Jon McPhetres, Ph.D.

As a social and biological psychologist, I want to understand how emotions and stress influence our behaviour and cognition, as well as the biological processes that underpin those experiences.

I like to think of it as psychology from the neck down.

View My CV

Research Interests

My research looks at physiological changes, like piloerection, to understand emotions.

I measure cardiovascular changes to understand how our body responds to stress.

I look for biomarkers in blood and saliva that can tell us something about the biological processes underpinning our experiences.

I ask questions like:

Why do we get goosebumps?

How do emotions and stress affect our reasoning and decision-making?

What are the physiological processes occurring with different emotions?

How are our biological functions connected to our psychological experience?

Latest Research

Diverse stimuli induce piloerection and yield varied autonomic responses in humans

Individuals lack the ability to accurately detect emotional piloerection

Morphology and quantification of piloerection in humans