I received my Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and am Professor of Psychology at Gordon College (Wenham, MA) and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT). I have been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and University of Southampton (UK), and a visiting scholar at the University of Portsmouth (UK) and Rutgers University. Memberships include the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, International Society for Ecological Psychology, the Distributed Language Group, and the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (Secretary-Treasurer, 1992-95). My work has been recognized by the National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation. Editorial Board: Social Influence.

My research focuses on three diverse areas: social psychology, language, and perception and action psychology. In social psychology, my focus has been on how people in social dilemmas balance multiple sources of information, multiple relationships, and multiple constraints on action in ways that allow them to act appropriately. In particular I have been interested in how inconsistent patterns reveal creativity and competence in dealing with such delicate situations, rather than merely indicating confusion and consternation. In language, my focus has been on pragmatics and, in particular, the way in which rules are bent or broken in order to realize the goods of conversing with others. More broadly, the concern has been to explore ecological, dialogical, and distributed ways of understanding why and how we talk with each other. Studies in perception and action have focused on affordances and the way in which physical, social, and moral dimensions of action and perception are integrated. Some studies have focused on how it is that we engage in and recognize careful actions, whereas others have focused on how the perception of time and weight affect each other. All of this work, both theoretical and empirical, is related to a larger, longer-range project, which is to develop an ecological account of values.

From a social psychological perspective, my work addresses social interaction and the pragmatics of action. Some of the particular domains of action and interaction we have looked at include the negotiation of social dilemmas, the nature of linguistic communication, what guides social perception and action (e.g., walking, driving), and how "independent" dimensions of the world are integrated in perceiving. Most, if not all, actions occur in contexts of engagement with the physical and social environment in ways that demand that multiple constraints be satisfied. Often, if not always, these constraints are in tension with each other in ways that demand creative ongoing integration. Over time, the integrity of these integrative acts will themselves be tested in ways that will require new levels of complexity and reorganization, both to maintain the intentionality and the openness of the ecosystem (e.g., persons making their way in the world together as talkers, or friends, or drivers). Twenty years ago Reuben Baron and I argued that these integrations are attempts at realizing values, larger-scale integrities that define ecosystems and fields of action within them. From this ecological-social perspective, values are not equivalent to goals, rules, or laws, nor are they reducible to biological, personal, or social preferences. Without the implicit acknowledgement of such values, the subject matter of psychology -- actions, perception, cognitions, and emotions -- can neither be identified nor assessed. As Hilary Putnam has observed: Without values there are no facts to be identified and studied by scientists. Restated, then, my research focuses on how values make possible (i.e., how they constrain and guide) social perception and action.