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Matthew Vess

Associate Professor
Areas of Speciality
  • Personality Processes
  • Social & Personality Psychology
Contact
  • vess@tamu.edu
  • Psychology 281
Professional Links
Office Hours
Office hours for Spring 2022 by appointment via Zoom. Check syllabus for zoom link
Accepting Students
No for 2022-2023

Research Interests

My research broadly focuses on the psychological processes and consequences associated with people’s efforts to manage existential concerns, including concerns about personal identity, meaning, and mortality.

Recent Publications

Vess, M. (2019). Varieties of conscious experience and the subjective awareness of one’s true self. Review of General Psychology, 23, 89-98.

Rivera, G. N., Christy, A. G., Kim, J., Vess, M., Hicks, J. A., & Schlegel, R. J. (2019). Understanding the relationship between authenticity and positive psychological functioning: A lay theory approach. Review of General Psychology, 23, 113-126.

Vess, M., Brooker, R. J., Stichter, M., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (2019). Genes and virtue: Exploring how heritability beliefs shape conceptions of virtue and its development. Behavior Genetics, 49, 168-174.

Vess., M., Schlegel, R. J., Brooker, R. J., & Hicks, J. A. (2019). Daily mental lapses and the experience of true self alienation. Journal of Research in Personality, 78, 148-152.

Vess. M. (2018). A broader look at terror management, death, and belief in the supernatural. Religion, Brain, and Behavior.

Vess, M., Hoeldtke, R., Leal, S. A., Sanders, C., & Hicks, J.A. (2018). The subjective quality of episodic future thought contributes to the experience of meaning in life. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13, 419-428.

Christy, A. G., Kim, J., Vess, M., Schlegel, R. J., & Hicks, J. A. (2017). The reciprocal relationship between perceptions of moral goodness and knowledge of others’ true selves. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8, 910-917.

Vess, M., Rogers, R., Routledge, C., & Hicks, J. A. (2017).  When being far away is good: Exploring how mortality salience, regulatory mode, and goal progress affect judgments of meaning in life. European Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 82-91.

Christy, A. G., Sanders, C., Vess, M., Schlegel, R. J., & Routledge, C. (2017). The true self and existential structure? Unexpected effects of mortality salience and need for structure on belief in the true self. Self & Identity, 16, 335-352.