BIOGRAPHY

Philip obtained his Ph.D. in Social Psychology in spring of 2006 from the University of Minnesota. He was appointed to a lectureship at Essex in 2006.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

My research program is focused on the cognitive and motivational processes underlying the construction of norms and expectations – the standards on which individuals rely to make sense of themselves and the world. Examples of these standards include norms of equality and fairness at the social level, and worldviews and values created and endorsed at the individual level. I am particularly interested in the psychological and social consequences that occur when individuals face threats to their constructed standards. Lines of research include:

1) The Psychology of Liberty - One of the most basic human needs that individuals seek to satisfy is the need to be free. This need for freedom – or autonomy – refers to the natural desire of individuals to self-organize experience and behavior, rather than having an external force dictate those experiences and behaviors. This post-September 11, 2001 world, however, has brought new policies designed to maintain security, and that also have the potential to restrict the freedoms of ordinary citizens (e.g., CCTV monitoring, National ID cards, extended detentions). In fact, the most recent annual survey by Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center classified the U.K. as an “endemic surveillance society” that ranked worst in the European Union regarding policies relevant to freedom and privacy.
What are the implications of these policies? Does a need to be secure usurp our important needs for autonomy? Does restricting liberty generate an averse reactive state among individuals that lowers trust in others and in prominent institutions? The research proposed in this project is a novel first step to to clarify some of these questions by looking at the social-psychological consequences of threatened liberty.

2) The Self - How does the awareness of mortality - and the existential crises that result from that awareness - motivate individuals to construct systems of meaning in which they can operate. Terror management theory predicts that when individuals are reminded of their mortality they are more likely to defend their constructed worldviews. Conversely, work supporting transcendence management theory has shown that under certain conditions, mortality awareness has the potential to generate worldview capitulation rather than worldview defense.

3) Equality and Fairness - How do individuals reconcile the inherent tension between democratic social norms that endorse equality and the capitalistic social norms that endorse inequality? What are the motivated social cognitive processes of how people come to accept systems from which they are not benefiting?

4) Social Capital - What leads to norms of trust and helping in society? What are the psychological processes of social bonding? Furthermore, what are the outcomes of this bonding for individuals and for society at large?
Working from a social-psychological model of social capital I am exploring the individual and group-level factors that contribute to the processes, the outcomes, and the persistence of social bonding

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Cozzolino, P. J., Blackie, L. E. R., & Meyers, L. S. (in press). Self-related consequences of death fear and death denial. Death Studies.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Blackie, L. E. R. (forthcoming - 2011). I Die, Therefore I Am: The Pursuit of Meaning in the Light of Death. In Joshua Hicks and Clay Routledge (Eds.) The Experience of Meaning in Life: Perspectives from the Psychological Sciences. Springer.

Blackie, L. E. R., & Cozzolino, P. J. (2011). Of blood and death: A test of dual-existential systems in the context of prosocial intentions. Psychological Science, 22, 998-1000.

Cozzolino, P. J. (2011). Trust, cooperation, and equality: A psychological analysis of the formation of social capital. British Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 302–320.

Niemiec, C. P., Brown, K. W., Kashdan, T. B., Cozzolino, P. J., Breen, W., Levesque, C., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 344-365.

Morison, L. A., Cozzolino, P. J., & Orbell, S. (2010). Temporal perspective and parental intention to accept the Human Papillomavirus vaccination for their daughter. British Journal of Health Psychology, 15, 151-165.

Cozzolino, P. J., Sheldon, K. M., Schachtman, T. R., & Meyers, L. S. (2009). Limited time perspective, values, and greed: Imagining a limited future reduces avarice in extrinsic people. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 399-408.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Snyder, M (2008). Good times, bad times: How personal disadvantage moderates the relationship between social dominance and efforts to win. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1420-1433.

Cozzolino, P. J. (2006). Death Contemplation, Growth, and Defense: Converging Evidence of Dual-Existential Systems? Psychological Inquiry, 17, 278-287.

Cozzolino, P. J., Staples, A. D., Meyers, L. S., & Samboceti, J. (2004). Greed, death, and values: From terror management to transcendence management theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 278-292.

MANUSCRIPTS UNDER REVIEW

Cozzolino, P. J., Meyers, L. S., & Geeraert, N. (under review). A test of dual-existential systems: Differential effects of mortality salience and death reflection on motivation and choice.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Snyder, M.. (under review). From inequality to equality and beyond: The equal opportunity effect.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Meyers, L. S. (under review). The Death Issues Scale: An inventory to assess death fear and denial.

RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATION

Holman, R., Cozzolino, P. J., & Snyder, M. (2007, January). The effect of group status on confidence in a competitive scenario. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Memphis, Tennessee.

Beckes, L., Cozzolino, P. J., & Marsolek, C. (2007, January). Dual-existential systems, self-determination, and terror management: The role of specific vs. abstract processing in mortality salience. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Memphis, Tennessee.

Niemiec, C., Cozzolino, P. J., Vansteenkiste, M., & Deci, E. (2007, January). Forms of death contemplation and the self-regulation of prosocial behavior: A comparison of mortality salience and death reflection. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Memphis, Tennessee.

Lippmann, B., Cozzolino, P. J., & Federico, C. M. (2007, January). “Ain’t that America”: Popular culture as an elite political cue. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Memphis, Tennessee.
Cozzolino, P. J., & Gonzales, M. H. (2006, August). The merits of valuable resource distributions: Differing routes to justice by the (un)fairly advantaged and disadvantaged. Paper presented at the 11th International Conference on Social Justice Research, Berlin, Germany (Organizer).

Cozzolino, P. J., & Snyder, M. (2005, January). From inequality to equality and beyond: The equal opportunity effect. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Cozzolino, P. J., Snyder, M., & Clary, E. G. (2004, May). Considering the ideal volunteers: Are they friend or pro? Poster presented at Interdisciplinary Conversations on Social Capital, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Gonzales, M. H. (2004, May). Deservingness and reactions to valuable resource allocations. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Chicago, Illinois.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Snyder, M. (2004, January). All things being equal, (equal)money = power. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Austin, Texas.

MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION

Cozzolino, P. J., & Gonzales, M. H. (in preparation). The legitimacy of valuable resource distributions: Reactions from the “rich” and the “poor.”

Cozzolino, P. J., Lippmann, B., & Federico, C. M. (in preparation). The interactive effects of political knowledge and the need for cognition on votes, war hawkishness, and the criticism of protesters.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Meyers, L. S. (in preparation). An inventory to assess death fear and denial.

Snyder, M., Clary, E. G., & Cozzolino, P. J. (in preparation). Models of helping: Volunteers as peers and professionals.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Gonzales, M. H. (in preparation). Rule-change theory: A motivated social-cognitive model of how individuals accept new rules.

Cozzolino, P. J., & Beckes, L. (in preparation). A multilevel, multidimensional model of social capital.

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