Michelle R Vandellen
Biographic Data
| ID | 381508 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle R Vandellen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle R |
| FAMILY NAME | Vandellen |
| SIGNATURE | VANDELLEN M R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Georgia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3457-194X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 52 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Gender inequality and cultural values in explaining gender differences in positive and negative emotions: A comparison of 24 countries during the Covid-19 pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic posed a major challenge to mental health. Existing evidence shows that COVID-19 is related to poor emotional well-being, particularly among women. However, most work on the subject uses single-country samples, limiting the ability to generalize the disparity or explain it as a function of societal variables. The present study investigates the expression of positive and negative emotions during the pandemic as a function o…
When What Is Beautiful Is Not Good: The Role of Trait Self-Control in Resisting Eye Candy
People are drawn to and like others who are physically attractive. In the present research, we investigated the influence of trait self-control on individuals’ interest in relationships with physically attractive others. We hypothesized that high (vs. low) self-control individuals would approach relationships by considering information beyond appearance about potential partners, including partners’ self-control. We additionally explored the influ…
More than just changeability: Specific factors are used to explain the changeability of personality traits
Implicit theories and psychological essentialism are valuable frameworks used to model how changeable many traits are perceived to be. These frameworks, however, characterise changeability as a broad and generalised construct and do not fully capture the nuance and specificity involved in personality changeability. We therefore sought to deconstruct implicit theories about changeability into underlying more specific aspects of changeability. We m…
Sucralose Mouth Rinse Enhances Cephalic Phase Insulin Release
Objective: To assess the combined and independent effects of energy content and sweetness on cephalic phase insulin release (CPIR) and compare responses in adults with normal weight (NW) and obese (OB) body mass indexes (BMI). Methods: In this randomized, double-blind crossover study, 39 adults (NW: n=21; OB: n=18), aged 18-45y (24±5y), rinsed with mouth rinses containing either sucrose, sucralose, maltodextrin, or water for 2min before expectora…
The Precarity of Progress: Implications of a Shifting Gendered Division of Labor for Relationships and Well-Being as a Function of Country-Level Gender Equality
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic…
Intentions to be Vaccinated Against Covid-19: The Role of Prosociality and Conspiracy Beliefs across 20 Countries
Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, involving 6697 responden…
The role of values in coping with health and economic threats of Covid-19
61,490) suggest that health and economic threats of COVID-19 evoke different values, with implications for controlling and coping with the pandemic. Specifically, health threats predicted prioritization of communal values related to caring for others and belonging, whereas economic threats predicted prioritization of agentic values focused on competition and achievement. Concurrently and over time, prioritizing communal values over agentic values…
The role of temporal distance on forecasting the difficulty of goal pursuits
The current research examined individuals’ perceptions of difficulty regarding goal striving in the near and distant future. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that predictions decrease over increasing temporal distance. Participants forecasted how difficult several goal-related tasks would be at varying points in the future. Our hypothesis was mostly supported. Results from hierarchical linear modeling showed many statistically significant linear and…
Impact of National Pandemic Lockdowns on Perceived Threat of Immigrants: A Natural Quasi-Experiment Across 23 Countries
Xenophobia and anti-immigrant attacks rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet this may not be solely due to the disease threat. According to theories of frustration and scapegoating, situational obstructions and deprivation can motivate prejudice against outgroups. Using a global natural quasi-experimental design, this study tests whether the restrictiveness of national lockdowns can explain higher individual-level perceptions of immigrant threat.…
Treat yourself: Both positive and negative affect can provide justifications for self-regulatory indulgence
Temptations are ubiquitous in daily life. In the present studies, we examined reflective justifications for indulging in these temptations. In Study 1, people reported deserving pleasurable activities (at the expense of goal pursuits) after imagining positive events for which they were responsible or negative events for which they were not responsible. In Study 2, participants reported more indulging and less goal progress when they considered ne…
Pandemic boredom: Little evidence that lockdown-related boredom affects risky public health behaviors across 116 countries
Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional "lockdown") may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for noncompliance. We examined whether there was empirical evidence to support this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-national sampl…
Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing: A machine learning analysis
Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially rel…
Lockdown Lives: A Longitudinal Study of Inter-Relationships Among Feelings of Loneliness, Social Contacts, and Solidarity During the Covid-19 Lockdown in Early 2020
We examine how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. From the PsyCorona database, we obtained longitudinal data from 23 countries, collected between March and May 2020. The results demonstrated that although online contacts help to reduce feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to use that strategy. Solidarity played only a small role in s…
Recalled Neighborhood Environments, Parental Control, and Cytokine-Mediated Response to Viral Challenge
OBJECTIVE: Neighborhood risk in childhood is associated with poor health across the life span. However, many people who are reared in risky neighborhoods remain healthy in adulthood. In the context of high-risk neighborhoods, parenting practices that are controlling might promote better physical health outcomes later in life. The current study used a viral challenge paradigm to examine whether parental control throughout childhood moderated the a…
Self-reported Changes in Energy Balance Behaviors during Covid-19-related Home Confinement: A Cross-sectional Study
Objectives: Cross-sectional reports on weight gain during the COVID-19 shelter-at-home have raised concerns for weight increases as the pandemic continues. We examined behaviors that impact energy intake and/or energy expenditure among adults in the United States during shelter-at-home. Methods: Cross-sectional data (N=1779; April 24 - May4, 2020) were collected on demographics, diet, physical activity, sleep, and food purchasing behaviors. Perce…
Self-weighing Practices and Associated Health Behaviors during Covid-19
Objective: In this study, we investigated self-weighing frequency (SWF) among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and retrospectively (6 months) before the pandemic, and whether SWF was associated with changes in health-related behaviors. Methods: United States adults (N = 1607) completed a health-related questionnaire during COVID-19 and associated shelter-in-place. We categorized respondents into 4 groups of SWF at the time of the pandemic: "Ne…
How did I get here? Individual differences in perceived retrospective personality change
Assessing multiple features of partner support for smoking cessation in dual-smoker couples
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new scale to measure multiple aspects of partner support for quitting smoking relevant to dual-smoker couples, called the Partner Support for Quitting Scale. The best model fit ( N = 238 individuals in 119 couples) considers the frequency of, confidence in, and perceived usefulness of partner support behaviors. Path analysis revealed that the Partner Support for Quitting Scale factors were uniquely pred…
Makeup Who You Are: Self-Expression Enhances the Perceived Authenticity and Public Promotion of Beauty Work
Although consumers put substantial effort toward their appearance, engaging in beauty work is often seen as inauthentic, posing challenges for beauty companies that increasingly rely on social media-driven product promotion where authenticity perceptions are consequential. This article draws on existentialist notions of authenticity (wherein the true self is created rather than innate) to explore how framing beauty work as self-expression alters …
Culture Is Associated With the Experience of Long-Term Self-Concept Changes
Cultural context can affect how changes in self-concepts are either valued or tolerated. However, very little is currently known regarding how culture may differentially confer consequences to people that change their self-concepts over the course of several years. We investigated the moderating role of culture (Japan and USA) on the link between long-term (∼4 years) self-concept changes and a comprehensive set of well-being measures (hedonic, eu…
Self-weighing Frequency and Its Relationship with Health Measures
Objectives: In this study, we investigated self-weighing frequency (SWF) among adults and whether SWF was associated with health markers. Methods: We had 533 US adults complete a questionnaire on SWF and other health markers. Respondents were categorized into 4 quartiles of SWF: "Never," " 1x/week." Results: Overall, 60.0% of adults weighed Conclusion: Whereas SWF was associated with some markers of health including vigorous PA and some healthier…
Perceptions about marital conflict: Individual, dyadic, and family level effects
Husbands and wives often provide different reports about the qualities of their relationship-a pattern of reporting that is often discounted as measurement error. In the present study, we tested three research questions related to perceptions of marital conflict in a sample of 123 married couples. First, we tested whether individual and partner attachment and depressive symptoms were associated with reports of conflict. Then, we examined whether …
Promotion by others through social networks
