My primary research interests concern the automatic and controlled processes by which expectations, including pessimism and optimism, influence social judgments and social interactions, and the processes by which people attempt to correct for such biases. Some questions examined in my lab include: How do expectations influence our judgments about other people? How and when might we try to correct for the resulting bias, and how successful are we? Which correction strategies are likely to be successful, and which are likely to backfire? Under what circumstances might we actually elicit behavior from other people that confirms our own pessimistic or optimistic expectations? My lab group is currently examining the roles of extremity, approach and avoidance goals, perspective-taking, and motivational variables in overcoming a variety of expectancy-related biases in social judgments and behaviors.

Primary Interests:

Causal Attribution
Interpersonal Processes
Motivation, Goal Setting
Person Perception
Social Cognition

Causal Attribution
Interpersonal Processes
Motivation, Goal Setting

Person Perception
Social Cognition

Journal Articles:

Edwards, J. A., Weary, G., & Reich, D. A. (1998). Causal uncertainty: Factor structure and relation to the Big Five personality factors. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 451-462.
Reich, D. A. (2004). What you expect isn't always what you get: The roles of extremity, optimism, and pessimism in the behavioral confirmation process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 199-215.
Reich, D. A., & Weary, G. (1998). Depressives' future-event schemas and the social inference process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1133-1145.
Weary, G., & Reich, D. A. (2001). Attributional effects of conflicting chronic and temporary outcome expectancies: A case of automatic comparison and contrast. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 562-574.
Weary, G., Reich, D. A., & Tobin, S. J. (2001). Constraints on behavior categorization: The role of chronic expectancies in the dispositional inference process. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 62-75.
Weary, G., Tobin, S. J., & Reich, D. A. (2001). Chronic and temporary dintinct expectancies as comparison standards: Automatic contrast in dispositional judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 365-380.

Other Publications:

Weary, G., & Reich, D. A. (2000). Attribution theories. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Courses Taught:

Advanced Correlational Methods/Factor Analysis
Automaticity and Control in Social Behavior
Human Motivation: A Social Psychological Approach
Introduction to Social Psychology
Research Methods

Advanced Correlational Methods/Factor Analysis
Automaticity and Control in Social Behavior
Human Motivation: A Social Psychological Approach

Introduction to Social Psychology
Research Methods

Darcy A. Reich
Department of Psychology
Box 42051
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX 79409-2051
United States

Phone: (806) 742-3711 x237
Fax: (806) 742-0818