Welcome to the Emotion Lab @ UCI

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The primary mission of the emotion and health research lab is to address emotion regulation and well-being across the lifespan in a variety of contexts. We also have developed a strong health psychology orientation looking at physiological reactivity to appraised stress, genetic predictors of depression, and behavioral genetic study of personality traits. A primary theoretical orientation of the lab is Carstensen’s Socioemotional Selectivity Theory. The theory posits that, as people age, they increasingly prefer emotion-related goals (like spending quality time with loved ones) over knowledge-related goals or goals related to the future. In keeping with the emphasis of the Emotion Lab, we are currently working on the following projects:

• Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Study
• Caregiver Study
• Work-Family Spillover ~ Behavioral Genetics Study
• Affective Well-Being In Very Late Life Study
• Motivations for interpersonal tension avoidance

Dr. Susan T. Charles is the supervisor of the Emotion Research Lab. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at UC Irvine.

If you would like to learn more about our current research projects, please call the laboratory at (949) 824-3991.