Our Team

Melanie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. Her research interests include children’s understanding of gossip, sarcasm, and prosocial teasing. She’s also interested in examining how this understanding is influenced by cues, culture, perspective taking skills, and empathy in adolescence and adulthood.

Caelan’s Master’s thesis is examining why people gossip. His research project is investigating the relative strength of listener relevance and group norms as cues to gossip for children, adolescents, and adults.

Jordanna’s Honours thesis aims to determine how self-esteem is influenced by short term gossip activity in adults.