About us...
How does our social status affect our neural, affective, and physiological responses to stress and social interactions? How does the brain and the immune system respond to an episode of racial discrimination? Why do individuals lower in socioeconomic status have worse health than those with higher SES? How can social factors protect cancer patients and survivors from experiencing negative physical and mental health outcomes? How does the physiological state of the body feed back to the brain to alter our perceptions of the social world? Members of the Carolina Social Neuroscience and Health lab are fascinated by these questions, and strive to find answers to them in our research. Our lab is grounded in an interdisciplinary perspective; we believe the answers to hard questions such as those posed above will be best answered using theories and tools from multiple disciplines, both within and outside of psychology. Thus, we explore theories and methods from experimental social psychology, cognitive, social and affective neuroscience, psychoneuroimmunology, pharmacology, and population health. To find out more about work, explore the particular research topics listed below.