiation and maintenance of individual and collective health behaviors?
What psychological processes influence support for policies that address health inequalities?

Michael Prinzing
prinzing@live.unc.edu
How do people outside of academia think about what makes life good?
What gives people the sense that they matter? How do such perceptions, and their bases, differ for different people?
How can doing good for others, or for the planet, also be good for oneself?

Taylor West
taywest@live.unc.edu
How do socioecological conditions – such as class or culture – influence shared positive emotions, particularly with strangers? How does this variation in positive affective processes influence health and well-being?

Jieni Zhou
jieniz@live.unc.edu
What facilitates the emergence of positivity resonance in relationships?
How do moments of positivity resonance build resources that support people through social/relationship turbulence and promote psychological and physical well-being?

Research Staff

Catherine Garton, Project Coordinator
cgarton@unc.edu
What facilitates humility and understanding between people who disagree?
How might positivity resonance impact the outcomes of conflict?
Under what conditions do interpersonal connections improve our stereotypes about groups?