Although self-promotion may be the most direct way people self-present, it carries social costs. We propose a novel phenomenon-promotion by others-wherein social networks may afford similar advantages with fewer costs. We utilized egocentric network analysis to examine relationships between social connections and perceived promoter potential (i.e., likelihood a friend will tell others about successes; PPP) and relationship dynamics. Participants …
Multidimensional assessment of impulsivity in relation to obesity and food addiction
A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect
Good self-control has been linked to adaptive outcomes such as better health, cohesive personal relationships, success in the workplace and at school, and less susceptibility to crime and addictions. In contrast, self-control failure is linked to maladaptive outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms by which self-control predicts behavior may assist in promoting better regulation and outcomes. A popular approach to understanding self-control is the …
How Women Cope: Being a Numerical Minority in a Male-Dominated Profession
Women who have academic careers in engineering have successfully navigated the social identity threats that prevent many other women from feeling that they belong in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. In this research, we examined what factors may be related to resilience in these academic environments. Female academics in engineering and nonengineering fields watched a fictitious conference video depicting either an unbalanced ra…
Multidimensional assessment of impulsivity in relation to obesity and food addiction
Power and the pursuit of a partner’s goals
We investigated how power dynamics in close relationships influence the tendency to devote resources to the pursuit of goals valued by relationship partners, hypothesizing that low (vs. high) power in relationships would lead individuals to center their individual goal pursuit around the goals of their partners. We study 2 related phenomena: partner goal prioritization, whereby individuals pursue goals on behalf of their partners, and partner goa…
The burden of responsibility: Interpersonal costs of high self-control
The psychological literature on self-control has illustrated the many benefits experienced by people with high self-control, who are more successful both personally and interpersonally. In the current research, we explore the possibility that having high self-control also may have some interpersonal costs, leading individuals to become burdened by others' reliance. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined the effects of actors' self-control on observers' …
Makeup Who You Are: Self-Expression Enhances the Perceived Authenticity and Public Promotion of Beauty Work
Although consumers put substantial effort toward their appearance, engaging in beauty work is often seen as inauthentic, posing challenges for beauty companies that increasingly rely on social media-driven product promotion where authenticity perceptions are consequential. This article draws on existentialist notions of authenticity (wherein the true self is created rather than innate) to explore how framing beauty work as self-expression alters …
Willingness to provide support for a quit attempt: A study of partners of smokers
Support from close others predicts smoking abstinence, yet little research has investigated what factors promote support. This study investigates predictors of support for a quit attempt. Partners of smokers ( N = 131) reported their relationship quality, concern for partner's health, own smoking status, and intended support for a quit attempt. Smokers were less supportive than were nonsmokers. Relationship quality, concern for partners' health, …
The Precarity of Progress: Implications of a Shifting Gendered Division of Labor for Relationships and Well-Being as a Function of Country-Level Gender Equality
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic…
Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing: A machine learning analysis
Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially rel…
Perceptions about marital conflict: Individual, dyadic, and family level effects
Husbands and wives often provide different reports about the qualities of their relationship-a pattern of reporting that is often discounted as measurement error. In the present study, we tested three research questions related to perceptions of marital conflict in a sample of 123 married couples. First, we tested whether individual and partner attachment and depressive symptoms were associated with reports of conflict. Then, we examined whether …
Motivated misperception: Self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals
How do people define moderation
Breaking apart the typical mortality salience manipulation: Two questions, two outcomes
The typical mortality salience manipulation asks participants to reflect on two questions, one about the emotions associated with the thought of death and the other about what happens after one dies. In five experiments, we separated these two questions and gave participants either one or a control question. In Experiment 1, participants' responses to the afterlife question were coded as being informed more by cultural knowledge and values compar…
Possible Selves as Behavioral Standards in Self-regulation
