Professor Wayne's research and teaching lie at the intersection of international relations, conflict, and behavioral approaches to politics. She specializes in the psychological causes and consequences of political violence for the mass public, elite decision-making in conflict contexts, and strategic adaptation in modern warfare.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Washington University in St. Louis. I completed my PhD in Political Science at the University of Michigan. I study international relations and the political psychology of conflict, examining the behavioral micro-foundations underpinning war and political violence across and within societies. My research crosses subfield lines, adapting theories and tools from the fields of American and comparative political behavior to provide insight into how emotional and cognitive processes impact the behavior of the mass public and political elites in conflict contexts. Some of my current projects examine, for example: the role of emotions in political conflict, the long-term effects of exposure to political violence, group processes in foreign policy decision-making, and the strategic psychology of terrorist targeting and recruitment.
