Psychology Faculty Profiles
Research Interests
One of my main interests is the ways in which people’s motivations (i.e., their needs, desires, and goals) can influence their basic cognitive process (i.e., their perception, categorization, and recall of information) and the implications this has for judgment and behavior. Thus far, I have pursued this interest in several different ways. The first involves examining how people’s preferences for using certain types of judgment strategies that “feel right” to them can affect the impressions they form of themselves and others. The second involves examining how these preferences affect the coping strategies people use after they experience some kind of threat to the self.
Another one of my main interests is how people’s deeply held, but seldom consciously articulated theories about the social world affect the way they perceive and interpret social information. I have primarily pursued this interest by examining how these "lay theories" can affect the way in which people process information related to other people’s behaviors.
Recent Publications
Molden, D. C. & Miele, D. B. (in press). The origins and influences of promotion-focused and prevention-focused achievement motivations. In M. Maehr, S. Karabenick, & T. Urdan (Eds.), Advances in Motivation and Achievement (Vol. 15). New York: Elsevier
Molden, D. C., Lee, A. Y., & Higgins, E. T. (2007). Motivations for promotion and prevention. In J. Shah & W. Gardner (Eds.) Handbook of motivation science. New York: Guilford Press
Molden, D. C., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). Finding “meaning” in psychology: A lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social development. American Psychologist, 61, 192-203.
Molden, D. C., Plaks, J. E., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). “Meaningful” social inferences: Lay theories and inferential processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 738-752.
Molden, D. C., & Higgins, E. T. (2005). Motivated Thinking. In K. Holyoak, & B. Morrison (Eds.) Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Molden, D. C., & Higgins, E. T. (2004) Categorization under uncertainty: Resolving vagueness and ambiguity with eager versus vigilant strategies. Social Cognition, 22, 248-277.
Higgins, E. T., Idson, L. C., Freitas, A. L., Spiegel, S., & Molden, D. C.
(2003). Transfer of value from fit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1140-1153.
Liberman, N., Molden, D. C., Idson, L. C., & Higgins, E. T. (2001). Promotion and prevention focus on alternative hypotheses: Implications for attributional functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 5-18.
