Kathryn Bruchmann

Social Psychology

Social Cognition and Comparison Lab

Broadly speaking, I am interested in how people use information from others to evaluate themselves and how people use information from themselves to evaluate others. My primary line of research focuses on how socially comparing with others can change people’s self-perceptions. Within this area, I am currently interested in how comparisons with others in person or on social media can influence body image disturbances.

In a secondary line of work, I examine how people form impressions of other people or how they form attitudes about different topics based on their own political ideology.

• Psyc 2: General Psychology II
• Psyc 53: Stats and Research Methods III
• Psyc 150 Social Psychology
• Psyc 151: Advanced Topics in Social Psychology
• Psyc 182: Psychology of Gender

Bruchmann, K., & LaPierre, L. (2022). Moral foundations predict perceptions of COVID-19 public health violations in U.S. university students. Frontiers in Psychology. 12:795278.

Bruchmann, K., Osa, M. L., Wong, K. , & Baerg, L.  (2021). Construal level moderates a local dominance effect of appearance comparisons in undergraduate women. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 51, 1038-1045. 

Bruchmann, K. Chue, S., Dillon, K ., Lucas, J., Neumann, K., & Parque, C. (2021). Social comparison information influences intentions to reduce single-use plastic water bottle consumption. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.

Bruchmann, K. & Evans, M.C. (2019). Comparing to ingroup and outgroup members: Do we assimilate, contrast, or neither? Journal of Social Psychology, 159, 313-327.