Social Psychology

Research

Broadly speaking, I am interested in how people use information from others to evaluate themselves and how people use information from themselves to evaluate others. My primary line of research focuses on how socially comparing with others can change people’s self-perceptions. Within this area, I am particularly interested in how individual differences in traits like narcissism can change the way social comparison information is used. In a secondary line of work, I examine how people form impressions of others based on their political ideology. Specifically, I am interested in how people use political stereotypes about what kinds of morals partisans endorse to form impressions.

Courses

• Psyc 2: General Psychology II
• Psyc 53: Stats and Research Methods III
• Psyc 150 Social Psychology
• Psyc 151: Advanced Topics in Social Psychology
• Psyc 182: Psychology of Gender

 

Recent Publications

Bruchmann, K., & LaPierre, L. (2022). Moral foundations predict perceptions of COVID-19 public health violations in U.S. university students. Frontiers in Psychology. 12:795278. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.795278

Bruchmann, K., Osa, M. L., Wong, K. , & Baerg, L.  (2021). Construal level moderates a local dominance effect of appearance comparisons in undergraduate women. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 51, 1038-1045. DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12819 

Bruchmann, K. Chue, S. , Dillon, K ., Lucas, J., Neumann, K. , & Parque, C. (2021). Social comparison information influences intentions to reduce single-use plastic water bottle consumption. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.

Bruchmann, K. & Evans, M.C.  (2019). Comparing to ingroup and outgroup members: Do we assimilate, contrast, or neither? Journal of Social Psychology, 159, 313-327.