Hello! I'm Diego
A Social Psychology PhD student at Arizona State University working in the Cooperation and Conflict Lab with Dr. Aktipis. I'm also a researcher in The Human Generosity Project, where we use principles from biology, anthropology, and psychology to understand the nature of generosity across cultures.
Research Projects
I study how and why people feel empathy for each other and how sources from the environment such as the availability of resources and predictability of challenges influence people's willingness or ability to mirror other’s emotions. I also study how feeling empathy sometimes increases our motivation to help others; and at other times, hinders our motivation to do so. My work also looks for environmental and social sources of prosociality more broadly.
Empathy Motivates Willingness to Help in the Absence of Interdependence
In this project we find that empathic concern predicts willingness to help others in spite of a lack of shared fate, and in situations where outcomes are independent between self and others.
We explore situations in which sharing food leads to loses of interdependence, trust, and prosociality.
Do challenges and mutual aid explain social class differences in empathy?
In this project we aim to test the assumption that social class differences in affective empathy are explained by the extent to which low social class people, who absent of money, need to engage in mutual aid to solve ongoing social and financial challenges.
Need-based vs. debt-based transfers: predictability of risks determine expectations of repayment
Southwest American ranchers are less likely to expect repayment for lending a hand when the reason for helping is perceived to happen at unpredictable times. Here, we aim to replicate and extend these findings among a more diverse population.
Is empathetic distress modulated by relatedness or perceived fitness interdependence?
Empathetic distress reduces helping motivation, but people who can down-regulate their distress are more likely to help. Here we propose that emotion regulation should be higher when the target is positively interdependent with self.
Education
Arizona State University
M.A. Social Psychology, 2019
In 2019 I graduated from Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. The topic of my thesis was on the experimental effects of food sharing on cooperation.
The University of New Mexico
B.S. Psychology, 2015
B.A. Evolutionary Anthropology, 2015
In 2015 I graduated from The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM with distinctions in Psychology (Summa Cum Laude) and Anthropology (Magna Cum Laude). The topic of my undergraduate thesis was on the quasi-experimental relationship between ingroup vs. outgroup empathy and altruism.
