Lucy Zhang Bencharit

Lucy Zhang Bencharit is a doctoral candidate in Affective Science in the Department of Psychology. Lucy completed her B.A. and M.A. in psychology at New York University. Her research focuses on how to leverage cultural values around emotion to promote positive outcomes in employment, work, and classroom settings. Specifically, she examines how individuals from Western cultural contexts, which value excitement, and East Asian cultural contexts, which value calm, express themselves and are perceived by others in work and classroom settings. Lucy will teach a CSRE course on how to promote positive psychological, interpersonal, and adjustment outcomes in a multicultural world.

Dissertation: The Role of Culture and Ideal Affect In Employment Settings

Lucy’s dissertation examines how culturally shaped emotional values are reflected in how individuals present themselves when applying for a job and in what individuals look for when hiring someone for a job. Those from European American cultural contexts express excitement more while those from East Asian cultural contexts express calm more.  Moreover, these emotional values shape hiring decisions; European Americans choose to hire excited candidates more and East Asians choose to hire calm candidates more.  Generally, Lucy’s dissertation has implications for how subtle factors, like emotional communication, might signal group membership and influence person perception and decision making. These emotional biases may lead to racial and ethnic disparities in interviewing and hiring practices in organizational settings.