Kirby Deater-Deckard is part of several international teams that are studying the interaction between biological factors and family/peer social environments in cognitive and social-emotional development in childhood and adolescence. The US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (www.bsf.org.il) has just awarded a grant to Dr. Naama Atzaba-Poria of Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Deater-Deckard, to study parenting and sibling relationships following low- and high-risk births of a second child.

Do you have a child 11-19 yrs of age? Tell us about their sleep in a quick (<15 minutes) online survey conducted by the UMass Sleep Lab. Click here for more information: http://tinyurl.com/SleepyTeensSurvey

Brian Lickel will be promoted to Professor on September 1st! Congratulations!

Lickel's research focuses on how people interpret events in intergroup conflicts and how these interpretations affect their emotions, self-concepts, and support for different social and political policies. A key assumption in his work is that understanding people’s emotions is important for unlocking the processes that amplify or reduce intergroup conflict. 

Bernhard Leidner has been promoted to Associate Professor, receiving tenure within the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program. Leidner's research focuses on processes of social identification and intergroup relations, primarily in the context of large social categories such as nations and ethnic groups. Specifically, his research is at the cross-road of the social psychological areas of norms and morality (e.g., moral disengagement in response to in-group wrongdoings), intergroup threat (e.g., threat-induced shifting of moral principles such as fairness or loyalty), and social justice (e.g., reparations after in-group wrongdoings; conflict resolution).