Margery Lucas

My research interests were varied and interdisciplinary. Early in my career at Wellesley, I conducted research in psycholinguistics, with a focus on semantic aspects of sentence processing. More recently, my research focus was in decision-making, particularly with regard to influences on altruistic and cooperative decisions. In my research I typically used economic tasks to study the conditions that elicit fairness and generosity or competition over resources. I was also interested in the effects of impulsivity on making decisions. Factors that influence women’s body image were another line of research.

In my teaching, I aimed to help students to become better critical thinkers, to be able to evaluate evidence, and to appreciate the importance of evolutionary theory in understanding how the mind works. I also encouraged students to take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of psychology and to apply ideas and insights from academic research to real-world issues. I taught courses in cognition, psychology of language, research methods, and evolution and human behavior.. I also taught the cognitive and linguistic sciences capstone seminar which covered topics in cognitive science including decision-making, consciousness, and cooperation and competition.

In retirement my activities include reading widely in literature and in history, traveling, cooking, sewing, and walking in nature. I also enjoy spending time with my Siberian cat, Vanya.