Research Questions
- Are we better at detecting deception during the day versus at night?
- Do we lose the capacity to empathize when we are less alert?
Purpose
The purpose of studying how time of day and alertness impact our perceptions of others is to enhance our understanding of human judgment, empathy, and decision-making across social settings. By exploring whether people are better at detecting deception during the day or night, we can identify potential factors that influence accuracy in assessing others’ honesty, with implications for fields like law enforcement and healthcare. Investigating how alertness affects empathy sheds light on our ability to connect with and understand others, impacting relationships and teamwork. This research contributes to fields of psychology, criminal justice, and organizational behavior by highlighting the importance of fatigue for interpersonal perception, informing strategies that promote better social interactions.
Previous Work
The Role of Alertness in Cognitive and Affective Empathy (Curran et al., 2024)
Curran, B., Miller, A., & Krizan, Z. (2024, June). The Role of Alertness in Cognitive and Affective Empathy [Poster Presentation]. SLEEP Conference, Houston, TX, United States.
Curran, B., Miller, A., & Krizan, Z. (2023, June). Circadian effects on deception detection [Poster Presentation]. SLEEP Conference, Indianapolis, IN, United States.
Curran, B., Miller, A., & Krizan, Z. (2024, March). Time-of-day effects on deception detection [Poster Presentation]. American Psychology-Law Society Conference, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Study shows college students have less empathy when they are less alert
Curran, B. (2024, June 3). Affective empathy is the ability to feel emotions in concordance with another, and cognitive empathy is the ability to understand [Comment on the webpage Study shows college students have less empathy when they are less alert]. SLEEP 2024. https://www.sleepmeeting.org/study-shows-college-students-have-less-emp…
Related Work
Sleepy Anger: Restricted Sleep Amplifies Angry Feelings (Krizan & Hisler, 2019)
Guthrie, T., Trout, N., Strauel, C., & Krizan, Z. (2024) The Role of Cognitive Anxiety in Nightly Sleep Duration [Poster Presentation]. Midwestern Psychological Association Conference, Chicago, IL, United States.