Research Interests for Lynn Smith-Lovin

I study emotion, identity, and action. I’m interested in the basic question of how identities affect social interaction. I use experimental, observational, survey and simulation methods to describe how identities, actions and emotions are interrelated. The experiments I do usually involve creating social situations where unusual things happen to people, then seeing how they respond behaviorally or emotionally. I observe small task group interactions to see how identities influence conversational behavior. My survey work often focuses on gender and other social positions that influence the groups and networks in which people are imbedded. My simulations studies involve affect control theory, a mathematical model of how identities, actions and emotions affect one another. Now, I’m putting affect control theory together with McPherson’s ecological theory of affiliation to show how social systems, identities, and emotional experience are connected.

Keywords:

Adolescent, Adult, Attitude, Child, Culture, Educational Status, Employment, Family Characteristics, Female, Fertility, Hierarchy, Social, Human ecology, Humans, Marriage, Models, Theoretical, Organizations, Parity, Population, Population Dynamics, Pregnancy, Retrospective Studies, Sex, Social Identification, Social Perception, Social Values, Socioeconomic Factors, Socioeconomic status, United States

Recent Publications   (search)

1. Quinn, JM; Freeland, RE; Maloney, EK; Rogers, KB; Smith-Lovin, L, Meaning Change in U.S. Occupational Identities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Was It Temporary or Durable?, Social Psychology Quarterly (January, 2024) [doi] [abs].
2. Kroska, A; Powell, B; Rogers, KB; Smith-Lovin, L, Affect Control Theories: A Double Special Issue in Honor of David R. Heise, American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 67 no. 1 (January, 2023), pp. 3-11 [doi] [abs].
3. Quinn, JM; Freeland, RE; Rogers, KB; Hoey, J; Smith-Lovin, L, How Cultural Meanings of Occupations in the U.S. Changed During the Covid-19 Pandemic., The American behavioral scientist, vol. 67 no. 1 (January, 2023), pp. 125-147 [doi] [abs].
4. Maloney, EK; Rogers, KB; Smith-Lovin, L, Status as Deference: Cultural Meaning as a Source of Occupational Behavior, RSF, vol. 8 no. 7 (November, 2022), pp. 70-88 [doi] [abs].
5. Kroska, A; Heise, DR; Smith-Lovin, L, Introduction of Neil J. MacKinnon, 2021 Cooley-Mead Award Recipient, Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 85 no. 1 (March, 2022), pp. 1-5 [doi].