Allan Fenigstein, Ph.D Professor   Samuel Mather Hall 120                                          740-427-5372 fenigstein@kenyon.edu

•  B.S. Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 1969.  Psychology
•  Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, 1974.  Personality-Social Psychology
 
 

Came to Kenyon in:

 1974 
 
 

Professional History

•  1974-81    Assistant Professor of Psychology, Kenyon College •  1975         Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Pacific Medical Center •  1977-78    Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia •  1980         Research Psychologist, U.S. Army Research Institute  •  1981         Senior Research Associate, Family Television Research Center, Yale Univ. •  1981-91   Associate Professor of Psychology, Kenyon College •  1982-83   Visiting Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Miami •  1984-87   Chairman, Department of Psychology, Kenyon College •  1990        Visiting Lecturer of Psychology, Institute of Social and Applied Psychology                     University of Kent at Canterbury, England  •  1991        Visiting Professor of Psychology Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel  •  1994-95   Visiting Fellow, University of London, England •  1991-present  Professor of Psychology, Kenyon College

 

Teaching Interests

Social Psychology, Human Sexuality

 

Research Interests

•  The self; egocentrism •  Self-consciousness and self-esteem •  Paranoid thought and behavior •  Evolutionary psychology, gender, and sexual jealousy •  The psychology of genocide •  Human aggression •  Tobacco and alcohol use and abuse

 

Recent Publications (students shown in bold)

Fenigstein, A.  (In press).  Distress over the infidelity of a child’s spouse:  A crucial test of evolutionary and socialization hypotheses.  Personal Relationships.         Combs, D., Penn, D., & Fenigstein, A.  (In press).  Ethnic differences in sub-clinical paranoia:  An expansion of norms and validity of the Paranoia Scale. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.         Fenigstein, A.  (2001, 1998).  Paranoia.  In H. Friedman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Mental Health.  San Diego, CA:  Academic Press.   Reprinted in  The Disorders: Specialty Articles from the Encyclopedia of Mental Health.  San Diego, CA: Academic Press.         Fenigstein, A.  (1998).  Were obedience pressures a factor in the Holocaust?  Analyse and Kritik, 20, 1-20.         Fenigstein, A.  (1998).  Reconceptualizing the psychology of the perpetrators.  In D. Shilling (Ed.),  Lessons and Legacies, (Vol. II, pp. 55-84).  Evanston, IL:  Northwestern University Press   .         Fenigstein, A.  (1997).  Paranoid thought and self-schematic processing.  Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 16, 77-94.         Fenigstein, A. (1996).  The paranoid personality.  In C. G. Costello (Ed.),  Personality Characteristics of the Personality Disordered  (pp. 242-275).  New York:  Wiley.         Fenigstein, A., & Abrams, D.  (1993).  Self-attention and the egocentric assumption of shared perspectives.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 287-303.         Fenigstein, A., & Vanable, P. A. (1992).  Paranoia and self-consciousness.  Journal of   Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 129-138.

 

Committees, Organizations, and Groups

•  Campaign Planning Committee •  Task Force on Alcohol and Other Drugs •  Judicial Board •  Executive Committee, Science Division Representative •  Faculty Lectureships Committee

 

Current Projects

•  Responses to infidelity •  Individual differences in social comparison tendencies •  The paranoid attributional style •  Cognitive consequences of paranoia:  Looking for cheaters; conspiratorial thinking

 

The best thing about being at Kenyon is

 Freedom to pursue interesting ideas.  Bright, inquisitive colleagues and students.
 
 

Hobbies and favorite things

 Family, travel, books and movies, New York sports teams.
 
 

One thing to do or accomplish in life

 Be a mensch.  Make a difference.
 

Back to Psychology faculty page