Social Psychology Network

Maintained by Scott Plous, Wesleyan University

Sara Hodges

Sara Hodges

I study how people form an understanding of other people. I'm interested in the role that the self, context, and other sources of information play in forming that understanding. One of my primary research interests is in people’s attempts to construct someone else’s perspective—what motivates them, how accurate they are, how strategies such as social comparison and projection are used in the process, and what consequences result from taking someone else's perspective. In another line of work, I investigate social comparisons, with a focus on how people use information about themselves in making these comparisons. In my work, I seeks to acknowledge both the cleverness and shortcomings of human cognitive strategies.

Primary Interests:

  • Attitudes and Beliefs
  • Emotion, Mood, Affect
  • Interpersonal Processes
  • Judgment and Decision Making
  • Motivation, Goal Setting
  • Person Perception
  • Self and Identity
  • Social Cognition

Books:

Journal Articles:

  • Brand, R. J., Markey, C. M., Mills, A., & Hodges, S. D. (2007). Sex differences in self-reported infidelity and its correlates. Sex Roles, 57, 101-109.
  • Fernandez-Duque, D., Hodges, S. D., Baird, J. A., & Black, S. E. (2010). Empathy in the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 32, 289-298.
  • Hodges, S. D. (1997). When matching up features messes up decisions: The role of feature matching in successive choices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1310-1321.
  • Hodges, S. D., Bruininks, P., & Ivy, L. (2002). It's different when I do it: Feature matching in self-other comparisons. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 40-53.
  • Hodges, S. D., Kiel, K. J., Kramer, A. D. I., Veach, D., & Villanueva, B. R. (2010). Giving birth to empathy: The effects of similar experience on empathic accuracy, empathic concern, and perceived empathy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 398-409.
  • Hodges, S. D., Klaaren, K. J., & Wheatley, T. P. (2000). Talking about safe sex: The role of expectations and experience. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 330-349.
  • Hodges, S. D., & Klein, K. J. K. (2001). Regulating the costs of empathy: The price of being human. Paper invited for Journal of Socioceconomics, 30, 437-452.
  • Hodges, S. D., Sharp, C., Gibson, N. & Tipsord, J. (2013). Nearer my God to thee: Self-God overlap and believers’ relationship to God. Self and Identity, 12, 337-356.
  • Hodges, S. D., & Wilson, T. D. (1994). The effect of analyzing reasons on attitude change: The moderating role of attitude accessibility. Social Cognition, 11, 353-366.
  • Klein, K. J. K., & Hodges, S. D. (2001). Gender differences, motivation and empathic accuracy: When it pays to understand. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 720-730.
  • Lewis, K. L., Hodges, S. D., Laurent, S. M., Srivastava, S., & Biancarosa, G. (2012). Reading between the minds: The use of stereotypes in empathic accuracy. Psychological Science, 23, 1040-1046.
  • Myers, M. W., & Hodges, S. D. (2012). The structure of self-other overlap and its relationship to perspective taking. Personal Relationships, 19, 663–679.
  • Smith, J. L., Lewis, K. L., Hawthorne, L., & Hodges, S. D. (2013). When trying hard isn’t natural: Women’s belonging with and motivation for male-dominated STEM fields as a function of effort expenditure concerns. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39, 131-143.
  • Wilson, T. D., Hodges, S. D., & LaFleur, S. J. (1995). Effects of introspecting about reasons: Inferring attitudes from accessible thoughts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 16-28.

Other Publications:

  • Hodges, S. D., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2007). Balancing the empathy expense account: Strategies for regulating empathic response. In T. F. D. Farrow & P. W. R. Woodruff (Eds.), Empathy in mental illness and health (pp. 389-407). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hodges, S. D., Clark, B., & Myers, M. W. (2011). Better living through perspective taking. In R. Biswas-Diener (Ed.), Positive psychology as a mechanism for social change (pp. 193-218). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Press.
  • Hodges, S. D., Laurent, S. M., & Lewis, K. L. (2011). Specially motivated, feminine, or just female: Do women have an empathic accuracy advantage? In J.L. Smith, W. Ickes, J. Hall, & S. D. Hodges (Eds.), Managing interpersonal sensitivity: Knowing when -- and when not -- to understand others (pp. 59-73). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
  • Hodges, S. D., & Wegner, D. M. (1997). The mental control of empathic accuracy. In W. Ickes (Ed.), Empathic Accuracy (pp. 311-339). New York: Guilford.
  • Myers, M. W., & Hodges, S. D. (2009). Making it up and making do: Simulation, imagination and empathic accuracy. In K. Markman, W. Klein, & J. Suhr (Eds.), The handbook of imagination and mental simulation (pp. 281-294). New York: Psychology Press.

Courses Taught:

Sara Hodges
Department of Psychology
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon 97403-1227
United States of America

  • Phone: (541) 346-4919
  • Fax: (541) 346-4911

Send a message to Sara Hodges

Note: You will be emailed a copy of your message.

Psychology Headlines

From Around the World

News Feed (35,797 subscribers)