Biography
Kristina received her B.A. in Psychology with honors from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. She is currently a second-year student in the Master of Science in Psychological Science (MSPS) program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After completing her master’s, she plans to continue her research in a doctoral program.
Research Interests
- Close relationship dynamics
- Social and parasocial relationships
- Human-nonhuman animal interaction
- Core beliefs and misbeliefs
- Self/life narratives
- Moral condemnation
- True crime/horror fascination
- Anomalistic psychology
Research Description
Kristina works under the supervision of Dr. R. Chris Fraley in the Attachment and Close Relationships Lab. Her primary line of research focuses on parasocial relationship contamination. Because people can be highly invested in the lives of media figures, who become important to them despite the lack of any mutual social connection, it is important to understand the circumstances under which these relationships are altered. Kristina’s work explores the impact that controversy has on such relationships – namely, the degree to which controversy might alter them. She is also involved in a replication project exploring the relationship between attachment style, mortality salience, and fear of death and is developing a project exploring the relationship between mortality salience and religion.