Jennifer E Stellar
Biographic Data
| ID | 763872 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer E Stellar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer E |
| FAMILY NAME | Stellar |
| SIGNATURE | STELLAR J E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7753-6637 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 114 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Compassion persists: The effects of repeated exposure to suffering on compassion.
677), self-reports, expressions, and physiological markers of compassion showed no evidence of decline; instead, they remained stable or increased over time. We found evidence for changes in other psychological measures (e.g., greater reported difficulty coping) across the paradigm and documented declines in well-being along with the emergence of compassion fatigue symptoms from pre- to postparadigm. These findings suggest that the experience of …
“It’s Hard to Shake God’s Hand”: Gratitude to God Motivates Paying Gratitude Forward
Gratitude is often considered a response to kind acts from others, but growing research suggests it is frequently directed toward God. This study explored how gratitude toward God differs from gratitude toward people. Since God is perceived as all-powerful and not directly benefiting from reciprocation, we hypothesized that individuals would focus less on repaying God and more on paying it forward. We tested this through three studies: a cross-se…
The Hidden Costs of Gratitude: Gratitude Amplification Is Costly for Personal and Relationship Well-Being
Expressing gratitude often strengthens relationships, yet many people say “thank you” despite not feeling especially grateful. Although this may seem innocuous, are there hidden costs? We tested the effects of expressed, perceived, and accurate perceptions of gratitude amplification on romantic couples’ personal and relational well-being across four dyadic studies ( N couples = 639), including lab conversations (Studies 1a and 2a), naturalistical…
Thank You for Changing: Gratitude Promotes Autonomous Motivation and Successful Partner Regulation
Romantic partners often attempt to improve their relationship by changing each other’s traits and behaviors, but such partner regulation is often unsuccessful. We examined whether gratitude expressed by agents (i.e., partners requesting change) facilitates greater regulation success from targets (i.e., partners making change) by encouraging targets’ autonomous motivation. Across studies, including observational (Study 1, N = 111 couples), preregi…
Power as a moral magnifier: Moral outrage is amplified when the powerful transgress
Dispositional Gratitude Trajectories of Syrian Origin Young Adults in the Netherlands
Despite many challenges of resettling in a host country, people with refugee backgrounds can experience positive changes. We examined changes in dispositional gratitude across 13 months in 168 Syrian origin young adults who were resettling in the Netherlands. Latent class growth analysis revealed three trajectories: moderate-stable (44%), low-decreasing (42%), and high-decreasing (14%). Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that more tr…
Evolution of the Moral Lexicon
Morality is central to social well-being and cognition, and moral lexicon is a key device for human communication of moral concepts and experiences. How was the moral lexicon formed? We explore this open question and hypothesize that words evolved to take on abstract moral meanings from concrete and grounded experiences. We test this hypothesis by analyzing semantic change and formation of over 800 words from the English Moral Foundations Diction…
Touch as a Stress Buffer? Gender Differences in Subjective and Physiological Responses to Partner and Stranger Touch
Interpersonal touch buffers against stress under challenging conditions, but this effect depends on familiarity. People benefit from receiving touch from their romantic partners, but the results are less consistent in the context of receiving touch from an opposite-gender stranger. We propose that there may be important gender differences in how people respond to touch from opposite-gender strangers. Specifically, we propose that touch from an op…
Feeling Appreciated Predicts Prosocial Motivation in Avoidantly Attached Individuals
Prosocial motivation is an important ingredient for satisfying relationships. However, individuals high in attachment avoidance—those who fear closeness and prefer independence—often display reduced prosocial motivation for their romantic partner. In two daily experience studies ( N total = 324), we examined whether feeling appreciated by a romantic partner would buffer this negative link. When avoidantly attached individuals felt highly apprecia…
Exploring the impact of awe on the multifaceted construct of empathy
Empathy helps us navigate social interactions and promotes prosocial behaviors like caregiving and helping. Here, we explored whether awe, a key self-transcendent and epistemic emotion, could encourage greater empathy across seven diverse student and community samples collected between 2020 and 2022. Empathy is a multifaceted construct; thus, we assessed performance on a range of empathy measures including perspective taking accuracy (Study 2), e…
When the ones we love misbehave: Exploring moral processes within intimate bonds
How do we react when our romantic partners, friends, or family members behave unethically? When close others misbehave, it generates a powerful conflict between observers' moral values and their cherished relationships. Previous research has almost exclusively studied moral perception in a social vacuum by investigating responses to the transgressions of strangers; therefore, little is known about how these responses unfold in the context of inti…
