Research

My research focuses on how social cognition informs group, affective, and socio-evaluative processes. On this page, you will find some cues on how these interests have translated into my cognitive and clinical research. Please visit my research lab website CORE – Cognitions & Relations for more information.

Social cognition

Humans are social beings, and we constantly interact with others. From very simple casual encounters to more complex group interactions or longer affective relationships, interacting with others helps us make sense of ourselves and the world we live in. My research focuses on how social dynamics affect our behavior, choices, and overall well-being. Examples of the ways in which I study these fascinating and complex processes span from very basic and unconscious processes, like attention, to more explicit and sustained behaviors, like language and clinical practice.

For exemple, from a very quick glance, we can make important and sometimes biased decisions on whether someone looks interesting, likable, or even trustable. In my lab, we are investigating how these decisions depend on social stereotypes, like gender and racial biases, and affect our subsequent behaviors, like altruism and cooperation. Other key interests of my research lab include group interactions. In the past, for exemple, I have investigated how nonverbal behaviors reveal leadership dynamics during group interactions: leaders are looked at more by other group members, look at others less, and engage in more reciprocal looks signaling cooperation. We are now investigating how conversation and language convey emotional and cognitive change across multiple group encounters, like group therapies.

Clinical interests

My interest in social behavior translates into the clinical question of how social processes affect and inform clinical practice. For exemple, one of my research projects aims to investigate how humans communicate affective responsiveness, defined as the ability to make someone we love feel understood, validated, and cared for. Does looking someone into their eyes convey interest? Does this change based on the person’s cultural background? Answering this type of question would inform therapeutic processes, like alliance, and practice in relational therapy with couples and families.

Another important exemple relates to group processes. I recently started a collaboration with the clinic MUSIC | McGill University Sexual Identity Centre to join my clinical and research practices. We are using my knowledge of group dynamics to conduct a novel and exciting research and assessment program on the MUSIC group therapies to support LGBTQ+ individuals and their families in their journeys to fully express their gender and sexual identity and counter the emotional distress resulting from societal underrepresentation.