Phoebe Ellsworth
Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Ph.D., Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor of Law and Psychology; professor of psychology in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; professor of Law in the Law School; and faculty associate in the Research Center for Group Dynamics within the Institute for Social Research, retired from active faculty status on December 31, 2018.
Professor Ellsworth received her A.B. degree from Radcliffe College in 1966 and her Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in 1970. She joined the University of Michigan faculty as a professor in 1987. Professor Ellsworth was named the Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law in 1994, the Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology in 1997, and the Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Law in 2003.
Professor Ellsworth is regarded as an outstanding teacher, mentor, and leader at the University of Michigan, and a ground-breaking scholar who has made central research contributions in two distinct areas within psychology: the theory of emotions and the field of psychology and law. She is the author of over 100 articles and books, including her 1985 classic with Craig Smith, "Patterns of Cognitive Appraisal in Emotions," which placed a social psychological theory of emotions on strong empirical footing, and her book Emotion in the Human Face (co-authored with Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen), first published in 1972 and cited many thousands of times. Professor Ellsworth's fundamental contributions to psychology and law include her landmark research on how death penalty attitudes influence the quality of jury deliberation and the jury's verdict.
Her honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992), as well as distinguished career and lifetime achievement awards from Phi Beta Kappa (2002), the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2014), the Association for Psychological Science (2015), the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (2017), Cornell University (2018) and the American Psychological Association (1999). Professor Ellsworth's mentoring has been honored with national awards from the American Psychological Association (2011), the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2014), and the Association for Psychological Science (2017).
Primary Interests:
- Culture and Ethnicity
- Emotion, Mood, Affect
- Law and Public Policy
- Person Perception
- Research Methods, Assessment
Note from the Network: The holder of this profile has certified having all necessary rights, licenses, and authorization to post the files listed below. Visitors are welcome to copy or use any files for noncommercial or journalistic purposes provided they credit the profile holder and cite this page as the source.
Image Gallery
Video Gallery
Truth and Advocacy (APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award Address)
Select video to watch
-
40:16 Truth and Advocacy (APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award Address)
-
62:19 Emotions, Eyewitness Accuracy, Juries, and the Death Penalty
-
Emotion Theories and Mixed Emotions
2015 National Institutes of Health Conference on Mixed Emotions
Books:
- Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P., Carslmith, J. M., & Gonzales, M. (1990). Methods of research in social psychology (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Ellsworth, P. (1972). Emotion in the human face: Guidelines for research and an integration of findings. New York: Pergamon Press.
Journal Articles:
- Coles, N. A., March, D. S., Marmolejo-Ramos, F., Larsen, J. T., Arinze, N. C., Ndukaihe, I. L. G.,... Liuzza, M. T. (2022). A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the many smiles collaboration. Nature Human Behaviour, 6(12), 1731-1742.
- Ellsworth, P. C. (2021). Truth and advocacy: Reducing bias in policy-related research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(6), 1226-1241.
- Ellsworth, P. C. (2018). Components, networks, and their interactions. Emotion Review, 10(3), 232-233.
- Ellsworth, P. C. (1994). William james and emotion: Is a century of fame worth a century of misunderstanding? Psychological Review, 101(2), 222-229.
- Ellsworth, P. C. (1991). To tell what we know or wait for godot? Law and Human Behavior, 15(1), 77-90.
- Ellsworth, P. C., & Smith, C. A. (1988). From appraisal to emotion: Differences among unpleasant feelings. Motivation and Emotion, 12(3), 271-302.
- Gonzalez, R., Ellsworth, P. C., & Pembroke, M. (1993). Response biases in lineups and showups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(4), 525-537.
- Grossmann, I., Huynh, A. C., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2016). Emotional complexity: Clarifying definitions and cultural correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(6), 895-916.
- Kassin, S. M., Ellsworth, P. C., & Smith, V. L. (1989). The "general acceptance" of psychological research on eyewitness testimony: A survey of the experts. American Psychologist, 44(8), 1089-1098.
- Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., MacDonald, G., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1998). Through the looking glass darkly? when self-doubts turn into relationship insecurities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(6), 1459-1480.
- Nesse, R. M., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2009). Evolution, emotions, and emotional disorders. American Psychologist, 64(2), 129-139.
- O'Brien, E., Ellsworth, P. C., & Schwarz, N. (2012). Today's misery and yesterday's happiness: Differential effects of current life-events on perceptions of past wellbeing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 968-972.
- O'Brien, E., Kristal, A. C., Ellsworth, P. C., & Schwarz, N. (2018). (Mis)imagining the good life and the bad life: Envy and pity as a function of the focusing illusion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 75, 41-53.
- Sommers, S. R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2000). Race in the courtroom: Perceptions of guilt and dispositional attributions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(11), 1367-1379.
- Stanik, C. E., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2010). Who cares about marrying a rich man? intelligence and variation in women’s mate preferences. Human Nature, 21(2), 203-217.
- Wondra, J. D., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2015). An appraisal theory of empathy and other vicarious emotional experiences. Psychological Review, 122(3), 411-428.
Other Publications:
- Ellsworth, P. C., & Gonzalez, R. (2003). Questions, comparisons, and preparation: Methods of research in social psychology. In M. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Social Psychology (pp. 24-42). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
- Ellsworth, P. C., & Scherer, K. R. (2003). Appraisal processes in emotion. In R. J. Davidson, H. Goldsmith, & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), Handbook of Affective Sciences. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Gross, S., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2003). Second thoughts: Americans; views on the death penalty. In S.P. Garvey (Ed.), Beyond repair? America's death penalty. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Phoebe Ellsworth
Department of Psychology
East Hall, University of Michigan
530 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1043
United States of America
- Phone: (734) 763-1143
- Fax: (734) 764-8309