Research Assistant Professor

Office: 533 Wilson Hall
Phone: (615) 322-0059
Fax: (615) 343-8449
Email: 

Personal Website

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Degrees

• Ph.D. Vanderbilt, 1999

Research Area

• Kirby's research focuses broadly on emotions and stress. Specific areas of interest include personal and situational antecedents to emotional reactions, physiological responses associated with emotions, differentiating different emotional reactions (in particular positive emotional reactions), and health consequences of emotions. This research is anchored in an (italics) appraisal theory (close italics) perspective. Appraisal is a meaning analysis in which the adaptational significance of one’s circumstances is evaluated. In this meaning analysis what is happening in the situation is evaluated in relation to one’s personal needs, goals, abilities and values. The outcome of this evaluation determines and organizes one’s emotional state.

Current Courses

• PSY 245: Emotion; PSY 231: Social Psychology

Representative Publications

• Smith, C. A., David, B. & Kirby, L. D. (2006). Emotion-Eliciting Appraisals of Social Situations. In J. Forgas (Ed.) Affective Influences on Social Behavior. New York: Psychology Press.
• Smith, C. A., & Kirby, L. D. (2005). With no one-to-one linguistic mapping, how do we decide what is, or is not, a distinct emotional state? Psychological Inquiry, 16, 37-41.
• Kirby, L. D., & Smith, C. A. (2005, Abstract). Physiological activities in emotion are organized around the adaptational implications of appraisal: But, what does this mean? Psychophysiology, 42, S20.
• Smith, C. A., & Kirby, L. D. (2004). Appraisal as a pervasive determinant of anger. Emotion, 4, 133-138.
• Rani, P., Sarkar, N., Smith, C.A., & Kirby, L. D. (2004). Anxiety detecting robotic system – Towards implicit human-robot collaboration. Robotica, 22, 85-95.
• Wright, R. A. & Kirby, L. D. (2003). Cardiovascular correlates of challenge and threat appraisals: A critical examination of the biopsychosocial analysis. Personality and Social Psychological Review, 7(3), 216-233.
• Wright, R. A., & Kirby, L. D. (2001). Effort determination of cardiovascular response: An integrative analysis with applications in social psychology. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 33, pp. 255-307. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
• Smith, C. A. & Kirby, L. D. (2001). Breaking the tautology: Toward delivering on the promise of appraisal theory. In K. Scherer, A. Schorr & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal theories of emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Smith, C. A. & Kirby, L. D. (2001). Affect and cognitive appraisal: From content to process models. In: J. Forgas (Ed.). Handbook of affect and social cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Smith, C. A. & Kirby, L. D. (2000). Consequences require antecedents: Toward a process model of emotion elicitation. In J. Forgas (Ed.). Feeling and thinking: The role of affect in social cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.