When We're Asked to Change: The Role of Suppression and Reappraisal in Partner Change Outcomes
Receiving a request to change from a romantic partner can evoke intense emotional responses that hinder change progress and conflict resolution. As such, investigating how those being asked to change (i.e., change targets) regulate their emotions through key intrapersonal strategies (i.e., suppression and reappraisal) will lend crucial insight into promoting change success. Utilizing laboratory-interaction (Study 1; N = 111 couples) and experienc…
Is Touch in Romantic Relationships Universally Beneficial for Psychological Well-Being? The Role of Attachment Avoidance
Affectionate touch is crucial for well-being. However, attachment avoidance is associated with negative attitudes toward touch. We tested two preregistered hypotheses about how attachment avoidance influences the association between touch in romantic couples and psychological well-being. We examined whether greater attachment avoidance is associated with a reduced link between touch and well-being, and/or whether reduced touch mediates the relati…
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
As rates of intergenerational social mobility decline, it is increasingly important to understand the psychological consequences of entrenched socioeconomic privilege. Here, we explore whether current and childhood socioeconomic status (SES) are interactively related to entitlement, such that among currently high SES individuals, those from affluent backgrounds are likely to feel uniquely high levels of entitlement, whereas currently low SES indi…
Evolution of emotion semantics
How can I thank you? Highlighting the benefactor's responsiveness or costs when expressing gratitude
Despite growing evidence that showing gratitude plays a powerful role in building social connections, little is known about how to best express gratitude to maximize its relational benefits. In this research, we examined how two key ways of expressing gratitude-conveying that the benefactor's kind action met one's needs (responsiveness-highlighting) and acknowledging how costly the action was (cost-highlighting)-impact benefactors' reactions to t…
Awe and humility
Humility is a foundational virtue that counters selfish inclinations such as entitlement, arrogance, and narcissism (Tangney, 2000). We hypothesize that experiences of awe promote greater humility. Guided by an appraisal-tendency framework of emotion, we propose that when individuals encounter an entity that is vast and challenges their worldview, they feel awe, which leads to self-diminishment and subsequently humility. In support of these claim…
Unethical and inept? The influence of moral information on perceptions of competence
While moral character heavily influences global evaluations of others (Goodwin, Piazza, & Rozin, 2014), its causal effect on perceptions of others' competence (i.e., one's knowledge, skills, and abilities) is less clear. We found that people readily use information about another's morality when judging their competence, despite holding folk intuitions that these domains are independent. Across 6 studies (n = 1,567), including 2 preregistered expe…
Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality
In this article we review the emerging literature on the self-transcendent emotions. We discuss how the self-transcendent emotions differ from other positive emotions and outline the defining features of this category. We then provide an analysis of three specific self-transcendent emotions—compassion, gratitude, and awe—detailing what has been learned about their expressive behavior, physiology, and likely evolutionary origins. We propose that t…
Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self
Awe has been theorized as a collective emotion, one that enables individuals to integrate into social collectives. In keeping with this theorizing, we propose that awe diminishes the sense of self and shifts attention away from individual interests and concerns. In testing this hypothesis across 6 studies (N = 2137), we first validate pictorial and verbal measures of the small self; we then document that daily, in vivo, and lab experiences of awe…
The dark side of the sublime: Distinguishing a threat-based variant of awe
Theoretical conceptualizations of awe suggest this emotion can be more positive or negative depending on specific appraisal processes. However, the emergent scientific study of awe rarely emphasizes its negative side, classifying it instead as a positive emotion. In the present research we tested whether there is a more negative variant of awe that arises in response to vast, complex stimuli that are threatening (e.g., tornadoes, terrorist attack…
Positive affect and markers of inflammation: Discrete positive emotions predict lower levels of inflammatory cytokines
Negative emotions are reliably associated with poorer health (e.g., Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002), but only recently has research begun to acknowledge the important role of positive emotions for our physical health (Fredrickson, 2003). We examine the link between dispositional positive affect and one potential biological pathway between positive emotions and health-proinflammatory cytokines, specifically levels of interleukin-6…
Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while …
