Katherine Thorson

Kate Thorson is a social psychologist who examines interpersonal processes and social relationships. She is interested in understanding how people think, feel, and behave when they interact with others, as well as how people's experiences and behaviors are influenced by their interaction partners. She studies these processes at different stages of relationships and within different relational contexts. In addition, her work investigates how people's experiences and behaviors change over time within individual interactions (for example, from one minute to the next) and across repeated interactions with the same partner (for example, from week to week). She conducts this work both in the lab and in more naturalistic settings, and she uses a range of methodological tools, including experiments, behavioral observation, psychophysiology, daily diary methods, field interventions, linguistic analysis, dyadic data analysis, and intensive longitudinal methods.

Professor Thorson's current scholarship falls into three primary categories. First, she seeks to understand the phenomenon of physiological synchrony. Second, she examines how people respond to stress within social relationships. Third, she studies how people form new relationships, particularly when they have different social status backgrounds. In addition, her scholarship focuses on advancing methodological and analytic approaches for studying interpersonal processes.

Professor Thorson joined Barnard in 2019, after earning her PhD from New York University (2018) and her BA from Bates College (2010). She teaches courses in social psychology and statistics, and she directs the Barnard Social Interaction Lab, where Barnard students are actively engaged in research and receive close mentorship in all aspects of research design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination. 

Please visit her lab website or CV for more information.