I am interested in how people cope with threatening events and information. Two processes that I have been particularly interested in are self-affirmation and social support. A third line of research examines motivational factors underlying the processing of health messages.

Primary Interests:

Culture and Ethnicity
Emotion, Mood, Affect
Group Processes
Health Psychology
Political Psychology
Research Methods, Assessment
Self and Identity

Culture and Ethnicity
Emotion, Mood, Affect
Group Processes
Health Psychology

Political Psychology
Research Methods, Assessment
Self and Identity

Journal Articles:

Kim, H. S., Sherman, D. K., & Taylor, S. E. (2008). Culture and social support. American Psychologist, 63, 518-526.
Sherman, D. A. K., Nelson, L. D., & Steele, C. M. (2000). Do messages about health risks threaten the self? Increasing the acceptance of threatening health messages via self- affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1046-1058.
Sherman, D. K., Bunyan, D. P., Creswell, J. D., & Jaremka, L. M. (2009). Psychological vulnerability and stress: The effects of self-affirmation on sympathetic nervous system responses to naturalistic stressors. Health Psychology, 28(5), 554-562.
Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2002). Accepting threatening information: Self-affirmation and the reduction of defensive biases. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 119-123.
Sherman, D. K., Cohen, G. L., Nelson, L. D., Nussbaum, A. D., Bunyan, D. P., & Garcia, J. (2009). Affirmed yet unaware: Exploring the role of awareness in the process of self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(5), 745-764.
Sherman, D. K., Hogg, M. A., & Maitner, A. T. (2009). Perceived polarization: Reconciling ingroup and intergroup perceptions under uncertainty. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 12, 95-109.
Sherman, D. K., & Kim, H. S. (2005). Is there an “I” in “team”? The role of the self in group-serving judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 108-120.
Sherman, D. K., & Kim, H. S. (2002). Affective perseverance: The resistance of affect to cognitive invalidation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 224-237.
Sherman, D. K., Kim, H. S., & Taylor, S. E. (2009). Culture and social support: Neural bases and biological impact. Proceedings in Brain Research, 178, 227-237.
Sherman, D. K., Kinias, Z., Major, B., Kim, H. S., & Prenovost, M. A. (2007). The group as a resource: Reducing biased attributions for group success and failure via group-affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1100-1112.
Sherman, D. K., Mann, T., & Updegraff, J. A. (2006). Approach/avoidance orientation, message framing, and health behavior: Understanding the congruency effect. Motivation and Emotion, 30, 165-169.
Sherman, D. K., Nelson, L. D., & Ross, L. D. (2003). Naïve realism and affirmative action: Adversaries are more similar than they think. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 25, 275-290.
Sherman, D. K., Updegraff, J. A., & Mann, T. (2008). Improving oral health behavior: A social psychological approach. Journal of the American Dental Association, 139, 1382-1387.

Other Publications:

Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 38, pp. 183-242). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Sherman, D. K., & Hartson, K. (2009). Reconciling self-defense with self-criticism: Self-affirmation theory. Chapter to appear in M. Alicke & C. Sedikides (Eds.), The Handbook of Self-Enhancement and Self Protection. Guilford Press.

Courses Taught:

Health Psychology (video on coping with illness)
Motivational Theories in Social Psychology
Research Methods

Health Psychology (video on coping with illness)
Motivational Theories in Social Psychology

Research Methods

David Sherman
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660
United States

Phone: (805) 893-3149
Fax: (805) 893-4303