I received my B.A. from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and my Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1987. After obtaining my Ph.D. I came here to the University of Kentucky, where I obtained tenure in 1993. My research interests fall into four overlapping categories: teasing and peer victimization, interpersonal expectancy effects; interpersonal power; and meta-analysis and other methodological issues.

Interpersonal Expectancy Effects
I began my career focusing exclusively on interpersonal expectancy effects, or self-fulfilling prophecies. My early work focused on the verbal and nonverbal mediators of expectancy effects: e.g., when teachers hold positive expectancies for certain students, how do they treat those students differently so as to elicit the expected behavior? More recently I have turned my attention to moderators of expectancy effects, in other words, identifying personality and situational variables that influence whether an expectancy effect is likely to occur. I have also looked at the self-fulfilling effects of stigmatizing information, particularly in children, including research in collaboration with Rich Milich on the effects of the ADHD label on children's peer interactions. My most recent work on expectancy effects has focused on the moderating roles of interpersonal power, where I have conducted a series of studies in collaboration with my former graduate students John Georgesen and Robin Lightner that seeks to understand why it is that perceivers possessing higher power are more likely to obtain expectancy effects.

Interpersonal Power
My work with John Georgesen looking at how high-power perceivers structure interactions so as to be more likely to elicit self-fulfilling prophesies led me gradually into a more general exploration of the nature and consequences of interpersonal power. My students and I have conducted several studies trying to identify the locus of power effects: When high power people act differently than low power people, is it because power changes the attitudes and behaviors of high power individuals? Or is it because low power people defer to the high power person and changer their behavior? We have developed an experimental paradigm where we systematically manipulate participants' beliefs about whether they or their partner holds high vs. low power positions that enable us to untangle the contributions of each person to power-related interactions. More recently, I have combined my interest in peer victimization and power by collaborating with my graduate students, Chris Garris and Sarai Blincoe, on how people with a dispositional history of peer victimization react to being placed in situations of high vs. low power.

Meta-Analysis and Research Methodology
While at Harvard I had the incredible good fortune to have as my advisor Robert Rosenthal, who in addition to being the nicest man on this planet is also one of the leading authorities on meta-analysis, the set of statistical techniques that allows the quantitative combination of the results from multiple studies. I have collaborated on 12 published meta-analyses in addition to writing about meta-analysis. In addition, I have developed a graduate course in meta-analysis that is offered regularly. In a broader sense, I am a devout adherent to the "Rosenthal School" of data analysis, which consists of (a) an emphasis on effect size estimation; (b) a profound dislike of the current over-reliance on significance testing (as Rosenthal says, "God loves the p of .06 nearly as much as the .04"); (c) using contrasts to test focused hypotheses about your data; and (d) a preference for simple designs with adequate power (it's hard to improve on the elegance and interpretableness of a 2 x 2).

I have a general interest in research methods in addition to my expertise in meta-analysis. Along with Richard Smith, I have written a chapter on multimethod approaches in social psychology that recently appeared in an edited volume published by the APA. I was also co-author on the 7th edition of the SPSSI-produced "Research Methods in Social Relations" textbook.

Teasing and Peer Victimization
My work on the stigmatizing consequences of childhood expectations led rather naturally to a more recent interest in childhood teasing and peer victimization. I started this work with my colleague Rich Milich when we were talking about how interesting teasing is but could find almost nothing on it when we did a PsycLit search on it. Our early research looked at how the teasing victim's response to being teased affects subjects' impressions of the teasing interaction. We have also conducted more naturalistic sutides in college students where we look at the relationship between personality and people's narratives about specific teasing incidents from their past. More recently, my work on teasing falls into one of two categories: (a) Research on how teasing is used in adulthood, which focused on the positive effects of teasing for relationships and intimacy; and (b) research on peer victimization and bullying in childhood, which naturally focuses on the negative outcomes of teasing. With respect to the former, examples of recent research projects looking at teasing in adulthood include studies on how factors such as the relative status of the individuals and the presence or absence of redressive cues (e.g., smiling or saing, "just kidding") affects the interpretation of a tease, and studies looking at how romantic partners use teasing in their relationships. My research on peer victimization in childhood has focused on physiological and implicit social cognition mediators of bullying and victimization. I am currently editing a volume to be published by Springer entitled "Bullying, rejection, and peer victimization: A social cognitive neuroscience perspective."

