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Mike Ross

 
Mike Ross

Mike Ross
Professor

Excellence in Research (awarded Fall 2004)
Recipient, 2004 UW Outstanding Performance Award

  • Social Psychology
  • BA (Toronto), MA, PhD (North Carolina)
  • Phone: 519-888-4567 x33047
  • Fax: 519-746-8631
  • Office: PAS 3053
  • email: mross@uwaterloo.ca
 

Research Interests

My interests cover various areas in social psychology, with a focus on theoretically driven research on socially significant issues. One current line of research concerns apologies. I am particularly intrigued by the recent flurry of political apologies for prejudicial treatment of minorities that occurred decades or even centuries earlier. Why should politicians apologize for government actions in the distant past that they did not commit? What determines the impact of such apologies on the targeted minority and the non victimized majority? Who supports or opposes redress for past victimization and why? My student colleagues and I are conducting research designed to answer these questions. We are also conducting parallel research on more everyday apologies to understand their antecedents, forms, and consequences. Our other research interests extend to culture, revenge, and cognitive aging. The research on culture focuses on self and social understanding. In the research on revenge, we are interested in cultural, religious, and other influences on people’s responses to an aggressor. The research on cognitive aging focuses on how older people offset memory deficits in their everyday lives.

Please visit our Culture, Conflict and Memory Lab website for more information about our research and lab group.

Selected Publications

  • Blatz, C.W., Schumann, K. & Ross, M. (in press). Government apologies for historical injustices. Political Psychology.
  • Blatz, C.W. & Ross, M. (2009). Principled ideology or racism: Why do modern racists oppose race-based social justice programs? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 258-261.
  • Ross, M., Xun, W. Q. E, Wilson. A. E. (2002). Language and the bicultural self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1040-1050.
  • Ross, M. & Wilson, A. E. (2002). It feels like yesterday: Self-esteem, valence of personal past experiences, and judgments of subjective distance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 792-803.
  • Wilson, A. & Ross, M. (2001). From chump to champ: People's appraisals of their earlier and present selves. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 572-584.

Other Publications