I am currently in my second year of the honours psychology program and am delighted to have returned to the laboratory of Professor Taylor once again to continue pursuing my interests in social identity theory and communities in crisis. Last year, Megan Cooper and I investigated the effect of associating high levels of alcohol consumption with an individual's group identity on their subsequent evaluations of dysfunctional drinking behavior. This year, Frank Kachanoff and I have begun a project investigating the direct influence of individuals' various collective identities on their daily actions and goal-seeking behavior. By gaining descriptive data on what people qualitatively "do" on an hourly basis we hope to relate this to their stated personal goals and how these are influenced by the collective goals and values of the groups with whom they identify.
I will be focusing specifically on the construct of "ingroup entitativity", investigating how participants perceive the different social groups they belong to as having a "real existence as a group" and whether or not this impacts on an individuals sense of goal clarity with reference to that group.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions about our project or being an honours student in the lab!