Because of my increasing interest in the area of childhood peer victimization, I am a member of the Children At Risk research cluster here at UK. Please see the Children At Risk website for further information about this cluster and participating faculty research interests: http://www.uky.edu/~rlorch/CAR/

Mentoring Philosophy
I believe that my most important job as an advisor is to impart a knowledge of and philosophy toward research design and methods so that no matter where a student's interests may lead, he or she is equipped to conduct valid and meaningful research. Thus, my students leave our program with a very strong appreciation for the Rosenthal approach to data analysis. My personal advising style is nondirective in nature; I prefer to let students take the lead on research ideas, with my role being to help refine the hypotheses and methods to produce a publishable manuscript. I am an "open door" kind of advisor; my students tend to drop in my office whenever they have questions or ideas to talk about rather than saving it up for an official meeting. More generally, I share our program's philosophy that the best graduate training in social psychology is one that immerses students fully in the research enterprise from their first day in the program.

Who I am When I am Not a Professor
When I am not at work, my attention is devoted primarily to my family. My husband, Johnathan Kern, is a coin dealer, and I have developed a strong interest and some expertise in numismatics as well. My husband travels frequently to coin shows across the nation, and I ocasionally join him on these trips, where I put my social psychological knowledge of persuasion techniques to good use selling coins.

My husband and I have two children, Athena Phoebe Kern, born on December 19th, 1995, and Issac Newton Kern, born May 6th, 1999. Admittedly, I am not an objective souce, but Athena and Isaac are the smartest, cutest, most perfect children on the planet. They are the source of greatest joy in my life, and I now realize that parenting is the most important thing I will ever do.

My other passion in life these days is the piano. For most of my life I have said "I want to learn to play the piano some day," and in 2004 I realized "some day" wasn't going to happen unless I made it happen. I became piano-obsessed in a big way and indulged a mid-life crisis in 2005 by buying a Mason & Hamlin grand piano. I play primarily new age music, including the works of such composers as George Winston, Ludovico Einaudi, David Lanz, and David Nevue.

Last, I have discovered blogging. You can check our my home renovation blog at http://www.monicakrenovation.blogspot.com. 

*denotes graduate or undergraduate student author

• Harris, M. J. (Ed.) (in press). Bullying, rejection, and peer victimization: A social cognitive neuroscience perspective. To be published by Springer Publishing Company.
• Harris, M. J., & Garris, C. P. (2008). You never goet a second chance to make a first impression: The role of first impressions in subsequent information processing and behavior. In J. Skowronski and N. Ambady (Eds.), First Impressions. New York: Guilford Press.
• Cardi, M.*, Milich, R., Harris, M. J., & Kearns, E.* (2007). Self-esteem moderates the response to forgiveness instructions in women with a history of victimization. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 804-819.
• Rosen, P. J.*, Milich, R., & Harris, M. J. (2007). Victims of their own cognitions: Implicit social cognitions, chronic peer victimization, and the victim schema model. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28(3), 211-226.
• Bollmer, J. M.*, Harris, M. J., & Milich, R. (2006). Reactions to bullying and peer victimization: Narratives, physiological arousal, and personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 803-828.
• Georgesen, J. C.*, & Harris, M. J. (2006). Holding onto power: Effects of powerholders' positional instability and expectancies on subordinate derogation. Journal of European Social Psychology, 36, 451-468. [Special issue on social power]
• Smith, R. H., & Harris, M. J. (2006). Multimethod research strategies in social psychology. In M. Eid and E. Diener (Eds.), Handbook of Psychological Measurement: A Multimethod Perspective (pp. 385-400). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Bollmer, J. M.*, Milich, R., Harris, M. J., & Maras, M.* (2005). A friend in need: Friendship quality, internalizing/externalizing behvaior, and peer victimization. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20, 701-712.
• Bollmer, J. M.*, Harris, M. J., & Milich, R., & Georgesen, J. C.* (2003). Taking offense: Effects of personality and teasing history on behavioral and emotional reactions to teasing. Journal of Personality, 71, 557-603.
• Georgesen, J. C., & Harris, M. J. (2000). The balance of power: Interpersonal consequences of differential power and expectancies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1239-1257.
• Georgesen, J. C., Harris, M. J., Milich, R., & Young, J. (1999). Just teasing...: Personality effects on perceptions and life narratives of childhood teasing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1254- 1267.