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Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Pittsburgh

Email:  wmklein@pitt.edu
Phone: 412-624-8267
Fax: 412-531-2548

Research Program
Dr. Klein’s research program focuses on social comparison processes, risk perception and
communication, and health cognition.  He is currently conducting studies examining the
effects of self-affirmation and social comparison on the processing of threatening health
information, the relationship between unrealistic optimism and health outcomes, the
interpretation of ambiguous personal feedback, and the way in which people evaluate
tradeoffs in medical decisions.
.
Leadership Positions and Honors
Phi Beta Kappa, Northwestern University, 1987
Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching,
Princeton University, 1990
Capital Area Social Psychological Association Dissertation Award, 1992
Department Chair, Department of Psychology, Colby College, 1998-2001
Steven Manners Faculty Development Award, University of Pittsburgh, 2003
Co-Editor, Psychology and Health
Director, Undergraduate Programs in Psychology, University of Pittsburgh

Representative Publications 
Weinstein ND, Klein WM:  Resistance of personal risk perceptions to debiasing interventions.
Health Psychol 14:132-140, 1995.
Klein WM:  Objective standards are not enough:  Affective, self-evaluative, and behavioral
responses to social comparison information.  J Pers Soc Psychol 72:763-774, 1997.
Klein WMP:  Post hoc construction of self-performance and other-performance in self-serving
social comparison.  Pers Soc Psychol Bull 27:744-754, 2001.
Radcliffe NM, Klein WMP:  Dispositional, unrealistic, and comparative optimism: Differential
relations with knowledge and processing of risk information and beliefs about personal risk.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull 28:836-846, 2002. 
Klein WMP, Geaghan TR, MacDonald TK: (in press).  Unplanned sexual activity as a
consequence of alcohol use: A prospective study of risk perceptions and alcohol use among
college freshmen.  J Am College Health, in press.
  Revised 5/17/2006  la/tc

 

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