Overview

Professor Brooks studies the psychology of conversation and emotion—topics at the intersection of how people think, feel, and interact. From pitching ideas to seeking advice, from asking questions to giving compliments, from talking about (or hiding) our feelings and our personal struggles, she identifies and elucidates the underlying psychology of the factors that make such strategies work (and, more often than we’d like, fail). Her research focuses structural aspects of conversation that influence nearly every moment of every conversation (such as choosing topics and asking questions), the pivotal role that emotional experience and expression play in making interactions go smoothly or poorly, and the individual differences between people that influence their interactions, such as the gender of the actors. With the goal of empowering individuals and their organizations to thrive, she studies these topics using experimental methods across diverse populations (e.g., behavioral laboratory participants, online panels of working adults, and field samples inside and outside organizations).