Camille Johnson

Institution San Jose State University Current Position Assistant Professor Highest Degree Ph.D. in Social Psychology from The Ohio State University, 2005 Research Interests Applied Social Psychology Emotion Judgment/Decision Making Motivation/Goal Setting Organizational Behavior Persuasion/Social Influence Self/Identity Social Cognition Courses Taught Fundamentals of Management and Organizational Behavior Introduction to Social Psychology Research Methods in Social Psychology Statistics for the Social Sciences   Camille Johnson College of Business San Jose State University One Washington Square San Jose, California 95192-0070 U.S.A. Home Page Phone: (408) 924-3416 I have spent the last few years attempting to address fundamental questions regarding behavior changes in response to more successful others: Do they encourage us to follow in their footsteps or forge our own paths? When do we integrate the success of others into our own self-concepts? How does this integration change our behavior? When do more successful others lead us to more successful in our own endeavors? From within the framework of social comparison theory, I have examined the effects of self-evaluation threatening and self-evaluation boosting upward comparisons. I found that although moderate and attainable comparison others lead individuals to feel better about themselves and feel inspired, such comparisons do not benefit performance and can even lead to worse performance outcomes. On the other hand, I found that comparison others who make us feel bad and feel threatened do lead us to perform better. I am currently exploring how mood influences perceptions of comparison targets, responses to temporal comparisons, and self-disclosure in interracial interactions. Journal Articles: Johnson, C. S., Norton, M. I., Nelson, L., Stapel, D. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (2008). The downside of feeling better: Self-regard repair harms performance. Self and Identity, 7, 262-277. Johnson, C. S., Olson, M. A, & Fazio, R. H. (May 2009). Getting acquainted in interracial interactions: Avoiding intimacy but approaching race. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 557-571 Johnson, C. S., & Stapel, D. A. (2007). No pain, no gain: The conditions under which upward comparisons lead to better performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1051-1067. Johnson, C. S., & Stapel, D. A. (2007). When different is better: Performance following upward comparison. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(2), 258-275. Smith, J. L., & Johnson, C. S. (2006). A stereotype boost or choking under pressure? Positive gender stereotypes and men who are low in domain identification. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 28(1). Stapel, D. A., & Johnson, C. S. (2007). When nothing compares to me: How defensive motivations and similarity shape social comparison effects. European Journal of Social Psychology.

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