Current Research
Creativity
My current research focuses on creativity. Through interviews with improvisers and observation in improvisational theatre, I study how troupes generate novelty in real-time. While creativity is often a quality ascribed to individuals, my research highlights how creativity emerges through the interrelations between minds, bodies, and the (social, cultural, material) environments in which people are situated.
Cognition
Understanding how the mind works is crucial to understanding human behaviour, and social scientists are increasingly using dual-process models of cognition to explain how and why people think and act in particular ways. My research focuses on cognitive styles - or broad patterns in intuitive and analytical thought. In particular, I study how cognitive styles are socially patterned, how they shape beliefs and behaviours, and how and why they change over time.
Culture
I am a cultural sociologist by training. My research broadly focuses on cultural meanings, whether these meanings be public (e.g., symbols and narratives), declarative (e.g., beliefs and values), or non-declarative (e.g., schemas and embodied knowledge). I am particularly interested in how culture is created, acquired, transmitted, stored, and used for action.