Rose McDermott

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Rose McDermott is a professor of political science at Brown University who is interested in exploring the psychological, biological, and genetic aspects of political decision making and behavior. As a political psychologist working in the area of international relations, she uses experiments to explore the underlying sources of aggression and violence. She has worked extensively on topics such as emotion, identity, and risk taking. She recently coedited a volume about how the intersection of biology and politics can illuminate the origins of political preferences and behavior. McDermott plans to explore the nature and foundation of sex differences in aggression, and how these expressions manifest in ways that influence foreign-policy decision making. She hopes to conduct a series of experiments that explore the influence of hormones on various aspects of leadership and followership in conflict escalation, negotiation, and resolution. McDermott has a PhD in political science and an MA in experimental social psychology, both from Stanford University. She held a National Institute on Drug Abuse Postdoctoral Fellowship in substance abuse treatment outcome research at the San Francisco VA Medical Center through the University of San Francisco Department of Psychiatry. McDermott has also held fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and the Women and Public Policy Program, both at Harvard University.