Doctor Rebecca Pinkus

LECTURER,
Social, Personal & Developmental Psychology (SoSSP

Personal
Contact
Biography
Publications
Research
Supervision

Personal

Qualifications

PhD University of Toronto

UWS Organisational Unit (School / Division)

Social, Personal & Developmental Psychology (SoSSP

Professional Memberships

Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (2010-06-18)

Contact

Email:	R.Pinkus@uws.edu.au
Extension:	6729
Mobile:
Location:	24.G.29 Bankstown
Website:

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Biography

My academic training took place in North America, where I received my B.Sc. Honours from the University of Western Ontario in 2000, and M.A. (2002) and PhD (2007) from the University of Toronto. I then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the State University of New York at Buffalo between 2007 and 2009, prior to moving to Australia in June 2009.

My research focuses on social cognition within the context of close relationships; in particular, I am interested in how individuals balance concerns about the self with concerns about the relationship. For example, I have been examining individuals? reactions to everyday social comparisons to their romantic partner in terms of their self-evaluations, evaluations of their partner, evaluations of their relationship, and emotional responses. I am also investigating the strategies that individuals use to cope with comparison outcomes to determine whether they tend to use self-protective vs. relationship-maintenance coping strategies. My research examines person-level moderators of responses to comparisons (e.g., self-esteem, age) as well as situation-level moderators (e.g., comparison context). Insofar as social comparisons have relationship-relevant implications, examining these processes can lead to a better understanding of how individuals maintain satisfying romantic relationships.

This information has been contributed by Doctor Pinkus.

Interests

close relationships
social cognition
social comparison

Publications

Chapters in Books

Murray, S. and Pinkus, R. (2012), 'Motivating commitment : the power of a smart relationship unconscious', The Science of the Couple: the Ontario Symposium. Volume 12, Psychology Press 9781848729797.
Lockwood, P. and Pinkus, R. (2007), 'The impact of social comparisons on motivation', Handbook of motivation science, Guildford Press 9781593855680.

Journal Articles

Pinkus, R., Lockwood, P., Marshall, T. and Yoon, H. (2012), 'Responses to comparisons in romantic relationships: Empathy, shared fate, and contrast', Personal Relationships, 20.
Pinkus, R., Lockwood, P., Marshall, T. and Yoon, H. (2012), 'Responses to comparisons in romantic relationships : empathy, shared fate, and contrast', Personal Relationships, 20.
Park, L., Young, A., Troisi, J. and Pinkus, R. (2011), 'Effects of everyday romantic goal pursuit on women's attitudes toward math and science', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15.
Murray, S., Pinkus, R., Holmes, J., Harris, B., Gomillion, S., Aloni, M., Derrick, J. and Leder, S. (2011), 'Signaling when (and When Not) to be cautious and self-protective: Impulsive and reflective trust in close relationships', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18.
Gere, J., Schimmack, U., Pinkus, R. and Lockwood, P. (2011), 'The effects of romantic partners' goal congruence on affective well-being', Journal of Research in Personality, 11.
Murray, S., Holmes, J. and Pinkus, R. (2010), 'A smart unconscious? Procedural origins of automatic partner attitudes in marriage', Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7.
Anusic, I., Schimmack, U., Pinkus, R. and Lockwood, P. (2009), 'The nature and structure of correlations among Big Five ratings: The halo-alpha-beta model', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15.
Murray, S., Leder, S., MacGregor, J., Holmes, J., Pinkus, R. and Harris, B. (2009), 'Becoming irreplaceable: How comparisons to the partner's alternatives differentially affect low and high self-esteem people', Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12.
Murray, S., Holmes, J., Aloni, M., Pinkus, R., Derrick, J. and Leder, S. (2009), 'Commitment-insurance: Compensating for the autonomy costs of interdependence in close relationships', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 23.
Park, L. and Pinkus, R. (2009), 'Interpersonal effects of appearance-based rejection sensitivity', Journal of Research in Personality, 11.
Pinkus, R., Lockwood, P., Schimmack, U. and Fournier, M. (2008), 'For better and for worse: Everyday social comparisons between romantic partners', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22.
MacDougall-Shackleton, S., Sherry, D., Clark, A., Pinkus, R. and Hernandez, A. (2003), 'Photoperiodic regulation of food-storing and hippocampus volume in black-capped chickadees, Poecile atricapillus', Animal Behaviour, .

Conference Papers

Pinkus, R., Lockwood, P., Marshall, T. and Yoon, H. (2010), 'Responses to comparisons in romantic relationships: Empathy, shared fate, and contrast.', Annual Conference of the Australian Psychological Society's Psychology of Relationships Interest Group, Brisbane.

Research

Social Comparison; Close Relationships; Self & Identity.