Kenneth DeMarree

Ken earned his Bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Rochester and his M.A. and Ph.D. in social psychology from Ohio State University, working with Richard Petty. After 5 years at Texas Tech University, he joined the psychology department at the University at Buffalo, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. His work examines attitudes and persuasion, and includes work that examines metacognitive and interpersonal factors related to attitudes and attitude change. In his spare time, Ken enjoys yoga, hiking, travel, cooking, and brewing beer and 술. For his full cv, see here.

Ji Xia

Ji is originally from China, and received his B.S. (in 2013) and M.S. (in 2016) degrees from the University of Iowa. ​ ​Ji's research primarily focuses on attitude change and persuasion. Specifically, he's interested in motivational factors that hold the potential to influence how people react to persuasive information as well as how they perceive their own thought reactions (metacognition) and subsequently, how those processes could affect the ways people form/change their attitudes .

Yahui Chang

Yahui received her Bachelor’s degree in Public Finance from the National Chengchi University, and her Master’s degrees in Psychology from NYU and in Marketing from the University of Kansas. Yahui’s research interests revolve around attitudes and the self. More specifically, she focuses on the motivational and cognitive mechanisms of how people process persuasive messages and how the self and identity play their roles here.

Brad Castiglia

Brad is a second year M.A. student. He received his B.A. in Anthropology, History, and Psychology from UB in 2023. His research interests are in attitudes, culture, politics, and the self. Specifically, how identity and belief systems may impact processing of persuasive messages.

Taylor Lee

Taylor earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Criminology in 2023 from the University at Buffalo, after working as a research assistant for two years and completing his Senior Honors Thesis through the lab. His research interests center around the different methods by which people’s attitudes and behaviors change during conversations. He currently serves as the project manager on our international research study focused on utilizing learning goals and high-quality listening to reduce attitudinal and social polarization during disagreements.

Duncan Alvarez

Duncan is a first-year PhD student who received his B.S. in psychology from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2023. His research interests lie in the cognitive processes underlying attitude change. Specifically, he's interested in the cognition at play during persuasion, argument and debate, including metacognitive factors, responses to listening techniques and critical thinking.

Former Lab Members

Angelia Venezia, Honors Thesis (2024), Currently at University of North Carolina Greensboro

Emily Sutton, Honors Thesis (2023), Currently at University at Buffalo

Jennifer Weng, Ph.D. (2021), currently at American Psychological Association

Abby Giancola, M.A. (2020), currently at Research Narrative

David Khaydatov, Honors Thesis (2018), Currently at Tebra

Miranda Bobrowski, M.A.

Cory Clark, Ph.D. (2014-2016 postdoc), Adversarial Collaboration Project, University at Pennsylvania

Jonathan Statzer, Ph.D. (2015)

Miles Condon, M.A. (2013), currently at St. Norbert College

Cory Davenport, Ph.D. (2013), currently at Leidos

Neil Hester, Honors Thesis (2012), curently at University of Waterloo

Frequent Collaborators

Guy Itzchakov, University of Haifa

Kristin Naragon-Gainey, University of Western Australia

Richard Petty, Ohio State University

Kimberly Rios, Ohio University

Christian Wheeler, Stanford University

Lab Pictures

2023 Western NY Psychology Undergraduate Conference (L to R: Matt Preisigke, Brad Castiglia, Ken DeMarree, Angelia Venezia, Emily Sutton, Taylor Lee)

2015 Escape Room Success (L to R: Brian Lanza, Ruo Shan Weng, Tommy Saltsman, Ji Xia, Lauren Ministero, Miranda Bobrowski, Ken DeMarree)