The aim of my research is to provide a foundation of research-based knowledge of how we deal with the things we find difficult in our lives, so I, and we, can better help each other. This basically means that I am interested in how we deal with the mistakes we do. That is, how do we appraise them? How do we feel about them? And what do we do to cope with them?

Hence, my core interest is placed in how a "concern for self-image" (i.e., how is this affecting me) and a "concern for social-image" (i.e., how is this affecting how other people think of me) elicit different feelings and different coping strategies (Gausel & leach, 2011). Typically, when it comes to self-critical feelings, these two appraisals elicit feelings of shame, feelings of inferiority and feelings of rejection (besides of other negative feelings such as anger). Specifically, we see that a "concern for self-image" often elicit felt shame, while a "concern for social-image" often elicit felt rejection. These two feelings (sometimes in conjunction with the appraisals) motivate distinct ways to cope with the situations. Pro-social coping-strategies such as a desire to offer restitution, to repair and communicate contrition often follow felt shame, while self-defensive (avoidance, cover-up) and aggressive responses often follow felt rejection (see Gausel, Leach, Vignoles & Brown, 2012). This means that the model that I, Colin and Viv have developed can actually help us understand when and why people go into self-defensive and aggressive motivation, and when they go into pro-social motivation.

Other than that, I am involved in projects focusing on:

Semantics, identity, emotions and the social bond
- -quantitative measurement and semantics (with Salthe)
- semantics and subjectivity
- denied shame (with Vignoles and Leach)
- communication and the social bond (with Løkkeberg and Giner-Sorolla)
- hedonism vs moral integrity on desire-fulfillment (with Salthe)
- emotions and identification (with Berndsen)
- differences between shame and guilt (with Brown)
- rage (with Leach and Vignoles).

Stigma and identity construction
- stigmatization of unemployed people (with Bourguignon and Herman)
- stigmatization of mental illness (with Thørrisen)
- social consequences of school drop out (with Bourguignon)
- bullying
- cross-cultural issues (with Cakal)
- contextualism (led by Vignoles)
- subjective experiences concerning minorities (with Ringnes)

Reconciliation and social relations:
- reconciliation in reciprocal conflicts (with Mazziotta, Feuchte, Nadler and Leach)
- trust (with Vasiljevic and Goyle)
- forgiveness (with Mazziotta and Feuchte)
- intergroup anxiety (with West, Cakal and Turner)

In conclusion, I love doing research and I hope the research we do can be of help to you or someone you know.