Stephanie D. Preston

Professor of Psychology; UM Faculty Ombuds
she/her

prestos@umich.edu

Office Information:

3040 East Hall
phone: 734.764.5264

Applied; Cognition & Cognitive Neuroscience; Psychology; Decision-making; Affective Emotional; Neuroscience

Education/Degree:

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
M.A. University of California, Berkeley
B. A. University of Virginia

About

Overview

We use an interdisciplinary approach to study the interface between emotion and decision making, focusing on two main lines of research:

How do people process others' emotions and how does this affect the help they offer (to other people, animals, the environment)?
How do people allocate resources like food, money, and material goods (including giving, consumerism, hoarding, natural resources)?

Both lines integrate proximate (what the brain and body are doing) and ultimate (why they exist, how they evolved) levels of analysis through a variety of measures including behavior, personality, emotion, psychophysiology, salivary hormones, and neural activity.

We are committed to an environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please reach out if you see ways we can improve our inclusivity at prestos@umich.edu.

Google Scholar Profile

Books

Preston, S. D. (2022). The altruistic urge. Columbia University Press.

Preston, S. D., Kringelbach, M. L., Knutson, B. (2014). The interdisciplinary science of consumption. The MIT Press.

Representative Articles

Vickers, B. D., Seidler, R. D., Stansfield, R. B., Weissman, D. H., Preston. S. D. (2023). Altruistic responses to the most vulnerable involve sensorimotor processes, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1140986

Liu, T., Vickers, B. D., Seidler, R. D., Preston, S. D. (2023). Neural correlates of overvaluation and the effort to save possessions in a novel decision task: An exploratory fMRI study. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1059051.

Bickel, L. A. & Preston, S. D. (2023). Environmental impassivity: Lower emotional responses across contexts underlie a lack of concern for the Earth. Emotion, 23(4), 1175-1189. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001072

Preston, S. D., Liao, J. D., Toombs, T. P., Romero-Canyas, R., Speiser, J., & Seifert, C. M. (2021). A case study of a conservation flagship species: The Monarch butterfly. Biodiversity and Conservation, 30(7), 2057-2077. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5889-5167

Preston, S. D. & MacMillan-Ladd, A. D. (2021). Object attachment and decision-making. Current Opinion in Psychology, 39, xx-yy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.07.019

Preston, S. D. & Gelman, S. A. (2020). This land is my land: Psychological ownership, but not legal ownership, increases protectiveness for the natural world. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 70, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101443

Preston, S. D., Ermler, M., Lei, Y., Bickel, L.A. (2020). Understanding empathy and its disorders through a focus on the neural mechanism. Cortex, 127,347-370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.03.001

de Waal, F. B. M. & Preston, S. D. (2017). Mammalian empathy: Behavioral manifestations and neural basis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 18, 498-509. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.72

Preston, S. D. (2017). The rewarding nature of social contact. Science, 357(6358), 2-3. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao7192

Vickers, B. D., Preston, S. D., Gonzalez, R., & Angott, A. (2016). Hoarders only discount consumables and are more patient for money. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10(30), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00030

Hauser, D. J., Preston, S. D., & Stansfield, R. B. (2014). Altruism in the wild: When affiliative motives to help positive people overtake empathic motives to help the distressed. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1295-1305. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035464

Preston, S. D. (2013). Examining the origins of altruism in offspring care. Psychological Bulletin. 139(6), 1305-1341. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031755

Preston, S. D., Hofelich, A. J., & Stansfield, R. B. (2013). The ethology of empathy: A taxonomy of real-world targets of need and their effect on observers. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(488), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00488

Wang, J. M., Seidler, R. D., Hall, J. L., & Preston, S. D. (2012). The neural bases of acquisitiveness: Decisions to acquire and discard everyday goods differ across frames, items, and individuals. Neuropsychologia, 50(5), 939–948. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.01.033

Preston, S. D. & Hofelich, A. J. (2012). The many faces of empathy: Parsing empathic phenomena through a proximate, dynamic-systems view of representing the other in the self. Emotion Review, 4(1), 24-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911421378

Buchanan, T. W., Bagley, S. L., Stansfield, R. B., & Preston, S. D. (2011). The empathic, physiological resonance of stress. Social Neuroscience, 7(2), 191-201. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2011.588723.

Preston, S. D., & Stansfield, R. B. (2008). The Emostroop effect: Task-irrelevant facial emotions are processed spontaneously, rapidly and at the level of the specific emotion. Cognitive and Affective Behavioral Neuroscience, 8, 54-64.

Preston, S. D., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Grabowski, T. J., Stansfield, R. B., Mehta, S., & Damasio A. R. (2007). The neural substrates of cognitive empathy. Social Neuroscience, 2, 254- 275.

Preston, S. D., Buchanan, T. W., Stansfield, R. B., & Bechara, A. (2007). Effects of anticipatory stress on decision making in a gambling task. Behavioral Neuroscience, 121, 257–263.

Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 1-71.

About

Overview

We use an interdisciplinary approach to study the interface between emotion and decision making, focusing on two main lines of research:

How do people process others' emotions and how does this affect the help they offer (to other people, animals, the environment)?
How do people allocate resources like food, money, and material goods (including giving, consumerism, hoarding, natural resources)?

We are committed to an environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please reach out if you see ways we can improve our inclusivity at prestos@umich.edu.

Google Scholar Profile

Books

Preston, S. D. (2022). The altruistic urge. Columbia University Press.

Preston, S. D., Kringelbach, M. L., Knutson, B. (2014). The interdisciplinary science of consumption. The MIT Press.

Representative Articles

Preston, S. D. & MacMillan-Ladd, A. D. (2021). Object attachment and decision-making. Current Opinion in Psychology, 39, xx-yy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.07.019

de Waal, F. B. M. & Preston, S. D. (2017). Mammalian empathy: Behavioral manifestations and neural basis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 18, 498-509. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.72

Preston, S. D. (2017). The rewarding nature of social contact. Science, 357(6358), 2-3. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao7192

Preston, S. D. (2013). Examining the origins of altruism in offspring care. Psychological Bulletin. 139(6), 1305-1341. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031755

Preston, S. D., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Grabowski, T. J., Stansfield, R. B., Mehta, S., & Damasio A. R. (2007). The neural substrates of cognitive empathy. Social Neuroscience, 2, 254- 275.

Preston, S. D., Buchanan, T. W., Stansfield, R. B., & Bechara, A. (2007). Effects of anticipatory stress on decision making in a gambling task. Behavioral Neuroscience, 121, 257–263.

Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 1-71.

Related News

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Highlighted Work and Publications

More Info

The Altruistic Urge: Why We're Driven to Help Others

Stephanie D. Preston

Year published: 2022

More Info

The Interdisciplinary Science of Consumption 1st Edition

Stephanie D. Preston (Editor, Introduction), Morten L. Kringelbach (Editor, Introduction), Brian Knutso (Editor, Introduction), Peter C. Whybrow (Preface)

Year of publication: 2014

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Stephanie D. Preston

About

About

Related News

Highlighted Work and Publications

The Altruistic Urge: Why We're Driven to Help Others

The Interdisciplinary Science of Consumption 1st Edition