Education

 

B.A., Psychology

University of California, Santa Barbara, 2000

 

B.A., Religious Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara, 2000

 

M.A., Psychology

University of California, Santa Barbara, 2005

 

Ph.D., Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology,

University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009

 

Professional Experience

 

2009 - present, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mind Research Network for Neurodiagnostic

Discovery

2009 – present, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of New Mexico Psychology

2007 - present, Research Fellow, MacArthur Foundation's Law and Neuroscience Project

2007, Instructor, University of California, Santa Barbara Psychology

Advanced Research Methods

2002 - 2007, Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Barbara Psychology

2001 - 2002, Research Staff, University of California, Santa Barbara Psychology

Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior

1999 - 2001, Research Assistant and Technician, University of California, Santa Barbara

Psychology

Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior

Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research

2000 - 2000, Behavioral Tutor – children with mental disabilities

 

Research Interests and Keywords

 

Justice Psychology (third-party punishment; motives for punishment; retribution; psychopathy; moral reasoning; jury bias; avoidance learning; paralimbic system)

 

Agency Detection (theory of mind; human-computer social interaction; anthropomorphism; dehumanization)

 

Honors and Awards

UNM Small Grant Award, 2011
Ruth L. Kirschstein National Service Research Award, 2010-2012
Mind Research Network independent research award, 2010 

MacArthur Law & Neuroscience Project travel award, 2009

MacArthur Law & Neuroscience Project research sub-award, 2008 – 2009

MacArthur Law & Neuroscience Project course training award, 2008

MRN fMRI Image Acquisition and Analyses Course Certification, 2008

UCSB Psychology Professional Development Grant, 2007

Gruter Institute Conference Travel Grant, 2005 – 2007

Humanities & Social Sciences Graduate Research Grant, 2004

SPSP Student Travel Award, 2004

UCSB Distinction in the Major of Psychology, 2000

UCSB High Honors in Psychology, 2000

UCSB High Honors in Religious Studies, 2000

UCSB Dean’s Honors in Academic Performance, 1998 – 2000

 

Publications

 

Aharoni, E., Vincent, G. M., Harenski, C. L., Calhoun, V. D., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Gazzaniga, M. S., & Kiehl, K. A. (under review). Brain activity predicts future antisocial behavior.

 

Steele, V. R., Aharoni, E., Munro, G. E., Calhoun, V. D., Nyalakanti, P., Stevens, M. C., Pearlson, G. D., & Kiehl, K. A. (under review). A large scale (n=102) functional neuroimaging study of response inhibition in a Go/NoGo Task.

 

Aharoni, E. & Kiehl, K. A. (in press). Evading justice: Quantifying criminal success in incarcerated psychopathic offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (in press). Moralistic punishment as a crude social insurance plan. In T. Nadlehoffer (Ed.) The Future of Punishment. Oxford University Press.

 

Aharoni, E., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., & Kiehl, K. A. (2012). Can Psychopathic Offenders Discern Moral Wrongs? A New Look at the Moral/Conventional Distinction. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121(2), 484-497.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2011). Punishment without reason: Isolating retribution in lay punishment of criminal offenders. Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law. Online First publication.

 

Aharoni, E., Antonenko, O., & Kiehl, K. A. (2011). Disparities in the moral intuitions of criminal offenders: The role of psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 45(3), 322-327.

 

Aharoni, E. (2009). Why do we punish? Studies of lay judgments against criminal offenders. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Psychology, UCSB. Santa Barbara, CA.

 

Aharoni, E., Funk, C., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Gazzaniga, M. (2008). Can neurological evidence help courts assess criminal responsibility? Lessons from law and neuroscience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124:145-60.

 

Aharoni, E., Weintraub, L. & Fridlund, A. J. (2007). No skin off my back: Retribution deficits in psychopathic motives for punishment. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 26(5), 869-889.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2007). Social reactions toward people vs. computers: how mere labels shape interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 23, 2175-2189.

 

Bailenson, J., Aharoni, E., Beall, A., Guadagno, R., Dimov, A., Blascovich, J. (2004). Comparing behavioral and self-report measures of agents' social presence in immersive virtual environments. Proceedings of the 7th Annual International Workshop on PRESENCE. (2004, Valencia, Spain).

 

Papers & Presentations

 

Aharoni, E. & Kiehl, K. A. (2011). Neural Mechanisms of Passive Avoidance Learning in Psychopathy. Conference proceedings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy in Montreal, CAN 2011.

 

Aharoni, E. & Kiehl, K. A. (2011). Quantifying Criminal Success in Psychopathic Offenders. Conference proceedings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy in Montreal, CAN 2011.

 

Aharoni, E. (2009). Current issues in moral judgment. Seminar on Law and Neuroscience in Santa Barbara, CA 2009.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2009). Why do we punish? Victim mate value sways criminal punishment in mock trials. Conference proceedings of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Tampa, FL 2009.

 

Aharoni, E., Fridlund, A. J., Weintraub, L. & Ma, T. (2007). Selective attention to threat in the psychopathic personality. Conference proceedings of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Williamsburg, VA 2007.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2007). Measuring punitive motives: A matter of life and death. Proceedings of the Law, The Brain, and Behavior Conference in Squaw Valley, CA 2007.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2005). Not just revenge: the role of behavior control in 3rd-party punishment. Conference proceedings of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in New Orleans, LA 2005.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2004). Effects of identity labeling and evaluative feedback on response biases toward human and computer interviewers. Conference proceedings of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Austin, TX 2004.

 

Aharoni, E. & Fridlund, A. J. (2004). Retribution: a means or an end? Proceedings of the Mind, Culture and Evolution Conference in Vancouver, BC 2004.

 

Societies

 

Association for Psychological Science, 2012 - present

Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, 2008 - present

MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project, 2007 - 2010

Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 2007 - present

New York Academy of Sciences, 2008

Society for the Evolutionary Analysis of Law, 2006 - present

Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2003 - present

American Psychological Society, 2005 - 2007

 

Teaching Experience

 

Instructor, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2007 

Advanced Research Methods

 

Teaching Assistance, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002 - 2007 

Introduction to Psychology

Abnormal Psychology

Introduction to Cognition

Advanced Research Methods

Introduction to Perception

 

Invited Speaker, University of California, Santa Barbara

OASIS Institute, 2012 

Law & Neuroscience graduate seminar, 2009

Law & Neuroscience graduate seminar, 2008

Gruter Institute Conference on Law, Behavior, and the Brain, 2007

Advanced Research Methods course, 2005

Medical Ethics seminar, 2000

 

Peer Review

Cognition

Cognition and Emotion
Social Justice Research

Behavioral Sciences and the Law

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Journal of Personality and Individual Differences

 

Volunteer Work

 

Coordinator, Developmenta and Evolutionary Psychology Seminar, UCSB, 2005

Research Assistant, Central Washington University Psychology, 1998

Chimpanzee Locomotion and Space Use