Hart BlantonHART BLANTON grew up as the second of three children in a small town in Appalachian Virginia. Hart received his B.A. from Virginia Tech in 1990 and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1994. He worked on the second edition of this book while at SUNY, Albany, and the third edition while at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the fourth edition while at the University of Connecticut. The bulk of his research is on social influence and social communication. He has taught courses in research methods, social psychology, statistics, the self, social comparison, and social influence. Most recently, he has become interested in what he terms "negative psychology." This he conceptualizes as the formal study of social structural and individual emotional factors that lead people to die before their time. He hopes to finish his work on this new research area very quickly because, well, one never knows. Read More Read Less