Staff: Rebecca Ferrer, Ph.D.
Rebecca Ferrer, Ph.D.
Program Director
NOTE: Dr. Ferrer is a Program Director in the Behavioral Research Program. This page reflects her time as a fellow; find her staff profile here.
Rebecca Ferrer, Ph.D., was a post-doctoral Cancer Research and Training Award Fellow in the Behavioral Research Program's (BRP) Office of the Associate Director (OAD) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Ferrer received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut and holds a bachelor's degree in decision science from Carnegie Mellon University.
During her fellowship, Dr. Ferrer's program of research centered on social psychological processes in health-related judgment and decision making and behavior change. She was particularly interested in examining the relationships among emotional and social-cognitive predictors of behavior, including how emotion might moderate the association between social-cognitive predictors and health behavior. This program of research reflected a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from the fields of decision science, social psychology, and health psychology. Her work focused primarily on cancer prevention behaviors such as nutrition, physical activity, and cancer screening, as well as HIV preventive behaviors such as condom use. She was also actively involved in the NCI's Theories Project, which aims to identify and execute research that will further the field of health behavior theory, including critical thought about and comparison of theory, integrative theory testing, and integration of theory into health behavior change interventions.
After the completion of her NCI fellowship, Dr. Ferrer transitioned into her current position as a Program Director for the Basic Biobehavioral and Psychological Sciences Branch within the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences.
Current and/or past BRP mentors include William Klein, Kara Hall and Wendy Nelson.
Current and/or past BRP mentees include Erin Ellis, Jessica Welch and Jennifer Taber.
Selected Publications and Presentations
- Ferrer RA, Green PA, Barrett LF. Affective science perspectives on cancer control: strategically crafting a mutually beneficial research agenda. Pers on Psy Sci 2015 May; 10(3):328-45.
- Ferrer R, Klein WM. Risk perceptions and health behavior. Curr Opin Psychol 2015 Oct 1; 5:85-89.
- Ferrer RA, Grenen EG, Taber JM. Effectiveness of Internet-Based Affect Induction Procedures: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Emotion 2015 Dec; 15(6):752-62.
- Ferrer RA, Taber JM, Klein WM, Harris PR, Lewis KL, Biesecker LG. The role of current affect, anticipated affect and spontaneous self-affirmation in decisions to receive self-threatening genetic risk information. Cogn Emot 2015; 29(8):1456-65.
- Ferrer, R. A., Hall, K. L., Portnoy, D. B., Ling, B. S., Han, P. K., & Klein, W. M. Relationships among health perceptions vary depending on stage of readiness for colorectal cancer screening. Health Psychol 2015; 30(5):525-535.
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