When the selfish suffer: Evidence for selective prosocial emotional and physiological responses to suffering egoists
The Corruption of Value: Negative Moral Associations Diminish the Value of Money
We investigate the possibility that negative moral associations can reduce the desirability and perceived value of money, and that they do so by threatening to contaminate individuals’ perceptions of their morality. In Study 1, participants filled out fewer raffle tickets to obtain a money prize with immoral associations and perceived it to have less purchasing power than a morally neutral prize. In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated particip…
Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self
Awe has been theorized as a collective emotion, one that enables individuals to integrate into social collectives. In keeping with this theorizing, we propose that awe diminishes the sense of self and shifts attention away from individual interests and concerns. In testing this hypothesis across 6 studies (N = 2137), we first validate pictorial and verbal measures of the small self; we then document that daily, in vivo, and lab experiences of awe…
The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior
Reputation systems promote cooperation and deter antisocial behavior in groups. Little is known, however, about how and why people share reputational information. Here, we seek to establish the existence and dynamics of prosocial gossip, the sharing of negative evaluative information about a target in a way that protects others from antisocial or exploitative behavior. We present a model of prosocial gossip and the results of 4 studies testing th…
The dark side of the sublime: Distinguishing a threat-based variant of awe
Theoretical conceptualizations of awe suggest this emotion can be more positive or negative depending on specific appraisal processes. However, the emergent scientific study of awe rarely emphasizes its negative side, classifying it instead as a positive emotion. In the present research we tested whether there is a more negative variant of awe that arises in response to vast, complex stimuli that are threatening (e.g., tornadoes, terrorist attack…
Awe and humility
Humility is a foundational virtue that counters selfish inclinations such as entitlement, arrogance, and narcissism (Tangney, 2000). We hypothesize that experiences of awe promote greater humility. Guided by an appraisal-tendency framework of emotion, we propose that when individuals encounter an entity that is vast and challenges their worldview, they feel awe, which leads to self-diminishment and subsequently humility. In support of these claim…
Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while …
Unethical and inept? The influence of moral information on perceptions of competence
While moral character heavily influences global evaluations of others (Goodwin, Piazza, & Rozin, 2014), its causal effect on perceptions of others' competence (i.e., one's knowledge, skills, and abilities) is less clear. We found that people readily use information about another's morality when judging their competence, despite holding folk intuitions that these domains are independent. Across 6 studies (n = 1,567), including 2 preregistered expe…
How can I thank you? Highlighting the benefactor's responsiveness or costs when expressing gratitude
Despite growing evidence that showing gratitude plays a powerful role in building social connections, little is known about how to best express gratitude to maximize its relational benefits. In this research, we examined how two key ways of expressing gratitude-conveying that the benefactor's kind action met one's needs (responsiveness-highlighting) and acknowledging how costly the action was (cost-highlighting)-impact benefactors' reactions to t…
When the ones we love misbehave: Exploring moral processes within intimate bonds
How do we react when our romantic partners, friends, or family members behave unethically? When close others misbehave, it generates a powerful conflict between observers' moral values and their cherished relationships. Previous research has almost exclusively studied moral perception in a social vacuum by investigating responses to the transgressions of strangers; therefore, little is known about how these responses unfold in the context of inti…
When We're Asked to Change: The Role of Suppression and Reappraisal in Partner Change Outcomes
Receiving a request to change from a romantic partner can evoke intense emotional responses that hinder change progress and conflict resolution. As such, investigating how those being asked to change (i.e., change targets) regulate their emotions through key intrapersonal strategies (i.e., suppression and reappraisal) will lend crucial insight into promoting change success. Utilizing laboratory-interaction (Study 1; N = 111 couples) and experienc…
Class and compassion: Socioeconomic factors predict responses to suffering
Previous research indicates that lower-class individuals experience elevated negative emotions as compared with their upper-class counterparts. We examine how the environments of lower-class individuals can also promote greater compassionate responding-that is, concern for the suffering or well-being of others. In the present research, we investigate class-based differences in dispositional compassion and its activation in situations wherein othe…
The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior
