Affective Science & Health Laboratory

Brett is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and the director of the Affective Science & Health Laboratory. She completed her doctoral training in social-personality from the University of California, Berkeley after receiving her B.A. in psychology and M.A. in social-personality psychology from Boston College.

Brett’s research examines what people believe about emotions and how people manage their emotions. Her research uses multi-method and interdisciplinary approaches to consider the benefits and the costs of striving to feel good.

Email: Brett.Ford[at]utoronto.ca
Curriculum Vita

Arasteh Gatchpazian

Arasteh is a doctoral student in Social/Personality psychology at the University of Toronto. Her primary research interests focus on emotion regulation and how it is related to well-being, beliefs about emotions, decision-making, and behaviour. She is also interested in emotion regulation and its role in the context of relationships (e.g., extrinsic emotion regulation). Arasteh is keen on pursuing these research interests in graduate school.

Email: arasteh.gatchpazian[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Angela Smith

Angela is a doctoral candidate in Social/Personality psychology at the University of Toronto. They are a recent graduate from Stanford University, earning their BA with Honors and Distinction in Psychology. Angela’s research interests include the ways in which emotion and emotion regulation are influenced by socioeconomic factors, and how that in turn influences physical and psychological health. They are also interested in the role that emotion regulation plays in the contexts of politics and social justice, as well as the impact that interpersonal lay beliefs have on emotion regulation. When not in the lab, Angela loves whale watching, reading, finding new coffee shops, plus trying their hand at amateur comedy!

Email: amoriah.smith[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Yitong Zhao

Yitong is pursuing her doctoral degree in Social/Personality Psychology at the University of Toronto. She received her bachelor’s degree at East China Normal University, and recently earned her master’s degree at Wake Forest University. As a researcher, Yitong is primarily interested in emotion regulation, well-being, and social relationships. Specifically, she studies individuals’ regulation processes in pursuing personal and social goals, especially processes shaped by their beliefs, values, and dispositions, and situated in regulation contexts of varying characteristics. As a mentor, Yitong values communication, mutual respect, and mentees’ growth. In her free time, you can find Yitong hiking, listening to music, practicing yoga, or making coffee.

Email: yit.zhao[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Aghilan Aiyadurai

Aghilan is currently pursuing his HBSc in psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Generally, he is interested in further examining various facets of children’s socio-emotional development and factors influencing children’s wellbeing. As an independent study student at the Affective Science and Health Laboratory, he will be examining early childhood educators’ attitudes towards high-intensity emotions and responses to children’s emotional displays. In his free time, Aghilan loves reading, working out, and playing sports.

Email: aghilan.aiyadurai[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Jinglei Chen

Jinglei is pursuing her HBSc in Mental Health Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She is primarily interested in topics around emotional regulation, how emotion is related to human health, interpersonal relationship, and effective communication. As a thesis student supervised by Dr. Ford and Arasteh, Jinglei will be investigating how people use emotion regulation to cope with racial discrimination and how this might vary across ethnocultural groups. Jinglei loves trying new types of coffee, doing workouts of Pamela Reif’s, watching videos on Bilibili, and reading books in her free time.

Email: jinglei.chen[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Kalista Kyle

Kalista is currently pursuing an HBSc in mental health studies and human biology at The University of Toronto Scarborough. Broadly, she has a wide array of interests including personality psychology, emotion regulation, health behaviours, and aging. At the Affective Science and Health Laboratory, she will be examining personality change across a major global stressor, as an independent study student with Dr. Ford. In her free time, Kalista enjoys going to the gym, testing different recipes, and walking her dogs.

Email: kalista.kyle[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Ali Javeed

Ali is a Social Psychology PhD student at New York University working with Dr. Jay Van Bavel in the Social Identity and Morality Lab. He received his B.Sc in Psychology with honors from the University of Toronto, after completing his thesis with Dr. Brett Ford. In his research, Ali draws on moral psychology and affective science to examine topics of socio-political importance in intergroups contexts such as conspiracy theories, extremism, and collective action. With the Affective Science and Health Laboratory, Ali is working on understanding how reappraisal tactic usage after witnessing anti-Black racism impacts political action in White participants.

Website: www.alijaveed.com/psychology

Bethany Lassetter

Bethany is a postdoctoral associate working with Dr. Andrei Cimpian at New York University. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Toronto, working with Dr. Becca Neel. Bethany examines how goal relevance and stereotypes shape social perception and emotion. As a postdoc, she has begun examining the social cognitive development and consequences of stereotypes. Within the Affective Science and Health Laboratory, Bethany studies how political events affect affective processes such as felt emotions, regulation of those emotions, and motivation to engage in political action.

Email: bethany.lassetter[at]nyu.edu
Website: www.bethanylassetter.com

Natalie Sisson

Natalie is a doctoral student in Social/Personality psychology at the University of Toronto, where she works primarily with Dr. Emily Impett. Broadly, she studies close relationships, interpersonal regulation, and well-being. She is particularly interested in the ways that people attempt to regulate the emotions and behaviours of close others (e.g., romantic partners, children) and the benefits and costs of these pursuits for personal and interpersonal outcomes. She draws on theories of interdependence, emotion regulation, goal pursuit, self-determination, and partner regulation to guide her multi-method (e.g., experimental, dyadic, longitudinal) research program. She is currently working on projects in the Affective Science & Health lab investigating how the pursuit of a close other's (e.g., child, partner) happiness and meaning shape emotion regulation strategies, and well-being.

Email: n.sisson[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Veerpal Bambrah

Wenyi Luo

Angela Wang

Tony Gutentag

Kaitlyn Werner