We investigated a potential mechanism by which possible selves affect behavior by considering them in the context of control-process models of self-regulation. After a hoped-for or feared self in the health domain was made salient, participants were provided with opportunities to behave in ways that would address any unwanted discrepancy between the salient possible self and the current self. In order to ensure that behavior was in the service of…
Implicit Delegation of Responsibility: Joint Self-Control in Close Relationships
In everyday life, people often exert self-control not only for their own sake but also for the sake of close others. Here, the authors examine the specific case of joint self-control—when multiple people must simultaneously exert self-control for mutual success—in the context of close relationships. The authors test the hypothesis that people use situational cues to determine if one member of the relationship bears more responsibility for exertin…
How Women Cope: Being a Numerical Minority in a Male-Dominated Profession
Women who have academic careers in engineering have successfully navigated the social identity threats that prevent many other women from feeling that they belong in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. In this research, we examined what factors may be related to resilience in these academic environments. Female academics in engineering and nonengineering fields watched a fictitious conference video depicting either an unbalanced ra…
Breaking apart the typical mortality salience manipulation: Two questions, two outcomes
The typical mortality salience manipulation asks participants to reflect on two questions, one about the emotions associated with the thought of death and the other about what happens after one dies. In five experiments, we separated these two questions and gave participants either one or a control question. In Experiment 1, participants' responses to the afterlife question were coded as being informed more by cultural knowledge and values compar…
When local processing increases the appeal of healthy options
First on the List: Effectiveness at Self-Regulation and Prioritizing Difficult Exercise Goal Pursuit
Identifying and understanding the goal pursuit strategies that distinguish effective self-regulators from less effective self-regulators is important for elucidating how individuals achieve their goals. We suggest that the timing of plans for difficult goal pursuits is one differentiation. A pilot study shows that effective self-regulators tend to believe they are best suited to pursue difficult goals earlier in the day, and two studies provide e…
Motivated misperception: Self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals
Transactive goal dynamics.
Transactive goal dynamics (TGD) theory conceptualizes 2 or more interdependent people as 1 single self-regulating system. Six tenets describe the nature of goal interdependence, predict its emergence, predict when it will lead to positive goal outcomes during and after the relationship, and predict the consequences for the relationship. Both partners in a TGD system possess and pursue self-oriented, partner-oriented, and system-oriented goals, an…
The burden of responsibility: Interpersonal costs of high self-control
The psychological literature on self-control has illustrated the many benefits experienced by people with high self-control, who are more successful both personally and interpersonally. In the current research, we explore the possibility that having high self-control also may have some interpersonal costs, leading individuals to become burdened by others' reliance. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined the effects of actors' self-control on observers' …
A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect
Good self-control has been linked to adaptive outcomes such as better health, cohesive personal relationships, success in the workplace and at school, and less susceptibility to crime and addictions. In contrast, self-control failure is linked to maladaptive outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms by which self-control predicts behavior may assist in promoting better regulation and outcomes. A popular approach to understanding self-control is the …
How do people define moderation
Power and the pursuit of a partner’s goals
We investigated how power dynamics in close relationships influence the tendency to devote resources to the pursuit of goals valued by relationship partners, hypothesizing that low (vs. high) power in relationships would lead individuals to center their individual goal pursuit around the goals of their partners. We study 2 related phenomena: partner goal prioritization, whereby individuals pursue goals on behalf of their partners, and partner goa…
Willingness to provide support for a quit attempt: A study of partners of smokers
Support from close others predicts smoking abstinence, yet little research has investigated what factors promote support. This study investigates predictors of support for a quit attempt. Partners of smokers ( N = 131) reported their relationship quality, concern for partner's health, own smoking status, and intended support for a quit attempt. Smokers were less supportive than were nonsmokers. Relationship quality, concern for partners' health, …
Multidimensional assessment of impulsivity in relation to obesity and food addiction
Promotion by others through social networks
Although self-promotion may be the most direct way people self-present, it carries social costs. We propose a novel phenomenon-promotion by others-wherein social networks may afford similar advantages with fewer costs. We utilized egocentric network analysis to examine relationships between social connections and perceived promoter potential (i.e., likelihood a friend will tell others about successes; PPP) and relationship dynamics. Participants …
