Research

Does stress bring us together, or does it drive us apart ?

I am interested in the effects of stress on our ability to connect with, and understand others. To this end, I study how stress–its related psychological and biological markers–impact our ability to understand others’ emotions and intentions, and the way we process social and non-social information. I am also interested in how stress affects our social togetherness, and vice versa.

I am currently affiliated with the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit at the University of Vienna.

Publications

(2021). Older adults across the globe exhibit increased prosocial behavior but also greater in-group preferences. Nature Aging.

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(2021). Acute Psychosocial Stress Increases Cognitive-Effort Avoidance. Psych Science.

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(2021). Resilience during uncertainty? Greater social connectedness during COVID-19 lockdown is associated with reduced distress and fatigue. BJHP.

Preprint Publisher

(2020). The effects of suppressing the biological stress systems on social threat-assessment following acute stress.. Psychopharmacology.

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(2020). Systematic manipulation of the biological stress systems in humans results in sex specific compensatory stress responses and negative mood outcomes. Neuropsychopharmacology.

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(2020). Stressed Connections: Cortisol Levels Following Acute Psychosocial Stress Disrupt Affiliative Mimicry in Humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society - B.

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(2020). Lower Digit-Ratio and Higher Endogenous Testosterone Are Associated with Lower Empathic Accuracy. Hormones and Behavior.

Preprint Publisher

(2020). Acute Psychosocial Stress During Retrieval Impairs Pattern Separation Processes On An Episodic Memory Task. Stress.

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(2020). An Affect in its Own Right: Investigating the Relationship of Social Safeness with Positive and Negative Affect. In Personality and Individual Differences.

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(2019). Oxytocin Selectively Improves Empathic Accuracy: A Replication in Men and Novel Insights in Women. Biological Psychiatry: CNNI.

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(2019). Post-learning Stress Reduces the Misinformation Effect: Effects of Psychosocial Stress on Memory Updating. Psychoneuroendocrinology.

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(2018). Oxytocin and Human Sociality: An Interactionist Perspective on the 'Hormone of Love'. In Schultheiss, O.C. & Mehta, P.H. (Eds.), Routledge, International Handbook of Social Neuroendocrinology. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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(2018). The dynamic interplay between acute psychosocial stress, emotion and autobiographical memory. Scientific Reports.

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(2017). Suppressing the endocrine and autonomic stress systems does not impact the emotional stress experience after psychosocial stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology.

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Manuscripts: under review & in prep

(2020). The Effects of Acute Stress on Empathic Accuracy. under review.

Preprint

Curriculum Vitae

My CV is available here: gDocs.

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