CURRICULUM VITAE
SEAN P. WOJCIK
Dept. of Psychology & Social Behavior
4201 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway
Irvine, CA 92697
Email: swojcik@uci.edu
Tel: (973) 600-7216
Web: seanwojcik.com
Education___________________________________________________
Ph. D.
M. A.
B. S.
University of California, Irvine (2015)
Major Concentration: Social/Personality Psychology
Minor Concentration: Quantitative Methods
Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine (2012)
Northeastern University (2007)
Psychology, Magna Cum Laude
Academic Honors and Awards__________________________________
2013
2011, 2012
2010-2014
2009
2003-2007
Society for Personality and Social Psychology Student Travel Award
School of Social Ecology Graduate Mentor Award
School of Social Ecology Summer Research Fellowship
Social Ecology Graduate Research Fellowship, University of California,
Irvine
Dean’s Scholarship, Northeastern University
Research Interests______________________________________________
Motivated reasoning, judgment and decision-making, political and moral psychology, selfenhancement, happiness, subjective well-being, Big Data.
Publications___________________________________________________
10. Wojcik, S. P., Hovasapian, A., Graham, J., Motyl, M., & Ditto, P. H. (2015).
Conservatrives report, but liberals display, greater happiness. Science, 347, 1243-1246.
9. Ksendzova, M., Iyer, R., Hill, G., Wojcik, S. P., & Howell, R. T. (2015). The portrait of a
hedonist: The personality and ethics behind the value and maladaptive pursuit of
pleasure. Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, 79, 68-74.
8. Ditto, P. H., Wojcik, S. P., Chen, E., Grady, R., & Ringel, M. (in press). Political bias is
tenacious. Commentary on target article, Political diversity will improve social psychological
science (J. Duarte, J. Crawford, C. Stern, J. Haidt, L. Jussim, & P. E. Tetlock).
Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
7. Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2014). Motivated happiness: Self-enhancement inflates selfreported subjective well-being. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 825-834.
6. Lai, C. K., Marini, M., Lehr, S. A., Cerruti, C., Shin, J. L., Joy-Gaba, J. A., Ho, A. K.,
Teachman, B. A., Wojcik, S. P., … & Nosek, B. A. (2014). Reducing implicit racial
preferences: I. A comparative investigation of 17 interventions. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 143, 1765-1785.
5. Johnson, K. M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., Vaisey, S., Miles, A., Chu, V., & Graham, J.
(2014). Ideology-specific patterns of moral disengagement predict intentions not to
vote. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 14, 61-77.
4. Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2013).
Moral Foundations Theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 55-130.
3. Kwan, V. S. Y., Wojcik, S. P., Miron-shatz, T., Votruba, A., & Olivola, C. (2012). Effects
of symptom presentation order on perceived disease risk. Psychological Science, 23, 381385.
2. Ditto, P. H., Liu, B., & Wojcik, S. P. (2012). Is anything sacred anymore? Commentary
on target article, Mind perception is the essence of morality (K. Gray, L. Young, & A.
Waytz), Psychological Inquiry, 23, 155-161.
1. Kwan, V. S. Y., Diaz, P., Wojcik, S. P., Matula, K. A., Kim, S. H. Y., & Rodriguez, K.
(2011). Self as the target and the perceiver: A componential approach to selfenhancement. Psychological Studies, 56, 151-158.
Manuscripts in Preparation_____________________________________
5. Wojcik, S. P., Ditto, P. H. Conservative Self-Enhancement.
4. Wojcik, S. P., Gampa, A., Motyl, M., Nosek, B., & Ditto, P. H. Predictably (and politically)
illogical: Partisan belief bias in the evaluation of logical syllogisms.
3. Wojcik, S. P., Ekins, E., & Haidt, J. The moral underpinnings of support for the Tea Party
movement.
2. Ditto, P. H., Liu, B., Wojcik, S. P., Clark, C. J., Chen, E., & Grady, R. Motivated reasoning
and ideology: A meta-analysis of biased assimilation among liberals and conservatives.
1. Howell, R., Iyer, R., & Wojcik, S. P. Experiential purchasing predicts greater explicit and implicit
happiness.
Professional Presentations______________________________________
12. Wojcik, S. P. (2015, February). Closing the ideological happiness gap: Behavioral
indicators of liberal and conservative happiness from Big Data. Data Blitz presented
at the 16th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Long
Beach, CA.
11. Wojcik, S. P. (2014, November). Motivated happiness: Towards a multi-method
approach to measuring subjective well-being. Colloquium presented at University of
California, Irvine.
10. Liu, B., Clark, C. J., Wojcik, S. P., Chen, E., Grady, R., & Ditto, P. H. (2014, July).
Motivated reasoning and ideology: A meta-analysis of liberals’ and conservatives’ bias in political
contexts. Paper presented at the 2014 meeting of the International Society of Political
Psychology, Rome, Italy.
9. Wojcik, S. P., Ditto, P. H. (2014, February). Self-enhancement explains the liberal-conservative
happiness gap. Poster session presented at the 15th annual meeting of the Society for
Personality and Social Psychology, Austin, TX.
8. Ekins, E. M., Wojcik, S. P., & Haidt, J. (2013, August). The moral intuitions of the Tea Party
movement: Liberty or Proportionality, or both? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
7. Wojcik, S. P., Ditto, P. H., Haidt, J., Graham, J., Koleva, S., Iyer, R., & Motyl, M. (2013,
January). Bridging the happiness gap: Self-enhancement explains ideological differences in
happiness. Poster session presented at the 14th annual meeting of the Society for
Personality and Social Psychology, New Orleans, LA.
