D IS T IN G U I SH E D A LU M N I AN D F ELLOW S
PHOEBE ELLSWORTH ’61 DPH HOPKINS’ 2021 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNA
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r. Phoebe Ellsworth, Ph.D. ’61 DPH, one of the founding scholars of contemporary psycho-legal research, will be honored this year as a Hopkins Distinguished Alumna. Dr. Ellsworth was one of the first researchers to systematically apply psychological theory and method to the empirical study of the legal system, conducting pioneering studies on death penalty attitudes, eyewitness performance, and juries. She has focused some of her research on the causes and consequences of false convictions in the U.S., including the psychological processes that can lead police and investigators to mistakenly decide that a person is guilty and to stick with that assessment despite evidence to the contrary. Dr. Ellsworth, who retired in 2018 as Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Law at the University of Michigan, is one of the originators of Appraisal Theory of Emotion, which suggests that emotions are extracted from our “appraisals,” i.e. evaluations or interpretations, of events. These appraisals lead to different specific reactions in different people. Emotions that are often thought of as basic categories, such as happiness, sorrow, and anger, are actually combinations of more fundamental appraisals such as novelty, valence, agency, and control. So, for example, if something bad happens and the person thinks some other person was the agent, the person feels angry; if they think they themselves caused it, they will feel shame; and if they think it was caused by circumstances beyond anyone’s control, they will feel sorrow. She has also worked on projects that examine how cultures shape emotional experience, expression, and behavior. She is the author of more than 130 articles, books, and commentaries that have received more than 25,000 citations. Her book Emotion in the Human Face (with P. Ekman and W.V. Friesen), has been cited alone more than 4,500 times. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she has received many honors in her career, among them the Psychology’s Career Contribution Award and Legacy Award; the Society for Experimental Social Psychology’s Distinguished Scientist Award; the Cornell University Lifetime Achievement Award in Law, Psychology, and Human Development; and the American Psychological Foundation’s Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology. The annual Phoebe Ellsworth Psychology and Justice Symposium was established in her honor in 2001.
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Spring 2021 | VIEWS FROM THE HILL
