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 superb mentoring was 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).

The Regents now salute this distinguished scholar by naming Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Law and Psychology, professor emerita of psychology, and professor emerita of law.
 

Additional Research Interests: Psychology and Law

My research interests include: Social Psychology, Emotion, Psychology and Law, Cultural Psychology, Research Methods

Representative Publications

Smith, C.A., and Ellsworth, P.C. Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985 48, 813-38. 

Ellsworth, P.C., and Scherer, K.R. Appraisal processes in emotion.  In R. J. Davidson, H. Goldsmith, and K.R. Scherer (Eds.)  Handbook of Affective Sciences. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 572-595.

Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P.C., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., Tanida, S., & van de Verdoonk, E.  Placing the face in context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial expression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 365-381.

Ellsworth, P.C., & Gross, S.  Social science and the evolving standards of death penalty law. In E. Borgida & S. Fiske (Eds.) Beyond Common Sense: Psychological Science in the Courtroom. Boston: Blackwell Publishing.

Ellsworth, P. C. Truth and Advocacy. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16, 1226-1241.

Award(s)

• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) Honored Scientist, 2010
• APA Raymond D. Fowler Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Professional Development of Graduate Students (2011)
• American Psychological Association (1999, 2020)
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2014, 2020)