6. Ditto, P. H., & Wojcik, S. P. (2013, January). Moral intuitionism and the politics of self-
enhancement. In D. Sherman (Chair), Situated ethics: How moral judgments and behaviors
are contaminated by situational cues. Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the
Society for Personality and Social Psychology, New Orleans, LA.
5. Ditto, P. H., & Wojcik, S. P. (2012, October). Predictably (and politically) illogical:
partisan bias in the evaluation of logical syllogisms. In L. Van Boven (Chair), Political
Polarization. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Experimental
Social Psychology, Austin, TX.
4. Miron-shatz, T., Kwan, V. S. Y., Wojcik, S. P., Votruba, A., & Olivola, C. Y. (2012,
September). Effects of symptom presentation order on perceived disease risk. Paper presented at
Medicine 2.0: Social Media, Mobile Apps, and Internet/Web 2.0 in Health, Medicine,
and Biomedical Research, Boston, MA.
3. Wojcik, S. P., Ditto, P. H., Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Haidt, J., Graham, J., & Motyl, M. (2012,
July). Overconfidence in partisan politics: Ideological correlates of self-enhancement bias, belief bias,
and logical reasoning performance. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the
International Society of Political Psychology, Chicago, IL.
2. Arnautovic, I., Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2012, May). Predictably illogical: Belief bias in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Poster session presented at the 2012 Undergraduate Research
Opportunities Program Symposium, Irvine, California.
1. Wojcik, S. P., Ditto, P. H., Koleva, S., Iyer, R., Graham, J., & Haidt, J. (2011, January).
Libertarian, conservative, or something in between? The psychology of support for the Tea Party.
Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology, San Antonio, TX.
Teaching and Mentoring Experience______________________________
2014, 2011
Summer 2014
Summer 2014
Spring 2013
2010, 2011
2011
Spring 2011
2010-2014
Graduate Student Mentor, University of California, Irvine, Undergraduate
Research Opportunities Program
Lecturer, The Social Animal, University of California, Irvine
Guest Lecturer, Research Methods, Saddleback College
Guest Lecturer, Research Design, University of California, Irvine
Graduate Student Mentorship Program, University of California, Irvine
Mentor, UCI Undergraduate Researcher Opportunities Program
Guest Lecturer, Research Design, UCI, Spring 2011
Teaching Assistant, University of California, Irvine, 2010 - present
Teaching Interests____________________________________________
Research methods, statistics, social psychology, judgment and decision-making, political
psychology, moral psychology.
Statistical, Methodological, and Technical Proficiencies_____________
Statistical and methodological proficiencies:
Survey, experimental, and longitudinal design
Qualitative and quantitative methods and analysis
Descriptive and inferential statistics
Univariate and multivariate OLS regression
Analysis of variance
Logistic regression
Meta-analysis
Hierarchical linear modeling
Structural equation modeling
Supervised and unsupervised machine learning
Statistical software proficiencies:
R, SPSS, Stata, Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, M-Plus
Data management and miscellaneous programming proficiencies:
R, SQL, PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS
Research and Work Experience__________________________________
2014 – Present Research Scientist, Upworthy
Providing survey research, data mining, and user research to analyze virality
of social media content; interfacing with for-profit and non-profit clients to
assess effectiveness of media content in affecting user attitudes, awareness,
and behaviors related to important social and environmental issues
2014
Graduate Student Researcher, University of California, Irvine, PI: Linda
Levine
Assisted with data analysis for project on emotion regulation strategies and
emotional recall, edited manuscripts and grant proposals
2010 – Present Researcher, YourMorals.org
Conducting survey and experimental design, user research, data management,
data mining, data analysis, and web development for a large public education
and research platform (~600,000 registered users) that has been featured in
the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Science, and Nature
2014 – Present Researcher, BeyondThePurchase.org
Providing web development, study design, social media integration, and user
experience research for a growing online research platform
2014 – Present Creator, CongressionalWordCount.org
Created interactive psycholinguistic analysis tool that compares word use
frequency among Democratic and Republican politicians within the United
States Congressional Record over 18 year period
2008-2009
Research Specialist, Princeton University, PI: Virginia S. Y. Kwan
Designed and administered experimental and survey research related to selfperception and medical decision-making, assisted with writing of grant
proposal and manuscripts
Professional Service____________________________________________
2014
2014
2012-2014
2011-2013
2011
Ad hoc reviewer, International Journal of Political Psychology
Dept. of Psychology and Social Behavior Graduate Recruitment
Representative
Elected Council Member, Palo Verde Residence Council, Irvine, CA
Dept. of Psychology and Social Behavior Communications Director
SPSP Student Poster Award Reviewer
Honorary and Professional Memberships_________________________
2012 – present Association for Psychological Science
2012 – present International Society of Political Psychology
2009 – present Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2003-2007
2006
2005
2005
Northeastern University Honors Program
Psi Chi National Honor Society, Northeastern University
The Academy International Honor Society
Golden Key International Honor Society
Selected Media Coverage_______________________________________
Wojcik et al., 2015: "Conservatives Report, but Liberals Display, Greater Happiness,” Science.
Time, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Fox News, CBS News,
NBC News, ABC News, Chicago Sun Times, Pacific Standard, US News and
World Report, Business Insider, Business Standard, Science Daily, Science AAAS,
Reason, UCI Press.
Lai et al., 2014: "Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: I. A Comparative Investigation of 17
Interventions", Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Boston Globe, Forbes, National Public Radio, Jezebel.
Media for Kwan et al., 2012: "Effects of Symptom Presentation Order on Perceived Disease
Risk", Psychological Science.
Newsweek Magazine, Fox News Channel, The Huffington Post.