David Sherman
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California 93106-9660
U.S.A.
Home Page
Phone: (805) 893-2142
Fax: (805) 893-4303
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My research centers on the self, in general, and in particular, how people respond to self-threatening information. People can accept threatening information but they can also be defensive--what are the psychological processes that determine their response? I have examined this both at the individual level--how people make judgments about information that threatens the self--and the collective level-- how do people make judgments about information that threatens the group. Related research examines how people cope with threats to the self, and in particular how they use social support as a function of cultural background.
I am also interested in the factors that lead people to polarize groups, that is, to see opposing political parties as diametrically opposed to each other--even on issues where they have no fundamental basis for disagreement. One factor that contributes to this that I have been studying is the subjective feeling of uncertainty. When people are uncertain, they polarize to a greater extent. I have also examined these issues in the context of affirmative action--how do supporters and opponents of this policy characterize each other?
 Journal Articles:
- Creswell, J. D., Lam, S., Stanton, A. L., Taylor, S.E., Bower, J. E., & Sherman, D. K. (2007). Does self-affirmation, cognitive processing, or discovery of meaning explain cancer-related health benefits of expressive writing? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 238-250.
- Creswell, J. D., Welch, W., Taylor, S. E., Sherman, D. K., Gruenewald, T., & Mann, T. (in press). Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses. Psychological Science.
- Hogg, M. A., Sherman, D. K., Dierselhuis, J., Maitner, A. T., & Moffitt, G. (2007). Uncertainty, entitativity and identification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 135-142.
- Kim, H. S., & Sherman, D. K. (2007). “Express yourself”: Culture and the effect of self-expression on choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1-11.
- Mann, T., Sherman, D., & Updegraff, J. (2004). Dispositional Motivations and Message Framing: A Test of the Congruency Hypothesis in College Students. Health Psychology, 23, 330-334.
- 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., & 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., & 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., 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.
- Taylor, S. E., Welch, W., Kim, H. S., Sherman, D. K. (2007). Cultural differences in the impact of social support on psychological and biological stress responses. Psychological Science, 18, 831-837.
- Updegraff, J. A., Sherman, D. K., Luyster, F. S., & Mann, T. L. (2007). The effects of message quality and congruency on perceptions of tailored health communications. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 248-256.
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.
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