As we begin the semester, we're highlighting Bryn Mawr's newest faculty members. The College supports faculty excellence in both research and teaching.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Ariana Orvell
My research centers on identifying basic mechanisms that allow people to effectively regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I focus on those that are "hidden in plain sight," within the words people use to refer to themselves, the relationships they maintain, and the way they interact with their digital environments (i.e., social media). I then aim to leverage this knowledge to improve well-being outside the lab. My training is in social-personality and developmental psychology, but my research additionally draws on clinical, cognitive neuroscience, and psycholinguistics to formulate new perspectives on self control. I also use a broad set of methods to enrich my understanding of how a phenomenon operates across different levels of analysis. To isolate causal mechanisms, I begin by designing multi-method experiments with adults and children that include quantitative and qualitative measures. I then build toward longitudinal designs (e.g., often using Experience Sampling Methods) or quasi-field experiments (e.g., using “big data”) to examine how psychological processes unfold over time and in daily life. I believe that research and teaching are interrelated and can draw upon one another, and I look forward to integrating these two aspects of my work at Bryn Mawr.
The Department of Psychology offers the student a major program that allows a choice of courses from among a wide variety of fields in psychology: biological, clinical, cognitive, cultural, developmental, health, and social psychology.