Outreach & Engagement Officer | Sarah A. Walker (University of Sydney)

Sarah A. Walker is a PhD candidate in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney under the supervision of Associate Professors Carolyn MacCann, and Damian Birney, and Dr Rebecca T Pinkus, and Dr Kit Double. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Science (psychology) and a Master of Philosophy (psychology) from the University of Sydney.

Sarah’s research examines the extent to which self-report and informant-report ratings vary across disciplines and contexts, and the extent to which response bias, limitations of self-knowledge, and other-perception influence those differences. Sarah has explored the extent to which personality measures can be ‘faked’, and the associated changes to the validity of these measures when people ‘fake’ including the extent to which the evaluative content of inventory items plays a role in socially desirable responding. In current and ongoing research, she has focused on the extent to which people can fake on measures of the Dark Triad, Five Factor Model of personality, and emotional intelligence including both self-reported and informant-reported (e.g., peers, friends, and family) ratings. Sarah also investigates differences in perceptions of emotion regulation (intrinsic and extrinsic) in romantic relationships, the motivations associated with extrinsic emotion regulation (making someone feel better or feel worse), and the extent to which this impacts both personal and relational wellbeing. Sarah is a teaching fellow in the School of Psychology, as well as a casual academic in the University of Sydney Business School, and previously in the Education and Social Work Faculty (USYD), and the UNSW Business School. Sarah is a member of International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID), Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), and the International Society for Emotional Intelligence. Sarah has been a student representative for ACPID from 2019 – 2022 and now serves as the Outreach and Engagement Officer.