Arielle Baskin-Sommers
Associate Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry • arielle.baskin-sommers@yale.edu • Twitter
“The United States correctional system struggles with an identity crisis centered on whether the purpose of incarceration is to punish or rehabilitate offenders.”
Arielle Baskin-Sommers is an Associate Professor of Psychology and of Psychiatry and Director of the Mechanisms of Disinhibition (MoD) Laboratory at Yale University.
Dr. Baskin-Sommers’ research utilizes interdisciplinary theoretical principles and methods (e.g., psychophysiology, neuroimaging, self-report) to distinguish the deficits associated with these phenotypically similar syndromes in order to improve the identification of these syndromes and develop innovative syndrome-specific interventions. Her research to date has involved a programmatic series of studies that provide evidence regarding the distinct cognitive-affective correlates that underlay different forms of disinhibition. Additionally, her more recent work aims to translate cognitive-affective science into increasingly specific and effective interventions for disinhibited individuals. Pilot work has been completed with regard to externalizing and psychopathic offenders and preliminary analyses are quite promising, demonstrating that you can differentially change behavior if you target cognitive-affective deficits that are specific to a particular syndrome. To the extent that we can distinguish the pre-disposing mechanisms associated with disinhibited syndromes and conceptualize their impact on behavior, we are poised to unravel the problem of disinhibitory psychopathology.
Projects
