Lara Jones

Lara Jones is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Wayne State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Her research explores the intersection of cognitive psychology, personality traits, and digital communication, with a focus on individual differences in emoji perception, smartphone use, and verbal analogy performance.

• Ph.D., Psychology (Cognitive-Experimental), University of Georgia (2007)
• M.S., Psychology (Cognitive-Experimental), University of Georgia (2004)
• B.S., Psychology (Minor: Cognitive Science), University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2002)
• Masters in Human Resources, University of South Carolina (1997)
• B.S., Human Nutrition & Foods, Virginia Tech (1995)

Jones investigates how personality traits like narcissism and self-esteem influence autobiographical memory and achievement motivation. She also examines predictors of verbal analogy performance, including creativity and working memory. Recent work extends to smartphone use patterns linked to mind-wandering and mindfulness.

Her publications frequently address relational reasoning, lexical priming, and emotional valence processing. Jones teaches courses in statistical methods and cognitive psychology at both undergraduate and graduate levels.