Featured Alumnus: Dr. David Sleeth-Keppler
December 2005

David Sleeth-Keppler, a native of Germany, earned his PhD in social psychology from the University of Maryland in 2004. He is the recipient of the 2005 Jack Bartlett Memorial Award for Excellence in Dissertation Research. He is currently an assistant professor of psychology at Winthrop University.

Dr. Hal Sigall, Dr. Arie Kruglanski, Dr. David Sleeth-Keppler, and Dr. Bill Hall

After completing his undergraduate degree in our department David joined our social psychology doctoral program, where he worked with Professor Arie Kruglanski as his primary mentor. His current research interests include the psychology of social judgment and the application of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al, 2002) to a variety of topics, including friendship, consumer decision-making, and the mental control of temptations. His interest in social judgment has led David to develop an integrative view of how numerical comparison standards (or anchors) influence people’s judgments and decisions, which ultimately became the topic of his dissertation. He has argued that numerical standards may prime general semantic concepts, which may exert a direct (and sometimes counterintuitive) influence on subsequent judgments. His theoretical explanation of anchoring effects has opened up several novel avenues for research, which he is currently actively pursuing.

His work has been published in Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles (Second Edition), in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, and in the New Review of Social Psychology.

When not thinking about social psychology, David enjoys spending time with his family, playing the drums, reading nonfiction and cooking.

He may be contacted via email at sleethd@winthrop.edu.

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