Joseph Hilgard joins the Illinois State University Department of Psychology as an assistant professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology with a minor in Statistics from the University of Missouri in 2015. He also has a B.A. in Neuroscience and a B.A. in Russian Language and Literature, both from Dartmouth College. His research focuses on aggression, prejudice, and self-control. He also has an interest in meta-research, or the study of studies, as well as trying to understand the reasons people like playing games, and why sometimes people play games for so long that they do poorly at school or work.
Professor Hilgard has been published many times in journals including Psychological Bulletin, Psychology of Popular Media Culture, and Psychological Science. He was a nominee for the Donald K. Anderson Graduate Teaching Award in 2015. He continued his postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania. This fall he is teaching introductory psychology and a seminar-style course on aggression. In the future, he hopes to also teach classes on research methods and statistics.
Professor Hilgard enjoys playing games and is particularly fond of classic card games like Bridge or euro-style board games like Carcassonne. He is a fencer and is currently working on his tennis game, as well.
