Faculty Spotlight

UT Tyler’s Dr. Eric Stocks and Student-Researchers Explore Social Emotions

Dr. Eric Stocks’ path to academia was a direct one, but he didn’t always waStocksnt to become a professor. Initially attending college to become an engineer, he switched his major from chemical engineering to philosophy and psychology during his sophomore year.

“Once I made that transition, it became clear that I wanted to teach and become involved with research for the rest of my life,” said Stocks, a professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Tyler. “I am very fortunate to be where I am in life and can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Stocks went straight from undergraduate studies to a doctoral program – UT Tyler being his first academic position after earning a doctorate in psychology. Rising in the ranks within the College of Education and Psychology, he’s now been at the university for nearly 16 years, enjoying every day since Day One.

He said he studies one of the oldest branches of psychology called social psychology. “When most people hear the word ‘psychology,’ they think of counseling or clinical psychology. However, those fields developed decades after social psychology,” he said. One of the most famous neurologists and clinical psychologists, Sigmund Freud, also contributed to the field.

Stocks’ research specifically examines social emotions and motives – that is, emotions people feel in response to things that affect other people, as well as the motives associated with those emotions. 

“For example, if your friend is sad, you will likely experience an emotion, such as empathy, as a result,” he said. “We can, and do, experience a very broad range of emotions for others, such as anger when someone is treated unfairly, embarrassment when a friend commits a social faux pas, or jealousy when someone we love develops an interest in another person.”

These emotions, he added, can evoke a motive, which can lead to behavior directed at changing something about the situation or the people involved. 

Promoting Student Research

Stocks contributes to student success at UT Tyler not only as a professor and researcher, but also at times, as a research assistant. He directs the psychology undergraduate program and the university’s Social Emotions and Motivation Laboratories, where he primarily works with undergraduates on original research projects.

Most projects involve emotions and motives in one way or another. The professor and his students primarily conduct laboratory research, but occasionally, they will utilize online surveys or go out into the community to collect data from non-student populations.

One project looks at the effectiveness of different types of apologies on reducing feelings of guilt. “We found that indirect apologies, such as, apologizing anonymously on a website, is just as effective at reducing guilt as apologizing directly to the person for whom guilt is experienced,” Stocks said. “In another line of research, we are looking at the emotional consequences of telling and keeping secrets, as well as how the content of those secrets influences our feelings and motives.”

In addition to emotion research, Stocks said they also have a few lines of research that focus on social perception. For example, students are studying how people perceive individuals versus groups. “It turns out that we have very different emotional and motivational responses to people if we perceive them as an individual rather than as a member of a large group,” he said. “In fact, if a group becomes too large, we cease to respond emotionally to them at all.”

Stocks particularly calls watching UT Tyler students develop over the course of their academic career “an absolute honor and privilege.” 

“I’ve been teaching long enough to see students transition from timid, inexperienced freshmen to well-respected, tenure-track professors at prestigious universities,” he said. “It is surreal and incredibly rewarding to see that level of growth and change in students.”

He also believes UT Tyler is a unique university, seeing it grow at an incredible rate while still holding a smaller, private institution feel.

“The natural setting of UT Tyler is also definitely a bonus,” he added. “The CEP is an amazing college, and our students, in my experience, are committed and hard-working. From my point of view, there are opportunities available for students and faculty in CEP that I haven’t seen at other universities.”

With his teaching and research lab duties, in the near future Stocks hopes to transition from his undergraduate program directorship role into directing the proposed Master of Science in psychological sciences program that the college is currently developing.

During free time, Stocks enjoys camping, hiking, kayaking and “pretty much anything that involves being outside.”

#CEP

Read more from the April 2021 issue!