Sarah Staggs, Ph.D.

Sarah Staggs received her Doctoral degree in Communication (May, 2017) from University of Arizona. Sarah earned her master’s and undergraduate degrees at the University of Wyoming in the Department of Communication and Journalism. Her research has two focuses. During her graduate career, She researched small group decision-making processes and mass media effects, specifically, the cognitive aspects of priming and audience accessibility and the applicability of mediated information in jury decision-making. Broadly, that research sought to understand how people are cognitively affected by media narratives, and how those cognitions affect small group decision-making, interpersonal influence, regarding guilt of a criminal defendant. During her postdoc, her research has transformed from understanding characteristics of small group decision-making, to understanding characteristics of individuals willing to participate in cyber hacking groups. This project takes a game theoretical approach to examine the relationship between gender differences, media influence, and decision-making among individual and group hacking behaviors. Specifically, this research will address individual and group level characteristics of hackers and media influence on the likelihood of hacker decision making. She has spent the 2017-18 academic year working on grant projects and data collection regarding those cyberpsychological relationships.

Selected Publications

Staggs, S. M., Bonito J. A., & Ervin, J. N. (2018). Measuring and evaluating convergence processes across a series of group discussions. Group Decision and Negotiation, 1-19.

Staggs, S. M., & Landreville, K. D. (2016). The impact of pretrial publicity on “eye for an eye” retributivist support and malicious perceptions of criminal offenders. Mass Communication and Society, 20(1), 116-135.