Broadly, the majority of my work focuses on attitudes and attitude change. Within that, I have two distinct lines of research.  One major focus of my research examines new dissonance processes that determine attitude and behavior change. My work in dissonance leads to novel predictions for dissonance theory and can be translated to motivate people to engage in healthy behaviors.  Another line of my work focuses on prejudice and prejudice reduction.  My approach to prejudice reduction emphasizes the perspective of people who are the targets of prejudice and identifies bias-reduction strategies that targets can use when interacting one-on-one with a prejudiced perceiver.  To further expand my work into the health domain, I recently began a position as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Missouri.  Here, I am continuing my work in attitudes, dissonance, and prejudice reduction while extending my work into the area of medical decision making.  The overall goal of my research is to contribute to the development of theories in prejudice and attitude change, and to translate these findings to other contexts, including health.

Focella, E.S., & Stone, J.  (in press). Theuse of hypocrisy for promoting environmentally sustainable behaviors.  In H. van Tripp (Ed.) Encouraging Sustainable Behavior. Psychology Press.

Robbins, M.L., Focella,E.S, Mehl, M. R., Kasle, S., Lopez, A.M., & Weihs, K.L. (2011).Naturalistically Observed Swearing Predicts Decreases in Emotional Support andIncreases in Depressive Symptoms in Women Coping with Disease. Health Psychology, 30(6), 789-792.

Stone, J., & Focella, E. (2011). Hypocrisy,dissonance, and the self-regulation processes that improve health. Self and Identity, 10(3), 295-303.

Stone, J., Whitehead, J., Schmader, T., Focella, E. (2011). Thanks for asking: Self-affirming questionsreduce backlash when stigmatized targets confront prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,47(3), 589-598.

Stone, J., & Focella, E. (2010). Post decisionalself-enhancement and self-protection: The role of the self in cognitivedissonance processes. In C. Sedikides & M. Alicke (Eds.), The handbook of self-enhancement andself-protection (pp. 192-210). New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.