Jeannette Haviland-Jones

Title: Professor I, Undergraduate Vice Chair
Areas: Social Psychology/Intradisciplinary Health
Phone: 732-445-4036/4639/3991
Email: baljones@rci.rutgers.edu
Campus: Livingston
Building: Tillett Hall 101d, 405, 413, 415, 417, 203

I came to Rutgers University in 1971 with a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Michigan State University. Within a few years I had established my research program in emotional development, a new field at that point. My teaching interests centered both on my emotion research and on development broadly, especially periods of change such as adolescence. My research interests include emotional displays across the lifespan, gender differences in emotions and the organizing effects of emotion on personality and social development.

About 15 years ago I established the Human Emotions Lab. We have developed tools for approaching emotion as a dynamic system that influences complex thought processes and man kinds of behavior, including autonomic behavior. Recently we have included semiochemicals as another method of non-verbal emotional communication. The semiochemicals — fragrances, odorants, pheromones, and body odors influence mood, attitude, memory, reaction time and social behavior. This study includes environmental influences on emotion and well-being. In a very popular set of studies we showed that flowers and even flower scents promote happiness in people. We suggested an evolutionary theory for this in which flowers became the “pets” of the plant world and are supported by people to reciprocate emotional support lending a bit of support to general wellness.

I have published several books on adolescence or on emotion and am co-editor of the Handbook of Emotion. The Human Emotions Lab supports the scholarly work of both graduate and undergraduate students and is a site of lively investigation.