Dominic Fareri, PhD, to lead collaborative study on how understanding personality traits impacts the navigation of social situations.
Dominic Fareri, PhD
Dominic Fareri, PhD, associate professor of psychology and director of the neuroscience program in the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for a collaborative project entitled “Situational Learning and Decision Making.” In collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas-Dallas and the University of Southern California, this grant will support Dr. Fareri’s ongoing research into how individuals learn from and make decisions in complex social environments.
Being able to predict the behaviors of others is important to successfully navigating the social world, and prior research shows that understanding personality traits is key to this ability. Yet, less is known about how people weigh situational factors when making predictions about other people. This project will explore how individuals learn not only about others’ personality traits, but also about the situations that inform people’s actions and how these different types of information impact our judgments and the likelihood of social interaction.
Dr. Fareri is the site principal investigator for this research at Adelphi, which will provide the University’s undergraduate and graduate students with the opportunity to work with behavioral data and computational modeling techniques, while also learning about advanced neuroimaging methods. This work has the potential to inform interventions in fields like education, mental health and organizational behavior.
“This grant represents a significant opportunity to explore the intricacies of social learning and decision-making,” said Dr. Fareri. “By examining how people rely on situations relative to trait-level information in social interactions, we hope to contribute valuable insights to both psychological theory and societal applications.”
The total intended amount of the three-year NSF grant across all three institutions, which commenced on April 15, is $650,304.
“Adelphi University remains committed to supporting cutting-edge research that addresses real-world challenges and enhances our understanding of human behavior,” said Christopher Storm, PhD, provost and executive vice president. “This grant allows our faculty to take on important work that builds on our body of knowledge in psychology and neuroscience while also providing experiential learning opportunities for our students.”
For more information about Dr. Fareri’s research, visit The Fareri Lab at Adelphi University.