Kylie C
- Research Program Mentor

PhD at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill)

Expertise

social psychology; motivation; social interactions; relationships; attraction; love; commitment; helping behavior; curiosity; social connection; emotion; social perception; social influence; goal pursuit; interdependence

Bio

I have my PhD in Social Psychology and I'm a researcher and lecturer at UNC where I study social interactions and motivation. I research topics like commitment, love, helping behavior, and attraction. I'm fascinated by how people form and maintain their closest relationships! I am also passionate about science and turning everyday observable behaviors into testable research questions. Alongside research, I teach a college course on Intro to Social Psychology and so I enjoy helping students learn about a variety of topics that social psychologists study (ex: social perception, social cognition, social influence, etc.). In my free time I enjoy spending time outside, making art, and trying new foods. I also enjoy caring for my many houseplants and volunteering with animals. On TV, you'll mainly find me watching comedies like The Office, Parks and Rec, and Superstore. I believe curiosity and creativity are the best skills you can bring to science and I try to cultivate them in my mentees. If you find yourself watching other people's behavior and wondering "why?", social psychology might be a great fit for you!

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Relationship Science in Action: Measuring Commitment on TV

Social psychologists who study close relationships ("relationship scientists") have identified a number of factors that determine how committed someone is to their relationship. These include 1) their satisfaction with the relationship, 2) the amount they have invested in their relationship, and 3) their perception of alternatives to the relationship. In this project, you would learn about what relationship commitment looks like in "real" life by studying how it appears in a television show (ex: Jim and Pam in The Office). I'll help you create a behavioral coding scheme to measure a TV couple's commitment, and we can test if it changes over time as their relationship develops.

Coding skills

SPSS, R

Languages I know

Spanish, conversational

Teaching experience

I've been involved in research mentorship since I received my B.S. in 2018. I have 5+ years of experience mentoring college-aged students on research projects in a university research lab setting. I've also been a mentor for large teams of students performing data collection and analysis and have experience mentoring students in a 1-on-1 setting where I help them through the process of creating a written research proposal from initial idea to finished product. Here at Polygence, I have mentored several students on research projects about social psychology. And finally, I currently teach a course (Introduction to Social Psychology) at UNC.

Credentials

Work experience

University of Pittsburgh (2018 - 2019)

Research Associate

Education

University of Pittsburgh

BS Bachelor of Science (2018)

Psychology

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill)

MA Master of Arts (2021)