Julie Woodzicka to Deliver Lecture in Honor of Her Appointment to the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professorship Woodzicka’s talk on reacting to stressful situations will be held Oct. 8 in Northen Auditorium.

By Brian Laubscher
September 13, 2024

Julie Woodzicka, professor of cognitive and behavioral science at Washington and Lee University, will present a public lecture to mark her appointment to the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professorship at Washington and Lee University.

Woodzicka’s lecture, “I Know What I’d Do: Exploring Imagined Versus Actual Behavior in Stressful Situations,” will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8, in Northen Auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public.

In her talk, Woodzicka will explore how we imagine our behavior to be in stressful situations, as opposed to how we respond. She will examine reasons for the misalignment, along with the consequences associated with wrongly anticipating your behavior when confronted with stressful situations.

“I look forward to describing research conducted by myself and others that explores the gap between how we think we will act in stressful situations and how we actually do,” said Woodzicka. “This disconnect is important because we often judge others based on how we think we would have behaved in a similar situation.”

Woodzicka joined the W&L faculty in 2000 and currently serves as University Marshall and chair for the Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Science. She is also a core faculty member for the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and taught the university’s inaugural women’s and gender studies introductory course.

Woodzicka has been a member of many W&L committees over the years, including the President’s Advisory Committee, Faculty Executive Committee, Student Affairs Committee, Student Faculty Hearing Board, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Advisory Committee and Faculty Athletics Mentor Program (swimming). She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin­–Eau Claire, a Master of Arts from the University of Dayton and a Ph.D. from Boston College.

Her research focuses on the issues of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination, particularly how the targets of prejudice are affected by everyday instances of unfair treatment and how people confront racist and sexist humor. She is the co-author of numerous articles, including the recent articles “Psychological approaches to humor: The interaction of cognition and motivation,” published in The DeGruyter Handbook of Humor Studies, (2023) and “Addressing the challenges of confronting disparagement humor,” published in Social Psychology of Humor (2021).

Woodzicka is certified in the Facial Action Coding System, allowing her to examine nuanced facial expressions. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Council on Undergraduate Research and the American Psychological Foundation.

The William R. Kenan, Jr. Professorship at W&L was created in 1971 with a gift from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust to honor Mr. Kenan’s conviction in the importance of transformative teaching. Endowments funded by Trust grants support up to 131 William R. Kenan, Jr. Professorships at 56 distinguished colleges and universities across the United States per year, an effort that remains the trust’s largest and most far-reaching to date.