Jill A. Jacobson, Queen’s University

Profile photo of Jill A. Jacobson, expert at Queen’s University

Associate Professor Department of Psychology Kingston, Ontario jill.jacobson@queensu.ca Office: (613) 533-2847

Bio/Research

My general research interests are in the area of motivated social cognition. I am particularly interested in situational or personality factors that lead people to think more carefully and make more accurate or less biased judgments. Most of my work has focused on the social cognitive consequence...

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Bio/Research

My general research interests are in the area of motivated social cognition. I am particularly interested in situational or personality factors that lead people to think more carefully and make more accurate or less biased judgments. Most of my work has focused on the social cognitive consequences of two distinct but related individual differences: dysphoria and causal uncertainty. Dysphoria refers to mild to moderate levels of depression, and causal uncertainty pertains to confidence in one’s ability to understand why things happen to oneself and to others. Individuals with higher levels of dysphoria or causal uncertainty present an interesting paradox: They spend more time thinking about social information and are more accurate and less biased in their social judgments, but they also are more likely to be socially rejected and to experience interpersonal difficulties. My other work is in health psychology examining the psychological processes involved in end-of-life medical decision making, responses to medical tests, and living with HIV/AIDS.

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