David Nussbaum's Homepage


   I am a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo. I recently received my PhD in Social Psychology from Stanford, working primarily with Claude Steele and Carol Dweck. My research is primarily focused on how people manage and defend their self-image in the face of threats, and how this affects their beliefs and behavior. I also explore how social contexts and psychological processes can either exacerbate threats to self-image or attenuate them. I have found that defensively managing self-image threats can often lead to negative consequences, including academic disidentification, missed learning opportunities, the avoidance of important medical tests, and persistence in failing investments. I believe that by identifying contexts and processes that attenuate threat, individuals and organizations can employ strategies to prevent these maladaptive outcomes.

           Research Statement                            CV                            Teaching Statement


Selected Publications

Nussbaum, A. D., & Steele, C. M. (2007). Persistence in the face of adversity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 127-134.

Young, S. D., Nussbaum, A. D., & Monin, B. (2007). Potential moral stigma and reactions to sexually transmitted diseases: Evidence for a disjunction fallacy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 789-799.

Nussbaum, A. D., & Dweck, C. S. (2008). Defensiveness vs. remediation: Self-theories and modes of self-esteem maintenance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 127-134.

Nussbaum, A. D., & Steele, C. M. (2008). Confronting Stereotype threat: The motivation to disprove and avoid confirming stereotypes. Manuscript under review at the Journal of Personality                         and Social Psychology.

Sherman, D. K., Cohen, G. L., Nelson, L. D., Nussbaum, A. D., Bunyan, D. P., & Garcia, J. P. (2009). Affirmed yet unaware: Exploring the role of awareness in the process of self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 745-764.


Please feel free to email me for a copy of any of these articles at davenussbaum@gmail.com