Current and Ongoing Projects

My mentoring style is collaborative; rather than assigning projects, or having students go off to develop projects in isolation, I prefer to work together to identify research questions that are exciting to both of us, with a focus on experiments with transformative potential. Here is a partial list of research projects currently in planning, data collection, and analysis stages - this is a good "snapshot" of what we're working on lately! (We do....a lot of stuff)

The Boring = Rigorous Fallacy | Lead: El Rim Ahn (UF, Lab Manager)
Identifying Boring People: A Lens Model Approach | Lead: Stephen Sedwick (UF, Senior Thesis)
Bedtime Procrastination: Why Do People Put Off Going to Bed? | Lead: Yijun Lin (UF, Grad Student)
Productive Procrastination: Not All Procrastination is Bad | Collaborators: Stephanie Wormington, Kathy Oleson, Yijun Lin
Mere Categorization: The Act of Categorization is Inherently Rewarding | Collaborators: Joy Losee (Univ of Dayton)
(Mis)predicting Meaning: Thanksgiving, Elections, Letters & More | Collaborators: Yuching Lin (University of Virginia, Grad student)
Meaning is Subjective (Despite What People Think) | Collaborators: Samantha Heintzelman (Rutgers)
Psychological Richness and the Triad Model of Subjective Well-Being | Collaborators: Shige Oishi (University of Virginia)
Why Don't People Like Reading | Collaborators: Tram Lai (UF, Independent Study Project)
Do Novels Build Classically Liberal Thinking? | Collaborators: Nick Buttrick (Princeton)
Emotional Intelligence and Stress Appraisals | Collaborators: Gaelle el Helou (UF, Visiting Scholar)
Whitewashing Racism: How Euphemisms for Racism Perpetuate Systemic Inequality | Collaborators: Diane-Jo Bart-Plange (Univ of Virginia, Grad student)
Why Is Gossip Fun? | Collaborators: Meltem Yucel (Univ of Virginia, Grad student)
Conscientious and Calm? Perceptions of Extraterrestrial Alien Personalities  | Collaborators: Jin Goh (Colby) & Jason Deska (Ryerson)
Why Do People Fear Sharks? Misperceiving Threat | Collaborators: Jin Goh (Colby)
Back2School: Safety vs Socializing in Covid-19  | Lead: Yijun Lin (UF, Grad Student)
Boredom and Novelty: Change over Time in Covid-19  | Lead: Yijun Lin (UF, Grad Student)
Global Boredom and Public Health in Covid-19  | Collaborators: PsyCorona
Boredom Predicts Drug-related Morality Across the 50 US States  | Collaborators: Matt Baldwin (University of Florida)
Does Boredom Drive Us to Drink? Boredom and Alcohol Use  | Collaborators: Kristen Lindgren (University of Washington)
What Boredom Does: The Downstream Consequences of Boredom  | Collaborators: Grant in preparation 
The Ordinary Roots of Extraordinary Creativity | Collaborators: Grant in preparation
Tidying Up Makes People Happy | Collaborators: Shige Oishi (University of Virginia) & Keiko Ishii (Nagoya)
Identifying Barriers to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Forestry and Natural Resources  | Collaborators: Nia Morales, Mysha Clarke, & Rae Crandall (UF)
Temporal Discounting: How the Future and Past Distort Decision-Making  | Collaborators: Matt Baldwin & Peter Kvam (University of Florida)
Gratitude to our Past Selves  | Collaborators: Matt Baldwin, Yijun Lin, & Josh Perlin (University of Florida)
Do People Enjoy Being Alone with Their Thoughts? | Collaborators: Tim Wilson (University of Virginia)

Recent Publications (2020)

Published

• Westgate, E.C. (2020). Why Boredom is Interesting. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 
• Westgate, E.C., & Steidle, B. (2020). Lost by definition: Why boredom matters for psychology and society. Social & Personality Psychology Compass.
• Westgate, E.C., Wilson, T.D., Buttrick, N.R., Furrer, R.,  & Gilbert, D.T. (2020). What makes thinking for pleasure pleasurable? Emotion.
• Westgate, E.C., & Oishi, S. (2020). Art, music, and literature: Do the humanities make our lives happier, richer, and more meaningful? In J.Pawelski & L. Tay (Ed.), Handbook of Positive Psychology on the Arts and Humanities: Theory and Research. Oxford University Press. 
• Pfattheicher, S, Lazarević, L.B., Westgate, E.C., & Schindler, S. (2020). On the relation of boredom and sadistic aggression. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.​
• Oishi, S., Choi, H., Galinha, I., Ishii, K., Komiya, A., Koo, M., Luhmann, M., Scollon, C., Shin, J., Suh, E., Vittersø, J., Heintzelman, S., Kushlev, K., Westgate, E.C., Buttrick, N., Tucker, J., Ebersole, C.R., Axt, J., Gilbert, E., Ng, B.W., Kurtz, J., & Besser, L.L. (2020). Happiness, Meaning, and Psychological Richness. Affective Science.  
• Axt, J.A., Conway, M.A., Westgate, E.C., & Buttrick, N.B. (2020). Implicit transgender attitudes independently predict gender and transgender-related beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Under Review (Copies available upon request)

• Baldwin, M.* & Westgate, E.C. (under review). States of boredom: Downsides to being bored in the USA. Manuscript under review. 
• Oishi, S. & Westgate, E.C. (under review). The Triad Model of a Good Life: A happy life, a meaningful life, and a psychologically rich life. Manuscript under review.
• Raza, S..+, Westgate, E.C., Buttrick, N.B., Heintzelman, S., Furrer, R.+, Gilbert, D.T., Libby, L.K., & Wilson, T.D. (under review). A Trade-Off Model of Intentional Thinking for Pleasure. Manuscript under review.
• Yucel, M.+ & Westgate, E.C.  (Invited contribution). From electric shocks to the electoral college: How boredom steers moral behavior. In A. Elpidorou (Ed.), The Moral Psychology of Boredom. London: Rowman & Littlefield
• Lin, Y. +, & Westgate, E.C. (Invited contribution). The origins of boredom. In L. Al-Shawif & T. Shackelford (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions. Oxford University Press.