College of Science and Health > Faculty & Staff > Faculty A-Z > Verena Graupmann

Verena Graupmann

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  • vgraupma@depaul.edu​
  • Professor
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  • Psychology; Psychological Science
  • (773) 325-8225
  • ​​​Byrne Hall, Room 525​​​​       
As a social and cultural psychologist, I study how people respond to threats to self-motives (e.g. belonging, freedom) across cultures. I systematically explore underlying mechanisms, cultural differences, and applications, using experiments, surveys, and qualitative methods.  My research explores the role of cultural context in what people experience as threat to the self and how threat response can give insight into what constitutes the self.  I further employ the perspective of self-relevant, context-bound threat to applied issues. 

Education
Venia Legendi (Habilitation), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany, 2014
Ph.D. Social Psychology, University of Sussex, UK, 2008
M. A. Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany, 2002
 
Major Areas of Interest
  • Threats to central self motives:
    • Freedom (psychological reactance, control)
    • Consistency (cognitive dissonance)
    • Continuity (mortality salience, time perspective)
    • Belonging (social exclusion)
  • Culture

Representative Sample of Publications
Kim, Y., Dulaney, E. S, Wangchuk, G., Kim, K. & Graupmann, V. (2024). True self or non-self? Self-essentialism and well-being in Tibetan Buddhist monks. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 55(6), 659-678.

Graupmann, V., & Pfundmair, M. (2022). When ostracism is mandated: COVID-19, social distancing, and psychological needs. The Journal of Social Psychology, 163(1), 39–51.

Sacchi, S., Brambilla, M. & Graupmann, V. (2021). Basking in detected vice: Outgroup immorality enhances self-view. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 24(3), 371-387.

Graupmann, V. (2018). Show me what threatens you and I can tell who you are: Perception of threat and the self. Self & Identity, 17 (4), 407-417.

Graupmann, V., Pfundmair, M., Matsoukas, P., & Erber, R. (2016). Rejection via video: The impact of observed group and individual rejection. Social Psychology, 47, 345-350.

Pfundmair, M., Aydin, N., Frey, D., Du. H, Yeung, S., & Graupmann, V. (2015). Exclude me if you can – cultural effects on the outcomes of social exclusion. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46 (4), 579-596.

Silveira, S., Gutyrchik, E., Wetherell, G., Frey, D., Blautzik, J., Meindl, T., Reiser, M., Bao, Y., Poeppel, E., & Graupmann, V. (2015). Ceci n'est pas la mort: Evidence for the recruitment of self-reference from surrealistic art under mortality salience. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45 (3), 255-266.

Graupmann, V., Peres, I., Michaely, T. Meindl, T., Frey, D., Fehse, K., & Gutyrchik, E. (2013). Culture and its neurofunctional correlates when death is in mind. Neuroscience Letters, 548, 239-243.

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