Self-weighing Frequency and Its Relationship with Health Measures
Objectives: In this study, we investigated self-weighing frequency (SWF) among adults and whether SWF was associated with health markers. Methods: We had 533 US adults complete a questionnaire on SWF and other health markers. Respondents were categorized into 4 quartiles of SWF: "Never," " 1x/week." Results: Overall, 60.0% of adults weighed Conclusion: Whereas SWF was associated with some markers of health including vigorous PA and some healthier…
Perceptions about marital conflict: Individual, dyadic, and family level effects
Husbands and wives often provide different reports about the qualities of their relationship-a pattern of reporting that is often discounted as measurement error. In the present study, we tested three research questions related to perceptions of marital conflict in a sample of 123 married couples. First, we tested whether individual and partner attachment and depressive symptoms were associated with reports of conflict. Then, we examined whether …
Culture Is Associated With the Experience of Long-Term Self-Concept Changes
Cultural context can affect how changes in self-concepts are either valued or tolerated. However, very little is currently known regarding how culture may differentially confer consequences to people that change their self-concepts over the course of several years. We investigated the moderating role of culture (Japan and USA) on the link between long-term (∼4 years) self-concept changes and a comprehensive set of well-being measures (hedonic, eu…
Recalled Neighborhood Environments, Parental Control, and Cytokine-Mediated Response to Viral Challenge
OBJECTIVE: Neighborhood risk in childhood is associated with poor health across the life span. However, many people who are reared in risky neighborhoods remain healthy in adulthood. In the context of high-risk neighborhoods, parenting practices that are controlling might promote better physical health outcomes later in life. The current study used a viral challenge paradigm to examine whether parental control throughout childhood moderated the a…
Self-reported Changes in Energy Balance Behaviors during Covid-19-related Home Confinement: A Cross-sectional Study
Objectives: Cross-sectional reports on weight gain during the COVID-19 shelter-at-home have raised concerns for weight increases as the pandemic continues. We examined behaviors that impact energy intake and/or energy expenditure among adults in the United States during shelter-at-home. Methods: Cross-sectional data (N=1779; April 24 - May4, 2020) were collected on demographics, diet, physical activity, sleep, and food purchasing behaviors. Perce…
Self-weighing Practices and Associated Health Behaviors during Covid-19
Objective: In this study, we investigated self-weighing frequency (SWF) among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and retrospectively (6 months) before the pandemic, and whether SWF was associated with changes in health-related behaviors. Methods: United States adults (N = 1607) completed a health-related questionnaire during COVID-19 and associated shelter-in-place. We categorized respondents into 4 groups of SWF at the time of the pandemic: "Ne…
How did I get here? Individual differences in perceived retrospective personality change
Assessing multiple features of partner support for smoking cessation in dual-smoker couples
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new scale to measure multiple aspects of partner support for quitting smoking relevant to dual-smoker couples, called the Partner Support for Quitting Scale. The best model fit ( N = 238 individuals in 119 couples) considers the frequency of, confidence in, and perceived usefulness of partner support behaviors. Path analysis revealed that the Partner Support for Quitting Scale factors were uniquely pred…
Makeup Who You Are: Self-Expression Enhances the Perceived Authenticity and Public Promotion of Beauty Work
Although consumers put substantial effort toward their appearance, engaging in beauty work is often seen as inauthentic, posing challenges for beauty companies that increasingly rely on social media-driven product promotion where authenticity perceptions are consequential. This article draws on existentialist notions of authenticity (wherein the true self is created rather than innate) to explore how framing beauty work as self-expression alters …
Lockdown Lives: A Longitudinal Study of Inter-Relationships Among Feelings of Loneliness, Social Contacts, and Solidarity During the Covid-19 Lockdown in Early 2020
We examine how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. From the PsyCorona database, we obtained longitudinal data from 23 countries, collected between March and May 2020. The results demonstrated that although online contacts help to reduce feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to use that strategy. Solidarity played only a small role in s…
Psychology (34 works) · Social Psychology (29 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (17 works) · Medicine (17 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (16 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works) · Developmental psychology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works)