Cheryl Wakslak

Cheryl Wakslak’s research focuses on how people interact with others across various forms of distance. Much of her recent research looks at communication, exploring when people use more big-picture, abstract language versus more specific language, and how this influences the way they are perceived by others. Projects here focus especially on the role of gender, power, diversity, and perceptions of leadership and future potential. Cheryl is further interested in how these dynamics -- and other communication signals -- play out in the entrepreneurial space. She explores these interests using a variety of approaches, including experiments, field studies, and archival data analysis.

Education

• PhD in Psychology, 2008
  Dept. of Psychology, New York University

• Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Summa cum Laude with Departmental Honors, 2001
  Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Companies

• Associate Professor University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business (2016)
• Assistant Professor USC Marshall School of Business (2010 — 2016)

PUBLICATIONS

• Laura Huang, Priyanka Joshi, Cheryl Wakslak, Andy Wu (2021) "Gender differences in communication and investor perceptions of entrepreneurial potential. ," Academy of Management Journal 64, 716-740.
• Priyanka Joshi, Cheryl Wakslak, Medha Raj, Yaacov Trope (2016) "Communicating with distant others: The functional use of abstraction ," Social Psychological and Personality Science 7, 37-44.
• Priyanka Joshi, Cheryl Wakslak (2014) "Communicating with the crowd: Speakers use abstract messages when addressing larger audiences ," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, 351-362.
• Jennifer Mueller, Cheryl Wakslak, Vish Krishnan (2014) "Construing creativity: The how and why of recognizing creative ideas ," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 51, 81-87.
• Cheryl Wakslak, Pamela Smith, Albert Han (2014) "Using abstract language signals power ," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107.
• Ernest Baskin, Cheryl Wakslak, Yaacov Trope, Nathan Novemsky (2014) "Why feasibility matters to gift recipients: A construal-level approach to gift giving. ," Journal of Consumer Research 41, 169-182.
• Caglar Irmak, Cheryl Wakslak, Yaacov Trope (2013) "Selling the forest, buying the trees: The effect of construal level on seller-buyer price discrepancy ," Journal of Consumer Research 40, 284-297.
• Erin Burgoon, Marlone Henderson, Cheryl Wakslak (2013) "How do we want others to decide? Geographical distance influences evaluations of decision-makers. ," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39, 826-838.
• Elinor Amit, Cheryl Wakslak, Yaacov Trope (2013) "The use of visual and verbal means of communication across psychological distance ," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39, 43-56.
• Cheryl Wakslak (2012) "The experience of cognitive dissonance in important and trivial domains ," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48, 1361-1364.
• Cheryl Wakslak, Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman (2012) "Self Conceptualization, Self Knowledge, and Regulatory Scope: A Construal Level View ," Handbook of Self Knowledge Guilford Press, 19, 310-326.
• Cheryl Wakslak (2012) "The where and when of low and high probability events. ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 117, 150–157.
• Cheryl Wakslak, John Jost, Patrick Bauer (2011) "Spreading rationalization: Increased support for large-scale and small-scale social systems following system threat. ," Social Cognition 29, 288-302.
• Marlone Henderson, Cheryl Wakslak, Kentaro Fujita, John Rohrbach (2011) "Construal Level Theory and Spatial Distance Implications for Mental Representation, Judgment, and Behavior ," Social Psychology 42, 165–173.
• Marlone Henderson, Cheryl Wakslak (2010) "Over the hills and faraway: The relationship between physical distance and abstraction ," Current Directions in Psychological Science 19, 390-394.
• Katherine Darwent, Kentaro Fujita, Cheryl Wakslak (2010) "On the Role of Abstraction in Global and Local Processing Phenomena ," Psychological Inquiry 21, 198 - 202.
• Marlone Henderson, Cheryl Wakslak (2010) "Psychological Distance and Priming: When Do Semantic Primes Impact Social Evaluations? ," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36, 975-985.
• Alison Ledgerwood, Cheryl Wakslak, Margery Wang (2010) "Differential information use for near and distant decisions. ," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46, 638-642.