Dr. Pinel's research concerns the interface between individual experience and the socially constructed nature of reality. This focus emerges in her three main lines of inquiry: stigmatization, self and relationships, and coping. Her work on stigmatization concentrates largely on what role self-consciousness with regard to one's stigmatized status plays in rendering targets of stigma vulnerable to the widely held (and often quite negative) beliefs about members of their group. Her work on self and relationships concentrates on the magnetism that results from encounters that validate one's subjective experience. Her work on coping asks how implicit and explicit messages that one's plight "could have been worse" interrupt the coping process, even when they get delivered in the spirit of offering help.

Primary Interests:

Close Relationships
Intergroup Relations
Interpersonal Processes
Prejudice and Stereotyping
Self and Identity

Close Relationships
Intergroup Relations
Interpersonal Processes

Prejudice and Stereotyping
Self and Identity

Journal Articles:

Bosson, J. K., Haymovitz, E. L., & Pinel, E. C. (2004). When saying and doing diverge: The effects of stereotype threat on self-reported versus nonverbal anxiety. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 247-255.
Brown, R. P., & Pinel, E. C. (2003). Stigma on my mind: Individual differences in the experience of stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 626-633.
Constantino, M. J., Wilson, K. R., Horowitz, L. M., & Pinel, E. C. (2006). Measures of self-organization and their association with psychological adjustment. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25, 333-360.
Gilbert, D. T., Brown, R. P., Pinel, E. C., & Wilson, T. D. (2000). The illusion of external agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 690-700.
Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J., & Wheatley, T. P. (1998). Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 617-638.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Pinel, E., Simon, L., & Jordan, K. (1993). Effects of self-esteem on vulnerability-denying defensive distortions: Further evidence of an anxiety-buffering function of self-esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 229-251.
Pinel, E. C. (2004). You’re just saying that because I’m a woman: Stigma consciousness and attributions to discrimination. Self and Identity, 3, 39-51.
Pinel, E. C. (2002). Stigma consciousness in intergroup contexts: The power of conviction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 178-185.
Pinel, E. C. (1999). Stigma consciousness: The psychological legacy of social stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 114-128.
Pinel, E. C., & Constantino, M. J. (2003). Putting self psychology to good use: When social and clinical psychologists unite. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 13, 9-32.
Pinel, E. C., Long, A. E., Laundau, M., Stanley, K., & Pyszczynski, T. (2006). Seeing I to I: A pathway to interpersonal connectedness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 243-257.
Pinel, E. C., & Paulin, N. (2005). Stigma consciousness at work. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27, 345-352.
Pinel, E. C., Warner, L. R., & Chua, P. (2005). Getting there is only half the battle: Stigma consciousness and maintaining diversity in higher education. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 481-506.

Other Publications:

Pinel, E. C., Long, A. E., Landau, M., & Pyszczynski, T. (2004). I-sharing, the problem of existential isolation, and their implications for interpersonal and intergroup phenomena. In J. Greenberg, S. Koole, & T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology (pp. 352-368). New York: Guilford Press.
Pinel, E. C., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2000). Finding the self through others: Self-verification and social movement participation. In T. Owens & S. Stryker (Eds.), Self, identity, and social movements: Social movements, protest, and contention (Vol. 13, pp. 132-152). Minneapolis, MN, US: University of Minnesota Press.

Courses Taught:

Advanced Social Psychology
Contemporary Social Psychology
Introduction to Social Psychology
The Self

Advanced Social Psychology
Contemporary Social Psychology

Introduction to Social Psychology
The Self

Elizabeth C. Pinel
Department of Psychology
348 Dewey Hall
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405
United States

Phone: (802) 656-8302