Dr. Heidi L. Dempsey

Professor of Psychology
100 Ayers Hall
(256) 782-5895
hdempsey@jsu.edu

Dr. Dempsey supervises undergraduate student research in the Social Psychology, Personality, Emotions, and Morality Lab. She is most interested in the emotions of guilt and shame and how they are related to morality. She is also interested in researching the related emotions of forgiveness, regret, gratitude, and appreciation. She also maintains a separate thread of research on personality factors related to college student success, such as procrastination, effort discounting, and impulsivity. She serves as the faculty advisor for Psi Chi and Psychology Club. Outside of the university, she is an avid player of board games, sings in Civic Chorale and church choir, plays handbells, bakes bread, and likes to put together jigsaw puzzles.

 

Heidi Dempsey

Courses Taught

  • PSY 201 - Principles of Psychology 
  • PSY 202 - Honors Principles of Psychology 
  • PSY 336 - Personality & Individual Differences 
  • PSY 350 - Social Psychology 
  • PSY 352 - Human Sexuality 
  • PSY 411 - Topics in Social Psychology 
  • PSY 414 - Psychology of Emotion
  • PSY 433 - Cultural Psychology 
  • PSY 445 - Environmental Psychology
  • PSY 447 - Psychology Seminar 
  • PSY 450 - History and Systems of Psychology 
  • PSY 460 - Instructional Practicum 
  • PSY 490/491 - Individual Research 
  • PSY 498/499 - Honors Thesis 

Academic/Research Interests

  • Broadly:  Social psychology and personality
  • Narrowly:  impulsivity and self-control (delayed and effort discounting) in education; guilt and shame assessment; forgiveness, gratitude, and regret; moral foundations and political ideology; computer-aided learning; college student procrastination, impulsivity, and adjustment as predictors of GPA and retention; scholarship of teaching and learning.

Education

  • Ph.D. Experimental Psychology (Social Psychology Concentration), University of Kentucky, Lexington 2004
  • Graduate Certificate in College Teaching and Learning, University of Kentucky, 2004
  • M.A. Experimental Psychology (Social Psychology and Developmental Psychology Concentrations), Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, 2000
  • B.S. with University Honors and Departmental Honors in Psychology, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 1998

Sample Recent Publications

  • Mackey, C., & Dempsey, H. L. (2018). Personality traits, political ideology, and candidate preference in the Deep South. Modern Psychological Studies, 23(2), Article 7.
  • Dempsey, H. L. (2017). A comparison of the social-adaptive perspective and functionalist perspective on guilt and shame. Behavioral Sciences, 7, 83. doi:10.3390/bs7040083
  • Dempsey, H. L., & Mann, A. (2017). Guilt, shame, sympathy, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, 14(1), 59-68.
  • Ferguson, T. J. & Dempsey, H. L. (2010). Reconciling interpersonal versus responsibility based models of guilt. In W. Koops, D. Brugman, T. J. Ferguson, & A. F. Sanders (Eds.) The development and structure of conscience (pp. 171-206). New York: Psychology Press.

Sample Recent Conference Presentations

  • Dempsey, H. L., Forehand, K., Powell, R., Helms, H., Robles, K., Fields, H., & Sheffield, R. (2024, February). The relationship between guilt, shame, and the dark tetrad. Poster presented at the 101st annual meetingof the Alabama, Academy of Science, Jacksonville, AL.
  • Dempsey, H. L., & Dempsey, D. W. (2022, November). Predictors of JSU Student Success. Paper presented at the first annual JSU Faculty Research Showcase, Jacksonville, AL. Winner best long presentation.
  • Dempsey, H. L., & Dooley, I. G. (2023, April). Ferguson Empathy Scale: Correlations with guilt and shame. Poster presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.
  • Dempsey, H. L. & Bowman, R. (2021, March). Guilt is more strongly related to gratitude and appreciation than shame. Poster presented at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association,virtual.
  • Dempsey, H. L. (2021, March). Type of harm and experience of guilt, regret, and shame. Poster presented at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, virtual.
  • Platt, J., Finley, H., Dempsey, E. E., & Dempsey, H. L. (2021, March). When are people glad versus upset with themselves for forgiving? Poster presented at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern PsychologicalAssociation, virtual.
  • Dempsey, H. L. & Howell, C. (2019, March). Gratitude, empathy, happiness, and the Big Five personality traits. Poster presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association,Jacksonville, FL.
  • Dempsey, H. L. (2019, March). Predictors of college student GPA and retention. Paper presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Jacksonville, FL. *Nominated for Outstanding Professional Paper Award.

Sample Course Materials

  • Dempsey, H. L. (2022). Cultural Psychology Study Questions for use with S. Heine’s
    Cultural Psychology textbook. Available from the author.
  • Cangialosi, B., & Dempsey, H. L. (2020). Study Questions for E. Greene and K. Heilbrun’s
    Wrightsman’s Psychology and the Legal System (9th ed.). Available from the authors.
  • Dempsey, H. L. (2020). Study Questions for History of Psychology for use with W. D. Woody and W. Viney’s A History of Psychology (6th ed.). Available from the author.
  • Dempsey, H. (2019). Study Questions for R. Gifford’s Environmental Psychology (5th ed.). Available from the author.

Other Responsibilities

  • Faculty Senate Past-President (2025-2026), President (2024-2025), Vice-President/President-elect (2023-2024)
  • Faculty Advisor, Psi Chi International Honor Society in Psychology
  • Faculty Advisor, Psychology Club

Student Research Opportunities

I am happy to supervise undergraduate students looking to gain research experience who are interested in social and personality psychology. Specifically, my interests center around morality and moral emotions (e.g., guilt, shame, gratitude, empathy) and how they are linked to various personality traits and behavioral patterns (Big 5, forgiveness, religiosity, voting) and how personality traits (such as impulsivity,effort discounting, procrastination) predict success in college.