Staff profile

**I am accepting applications for MRes students.**

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, MIT, 2020

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Regina, 2020

Ph.D. in Social-Personality Psychology, University of Rochester, 2019

M.A. in Social-Personality Psychology, University of Rochester, 2017

M.A. in Experimental Psychology, University of Texas (Permian Basin), 2014

Research Profile

I take a "systems biology" approach to understanding human psychology. 

I'm interested in understanding whether higher-order social and cognitive functions can be connected to basic biological processes. I use physiological methods to understand what is happening in our bodies when we experience emotions and stress. My main area of research right now is emotional piloerection in humans. 

• Science communication
• Religion
• Emotion
• Psychophysiology
• Systems Biology
• Proteomics
• Pseudoscience and misinformation
• Piloerection

• Quantitative Social Psychology

Journal Article

• Pennycook, Gordon, Bago, Bence & McPhetres, Jonathon (2023). Science beliefs, political ideology, and cognitive sophistication. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 152(1): 80–97.
• Većkalov, Bojana, Zarzeczna, Natalia, McPhetres, Jonathon, van Harreveld, Frenk & Rutjens, Bastiaan T. (2022). Psychological Distance to Science as a Predictor of Science Skepticism Across Domains. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
• McPhetres, Jonathon & Zickfeld, Janis H. (2022). The physiological study of emotional piloerection: A systematic review and guide for future research. International Journal of Psychophysiology 179: 6-20.
• Pennycook, Gordon, McPhetres, Jonathon, Bago, Bence & Rand, David G. (2022). Beliefs About COVID-19 in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States: A Novel Test of Political Polarization and Motivated Reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 48(5): 750-765.
• Većkalov, Bojana, Zarzeczna, Natalia, Niehoff, Esther, McPhetres, Jonathon & Rutjens, Bastiaan T. (2021). A matter of time… consideration of future consequences and temporal distance contribute to the ideology gap in climate change scepticism. Journal of Environmental Psychology 78: 101703.
• McPhetres, Jonathon, Rand, David G. & Pennycook, Gordon (2021). Character deprecation in fake news: Is it in supply or demand? Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 24(4): 624.
• McPhetres, Jonathon, Albayrak-Aydemir, Nihan, Barbosa Mendes, Ana, Chow, Elvina C., Gonzalez-Marquez, Patricio, Loukras, Erin, Maus, Annika, O’Mahony, Aoife, Pomareda, Christina, Primbs, Maximilian A., Sackman, Shalaine L., Smithson, Conor J. R. & Volodko, Kirill (2021). A decade of theory as reflected in Psychological Science (2009–2019). PLOS ONE 16(3): e0247986.
• McPhetres, Jonathon & Shtulman, Andrew (2021). Piloerection is not a reliable physiological correlate of awe. International Journal of Psychophysiology 159: 88-93.
• Tierney, Warren, Hardy, Jay, Ebersole, Charles R., Viganola, Domenico, Clemente, Elena Giulia, Gordon, Michael, Hoogeveen, Suzanne, Haaf, Julia, Dreber, Anna, Johannesson, Magnus, Pfeiffer, Thomas, Huang, Jason L., Vaughn, Leigh Ann, DeMarree, Kenneth, Igou, Eric R., Chapman, Hanah, Gantman, Ana, Vanaman, Matthew, Wylie, Jordan, Storbeck, Justin, Andreychik, Michael R., McPhetres, Jon & Uhlmann, Eric Luis (2021). A creative destruction approach to replication: Implicit work and sex morality across cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 93: 104060.
• McPhetres, J., Rutjens, B.T. Weinstein N. & Brisson, J.A. (2019). Modifying attitudes about modified foods: increased knowledge leads to more positive attitudes. Journal of Environmental Psychology
• McPhetres, J. (2019). Oh, the things you don’t know: Awe promotes awareness of knowledge gaps and science interest. Cognition & Emotion
• McPhetres, J. & Zuckerman, M. (2018). Religiosity predicts negative attitudes towards science and lower levels of science literacy. PLOS One

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• McPhetres, J. (2019). Are you scared of GMOs? Scientific American