Elizabeth Pinel
University of Vermont
Elizabeth C. Pinel is a Full Professor of Psychological Science at the University of Vermont. She started her career as a social psychologist after learning about Terror Management Theory at Hamilton College. She solidified her interest in existential experimental psychology when she had the good fortune of spending a semester “abroad” in Colorado, studying with Tom Pyszczynski. After college, Liz attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her Ph.D. under the tutelage of William B. Swann, Jr. and Daniel Gilbert. Toward the end of her graduate career, Liz developed her program of research on stigma consciousness and began theorizing about and collecting data on the construct of I-sharing. After grad school, Liz began a tenure-track position at Penn State University, where she earned tenure before spending a sabbatical at the University of Vermont and ultimately accepting a permanent position there.
While at Penn State, Liz and Tom Pyszczynski, Anson Long, Mark Landau, and Kira Alexander, ran the first empirical studies on I-sharing and existential isolation. Since then, Liz received grant funding to pursue this research, both from NIMH and NSF. Liz and her collaborators have identified I-sharing as a unique path toward interpersonal connection, distinct from objective forms of similarity. I-sharing moments have the ability to counteract deeply ingrained tendencies to prefer ingroup members and dehumanize outgroup members. I-sharing also inspires people to act more prosocially; compared to people who do not have an I-sharing experience, those who do show more generosity, compromise more with their romantic partners, and help strangers more. I-sharing serves as an antidote to existential isolation, the form of isolation that results from how we, as humans experience reality: through our own sense organs and cognitive processes. Existential isolation interferes with fundamental needs to know our worlds and feel connected to others, and thus makes people vulnerable to a host of negative psychological outcomes. Liz and her collaborators have developed the Existential Isolation Scale and have established (among other findings) that existential isolation is unique from interpersonal isolation and loneliness, and that it correlates uniquely with depression, stress, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Current work concentrates on cross-cultural examinations of existential isolation as well as meditation’s ability to lessen feelings of existential isolation.