We are pleased to announce that Dr. David Sherman will present the keynote address at the 2010 Carolinas Psychology Conference. (Click here to see a list of all invited speakers in CPC's 35-year history.) 

Dr. Sherman, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California- Santa Barbara, received his B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University.  He received his Ph. D. in psychology from Stanford University, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Health Psychology at UCLA. His research, which is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, centers on how people respond to information and events that threaten the self.

Health Psychology: The Interface of Basic and Applied Research

From the health behaviors people perform (or fail to perform) every day, such as exercising or flossing teeth, to the stress of coping with threatening events, such as cancer, health psychology research seeks to apply psychological theories to solve real world problems. In my talk, I will present two lines of research that examine how people respond to information and events that are relevant to their health. First, research on embodied cognition suggests that how people think is shaped by their bodily, kinesthetic interactions with the environment. Building on this idea, having people engage their bodies by walking in place while receiving health messages about the importance of exercise, leads them to actually exercise more in the subsequent week. Second, research on self-affirmation theory suggests that people cope with psychological threats by affirming their personally important values such as relationships or religion. These value affirmations lead people to be more accepting of health information suggesting that they have put themselves at risk by drinking too much alcohol or practicing unsafe sex. These value affirmations can also make stressful experiences such as final examinations less physiologically taxing. These two lines of research illustrate how using basic psychological theories can help researchers and practitioners address real world health problems, and at the same time, how conducting studies on health topics can inform basic understanding of human psychology.

Have a suggestion for the 2011 speaker?  Email the CPC Faculty Sponsor.