Education
PhD, Social Psychology, University of Minnesota, 2001
BA, Psychology, University of North Carolina at Asheville, 1995
Profile
Dr. Kiviniemi is a social/health psychologist whose work focuses on understanding how people make decisions about engaging in health-related behaviors, how individuals process and respond to information about their health, and how to communicate that information most effectively. Prior to joining the Department of Health Behavior, Dr. Kiviniemi was a faculty member in the Psychology Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His program of research is funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Kiviniemi has served as a reviewer for numerous journals including Health Psychology, Psychology and Health, British Journal of Social Psychology, Health Psychology Review, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
Research Interests
Dr. Kiviniemi’s research interests focus on better understanding how individuals think about and make decisions about their health behaviors and on using that better understanding to develop more effective ways of encouraging behavior change. In particular, his current work focuses on
understanding how affective associations, the feelings individuals associate with health behaviors, influence decision making and regulation of diet, exercise, substance use, and other health-related behaviors. In addition, Dr. Kiviniemi’s work has explored how attitudes about health behaviors influence processing of health information, the social cognitive processes involved in considering changes in health behaviors, and the role of mood in responses to threatening health diagnoses.
Selected Publications
- Kiviniemi, M.T., & Bevins, R. (in press). Affect-Behavior Associations in Motivated Behavioral Choice: Potential Transdisciplinary Links. In P.R. Zelick (Ed.), Issues in the Psychology of Motivation. Nova Science Publishers.
- Kiviniemi, M.T., & Rothman, A.J. (in press). What Do People Think about Changes in Health Behaviors? Differential Perceptions of Consequences of Increases and Decreases in Health Behaviors. In press, Psychology and Health.
- Kiviniemi, M.T., Snyder, M., & Johnson, B. (in press). Motivated Dimension Manipulation in the Processing of Social Comparison Information. In Press, Self and Identity.
- Voss-Humke, A.M., & Kiviniemi, M.T. (in press). Judging the Costs and Benefits of Smoking: The Predictive Efficacy of Different Outcome Weightings in Behavioral Decision Making. In press, Journal of Adolescent Health and Medicine.
- Kiviniemi, M.T., Voss, A.M., & Seifert, A.L. (2007). How Do I Feel About the Behavior? The Interplay of Affective Associations with Behaviors and Cognitive Beliefs as Influences on Physical Activity Behavior. Health Psychology, 26, 152-158.
- Schuettler, D., & Kiviniemi, M.T. (2006). The effect of positive and negative affect when considering chronic illness diagnoses. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 2599-2618.
- Kiviniemi, M.T., & Rothman, A.J. (2006). Selective Memory Biases in Individuals’ Memory for Health-Related Information and Behavior Recommendations. Psychology and Health, 21, 247-272.
Professional Affiliations
Society for Behavioral Medicine, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, American Society for Preventive Oncology, Association for Psychological Science
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