Research
Research Summary
My doctoral research, advised by Drs. Wendi Gardner and Daniel Molden, examined well-being from two angles: how self-concept shapes decision-making, and how people seek support and navigate conflict within their social networks. Before Northwestern, I worked with Dr. Fan Yang at the University of Chicago on how people evaluate what constitutes a good life. I received my B.S. from UCSD, where I was part of the Empathy and Emotion Lab.
Selected Publications
The associations between self-compassion and adult attachment: A meta-analysis
How does the way you treat yourself relate to how you love the people around you? In this paper, we explored the link between self-compassion and adult attachment styles. Self-compassion is thought to grow out of secure, caring relationships early in life, so we asked how closely it's tied to the way people connect with others as adults. Because researchers have measured attachment in many different ways over the past 40 years, we used a novel method (Li & Chan, 2012) to put these measures on a common scale. Synthesizing 46 studies with 17,650 participants, we found that people who are kinder to themselves tend to feel less anxious and less avoidant in their relationships..
Self-Transcendence or Self-Enhancement: People's Perceptions of Meaning and Happiness in Relation to the Self
What makes life feel meaningful, not just happy? In this paper, we explored how people tell the difference between a meaningful life and a happy one. We asked how much people weigh benefits to society (self-transcendence) versus benefits to themselves (self-enhancement) when judging each. Across 7 preregistered studies with 1,362 participants, we found that meaning depends more on helping others than happiness does. This held whether people were evaluating jobs, other people's lives, advice, or their own experiences. There was one twist: when people judged their own lives, such difference vanished.