C. Nathan DeWall, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
201 Kastle Hall
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0044

Office Phone: 859.257.8105
Fax Number: 859.323.1979
E-mail: nathan.dewall@uky.edu
DeWall Social Psychology Lab

The first line of research in my lab examines social exclusion and acceptance. The need for positive and lasting connections with others is among the most fundamental of all human motivations. What happens when people experience social exclusion? My research has explored how social exclusion influences aggression, pro-social behavior, self-regulation, emotional responses such as empathy, and physical sensitivity to pain. To explore these and other phenomena, I use measures such as eye-tracking, physical pain responses, reaction time, self-report, and behavioral responses.
The second line of research in my lab focuses on self-regulatory depletion. Most problems in society can be traced back to problems with self-regulation. My research in this area has examined how prior acts of self-regulation impair later attempts to self-regulate. For example, self-regulatory depletion increases the likelihood of behaving aggressively in response to provocation. In two recent lines of inquiry, my colleagues and I have examined the physiological basis of self-regulatory depletion and have applied the phenomenon of depletion to the domain of romantic relationships.
I also have interests in attitudes and persuasion, evolutionary psychology, interpersonal power, and the manner in which people cope with the prospect of their own mortality. I am becoming increasingly interested in how the questions in my research can be applied to clinical psychology.

Selected Publications:
DeWall, C. N., & Baumeister, R. F. (in press). From terror to joy: Automatic tuning to positive affective information following mortality salience. Psychological Science.
DeWall, C. N., & Baumeister, R. F. (2006). Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 1-15.
DeWall, C. N., Baumeister, R. F., Gailliot, M. T., & Stillman, T. (2007). Violence restrained: Effects of self-regulatory capacity and its depletion on aggressive behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 62-76.
Maner, J. E., DeWall, C. N., Baumeister, R. F., & Schaller, M. (2007. Does social exclusion motivate withdrawal or reconnection? Resolving the "porcupine problem." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 42-55.
DeWall, C. N., Visser, P. S., & Levitan, L. C. (2006). Openness to attitude change as a result of constrained temporal perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1010-1023.
Baumeister, R. F., DeWall, C. N., Ciaracco, N. J., & Twenge, J. M. (2005). Social exclusion impairs self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 589-604.

Last updated: March 30, 2007