Social Psychology Network

Maintained by Scott Plous, Wesleyan University

Wendi Gardner

Wendi Gardner

  • Media Contact
  • SPN Mentor

My students and I conduct research in two broad areas of interest.

First, we are interested in social aspects of the self. At a general level, we are interested in the ways in which thinking about the self as embedded in social relationships alters social cognition and behavior. We have explored sociocultural aspects of self-construal as well as used priming to directly manipulate self-construal. Additionally, we have explored the need to belong and the way in which a sense of social connection may be maintained.

Second, we are interested in unconscious and rudimentary levels of evaluation and emotion, including questions concerning the separability of positive and negative substrates and processes. We use a wide variety of electrophysiological, implicit cognitive, and self-reports to investigate these questions by accessing evaluation at different stages.

Primary Interests:

  • Attitudes and Beliefs
  • Culture and Ethnicity
  • Emotion, Mood, Affect
  • Intergroup Relations
  • Interpersonal Processes
  • Neuroscience, Psychophysiology
  • Self and Identity

Journal Articles:

  • Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. L. (1996). Who is this "we"? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83-93.
  • Cacioppo, J. T., Crites, S. L., Jr., & Gardner, W. L. (1996). Attitudes to the right: Evaluative processing is associated with lateralized late positive event-related brain potentials. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1205-1219.
  • Cacioppo, J. T., & Gardner, W. L. (1999). Emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 191-214.
  • Cacioppo, J. T., Gardner, W. L., & Berntson, G. G. (1999). The affect system has parallel and integrative processing components: Form follows function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 839-855.
  • Gabriel, S., & Gardner, W. L. (1999). Are there "his" and "her" types of interdependence? The implications of gender differences in collective and relational interdependence for affect, behavior, and cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 642-655.
  • Gardner, W. L., Gabriel, S., & Hochschild, L. (2002). When you and I are "we," you are no longer threatening: The role of self-expansion in social comparison processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 239-251.
  • Gardner, W. L., Gabriel, S., & Lee, A. Y. (1999). "I" value freedom but "we" value relationships: Self-construal priming mirrors cultural dufferences in judgment. Psychological Science, 10, 321-326.
  • Gardner, W. L., Pickett, C. L., & Brewer, M. B. (2000). Social exclusion and selective memory: How the need to belong affects memory for social information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 486-496.
  • Lee, A. Y., Aaker, J. L., & Gardner, W. L. (2000). The pleasures and pains of distinct self-construals: The role of interdependence in regulatory focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1122-1134.
  • Seeley, E. A., & Gardner, W. L. (2003). The “selfless” and self-regulation: The role of chronic other-orientation in averting self-regulatory depletion. Self and Identity, 2, 103-117.
  • Seeley, E. A., Gardner, W. L., Pennington, G., & Gabriel, S. (2003). Circle of friends or members of a group?: Sex-differences in relational and collective attachment to groups. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 6, 251-264.

Other Publications:

  • Gardner, W. L., & Seeley, E. A. (2001). Confucianism, "jen", and the benevolent use of power: The interdependent self as a "psychological contract" preventing the exploitation of others. In J. A. Bargh and A. Lee-Chai (Eds.), The Use and Abuse of Power: Multiple Perspectives on the Causes of Corruption. Cambridge MA: Psychology Press.

Wendi Gardner
Department of Psychology
Northwestern University
202 Swift Hall, 2029 Sheridan Road
Evanston, Illinois 60208
United States of America

  • Phone: (847) 491-4972
  • Fax: (847) 491-7859

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