Reputation systems promote cooperation and deter antisocial behavior in groups. Little is known, however, about how and why people share reputational information. Here, we seek to establish the existence and dynamics of prosocial gossip, the sharing of negative evaluative information about a target in a way that protects others from antisocial or exploitative behavior. We present a model of prosocial gossip and the results of 4 studies testing th…
When the selfish suffer: Evidence for selective prosocial emotional and physiological responses to suffering egoists
The Corruption of Value: Negative Moral Associations Diminish the Value of Money
We investigate the possibility that negative moral associations can reduce the desirability and perceived value of money, and that they do so by threatening to contaminate individuals’ perceptions of their morality. In Study 1, participants filled out fewer raffle tickets to obtain a money prize with immoral associations and perceived it to have less purchasing power than a morally neutral prize. In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated particip…
Positive affect and markers of inflammation: Discrete positive emotions predict lower levels of inflammatory cytokines
Negative emotions are reliably associated with poorer health (e.g., Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002), but only recently has research begun to acknowledge the important role of positive emotions for our physical health (Fredrickson, 2003). We examine the link between dispositional positive affect and one potential biological pathway between positive emotions and health-proinflammatory cytokines, specifically levels of interleukin-6…
Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: Compassion and vagal activity
Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4 studies, participants witnessed others suffer while …
Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality
In this article we review the emerging literature on the self-transcendent emotions. We discuss how the self-transcendent emotions differ from other positive emotions and outline the defining features of this category. We then provide an analysis of three specific self-transcendent emotions—compassion, gratitude, and awe—detailing what has been learned about their expressive behavior, physiology, and likely evolutionary origins. We propose that t…
Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self
Awe has been theorized as a collective emotion, one that enables individuals to integrate into social collectives. In keeping with this theorizing, we propose that awe diminishes the sense of self and shifts attention away from individual interests and concerns. In testing this hypothesis across 6 studies (N = 2137), we first validate pictorial and verbal measures of the small self; we then document that daily, in vivo, and lab experiences of awe…
The dark side of the sublime: Distinguishing a threat-based variant of awe
Theoretical conceptualizations of awe suggest this emotion can be more positive or negative depending on specific appraisal processes. However, the emergent scientific study of awe rarely emphasizes its negative side, classifying it instead as a positive emotion. In the present research we tested whether there is a more negative variant of awe that arises in response to vast, complex stimuli that are threatening (e.g., tornadoes, terrorist attack…
Awe and humility
Humility is a foundational virtue that counters selfish inclinations such as entitlement, arrogance, and narcissism (Tangney, 2000). We hypothesize that experiences of awe promote greater humility. Guided by an appraisal-tendency framework of emotion, we propose that when individuals encounter an entity that is vast and challenges their worldview, they feel awe, which leads to self-diminishment and subsequently humility. In support of these claim…
Unethical and inept? The influence of moral information on perceptions of competence
While moral character heavily influences global evaluations of others (Goodwin, Piazza, & Rozin, 2014), its causal effect on perceptions of others' competence (i.e., one's knowledge, skills, and abilities) is less clear. We found that people readily use information about another's morality when judging their competence, despite holding folk intuitions that these domains are independent. Across 6 studies (n = 1,567), including 2 preregistered expe…
Is Touch in Romantic Relationships Universally Beneficial for Psychological Well-Being? The Role of Attachment Avoidance
Affectionate touch is crucial for well-being. However, attachment avoidance is associated with negative attitudes toward touch. We tested two preregistered hypotheses about how attachment avoidance influences the association between touch in romantic couples and psychological well-being. We examined whether greater attachment avoidance is associated with a reduced link between touch and well-being, and/or whether reduced touch mediates the relati…
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
As rates of intergenerational social mobility decline, it is increasingly important to understand the psychological consequences of entrenched socioeconomic privilege. Here, we explore whether current and childhood socioeconomic status (SES) are interactively related to entitlement, such that among currently high SES individuals, those from affluent backgrounds are likely to feel uniquely high levels of entitlement, whereas currently low SES indi…
Evolution of emotion semantics
How can I thank you? Highlighting the benefactor's responsiveness or costs when expressing gratitude
