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Professor
Kristin Sommer
Associate
Professor of Psychology
Contact
information:
Kristin
Sommer, Ph.D.
Department
of Psychology
Baruch
College, CUNY
55
Lexington Ave., Box B-8215
New
York, NY 10010
Email:
Kristin_Sommer@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone:
646-312-3812
Fax:
646-312-3781
Professor Sommer received her Ph.D. in social psychology (with minors in statistics and personality psychology) from the University of Toledo in 1995. After completing a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at Case Western Reserve University, she joined the faculty at Baruch College where she is currently an associate professor. Dr. Sommer teaches undergraduate and doctoral courses in research methods and social psychology. She also teaches a class on research design in work organizations as part of Baruch College’s Executive Master’s Program in Management of Human Resource and Global Leadership in Taipei, Taiwan.
Dr. Sommer’s primary research interests involve the cognitive and behavioral consequences of interpersonal rejection. She and her colleagues are investigating the myriad ways in which self-protection motives following rejection influence perceptions of, and behaviors toward, new (non-rejecting) relationship partners. The theme underlying this work is that people seek to minimize the pain of future rejection by cognitively derogating others and dismissing the importance of relationships, while simultaneously avoiding behaviors that objectively increase the likelihood of rejection. Her studies document how brief experiences with rejection negatively impact broad social expectancies and beliefs about others’ traits and motives. They also explore the extent to which rejected individuals attempt to mask their disliking of others through the active suppression of controlling or critical behaviors. The research she is currently conducting with doctoral students examines how the paradoxical coupling of interpersonal derogation and rejection-avoidance plays out in interactions between supervisors and subordinates in a simulated work context. Specifically, these studies explore how rejected individuals put in a supervisory role negotiate the delicate balance between the need to deliver negative performance feedback to subordinates and their desire to avoid rejection by others.
Another, more recent interest of Dr. Sommer’s involves the psychological benefits of having an influence on others. In collaboration with Dr. Martin Bourgeois (Florida Gulf Coast University), she is seeking to understand how successful or failed social influence within the domains of conformity, persuasion, obedience, compliance and behavioral mimicry impact fundamental human needs for control, belongingness, self-esteem, meaningful existence and accuracy. Their studies (recently funded by the National Science Foundation) test the theoretical proposition that failed influence in one or more of these domains has an deleterious impact on need fulfillment, and, in the long run, may depress self-reported mood and life satisfaction. Their theoretical model suggests that the perceived ability to influence others may be an important but neglected variable in the research relating interpersonal relationships to health and well-being.
Dr. Sommer’s doctoral students and collaborators keep her very busy in other research areas as well. These include the effects of linguistic ostracism on work motivation (with Orly Dotan and Yonata Rubin), biased decision-making in workgroups (with Dan Benkendorf and Kristen Kirkland), emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness (with Juran Yoon), implicit egotism in selection decisions (with Brittany Boyd and Victoria Blanshteyn), among others. Please see Dr. Sommer’s Social-I/O Psychology lab page for a links to students and their research interests.
Papers:
Sommer, K.L. Kulkarni, M. Communication and the Good Soldier: How personalization and specificity of performance feedback affect intended organizational citizenship behaviors. Working manuscript.
Bourgeois, M., Sommer, K.L., & Bruno, S. What do we get out of influencing others? Under review .
Dotan-Eliaz, O., Rubin, Y., & Sommer, K.L. Working in a multilingual context: Effects of linguistic ostracism on coworker attraction, team potency, performance, and aggressive thought. Under review.
Sommer, K.L. Kirkland, K.L., Newman, S., Estrella, P., & Andreassi, J.L. (In press). Narcissism and cardiovascular reactivity to thoughts of rejection. Journal of Applied Social Psychlogy..
Sommer, K.L., & Rubin, Y. (2005). Role of social expectancies in cognitive and behavioral responses to social rejection. In K.D. Williams, J.P. Forgas, & W. von Hippel (Eds), The social outcast: Ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying (pg. 171-183). Psychology Press: New York.
Sommer, K.L., &
Baumeister, R.F. (2002). Self-evaluation, persistence, and
performance following implicit rejection: The role of trait
self-esteem. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
28 , 926-938.
Sommer, K.L. (2001).
Coping with rejection: Ego-defensive strategies, self-esteem,
and interpersonal relationships. In M. Leary (Ed.), Interpersonal
rejection (pg. 167-188). New York: Oxford University
Press.
Sommer, K.L., Williams,
K.D., Ciarocco, N.J., & Baumeister, R.F. (2001). When
silence speaks louder than words: Explorations into the interpersonal
and intrapsychic consequences of social ostracism. Basic
and Applied Social Psychology, 23 , 227-245.
Ciarocco, N.J., Sommer,
K.L., & Baumeister, R.F. (2001). Ostracism and ego depletion: The
strains of silence. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 27 , 1156-1163.
Sommer, K.L., Horowitz,
I.A., & Bourgeois, M.J. (2001). When juries fail to comply
with the law: Biased evidence processing in individual and
group decision making. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 27 , 309-320.
Baumeister, R.F., &
Sommer, K.L. (1997). What do men want? Gender differences
and two spheres of belongingness. Psychological Bulletin,
122 , 38-44.
Williams, K.D, &
Sommer, K.L. (1997). Social ostracism by coworkers: Does rejection
lead to loafing or compensation? Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin , 23 , 693-706.
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