Lab Manager
For inquiries about the lab, contact Clair at socialcognition.labmanager@gmail.com.
Clair Tang
Clair is a 4th year undergraduate student in the Psychology Honours Program. She is interested in many aspects of social psychology. Her recent project examined how different forms of social interaction affect people’s loneliness and feelings of connection. Her current project studies how objective and subjective cultural fit impacts social and psychological outcomes.
Graduate Students
Dunigan Folk
I am PhD candidate interested in how people across cultures can better harness time and technology to enhance happiness and social connection. In one line of my work, I investigate how turning to conversational AI like ChatGPT for companionship impacts our social and emotional well-being. In a separate line of work, I study the affective consequences of various daily activities and the effectiveness of a variety of happiness strategies (e.g., gratitude journaling). I am also one of four core team members of the ongoing Global Happiness Mega Study— an collaborative large-scale study seeking to recruit tens of thousands of participants from dozens of countries to test the effects of some of the most common happiness strategies in the scientific literature.
Ruoning Li
Ronnie is passionate about enhancing human connections, enriching positive experiences, and inspiring happier, more fulfilling lives. Her work focuses on exploring effective, scalable solutions to spark social connections and encourage prosocial behaviors. Her recent research investigates how physical spaces can bring community members closer. She also works on developing strategies to reduce loneliness and build social bonds, especially for those at greater risk of social isolation—such as international students, new immigrants, and remote workers.
Charul Maheshka
Charul is a first-year Master’s student co-supervised by Liz and Dr. Azim Shariff. She is interested in designing applicable interventions that increase well-being and social connection, as well as studying the role of culture in the transmission of moral information
Directed Studies Students
Austin Dunlop
Austin is a fourth-year Honours Psychology student whose research interests focus on the influence of artificial intelligence and media on contemporary social relationships. His current Honours thesis investigates how AI tools, such as ChatGPT, affect individual well-being and, in turn, shape patterns of social connection.
dunn.psych.ubc.ca 