Despite growing evidence that showing gratitude plays a powerful role in building social connections, little is known about how to best express gratitude to maximize its relational benefits. In this research, we examined how two key ways of expressing gratitude-conveying that the benefactor's kind action met one's needs (responsiveness-highlighting) and acknowledging how costly the action was (cost-highlighting)-impact benefactors' reactions to t…
When the ones we love misbehave: Exploring moral processes within intimate bonds
How do we react when our romantic partners, friends, or family members behave unethically? When close others misbehave, it generates a powerful conflict between observers' moral values and their cherished relationships. Previous research has almost exclusively studied moral perception in a social vacuum by investigating responses to the transgressions of strangers; therefore, little is known about how these responses unfold in the context of inti…
When We're Asked to Change: The Role of Suppression and Reappraisal in Partner Change Outcomes
Receiving a request to change from a romantic partner can evoke intense emotional responses that hinder change progress and conflict resolution. As such, investigating how those being asked to change (i.e., change targets) regulate their emotions through key intrapersonal strategies (i.e., suppression and reappraisal) will lend crucial insight into promoting change success. Utilizing laboratory-interaction (Study 1; N = 111 couples) and experienc…
Exploring the impact of awe on the multifaceted construct of empathy
Empathy helps us navigate social interactions and promotes prosocial behaviors like caregiving and helping. Here, we explored whether awe, a key self-transcendent and epistemic emotion, could encourage greater empathy across seven diverse student and community samples collected between 2020 and 2022. Empathy is a multifaceted construct; thus, we assessed performance on a range of empathy measures including perspective taking accuracy (Study 2), e…
Evolution of the Moral Lexicon
Morality is central to social well-being and cognition, and moral lexicon is a key device for human communication of moral concepts and experiences. How was the moral lexicon formed? We explore this open question and hypothesize that words evolved to take on abstract moral meanings from concrete and grounded experiences. We test this hypothesis by analyzing semantic change and formation of over 800 words from the English Moral Foundations Diction…
Touch as a Stress Buffer? Gender Differences in Subjective and Physiological Responses to Partner and Stranger Touch
Interpersonal touch buffers against stress under challenging conditions, but this effect depends on familiarity. People benefit from receiving touch from their romantic partners, but the results are less consistent in the context of receiving touch from an opposite-gender stranger. We propose that there may be important gender differences in how people respond to touch from opposite-gender strangers. Specifically, we propose that touch from an op…
Feeling Appreciated Predicts Prosocial Motivation in Avoidantly Attached Individuals
Prosocial motivation is an important ingredient for satisfying relationships. However, individuals high in attachment avoidance—those who fear closeness and prefer independence—often display reduced prosocial motivation for their romantic partner. In two daily experience studies ( N total = 324), we examined whether feeling appreciated by a romantic partner would buffer this negative link. When avoidantly attached individuals felt highly apprecia…
The Hidden Costs of Gratitude: Gratitude Amplification Is Costly for Personal and Relationship Well-Being
Expressing gratitude often strengthens relationships, yet many people say “thank you” despite not feeling especially grateful. Although this may seem innocuous, are there hidden costs? We tested the effects of expressed, perceived, and accurate perceptions of gratitude amplification on romantic couples’ personal and relational well-being across four dyadic studies ( N couples = 639), including lab conversations (Studies 1a and 2a), naturalistical…
Thank You for Changing: Gratitude Promotes Autonomous Motivation and Successful Partner Regulation
Romantic partners often attempt to improve their relationship by changing each other’s traits and behaviors, but such partner regulation is often unsuccessful. We examined whether gratitude expressed by agents (i.e., partners requesting change) facilitates greater regulation success from targets (i.e., partners making change) by encouraging targets’ autonomous motivation. Across studies, including observational (Study 1, N = 111 couples), preregi…
Power as a moral magnifier: Moral outrage is amplified when the powerful transgress
Dispositional Gratitude Trajectories of Syrian Origin Young Adults in the Netherlands
Despite many challenges of resettling in a host country, people with refugee backgrounds can experience positive changes. We examined changes in dispositional gratitude across 13 months in 168 Syrian origin young adults who were resettling in the Netherlands. Latent class growth analysis revealed three trajectories: moderate-stable (44%), low-decreasing (42%), and high-decreasing (14%). Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that more tr…
Psychology (25 works) · Social Psychology (23 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Prosocial behavior (8 works) · Feeling (7 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (7 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (6 works) · Gratitude (6 works) · Media Influence and Health (6 works)