Psychology Faculty Profiles
Daniel C. Molden, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Social Psychology
Office: Swift 202
Phone: (847) 491-7710
E-mail: molden@northwestern.edu
Research Interests
One of my main interests is the ways in which people’s motivations (i.e., their needs, desires, and goals) can influence their basic cognitive process (i.e., their perception, categorization, and recall of information) and the implications this has for judgment and behavior. Thus far, I have pursued this interest in several different ways. The first involves examining how people’s preferences for using certain types of judgment strategies that “feel right” to them can affect the impressions they form of themselves and others. The second involves examining how these preferences affect the coping strategies people use after they experience some kind of threat to the self.
Another one of my main interests is how people’s deeply held, but seldom consciously articulated theories about the social world affect the way they perceive and interpret social information. I have primarily pursued this interest by examining how these "lay theories" can affect the way in which people process information related to other people’s behaviors.
Selected Publications
Miele, D. B., Molden, D. C., & Gardner, W. L. (in press). Motivated comprehension regulation: Vigilant versus eager metacognitive control.
Memory & Cognition, 37, 779-795. [Download article]
Molden, D. C. (2009). Finding meaning in others’ intentions: The process
of judging intentional behaviors and intentionality itself.
Psychological Inquiry, 20, 37-43. [Download article]
Molden, D. C., Lucas, G. M., Finkel, E. J., Kumashiro, M., & Rusbult, C.
E. (2009). Perceived support for promotion-focused and prevention-
focused goals: Associations with well-being in unmarried and married
couples. Psychological Science, 20, 787-793. [Download article]
Molden, D. C., Lucas, G. M., Gardner, W. L., Dean, K., & Knowles, M.
(2009). Motivations for prevention or promotion following social
exclusion. Being rejected versus being ignored. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 96, 415-431. [Download article]
Dweck, C. S., & Molden, D. C. (2008). Self-Theories: The Construction of
Free Will. In J. Baer, J. C. Kaufman, & R. F. Baumeister (Eds.)
Psychology and free will (pp. 44-64). New York: Oxford University Press.
Molden, D. C., & Higgins, E. T. (2008) How preferences for eager versus
vigilant judgment strategies affect self-serving outcomes, Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1219-1228. [Download article]
Molden, D. C., Lee, A. Y., & Higgins, E. T. (2008). Motivations for
promotion and prevention. In J. Shah & W. Gardner (Eds.) Handbook of
motivation science (pp. 169-187). New York: Guilford Press. [Download article]
Molden, D. C. & Miele, D. B. (2008). The origins and influences of
promotion-focused and prevention-focused achievement motivations. In M.
Maehr, S. Karabenick, & T. Urdan (Eds.), Advances in Motivation and
Achievement: Social psychological perspectives (Vol. 15, pp. 81-118).
Bingley, Wales: Emerald. [Download article]
Sivanathan, N., Molden, D. C., Galinsky, A.D., & Ku, G. (2008). The
promise and peril of self-affirmation in de-escalation of commitment.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 107, 1-14.
[Download article]
Molden, D. C., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). Finding “meaning” in psychology: A
lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social
development. American Psychologist, 61, 192-203. [Download article]
Molden, D. C., Plaks, J. E., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). “Meaningful” social
inferences: Lay theories and inferential processes. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 738-752. [Download article]
