Steven Smith
Department of Psychology
Saint Mary's University
923 Robie Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3C3
Canada
Home Page
Phone: (902) 420-5852
Fax: (902) 496-8287
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Broadly speaking, my research interests fall into the major categories of attitudes, social memory processes, and group decision making. I am interested in both the basic psychological issues related to these areas, as well as how they can be applied to real-world settings, particularly in health and legal settings. In my research in the attitudes area I have attempted to advance our understanding of how the cognitive structural underpinnings of attitudes impact on how individuals perceive their own attitudes, how attitudes affect attitude-behaviour consistency, as well as basic persuasion and compliance processes. I have explored these processes in a number of subject areas, but recently I have been focusing on people’s health attitudes and various aspects of health behaviour and health promotion. My social memory research has focused on understanding how attitudes bias social memory and how we can distinguish between accurate and inaccurate social memories. I have focused on both eyewitness memory for criminal events, as well as memory as it is applied to understanding the spread of infectious and enteric disease. I have also begun to explore the role of the media and communication in individual and group decision making processes. Specifically, how can we improve group communication to facilitate and improve group decision making, especially in situations (e.g., juries, aviation, medical teams) where errors can be and often are catastrophic. In addition, along with colleagues, I have begun a comprehensive examination of how the popular media influences people’s judgments of the legal system.
 Books:
- Myers, D. G. & Smith, S. M. (2007). Exploring Social Psychology: Canadian Edition.
Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
Journal Articles:
- Fabrigar, L. R., Petty, R. E., Smith, S. M., & Crites, S. L. Jr. (2006) Understanding knowledge
effects on attitude-behavior consistency: The role of relevance, complexity, and amount of knowledge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 556-577.
- Fleming, M. T., Smith, S. M., & Slaunwhite, J. (2006) Investigating non-technical competencies
in cardiac surgery teams. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 49, 22-30.
- Lefebvre, C. D., Marchand, Y., Smith, S. M., & Connolly, J. F. (2007). Determining
eyewitness identification accuracy using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Psychophysiology, 44, 894-104.
- Lindsay, R. C. L., Ross, D. F., Smith, S. M., & Flanagan, S. (1999). Does race influence measures of lineup fairness? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, 109-120.
- Lindsay, R. C. L., Smith, S. M., & Pryke, S. (1999). Measures of lineup fairness: Do they postdict identification accuracy? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, 93-108.
- Smith, S. M., Fabrigar, L. R., MacDougall, B. L., & Wiesenthal, N. L. (2008). The Role of
Amount, Cognitive Elaboration, and Structural Consistency of Attitude-Relevant Knowledge in the Formation of Attitude Certainty. European Journal of Social Psychology
- Smith, S. M., Fabrigar, L. R. & Norris, M. E. (2008). Reflecting on Six Decades of Selective Exposure Research: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities. Social and Personality Compass, 2, 464-493.
- Smith, S. M., Fabrigar, L. R., Powell, D. M. & Estrada, M.-J. (2007). The role of information
processing capacity and goals in attitude-congruent selective exposure effects.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 33. 948-960.
- Smith, S. M. & Kalin, R. (2006). Right-Wing Authoritarianism as a moderator of the
similarity-attraction effect. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 38, 63-71.
- Smith, S. M., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Pryke, S. (2001). Postdictors of eyewitness errors: Can false identifications be diagnosed in the cross race situation? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 5, 153-169.
- Smith, S. M., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Pryke, S. (2000). Postdictors of eyewitness errors: Can false identifications be diagnosed? Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 542-550.
- Smith, S. M., Stinson, V., & Patry, M. (2007). But what is the CSI Effect? How crime dramas
influence people's beliefs about forensic evidence. Canadian Journal of Police and
Security Services, 5, 187-195.
Other Publications:
- Fabrigar, L. R., Smith, S. M., & Brannon, L. A. (1999). Social cognition: Attitudes as cognitive structures. In F. Durso, R. Schvaneveldt, M. Chi, S. Lindsay, R. Nickerson, & S. Dumais (Eds.), Handbook of applied cognition (pp. 173-206). London: Wiley Books.
- Smith, S. M., & Fabrigar, L. R. (2000). Attitude: Overview. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), The encyclopedia of psychology. New York: APA Books & Oxford University Press.
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