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Helen Boucher
Associate Professor  ·  Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 2005

 Helen Boucher
  • Cultural influences on self-knowledge, self-evaluation, and self-regulation

  • Functions of the relational self

  • The meaning maintenance model

Contact Information

Phone: 207-786-6395

Email: hboucher@bates.edu

Office: Pettengill 361

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Education

Research Interests

Broadly speaking, Prof. Boucher studies social influences on the self. One such influence is culture: Interestingly, members of East Asian cultures tend to describe themselves less consistently, and less positively, than European-Americans. Also, they seem to have less of a need to feel unique than European-Americans. She tries to identify the boundary conditions of these phenomena, and uncover why these differences exist.

Another influence on the self is the relationships of which one is a part (i.e., the relational self). Prof. Boucher has examined how relational selves may serve a self-regulatory function when the self is threatened. For example, after receiving negative feedback, participants who were asked to think about who they are in a specific relationship felt better about themselves than those who did not imagine a relational self. Prof. Boucher is interested in examining this phenomenon with other threats and other outcomes.

Finally, the meaning maintenance model states that humans have a drive to perceive the world and themselves as meaningful and comprehensible. When this drive is threatened, they strive to restore a sense of meaning, often in domains that have nothing to do with the original threat. One way Prof. Boucher has tested this model is by making participants think about their death. Relative to a control condition who did not think about their death, participants who thought about their death became more certain about their own personalities. This is a relatively new theory of human behavior and there are many exciting directions Prof. Boucher would like to pursue.

Courses Taught

Selected Publications

* indicates Bates student

Boucher, H. C. (2011). Self-knowledge defenses to self-threats. Journal of Research in Personality, 45, 165-174.

Boucher, H. C., & O'Dowd, M. C.* (2011). Language and the bicultural dialectical self. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17, 211-216.

Boucher, H. C. (2010). Understanding Western-East Asian differences and similarities in self-enhancement. Personality and Social Psychology Compass, 4, 304-317.

Boucher, H. C., & Maslach, C. (2009). Culture and individuation: The role of norms and self-construals. Journal of Social Psychology, 149, 677-693.

Boucher, H. C., Peng, K., Shi, J., & Wang, L. (2009). Culture and implicit self-esteem: Chinese are “good” and “bad” at the same time. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 24-45.

Spencer-Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009). The dialectical self-concept: Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 29-44.

Chen, S., & Boucher, H. C. (2008). Relational selves as self-affirmational resources. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 716-733.

Chen, S., Boucher, H. C., & Tapias, M. P. (2006). The relational self revealed: Integrative conceptualization and implications for interpersonal life. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 151-179.

Kwan, V. S. Y., Bond, M. H., Boucher, H. C., Maslach, C., & Gan, Y. (2002). Individuation: More complex in collectivist than individualistic cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 300-310.

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