My scholarship examines how relationships with family and pets affect health and well-being, how self-nature representations promote environmental sustainability, and how people form impressions of others, with this work supported over the years by National Institutes of Health (NICHD and NIMH) and National Science Foundation grants.

Previously, I served as a Social Psychology Program Director at the National Science Foundation, Editor in Chief of Social Psychological and Personality Science, Associate Editor of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, President of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and of the Midwestern Psychological Association, and Chair of a large Department of Psychology.

My recognitions include being named University Distinguished Professor, James and Beth Lewis Endowed Professor, University Distinguished Scholar, and Professor of the Year in Psychology. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in social psychology, positive emotions and well-being, environmental sustainability, the self, and intergroup relations. Finally, my expertise has been applied to environmental conservation, to consumer and medical behavior, to trial and jury consulting, and my research has been presented in many legal venues including in briefs argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.