Name Todd Heatherton | ||
Todd F. Heatherton is professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, as well as an Associate Editor of Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. His recent research uses social brain sciences approach, which combines theories and methods of evolutionary psychology, social cognition, and cognitive neuroscience to examine social behavior. He was President of the Society for Personality And Social Psychology in 2011.
Research
Much of Heatherton's work has concentrated on examining the relationship between adolescent smoking and film. His work has helped to shed light on the strong relationship between children witnessing film's with smoking characters, and the initiation of adolescent smoking. Along with colleagues, Heatherton has helped to isolate risk factors, including access to movies online and low parental restrictions on film, to an increased likelihood of adolescent smoking. He has also conducted research concerning the neurological underpinnings of smoking addiction.
Heatherton has also conducted a great amount of research concerning the risk factors of bulimia nervosa, using the Eating Disorder Inventory. His work has helped to reaffirm perfectionism, low self-esteem, and a negative perceived weight status as risk factors for bulimia, while asserting that age could be a modifier in onset among at-risk individuals. A 20-year longitudinal study has also shown that marriage and children could be a modifier in bulimia in women. His work has also isolated low self-efficacy as a more succinct risk factor for bulimia than the multi-faceted dimension of self-esteem.
Heatherton's recent work has concentrated on the study of social neuroscience.