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Matthew Vess

Matt Vess
Associate Professor
Areas of Speciality
  • Personality Processes
  • Social & Personality Psychology
Contact
  • vess@tamu.edu
  • Psychology 283
Professional Links
Rank
Associate Professor

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., Hoeldtke, R., Leal, S. A., Sanders, C., & Hicks, J.A. (in press). The subjective quality of episodic future thought contributes to the experience of meaning in life. The Journal of Positive Psychology.

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

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.

Williams, H., & Vess, M. (2016). Daydreams and the true self: Daydreaming styles are related to authenticity. Imagination, Cognition, & Personality, 36, 128-149.

Christy, A. G., Seto, E., Schlegel, R. J., Vess, M., & Hicks, J. A. (2016). Straying from the righteous path and from ourselves: Moral behaviors and perceived self-knowledge. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, 1538-1550.

Vess, M., Leal, S. A., & Hoeldtke, R., Schlegel, R. J., & Hicks, J.A. (2016). True self-alienation positively predicts mindwandering. Consciousness and Cognition, 45, 89-99.

Rogers, R., Vess, M., & Routledge, C. (2016). Construal level shapes associations between ideology and reactions to male same sex intimacy. Social Psychology, 47, 87-97.

*Rogers, R., Vess, M., Routledge, C., & Juhl, J. (2016). An easy feeling: Mortality salience decreases social exploration when examples of cultural value adherence are easy to generate. Self & Identity, 15, 62-71.

Seto, E., Hicks, J. A., Vess, M., & Geraci, L. (2016). The association between vivid thoughts of death and authenticity. Motivation and Emotion, 40, 520-540.

Begnoche, J. P., Brooker, R. J., & Vess, M. (2016). EEG asymmetry and ERN: Behavioral outcomes in preschoolers. PLoS ONE, 11(5), e0155713. PMCID: PMC4880182